pow camps in missouri

As noted in Humanities Texas, POWs were put to work right from the start, although their assignments were limited due to fears of escape, sabotage, and overseas exploitation. About 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war spent part of World War II under guard at 30 camps scattered across Missouri. Short tried to have it designated a permanent home for the Army's military police training school. After completing his initial training, he was designated as infantry and became a clerk with the 201st Infantry Regiment. As author David Fiedler explained in his book The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II, the state was once home to more than 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war (POW). In New England, they harvested peas, cabbage, and apples. A 120 feet (37m) nearly completed escape tunnel was discovered by authorities. Copyright 2023, News Tribune Publishing. They werent cooperative, they were defiant and intended to cause trouble any way they could, Fiedler said. After the war was over, prisoners of war were not allowed to stay in the United States. 4 0 obj Indirectly, though? [2][3][4][5][6], At its peak in May 1945, a total of 425,871 POWs were held in the US. Between then and mid-1944, an average of 20,000 POWs arrived each month, then after the Normandy invasion, the average rose to 30,000. UT POW CD. This included 371,683 Germans, 50,273 Italians, and 3,915 Japanese. As noted in American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, in discussions with their guards, prisoners would sometimes use America's discriminatory practices as a "what about" counter argument. From 1942 to 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps across the nation. Groundwater and soil contamination has been identified in various areas of the base's original property boundaries. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of News Tribune Publishing. Four years later, the government offered the buildings at auction to relieve the post-war shortage of housing. Detention records maintained by Sesenna show he departed Canada on December 3, 1942, and was with the first group of Italian POWs to arrive at Camp Clark near Nevada, Missouri, nine days later. ", As noted in Returning to America: German Prisoners of War and American Experience, of the more than half million Germans who immigrated to America between 1947 and 1960, several thousand were former POWs. My mothers brother, Dwight Hafford Taylor, was raised in the community of Alton in southern Missouri, said McDowell. 500 German POWs were housed in a warehouse and tent city next to the Rockfield Canning Co. plant, where many of them worked as pea packers. All buildings have since been demolished, the only structure left standing is the base of one stone pillar where the main gate of the camp stood. See. Readmore storiesfrom Tim O'Neil's Look Back series. They were even compensated at the same rate of a private, at 10 cents per hour, which could be saved for their release or spent at camp stores. There was no 24-hour news cycle. In the early 1950s, local congressman Dewey Jackson Short, (R-7th District of Missouri) senior member of the House Armed Services Committee secured authorization and initial funding to build two permanent barracks and a disciplinary barracks and reactivate the post as a permanent installation, Fort Crowder. endobj All Rights Reserved. Thirty-three German POWs and two Italian POWs are now buried in the post cemetery. Large German pow camp 2 miles outside of Thomasville. Housed diverse groups of POWs ranging from Afrika Corp troops, Italian, Yugoslavian, Chechen, Russian conscripts and others. Camps were built on military bases, like Fort Leonard Wood, and within the base there would be a prisoner-of-war compound. From 1942 through 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps in rural areas across the country. Recaptured: Roanoke, Va. Largest all-new prisoner of war compound ever constructed on American soil. Cook, Williamsburg R.; Daniel J. Schultz (2004). Post-Dispatch file photo, Some of the German POWs who were housed in a prison compound at Fort Leonard Wood in central Missouri watch an Army Signal Corps film of scenes from a Nazi concentration camp in Europe. Camp Crowder, outside of Neosho, Missouri, Click here for a state map showing camp locations, Columbia fraternity houses on the MU campus, Hannibal housed in tents in Clemens Field, Riverside housed in the former Jockey Club racetrack facility. The following October, the former POW camp was closed and many of the buildings were dismantled, shipped and reassembled as housing for student veterans at colleges and universities throughout the United States. You have permission to edit this article. Camp Weingarten quickly grew into a sprawling facility to house Italian POWs brought to the United States and, explained Jefferson City resident Carolyn McDowell, was the site where one of her uncles spent his entire period of service with the U.S. Army in World War II. Army Col. H.H. Other citizens wrote angry letters to the editor and staged protests. And it was the Germans, Nazi and non-Nazi, who defined camp life more than any other group of captives. 