German and Italian Prisoners of War in Utah and Idaho

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 39, 1971, No. 1

German and Italian Prisoners of War in Utah and Idaho

BY RALPH A. BUSCO AND DOUGLAS D. ALDER

THE PLIGHT OF prisoners of war has generally been one of the tragic tales of mankind. Recent parading of American pilots in the streets of Hanoi is reminiscent of ancient triumphs of victorious generals whose prisoners were held as ransom. Mass slaughter of captives to avoid the expense of supporting them or as a terror technique against remaining foes was a common practice among the Assyrians and Egyptians, and is recorded in the Old Testament. Classical and medieval torture practices appear barbaric to modern man, but Andersonville, Dachau, or Bataan suggests a continuity to the history of brutality. Currently, the treatment of prisoners of war is a matter of much concern to the peoples and governments involved in the Vietnam conflict.

The persistence of brutality into modern times is all the more discouraging in light of the concerted international efforts to prevent abuse to prisoners of war. Based on views from the Enlightenment that war is a relation of state to state and not of man to man, various propositions have been suggested to promote basic human rights for prisoners. In 1863 the international Red Cross grew out of attempts to care for the casualties of the Crimean War. A year later an international Red Cross convention in Geneva drew up a treaty concerning prisoners of war. The original convention has been revised periodically. New treaties were adopted extending Red Cross protection to victims of warfare at sea (1907), to prisoners of war (1929) , and to civilians in the time of war (1949).

The 1929 treaty was signed by forty-seven nations who agreed that prisoners of war should receive humane treatment, protection of their persons, adequate housing and food, intellectual and physical diversion, and the right to elect spokesmen. Signatory nations agreed not to employ prisoners of war in military work or in the production of war materials, but they were allowed to require the men to work in other vocations. The Geneva conventions further stipulated that war prisoners be interned away from combat areas. During World War II the American continent offered the advantage of remoteness where captured enemy soldiers could be guarded with minimal effort.

Despite the bitterness of the conflict, the United States appeared to treat prisoners of war humanely in an attempt to impress them with America's democratic life. At least this was the case with those European prisoners who were transported to confinement within the continental United States. Base and branch prisoners of war camps were established in every state of the Union.

The states of Utah and Idaho were well suited for internment sites because of their inland location, agricultural opportunities, and remoteness from industrial centers. There were 141 base camps and 313 dependent branches in the nation. Of that total, 9 base camps and 21 branches were located in Utah and Idaho. The greatest number of prisoners at any one time in the United States was 425,806. Of these some 11,660 men were allocated to base camps in Utah and Idaho. The totals for the branch camps are difficult to ascertain because of the transient nature of both camps and men. The following pages will attempt to assess the nature of the experience of prisoners while imprisoned in Utah. War Department and camp records as well as interviews and letters to participants have been used. Whenever possible the experiences and opinions of former prisoners themselves have been drawn in.

CAMP FACILITIES

The Geneva convention of 1929 prescribed that prisoners of war should be lodged in buildings or barracks affording guarantees of hygiene and healthfulness. Captors were to provide the same quality of housing and food as used for their own troops in permanent camps. The United States generally located these camps near existing military installations such as Ogden's Utah General Depot and Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City. Federal government camps formerly belonging to the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Administration, the Farm Security Administration, and other governmental agencies including state and local fairground buildings, armories, schools, and auditoriums were adapted to provide for prisoners.

Camp Ogden Army Service Forces Depot, Utah, which may be said to have been characteristic of the base camps, followed the typical army plan. The physical plant contained two separate stockades, twenty- by one hundred-foot barracks located one thousand feet apart. The depot was capable of housing a thousand prisoners. Camp Tooele, Utah, was located three miles from Tooele at a site called Warner. The camp had only one stockade which housed up to one thousand prisoners. It was situated on level terrain in the northern extreme of the Tooele Ordnance Depot. The prisoners slept on canvas cots in individually heated, oil-stove barracks. Each barracks housed fifty men. There was a guard house at each of the four corners of the stockade. The enclosure had a doublegraduated hog-wire fence with a barbed wire overhang surrounding the entire compound.

The camp at Preston, Idaho, was typical of the branch camps. Like most camps in the Intermountain Region it was hurriedly constructed so that the prisoners could live near a farm area where labor was required. Because it was temporary, tents were the only housing. The prisoners were nonetheless under guard as evidenced by the hastily constructed guard house and hog-wire fence surrounding the entire tent camp.

