www.thelongestpatrol.com
AXIS PRISONERS OF WAR CONFINED IN THE
SHENANDOAH VALLEY OF VIRGINIA
DURING WORLD WAR II
from
Wehrmacht Autumns; German Prisoners of War in the Plains Area of Rockingham County, Virginia During
World War II

by Gregory L. Owen
Rationale for the Transfer of Prisoners of War to the United States
The Framework for Prisoner of War Policies
Preparations to Receive Prisoners of War on U.S. Soil
Classifications of Enemy Captives
The Treatment of Prisoners: the Pragmatic, High Ground Approach
Utilization of Prisoners of War as a Labor Force
Prisoner of War Camps in the Continental United States
Prisoner of War Camps in Virginia
Prisoner of War and Internment Camps in Virginia's Central Shenandoah Valley
Camp Lyndhurst, Augusta County
Timberville PW Camp, Rockingham County
Ingleside Hotel, Augusta County
Shenvalee Hotel, Shenandoah County
Conclusion
Sources
Articles
Books
Dissertations
Interviews
Unpublished Reports
Copyright 1999-2009 by Gregory L. Owen. All rights reserved.
The Timberville PW Camp site as it appears today
Timberville PW Camp, Rockingham County, Virginia; 1944 or 1945 photo
PW Karl Baumann, portrait made by a traveling
photographer at Camp Lyndhurst, Augusta County,
Virginia, 17 November 1945
Gorsline, James M. “Annual Narrative Report and Summary of Extension Work in Augusta County,
Virginia, 1943.” Staunton, Virginia: Augusta County Extension Service, USDA, 1944.

Gorsline, James M. “Annual Narrative Report and Summary of Extension Work in Augusta County,
Virginia, 1944.” Staunton, Virginia: Augusta County Extension Service, USDA, 1945.

Gorsline, James M. “Annual Narrative Report and Summary of Extension Work in Augusta County,
Virginia, 1945.” Staunton, Virginia: Augusta County Extension Service, USDA, 1946.

Camps, Correspondence Files, Reporting Enemy POW Information Bureau, Reporting Branch, Subject File,
1942-46, Box 2483, U.S. Army Provost Marshal General’s Office files, Record Group 389, United States
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

Prisoner of War Camp Labor Reports, Lyndhurst (VA) Camp and Timberville (VA) Camp, 1944-1945; U.S.
Army Provost Marshal General’s Office files, Record Group 389, United States National Archives and
Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

Unoccupied Camps in CCC Custody, Reporting Enemy POW Information Bureau, Reporting Branch, Subject
File, 1942-46, Box 2598, U.S. Army Provost Marshal General’s Office files, Record Group 389, United States
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

Inspection & Field Reports – Front Royal, Reporting Enemy POW Information Bureau, Reporting Branch,
Subject File, 1942-46, Box 2661, U.S. Army Provost Marshal General’s Office files, Record Group 389, United
States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.

“Escaped Prisoners of War” (Binder), Reporting Enemy POW Information Bureau, Reporting Branch,
Subject File, 1942-46, Box 2598, U.S. Army Provost Marshal General’s Office files, Record Group 389, United
States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
Mr. Benjamin Lee May, Timberville, Virginia, interview with author, Jan. 30, 1999.

Mrs. Rupert Trimmingham, Ann Arbor, Michigan, telephone conversation with author, Feb. 8, 1999.
Wall, Forrest Burnette, Jr.  “German Prisoner of War Camps in Virginia during World War II.” Ph D. diss.,
Carnegie-Mellon University, 1987. Microfilm.
Biennial Report of the Chief of staff of the United States Army, July 1, 1941, to June 30, 1943, to the
Secretary of War. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1943.
Faust, Patricia L., ed. Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper
Perennial, 1991.
Gansberg, Judith. Stalag, U.S.A.. The Remarkable Story of German POWs in America. New York: Crowell,
1977.
Kerr, E. Bartlett. Surrender & Survival; The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific 1941-1945. New
York: William Morrow, 1985.
Kluger, Steve. Yank, The Army Weekly; World War II From the Guys Who Brought You Victory. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
Krammer, Arnold. Nazi Prisoners of War in America. New York: Stein & Day, 1979.
Krammer, Arnold. Undue Process; The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees. Oxford: Rowman
& Littlefield, 1997
Lewis, LTC George G., U.S.A., and CPT John Mewha, U.S.A. History of Prisoner of War Utilization By The
United States Army 1776-1945.  Washington: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1988.
MacMaster, Richard K. Augusta County History 1865-1950. Staunton, VA: Augusta County Historical
Society, 1988.
Perret, Geoffrey. There’s a War to be Won; The United States Army in World War II. New York: Random
House, 1991.
Sulzberger, C. L. The American Heritage Picture History of World War II. New York: American Heritage
Publishing Co., 1966.
Fincher, Jack. “By Convention, the enemy within never did without.” Smithsonian Magazine, June 1995, 126.
Moore, John Hammond. “Hitler’s Wehrmacht in Virginia, 1943-1946.”  The Virginia Magazine of History and
Biography 85 (July 1977): 259-273.
In the summation of their book, History of Prisoner of War Utilization by the United States Army 1776-1945,
LTC George Lewis and CPT John Mewha drew a precise conclusion regarding the success of America’s
prisoner of war program with the statement:

    The most important lesson of all to be remembered is that the use of prisoners of war during World
    War II was essential to the welfare and economy of our nation. U.S. military personnel were released
    for combat duty, and civilians were transferred to essential work. Crops vital to the economy of our
    nation were harvested that otherwise would have spoiled, and war industries were able to continue
    operations in the face of the civilian manpower shortage. Both civil and military authorities have
    stated that they could not have performed their functions except for the use of prisoner of war labor.

