Posted on 10/30/2021 11:28:57 PM PDT by citizen
There were about half a dozen prisoner of war camps in Tennessee during World War II — the best known of which was Camp Crossville, in Cumberland County. We know a lot more about Camp Crossville than the others because of Gerhard Hennes.
Hennes was a German officer captured in North Africa in May 1943. Five months later, he entered the gates of Camp Crossville, where he was interred for two years.
After World War II, Hennes would become an American citizen, and in 2004 he published The Barbed Wire: POW in the USA. In it he gives a detailed description of life at Camp Crossville — a piece of real estate now occupied by the Clyde York 4-H Training Center.
Hennes and his fellow prisoners were treated better than any prisoners of war I’ve ever heard of. They were given new uniforms, they were not interrogated and they were mostly left to the authority of their own German officers.
The best part of Camp Crossville, Hennes claims, was the food. “There were three square meals a day,” he wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at elizabethton.com ...
Sure beats Siberia.
Yes they contributed....there was a model at a Corps facility near the camp at Raymond ..the camp was technically between Raymond and Clinton off Raymond road ....and at a Vicksburg ......I think
I saw them both with my dad when I was young
The POW camp was still standing.....looked like a bunch of army barracks facility ....fenced
Not anything serious like a prison
That usual army wooden yellows tan and white....but yes that model may still be there
There is a baseball field there named for my cousin Buddy Butts who died young at 32 of cancer.....he was a coach of little league forever
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/mississippi/pow-camp-tour-in-ms/
Our country treats POWs and illegals much better than it treats its own citizens.
Lol
Mississippi delta tamales are fairly famous ....i buy them in small paint cans
Hipsters now fetishize them in Nashville and offer them up in various fillers no longer just pork
I smother mine in homemade chili but I’ll use frozen skyline in a pinch over the top
Pass the nexium please....
I’m having Mexican today at some point kind of a Sunday family tradition like gumbo is for Christmas ...
Speaking of which...I bought three quarts last nite from Gumbo Brothers in the gulch downtown Music city
Braved the tourists and hipster throngs....Gumbo Bros is good...very good actually...for outside the coast or south Louisiana.
Anyhow I get home pickup up the bag...and the bottom falls out soaked ...bags had stayed straight up...but someone hadn’t sealed the quarts and bottom rotted...sixty bucks for family of five all over back carpet trunk of rented Mazda crossover
I was tempted to scoop up the best.. parts into my pelican mouth...confession....those plump shrimp didn’t get tossed...floating on the “debris”
My wife called them and they issued a credit or gift card# immediately ....very apologetic
It’s quite good...I believe it’s black Louisiana owned with one in Brooklyn and here ...
Anyhow you can tell I’m damn hungry ...I salvaged the remoulade and fried shrimp last nite and we opened a can Blue Runner read beans and made rice and were good....Blue Runner from Baton Rouge makes excellent red beans and rice prepared beans.....chop some andouille in and they are good...truly a stellar product like anything Savoies is too...for bottled roux in an emergency
Publix sells Blue Runner..I highly recommend them.....if you like red beans and rice
There were actually some smaller ones, mostly used for labor.
https://library.greensboro-nc.gov/research/north-carolina-collection/highlights/nazi-pow-camp-in-greensboro
Was Gretna Van Fleet a war wife?
There was at least one in Texas.
L
Geiger Lake and Camp Shelby had a German POW camp there also. They improved the area while they were there considerably. They could escape but where to?
The US hosted German POWs in both WW, in the first one, and possibly the second one, they worked fill-behind in agriculture. They had no incentive to try to escape, because of the Atlantic. I know a woman whose father was a German POW in WWII, liked it here, went back after the war to wrap up his affairs in his homeland, and became a US citizen. In the American Revolution, captured Hessians sometimes opted to not go back, seeing a better future for themselves here.
I lived close to the Experimental Station back in the 70’s and 80’s when I worked at Grand Gulf. The models were still there.
German POWs in Iowa built a large Christmas Nativity scene that has been fully restored and is open to the public every year.
The Nativity scene the Germans built
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2016/12/22/enduring-christmas-gift-german-pows-gave-iowa/95331578/
Read a lot of history and missed this totally.
Also have not been able to figure out how my Grandfather and his brother who went through the Bolshevik Revolution as a Kulak in Ukraine was able to make it to the US and their first job was in the US army during WWI.
“if you like red beans and rice”
Well I do. My mom’s family are old New Orleans, and moved to west Texas when she was a little girl. So the family cuisine morphed into a sort of Tex-Mex Creole. I grew up on Mexican food when it was unknown to the vast majority of America. Some Mexican foods are the same as Louisiana anyway, rice and beans being one.
My grandparent’s west Texas farm employed German POWs.
And my Army Captain father could well have processed those same POWs in North Africa. That was his first task upon arriving in the European Theater.
They had a tough Jewish officer whose job was to separate the SS out of the German ranks- SS had easily identifiable arm tattoos- I don’t think the average German soldier had any affection for them.
One of the German soldiers being processed spoke good English. He said “I feel sorry for you. Our war is over and we go to the U.S. You continue to fight.”
The rule at the time apparently was that you were to be put in a camp at the same latitude as where you were captured. North Africa is on a line with the American South.
Thanks for the tip on Blue Runner. I’m going to look for those the next time I’m near Publix. I love a good pot of red beans and have always made them from scratch but then I end up eating them for lunch and dinner for the next two or three days.
Finished em off tonight
I kept wondering what’s that distinct taste like I recall my grandma used
Cottonseed oil.....some folks would put a cup of coffee or a spoon of grounds in too
https://bluerunnerfoods.com/product/creole-cream-style-red-beans/
Hi.
I grew up in Clewiston, FL and there was a POW camp near the municipal airport. Between the camp and what you could call downtown, was Harlem. Jim Crow era.
Anyway, when the war ended, about 75% of the Germans and Italians stayed.
5.56mm
Yep. Plenty of POW camps in the US.
IF the Germans (and maybe the Japanese) had known what awaited them in US POW camps, they might have surrendered faster. Some of the Germans actually stayed on.
Meanwhile, Allied troops in German camps were malnourished, not because the Nazis were bastards, but because there simply wasn’t food to feed them!
And lets not get into Japanese POW camps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.