339-351. ", When the first wave of POWs from Germany's elite Afrika Korps arrived in Mexia, Texas, the townspeople were dumbstruck, according toHumanities Texas. About 500 American soldiers were assigned to guard 3,600 Italians at the camp. Established at Weingarten, a sleepy little town on State Highway 32 between Ste. You have permission to edit this collection. People didnt get in the car and drive 75 miles: it was a locally-focused world. My uncle then gave the cigarette case as a gift to my father, who was living in Jefferson City at the time and working as superintendent of the tobacco factory inside the Missouri State Penitentiary, stated McDowell. It is a beautifully crafted cigarette case, but the irony of it all is that my father never smoked, she jokingly added. The front gate of the POW camp at Hellwig Brothers Farm on Gumbo Flats, part of the Missouri River bottomland in St. Louis County. The photo was taken in March 1945, shortly after radio commentator Walter Winchell told his national audience that POWs from Gumbo could sneak across the river and blow up the munitions plant at Weldon Spring. Two German POWs watch the film of Nazi atrocities during a mandatory assembly at their camp at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. The case not only had a specially crafted latching mechanism, but was also etched with an emblem of an eagle on the cover with barracks buildings and a guard tower from the camp inscribed upon the inside. In Kansas, according to Smithsonian Magazine, they stacked hay and did masonry. They were much less formal, much less heavily guarded, and there were much more opportunities for social interaction.. During one of my uncles visits back to Alton, he asked his mother for an aluminum pie pan, said McDowell. These camps held anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 prisoners. St. Louis on the Air hostDon Marshand producersMary Edwards,Alex HeuerandKelly Moffittgive you the information you need to make informed decisions and stay in touch with our diverse and vibrant St. Louis region. The POWs were required to watch the film during an assembly in June 1945, one month after Germany surrendered. This book concentrates on the Missouri camps - main camps and satellite work camps - and their German and Italian captives. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. A walled patio and fireplace with masks of Comedy and Tragedy were built near the theater and are still landmarks on the university campus. To disguise its purpose, The Factory POW staff interspersed pro-democracy tracts with fiction and other entertaining fare. Aware that POWs were actually eating better than many civilians, the War Department, sensitive to public perception, cut back severely on the POWs' rations. According to Society for Military History, to create rights and status equal to the U.S. military, German officers above the rank of captain were assigned their own POW orderlies and generals were housed in private huts. Camp Ritchie also served as a U.S. Army Training Camp from WWII until it was closed under BRAC during the 1990s to the early 2000s. In 1946, the post was deactivated and placed in a caretaker status. The positive treatment they experienced here, another way we promoted that was a way to say these are people who will go back and reestablish society in Europe and have an opinion on the United States and we want that to be good, Fiedler said. If there was no one around to work the potato fields or the corn was rotting and the local growers association could secure the labor of 100 POWs to pick them and the sheriff felt fine about it, it was not seen as a great concern. The post also served as an infantry replacement center and had a German prisoner of war camp. Gaertner stayed under the radar for years, and eventually the authorities stopped looking for him. In Section B of Fort Custer National Cemetery, there are 26 German graves. There's a small museum north of Concordia near the guard tower. Consider reading Fiedlers book, which you can find here. About 2,600 German POWs were held there during World War II. Camp Crowder was a military installation named in honor of Major General Enoch H. Crowder, provost marshal of the United States during World War I and author of the 1917 Selective Service Act. Blacks in the military expressed outrage that, after risking their lives fighting Nazis, they were considered beneath their white enemies back home. These branch camps held 50 to 250 prisoners and were placed in communities in which the prisoners could be of use to community businesses such as bakeries, farms, maintenance jobs, dock workers for the railroad and riverboats, and factories. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The main avenue at Camp Weingarten lined by small barracks buildings in June 1943. When a group of female columnists informed Eleanor Roosevelt about the situation, she vowed to investigate and take action. As all work done by POWs was forced labor, work regulations, including details like job locations and hours, hazards, and pay rates, were a major concern of the 1929 Geneva Convention. The last German POWs didnt head home until 1946. Chapter . Earlier that evening, a English-speaking fellow prisoner heard an American radio broadcast suggesting that German POWs be dispatched to the uncertain care of the Soviet army. Click here to learn more or join our conversation. {/[I:{ tBcn{ FG}{ Many St. Louisans were outraged when the program made most . In "Icons of Insult: German and Italian Prisoners of War in African American