Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Historical Perspective

by David W. Jackson

Prisoners on the homefront

As we commemorate departed loved ones on Memorial Day, you might be interested in knowing that the Jackson County Historical Society continues to march forward with the Veterans History Project in collaboration with the Library of Congress. Volunteers working with the Society have collectively gathered more than 1,200 oral history interviews from local veterans and civilians that supported wartime efforts. We also collect donations of original documents and photographs, all of which are permanently preserved in the Society’s Archives where they will remain accessible for generations to come.

Among an infinite variety of personal stories collected is one that hits close to home. Did you know that for a time during World War II Jackson County was crawling with enemy soldiers?

This was no invasion. Rather these Germans and Italians were part of a national campaign that brought more than 400,000 Axis prisoners of war (POWs) to the United States for internment. More than 15,000 POWs were dispersed between about 30 camps in Missouri between 1942-1945. Though only one camp was located in Jackson County at Atherton, Missouri, POW camps were established at Riverside, Orrick, and Liberty.

POWs worked at labor-intensive jobs for local farmers under light supervision. They were housed in standard U.S. Army field tents inside a five-acre pasture ringed with barbed wire. Overall, they enjoyed an unbelievably risk-free containment. They arrived as enemies, but in many cases left as friends, or at the least, with a more positive view of the United States.

A secondary benefit was that POWs in Jackson County replenished the drain on the American work force during World War II, and in some cases, saved much-needed crops from devastation. 50,000 one-hundred-pound bags of potatoes were produced by Italian POWs in 1943, for instance.

The 1944 camp consisted of German prisoners brought in to help with potato crops. Atherton resident Gale Fulghum, said that compared to the Italians the “Germans on the other hand were all business. They were the elite Aryans from General Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Some were “dyed-in-the-wool” Nazis....” “Nazis Arrogance Irks Atherton,” read the headline in one newspaper article from that time period; it went on to note the Germans were whistling at local girls.

By 1945, Jackson County potato growers relied on POW labor. The Germans at the Atherton camp that summer had a special visitor one day: “One day we were told to stay in camp and not go to the fields because we were going to have one of the greatest visitors in the United States to see us,” said Walter Meier, who worked at Atherton before being transferred to the camp at Marshall, Mo. “It was President Truman, and we shined up our shoes - really. He only spoke about a minute, but he said, ‘the war is over and you’ll be going home soon.’”

Shortly after that, the Germans left Jackson County for eventual repatriation to Europe. Though their work was significant--POWs helped harvest between 1,000 and 1,200 railcar loads of potatoes from the 2,500 acres under cultivation in 1945--only faint memories remain of their time here.

The Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society welcomes donations of original materials that help to document this and other chapters of local history. Information and materials that we’ve gathered are made available for research and end up in books (like David Fiedler’s “The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II;” documentaries; and even community and personal family histories.

Perhaps one of the best memorials any of us may leave behind is a collection of historical materials preserved at your local historical society.

Privacy Statement