My late fatther-in-law was an Italian POW in Ft. Missoula, Montana for the duration of the war. As a sea captain, his ship was laid up in Philadelphia with a damaged propeller quite a bit prior to the US entrance into WW II. His ship, the Belevede, along with 104 others from 11 different European countries, was confiscated by the US on June 6, 1941. He was given a trial and and sent by train to Ft. Missoula as a POW, where her spent the duration of the war.
Due to the recent death of my wife's mother, she discovered letters written by him during his ordeal. He spoke of a prison train, complete with barred windows that collected POW's from as far away as Savannah, GA to be interred in Montana. It was a three day trip, but many details are missing.
Does anyone know anything about those prison trains?
Interesting !! Unfortunately there's a good chance such a train wouldn't have been allowed to be photographed. I've never heard of anything quite like that before. It wasn't uncommon to move convicted criminals to prison by train, but usually just in regular passenger trains. That's where the term "being sent up the river" came from...if you were found guilty in New York City, they put you on a New York Central train up the east bank of the Hudson River to SingSing. The prison has a station stop that is in effect inside the prison. You can still ride that line today on the commuter RR that operates it (Amtrak runs on the other side of the river.)
If it was Missoula MT the train would almost certainly have had to go on the Northern Pacific.
BTW how come he became a prisoner of war six months before the US entered the war??
I did some checking, in an internet article on Ft. Missoula it says:
"The Fort went on to see use as an Alien detention camp, and for a while a POW camp for Italian prisoners."
"Further out to the east, we arrived at the barracks used for Italian POWs during WWII. The handout advised that Alien Detention Center Barracks, which were built in 1941, were moved to the museum grounds in 1995. The wooden barracks we were looking at was one of several wooden barracks constructed by Italian internees, detained at Fort Missoula between 1941 and 1944. This turned out to be one of the more unusual incarcerations of the war. In 1941 at the onset of the War, Roosevelt, using a 1917 sabotage act seized commercial ships flying Italian and German flags. The crews were left aboard but became bored and began damaging the ships. To prevent this the crews were removed and offered to be returned to their respective countries. Most resisted this idea and were offered incarceration for the duration of the war. As they had fought deportation, they were considered very low security risk, and were given great liberties in the camps where they stayed. At the end of the War they were simply sent home, with many of them turning right around and returning back to the US to become citizens."
I know many Americans were upset by the treatment of POW's in the US, believing they had it too good!! POW's had access to tobacco, food products etc. that were rationed and/or hard to come by during the war.
One sad note I recall is that it wasn't uncommon in the South that say a German enlisted man - POW working on a road crew or nearby farm or something would be allowed to eat at a local restaurant, but a black US Army officer would be denied service.
The US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese. Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II.
The ship was siezed BEFORE the war because of the Espionage Act of 1917. Because of the broken propeller in a US port, the ship was siezed as an act of sabotage. The Belevede was renamed Audicious and flew a Panamanian flag, and was eventually returned to Italy after the war.
In May, 1941, a friend of my mother's father, Alphredo Cicolato, was arrested along with other World's Fair emplotees, and arrived in Ft. Missoula in July, 1941. Some of this info comes from my father-in-law's letters, and can be backed up thru internet historical documents. It is a true story.
GN_Fan The US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese. Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II. The ship was siezed BEFORE the war because of the Espionage Act of 1917. Because of the broken propeller in a US port, the ship was siezed as an act of sabotage. The Belevede was renamed Audicious and flew a Panamanian flag, and was eventually returned to Italy after the war. In May, 1941, a friend of my mother's father, Alphredo Cicolato, was arrested along with other World's Fair emplotees, and arrived in Ft. Missoula in July, 1941. Some of this info comes from my father-in-law's letters, and can be backed up thru internet historical documents. It is a true story.
We "cut off" their oil, but somehow they managed to wage war against us for 4 years afterwards.
Reality TV is to reality, what Professional Wrestling is to Professional Brain Surgery.
GN_FanThe US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese. Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II.
