{"id":2094,"date":"2019-01-09T06:39:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T11:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=2094"},"modified":"2019-01-08T09:47:42","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T14:47:42","slug":"michigans-wwii-pow-camps-explored-in-professors-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2019\/01\/09\/michigans-wwii-pow-camps-explored-in-professors-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan’s WWII POW camps explored in professor’s book"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Professor
Professor of History Greg Sumner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Among the little-known stories of World War II is the fact that rural areas across the continental United States were home to prisoner of war camps housing thousands of German and Italian soldiers.<\/p>\n

Professor of History Gregory Sumner came across this information while researching his last book, Detroit in World War II<\/em>, and found it interesting enough that he pitched the idea for his new book, Michigan POW Camps in World War II<\/em>, to the same printer. They gave him the OK and he was off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in storytelling,\u201d Sumner said. \u201cI don\u2019t write for a narrowly academic audience, but a general audience. And World War II is an ever popular topic. There is bottomless interest and there are bottomless stories. When I speak around the state at libraries and other places about my books, I leave plenty of time for comments because everyone has a story to share, and I think it\u2019s important that we keep telling them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 425,000 POWs held in more than 500 camps on U.S. soil, 6,000 spent their time in one of the 32 camps set up in Michigan. These men were a godsend to the state\u2019s farmers, food processors and pulpwood producers whose workers were overseas fighting the war.<\/p>\n

These were not hardened fighters, Sumner said. Many were still in their teens and happy to put an ocean between them and enemy bullets.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cMost were young, homesick guys,\u201d he said. And, though fraternization between the locals and the POWs was strictly forbidden, Michiganders couldn\u2019t help but be charming hosts. \u201cThey formed friendships in the camp and in the community, and that\u2019s the story I wanted to tell,\u201d Sumner added.<\/p>\n

The camps were fairly minimal security and the guards \u2014 often older men not fit to be fighting \u2014 were usually lax with their charges, often passing the time by drinking and playing cards with them. The prevailing thought seemed to be the prisoners could have escaped, but to where?<\/p>\n

\u201cOne man I interviewed told me it was like \u2018Hogan\u2019s Heroes\u2019 in reverse,\u201d Sumner said, referring to a popular sitcom about Allied forces who merely let their German captors think they were in charge at a POW camp.<\/p>\n

Sumner does relate one tale about two young women from Bennington, near Owosso, who caused a scandal and found themselves in legal trouble for helping some prisoners escape. Stories like this, though thrilling, were rare, he said.<\/p>\n

Sumner said he loves doing the research it takes to write a book and research for this one was particularly interesting because it took the dyed-in-the-wool Hoosier to parts of Michigan he had never been before \u2014 including the Upper Peninsula.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writing is the hardest part,\u201d Sumner said. \u201cBut I do it because I think people should know these stories. Especially young people. My mission in life is to get young people interested in history and the way to do that is to tell stories people find interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan POW Camps in World War II\u201d is available at bookstores everywhere and online.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the little-known stories of World War II is the fact that rural areas across the continental United States were home to prisoner of war camps housing thousands of German and Italian soldiers. Professor of History Gregory Sumner came across this information while researching his last book, Detroit in World …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,19],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2019\/01\/2015-09-12-13.15.3410.jpg?fit=3802%2C1996&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-xM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2097,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2094\/revisions\/2097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}