GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — More than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War II, and more than 400,000 made the ultimate sacrifice, but virtually everyone made some form of sacrifice for the war effort.
Almost everything was stretched thin. The federal government even established a rationing system on things like food, metal and paper to ensure the military had what they needed to win the fight.
The tight resources bled down through every facet of society, even something as simple as manpower. With so many men away fighting the war, lots of American businesses and farms struggled to stay afloat.
But an American military leader came up with a solution that helped ease the issues at home, took a task off the plates of the front liners and even managed to follow the international laws set up by the Geneva Conventions.
The answer? POWs.
Between 1943 and 1946, more than 400,000 prisoners of war were brought stateside to be housed in camps. George C. Marshall, the then-Army chief of staff, developed the idea.
“As we achieved victory in North Africa, we’ve got over 200,000 prisoners, Germans and Italians. What are we going to do with them?” historian and University of Detroit Mercy professor Gregory Sumner told News 8. “Marshall said, ‘Let’s load these guys in the desert, get them out of their stockades, put them on ships, and send them back to the U.S. where we have the resources and facilities to take care of them.’”
He had realized that the supply ships that were running everything from the states to the war zone were arriving full but heading back empty. And maintaining POW camps near the frontlines sapped the resources that were already in limited supply.
Camps quickly popped up all across the country, including 32 in Michigan. Some were temporary pop-up tent camps. Others were repurposed buildings, like the Civilian Conservation Corps facilities on Lake Allegan that were built to house people hired for federal work projects. Military outposts were also used, including Fort Custer near Battle Creek.
Several camps were spread throughout West Michigan, including Benton Harbor, Coloma, Fremont, Grant, Hart, Lake Odessa, Mattawan and Sparta.
FOLLOWING GENEVA
International laws set during past Geneva Conventions spelled out what countries could and couldn’t do with prisoners of war. When the Americans took in their first POWs, there were plenty of problems.
One POW told Sumner how when they were first captured, they were forced to throw all of their valuables on the ground so the American soldiers could comb through them and take what they wanted. Another spoke of a guard who traded scraps of food for jewelry and other valuables.
In his book “Michigan POW Camps in World War II,” Sumner wrote about a POW named Antonino Mineo who told him that the first camps in North Africa weren’t anything to write home about.
“We saw the bad Americans in that camp,” Mineo recalled. “We didn’t see the good Americans until we got on the boat.”
As the POW effort expanded, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower used the chain of command to ensure camps were following the Geneva Conventions and scattered fliers detailing how soldiers would be treated if they surrendered to the allies.
“The soldier who carries this (flyer) is using it as a sign of his genuine wish to give himself up. He is to be disarmed, to be well looked-after, to receive food and medical attention as required, and to be removed from the danger zone as soon as possible,” it read.
Those guidelines continued stateside. Aside from living quarters, each camp was required to have an infirmary, a mess hall and a rec room. Also, soldiers couldn’t be forced to work — slave labor is forbidden — and could only work six days a week and no more than 10 hours per day.
However, most POWs volunteered to work. Sumner said it was partially to kill time but also to earn extra “money” to buy things through the camp’s store.
“They were supposed to get compensated similarly to what a private would make in the U.S. Army, so they made up to 80 cents a day,” Sumner explained. “They didn’t pay them in cash. They gave them these coupons or scrip that they could spend. Each camp had a little PX or a little store and they could buy writing paper and Hershey bars and Coca-Cola and cigarettes.”
“When you think about other countries in World War II, they were using slave labor. They were just brutal. I think it’s a credit (to our country) that we followed (the Geneva Conventions), that they got paid.”
GOING TO WORK
Michigan was no different than the rest of the country. Lots of businesses and farms were desperate for help. Help arrived in the fall of 1943, when the first trainload of POWs arrived from Fort Grant in Illinois.
Pilot programs were launched in Benton Harbor and Caro to see how the POWs would handle the work. Quickly, both were considered to be a success and the War Department allowed the experiment to expand.
In their freshly issued coveralls, with “PW” emblazoned in bright white paint, the prisoners got to work across West Michigan. Most worked on farms and helped finish the harvests that otherwise would have gone rotten. Others were used for factory work, including at the Gerber baby food manufacturing plant in Fremont.
“Workers in the fruit belt were working in the orchards in West Michigan. In mid-Michigan, they were digging up sugar beets. In the (Upper Peninsula), they were working in lumber and pulpwood and all that,” Sumner said.
“These guys came in at a very crucial time in Michigan. I talked to several people who said a lot of apricots and apples and peaches and cherries would have just rotted in the fields or on the trees had we not had this kind of infusion of outside workers.”
While there were rules against “fraternizing with the enemy,” most employers were grateful for the extra hands and quickly connected with the POWs, offering them extra food and other treats while on the job. Others, especially those with German or Italian heritage, bonded over the subtle similarities between the POWs and their families who migrated to the U.S. It summed up the surprisingly relaxed atmosphere through the camps.
“For the most part, these guys behaved. They were riding out the war. They missed their families more than anything,” Sumner said.
Eventually, having the German and Italian soldiers around — in the height of wartime — became second nature.
Wrote Sumner: “The POWs became an unremarkable sight as they commuted to and from the (camps) each workday.”
This is the first part of a five-part series on the history of World War II POW camps in Michigan. A new story will be published every Sunday.