Letters During World War II," author Matthias Reiss recounts numerous instances of racist encounters involving white Americans and POWs. The most famous of those buried on the installation is German submariner. According toSociety for Military History, because of its scant experience dealing with POWs, the U.S. chose to follow the edicts of the untried 1929 Geneva Convention. Due to a labor shortage, Italian Service Units worked on Army depots, in arsenals and hospitals, and on farms. The following October, the former POW camp was closed and many of the buildings were dismantled, shipped and reassembled as housing for student veterans at colleges and universities throughout the United States. A few escapees eluded capture for many years. Less well known are the prisoner of war camps that sprang up in rural communities across the country to house combatants from Europe and Japan. Glidden (left), commander of Camp Weingarten, looks across part of the 960-acre prisoner-of-war compound in Ste. War History online proudly presents this Guest Piece from Jeremy P. mick, who is a military historian and writes on behalf of theSilver Star Families of America. Straussberg fled into the woods, but he didnt get far. Camp Weingarten, Missouri 2: Camp Weingarten Italian POW Rosters in US: POWs in the US: POW Death Index in US: WWII: UT POW CD: POW Photos in US: POW and ISU Camps and Hospitals in US: Genealogical Research: ISU Units and Installations in US: . After completing his initial training, he was designated as infantry and became a clerk with the 201st Infantry Regiment. Undoubtedly the biggest source of conflict in the POW camps were the ardent Nazis. The POW was then moved to a camp in the United Kingdom before being placed on a troopship bound for Canada in October the same year. Click here for a state map showing branch camp locations. The United States had officially entered World War II. "That's why I want to tell the story of its creation its history, so that its association to Camp Weingarten is never forgotten.". The location of the former POW camp is a residential area now. As author David Fiedler explains in his book "The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World. Jean Shepherd featured many stories of his time at Camp Crowder in various monologues. Kelly Moffitt joined St. Louis Public Radio in 2015 as an online producer for St. Louis Public Radio's talk shows St. Louis on the Air. 1. Consequently, fanatical Nazis were thrown in with anti-Nazis. According toHumanities Texas, many in America, especially farmers, were loathed to see them go. Camp Scott held more than 600 German POWs from the Afrika Korps from late 1944 until the camp closed in November 1945. "I will someday donate the cigarette case to a museum for preservation and display, and I believe my brother, Harold McDowell, would agree. Between 1861 and 1865, American Civil War prison camps were operated by the Union and the Confederacy to detain over 400,000 captured soldiers. Kansas City-Area Camps. Around Geneseo. Some even "started to enjoy the novelty.". Life as a POW in the thirty camps scattered across Missouri was a surprisingly pleasant experience. The camp was just east of the village of Weingarten, on Missouri Highway 32, west of Ste. Other POWs were transported to work on farms and canneries in neighboring communities. POW Camp Road is a typical graded gravel road in the Gulf Coastal Plains of southern Mississippi. (POW) camp in 1943. Today, it functions as a National Guard Training Center. One of the first three designated camps for anti-Nazis, along with. As described in The Washington Post, the War Department, believing that a happy POW was a pliant POW, went above and beyond when it came to POW food, education, and entertainment. While still adhering to the Convention, the POW camps supplied local industries and businesses with laborers. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Some of the camps were designated "segregation camps", where Nazi "true believers" were separated from the rest of the prisoners, whom they terrorized and even killed for being friendly with their American captors. This page was last edited on 25 December 2022, at 21:03. Camp Clark was established in 1908 and was used as an assembly point for troops serving in Central America, in the Mexican border war, and in World War I. This was no invasionary force; rather these were prisoners of war, part of a flood of almost a half-million men captured and sent to the United States, held here until the end of the war. Missouri figured into this equation, housing some 15,000 prisoners of war from Germany and Italy inside state lines. They stared "open-mouthed" as the POWs "jumped down from railroad cars and marched in orderly rows to the camp four miles west of town." There is even a replica of a WWII barracks, complete with bunk, uniforms, and picture of pinup girlHedy Lamarron the wall above. During July and August 1943, Camp Weingarten, Mis-souri, sent approximately 300 Italian POWs to Shenandoah.11 Those POWs handled most of DeKalb's . Genevieve. Over 3000 German POWs were interned at Billy Mitchell Field airport (known today as Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport (MKE)) from January 1945 to April 1946. in Newton and McDonald counties. They worked as lumberjacks, mechanics, sign painters, tailors, and in hundreds of other positions, according