SALINA CAMP: MASSACRE AT MIDNIGHT A M E R I CA N S O L D I E R G U N S D OW N W W I I G E R M A N P OWs I N A S M A L L TOW N by Loren Webb fo r va lo r m aga z i n e
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oward the end of the late shift at Mom’s Café, waitress Margery Dot Torgenson was serving a noisy room of miners and farmers. One of the prison guards from the Salina POW Branch Camp No. 4 stopped in for a meal before he was to start working the graveyard hours. He told his waitress and others “there was going to be some excitement at the camp tonight.” It was July 7, 1945. Just after midnight on July 8, Rex Torgenson, Margery Dot’s younger brother, their mother, Choleen, and younger twin sisters, Arva and Marva, who lived just 600 feet from the prisoners of war camp, were awakened by loud noises coming from the camp. “They sounded like bursts of machine gun fire,” said Rex Torgenson, who was a scrappy 14 years old at the time. A few minutes later, Rex’s Uncle, Sharp Rasmussen, walked across the street from his home to the Torgenson house. He was carrying a rifle. While waiting inside the house for news, the Rasmussen and Torgenson families tried to make sense of what they had all heard. “We still did not know what was happening, so my uncle stayed with us in our house with his rifle clutched in his hands. His son, who was home on leave from World War II, stayed in their home guarding their family,” Torgenson said. “We were nervous about it because we didn’t know what had happened.” august
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Soon the Torgenson’s saw a person slowly drive a truck up and down the street, yelling into a loud speaker, “Everything is under control; everything is fine.” “Later, Uncle Sharp went up to the camp to see what had happened and if there was anything he could do,” Rex said. While the Torgensons were waiting, they noticed several people from the camp milling about on the lawn at their grandparents’ house, located next door — the only house between the Torgenson property and the POW camp at the end of the dirt road on the east side of town. Curious, Rex, his sisters and their mother walked over to where they saw several bodies lay out on the lawn. Rex remembers hearing many crying, hollering out in pain. “They were hurt bad,” he said, noting that about 30 guards from the camp had gathered while they waited to have the bodies transported to the local hospital. The Torgenson family lingered for about five minutes before they were shooed away and told to go back home, again hearing, “Everything is under control.” “Uncle Sharp later came back and told us that a guard went berserk up there and shot the prisoners,” Rex said. “It was impossible to sleep that night because we still didn’t know exactly what had happened.” va l o r : a s a l u t e t o u ta h ’ s v e t e r a n s a n d m i l i ta r y
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