German prisoner of war Hans Johann Gruenheit was at Camp Preston. He was injured in Hungary, November 27, 1944, while fighting the Russians, and was confined in the hospital at Berchtchgarden, Germany. He was released from the hospital to go home on a pass. While at Gellsenkirchen, his home, American forces invaded the town and discovered he was a member of the Third Reich Army. He was naturally classified as a prisoner of war.

In America he was first interned in Phoenix, Arizona; then he was moved to the large base camp at Rupert, Idaho. He was soon transferred to the branch camp at Preston to work with supplies. Hans recalled that guards would leave early in the morning to take the prisoners to work in the beet or potato fields. He "jokingly" said he would issue the U.S. Army personnel their guns with which to guard his own fellow prisoners. His stay in Preston was, he said, "the most carefree time in all my life."

The food of prisoners of war was supposed to be equal in quantity and quality to that of the U.S. troops. During most of the war this standard was rigorously adhered to in the Utah and Idaho facilities. Strangely a cut in rations corresponded with the end of the war in Germany. This development occasioned some concern on the part of the Red Cross and of Inspector P. Schnyder de Wartensee of Switzerland, who came to study conditions at Clearfield. According to his report,

The defeat of Germany and the fact that decreased food rations coincided with this defeat led many prisoners of war to believe that measures of reprisal were taken against them. This in turn led them to claim that the United States did not recognize the Geneva convention of July 1929.

According to the international agreement, the detaining power was required to furnish all necessary medical and hospital treatment. Therefore, the prisoners were supposed to receive the same medical and surgical services accorded American Army personnel.

Bushnell General Hospital was designated by the U.S. War Department to provide for the care and treatment of war prisoners. It was located on a 640-acre tract of land just south of the city limits of Brigham City, Utah (presently the Bureau of Indian Affairs Intermountain Indian School). Bushnell was formerly a branch camp of Hill Field, housing Italian prisoners, but had been changed into a base camp for German prisoners.

Colonel Robert M. Hardaway, a senior medical officer, was supervisor of the hospital. He told Karl Gustaf Almquist, Red Cross inspector, that the hospital was intended primarily for American soldiers and they had only a few wounded German prisoners. There were about forty beds for the prisoners — a small number when compared to the approximately four thousand beds for American soldiers.

RECREATION AND EDUCATION

In most camps the prisoners organized sports activities. Soccer was the favorite sport for the Germans and Boccie (an Italian version of bowling) was the most played Italian game. The United States government and the YMCA provided motion pictures, musical instruments, equipment for indoor and outdoor sports and for crafts, and theatrical props.

Italian prisoner of war Joe Battisti played on the Utah Depot Italian Service Unit League Team, champions of the "District Soccer League." The league consisted of teams from the Ogden Arsenal and Salt Lake City. The ISU Depot Team won the league championship two years in a row.

Camp Deseret, in central Utah, was one of the smallest base camps. It was formerly a branch camp of the Tooele German Prison Station. Inspectors Paul Schnyder and Louis Hortal reported that aside from the usual education classes the camp highlight was a concert every Sunday performed by its nine-piece orchestra.

Camp Ogden ASF Depot was especially proud of its thirty-piece orchestra. A concert was given at least once a week at the depot or in an adjoining area such as Salt Lake City or Brigham City.

The War Department set up a large-scale adult education program for prisoners of war. However, the program was too late in starting to be very effective. Prisoners themselves set up these educational programs under the supervision of the camp authorities. They were allowed to subscribe to newspapers and periodicals printed within the continental United States in the English, German, and Italian languages. The publications were checked by censors to prevent enemy propaganda. The international YMCA acted as a central agency to help prisoners secure textbooks.

Sture Persson, YMCA camp inspector from Sweden, reported that at Camp Clearfield the educational program was conducted entirely by the Germans themselves. Lectures and discussions were held five nights a week for two hours each night concerning economic and political aspects of other countries.

Karl Gustaf Almquist, another YMCA camp inspector, met the camp spokesman upon his visit to the camp and wrote the following in his report:

At Fort Douglas, Utah, a camp for hard-case subversives, Second Lieutenant J. L. Kingsley offered a proposal to provide for an intellectual program to be employed within the camp. It was the first indication in the camp reports of an attempt to propagandize the prisoners of war to the United States democratic system. It was proposed that the canteen be stocked with better magazines and periodicals so that the "right kind" of reading material would be put into the hands of the prisoners. Perhaps the most powerful medium of propaganda available was the use of motion pictures. It was necessary to have a steady flow of American films circulating throughout the camps. Kingsley recommended that an interested prisoner should be selected as a director of studies to organize and promote educational and recreational activities.

