Courtesy Photo | Prisoners of war at Camp McCoy, Wis., prepare for work detail in the in early 1940s....... read more read more
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Fort McCoy has now been able to benefit from some new research.
“One of Fort McCoy’s most important historic sites is our 1942-1946 World War II prisoner of war (POW) camp — formerly located by what is today South Family Housing,” said Fort McCoy Archaeologist Ryan Howell with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch and a member of the Fort McCoy Archaeology and Cultural Resources Team.
“It was one of the largest in country, housing at its height nearly 7,000 German, Italian, Japanese, and Korean prisoners of war.”
New recent research, Howell said, into the POW camp at Fort McCoy has revealed some surprising new facts, photos and historic artifacts related to this important role Fort McCoy (then Camp McCoy) played in World War II history.
Recently, in conjunction with Fort McCoy’s Public Affairs Program, Fort McCoy’s Cultural Resource Program (which covers the Fort’s history, archaeology and Native American affairs) has welcomed a series of visits from new academic researchers and historians interested in this chapter of Wisconsin’s and America’s past.
“We’ve had visitors and interest from many universities and independent scholars this year who want to use the historical archives housed at the Fort McCoy History Center to further their studies into World War II POW and alien internment issues,” Howell said.
These researchers are studying a wide range of subjects, including the role Korean POWs, who were captive laborers used by the Japanese in military construction, played in shaping United States policy toward Korea in the 1950s, the use of Camp McCoy to initially house “enemy aliens” (Japanese-, German- or Italian-Americans whose citizenship was in doubt at the on-set of war) in 1942, and the roles and interactions German POW’s had while serving as paid-laborers on the local farms and canning factories of World War II Wisconsin.
Working closely with local history centers like the Monroe County Local History Room and Museum (MCLHR) in Sparta, Wis., has also helped fill in the blanks and add to Fort McCoy’s understanding of the POW camp during the World War era.
“It turns out that Lt. Col. Horace Rogers, who was the commanding officer of the POW Camp at Camp McCoy, still has family in the Sparta area,” Howell said. “Working with Jarrod Roll, the director of the MCLHR, we were able to get a series of family photos that Rogers took during his posting at Camp Mccoy. They detail the daily lives of German prisoners (the Japanese POWs generally refused to be photographed) at the POW camp. These have showed some very interesting events like a 1944 “POW Olympics” and German plays and show they put on to entertain themselves during their captivity.
“We’ve also recently found the daily log kept by Lt. Col. Rogers from 1942-1946 at the camp in … of all places … a used-book store in California,” Howell said. “We’ll soon get a copy of that from its current owner, and that will let us learn even more about the real day-to-day activities of Fort McCoy’s POWs and the U.S Army Soldiers who guarded them more than 80 years ago.”
The Fort McCoy History Center, located in the Fort McCoy Commemorative Area, has several items recalling the POW experience of World War II at Fort McCoy. Also, throughout several areas of Fort McCoy, there are posted placards where the POW encampments were located.
Visitors and employees are reminded they should not intentionally collect artifacts on Army installations or other government lands and leave the digging to the professionals.
Any individual who intentionally excavates, removes, damages, or otherwise alters or defaces any post-contact or pre-contact site, artifact, or object of antiquity on an Army installation is in violation of federal law.
(Article prepared by the Fort McCoy Archaeology Team that includes the Colorado State University’s Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands and the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.)
| Date Taken: | 09.20.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.18.2023 17:22 |
| Story ID: | 451703 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 398 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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