02.16.06
Posted in WWII at 10:58 am by NW Okie
POW Camp Water Tower… Looking SW across field. http://okielegacy.org/image/powtoweralva.jpg
POW tower & VFW Post - Alva’s German Prisoner of War & POW, Alva, Oklahoma, Woods County Hitler’s Hard-Core Troops Held in Alva. This military looking building and tower to the left are the Old Officers Quarters & Club and which now is used as the VFW Post. The Quarters of American Personnel and camp administrative buildings were north of the POW’s compounds and east of Washington Avenue. All buildings were considered temporary and constructed of wood in those days during WWII. This building left was the Officers Club and Quarters and stood across the street and to the east of the prisoners compounds. – http://okielegacy.org/image/powtowervfw2.jpg
POW Camps Dot Oklahoma in WWII – http://okielegacy.org/image/powpittsburgcamp.jpg
POW tower & VFW Post… Alva’s WWII Prisoner of War Camp looking south down Washington Ave. South of Alva (Photo taken October, 1999) Operational &; Located 1942-1945 - South of Alva, Oklahoma, Woods County — http://okielegacy.org/image/powmainst.jpg
POW chimney/smokestack… Little remains except for a lonely chimney that some proclaim to be a bakery chimney and others say was the smokestack of the POW hospital. BUT… I’ve found in other articles that the POW Hospital was west of the main street, Washington Avenue, that ran to the POW camp. Whatever the case, it stands amongst the VFW Post and the old concrete water tower that remain as reminders that Alva, Oklahoma was home of a German POW camp during WWII from the Summer of ‘42 when it was authorized to November of ‘45 when it shut down after the WWII. This picture was taken October, 1999 and shows the Woods County Fairground buildings in the background. The Concrete Water Tower sets across another road to the south and east while the VFW Post sets just east (or to the right) of this picture. The road you see running by the westside of the alleged smokestack was the main street called Washington Avenue that ran south from the Section Line Road to the POW camp. — http://okielegacy.org/image/lonelychimney.jpg
Oct. 1999 Water Tower & Chimney… Here is a better view of the smokestack and water tower. The water tower used to hold a large wooden tank on the top and the four POW compounds for the prisoners set back south of the water tower. The camp was authorized on June 30, 1942. September 15, 1942 it was under construction by civilians. November 15, 1942 the Army took over from the civilian contractors and the American troops started to arrive. – http://okielegacy.org/image/powtowerchimny.jpg
Map of POW Camps in Oklahoma… Prisoner of War Camps in Oklahoma, WWII - Copy of Map printed in the Daily Oklahoman, 16 November 1987–
http://okielegacy.org/image/pow15nov1987map.jpg
Letter dated 22 December 1943… Headquarters Prisoner of War Camp, Alva, Oklahoma – http://okielegacy.org/image/pow22dec1943.jpg
2nd page of Letter above – http://okielegacy.org/image/pow22dec1943b.jpg
An Aerial Shot of Alva’s WWII POW Camp… South of Alva, Oklahoma. The water tower (painted white) in the center of the camp? The POW’s compounds are on the south half (right side of photo). The administration & army barracks on the north half (left side of photo).– http://okielegacy.org/image/powaerial.jpg
Basic Layout of POW Camp Facilities…