There was a genuine problem getting prisoners who had not gone beyond the elementary school level involved in the education program. The bulk of the subject matter being taught was American history, geography, languages, and mathematics. A problem common to most camps was a shortage of adequate textbooks and novels in the German language.

Camp Hill Field, Utah, was located five miles south of Ogden, and east of Sunset and Clearfield. The prison camp was referred to as OATSC or the Ogden Air Technical Service Counsel. Leone Ghirudato and Maresciallo Bergongoli were directors of studies for the prisoners within the camp. They expressed antagonistic feelings toward Italian officers, but also possessed a hatred for any American propaganda.

Attendance at education classes was optional. The American history and English language classes were the most popular, as evidenced in Camp Rupert where a large number attended. Other classes in different subjects (crafts, arts, painting) were held during spare hours.

The spokesman at Bushnell General Hospital stated that the library needed books. The interest was reported as great, but prisoners preferred fiction and books of travel. They especially liked richly illustrated books that helped them get a more concrete understanding of the life described. There was little possibility at Bushnell to conduct classes because the men were there for medical treatment and generally confined to bed. In most branch camps the men had little in the way of recreation or education because the camps were so transient.

LABOR

Many citizens of the Intermountain Region will remember prisoners of war chiefly as part of the wartime labor force. It was on the farms of the region where they were best known. Under a contract labor arrangement, local farmers, after proving that no native labor was available, could negotiate to use prisoners of war. Under the terms of the contract, farmers had to pay the minimum wage for labor received, but the money was paid to the federal government. The prisoners received only a portion of the pay (80 cents a day), which they could spend as they wished. The remainder went to the U.S. government to meet housing and food expenses for the prisoners. Following the war the United States agreed to pay $1.40 per day back pay to the Italian government for all its prisoners, which meant that $2.20 was accepted as a day's wage.

After September 8, 1943, when Italy capitulated, Italian prisoners were given special privileges if willing to sign the Italian Service Unit parole agreement. The prisoners who still favored Mussolini's regime were considered regular prisoners of war and were treated accordingly, but those who signed were allowed to leave the camps, wear special uniforms which eliminated their previous PW status, work on farms and in defense industries, and have other privileges including weekend leaves.

Ruggerio Purin's story is an example of the Italians who came to Utah after signing the parole agreement. He was captured near Tunisia, Africa, early in June of 1943. He was transported to the United States where his first camp was Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Mr. Purin reported that he was required to work hard in Nebraska where he picked sugar beets up to twelve hours a day. After eight months Ruggerio was transferred to the Black Hills Ordinance Depot, Iglee, South Dakota. For a year he labored in the ammunition dump there. Early in 1945 he was transferred to Camp Hill Field for a six-month stay. He spent most of the time working in Salt Lake City at Fairmont Park where he met his future wife seventeen days before his return to Italy. Mr. Purin is now an American citizen and evaluated his experience as a prisoner of war in this manner:

RELIGION

Religious services were permitted within the individual camps, and prisoners enjoyed liberty in the exercise of their own faiths. Services were held by captured chaplains, ministers, and priests — but primarily by American civilian ministers.

Camp Hill Field's services were conducted by Catholic Priest Monsignor Giovanoni from St. Mary's of the Wasatch. The camp was largely Italian and one hundred per cent Catholic.

Camp Ogden ASF Depot provided weekly Catholic and Protestant services. Father Giroux of St. Joseph's in Ogden was in charge of the Catholic services. The evangelical services were performed by Pastor Clemens Harms of Brigham City.

In 1945 Pastor Harms and his work were described by Karl Almquist.

Pastor Harms's impact on the prisoners was such that they remembered him with affection some twenty-two years after their confinement. Most of the prisoners contacted by the authors mentioned him. But Pastor Harms's achievement has further meaning for the historian because he made minimal records of his activity among Utah's prisoners of war. He invited the prisoners to sign a register and include their home towns. These entries are what the authors used to contact former prisoners of war living in Europe who told the story of the prisoners detained in Utah and Idaho. Pastor Harms recalled that his first service for the prisoners was Christmas at Bushnell Hospital in Brigham City in 1944. His work gradually expanded to include the ASF Depot in Ogden, the Naval Supply Depot in Clearfield, the compound and Bushnell Hospital in Brigham City, the prisoner of war branch camps at Tremonton and Logan, and for a short time a camp at Preston, Idaho.

