Re: good book about prisoners of war

[Jim Atkins]

There was a camp in Phoenix- some of the German POWs heard that they were
not too far from the Salt River, so they put together some kind of raft and
got through the wire. Imagine their disappointment at reaching the
rock-strewn ditch that passes for a river in Arizona. Incidentally, they got
caught.

--
Jim Atkins
Twentynine Palms CA USA

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
- Groucho Marx

[[email protected]]

>David Lesher > wrote:

>Re: German POW's held in the US. I recall reading the Army shipped most
>into the Midwest. (I know there was one camp in Sandusky OH area.)

Reportedly a German POW camp located near the massive U.S.
Army Sioux Ordinance Depot approximately 20 miles from Sidney,
Nebraska. When WW2 started the installation provided hundreds of
earthen bomb storage bunkers dotting the prairie, in addition to a
vast complex of warehouses that were used throughout WW2, Korea and
Vietnam. In 1967, most of the complex was turned over to area
farmers/ranchers and a community college (where I received my A&P
mechanic certificate in 1983).

-Mike Marron

[Mary Shafer]

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 04:12:30 GMT, "Jim Atkins"
> wrote:

> There was a camp in Phoenix- some of the German POWs heard that they were
> not too far from the Salt River, so they put together some kind of raft and
> got through the wire. Imagine their disappointment at reaching the
> rock-strewn ditch that passes for a river in Arizona. Incidentally, they got
> caught.

There was a POW camp for Italians just north of San Bernardino (not
far from the Stringfellow Acid Pits). They only tore out the last
foundation slab a couple of years ago. Back then, that was a remote
location, although there's a river that goes to San Pedro eventually
not too far away.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all."
Anonymous US fighter pilot

[Dana Miller]

In article >,
Cub Driver > wrote:

>There was a German camp in or near Tucson. The PWs built the road up
>to Mt Lemmon, the improbable ski resort that burned earlier this year.
>
>all the best -- Dan Ford
>email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9
>
>see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
>Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub

There was one for German POWs outside of Lawrence KS. Ruins were still
in existance when I was there 83-89. Danforth Chapel, On the University
Grounds, was supposedly build by POW labor.

I got the feeling from what I had read about Axis POWs that they were
kept mostly in small groups (50-100), spread out throughout the
heartland. They provided farm labor.

--
Dana Miller

[mah]

Dana Miller wrote:
>
> I got the feeling from what I had read about Axis POWs that they were
> kept mostly in small groups (50-100), spread out throughout the
> heartland. They provided farm labor.
>
> --
> Dana Miller

Some of the main camps were larger. The algona IA camp held 3000
according to their web site at http://www.pwcamp.algona.org/ They also
had small camps in the 50-100 occupant range.

The Algona experience is unique. One of the prisoners built a nativity
scene that still exists and is shown at the county fairground. Another
was held within 50 miles of a relative who had emmigrated to the US
before the war.

Found some of this out while shuttling my daughter as she researched her
history day project.

MAH

[John Burson]

German POW camp was at Fort McClellan AL. There is a very nice POW cemetery
there that is visited by German families.
> wrote in message
...
> >David Lesher > wrote:
>
> >Re: German POW's held in the US. I recall reading the Army shipped most
> >into the Midwest. (I know there was one camp in Sandusky OH area.)
>
> Reportedly a German POW camp located near the massive U.S.
> Army Sioux Ordinance Depot approximately 20 miles from Sidney,
> Nebraska. When WW2 started the installation provided hundreds of
> earthen bomb storage bunkers dotting the prairie, in addition to a
> vast complex of warehouses that were used throughout WW2, Korea and
> Vietnam. In 1967, most of the complex was turned over to area
> farmers/ranchers and a community college (where I received my A&P
> mechanic certificate in 1983).
>
> -Mike Marron
>
>
>

[Cub Driver]

>When the local weekly newspaper "Algona Upper Des Moines" elicited WWII
>veterans' stories a couple of years ago, it was inundated with the
>stories from German POW's who had returned to live in the Algona
>(Kossuth Co.) Iowa area after repatriation back to Germany.

I wonder how many American and British Commonwealth troops went to
live postwar in the vicinity of the camps where they'd lived as guests
of the German and Japanese governments?