Japan had also seized a large portion of China before Pearl Harbor, as well. The American gunboat Panay had been sunk in a Chinese river, too.
The ship was interred, along with 116 others belonging to 11 other countries. The sailor's of most of the ships were given the option of being repatriated, most of the Italians refused. So they were left on their ships. In early June it became apparent that the war was going to involve the US too. As they were not soldiers, the merchant marine sailor's status was unclear. A few of the sailors became restless in their confinement on board their ships and damaged them, this was the pretext used to invoke the Espionage Act on June 6th, 1941. Under the Act the sailor's were classified as POWs, this is the hearing that your Father-in-Law wrote about (note it would not be a trial) on June 8th.
With the "Phony War" over and France had fallen, the US Government was not going to have citizens of hostile governments moving freely around the US. All would have been offered the opportunity to leave the country, obviously this would be difficult for German, Italian, and their European Allies citizens. Shortly thereafter the US ordered the closing of all the German and Italian Consular offices in the US, only their Embassies were allowed to remain open. When these officials were sent back there may or may not been an opportunity for some of their citizens to return home. It is not well known but many US citizens living in Europe delayed returning home to the US at the start of World War 2 and were caught up by the course of the war, a significant group were trapped by the fall of France, some were sent to Concentration Camps in Germany, while others were put into camps in France. To bring this back to railroading one of the detainees in a German Camp in France was Stuart Knott, a past President of the Kansas City Southern Railway, he died in the camp at Grasse, France sometime in 1943.
A lot of what happened with Japan before and during WW2 didn't make it into the more common history books and/or have been forgotten. One episode the Japanese like to forget was the Rape of Nanking in 1938.
Japanese treatment of POW's was barbaric, many were executed after being tortured for information. As an example, the American aviators captured during the battle of Midway were thrown overboard with their legs tied to weighted buckets. What happened to George H W Bush's squadron mates was even worse.
The Japanese had tried to implemented various forms of "weapons of mass destruction" in particular biological and radiological weapons. One example is that they had sent a submarine with jars of bubonic plague infested fleas to the Marianna's - fortunately for Japan the sub was sunk en route, otherwise the US would have responded with massive chemical and biological weapons attacks against Japan.
To get back to "prison trains" - many of the Japanese internees were shipped to the camps by special passenger trains. While it was a sorry episode for the US, they were treated better than their civilian counterparts were treated by the Japanese.
I remember reading an account by a German P.O.W. He was amazed that transportation inland from the port of New York was in passenger cars, rather than cattle, or box cars. The trip was an eye opener.
The author's account suggests he traveled the old New York Central. He was staggered by the amount of industry viewable from the train. When he discovered that his train had only reached Buffalo, he realized all was lost. There was no way to overcome such resources.
This German P.O.W.'s experience was no Bataan Death March.
There was a smiliar account in Trains 20 years or so ago (well, maybe 40 years !?! - see below), except that the train went via the PRR and Horse Shoe Curve. As I recall, the prisoners were rather happy and boisterous at their good treatment by the U.S. However, as they rolled west through the central Pennsylvania valleys that reminded them of home, they grew quieter and sadder as they realized what they were missing.
I was thinking this was from a "Railroad Reading" story about an author's "Uncle Fritz" who was the only guy in the roundhouse who could set the valves right on an Erie K-class (?) Pacific, but who then disappeared - went back on an "unter-sea boat" ("U-boat" submarine). However, on further thought I believe instead it wsa from one of C. Grattan Price's collection of short stories from the WW II and shortly after period entitled "I Remember . . . " - as follows:
I remember Trains, November 1968 page 46 from Bucyrus to Belgium ( "PRICE, C. GRATTAN, JR.", REMINISCENCE, TRN )
"You could look it up." - Casey Stengel.
- Paul North.
Must not say it . . . becoming weak . . . losing self control . . . no . . .
Were there white box cars involved in this process?
Look what you people turned me into!
Gabe
gabe Must not say it . . . becoming weak . . . losing self control . . . no . . . Were there white box cars involved in this process? Look what you people turned me into! Gabe
In the 1940s, white box cars would have been about as common as black polar bears.
