Oklahoma Journeys

Week of October 5, 2008

German POW’s in Oklahoma, 1945

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As the allies were winning World War II in 1943 thru 1945, tens of thousands of German and Italian prisoners of war were sent to the United States. The Army, believing that keeping them as far away from the Atlantic coast as possible would help prevent escapes, established more than 30 POW camps in Oklahoma, and by the end of the war Fort Reno housed almost 1,500 German POWs. That’s our story this week on Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma History Center.

From the Oklahoma History Center, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.

In 1942 as the battles of North Africa began turning the allies’ way, increasing numbers of German and Italian soldiers were being taken as POWs. Britain asked the United States to take some of the Africa Corps POWs. That resulted in a crash building program including camps at Camp Gruber and Fort Reno. By the end of the war, Army documents list 31 POW camps located in Oklahoma. The maximum number of POWs in the state at any given time was about 22,000.

The POWs were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention, allowing the government to require them to work in the war effort in certain capacities, be paid at amounts they were getting in the German or Italian armies, and be fed the same quantity and quality food as US troops. That meant separate German and Italian menus. Sports were offered during the POWs off time, and many near professional quality soccer teams were fielded. At one point a match between the German POWs at the Tonkawa camp and the RAF flight school at Ponca City was planned, but then it was called off for obvious reasons. They had access to PXs where they could buy toilet articles, candy, magazines, books, newspapers and cigarettes. Occasionally they were allowed to buy beer, but the Germans did not particularly like American beer, though they said at the time it was better than none at all.

Escaping was on the minds of many POWs. Government records don’t list escapes and attempts; however, local newspapers in the towns where there were POW camps list about 80 escapes in Oklahoma during the war. Most of the escapees later turned themselves in to local police or farmers, some just reported back to the camp they had left. One former POW who said that he never thought about escaping added the curiosity about what was outside the camp and just the thrill of escaping were the reasons for most of the escapes.

It was in this week of October 1945 with the war now over that Fort Reno still housed 1,300 mostly-German POWs. Very little remains of any of the 31 POW camps in Oklahoma. A few buildings here or there still stand. There is some artwork left behind. German soldiers kept at the McAlester camp used small stones and pebbles to build a miniature castle similar to those found in the Black forest.

In the 1970s and ‘80s some German former POWs came back to Oklahoma with their families to show them where they’d spent the war. For many of them their captivity in POW camps was not an altogether unpleasant experience. They had good food and received good medical care. However, 75 of them died while being held in Oklahoma and are buried in the Sooner State, most of them at Fort Sill.

You can learn more about the POW camps in Oklahoma during World War II by visiting the research library at the Oklahoma History Center, on NE 23rd Street just east of the state capitol in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma History Center, dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.