The best book I've read on this subject is Prisoners of the Japanese,
by Gavan Daws www.danford.net/daws.htm


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub

[John Keeney]

John Burson > wrote in message
...
> Thirty POW camps were built in 1942 to house the onslaught of captured
enemy
> soldiers. McClellan's POW camp was completed in 1943. By mid-1944,
German
> POWs had become a significant part of the labor pool at Fort McClellan.
In
> their off hours and in jobs assigned to them on post, POWs created a
> substantial legacy at Fort McClellan in masonry and art as well as more
> invisible improvements. Two hundred prisoners were detailed daily for
> excavation, drainage, and clearing operations on the main post; 170 were
> involved with food preparation; and others worked on vehicles on post.
POW
> labor is responsible for numerous examples of stonework on Fort McClellan,
> including stone walls, chimneys, a patio built behind the old Recreation
> Center, drainage ditches, and landscaping. The carved bar at the
Officer's
> Club (Remington Hall) and the exceptional murals which dress the club's
wall
> are also credited to POWs. The camp at Fort McClellan not only acted as
the
> processing center for all prisoners interned in the Alabama camps, but was
> the last camp to be deactivated on April

A quick web search turned up a list of major camps at
http://uboat.net/men/pow/pow_in_america_stats.htm
(the list is long and tacked on at the bottom); the site also
has a monthly census of prisoners in the system and list
a peak of over 425,000 prisioners. Japanese never accounting
for as much as 2% of the population after April '43..

I've read of German PWs being dropped off around California
during Orange season to pick the fruit of indivual trees in
peoples' yards. Later in the day, the truck would come back for'm,
no guards, no escapes.
I don't know if such low security was common.

> > wrote in message
> ...
> > >David Lesher > wrote:
> >
> > >Re: German POW's held in the US. I recall reading the Army shipped most
> > >into the Midwest. (I know there was one camp in Sandusky OH area.)
> >
> > Reportedly a German POW camp located near the massive U.S.
> > Army Sioux Ordinance Depot approximately 20 miles from Sidney,
> > Nebraska. When WW2 started the installation provided hundreds of
> > earthen bomb storage bunkers dotting the prairie, in addition to a
> > vast complex of warehouses that were used throughout WW2, Korea and
> > Vietnam. In 1967, most of the complex was turned over to area
> > farmers/ranchers and a community college (where I received my A&P
> > mechanic certificate in 1983).
> >
> > -Mike Marron