Chuck
Serious students of history know that in all wars that the truth is often the first caualty. The Second World War was no exception.
Before going further one must remember that the brutality of war is a very real thing and does not particularly know or care which side has the better cause. This was brought home to me when I was just a boy that had bought hook line and sinker the Hollywood version of WWII. My mother had a first cousin from South Georgia that was a US Army Medical Doctor during the Bataan Death March (he did not talk much about it). However there was no mistaking his feelings about that war, especially when talking about the Japanese. Being an honorable man he thought it best not spoken about but to work at not letting such a thing happen to his beloved country again.
There were POW trains that were used at transportation much like a troop train, but with bars in the windows and guards ever present. My hearing of them was from railroader kin folks that routed them on the Savannah and Atlanta (S&A), Atlanta Birmingham and Coast (AB&C), the Southern (SOU) and the Seaboard (SAL). They were called first leg trains by the railroad men. First leg meant that they were just off the boat from the war zones and were watched closely. One group as I understand it, was off loaded in Brunswick, GA near the marshes (Marshes of Glenn for the literary types). They were permitted to see out lying areas of the marshes and told of the many shipwrecks that had taken place and German submarines lost trying to navigate the approaches to the roads of the port and the alligators and sharks that inhabited the marshes (a bald face lie on the submarine part). Classic misinformation used as a weapon to prevent escapes.
Later in the war some of the German POW's were allowed to work on the farms around Waynesboro (Burke County) GA. No one talked much about that then or now, just that it happened. William Faulkner would have appreciated the situation and could have probably written a novel about that time in the country that is still occasionally known still as Tobacco Road Country.
That's about all I know on the subject, open to more information if anyone has it or can add or take away as needed.
PL
GN_FanThe US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese.
The US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese.
That's an opinion of the cause of the Japanese declaring war on the U.S.
Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II.
The first statement is one of opinion, the second is one of fact. Here's the numbers in 1939, in order of size of fleet (# of vessels, gross deadweight tonnage)
It should be noted that the US cut off the flow of oil to Japan 10 years after the Japanese invaded Manchuria, so it wasn't like it was a snap decision. Besides, by the time FDR's ultimatum came down, the Japanese were already practicing the Pearl Harbor attack.
There are still areas of China that suffer occasional cases of Bubonic Plague - because the Japanese used it against the Chinese during the war, seeding the soil with it and then falling back to allow the Chinese to come forward and occupy the area.
The story of FDR's provacation of the Japenese before Pearl Harbor is told in the book 'Day of Deceit The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett.
Mac
RWM and GN_Fan -
I suspect you guys are both right in your own way, but are "posting past each other" - you know, like "2 ships passing in the night" !
Of course, the U.S. has had a merchant marine "in fact" as in a commercial shipping fleet since the founding of the Republic. [point to RWM] However, it was not officially established and sanctioned "in law" as a branch of the U.S government and military services until the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 [point to GN_Fan - conceding that 1936 = WW II]. All clear on that now ?
I have a minor interest in all this becasuse the guy who really nurtured my railfan interest was Ernest Matzig - an old family friend of my then-deceased grandfather - who was a licensed ship's Chief Engineer, a member of the Merchant Marine, and who had a couple ships sunk underneath him off the Atlantic coast by German submarines during WW II. During the time I knew him he worked for Bethlehem Steel Company, mainly aboard their ore-carriers Venore and Marore, which however were then frequently chartered to carry U.S. surplus grain to the USSR and India*, among other places. We often met him when his ship came into either Philadelphia or Baltimore to unload. Every couple of years he had to go to the U.S. Coast Guard office off Battery Point in New York City to renew his license, and he often took me along by train from the Reading RR's Jenkintown Station to the CNJ terminal (I guess - I was pretty young then). He and I also used to go and train-watch - in the early and mid-1960's - in Fort Washington, PA where the PRR's Trenton Cut-Off - electrified & double tracks - crossed a trestle over the Reading's Bethlehem Branch - also electrified & double tracks, which also had commuter trains. Perhaps needless to say, but that was a busy place back then ! When applying to colleges, I was also accepted into the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London, but declined. of course, I sometimes now wonder "What if ?" Anyway, thanks, Uncle Ernest - R.I.P.