This is a photo and layout of the Alva POW Camp with large nail used. The upper part was the prisoner’s compounds (non-commissioned officers & enlisted men on the left side; German Officers on the right side). Main Street (or Washington Ave.) separating the two compounds and 3rd street running east and west and on the north side of the prisoner’s compounds. The theater, Officers Club & Quarters, and the Hospital sat across the street from the non-commissioned officers & enlisted prisoners compounds. The lone Chimney, the Officers Club and the water tower are only reminders of the camp during WWII. Only memories and artifacts held at the “Cherokee Strip Museum” are what keep the Alva POW Camp fresh in our minds. Chapel - post exchange (100ft. by 20 ft.); Also barber shop and Latrine; Theater - 100 ft. by 20 ft. Production of plays, musicals art exhibits. Seated 250. School - (100 ft by 20 ft.). Three room building for education; Workshop - (100 ft by 20 ft.) Camp maintenance; Gymnasium - (100 ft by 20 ft.); Company dayrooms - 72 ft. by 20 ft. Games, reading, lounging, writing letters; Carpenter Shop - (100 ft. by 20 ft.); Tailor Shop - (20 ft. by 20 ft.); Libraries - 236 Bed Hospital - 4 Orchestras Barracks - 20 ft by 120 ft. and faced with sheet rock and covered with tar paper. — http://okielegacy.org/image/powlayou2t.jpg
After the WWII the buildings were sold off and this barrack was moved to the 900 block of W. Flynn Street in Alva, Oklahoma. It sets on the north side of the street and approximately a half block west of the Middle School (where the Old Jr. High School used to be.) – http://okielegacy.org/image/powbarracks1.jpg
This old barracks was moved to the northeast corner of Center & Eleventh Street in Alva, Oklahoma. There was another building moved to E. Flynn and used as a storage building. There was also a building moved down to Waynoka and turned into a “Beer Joint”, but it was torn down and that is where the POW’s Painted murals were discovered, removed and put permanently in the Santa Fe Depot Museum in Waynoka and the Cherokee Strip Museum in Alva. If anyone out there has any “Old” or “New” photos of the “Old POW buildings that came from the Alva POW Camp after World War II, please send me a copy to share with everyone. I would love to see it.– http://okielegacy.org/image/powbarracks2.jpg
Southeast of Alva, Oklahoma on the Harold Fox farm, in Alfalfa County, was a home with one of the POW compound buildings. It was located 3-miles south of AShley Elevator and 1/4-mile east. It burned down about 8 to 10 years ago.
Ronald McMurphy has one of the POW buildings that is still used as a home. It is located off of the 5th Street Road (Dacoma Blacktop) West of Cherokee, Oklahoma.
The building that housed the Hilltop Gas & Grocery, located 11 miles west of Alva, Oklahoma, on the hilltop was a part of the Old Alva POW WWII Camp? Leslie and Golda “Goldie” Lyon owned and ran the Hilltop gas and grocery and motor shop from 1946 to 1970 where later they did motor rewiring jobs that came into the shop. Today if you drive west out of Alva it would require your imagination to see what might have been. There is just a grass, fenced pasture with a gravel pull-off area with a view looking down the hill, east towards Alva. I found it very interesting to learn that in the old days… that the reasons stations along highway 64 were at the top of the hills were because the old cars were usually steaming by the time they got to the top and needed water.
According to Marty Myers, “The Community Building in Kiowa, Kansas is the gym that was moved from Alva’s POW camp to Kiowa, Kansas. It has been kept in good shape and is used frequently for all kinds of functions.”
