Virginia POW Camps in World War II - Paperback

by Kathryn Roe Coker (Author)

Tour the camps, learn stories of the daily lives of the POWs, and discover the impact they had on the Old Dominion.

During World War II, Virginians watched as German and Italian prisoners invaded the Old Dominion. At least 17,000 Germans and countless Italians lived in over twenty camps across the state and worked on five military installations. Farmers hired POWs to pick apples. Fertilizer companies, lumber yards, and hospitals hired them. At first a phenomenon of war in Virginia's backyard, these former enemy combatants became familiar to many--often developing a rapport with their employers. Among them were die-hired Nazis and Fascists, but they benefited from double standards that placed them in better jobs and conditions than African Americans.

Historians Kathryn Coker and Jason Wetzel tell a different story of the Old Dominion at War.

Author Biography

Dr. Kathryn Roe Coker received a doctorate in history from the University of South Carolina. Dr. Coker served for thirty years as a historian for the Department of the Army (DA). Her interest in World War II prisoners of war (POWs) began at Fort Gordon, a POW base camp. She retired in 2015 from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and now resides in Richmond, Virginia. Jason Wetzel has an MA in education and history from Georgia State University. The bulk of his working life was in telecommunications, with side forays as a high school teacher and a Department of the Army historian.