* - In his retirement years, Ernest lived with his brother and sister-in-law in St. Louis, where there were then (and now) occasional brutal heat waves. However, after enduring 120-degree heat in the engine room while unloading in or near Calcutta (now Kolkata), he had no problems with the heat: "I don't understand what everyone is complaining about - feels OK to me, and it helps my arthritis ! "
From the Wikipedia article on the United States Merchant Marine, at about halfway down the web page found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine
"The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 was enacted "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well-balanced American merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, to aid in the national defense, to repeal certain former legislation, and for other purposes."
Specifically, the Act established the United States Maritime Commission and required a United States Merchant Marine that consists of U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed and U.S.-owned vessels capable of carrying all domestic and a substantial portion of foreign water-borne commerce which can serve as a naval auxiliary in time of war or national emergency."
Paul_D_North_JrRWM and GN_Fan - I suspect you guys are both right in your own way, but are "posting past each other" - you know, like "2 ships passing in the night" ! Of course, the U.S. has had a merchant marine "in fact" as in a commercial shipping fleet since the founding of the Republic. [point to RWM] However, it was not officially established and sanctioned "in law" as a branch of the U.S government and military services until the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 [point to GN_Fan - conceding that 1936 = WW II]. All clear on that now ? I have a minor interest in all this becasuse the guy who really nurtured my railfan interest was Ernest Matzig - an old family friend of my then-deceased grandfather - who was a licensed ship's Chief Engineer, a member of the Merchant Marine, and who had a couple ships sunk underneath him off the Atlantic coast by German submarines during WW II. During the time I knew him he worked for Bethlehem Steel Company, mainly aboard their ore-carriers Venore and Marore, which however were then frequently chartered to carry U.S. surplus grain to the USSR and India*, among other places. We often met him when his ship came into either Philadelphia or Baltimore to unload. Every couple of years he had to go to the U.S. Coast Guard office off Battery Point in New York City to renew his license, and he often took me along by train from the Reading RR's Jenkintown Station to the CNJ terminal (I guess - I was pretty young then). He and I also used to go and train-watch - in the early and mid-1960's - in Fort Washington, PA where the PRR's Trenton Cut-Off - electrified & double tracks - crossed a trestle over the Reading's Bethlehem Branch - also electrified & double tracks, which also had commuter trains. Perhaps needless to say, but that was a busy place back then ! When applying to colleges, I was also accepted into the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London, but declined. of course, I sometimes now wonder "What if ?" Anyway, thanks, Uncle Ernest - R.I.P. - Paul North. * - In his retirement years, Ernest lived with his brother and sister-in-law in St. Louis, where there were then (and now) occasional brutal heat waves. However, after enduring 120-degree heat in the engine room while unloading in or near Calcutta (now Kolkata), he had no problems with the heat: "I don't understand what everyone is complaining about - feels OK to me, and it helps my arthritis ! " From the Wikipedia article on the United States Merchant Marine, at about halfway down the web page found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine "The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 was enacted "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well-balanced American merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, to aid in the national defense, to repeal certain former legislation, and for other purposes." Specifically, the Act established the United States Maritime Commission and required a United States Merchant Marine that consists of U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed and U.S.-owned vessels capable of carrying all domestic and a substantial portion of foreign water-borne commerce which can serve as a naval auxiliary in time of war or national emergency."
Paul, what nation if any did have a merchant marine as a uniformed branch of the armed services in 1936? To say the U.S. had no merchant marine implies that others did -- please point me to them, and point me to how significant they were in terms of DWT, number of ships, or market share.
Take a look at Rene de la Pedraja, "The Rise and Decline of U.S. Merchant Shipping in the 20th Century." It's the standard text on the subject. I don't think anyone in the industry would ever agree that the U.S. had no merchant marine prior to WWII, except as a hair-splitting exercise.