Beyond the benefits to American wartime military and economic efforts, the prisoner of war program also
proved successful in that it fulfilled protective and humanitarian goals as well. The typically exemplary
treatment of PWs in the U.S. secured and insured a measure of humane treatment for American PWs in
enemy hands, and demonstrated the ideals of democracy to those whose lives earlier had been dedicated to
dictators’ whims and mad plans. The PW program allowed central Shenandoah Valley residents—far from
the battlefields of Europe—to meet the enemy face to face. In so doing we discovered most German captives
were ordinary people like ourselves—caught in a whirlwind of historic events beyond their control—and
rediscovered common threads of humanity that exist in all people. The PWs among us doubtless learned the
same essential truths during the Wehrmacht Autumns.    
The surrender of fascist Italy to Allied Forces in 1943 severed its uneasy alliance with its Axis partner
Germany. Likewise, U.S. State Department officials in charge of civilian enemy internment doubtless
thought it prudent to separate the German and Italian internees held at the Ingleside Hotel near Staunton.
On October 4, 1943 nineteen Italians—some of whom were high ranking diplomats—were transferred to the
Shenvalee resort hotel on the outskirts of New Market. The group traveled by bus from Staunton,
accompanied by several State Department officials in charge of the transfer procedures. The Shenvalee
Internment Camp was guarded around the clock by a contingent of nine men from the New Market area—
three during each eight-hour shift. An official from the Bureau of Immigration commanded the civilian
guards.
Like the Ingleside, the Shenvalee Hotel and its surrounding golf course were closed to the public, but the
internees were free to roam the extent of the hotel grounds. Their dubious status—neither free men allied
with the United States nor prisoners of war —allowed them privileges equally dubious in application. They
were allowed trips under surveillance into the village of New Market and a recreation program that included
mountain hikes, tennis, and golf—all designed to keep them occupied and to maintain their health. Italian
internees were not required to perform work, although today some witnesses recall Italians voluntarily
working on nearby farms. U.S. State Department officials administered both Ingleside and Shenvalee
internment camps.  
Augusta County golfers were compelled to sacrifice the gentleman’s game to the war effort late in 1942
when the stately Ingleside Hotel—on the Valley Pike between Staunton and Verona—was placed off limits to
civilians. The hotel and its golf course acreage were turned into an internment camp for German and Italian
diplomats, their families, and staff members who were captured at their respective consulates during the
Allies’ desert campaigns in North Africa. As civilian internees, those held at the Ingleside Hotel were not
required to work as were military prisoners. The Ingleside Internment Camp held the distinction of having
increased the number of internees from within when at least one child was born to a German family confined
there.  
Virtually nothing remained of the Timberville PW camp after it was dismantled in 1945. The camp site,
which lay on private land along Orchard Drive three miles west of Timberville, is marked only by a few small
concrete slabs and foundations. Several of the square slabs served as tent floors, and foundations for the
guard towers reveal the four corners of the prisoners’ compound. A handmade wooden Alter that was used in
the prisoners’ chapel tent now serves nearby St. John’s Lutheran Chapel. The Alter, with its beautifully
carved ornamentation and inscription, “Ehre sei Gott in der hoehe” (Glory to God in the Highest), today
represents the most tangible evidence that German PWs were a presence in the area six decades ago.
Timberville Camp was designed for a capacity of 250, but semi-monthly reports filed by its commanding
officers indicate the number sometimes exceeded the intended maximum. The total number of prisoners
continually fluctuated to meet labor demands. When the branch camp closed for the first time on November
1, 1944, the Army returned 176 prisoners to Camp Pickett. A newspaper article reported that the Germans
“were used largely in harvesting the bumper Timberville peach and apple crops and were also used in
processing [the fruit harvest], corn cutting, and silo filling.” The article also related that the PW camp was to
be dismantled the day after the prisoners’ departure, and that during the three months the camp was in
operation one PW escaped, but turned himself in to authorities after less than a day on the run.  In fact,
prisoner Kurt Krott apparently reconsidered his chances for success as a fugitive, and gave himself up on
September 4, the same day of his escape. The Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg seems not to have deemed
newsworthy the departure of the last German prisoners from the Timberville PW Camp when it was closed
for the last time shortly after November 15, 1945. Either the frenetic demilitarization of American society in
the first post-war months or a determination to move beyond war-related news reporting probably was
responsible for the oversight or lack of interest by the local news editor.
In seven months of operation, German PWs provided a total of 26,081 man-days of labor—14,635 during the
harvest season of 1944 and 14,635 during the 1945 season. The totals represent 5,573 man-days in
agricultural work and 5,873 man-days in food processing during 1944, with 8,202 man-days in agricultural
work and 6,433 man-days of food processing labor provided during 1945.
A December 7, 1943 news article reported on the activities of the Rockingham County home front at the end
of America’s second year of war. The report foretold the demand for agricultural labor that would become
only worse as the looming battles of 1944 drew an increasing number of American boys and men into the
armed forces. “There was…a scarcity of labor for the harvest season and volunteer labor was used in many
areas. In the Timberville section, particularly, there was a big increase in production and the attendant
increased demand for labor.” Indeed, the Timberville area’s harvest was so vital to the U.S. war effort that
cinematographers from three major film studios produced newsreel footage of its food production and
processing activities in August 1944. The same urgency that brought the cameramen to the Plains District
heralded the arrival of German prisoners to the rural Rockingham community during the harvest season of
1944 and again in 1945. With an initial request for 500 PWs, County Agricultural Extension Agent Frederick
Holsinger had maneuvered through the complex bureaucratic labyrinth to secure the prisoner laborers for
Rockingham County.
The Timberville PW camp, also known officially as Branch Camp #7, was located on the Herman L. Hollar
farm three miles west of the town after which the camp was named. The first group of PWs arrived from
Camp Pickett at Blackstone, Virginia, on August 1, 1944 to construct the camp compound and prepare for
the arrival of the main body of prisoners, which arrived seven days later. The Timberville Camp was closed at
the end of the three-month labor contract period on October 31, 1944, when the last prisoners were
transferred back to Camp Pickett. The camp was reopened for the 1945 harvest season—from July 16
through November 16—during which time it served as a branch of the Front Royal, Virginia, base camp.

The branch camp was located near Timberville solely to provide area farmers, orchardists, and food
processors with a local supply of much needed PW manpower. German prisoners helped bring in the peach,
tomato, apple, and feed crops during the last two wartime harvest seasons, and also manned the production
lines of several food processing operations. The Rockingham Poultry Marketing Cooperative, Inc. and the
Zigler Canning Cooperative, Inc. were the primary industrial contractors. Rockingham Poultry was certified
to employ fifty-five PWs from July 1, 1945 to the first of November. When several pieces of processing
machinery failed to arrive for the production line, however, the Co-op sublet eight prisoners to the H. E.
Mason sawmill in Harrisonburg and four PWs to the Harrisonburg Junk & Hide Company on Liberty Street.
Between August 15, 1945 and the first of November, the Zigler Cannery employed as many as 103 prisoners,
and averaged between ninety and ninety-five during that period. Due to a lack of American military police
personnel in late September—when only nine of nineteen guards were available for duty—none of the work
details were guarded.

The campsite was situated at the northern base of a gently sloping hillside on the Hollar farm where jagged
lines of limestone rocks had broken through the ground long ago to create an inhospitable-looking field
suitable for livestock grazing but not cultivating. Shortly before the first prisoners arrived to construct the
actual camp facilities local workmen installed electrical, water, and sewer lines to the campsite, which was
laid out to house 250 PWs and an American contingent of eight officers and fifty guards. Formed-concrete
and cinderblock water and sewer tanks, as well as a number of large square concrete slabs that covered the
campsite, projected an appearance of permanence that belied their very temporary purpose.  
The advance party of Germans who arrived on the August 1, 1944 built an eight-foot tall barbed wire fence
around the perimeter of part of the campsite to create the PW compound. Equally tall fences cut across the
compound to divide it into several sections. Gates to the camp were located in the center of both the eastern
and western fence lines, between which ran a road that bisected the compound. The simple guard towers that
stood on the fence corners and at the gates—each atop four eight-foot, braced posts—constituted the only
camp facilities constructed of wood.  
All living quarters and support facilities for Germans and Americans alike were large Army tents, some of
which were erected over the square concrete slab floors. U.S. Army guards and administrators were
encamped immediately outside the eastern fence-line and had their own mess tent. The hillside that ran
parallel to the dirt road on the southern edge of the camp, along with hills and mountains due east and west,
created the perspective view from the campsite akin to looking up from the bottom of a large bowl.   
In the decade following the end of the war two former prisoners from Lyndhurst Camp returned from
Germany to begin new lives in the United States. Both settled in the Stuarts Draft community, near
Lyndhurst, where for more than sixty years they and their families have led quiet and productive lives. Karl
Baumann, one of the former PWs, is the subject of the book, The Longest Patrol; A U-Boat Gunner's War,
which was published in 2006.
The forest has reclaimed most of the clearing where the Lyndhurst PW camp once stood. Today all that
remains of the main compound are a few rusted strands from the barbed wire fence—held fast by trees that
have grown around them—and a number of concrete slabs and foundations that mark the locations of camp
buildings. Several lengths of rock-bordered pathways, a concrete stairway to nowhere, and a small volleyball
court reveal themselves reluctantly among fallen trees, leaves, and undergrowth. Outside the main
compound a well-maintained C.C.C. building that served as the PW camp motor pool still stands next to a
large clearing where long ago hundreds of German prisoners variously stood in formations and gathered to
watch or play soccer. The PW camp site is located in the George Washington National Forest near Sherando
Lake. It sits along an unmarked dirt road that branches off Augusta County Route 664, approximately five
miles south of an intersection with Route 610 at Sherando. Several small PW-produced stained-glass windows
that once adorned the camp chapel and a wooden sign that warns Nicht Rauchen! (No Smoking!) were
displayed at the Heritage Museum in downtown Waynesboro, Virginia, in 1999.
Other records indicate that in April 1945 forty PWs were employed in various jobs at the Woodrow Wilson
General Hospital in Fishersville, an Army facility that later became the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation
Center operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Captured members of the Kriegsmarine comprised the
PW population at Lyndhurst Camp, a branch of PW base camp Pickett at Blackstone, Virginia, after they
replaced a less-cooperative original contingent of Afrika Korps PWs. During seventeen months of operation,
the German PWs provided a total of exactly 43,000 man-days of labor. This total included 7,213 man-days of
agricultural labor, 25,344 man-days of pulpwood cutting, logging, and lumber production, and 1,167 man-days
in food processing.
Barracks street at Camp Lyndhurst, Augusta County, Virginia; 1943, shortly before the arrival of German PWs
Augusta County Agricultural Extension Agent James M. Gorsline clearly was worried when he filed his
annual report to the USDA on the status of agricultural production during 1943. A severe shortage of farm
labor that year had led to the organization of a local Labor Board to oversee the location and placement of
farm and orchard workers in order to save the growing season’s crops. The Board of twelve “...met and
agreed that something had to be done to insure the farmers’ and fruit growers’ crops would be harvested.”   

