North Carolina at Home and in Battle in World War II:
Sample Article and Assignment, 
taken from Session 4, The Home Front

A Long Way from Home: Prisoners of War in North Carolina during World War II
By Tom Belton, curator of military history
 
The crew of the U-352, sunk off the Outer Banks, became the first German POWs confined in the United States. They were initially imprisoned at Fort Bragg, where this photo was taken. U.S. Army photo.
 One of the least-known stories of World War II is the internment of more than four hundred thousand enemy soldiers from Germany, Italy, and Japan on American soil. By the end of the war in 1945, the United States government had established 155 base camps and more than 500 branch camps for prisoners of war (POWs) in forty-five of the forty-eight continental states (the exceptions were North Dakota, Nevada, and Vermont). Most of these facilities went up in the South and Southwest, which offered isolation, security, and a warm climate.

North Carolina received its first group of POWs when German sailors rescued from U-boat 352, which sank off the coast on May 9, 1942, were confined at Fort Bragg. The War Department eventually set up seventeen base and branch camps across the state at the following sites:

  • Butner (base camp)
  • Ahoskie
  • Camp MacKall
  • Camp Davis
  • Camp Sutton
  • Carthage
  • Edenton
  • Greensboro 
  • Hendersonville 
  • Roanoke Rapids
  • Scotland Neck
  • Whiteville
  • Williamston
  • Winston-Salem 
  • Fort Bragg (base camp)
    • New Bern
    • Seymour Johnson Air Base
    • Wilmington
The Geneva Convention provided that the living quarters and rations of prisoners of war equal that of the captor country’s forces. The United States generally treated POWs well and hoped that the Axis governments would reciprocate by treating American soldiers fairly. POWs in this country were housed either in tents with wood heaters or in heated barracks constructed from pine lumber and covered with tar paper siding and roofs. The prisoners, most of whom were German, were astonished by the amount and quality of the food they received. They found that life in an American POW camp was much more luxurious than life in the German army. During their free time, they formed music bands, worked on art projects, grew flower and vegetable gardens, and played their favorite sport from back home—soccer.


Prisoners often made items to trade, sell, or give away. This watercolor landscape of the barracks at Camp Butner was painted in 1945 and signed “E Kamler.” It came to the museum by way of the niece of a guard at that camp, who may have purchased it or received it as a gift.

The Geneva Convention also allowed captor nations to employ POWs as long as the men were well cared for and did not work in war-related jobs. Consequently, enemy prisoners became an important source of labor in the United States, which faced a shortage of manpower caused by military enlistments and conscription. Most POWs in North Carolina performed agricultural work such as planting and harvesting crops. Others cut timber for pulpwood or labored on military bases. Prisoners hired out to private contractors earned the same pay as regular workers. However, they received only eighty cents per day, which went into their personal savings accounts or into coupons for use in the base canteen to purchase items such as candy, soft drinks, cigarettes, and soap. The remaining money from their labor went back to the United States government, and much of it was used to provide libraries, recreational equipment, and other comforts in camp.

Many of the German soldiers captured early in the war were members of the elite Afrika Korps, and they believed strongly in a Nazi victory. Those captured later had experienced firsthand the devastation brought on their country by the Allied armies, and they thought German defeat was inevitable. These two factions often clashed over their political views, and violence erupted in some camps. 
 
As the Allied victory approached, the War Department began to reeducate German POWs, teaching them about democracy and the American way of life before they returned home. At Camp MacKall in Richmond and Scotland Counties, prisoners organized political parties and voted on issues to understand the democratic process. POWs at Camp Butner north of Durham learned about tolerance when a local Jewish merchant provided them with hard-to-find band equipment. After viewing films of liberated concentration camps, one thousand men at that camp removed their uniforms and burned them in outrage. Yet some prisoners pointed out that widespread discrimination against African Americans and other minorities existed in the United States.
A clerk fingerprints a German POW arriving in the 
United States. U.S. Army photo.

With the return of peace, POWs in the United States continued to work until the American army was demobilized and the many thousands of veterans reentered the work force. Some German prisoners were moved to England or France for a year to help rebuild those shattered countries, but by 1947 most had returned home.

Despite the large number of enemy soldiers in this country, few attempted to escape, and even fewer succeeded. (Federal prisons saw more escape attempts than POW compounds during that time.) Most escapees were caught within a day or two, but Kurt Rossmeisl managed to avoid capture. Rossmeisl walked away from Camp Butner on August 4, 1945, and caught a train to Chicago. There he lived under the name Frank Ellis, obtained a social security card, found employment, and even joined a local Moose lodge. Tired of being on the run and fearful of capture, Rossmeisl finally turned himself in on May10, 1959, fourteen years after the end of the war. One German POW escapee remains unaccounted for today.

At the end of the war, all of the POW compounds in North Carolina were abandoned, and the land and many of the buildings were sold as surplus property. Today only a small number of people remember when prisoners of war lived, worked, and even played soccer in the Tar Heel State.

Suggested Readings
Robert H. Bailey, Prisoners of War (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1981).

Robert D. Billinger Jr., “Behind the Wire: German Prisoners of War at Camp Sutton, 1944–1946,” North Carolina Historical Review 61 (October 1984): 481–509.

Robert D. Billinger Jr., “Mysterious Nazi Prisoners Next Door,” Tar Heel Junior Historian 25 (spring 1986): 10–12.

Arnold Krammer, Nazi Prisoners of War in America (New York: Stein and Day, 1979).

John Hammond Moore, The Faust-Ball Tunnel: German POWs in America and Their Great Escape (New York: Random House, 1978).

Ron Robin, The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States during World War II (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).

Up to top

Assignment 5

Complete one of the following assignments:

Option 1 (Choose this option if you are seeking technology credits for this course.)
Test your on-line investigative skills by researching the following five items using only the Internet. After each answer list the steps you took to find the answers. (If any questions stump you, record and submit your search strategy.)

  1. What type of epidemic swept the North Carolina Piedmont in 1944?
  2. Find three Web sites that state the number of Japanese American civilians interned during World War II. Do the figures from the sites differ significantly? If so, which site do you trust the most and why?
  3. Find a Web site containing a lesson plan, article, image, or other information about the American or North Carolina World War II home front that would help you in your classroom. What is its address? How could you use it?
  4. Find a Web site that discusses children’s experiences in World War II in another country. What is its address?
  5. List at least five foods that were rationed in the United States during the war.
Option 2
Briefly research daily life on the southern home front during the Civil War. Write a short essay comparing the Civil War home front with the American home front during World War II. Your comparison can be broad or can focus on one or two aspects, such as shortages, changing women’s roles, children’s experiences, or propaganda.

Option 3
Popular culture—movies, music, media, cartoons, fashion, fads, toys, literature, etc.—relates important information about larger political, social, and economic realms. Create a list of items of popular culture that will make the World War II home front come alive for your students. Briefly discuss how you could use those items in your classroom to teach about the home front.

Up to top

Back to Workshop Outline