to History of Prisoner of War Utilization by the United States Army 1776 to 1945. Black soldiers experienced institutionalized discrimination both at home and overseas, and their prejudicial treatment occurred at the hands of not only white Americans but white POWs as well. The prison camps were identical to housing areas that our own troops occupied.. Five weeks after Germanys surrender, American security had become a bit haphazard. Many simply took off on foot. Hollywood movies and cartoons were screened. MVSC 940.5472 F45e. Labor unions, however, regarded them as competition for returning U.S. forces and demanded their expulsion. The POWs were required to watch the film during an assembly in June 1945, one month after Germany surrendered. According to the Coloradoan, Gaertner had decided to escape because he knew that upon his release, he would be repatriated to eastern Germany, where his family lived. Transcripts for St. Louis Public Radio produced programming are available upon request for individuals with hearing impairments. % Originally it was to serve as an armor training center. No one was happy to be a prisoner of war, but many were glad to bide time to count the days until they got back home, Fiedler said. 1942-1946: German POWs. Taylor and his fellow soldiers, most of whom were assigned to military police companies, maintained a busy schedule of guarding the prisoners held in the camp, but also received opportunities to take leave from their duties and visit their loved ones back home. Thats why I want to tell the story of its creation its history, so that its association to Camp Weingarten is never forgotten., Jeremy Amick is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE. Kurt Rossmeisl escaped on 4 August 1945 and surrendered in 1959. Had program to instill democratic values in Germans based on newspaper. The prisoners were given considerable freedom at these camps. There were comparatively few Japanese prisoners of war brought to the United States during those years and none were held in Missouri. As noted by Time, until 1948, the U.S. military was, like much of America, a segregated institution. Missouri had four POW camps,. 3 0 obj The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II. Post-Dispatch photo, German POWs on a "boat camp" in the St. Louis area play chess and relax on the deck in 1945. Although Nazi POWs denounced Der Ruf as Jewish propaganda, according to the New England Historical Society, most POWs loved reading it, and its effectiveness at changing hearts and minds was indisputable. Shelf Location . They ruled with an iron fist, ordering work stoppages and holding kangaroo courts. Genevieve County. The main camps supported a number of branch camps, which were used to put POWs where their labor could be best utilized. The photo was taken in March 1945, shortly after radio commentator Walter Winchell told his national audience that POWs from Gumbo could sneak across the river and blow up the munitions plant at Weldon Spring. Many locals recognized the vital role the POWs played in their local businesses, and quite a few befriended their captive employees, continuing relationships even after the war, as noted in HistoryNet. For one thing, they were needed to help rebuild European infrastructure. However, I want to ensure it is recognized for the treasure that it is and it is not simply thrown away, said McDowell. 6U z*&`873 hkg7*I|dx^EY?IF$zwUJH!/V>H>is&n /t; CHESTERFIELD Cpl. The complex, serviced by a spur of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, included a main manufacturing facility, an engine testing area (ETA) for the live fire testing of rocket engines, a component testing area (CTA), and a former Camp Crowder warehouse, Building 900, as a warehouse and later engine overhaul and manufacturing. Post-Dispatch file photo, Two German POWs watch the film of Nazi atrocities during a mandatory assembly at their camp at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Once outside, they hopped trains or stole cars. ", As a result of Truman's order, many POWs ended up in the "unfriendly hands" of France and England. Jeremy P. Amick writes on behalf of the Silver Star Families of America. 300 German POWs were interned at the Fond du Lac County Fairgrounds from June to August 1944 while they harvested peas on local farms and worked in canneries. In the mid-1980s, the remaining parcels of the former post were transferred to the Missouri Department of Conservation for wildlife management and outdoor recreation, the Neosho R-5 public school district for agriculture instructional farm, and the Missouri National Guard to operate a military training facility under license from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on 4,358.09 acres (18km2). They slipped past the guards at night and fled through the vegetable fields they tended. In Texas, according to Humanities Texas, some residents feared having Nazis nearby and, worried about escapes, locked their doors and cautioned their daughters. oW5( Used a railroad box car. You can also listen to this Radiolab piece called Nazi Summer Camp, about prisoners of war in Idaho, or read this Smithsonian article about the nationwide POW movement. There were originally four main camps in Missouri at Camp Clark, Camp Crowder, Camp Weingarten and Fort Leonard Wood. ", The Untold Truth Of America's WWII German POW Camps, History of