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Posted in WWII at 10:38 am by NW Okie
“Dear Folks, I’m not sure who will read this, but here goes. My name is Diana Glasgow and all my great-grandparents pioneered in Woods County. I happen to be teaching this year at Novosibirsk State University, in Novosibirsk, Russia. Being homesick (and it’s been a long winter here in Siberia) I sometimes sit and surf the internet. Today I typed in ‘Dacoma, Oklahoma’ and came up with your website and information about the POW Camp south of Alva. I was interested because I lived in Legion Heights, a veterans housing addition south of Alva, as a little girl (after WWII) and played with the sight of the old guard tower always in view. A few years ago I was coming home to visit my mother (Dana Glasgow, daughter of Earl and Gladys, granddaughter of Orville and Matie Belle Glasgow) in Arkansas City, Kansas and was picked up at the Wichita Airport by Lawrence Kinney. My own father was actually Clenard McArthur Tate of Capron and Alva, but he was killed in combat in WWII just a month before I was born. I have many of his letters home and have visited his battlefield sites with a group of his ‘brothers-in-arms’ from the 99th Infantry Division. I had just come back from this European trip and was talking to Lawrence Kinney about it on the drive home. I had known Lawrence since childhood as he was the Allis Chalmers blockman for Alva. Anyway, Lawrence started telling me about his own experiences in WWII. He fought in the same area as my dad (the Belgian Ardennes) and was taken prisoner early in the Battle of the Bulge. So he was in a Nazi POW camp until the summer of 1945, when he was sent home to Alva, still on active duty. He was placed as a guard at the Alva POW camp! And now we’re getting down to the solution of the mystery. Lawrence took me home and showed me his own collection of WWII memorabilia, including letters home and… you guessed it, paintings done by a German POW at the Alva Camp! Only these paintings had a signature on them, and Lawrence had managed to locate the living man, now living in Germany and a renowned artist and sculptor! I don’t believe they ever actually met, but they exchanged letters and phone calls. Their mutual experiences as POW’s had created the possibility for a kind of bond. Lawrence had pulled the paintings from a pile of debris that was about to be burned during the cleanup of the POW camp at Alva after it was closed. I know for sure that Lawrence’s widow, Lois, still has some of the paintings, the German artist’s name and address in Germany, etc. I think it would be very interesting to contact him, if he is still alive, as he speaks English and could contribute his own stories to your website and talk to the owners of the house who want to create a beer garden. Oh, wonders of the internet.” — Diana Glasgow - Email: DianaGlasgow@aol.com
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Posted in WWII at 12:15 am by NW Okie
Stories of Guards… Some guards experienced unpleasant duties while guarding the WWII POW’s. Non-commissioned officers and enlisted men could be pleasant at times, but the German Officers seemed to show the hatred in their eyes and were the threatening ones. A doctor (Dr. Clifford Traverse) was quoted as saying, “The glaring eyes of some German officers were permitted to watch me operate on one of their own. I was warned not to wear a necktie in the camp.”
It seems that the POW’s often stretched trip wires across the nightly path of the guards who made bed checks. Pow’s went on hunger strikes that were broken only by throwing tear gas grenades into the barracks. Cries of help could be heard at night by tower guards from the POW’s who strayed from the Nazi line.
The Wiebener’s farm house was turned into a “safe house” to hold POW’s who were removed from camp for their own safety and transferred to the other POW’s camps. There was no evidence that any POW’s were killed by other POW’s in the camp, but it did occur at Camp Tonkawa and two unexplained suicides at the Alva camp were suspect.
The Geneva Convention… The Geneva Convention on escaping POW’s was accepted as the duty of POW’s to escape and was not a crime. The only punishment was slight unless some real crime was committed during the escape. Maximum penalty was 30 days in solitary confinement, bread and water, but at Alva it was 8 days. recaptured POW’s were confined in the guard house that stood between the POW compounds and the hospital. For committing a real crime, POW’s were sentence to the federal prison. At the end of WWII there were 162 POW’s in those establishments. It was unknown if any came from the Alva POW camp. Some crimes warranted execution and some were executed. Mainly those POW’s from the Tonkawa Camp. POW’s not recaptured until after the war and other POW repatriated could only look forward to being deported as undocumented aliens. Oklahoma Newspapers accounted for approximately 21 escapes from the Alva Camp and there were probably more. None were free for long. Some got as far as New Mexico, Kansas City and at the US border patrol at the Rio Grande. The first escape was by Karl Heinz Zigann and Heinz Aulenbacher, April 1944. They were recaptured three days later in Emporia, Kansas.
Max Wolff and Franz Holm escaped that spring and were recaptured in New Mexico. Three more escaped a week later and were caught in Wellington, Kansas. Werner Wolf and Heinz Roth escaped May 20, 1944 and were recaptured in Kansas City.
Five escaped on July 4, 1944… Burgmann von Schwinicher, Heinz Homme, Eberhard Wilms, Karl Heinz Zigann (2nd time), and Max Wolff (2nd time). Escapes by POW’s continued later that summer with Paul Jahn and Heinz Schutz. On January 20, 1945, Georg Hornauf, Otto Kanich, Anton Sheffer, Fritz Pueschel, and Erich Wolf escaped. Usually, the fence was cut, climbed over, or the POW’s just walked away from work detail. A long tunnel that led under the fence was discovered before it was used. The POW’s scurried out of it when the tunnel was threatened with flooding by the guards. There were no theatrical type escapes like in the movies at the Alva camp. Jack Martin is quoted as saying, “A POW dug a hole under the building and equipped it with comforts of home, including a supply of homebrewed applejack. He would mingle with the other POW’s during the day and hide in the hole at night. When he missed roll call, a search was made. No sign of him could be found outside of camp. It was decided that he was hiding somewhere in the compound. The guards found a POW who agreed to point him out to them, if he could do it from a guard tower while wearing an America uniform and be transferred away immediately.” POW’s deaths were from natural and other causes. Klaus Eberhard Bork died from peritonitis, August 24, 1944. Enlbert Mayr died of a heart attack, April 23, 1945. Two questionable suicides were Erwin Grams who was found hanged, November 17, 1944 and Erich Schindler who was found in the same condition September 17, 1945 as camp was being closed. Emil Minotti was shot and killed during escape attempt July 6, 1944. He was the only one killed in escape attempt in Oklahoma. The two guards who shot him were tried, acquitted and transferred to another camp. A small cemetery at the camp for the dead POW’s was located on the westside of Washington Avenue and south of the last fence of compounds. After the war the dead were permanently buried in the Post Cemetery at Ft. Reno. It holds 66 POW’s (German and Italian) as well as two German aliens who died in one of the Oklahoma alien interment camps. Not all buried at Ft. Reno died in Oklahoma camps, but were moved from POW camps in nearby states.
After VE Day… the POW’s were shipped home, but 2,192 remained at the Alva POW camp on September 16, 1945. The bulk of them were shipped out October 1, 1945 then there were only 45 remaining. September 20, 1945 , Col. H. S. Richardson (camp commander) announced the camp would be closed. On October 15, 1945, all POW’s were gone. November 15, 1945, Capt. Pat Arnim (final camp commander) closed camp. A large number of guards at the Alva POW camp have connections with Alva to this day. Some were from Alva before the war and others married women from the Alva area and settled down there after WWII. At the termination of the war, the POW camp was vacated and the land turned over to the City of Alva for control purposes. The deed transfer specified that the land would be used primarily for an airport, however, none of the land could be sold in as much as it still belonged to the US Government. buildings were sold and all except one that houses the VFW Post were removed.
The VFW Post purchased the Officers Club in 1946 with four persons (Wm. T. Crenshaw, Wm “Bill” Stites, Charlie Trenfield, and Mr. Encor) each donating $200 for an $800 downpayment. Legal description of the property sold was the NE/2 NW/4, Section 35-TWP27-Range 14, Woods County (approx. 40 Acres). Over the years the VFW land diminished to 8 Acres. At different times, there was a Supper Club housed in the VFW building. Now the fairgrounds; a softball field; a weed grown racetrack (used by the fairgrounds and local horse enthusiasts) occupy the grounds with the lonely chimney or alleged hospital smokestack and the concrete water tower. Little else remains of the past remembrances of Alva’s German prisoner of War camp era between June 1942 thru November 1945. Another POW camp called the Papago Park POW camp in Phoenix, Arizona was a small, high-security compound built to hold especially troublesome and escape-prone POW’s. It got the name of “Little Alva” because of Alva’s POW camp reputation during WWII.
Other camps in Oklahoma… One neat Tonkawa and at Ft. Reno. There was also one around Concordia, Kansas and another near a small town in McClain, Mississippi. if you run onto any links on the web concerning these and other WWII POW camps, I would love to hear from you. Just EMAIL: paristimes@earthlink.net.
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