Of his experience with the prisoners, Pastor Harms wrote:

MORALE AND CONDUCT

The United States held all prisoners subject to its laws, regulations, and orders. All rules and regulations affecting prisoner conduct and activities were posted in their language. The Geneva convention stated that prisoners were not to be exposed to any cruel or inhumane treatment other than for misconduct.

At Fort Douglas guard personnel had particularly low morale, and this led to the recommendation that one hour per week be devoted to indoctrinating American Army personnel in proper conduct toward the prisoners in their charge. Officials stressed that every U.S. officer and enlisted man at a prisoner of war camp was an advertisement for democracy. The army personnel's duties and attitudes toward the prisoners could have a positive or negative effect on the prisoners.

Camp leaders throughout Utah and Idaho discovered that a variety of recreational opportunities, good classes, and frequent weekend leaves (for the Italians) lifted the morale of the prisoners and helped decrease security problems. It was not unusual for Italian prisoners to bribe guards to accompany them on leave to towns such as Ogden. This enabled the Italians to date girls and pursue other entertainment.

The progress of the war also had an adverse effect on the morale of the prisoners. News accounts of German casualties were so depressive to the prisoners that they were often censored by camp officials in an attempt to preserve high spirits.

Prisoner of war Gene Miconi described the morale and conduct problem. Born in Rome, Italy, in 1919, Gene was first captured at Tobruck, Africa, by the English and remained a prisoner for five years (1941—46). He was interned in Suez, Egypt, and South Africa before being transferred to the United States.

He was an interpreter for the Ogden ASF Camp because of his knowledge of English. Mr. Miconi expressed his belief that many army personnel were unsympathetic toward the prisoners. He felt the guards preferred the opportunity to fight abroad and capture prisoners, rather than staying at home and doing the tedious job of guarding them.

Gene's morale was affected by his imprisonment when he became aware of the value of freedom. He waited impatiently for the day when he would once again be free.

On July 10, 1945, a tragic incident occurred at Camp Salina. Private Clarence V. Bertucci, a twenty-three-year old guard at the camp, turned his machine gun into the camp area spraying prisoner tents with bullets. Eight prisoners were killed instantly (a ninth died the following day). Twenty prisoners were seriously wounded. Bertucci was taken immediately to Bushnell General Hospital where he admitted planning the killings but gave no plausible explanation for his action. He was later declared insane and given medical treatment.

Graveside services were held at Fort Douglas cemetery the following day for the slain prisoners. They were buried in the southeast corner near other German prisoners of war who died here in World War I. This incident was soon known throughout the entire region and occasioned a serious slip in morale.

As noted previously morale at the camp at Fort Douglas usually lagged behind that in the region generally. In part this was because the camp was a segregation camp for non-cooperative prisoners who evidenced subversive tendencies. Of conditions there Major Paul A. Newland reported:

Major Newland stated that there was a feeling among the prisoners at Fort Douglas that all in life had failed them. Whatever happened to Germany in the war was divine judgment against them. Hoping to ease such feelings, pastors plead with the prisoners to keep in mind the word of God from Isaiah, stating "God have mercy upon us, forgive us for our sins."

At Camp Tooele general morale was good, but even here a guard fired a gun at a prisoner for refusing to obey a no smoking order while working. Tooele was typical of many other camps. A prisoner escaped by cutting holes through a lower portion of the double fence and ran approximately five hundred feet, but returned on his own accord. The camp report at Tooele includes a reflection on this event that such an escape could be attributed to the barbed-wire psychosis that compels a man to break out; yet he usually returns after a brief flirt with freedom.

Sture Persson noted while visiting Camp Rupert that some prisoners in camp blamed the occupying powers in Germany for the war. The only guilt such prisoners seemed to feel was that Germany had lost. Persson's answer to them was that hatred and discouragement should not gain a foothold in their minds. "It should be clear by now that hatred never builds up anything better," he said.

A former Italian war prisoner who presently calls America home is Mario Alfredo Alfonsi. He was enthusiastic about his imprisonment in America. America made a very favorable impression on him. Mario was taken prisoner while aboard the Italian submarine Glanco in November 1940 when it was torpedoed by the British almost two hundred miles from Gibraltar. From that time through January 14, 1946, he was a prisoner of war. He was sent along with five or six hundred other prisoners to the United States — first to Tennessee, then Kansas, and finally Utah.

Mario Alfonsi related that while in the custody of Great Britain he was interrogated once every day for information. In the United States he was required only to give his name, rank, and serial number. Mario felt that treatment while in the custody of the United States was very fair, which meant good food and clothing with warm, adequate living conditions. His only complaints were that the barracks were overcrowded and that he could never become accustomed to the fence surrounding the prison camp. Although he is now an American citizen, Mario said he will always possess a love for his homeland. Mario felt that the fair treatment he had received while imprisoned in the United States was in large measure responsible for his shift of allegiance to the democratic system.