Indeed, the task that lay ahead was daunting. In addition to the many hundreds of Augusta County farms
that needed to take in their crops, county orchardists counted 440,000 apple trees weighed down with their
bounty. A subcommittee of the Labor Board placed only 549 seasonal workers in the county that year, in
addition to twelve out-of-state workers and five women farm workers.  The remainder of the seasonal farm
help consisted of 118 conscientious objectors enrolled in the Civilian Public Service program from the
Grottoes C.P.S. camp, and twenty-five state prison convicts. Still, anticipated labor needs for Augusta County
had not been fully met.  In his annual review the County Agent stated that “every farmer using the state
convict labor and C.P.S. labor expressed the highest praise of the work done,” although two convicts escaped
while shocking corn. “It is hoped locally that such labor will be available for 1944.”  As it turned out, the
1943 fruit harvest of 750,000 bushels was far lower than the average crop of 1,309,000 bushels over the
previous eight years. Thus, the smaller than average 1943 harvest had been brought in by an under-supply of
laborers.  

Agent Gorsline had good reason to be concerned about the 1944 harvest, which in fact turned out to be a
bumper crop. Augusta County’s 440,000 apple trees bore two million bushels that year—three times the 1943
crop. Again, local manpower resources could not fill the void in numbers lost to the war effort.  Over five
thousand seasonal workers were hired as farm labor; absent were state prison convicts and all but thirty-two
C.P.S. men. Still lacking the requisite numbers, a sub-committee of the Labor Board worked out the details
to secure German prisoners of war. The County Agent reported,  

The vagaries of crop production were evident again in 1945. A year after the 1944 bumper crop created a
demand for PW labor, Mr. Gorsline reported that Augusta County, “experienced an apple and peach failure
because of frost damage in spring. [The] Prisoner of War Camp has helped some this year and it is hoped
that they will be here in 1946.” Due to the lack of orchard work the PWs were shifted to forestry labor.
“Pulp wood cutting has been almost wholly by Prisoners of War,” he stated. Beginning in 1943 a County
Labor Supervisor had implemented the plans formulated by the Labor Board and acted accordingly to provide
PW labor to the agricultural community in Augusta County. In that regard the County Agent praised the
efforts of two individuals who served as Labor Supervisors during 1945:

Augusta County Agricultural Extension Office records indicate that German PWs were held at Lyndhurst
Camp for a period of nearly seventeen consecutive months—until January 1946—far longer than most
temporary branch camps were operated. The camp itself originally was known as Camp Sherando when it
housed a Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) unit during the Great Depression and afterward a Civilian
Public Service camp for conscientious objectors at the beginning of the war. By virtue of its original purpose,
the camp facilities were of semi-permanent wooden construction. The forested site at Lyndhurst first came
to the attention of Army officials in the Third Service Corps in February 1942, when it was listed at one of
twenty-three unoccupied C.C.C. camps in Virginia.  
The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia boasts a rich agricultural heritage and has been renowned for its
bountiful food production for generations. Known during the Civil War as the Breadbasket of the
Confederacy, Shenandoah Valley farms and processing houses played a crucial role in food production for the
Arsenal of Democracy a century later. During World War II the massive transformation of Virginians into
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines slashed the Commonwealth’s work force by 300,000.  Manpower
resources were depleted further when others left Virginia for high-paying war jobs in distant factories,
government offices, and other wartime facilities.

The central Shenandoah Valley counties of Rockingham and Augusta shared in the significant loss of its
labor force. The 1943 harvest in Rockingham County was brought in only with the help of such
unconventional sources as the Women’s Land Army—an organization of students from east coast colleges
and universities—convicts from Virginia’s prisons, conscientious objectors, and vacationers from
Washington, DC. By the summer of 1944, agricultural experts predicted an even more productive harvest
season was just ahead, but only if adequate help was available to bring in the crops. Amid the praises
rightfully rendered and received for the riches from the Virginia soil, government officials, private citizens,
and producers worried and wondered whether enough farmhands and food processing labor could be found.

Few residents of the central Shenandoah Valley today are aware that several local sites were established
either as PW camps or internment camps for German and Italian prisoners and diplomatic personnel during
World War II. Those born after the war, especially, sometimes register skepticism or outright disbelief when
told that Axis prisoners once lived and worked and waited virtually on our doorsteps for the war to end.  

There are those who do remember, who saw PWs working here or worked beside them, and who still marvel
at the incongruity of it all. One recalls himself as a young child who walked to school hesitantly past men in
strange-looking uniforms at work in a local apple packing shed. Others remember stopping by a rural gas
station where smiling German boys—wearing GI fatigues with the letters PW painted on their backs—fished
soft drinks out of the ice cold water of the Coca Cola cooler. Still another recalls how PWs sang cheerfully as
they rode in an open truck to his family’s farm to put in a day’s work filling silos.

A few local residents remember the PW experience also, but their memories are from another perspective:
behind the barbed wire enclosure that was their prison home. These PWs found the world outside their
compound inviting enough to compel them to return to the Valley as soon as possible after repatriation to
their devastated German homeland. Undoubtedly, many PWs felt the people of the Shenandoah Valley
accepted them as human beings—fellow men whose forced labor during the war was exceedingly valuable and
sincerely appreciated. Individual recollections and official reports of the local PW experience bear out these
fundamental truths.

Captured or interned enemy personnel were held at four locations in Augusta, Rockingham and Shenandoah
Counties during World War II. Two internment camps housed German or Italian diplomatic personnel; the
others were prisoner of war camps for German military personnel.
Virtually every enemy prisoner transported to the United States from the European Theater of war entered
the country through the Ports of New York and Hampton Roads, Virginia. From mid-1943 through the end of
the war Virginia was a transit point through which German and Italian prisoners passed en route to PW
camps farther into the interior of the country. More than 17,000 German PWs were assigned to Virginia base
camps alone, and an unknown total number were confined in branch camps located throughout Virginia. All
prisoner of war operations—which included the selection of locations for camps—were conducted in Virginia
under the authority of the Commanding General of the Third Service Command, U.S. Army Service
Forces.    