RWM
PNWRMNMThe story of FDR's provacation of the Japenese before Pearl Harbor is told in the book 'Day of Deceit The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett. Mac
It's a story, all right.
Railway Man Paul_D_North_Jr [ snip] Of course, the U.S. has had a merchant marine "in fact" as in a commercial shipping fleet since the founding of the Republic. [point to RWM] However, it was not officially established and sanctioned "in law" as a branch of the U.S government and military services until the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 [point to GN_Fan - conceding that 1936 = WW II]. All clear on that now ? [snip] From the Wikipedia article on the United States Merchant Marine, at about halfway down the web page found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine "The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 was enacted "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well-balanced American merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, to aid in the national defense, to repeal certain former legislation, and for other purposes." Specifically, the Act established the United States Maritime Commission and required a United States Merchant Marine that consists of U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed and U.S.-owned vessels capable of carrying all domestic and a substantial portion of foreign water-borne commerce which can serve as a naval auxiliary in time of war or national emergency." Paul, what nation if any did have a merchant marine as a uniformed branch of the armed services in 1936? To say the U.S. had no merchant marine implies that others did -- please point me to them, and point me to how significant they were in terms of DWT, number of ships, or market share. Take a look at Rene de la Pedraja, "The Rise and Decline of U.S. Merchant Shipping in the 20th Century." It's the standard text on the subject. I don't think anyone in the industry would ever agree that the U.S. had no merchant marine prior to WWII, except as a hair-splitting exercise. RWM
Paul_D_North_Jr [ snip] Of course, the U.S. has had a merchant marine "in fact" as in a commercial shipping fleet since the founding of the Republic. [point to RWM] However, it was not officially established and sanctioned "in law" as a branch of the U.S government and military services until the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 [point to GN_Fan - conceding that 1936 = WW II]. All clear on that now ? [snip] From the Wikipedia article on the United States Merchant Marine, at about halfway down the web page found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine "The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 was enacted "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well-balanced American merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, to aid in the national defense, to repeal certain former legislation, and for other purposes." Specifically, the Act established the United States Maritime Commission and required a United States Merchant Marine that consists of U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed and U.S.-owned vessels capable of carrying all domestic and a substantial portion of foreign water-borne commerce which can serve as a naval auxiliary in time of war or national emergency."
We have a saying here in our office: "That's not a trench I want to die in." I'm going to invoke that principle now, on this subject.
To clarify: I was not (and am not) intending to address the military status of the merchant marines of other nations - my minor interest is in the merchant marine of the U.S. (only). From the context and paragraphing of the original post by GN_Fan on 03-01-2009 at 4:11 AM that "Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II." - I'm not quite sure what his point was, or what implication can be fairly drawn from it. (Reading minds is not one of my professional degrees, nor is it an amateur interest - I'd rather that GN_Fan speak for himself on all this.) I was merely pointing out that my understanding is that the U.S. Merchant Marine (only) - note the capital "M"s - was not officially organized and established as military branch until the 1936 Act. For sure I was not (and am not) intending to say anything at all about the status of any other countries' merchant marines, so I was not intending - either expressly or inndirectly - to imply anything at all about them, either.
Your inference and conclusion seems reasonable and justified - that the objective purpose of the statement and its structure was to compare the U.S. merchant marine's status with others - but I'm not seeing that from the context. Instead, it seems to me as if he's saying that the U.S. used the broken propeller as a pretext to seize the ship so as to build up the U.S. merchant marine fleet - but that's just my interpretation. Whether that was his intent - and whether any of that is actually true, correct, and complete - I have no knowedge, do not defend it, and am not really interested in discussing further.
Nor am I saying that the U.S. had no actual merchant marine prior to WW II - "de facto", as in a whole lot of real ships - though again, I'm not sure what GN_Fan's intent or point was here, either. There are way too many photos of ships and docks for me to make such an absurd assertion - and I have no interest in splitting those hairs. (Am I missing some unrecognized nuance here ?)