Camp Algoma, Iowa
Camp Aliceville, Alabama
Camp Alva, Oklahoma
Camp Angel Island, California
Camp Ashby, Virginia
Camp Ashford, West Virginia
Camp Atlanta, Nebraska
Camp Atterbury, Indiana
Camp Barkeley, Texas
Camp Beale, California
Camp Blanding, Florida
Camp Bowie, Texas
Camp Brady, Texas
Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky
Camp Butner, North Carolina
Camp Campbell, Kentucky
Camp Carson, Colorado
Camp Chaffee, Arkansas
Camp Claiborne, Louisiana
Camp Clarinda, Iowa
Camp Clark, Missouri
Camp Clinton, Mississippi
Camp Como, Mississippi
Camp Concordia, Kansas
Camp Cooke, California
Camp Croft, South Carolina
Camp Crossville, Tennessee
Camp Crowder, Missouri
Camp David, Maryland
Camp Dermott, Arkansas
Camp Douglas, Wyoming
Camp Edwards, Massachusetts
Camp Ellis, Illinois
Camp Evelyn, Michigan
Camp Fannin, Texas
Camp Farragut, Idaho
Camp Florence, Arizona
Camp Forrest, Tennessee
Camp Gordon Johnston, Florida
Camp Grant, Illinois
Camp Gruber, Oklahoma
Camp Hale, Colorado
Camp Hearne, Texas
Camp Hood, Texas
Camp Houlton, Maine
Camp Howze, Texas
Camp Hulen, Texas
Camp Huntsville, Texas
Camp Indianola, Nebraska
Camp Jerome, Arkansas
Camp Lee, Virginia
Camp Livingston, Louisiana
Camp Lordsburg, New Mexico
Camp McAlester, Oklahoma
Camp McCain, Mississippi
Camp McCoy, Wisconsin
Camp McLean, Texas
Camp Mackall, North Carolina
Camp Maxey, Texas
Camp Mexia, Texas
Camp Monticello, Arkansas
Camp New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
Camp Ogden, Utah
Camp Opelika, Alabama
Camp Papago Park, Arizona
Camp Peary, Virginia
Camp Perry, Ohio
Camp Phillips, Kansas
Camp Pickett, Virginia
Camp Pima, Arizona
Camp Polk, Lousiana
Camp Popolopen, New York
Camp Pryor, Oklahoma
Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania
Camp Jos. T. Robinson, Arkansas
Camp Roswell, New Mexico
Camp Rucker, Alabama
Camp Rupert, Idaho
Camp Ruston, Louisiana
Camp Scottsbluff, Nebraska
Camp Shelby, Mississippi
Camp Sibert, Alabama
Camp Somerset, Maryland
Camp Stewart, Georgia
Camp Stockton, California
Camp Sutton, North Carolina
Camp Swift, Texas
Camp Tonkawa, Oklahoma
Camp Trinidad, Colorado
Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi
Camp Wallace, Texas
Camp Wheeler, Georgia
Camp White, Oregon
Camp Wolters, Texas
Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana
Fort Benning, Georgia
Fort Bliss, Texas
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Fort Crockett, Texas
Fort Curtis, Virginia
Fort Custer, Michigan
Fort Devens, Massachusetts
Fort Dix, New Jersey
Fort DuPont, Delaware
Fort Eustis, Virginia
Fort Gordon, Georgia
Fort Greely, Colorado
Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Fort Kearny, Rhode Island
Fort Knox, Kentucky
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Fort Lewis, Washington
Fort McClellan, Alabama
Fort Meade, Maryland
Fort Niagara, New York
Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia
Fort Ord, California
Fort Patrick Henry, Virginia
Fort Reno, Oklahoma
Fort Riley, Kansas
Fort Robinson, Nebraska
Fort D. A. Russell, Texas
Fort Sam Houston, Texas
Fort Sheridan, Illinois
Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Fort F. E. Warren, Wyoming

Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland
Eglin Army Air Field, Florida
Glennan General Hospital, Oklahoma
Halloran General Hospital, New York
Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, Virginia
Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Holabird Signal Depot, Maryland
McCloskey General Hospital, Texas
Memphis General Depot, Tennessee
New Orleans Port of Embarkation, Louisiana
Olmsted Field, Pennsylvania
Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas
Richmond ASF Depot, Virginia
Tobyhanna Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Westover Field, Massachusetts

[John Keeney]

John Burson > wrote in message
...
> Thirty POW camps were built in 1942 to house the onslaught of captured
enemy
> soldiers. McClellan's POW camp was completed in 1943. By mid-1944,
German
> POWs had become a significant part of the labor pool at Fort McClellan.
In
> their off hours and in jobs assigned to them on post, POWs created a
> substantial legacy at Fort McClellan in masonry and art as well as more
> invisible improvements. Two hundred prisoners were detailed daily for
> excavation, drainage, and clearing operations on the main post; 170 were
> involved with food preparation; and others worked on vehicles on post.
POW
> labor is responsible for numerous examples of stonework on Fort McClellan,
> including stone walls, chimneys, a patio built behind the old Recreation
> Center, drainage ditches, and landscaping. The carved bar at the
Officer's
> Club (Remington Hall) and the exceptional murals which dress the club's
wall
> are also credited to POWs. The camp at Fort McClellan not only acted as
the
> processing center for all prisoners interned in the Alabama camps, but was
> the last camp to be deactivated on April

A quick web search turned up a list of major camps at
http://uboat.net/men/pow/pow_in_america_stats.htm
(the list is long and tacked on at the bottom); the site also
has a monthly census of prisoners in the system and list
a peak of over 425,000 prisioners. Japanese never accounting
for as much as 2% of the population after April '43..

I've read of German PWs being dropped off around California
during Orange season to pick the fruit of indivual trees in
peoples' yards. Later in the day, the truck would come back for'm,
no guards, no escapes.
I don't know if such low security was common.