Obviously prisoners of war who chose to return to Utah to live must have had favorable impressions of their internment. Those cited in this study are but a portion of the ex-prisoners now living in Utah and Idaho. The U.S. government and YMCA reports cited were also generally favorable. In order to establish a control by which these findings might be evaluated, an attempt was made to obtain testimonies from prisoners who returned to Europe. They might be more candidly critical. Pastor Harms's roll book was the key to success in this undertaking. The German government, Bureau for Notification of Relatives of Fallen Military Personnel, sifted several hundred names and provided a list of fifty-one addresses which they thought might be the men who were prisoners in Utah and Idaho. A questionnaire was prepared and sent to each. Thirty- three were returned as unknown. However, ten returned their forms verifying their presence in Utah and Idaho during the war and offering considerable information.

In general the responses from Germany are strongly corraborative of the evidence gathered in this country. Like the documents and interviews collected here, they do not report a clean slate. They all said they were required to work and three stated they were forced to do so. Their work days usually lasted from eight to ten hours. Seven reported laboring six days a week with one reporting a seven-day week. One prisoner reported that he was not paid, while the other nine said they received the 80 cents per day standard allotment. The responding ex-prisoners of war rated living conditions all the way from mediocre to excellent. The general concensus regarding food was that the quality was much better during the war than after it was over. One prisoner reported being brutally handled while in the United States, and two said they saw others handled inhumanely while on European soil. The remaining few did not record any such instances. All but one were interrogated, but only two said they were asked for more than their name, rank, and serial number. Most recalled they were allowed to write and receive mail at least once a month. Six of the ten men said their experience as prisoners of war in the United States influenced their impression of America positively. Three men reported no change in their previous opinion. One felt more negative about America after his imprisonment here.

Gerhard Granit appended this favorable comment:

The most critical report stated:

Another prisoner simply stated:

Prisoners began to be sent to their homes with the end of the war, in accordance with War Department plans that every prisoner be returned to his own country. Italian and German prisoners would be replaced with American workers at the earliest possible date.

It should be borne in mind that prisoner of war camps in Utah and Idaho were only a representation of two states out of the forty-eight. These camps were constructed and supervised to comply with War Department instructions to follow explicitly the regulations of the Geneva convention of 1929.

The base camps were generally able to follow the rules provided. However, facilities, especially in the branch camps, were not always adequate. The branch camps, as previously stated, were rapidly constructed at locations to provide local citizens a pertinent labor force. Textbooks, teachers, clothing, heating units, recreation equipment, etc., were not always available at these camps.

The United States government used prisoners to alleviate the acute labor shortage on the home front. More prisoners could likely have been utilized in labor projects; however, the savings in time and money to the people in Utah and Idaho were considerable. The German prisoners were not allowed to mingle with the civilian population as much as the Italians who had signed the ISU pledge. Even though prisoners of war, these men made many friends that even remoteness will never erase. The supervision accorded the prisoners by the U.S. Army and Navy personnel was a definite factor in the prisoners' attitude toward the democratic system. It was evident that the German and Italian men had been subjected to much propaganda by the Hitler and Mussolini regimes. No doubt democracy was a surprise to some of these men. The people in Utah and Idaho played a part in presenting the democratic system to these men.

In general the record of the Utah and Idaho prisoner of war camps was good. They adhered with certain failures to the standards established by international law and the War Department. Most prisoners were humanely and justly dealt with. Work expectations were within limits and spiritual, educational, and recreational opportunities were usually adequate. The conduct of guards, advisers, work directors, and the citizenship at large was, with the exception of the unfortunate and deplorable Camp Salina incident, not marked with undue hostility. A primary objective of the U.S. camps had been to reveal the democratic process in progress. Without question there were failures in this attempt, but these were sufficiently rare that the very men who were imprisoned became sympathetic chroniclers of their sojourn. It is the judgment of the authors that the conduct of the camps of Utah and Idaho was in the main, a humane and successful endeavor.

In the southeast corner of the Fort Douglas cemetery is a section for the graves of World War II prisoners of war. Here are buried twenty Germans, twelve Italians, and one Japanese. Twenty-one German prisoners of World War I are buried in another part of the cemetery. (Information from the Salt Lake Tribune Home Magazine, May 27, 1962.)

For full citations and images please view this article on a desktop.