Finally, another oft-used turn of phrase from our office, to sum up what I get for sticking my nose into this thread in "good faith" and and trying to straighten out what then appeared to me to be be well-intentioned and inadvertent confusion: "No good deed goes unpunished."
But thanks for the reference to the book anyway - I hadn't heard of it before, and I'm always interested in such things.
WARNING: WANSWHEEL"s german pow photos have a worm. Sir please delete your post!!!!
Eric take notice
Well....this did who thing didn't turn out like I'd expected, but I guess that's the way it goes. I learned a lot of stuff, one of which was that I'm not a very good historian, and I stand corrected on a number of issues, but the most important thing I think is that not a whole lot is known about the trains themselves.
Prior to my wife finding her father's letters, we possessed a ship's clock that her father had said was taken from the Leme just prior to it's scrapping in the mid 50's. The clock is a normal ship's clock, heavy steel painted black, but whatt was intrigueing about it was that it was built by the Sun Ship Building and Drydock Co. of Chester, PA. My question was why is an American clock mounted on an Italian ship? The quest started for us, and it was learned that a whole bunch of ships were taken over by the US Maritime Commission and used in the war effort. We surmised that the Leme was retrofitted in the US before being given to the British Minisry of War Transport, who renamed it Lowlander. Up to this point I had no idea of the history behind the confiscations...only that my father-in-law was a POW at Ft. Missoula, and that he was taken prisoner in Philadelphia.
The discovery of my father-in-laws letters started us again wondering, as he mentioned that the crew was interred in Glouster...state unknown, and after some time there were trials or whatever you want to call them. He was a very likable man, and some on the crew were trying to get him back to Italy. However, that was a long process, and everyone but him was shipped to Ft. Missoula, leaving him virtually the only prisoner in camp. After three months of being alone and realising the futility of everything, he decided to go to Ft. Missoula to be with his crew. That was where the prison train came in, and the references to people from Savannah, GA and the bars on the windows.
Over the course of years, his letters changed from very romantic to very practical, and it became clear that he had given up on returning home. After Italy switched sides, the prisoners were "free" in a sense, as they were given jobs, and he worked at the hospital in Great Falls. At the end of the war, many prisoners remained in the US, and we met two of them in Missoula, when we lived close by in the '70's. He returned to a ruined Italy in 1946, vowing never to return to the sea, a promise he kept. Just before he died of cancer in 1965, he made it....he basically was the Italian equivalent of a CEO for the Trieste branch of Italia Navigazione...the Italian Steamship Lines.
For what it's worth, that ship's clock is mounted on the wall where I type this letter...his old study. It's a story that cries for further study. And again, sorry about the inaccuracies.
Roger
On the subject of Prison Trains in the last year of WW II my dad served as a guard at Fort Leavenworth Kansas and has often related the story of trains coming to the Fort with German SS troops and some Italian prisoners. He said that most had been captured in the Italian Campaign but related very little about them being any kind of special trains other than having lots of US Army armed guards. In any event he said as soon as the war ended they were sent back to Germany and Italy as fast as they could get them out of Kansas. He always said the Italians were model prisoners but the SS troops could not be trusted. He related how a couple of SS prisoners killed one of the US Army soldiers in an escape attempt and were subsequently tried and shot.
Al - in - Stockton
Iowa is believed to have had the largest concentration of prisoners on a per capita basis. The main camp was in north central Iowa at Algona (served by the C&NW and the Milwaukee), but there were 30-odd sub-camps scattered through Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here in South Dakota, we had camps at Sioux Falls and Yankton. Prisoners could volunteer to work for local farmers, especially during harvest season, and there was the farmer's daughter connection. Even now, when you encounter a man of a certain age with a German or Italian accent, there is a good chance he first came here as a POW.
Some of the German POW's were housed in Reidsville, GA (+/- 70 miles SW of Savannah) at what was then the state's only maximum security prison. My guess is they weren't housed in the prison itself but in a camp on the prison farm, which was and is pretty large. The POW's may have been available to all local farmers for labor when needed, but my grandfather used them some because both of his sons were in the Army at various times.
Dakguy201 Iowa is believed to have had the largest concentration of prisoners on a per capita basis. The main camp was in north central Iowa at Algona (served by the C&NW and the Milwaukee), but there were 30-odd sub-camps scattered through Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here in South Dakota, we had camps at Sioux Falls and Yankton. Prisoners could volunteer to work for local farmers, especially during harvest season, and there was the farmer's daughter connection. Even now, when you encounter a man of a certain age with a German or Italian accent, there is a good chance he first came here as a POW.
When I was growing up in Richfield Minnesota my friend's Dad applied to join the local VFW in the 70's. That wasn't unusual as many of us were the kids of servicemen from the war. His application was going thru fine until they had trouble matching up his information with military records. Finally they figured out that he had been in the Wehrmacht, not the US Army.
I didn't ask too much about his Dad's military record as it was a bit of a touchy issue, but I wonder now if he first came to MN as a POW?? I hadn't realized there were so many POW camps here in the upper Midwest.
Oh by the way...No, they didn't let him join the VFW.
Some mid western farmers were very pleased with their prison labor. One story I heard told that when the war ended, one farmer argued with authorities wanting to keep his "hired hand." The hired man was in no hurry to head home. His home was a pile of rubble. The "hired hand" returned to the area legally a few years later.
Many ex-POWs emigrated legally to America after the war and settled in the upper mid west. One tale tells of a vermacht veteran receiving benefits beyond VFW membership.
The man went to the bank to buy a house a few years after the war. Banks were swamped with GI housing loans. The loan officer asked the new citizen applicant if he had been in the army during WWII.
The applicant answered truthfully and the loan officer shoved some papers at him saying sign these. The applicant tried telling the loan officer for whom he fought, but was cut short. The loan officer told him just sign the papers if he wanted his house. The veteran complied and got his GI loan.
A few years later, the feds caught up to the oversight. The veteran did not get in trouble and made up the cost difference. I never did hear what happened to the loan officer.
PNWRMNM The story of FDR's provacation of the Japenese before Pearl Harbor is told in the book 'Day of Deceit The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett. Mac
Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. By Robert B. Stinnett. New York: The Free Press, 2000, 386 pages. $26.00. Americans have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. At the top of our pantheon of paranoia are the myriad hypotheses surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Close behind are the continuing arguments that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately provoked and allowed the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in order to galvanize a reluctant American public into supporting national participation in World War II. This lingering suspicion is partly responsible for the recent drive to exonerate the commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short, for their responsibility in the disaster on 7 December 1941.The latest book expounding this well-worn theory is Robert B. Stinnett's Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. The author is a World War II Navy veteran who became a photographer and journalist for the Oakland Tribune. He has done some admirable and dogged primary research, filing innumerable requests under the Freedom of Information Act and spending many long hours searching in archives, and he demonstrates a journalist's knack for presenting a sensational story. The end result is an apparently damning indictment of FDR and his Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, many naval officers above and below Admiral Kimmel, and the military intelligence community. Unfortunately the author failed to do much basic secondary historical research and has a tendency to leap to conclusions based on questionable or erroneous interpretations of evidence. This is a dangerous book that will dupe unsuspecting readers who misinterpret the author's earnestness and technical explanations as signs of balance and accur acy, and it will perpetuate myths that should have long been forgotten. At the core of Stinnett's case is a memorandum written by Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence, in October 1940. Stinnett interprets it as outlining eight actions designed to provoke Japan into war, and while he cannot prove FDR ever saw the document, Stinnett accepts it as the blueprint for the American actions in the Pacific leading to Pearl Harbor. Once he allegedly decided to sacrifice the Pacific Fleet, FDR carefully placed fellow conspirators in key positions, such as when he sent the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Walter Anderson, to command the fleet battleships. Stinnett continues to weave his web of conspiracy by arguing that for decades naval and intelligence organizations have covered up the fact that key information from radio intercepts and code-breaking revealing exact Japanese intentions was withheld from Kimmel and Short to ensure their unpreparedness.
Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. By Robert B. Stinnett. New York: The Free Press, 2000, 386 pages. $26.00.
Americans have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. At the top of our pantheon of paranoia are the myriad hypotheses surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Close behind are the continuing arguments that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately provoked and allowed the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in order to galvanize a reluctant American public into supporting national participation in World War II. This lingering suspicion is partly responsible for the recent drive to exonerate the commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short, for their responsibility in the disaster on 7 December 1941.
At the core of Stinnett's case is a memorandum written by Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence, in October 1940. Stinnett interprets it as outlining eight actions designed to provoke Japan into war, and while he cannot prove FDR ever saw the document, Stinnett accepts it as the blueprint for the American actions in the Pacific leading to Pearl Harbor. Once he allegedly decided to sacrifice the Pacific Fleet, FDR carefully placed fellow conspirators in key positions, such as when he sent the Director of Naval Intelligence, Rear Admiral Walter Anderson, to command the fleet battleships. Stinnett continues to weave his web of conspiracy by arguing that for decades naval and intelligence organizations have covered up the fact that key information from radio intercepts and code-breaking revealing exact Japanese intentions was withheld from Kimmel and Short to ensure their unpreparedness.
Sorry to be a nit-picker, but Amtrak and Metro North both use the former NYCRR main line on the East bank of the Hudson. There has been no passenger service on the former West Shore line on the West bank for many years. There is some talk of reviving commuter service on the West Shore line but nothing definite yet.
Poppa_ZitPNWRMNM The story of FDR's provacation of the Japenese before Pearl Harbor is told in the book 'Day of Deceit The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett. Mac Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. By Robert B. Stinnett. New York: The Free Press, 2000, 386 pages. $26.00. Americans have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. At the top of our pantheon of paranoia are the myriad hypotheses surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Close behind are the continuing arguments that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately provoked and allowed the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in order to galvanize a reluctant American public into supporting national participation in World War II. This lingering suspicion is partly responsible for the recent drive to exonerate the commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short, for their responsibility in the disaster on 7 December 1941.- snip - Stinnett continues to weave his web of conspiracy by arguing that for decades naval and intelligence organizations have covered up the fact that key information from radio intercepts and code-breaking revealing exact Japanese intentions was withheld from Kimmel and Short to ensure their unpreparedness.
Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. By Robert B. Stinnett. New York: The Free Press, 2000, 386 pages. $26.00. Americans have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. At the top of our pantheon of paranoia are the myriad hypotheses surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Close behind are the continuing arguments that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt deliberately provoked and allowed the destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, in order to galvanize a reluctant American public into supporting national participation in World War II. This lingering suspicion is partly responsible for the recent drive to exonerate the commanders at Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Kimmel and Lieutenant General Walter Short, for their responsibility in the disaster on 7 December 1941.- snip - Stinnett continues to weave his web of conspiracy by arguing that for decades naval and intelligence organizations have covered up the fact that key information from radio intercepts and code-breaking revealing exact Japanese intentions was withheld from Kimmel and Short to ensure their unpreparedness.
- snip -
Stinnett continues to weave his web of conspiracy by arguing that for decades naval and intelligence organizations have covered up the fact that key information from radio intercepts and code-breaking revealing exact Japanese intentions was withheld from Kimmel and Short to ensure their unpreparedness.
One of the reasons why the FDR conspiracy theories get so much traction is that FDR actually was trying to provoke Germany and Japan to attack the US, though not in the way that Stinnett postulated. American public opinion was solidly against getting involved in the war even as late as the fall of 1941, largely due to the horrendous losses in the last five months of WW1 (which would be the equivalent now of losing 30,000 GI's per month now) and due to backlash from the WW1 propaganda (which is probably where Orwell got many of his ideas for 1984). WW1 also had a significant negative impact on the RR industry.
One of the more eye opening books on the intelligence failures with respect to Pearl Harbor was written by Eddie Layton, who was Kimmel's and Nimitz's intelligence officer. His description of what happened sounds more like something out of Dilbert strip than a conspiracy novel. He also noted that the Japanese failed to destroy the fuel tank farm at Pearl, which would have done more harm than the ships that were sunk in the attack.
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