> > wrote in message
> ...
> > >David Lesher > wrote:
> >
> > >Re: German POW's held in the US. I recall reading the Army shipped most
> > >into the Midwest. (I know there was one camp in Sandusky OH area.)
> >
> > Reportedly a German POW camp located near the massive U.S.
> > Army Sioux Ordinance Depot approximately 20 miles from Sidney,
> > Nebraska. When WW2 started the installation provided hundreds of
> > earthen bomb storage bunkers dotting the prairie, in addition to a
> > vast complex of warehouses that were used throughout WW2, Korea and
> > Vietnam. In 1967, most of the complex was turned over to area
> > farmers/ranchers and a community college (where I received my A&P
> > mechanic certificate in 1983).
> >
> > -Mike Marron

Camp Algoma, Iowa
Camp Aliceville, Alabama
Camp Alva, Oklahoma
Camp Angel Island, California
Camp Ashby, Virginia
Camp Ashford, West Virginia
Camp Atlanta, Nebraska
Camp Atterbury, Indiana
Camp Barkeley, Texas
Camp Beale, California
Camp Blanding, Florida
Camp Bowie, Texas
Camp Brady, Texas
Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky
Camp Butner, North Carolina
Camp Campbell, Kentucky
Camp Carson, Colorado
Camp Chaffee, Arkansas
Camp Claiborne, Louisiana
Camp Clarinda, Iowa
Camp Clark, Missouri
Camp Clinton, Mississippi
Camp Como, Mississippi
Camp Concordia, Kansas
Camp Cooke, California
Camp Croft, South Carolina
Camp Crossville, Tennessee
Camp Crowder, Missouri
Camp David, Maryland
Camp Dermott, Arkansas
Camp Douglas, Wyoming
Camp Edwards, Massachusetts
Camp Ellis, Illinois
Camp Evelyn, Michigan
Camp Fannin, Texas
Camp Farragut, Idaho
Camp Florence, Arizona
Camp Forrest, Tennessee
Camp Gordon Johnston, Florida
Camp Grant, Illinois
Camp Gruber, Oklahoma
Camp Hale, Colorado
Camp Hearne, Texas
Camp Hood, Texas
Camp Houlton, Maine
Camp Howze, Texas
Camp Hulen, Texas
Camp Huntsville, Texas
Camp Indianola, Nebraska
Camp Jerome, Arkansas
Camp Lee, Virginia
Camp Livingston, Louisiana
Camp Lordsburg, New Mexico
Camp McAlester, Oklahoma
Camp McCain, Mississippi
Camp McCoy, Wisconsin
Camp McLean, Texas
Camp Mackall, North Carolina
Camp Maxey, Texas
Camp Mexia, Texas
Camp Monticello, Arkansas
Camp New Cumberland, Pennsylvania
Camp Ogden, Utah
Camp Opelika, Alabama
Camp Papago Park, Arizona
Camp Peary, Virginia
Camp Perry, Ohio
Camp Phillips, Kansas
Camp Pickett, Virginia
Camp Pima, Arizona
Camp Polk, Lousiana
Camp Popolopen, New York
Camp Pryor, Oklahoma
Camp Reynolds, Pennsylvania
Camp Jos. T. Robinson, Arkansas
Camp Roswell, New Mexico
Camp Rucker, Alabama
Camp Rupert, Idaho
Camp Ruston, Louisiana
Camp Scottsbluff, Nebraska
Camp Shelby, Mississippi
Camp Sibert, Alabama
Camp Somerset, Maryland
Camp Stewart, Georgia
Camp Stockton, California
Camp Sutton, North Carolina
Camp Swift, Texas
Camp Tonkawa, Oklahoma
Camp Trinidad, Colorado
Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi
Camp Wallace, Texas
Camp Wheeler, Georgia
Camp White, Oregon
Camp Wolters, Texas
Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana
Fort Benning, Georgia
Fort Bliss, Texas
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Fort Crockett, Texas
Fort Curtis, Virginia
Fort Custer, Michigan
Fort Devens, Massachusetts
Fort Dix, New Jersey
Fort DuPont, Delaware
Fort Eustis, Virginia
Fort Gordon, Georgia
Fort Greely, Colorado
Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Fort Kearny, Rhode Island
Fort Knox, Kentucky
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Fort Lewis, Washington
Fort McClellan, Alabama
Fort Meade, Maryland
Fort Niagara, New York
Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia
Fort Ord, California
Fort Patrick Henry, Virginia
Fort Reno, Oklahoma
Fort Riley, Kansas
Fort Robinson, Nebraska
Fort D. A. Russell, Texas
Fort Sam Houston, Texas
Fort Sheridan, Illinois
Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Fort F. E. Warren, Wyoming

Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland
Eglin Army Air Field, Florida
Glennan General Hospital, Oklahoma
Halloran General Hospital, New York
Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation, Virginia
Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Holabird Signal Depot, Maryland
McCloskey General Hospital, Texas
Memphis General Depot, Tennessee
New Orleans Port of Embarkation, Louisiana
Olmsted Field, Pennsylvania
Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas
Richmond ASF Depot, Virginia
Tobyhanna Military Reservation, Pennsylvania
Westover Field, Massachusetts

[Keith Willshaw]

"John Keeney" > wrote in message
...
>

>
> I've read of German PWs being dropped off around California
> during Orange season to pick the fruit of indivual trees in
> peoples' yards. Later in the day, the truck would come back for'm,
> no guards, no escapes.
> I don't know if such low security was common.
>

It was pretty normal for Italian POW's in the UK

There was a 'POW camp' in the village where I live, in Cambridgeshire
which consisted of a shed where the prisoners would report to the
'guard' which was one corporal and a private of the home guard before
being allocated work. They were all billeted with local families and worked
on the area farms. The only 'escape' was after the war when 3 disappeared
to avoid being sent home.

Keith

[Chris Mark]

One of the odd little byways of the war:

Father Godfrey Diekmann, son of German immigrants to Minn., and the Benedictine
monk who was instrumental in having the Catholic mass spoken in the local
language rather than Latin, and was an advocate of other reforms in the Church,
including allowing priests to marry, had a cousin in the POW camp at Douglas,
Wyo., Geoffrey Diekmann, a bomber crewman shot down during the Italian
campaign. He stayed in the US after the war, for a number of years managing
the Safeway in Douglas. As a kid he had read many of Karl May's books and was
fascinated with the old west. So he was actually quite pleased to find himself
interned there. Without the war, it's unlikely he would ever have emigrated.
But as a result of his personal fortunes of war, he spent most of his life in
the "wild west," an avid antelope hunter, hiker, horseman, animal rights
activist and conservationist, with a passionate interest in all things Indian,
even marrying a Crow woman he met on a trip to the Custer battlefield. He
seemed quite a happy man, reluctant to talk about his wartime experiences
without a little lubricating peach schnapps....and not at all interested in
religion.


Chris Mark

[Stephen Harding]

John Keeney wrote:

> I've read of German PWs being dropped off around California
> during Orange season to pick the fruit of indivual trees in
> peoples' yards. Later in the day, the truck would come back for'm,
> no guards, no escapes.
> I don't know if such low security was common.

Very common around here (western Massachusetts).

German POWs would be trucked to the tobacco, corn and potato fields
to work. They were paid an hourly rate with some of it going to
Uncle Sam for "security". Friends of mine who worked the fields
with them said often the single guard would just head off to a
shady spot and nap for the day.

Everyone ate at the farmer's family table: family, guard and POWs.

I don't think "just any" German POW was allowed this sort of extra
activity. The hard core Nazi types (SS) were generally separated
out from the others.

My father worked at a POW camp in California for a brief time while
waiting for his B-29 to arrive and head out to the Pacific. He said
the hard core types would slash tires and such on vehicles, and were
a nasty bunch. Lots of others were rather old and were allowed to
work as mechanics in the motor pool, or just tend to a garden around
the camp.

There were occassional reunions of POWs and locals from time to time.
Apparently, locally, the Germans were quite well thought of.


SMH

[Cub Driver]

On 30 Jul 2003 16:30:25 GMT, (Chris Mark) wrote:

>Geoffrey Diekmann, a bomber crewman shot down during the Italian
>campaign. He stayed in the US after the war, for a number of years managing
>the Safeway in Douglas.

Arizona? Interesting. I got the impression that the U.S. was
meticulous about the Geneva provision of housing PWs in the climate
where they'd been taken. Thus the prisoners taken in North Africa went
to Arizona. Diekmann was shot down in Italy itself? Shucks, he should
have gone to Montana.

