Prisoners on the prairie

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JANET HAMOUS
Jewell Davis of Peabody remembers his World War II military police days as if they were yesterday-unloading trainloads of prisoners, taking his turn at the guard stations and eating the same rations as the prisoners.

But unlike many veterans who have never returned to the sites where they were stationed during the war, Davis has that opportunity every day.

Davis lives just three blocks north of the facility where he served as a guard in the Peabody POW camp during the war.

Davis, a Kentucky native, began his Army service with basic training at Fort Custer in Michigan.

“When I was halfway through the basic, we were loaded onto a train and sent to Boston,” he said. “We thought we were headed overseas, but we weren’t. We stayed there for about a week until about seven loads of prisoners came in. We loaded them into trains and delivered them to Tennessee to a prison camp.”

Davis later finished basic training and was sent in spring 1943 to Concordia, where a new prison camp had just been completed.

“Wheat was still growing around the barracks,” he said. “Two weeks later, we brought in 4,000 of Rommel’s men (part of Rommel’s Afrika Korps)-1,000 officers and 3,000 enlisted men.”

Due to the difficulty of feeding and housing prisoners in the war zone overseas, many prisoners were transported to the United States and kept in prison camps here.

Camps were established in several Midwestern states to ease the farm labor shortage caused by men serving in the war effort. Two large camps were established in Kansas at Concordia and near Salina. Later, branch camps were founded in other Kansas communities.

The POW camp in Peabody was opened in August 1943 in response to area farmers’ requests for prisoners to help with the harvest.

Originally, the camp was intended to be temporary, and tents were set up south of the old creamery site near Peabody.

Later, when the decision was made to keep the camp operational through the winter, a permanent camp was established in the Eyestone Building on West 2nd Street- now the Heckendorn Equipment Co.

By the time Davis was transferred to Peabody in June 1944, the camp had relocated to its new quarters in the Eyestone Building.

The building housed about 125 prisoners and 15 to 20 guards, said Davis. The guards slept in the 10 rooms upstairs. The downstairs was set up for the prisoners with bunk beds, a kitchen and a long table with chairs.

“The prisoners had their own cooks,” Davis said. “In fact, they fed us. We had the same rations the prisoners had-or they had the same rations that we had, however way you want to put it.”

During the day, most of the prisoners worked at area businesses and farms.

“They had them scattered around to do work on farms and places like the creamery in Hillsboro or in Newton, where they killed and cleaned chickens,” Davis said.

“Whoever needed prisoners would make arrangements the day before and they would pick them up the next morning,” he said. “They would serve them dinner during the day and bring them back, and we would check them back into camp for the night.”

The prisoners usually worked in groups of two to four men, Davis said.

Although the prisoners were not forced to work, in accordance with the articles of the Geneva Convention, most chose to work.

“The prisoners would rather be out there working than be shut up in that building,” Davis said.

Tony Gaines remembers several prisoners working on his parents’ farm near Peabody.

“We had four or five guys most of the time,” he said. “Dad would go in and pick them up and bring them out. They’d eat with us, and then when the evening came, he’d take them back in.”

Although the prisoners were forbidden from operating farm equipment or driving horses, those rules weren’t rigidly enforced.

“We had one fellow who was a jockey in Germany,” Gaines said. “We had three saddle horses. Most every evening before he went in, he would go down and drive the milk cows in because he liked to ride horses. We had one horse who was really a runner. He’d take him out and really let him go.

“Another guy was a farmer in Germany and he understood and could talk English so he would translate,” Gaines added. “He was a sergeant in the German Army. He was their boss; he told them what to do. If they did something they shouldn’t do, he would be all over their case.”

Gaines said the prisoners were invaluable because his father had lost two of his hired men when they were called to the war.

“We were fortunate. The ones we had were really good,” Gaines said.

“They did all kinds of things on the farm,” he added. “They shocked different crops, they drove tractors-whatever the season was, that’s what they did. In the spring they worked in fields, and they would work the ground. Dad would do the planting, but at harvest time they would shock the wheat and oats, and then in the fall they would shock the sorghum crops.”

After a while, the farm families came to think of the prisoners as regular workers.

“They sat around the table and ate lunch with us every day,” Gaines said.

Employers were required to pay 40 cents per hour for each prisoner.

“The farmer paid the government and the prisoners got a take,” Davis said. “I think they got about 60 cents or 70 cents a day, which in the PX (post exchange) would buy a lot of cigarettes and candy bars for a nickel or a dime. They were tickled to death with that.”

For recreation, the prisoners “would go out and play soccer and work out,” Davis said. “On the east side of the building, there was a bull pen, and they would come out in the open and play catch or run around in the sunshine.”

Davis said every so often the guards would walk the prisoners to a show at the Sunflower Theater downtown. Although the movie was a closed session and not open to the public, the prisoners were allowed to see regular films and world news.

On Sundays, the prisoners were permitted to use the athletic field to play soccer until some local high school students appeared one Sunday to “demonstrate” against this practice. A scuffle ensued, which resulted in an investigation. The prisoners were no longer allowed to use the field for their games.

Davis said on the whole, the guards had little trouble with the prisoners.

Only the most cooperative prisoners were placed in the branch camps, and the prisoners sent to Peabody were well behaved and needed minimal supervision.

“If they didn’t qualify to work, they would stay in Fort Riley,” Davis said. “They were very careful to try to do the right thing. There was a sergeant who kept his men under control.”

If a prisoner did become a problem, Davis said he was quickly shipped off to Fort Riley.

Davis and the other guards rotated shifts and spent most of their time in one of the three guard stations, he said. There were guard towers on the back corner of the camp and on the southwest corner of the street and another station in the front office.

“Every now and then I would check on the prisoners who were out working,” he said. “At first there would be a guard with every three prisoners, and then they changed the rule about the time I came and we would just check them out and check them in.”

Although there were few serious incidents involving prisoners, some locals and many people outside the community were concerned about the apparent lax security. The press was particularly vocal in its complaints, as were soldiers fighting other Germans in Europe.

Allegations were made that the prisoners were being coddled. In August 1944, the Wichita Beacon reported the prisoners were having a “field day” and said, “The laxity shown in guarding the prisoners here can only impress the Nazis with our softness and is giving them every opportunity to ‘case’ this country for another stab at world conquest.”

This sentiment was aggravated when members of the press witnessed three wives of farmers returning prisoners to the camp without male escorts.

Local farmers defended the practice, saying it enabled the farmers to stay in the fields while their wives transported the prisoners back to camp. But the issue caused considerable publicity, and women were then prohibited from transporting the prisoners.

Just how well the prisoners should be treated was a point of much discussion. Some people felt the prisoners should be treated poorly as the enemies they were. Another faction believed the prisoners should be treated well and see firsthand how America and Americans were different from their portrayal in Nazi propaganda.

The side advocating good treatment won out, and Davis said the prisoners were treated well.

“We didn’t like it at first, but we knew what they were trying to do,” he said. “If there was another war, they would put the white flag up in a minute. It really paid off.”

After the war, the camp was closed and the prisoners returned to Germany. But many of them came back to the United States to live, Davis said. More have returned to Peabody to visit.

Davis himself returned to Peabody after being sent overseas toward the end of the war. He and five other guards had met and married Peabody girls while stationed in Peabody.

“I got married Oct. 3, 1944, at 8:35 one evening over at Marion in the courthouse-I had to lie about my age,” he chuckled.

Davis and wife Naomi recently celebrated their 59th anniversary.

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