Virginia’s PW base camps were quite similar—in appearance, layout, facilities, locations, and operation—to
those located across the rest of the continent. Most were situated on U.S. military reservations near the Port
of Hampton Roads. Notwithstanding earlier admonitions against erecting PW compounds near the East Coast
and its port facilities, by 1944 practical considerations of time and cost efficiencies overrode waning security
concerns. Prisoners from these camps provided essential manpower in ever-increasing numbers on nearby
military posts during the last year of the war as mechanics, technicians, laborers, and clerks.  

Even more pragmatically, branch camps were established to house PWs nearby for civilian sector contract
work. They often were operated only three months—the maximum length of PW labor contracts—and then
were dismantled. Through the branch camp system German prisoners became common sights in rural and
urban areas around the Commonwealth. To most Virginians the presence of PWs in their midst was simply
another of the dramatic and sometimes incredible wartime exigencies to which they bore witness as their
home state was transformed forever by world events. Most Virginians seemed to take the veritable invasion
of German PWs in stride, and accepted the reality as yet another step in the long course America’s military
leaders had charted toward inevitable victory. In labor-starved sections of the Commonwealth, Virginians not
only accepted prisoners of war but welcomed them.  

Nine permanent PW base camps were established in Virginia. Naturally, the location of large, established
military installations near the Port of Embarkation at Hampton Roads made them the most likely candidates
to house PW compounds. The first seven base camps—Lee, Pickett, Ashby, Eustis, Peary, Allen, and the
Richmond Army Service Forces Depot—were constructed at their namesake bases.  Two of the seven were
established on U.S. Navy installations, although the Army maintained authority over the prisoners. The
eighth camp—Patrick Henry—was used as a staging area for PWs near the Port of Embarkation but was not
on a military post. As the American labor shortage reached critical levels the U.S. Army established its ninth
PW base camp near Front Royal in northwestern Virginia. The sole purpose for the existence of the Front
Royal base camp was to provide a PW labor force for the region.   

The following list of Virginia’s nine PW base camps describes the installations where they were established,
their highest reported prisoner populations, the number of months they housed PWs, and their respective
geographic locations:  
A number of branch camps were established around these base camps. The total number and locations of
branch camps varied at any given period of time are unknown due to the usually temporary nature of branch
camp operations. However, one snapshot compilation lists the following Virginia PW branch camps and
indicates the county where they were located, their estimated prisoner populations, and the type of contract
labor the camps were intended to provide:
The chain of command between base camps and their branches sometimes changed, with base camps taking
temporary control of branches located in their general area or region. For example, the Timberville camp—
which actually never provided labor for forestry—was originally a branch of Camp Pickett. When the camp
reopened for the 1945 harvest season it, like Lyndhurst Camp, was reassigned to a closer PW base camp
located at the Front Royal Remount Depot in the northeastern Shenandoah Valley.
Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall reported to the Secretary of War that as of June 30, 1943,
seventy-two prisoner of war base camps had been established in twenty-nine states across the continental
United States. These camps reported a capacity to hold 226,630 PWs, a total well above the 53,435 German,
Italian, and Japanese prisoners actually held at that date according to monthly reports submitted to the War
Department by the various Army Service Forces regional commands. Two years later there were
approximately 155 PW base camps and more than 511 branch camps spread among forty-five states, which
together housed 425,871 prisoners. Several special camps also operated near the New York and Virginia
ports of embarkation that, by virtue of their special function and the transient nature of their populations,
were considered neither base camps nor branch camps.

Most PW base camps were located on military installations in the southern half of the U.S. where land was
cheap and the mild climate reduced housing costs. A number of bases had compounds available to receive
prisoners of war because they were not needed to hold the nearly 100,000 civilian enemy alien internees that
had been anticipated and planned for at the beginning of the war. In the wake of Pearl Harbor and
declarations of war by the Axis countries, the fervor of suspicion and hostility against enemy aliens nearly
swept German and Italian resident aliens out of their homes—as it did those of Japanese ancestry—and into
remote relocation camps. After spirited debate between military and federal authorities and a congressional
committee charged to consider the measure, cooler political heads prevailed. Any policy to relocate German
and Italian aliens en masse not only would have been legally problematic but politically, economically, and
socially dangerous—altogether an ominous and unthinkable pursuit.   

Base camps were permanent in nature. As the name implies, they were relatively large and well equipped for
the prisoners, with amenities found on typical military bases. Wooden barracks, administration buildings,
mess halls, chapels, post exchanges, theaters, classrooms, and other structures provided the infrastructure
for the confinement of anywhere from several hundred to nearly ten thousand PWs. Base camps normally
occupied a corner of Army reservations, separated from American troops and facilities by barbed wire
perimeters and guard towers. Prisoner officers and enlisted men were confined in separate compounds within
the PW camp, where their paths seldom crossed.

PWs provided non-war-related labor in many areas inside and outside of their compounds and military posts.
Against the proud, renowned German martial spirit, prisoners frequently policed the streets and green
spaces of Army bases where they picked up cigarette butts and other trash discarded by their captors. Since
the Army officially maintained control of all PWs, most were confined on Army bases. However, a few PW
camps were installed on U.S. Navy bases, where inter-service rivalries often disrupted proper chains of
command and the smooth operation of the compounds and pitted Army PW camp commanders against their
Navy counterparts for control of the resident prisoners.   

For administrative purposes branch PW camps were established in the general vicinity or region of the base
camps to which they were attached. In almost every case they were located in communities where PW labor
resources were badly needed to supplement dwindling supplies of native manpower on farms and in fruit
orchards, grain fields, and forests. Branch camps usually were constructed or established to hold prisoners
for a limited duration—sometimes only a few weeks or months, or until a particular contract labor job was
completed. For this reason, the number of branch camps that operated at any one time continually varied.
The exact number of branch camps that sprang up and disappeared after a short time during the war years
may never be known, even with a complete survey of the massive collection of Provost Marshal General’s
records that survive at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

The temporary nature and status of branch camps usually necessitated simple construction along the most
basic and cost efficient of plans. Instead of permanent or semi-permanent wooden structures, branch camps
often were small tent-communities—one for PWs and another for the American guards and administrators.
A small number of branch compounds were located at abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.)
camps, where permanent structures were not uncommon. Branch camps were surrounded by barbed wire
fence with wooden guard towers located along the fence lines. American guards and administrative personnel
were housed in tents beside the PW compound. Compared with the support facilities available at base camps,
few amenities were enjoyed at branch camps, either by prisoners or their captors.  Mess halls and latrines
often were tents of various sizes with wooden or concrete bases.  Makeshift canteens, if they existed at all,
carried only small quantities and selections of consumables. The populations of branch camps varied but
seldom if ever exceeded several hundred, depending upon the local demand for PW labor.
During World War II the United States maintained the position that PWs were confined in prison camps not
for the sake of punishment, but simply to deprive the enemy further use of that segment of its manpower
resources. Furthermore, the decision to use PW labor converted erstwhile enemy resources into manpower
assets beneficial to the United States, strictly in accordance with the type of work allowed by the Geneva
Convention. The Army’s 1942 manual on PW administration stressed the official policy of the U.S.
government and its military components, that prisoners of war could be used to perform any type of work
that was neither directly or wholly related to the war effort nor dangerous to the prisoners.  While enlisted
men and non-commissioned PWs could be compelled to work, the Geneva Convention specifically excluded
commissioned officers from the requirement. Likewise, civilian enemy aliens were not required perform
labor during their confinement.

Throughout history nations at war forced captured enemies to work in exchange for the chance to survive
captivity, though many held little or no hope for repatriation and were worked to death. U.S. military forces
employed PW labor during earlier wars as well, but never on the scale it undertook during World War II. In
fact, except for significant PW populations held by the North and South during the American Civil War, the
U.S. had no experience in the management of large numbers of prisoners. Moreover, the record for the
treatment of prisoners during the Civil War was dismal; more than ten percent of the 431,000 captured
Yankees and Rebels died in squalid prison camps.  

The Army’s experience with PW labor in the First World War did not include employment in the private
sector. As such, the ways and means to utilize prisoner labor outside of military installations and a few public
service projects were never addressed. When War Department officials convened during the interwar years
of the 1920s and 1930s to formulate plans to respond to future national emergencies, the employment of PW
labor as a valid wartime measure apparently was approved with few reservations. Army regulations were
proposed in 1926 to codify the organization of prisoners of war into labor companies of varying sizes and to
make them available to Army units and departments for construction and repair work not directly related to
war operations.  

The reality that large numbers of prisoners of war were to be confined on American soil was problematic in
both military and civilian circles. That enemy soldiers and sailors would be utilized to bolster dramatically
depleted ranks of the American labor force was a matter of great concern as well as anticipation. The U.S.
Army had increased its ranks more than threefold between January 1942 and July 1943, to nearly seven
million. The demands for wartime production and loss of millions of workers to the Armed Forces—over
300,000 from Virginia alone—offered previously unimagined opportunities for formerly semi-skilled and
unskilled laborers. Their gainful employment in the nation’s war plants, however, created severe shortages
in farming, food production, and manual labor occupations.   

Government and military planners early on considered PWs as a potentially valuable source of labor in a
wartime emergency.  Nevertheless, an advisory panel in 1942 was reluctant to accept a British appeal for the
U.S. to take 150,000 German PWs off its hands because its members believed they represented a security
risk to U.S. war industries. In the fearful first year after America entered the war, frightened and agitated
Americans were convinced imagined rampaging bands of escaped PWs would commit sabotage on production
facilities large and small, and wreak havoc on the American populace. No doubt many Americans still
remembered that a group of escaped German internees was blamed for blowing up a munitions plant in New
Jersey a year before the U.S. entered the First World War.   

From a much more mundane but no less serious perspective, Organized Labor weighed in on the matter of
PWs entering the American work force. Union leaders feared PWs would displace Americans looking for
work—whether at union shops or at similar non-union jobs—while being paid a fraction of prevailing free
market wages. The federal government’s War Manpower Commission appreciated the unions’ views of the
manpower and wage issues and endeavored, under its own regulations, to incorporate the organizations into
relevant discussions with employers regarding PW labor. Accordingly, unions were allowed opportunities to
locate and employ American workers first to fill labor demands before the need to use prisoner labor was
officially sanctioned. Under no circumstances did the Army or the War Manpower Commission desire to
oppose unions and create labor strife over PW employment issues; rather, the spirit of cooperation with
Organized Labor was sought in order to further the nation’s war aims.

By 1944 union cooperation was marginal at best—despite assurances that PW labor was a temporary wartime
expedient to be implemented only when free labor was not available, with PW wage scales that would match
prevailing civilian wages to deny employers a financial advantage. In fact, Organized Labor frequently
disregarded PW employment as an asset that could ease both civilian and military manpower shortages and
thus hasten victory. It attempted to exert political influence to prohibit commanders of U.S. military
installations from using PW labor, even where unions were unable to successfully recruit adequate numbers
of civilian workers. As a result, several proposals were introduced in Congress to curtail the use of PW labor
on military installations, and the Army attempted a reduction on its own as well. Nonetheless, after mid-1944
German PWs could be found performing virtually all jobs on military posts nationwide that were not
expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, from unskilled labor to skilled craftsmen and office
personnel. American soldiers so recently removed from fierce combat against German troops in Europe
sometimes were incredulous to find, upon their return to the States, German PW office helpers processing
furlough papers, new assignment orders, or other official paperwork for them. By the summer of 1945 a
tenuous agreement between Organized Labor and the Army restricted PW work in some civilian trades and
thus minimized complaints against the labor policy.

Fortunately for the U.S. war effort, unions wielded little or no influence regarding PW labor in the civilian
agricultural sector. The greatest boon to the utilization of PW employment in the civilian sector was the
development of a contract policy that established the parameters private individuals needed to follow to
appropriate and use prisoner labor. After a dozen top-level meetings between officials of the War Manpower
Commission, the War Department, and the War Food Administration, a satisfactory method to provide PW
labor to civilian agricultural and industrial operations was hammered out in the fall of 1943. Military
installations were given first priority to fill their labor requirements, after which all other PWs eligible for
employment could be contracted out to civilian employers under very strict guidelines.  

Farmers and businessmen who wished to tap the PW labor market faced a formidable challenge beset by
rules, regulations, red tape, and paperwork—the purpose of which was to obtain a Certification of Need from
their local War Manpower Commission office. A prospective employer had to describe his intended use of
prisoner labor, and certify that no civilian labor was available to perform the work for which he then sought
PWs. He had to certify as well that the use of PW labor would not lead to a lowering of wages or working
conditions for returning American workers. In addition, the hopeful employer had to certify that the rights
of prisoners would not be violated, and that wages and working conditions of PWs would be equal to those of
the local free labor market. An approved Certification of Need was passed on to local military authorities,
who in turn passed it on to the Department of Agriculture Extension Service’s local County Agent. With
knowledge of the varied resources and needs of his locality, the County Agent determined the number of
PWs that would be required to fulfill a labor request.  Some War Manpower Commission officials made the
procedure even more difficult and required prospective employers to take twenty or more prisoners or none
at all. Once all approvals had been certified the Army entered into a contract with the employer to hire out
the approved number of prisoners for a period not to exceed three months. The maze of paperwork and
procedures served to protect the American free market labor force and American PWs in German prison
camps as well. Mercifully, the maddening contract process was decentralized and pursued on a local basis,
otherwise bureaucratic delays doubtless would have ground the PW employment program to a hopelessly
ineffectual conclusion.    

The War Department set the maximum daily amount of pay for contract PW labor nationwide at eighty cents
per day. The daily pay rate for PWs was set in consideration of the monthly base salary paid to American
enlisted recruits to assure that prisoners were not paid more. An additional ten cents per day was paid to
each enlisted PW to help him purchase such essentials as razor blades, candy, toothpaste, and other personal
goods that were made available for them. Although officers were not required to work, many volunteered
and were paid the same daily labor rate as enlisted men—in addition to the regular monthly salary they
received. Frugal prisoners deposited portions of their earnings in savings accounts set up for them, the total
amounts of which were to be paid to them in hard currency at the end of the war.  During the war, however,
PWs were paid only in coupons redeemable for purchases at their camp canteens. Should any PW wish to
escape, he would have to do so without the aid of hard currency of any kind. Prisoners were paid their daily
contract labor rate out of the total daily contract wages employers paid the Army. The Army in turn used the
net income from the labor program to help offset the expenses of PW camp maintenance and operations.

By 1944 the American public clamored for more prisoners to be put to work in the wake of ominous reports
about the shortage of manpower to perform essential jobs. In fact, significant numbers of PWs were by then
confined in the U.S but had not yet been employed. In response to the public’s demands, Chief of Staff Gen.
George C. Marshall ordered the Army’s Inspector General to study the PW employment situation and issue
a report on the matter. The resulting report concluded that PW camps often were too large and too remote
from areas where PW labor could be employed in substantial numbers. The Inspector General also concluded
that the ratio of guards to prisoners was excessive and a hindrance to the prisoner employment program, and
that numerous opportunities to place PW labor in both civilian and military sectors had not been fully
exploited. Although a spirit of cooperation existed between officials of the Army, the War Manpower
Commission, and labor recruiting authorities, many local and regional possibilities for PW utilization had
been overlooked. The end result of the Inspector General’s report—and a subsequent conference to address
the issues it raised—was a fine-tuned contract approval system. The process became streamlined,
decentralized, and more responsive to recognize and supply local PW labor needs.  Later improvements in
the contract labor system included incentive pay to reward hard-working prisoners as well as other
innovations to maximize PW productivity.   
The United States determined during the inter-war years that it must adhere to a policy of humane
treatment of prisoners of war. Undoubtedly this attitude was borne out of the high ideals of a democratic
society and adherence to the letter of the Geneva Convention. But lenient policies toward PWs also served
the United States well and with pragmatic purposes. First and foremost, compassion for captives under
American control helped encourage reciprocal treatment toward American prisoners in enemy hands. This
was the paramount concern and driving force behind American PW policies, from which the United States
would not be dissuaded despite sometimes-angry charges from various public outlets that PWs in American
camps were coddled. By various means belligerents monitored the treatment of captured personnel on the
battlefield and in enemy camps and often responded in kind with the prisoners they held. The vicious warfare
that took place on the Eastern Front was a war of annihilation between Germany and the Soviet Union; no
quarter was given and none was taken in battle or in its aftermath. Consequently, millions of war prisoners
lived a harrowing existence, and tremendous numbers of Germans and Soviets alike died in captivity. In
striking contrast to the depravity shown PWs on both sides of the Russian Front, by the end of the war in
Europe two percent of the 90,000 American prisoners had died in German PW camps. A fraction of one
percent of German PWs had died from various causes while in American captivity.   

Substandard resources for the basic necessities of survival—food, clothing, and shelter—prevailed for
American PWs in German-held territories. The result of such shortages, however, arose more from the lack
of available provisions than from malicious intent. As the European war closed in upon Germany’s borders,
civilians and military personnel alike experienced such shortages themselves. There is no question, however,
that German PWs held in American camps fared much better than American prisoners in German camps.
On the extreme opposite end of the humanitarian spectrum, Allied captives of the Japanese frequently
endured terrible treatment and conditions. Accordingly, American prisoners in Japanese camps suffered a
death rate perhaps as high as forty-two percent. Despite the worst treatment that was meted out to
American PWs, the U.S. policy toward Japanese PWs was to extend the same charity as that accorded
German PWs, although the security measures employed were much more rigid.  

A surprising element of civility sometimes was practiced among warring nations. By mutual agreement
Germany and the United States paid respective captive officers—but not non-commissioned officers or
enlisted men—their base salaries. The difference in the total amount of salaries paid to enemy prisoners was
to be settled after the end of the war. Interestingly, American prisoners of the Germans received slightly
higher salaries than their German counterparts received in the United States. In any regard, the logic for
such attitudes was strong and pragmatic: the wellbeing of both countries’ PWs was perceived to be at stake.
Moreover, the war would end sooner or later, whereupon nations as well as individuals ultimately would be
taken to task for abuse or outright brutality against prisoners of war—especially perpetrators on the losing
side.

To reinforce its commitment to the proper care of prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and
to demonstrate that commitment to Germans and Americans alike, the U.S. Army required that PWs and
their American guards and administrators receive the same allotments of food and shelter.  Thus, when at
one PW camp the lack of wooden barracks required PWs to sleep in tents, the American cadre in charge of
the prisoners was ordered to take up residence in tents as well—even though wooden barracks had been
constructed for the Americans. The prison diet for German PWs was to consist of approximately 3,500
calories daily, equal to that for American soldiers. Prisoners’ complaints about their diet most often were
lodged not in response to the quantity or quality provided, but to the types of food that were prepared for
them. The resulting waste of food caused the U.S. government to notify its camp commanders in July 1944
that they could provide ethnic meals suitable to their respective prisoners tastes so long as the cost of the
meals did not exceed the cost of the rations authorized for American troops.  Afterwards, German PWs
frequently enjoyed such Teutonic delicacies as pigs’ knuckles, wurst, and fish soup.
With the fear of basic survival eliminated, the thoughts and concerns of PWs typically shifted to a secondary
level of survival where matters of boredom and the need for mental and physical challenges took on
heightened importance. The U.S. Army realized that prisoners seized by boredom and endless hours of non-
activity tended to become despondent and withdrawn or—at the opposite extreme—agitated and aggressive,
and potentially more dangerous. Particularly at the larger and permanent camps, the Americans wisely
permitted, encouraged, and indeed required a wide range of diversions.  Involvement in sports activities—
whether as participants or spectators—consumed many prisoners’ hours and energies.  Naturally football—
soccer, to Americans—was the most popular of all PW pastimes, and probably was played to some level at
nearly every PW base and branch camp. Organized PW teams even entertained crowds that included
American soldiers and their families. Not a few German postwar professional footballers honed their skills
on the playing fields of American PW camps.

Other forms of diversion were dependent upon the desires and talents of prisoners at their respective camps,
and the facilities made available for them. Larger PW populations often boasted skilled musicians and
singers whose concerts and stage productions entertained large audiences. The August 1944 concert schedule
at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, for example, consisted of twenty-three programs performed by as many as
thirty-six prisoners, which drew audiences of as many as twelve hundred. Concerts included PW piano and
violin solos, selections from the prisoner orchestra and the PW dance orchestra, prisoner choir
performances, and variety shows.   

A significant program aimed toward German prisoners was to educate them to the evils of Nazism and teach
them democracy by example. The ultimate goal of its re-education policy was to release many thousands of
former prisoners to their homeland to spread the ideals of democracy in the post-war world.  Re-education
took on a fascinating and wide spectrum of ways and means. The foundation for the process was to satisfy
the most basic needs of the individual prisoners by providing adequate food, clothing, and shelter.
Concurrent with the satisfaction of these needs was the creation of a greater sense of individual safety and
wellbeing.  When discipline was warranted, strict guidelines restricted the manner and length of punitive
actions taken against PWs for their infractions or misdeeds.  

At every camp discipline was maintained within the ranks by non-commissioned officer prisoners. Despite
their PW status, military privileges of rank remained in place and prisoners understood they still were
members of the Wehrmacht—the Heer (Army), Luftwaffe (Air Force), or Kriegsmarine (Navy). Since officer
prisoners were segregated into their own compounds, the responsibility naturally and easily fell upon
sergeants to command the rank and file. Thus did PW compounds resemble regular German military
training camps, where no small element of fear of their sergeants (or in their absence, corporals) kept
enlisted men in line and obedient to the orders their non-coms issued.  American authorities embraced and
approved of the military order that prisoners maintained, but were continually burdened by the specter of
Nazism that often hid just below the surface and sometimes broke out into the open with grim results.  

The Geneva Convention’s rules against political indoctrination largely prevented the U.S. Army from efforts
to identify and remove rabid Nazis from the general PW populations, though some efforts were undertaken
nonetheless. Indeed, many PWs wanted no part of Nazism, and sought to avoid its influence especially after
having become prisoners. Some PWs, however, maintained their strong ideological mindset and were not
averse to threatening the comfort or the very lives of others who failed to tow the Nazi line or acquiesced too
readily to their American captors or to democratic ideals. Beatings sometimes were used to assert Nazi
authority. Occasionally kangaroo courts of Nazi prisoners convicted hapless comrades of treason against the
Fuehrer and the Fatherland and carried out death sentences then and there. In such cases American
military justice was swift and sure. Perpetrators were tried by Army courts martial and those found guilty
were sentenced to long terms in federal prisons or condemned to death.  Nonetheless, Nazi intimidation of
prisoners remained a significant problem in America’s PW camps throughout the war.     

Many PW camps organized libraries of various sizes and degrees of sophistication to provide prisoners with
books and newspapers. Reading materials in English and German were provided by American and
international relief organizations—including German-based groups whose selections invariably included pro-
Nazi propaganda. American specialists worked to weed Nazi literature out of camp libraries and made subtle
but serious attempts to redirect prisoners’ thoughts and attitudes toward democratic ideals. Carefully chosen
American classic literature and a variety of newspapers filled library shelves, and motion pictures were
shown to entertain as well as further the goal of re-educating prisoners. A large number of college and
technical correspondence courses were made available for prisoners to pursue. Since indoctrination of
prisoners against their own government was expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention, American
authorities often walked a very fine line between re-education activities that were legal and those that were
illegal.

Obviously, the greatest method to re-educate German prisoners to cast off the yoke of Nazi ideology was to
practice humane treatment and the democratic principles that free peoples were supposed to enjoy.  
Unfortunately, that effort was sometimes thwarted by the reality of life in the Jim Crow South where many
PW camps were located. In April 1945, U.S. Army corporal Rupert Trimmingham and eight other soldiers
traveled by train from Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, to new assignments at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. After an
overnight stopover the group sought out a restaurant to take in a quick cup of coffee.  Notwithstanding the
overwhelming wartime patriotism that poured out aid and comfort to U.S. servicemen everywhere, the black
American soldiers were refused a seat at every local restaurant. Finally, the lunchroom at the train station
allowed the men to be served in the kitchen. In an impassioned letter to Mail Call, a popular feature in
YANK Magazine, Cpl. Trimmingham related:

The corporal’s letter hit the conscience of GI readers like a sledgehammer. Outraged responses poured in to
YANK Magazine in support of Trimmingham and his fellow black soldiers, some apologizing for their
erstwhile Southern pride. The incident became widely quoted in other publications, and was dramatized in a
radio production. Sadly, the incident so affected Cpl. Trimmingham—an Illinois businessman before the
war—that it remained an indelible scar on his memory and soul for the rest of his life. For their part, PWs
themselves often noted and resented the poor treatment toward blacks that they witnessed while working
side by side with them in cotton fields across the South.  In view of Nazi Germany’s treatment of the
Untermensch in its sphere of control, hypocrisy among men on topics of equality and justice obviously was
not an American monopoly.

The incident reported by Cpl. Trimmingham and the responsive chorus it engendered were related in part to
another aspect of the American PW policies that dictated the care and privileges accorded prisoners. As a
reflection of public sentiment, numerous magazine articles of the day were critical of the great extent to
which PWs received favorable treatment. Indeed, many Americans believed PWs held in the United States
were being coddled, their evidence being either directly witnessed or provided by news coverage of PW camp
life. The major magazines such as Life, Saturday Evening Post, and Collier’s ran articles that fanned flames
of accusation, and loud protestations from Walter Winchell and other prominent radio commentators dogged
military authorities until the Germans were shipped home after the end of the war.

Those who objected to the lenient treatment of war prisoners would have been absolutely horrified to learn
the extent to which prisoners occasionally received favors from both Army officials as well as civilian
contract employers throughout the PW camp system. For example, on March 20, 1944 the American
commander of PW Company “D” at Camp Pickett, Virginia, received a handwritten letter from Unteroffizier
Kurt Stengel, which stated:

The commander of the company of prisoners duly submitted the request to the camp’s control officer, who in
turn sent the request to the commanding officer of PW camp at Pickett. Upon review the camp commander
sent the request back to prisoner Stengel’s commanding officer to determine whether
Two weeks later the company commander notified the control officer that Unteroffizier Stengel had the
necessary funds to pay the cost of the transfer, and had received a letter from his brother from Camp Lee,
Virginia. The control officer forwarded the information to the commanding officer of the PW compound at
Camp Pickett, who then sent the request to the commanding general of the Army Service Forces in
Washington for approval or denial. On April 24, 1944 the assistant director of the Prisoner of War Division
of the Provost Marshal General’s Office approved the transfer request. He ordered Stengel transferred to
Camp Lee, “provided transfer can be accomplished without any expense to the United States government,
including cost of transportation and meals for the guard personnel.” The amount of time and effort expended
during wartime by an Army Command, even to entertain the possibility of a PW’s transfer to be with his
brother, speaks volumes about the spirit and nature of America’s treatment of prisoners of war. Probably no
other nation at war would have approved—or have even considered—such a request from a PW.

Like their military counterparts, contract employers everywhere tended to extend charity—if not outright
fraternization—toward German prisoners who labored in their factories or on their farms. Many were the
PWs who gloried in great farm-hand helpings of food from farm wives’ kitchens, or slaked their thirst from
ice cold cans of milk provided for them by farmers who were thankful for their labor. Though Americans
were officially forbidden from such forms of fraternization, many simply applied their own spiritual values
toward the mostly young men, and treated them decently.

Charitable treatment of war prisoners provided many benefits not always evident to those outside military
circles. By virtue of being treated well, PWs were much more content to adapt to their circumstances and
less inclined to escape. The small number of escapes in turn reduced military and public concerns for
security, and reduced the manpower requirements that otherwise would have been allocated to provide much
higher security levels. Moreover, good treatment probably directly affected the quality of the labor that was
performed by PWs. Absent concern for their overall wellbeing, confined away from the shooting war, given
productive activities that kept them occupied and tapped their youthful energy, and given the opportunity to
leave the confines of their PW camps, many prisoners preferred being employed by their captors. Most
probably were silently thankful to have survived the brutal war under such charitable circumstances,
especially when they considered the alternative fates that might have been visited upon them.  
The War Department published a manual in 1942 entitled, “Civilian Enemy Aliens and Prisoners of War.”
The manual served as the foundation for the policies that directed the confinement of enemy personnel. In
the manual, the United States reasserted its intention to comport to the rules for the treatment of prisoners
of war that were ratified by the signatories to the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention of 1929. Moreover,
the U.S. attempted to expand the definition of the term Prisoner of War to include “every person captured or
interned by a belligerent power,” hopefully to provide greater protection for individuals from warring nations
who were not members of the armed forces. Nonetheless, civilian enemy aliens—such as diplomats, their
families, and their staffs—always were considered apart from captured military personnel. They were
managed under separate programs and policies controlled by the State Department, and housed in their own
encampments under more relaxed rules of confinement. Although designations for enemy personnel were
not always consistently used by the public, the press, and the media, the term Internee referred to civilian
enemy aliens detained in the U.S. at the outbreak of the war or captured overseas. The term Prisoner of War
referred to captured members of the armed forces.

A unique group of PWs was that of Italian captives whose fortunes turned with their nation’s belligerent
status after their war-weary government overthrew Benito Mussolini and surrendered its forces to the Allies
in September 1943. Italy’s subsequent realignment with the Allies as a co-belligerent against Germany
provided the impetus for the U.S. Army to begin a cautious program that organized Italian PW volunteers
into service companies whose work directly aided the Allies’ war effort. Since Italy had surrendered to the
Allies, the war-related work its prisoners in the U.S. carried out could not harm their nation and,
accordingly, was not prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

The first step in the employment process for Italian PWs was to weed out ardent fascists. The remaining
prisoners then were organized into Italian Service Units (I.S.U.) that were designed much like U.S. Civilian
Conservation Corps units of the Depression era. I.S.U. members worked without guards, but retained their
PW status.  Each I.S.U. was supervised by at least one U.S. Army officer and five enlisted men. Italian
volunteers received technical training to prepare them for specialized work assignments. By October 1944,
the Army had fielded 195 Italian Service Units with 954 officers and 32,898 enlisted men who were posted on
sixty-six U.S. military bases. All I.S.U. volunteers were paid $24.00 per month for their work; one third of
the amount was paid in cash and the remainder either placed into a trust fund for the prisoners or paid in
coupons redeemable at post exchanges on their assigned bases. By the conclusion of the successful work
program, I.S.U. members performed over six million man-days of labor and service on U.S. military
installations.  
The size and scope of U.S. involvement in the second world war required new policies and procedures that
often were quickly adapted to respond to the dynamics of modern, total war at a given point. Indeed, the War
Department’s PW program was implemented hastily, with no precedent from which to direct the massive
logistical and administrative burden, and no certain methods to predict the numbers of prisoners it
ultimately would have to manage.   

Since American ground troops did not launch their first action against German and Italian forces until late
November 1942, the U.S. claimed very few Axis prisoners in its first year of war. At the end of the year only
1,881 PWs were held within the United States. However, Britain had been fighting since 1939—and by mid-
1942 the number of Axis prisoners it held began to reach crisis proportions. In August the British
government projected it would have as many as 150,000 additional PWs within three months as a result of
the turn of the tide of the desert campaign against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s once vaunted Afrika
Korps. Lacking the means to accommodate them, the British proposed that the United States intern these
PWs, and shortly thereafter asked the U.S. to take another 25,000 held in Kenya. Although top-level
advisors rejected the full proposal in favor of accepting only 50,000, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ultimately
relented and accepted the entire number, the initial influx of PWs that ultimately exceeded 425,000 from all
war fronts.   

Logistical difficulties and battlefield priorities temporarily delayed the British transfer of PWs to the
Americans, who were wholly unprepared anyway to receive an intended 75,000 by the end of 1942. However,
the imminent arrival of tens of thousands of prisoners to American ports spurred the War Department to
implement a crash program that by mid-1943 had built or located an adequate number of PW camps and
organized sufficient Army M.P. guard companies to meet the critical demand.  
Until overwhelming numbers of German troops surrendered to the western Allies during the final weeks of
the war in Europe, nearly all captured enemy personnel were transferred to camps within the United States
in accordance with a 1942 War Department directive. The farsighted directive was itself the product of a
number of contingencies drawn up during the late 1930s as a result of the gathering war clouds and the
initial outbreak of hostilities. These contingencies included the appointment in mid-1941 of a Provost
Marshal General of the U.S. Army and creation of the Military Police Corps to oversee and enforce military
law.  Enemy alien internment and prisoner of war operations fell under the jurisdiction of the Provost
Marshal General, who also was named chief of the Military Police Corps. The Provost Marshal General was
appointed in the wake of the U.S. seizure and internment of crewmen from a number of alien ships in
territorial waters, and because the government projected a need to intern 18,500 civilian enemy aliens should
war be declared. Amazingly, and notwithstanding the frenetic pace of mobilization to meet the looming
national emergency, two requests by the Provost Marshal General to construct at least one permanent
internment camp in the U.S. were denied for lack of funds. As a result, the United States entered World War
II in December 1941 without a single permanent internment camp in use or under construction. More
importantly, the infrastructure necessary to manage tens of thousands of PWs would not be in place to
accommodate large numbers until mid-1943.
The massive logistical effort required to transport millions of American troops to North African and
European combat theaters—and to provide them adequate supplies in the field—appears upon initial
consideration to militate against taking on the additional burden of sending PWs to the United States for
internment.  However, logistical problems themselves dictated that prisoners of war could be held most
efficiently away from the combat zones. As Allied forces successfully fought their way toward Berlin they
captured unexpectedly large numbers of enemy troops. From May 1943 onward the Allies were confronted
with the issues of containing, housing, clothing, and feeding tens of thousands of prisoners.

Despite valiant efforts by Army quartermasters, American combat troops overseas seldom had adequate
food, clothing, and shelter to maintain more than minimal levels of comfort. Nor did an astounding
abundance of war materiel produced by the Arsenal of Democracy alleviate serious shortages of supplies that
plagued front line units. Any provisions funneled to enemy PWs would further deprive large numbers of GIs
of those meager luxuries and stress transportation units already hard-pressed to move vital supplies to the
front lines.  Equally important, the number of American troops needed to guard large contingents of PWs
and administer camp operations within war zones would deplete the ranks of fighting units at a time when
Army planners recognized manpower and reserves would be alarmingly low. PWs held in compounds near
their own forces presented greater security risks for escape or possible liberation by enemy counterattacks
as well. In addition, transports that delivered thousands of troops from the United States to the war theaters
otherwise sailed home largely empty. Therefore, the overall conduct of combat operations was best served by
removing prisoners of war far from the fighting and placing them nearer the source of supplies to sustain
them and manpower to supervise their captivity.
“You boys stay away from there. Those men are dangerous.” Six year-old Ben May and his eight year-old
brother Joe clearly understood their father’s unequivocal admonition. Dad’s warning often echoed in their
minds during the late summer of 1944, even as the youngsters sprinted across the family’s large rolling
pasture land to their wooded hilltop hideout above Herman Hollar’s farm. Unbounded curiosity and
anticipation inevitably overruled fatherly advice, however, after the May brothers first spied an assembly of
army trucks with khaki-clad men, and a crudely constructed encampment along the rocky hillside below. A
small tent city had arisen, and was surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence and wooden guard towers to
create a scene wholly out of place in the normally placid foothills behind the village of Timberville, Virginia.
Then, one sultry day during that bloodiest year yet of World War II, the boys observed an even more
incongruous sight. Thousands of miles from the battlefields of Europe and one half mile from the May home
place, young Ben and Joe stared with fascination while German soldiers marched inside the fenced enclosure.
The expected arrival of prisoners of war already had become the pre-eminent topic of discussion throughout
the countryside of northwestern Rockingham County. The vaunted German soldier and sailor were subjects
of fear and loathing among the public, the press, and popular media of the day. As a result, the boys’ first
sight of German prisoners was almost a disappointment. “We thought they were going to be monsters,”
observed Ben May five decades later, “Instead, they turned out to be mostly sixteen year-old kids.”

Between 1942 and 1946 Americans across the continent and in Hawaii witnessed the presence of enemy
prisoners of war in their communities. In May 1945, a total of 425,871 prisoners of war (PWs) comprised the
largest number confined across the United States, with 371,683 German, 50,273 Italian, and 3,915 Japanese
captives. Most found internment in the United States to be an ordeal of monotony, perhaps, but far from the
fearful experience captives normally expected to endure at the hands of their enemies. The Prisoner of War
Division of the Office of the Provost Marshal General of the U.S. Army, which was responsible to supervise,
house, and care for the welfare of PWs held in the United States, implemented a successful large-scale
program that served the diverse self-interests of the nation during wartime.  At the same time, the Army’s
efforts to provide humane treatment to the PWs ultimately served the interests and well being of the
majority of prisoners as well.
The Germans'  hand-carved alter from the Timberville PW Camp still is in use today at the Lutheran chapel