Or maybe it was summer and the MPs (whoever) were sweltering in the
heat, so directed him to the southwest.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub

[Peter Stickney]

In article >,
"John Keeney" > writes:
>
> John Burson > wrote in message
> ...
>> Thirty POW camps were built in 1942 to house the onslaught of captured
> enemy
>> soldiers. McClellan's POW camp was completed in 1943. By mid-1944,
> German
>> POWs had become a significant part of the labor pool at Fort McClellan.
> In
>> their off hours and in jobs assigned to them on post, POWs created a
>> substantial legacy at Fort McClellan in masonry and art as well as more
>> invisible improvements. Two hundred prisoners were detailed daily for
>> excavation, drainage, and clearing operations on the main post; 170 were
>> involved with food preparation; and others worked on vehicles on post.
> POW
>> labor is responsible for numerous examples of stonework on Fort McClellan,
>> including stone walls, chimneys, a patio built behind the old Recreation
>> Center, drainage ditches, and landscaping. The carved bar at the
> Officer's
>> Club (Remington Hall) and the exceptional murals which dress the club's
> wall
>> are also credited to POWs. The camp at Fort McClellan not only acted as
> the
>> processing center for all prisoners interned in the Alabama camps, but was
>> the last camp to be deactivated on April
>
> A quick web search turned up a list of major camps at
> http://uboat.net/men/pow/pow_in_america_stats.htm
> (the list is long and tacked on at the bottom); the site also
> has a monthly census of prisoners in the system and list
> a peak of over 425,000 prisioners. Japanese never accounting
> for as much as 2% of the population after April '43..
<Snip - List >

Hmm. Missed Camp Stark, NH, up in (Wait for it...) Stark, NH. (North
Country, t'other side of Berlin. The same story there as just about
anywhere else - Not a whole lot of guarding, a lot of interaction with
the local folks, and they participated in the local economy. (Cutting
pulpwood, in this case. Which not only meant small parties scattered
out in the woods, but giving them axes, saws, Peavies, & horses. All
they stuff they'd need to make a break.) Many returned after
repatriation, and many more return every few years or so for reunions.
(Well, not so many as there used to be) Most of the troops were
Afrika Korps, captured in Tunisia. Not a whole lot of similarity of
climate, there. But, then, a lot were Bavarians and Swabians, so it
was pretty home-like to them. As I remember it, the hard cases were
separated out and placed in a special camp in Oklahoma.

As an aside, one must wonder what the POWs must of thought when they
found out that they were going to be held near Berlin, with Paris,
Norway, Poland, Naples, and Mexico a short distance away. (Berlin, of
course, being Berlin, NH, and the other towns are in Maine, just over
the border)

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

[Chris Mark]

>the Safeway in Douglas.
>
>Arizona?

Douglas, Wyoming. East of Casper on the North Platte in Converse County. In
the heart of the 1.8-million acre Thunder Basin National Grasslands, home of
the largest pronghorn antelope herds in the world. A fellow fascinated by the
wild west of legend would have thought he had died and gone to heaven to end up
here. Not a damn thing like Italy, however. Diekmann, who also served on the
Russian front, could have been shot down there. That would have been no fun at
all.


Chris Mark

[Cub Driver]

>As an aside, one must wonder what the POWs must of thought when they
>found out that they were going to be held near Berlin, with Paris,
>Norway, Poland, Naples, and Mexico a short distance away. (Berlin, of
>course, being Berlin, NH, and the other towns are in Maine, just over
>the border)

New Hampshire also has Dublin, Derry, and of course Manchester, Dover,
Portsmouth... I live in Durham. But since the lads at Stark probably
hadn't served in the Luftwaffe, they may not have been familiar with
those names. (We also have New London, but no London.)

Thanks for the story. I'd forgotten about Camp Stark, and I am at a
loss to know how anyone could have mistaken Coos (pronounced co-oss)
County for North Africa. But when you give policy to bureaucrats to
interpret, anything can happen.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub

[Cub Driver]

>>the Safeway in Douglas.
>>
>>Arizona?
>
>Douglas, Wyoming.

Ah!

Well, if it wasn't for the Stark NH story told by Pete Stickney, my
faith would have been restored in the American interpretation of the
Geneva conventions.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub