WWII POW Sign

As another significant contribution to the area’s World War II war effort, Wilmington hosted three German prisoner of war camps from February 1944 to April 1946.

The first was at the intersection of Carolina Beach Road and Shipyard Boulevard two miles south of the city limits. The second was at the old Marine Hospital site in the four-square block area of 8th and Ann across from the Negro Williston Industrial High School and Williston Elementary, now Robert Strange Park. When it opened and became the main camp, the first site closed. The third was a satellite camp at Bluethenthal Army Air Base, now ILM.

At their peak toward the end of the war, the main camp held approximately 550 Germans. The camps are cited among the numerous reasons justifying Wilmington’s claim as “America’s World War II City,” which was proclaimed on July 3.

A historic marker sign placed in 2002 by the City and the World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition on the intersection corner by the CVS drug store marks the first site. The City’s sign marking the main camp across from Gregory School on 10th Street, installed in conjunction with Wartime Wilmington Commemoration 1999 (the Coalition’s forerunner), has been missing for months. The current sign being installed is a redesigned replacement.

The POWs, all from the famous Afrika Korps of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, were captured in Tunisia in May 1943 as the United States and its Allies won the North Africa Campaign. Thousands of POW’s were dispatched to camps in America. Wilmington was one of a number in North Carolina, including a larger site at nearby Camp Davis in Holly Ridge. Wilmington’s camps contained no Italians.

Local businesses and farms employed the POW’s, who received small payments in scrip from the government for their labors. Many worked in fertilizer plants, the pulpwood industry, and on dairy and truck (vegetable) farms all over the area. As more local men went off to war, the POW’s provided supplementary manpower in the war effort. Other duties included service in the city’s mosquito control program, and attending Bluethenthal’s officers’ mess and grounds.

By September 1944, the Carolina Beach facility was “overtaxed” with 284 men without adequate sanitation. Local businesses asked the army and city to relocate the camp nearer to downtown to facilitate accessibility in transporting them to the workplaces, and to save gasoline. After much discussion concerning placing a camp in the middle of The Bottoms, a racially mixed established neighborhood, officials moved the men to the Marine Hospital location. Previously, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps had occupied the quarters briefly. A wire stockade fence surrounded the property.

Local residents today remember watching the POW’s behind their stockade and at work. Use Jones’ name when contacting. McCarkey and Jones have photos. The others might also. They include:
Jack McCarley (H - 791-7910)
Margaret Sampson Rogers (H - 251-3648) (She may recall seeing POW’s escaping. Jones’ research has never uncovered any such instance: e.g., there were none.)
Cornelia Haggins Campbell (H - 763-6377)
James Otis Sampson, Jr. (H - 763-2006)
Joe Johnson (H - 762-9571)
Harold Laing (O -762-2215)
Aline Hufham Hartis (H - 313-2866)
Wilbur Jones (O -793-6393)

McCarley’s family owned Echo Farms Dairy (site of present golf course). As a high school student he worked with them and corresponded after the war. Jones remembers watching them at work and through the stockade fences. His mother, a volunteer Red Cross Nurses’s Aide, helped to treat the only POW who died here.

After the war ended in August 1945, the POW’s remained until the government made arrangements to repatriate them home. Some maintained contact with locals in the following years including visiting Wilmington. Williston Industrial and Elementary long ago passed into history. The Williston building now houses Gregory Elementary.

Sources: A Sentimental Journey: Memoirs of a Wartime Boomtown; and its sequel, The Journey Continues: The World War II Home Front, both by Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. (www.wilburjones.com)

- Wilbur D. Jones, Jr.