German POWs at Work Near Wilmington, 1944

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Star on May 22, 1944

They looked little like supermen when I saw them stripped to the waist in the warm spring sunshine and engaged in such ordinary pastoral occupations as harvesting truck crops.

Did one not notice the noncommissioned officer of the United States Army standing in bored but alert attention in the background, he would never know that these blond boys out there in the field were former German soldiers filled with a lust to kill and arrogant in a false assumption of superior qualities which they did not possess.

They looked as if they were accepting an entirely new situation, and they were doing first-class work, although the observer could not but feel that the apparent meekness was only temporary.

There are 277 German prisoners of war with 38 of them being noncommissioned officers located in the N.Y.A. camp on the Carolina Beach Highway near Wilmington. These men are under the supervision of Lieutenant R.H. Hazel of Greenwood, South Carolina, commanding officer of the camp, as assisted by Lieutenant J.T. Hayes, administrative officer. The Commandant has a group of 55 men, mostly noncommissioned officers, to help him in handling the prisoners.

The prisoners are sent out in details in the number and as the farmers ask for them. With each group goes a leader, usually one of the German noncommissioned officers, and an interpreter. Occasionally, the two jobs head up in one person. But each detail is in the charge of its own leader. A farmer, employing the detail for the day, gives his orders through this leader.

I saw one detail working on the 90-acre truck farm belonging to A.G. Seitter. Out in the field the men cut the lettuce according to instructions and brought it in hampers to the end of the rows where it was repacked. The leader looked on and talked with the various ones in their native German language. Back at the end of the rows on the farm road where the hampers were packed, stood an armed corporal of the United States Army, alert and poised but with little to say. It was his job to see that no prisoner escaped.

As I went about over the camp and saw the clean kitchen with the same food for the prisoners as that provided for the American soldiers in charge, I wondered if our boys captured by the Germans were faring as well.

Being a prisoner is a hard existence at best, but having the opportunity for work out in the open fields, with good food and clean bedding helps to make such an existence more bearable. I was allowed to peep into the refrigerators, to see the cooked rations going out to the men in the field, to visit their quarters, to see their canteen, and to visit their infirmary. They should be happy at having this opportunity to work for the farmers of North Carolina.