Prisoner of War Utilization by the United States Army 1776 to 1945, American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, Icons of Insult: German and Italian Prisoners of War in African American Letters During World War II, Returning to America: German Prisoners of War and American Experience. With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. stream {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}. xZOHa Romantic relationships remained off limits and strictly forbidden, Fiedler said. A few continued into the early 1970s in Las Animas County where Trinidad is located. Sub Camp of Camp Forrest - April 1944 to March 1946 - 331 German Prisoners. :_Z";co?0N1mx@a_ ES[0 200 German POWs were interned at the Tri-City Airport (now known as South Wood County Airport) from July to November 1945. You may come to the Missouri Valley Room to view it or request a photocopy from the Library's Document Delivery service. Branch camps in Missouri were: Likewise, hundreds of thousands of American GIs were returning to the states and would need the jobs the prisoners of war would be filling so they were no longer needed for their labor efforts, Fiedler said. "It is a beautifully crafted cigarette case, but the irony of it all is that my father never smoked," she jokingly added. As that took place, about 2,000 acres (8.1km2) of the post was turned over to the U.S. Air Force as a buffer zone around Air Force Plant 65, a government owned-contractor operated liquid propelled rocket engine manufacturing facility operated by the Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation. Others were confined in small outposts such as Hellwig Brothers Farm, near U.S. Highway 40 on the Missouri River bottomland then known as Gumbo Flats. The case was crafted by an Italian prisoner of war held at Camp Weingarten south of St. Louis. Also offered was circus and acrobatic instruction, including trampoline jumping, taught by professional circus performers. The majority of escapees were captured quickly and without incident. 3 POW compounds, 2 Enlisted, 1 Officer, Hospital Compound, American Compound. Post-Dispatch file photo, Some of the German POWs who were housed in a prison compound at Fort Leonard Wood in central Missouri watch an Army Signal Corps film of scenes from a Nazi concentration camp in Europe. In late October of 1950, over 800 POWs left Manpo for village camps closer to the Chinese border near Chungung, known as the Apex Camps. When returning to camp, one of the POWs with whom Taylor had established a friendship was given the pie pan and used it to demonstrate his abilities as an artist and craftsman by fashioning it into a cigarette case. There are military artifacts from the Civil War onward, including uniforms, armament, letters, medals, and memorabilia of all types. They decorated their barracks with their work. Pfc. Cartoonist Mort Walker was also stationed there and drew inspiration for Camp Swampy of his Beetle Bailey comic strip. Often, descendants of those POWs come for a visit to see where their relatives spent the war. POW Death Index in US. Leisure activities included Ping-Pong, chess, and card games. Weingarten was the location of a large prisoner of war camp during WWII. Weingarten is a small town in southern Missouri, outside of St. Genevieve. That was four days afterthe surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,403 Americans, and three days after the U.S. declared war on the Empire of Japan in retaliation. <> 1"\B^*:lr])BuHmdk[52`l5rJiBv* y'q$ag`CFrZs@[e|jB President Harry Truman ordered them sent back to Europe "to whichever country wanted them. JFIF C In the years after the war, McDowell said, her mother kept the cigarette case tucked away in a chest of drawers but since both of her parents have passed, she now believes the historical item should be on display in a museum. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The chow line on a boat camp at St. Louis in 1945. German POWs march into the mess hall at their small work camp on the Hellwig Brothers Farm on Gumbo Flats, the Missouri River bottomland now called Chesterfield Valley, in March 1945. Fielder said that, by and large, the prisoners of war coexisted positively with their American neighbors. Consequently, the POWs had little concern about getting caught. Residents were, Elliott See and Charles Bassett were the lead crew for Gemini IX, a mission scheduled for May 1966, all part of the learning curve in the race, On February 25, 1966, CBS premiered a TV documentary, "Sixteen in Webster Groves." Although the Georgia camp killers were convicted in 1945, Nazi perpetrators, protected by the Convention, usually received minimal or no punishment. jmNR0|mD4wB6.B5 _7w!! A 150 feet (46m) electrically lighted escape tunnel was discovered by authorities. It was noted that many of the Italians were semi-emaciated when arriving in the United States because of a poor diet. Prisoners worked on local farms. The result of the First Lady's initiative was the Prisoner of War Special Projects Division, led by Lt. Col. Edward Davison out of Camp Kearney in Rhode Island. 1942-1945: held Japanese-American internees, and then German and Italian POWs. The 3,600 prisoners planted tomatoes and took over cooking, attracting American guards with their spicy enhancements to GI fare. During the 1970sthe Rev.

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