NEW HANOVER COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY, NORTH CAROLINA ROOM HISTORIC WINSTON
31
A CHANCE CLUE LED
TO THE ULTIMATE
HISTORY LESSON.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
from the guards. Friendships grew
between the employers and the
prisoners.
Some POWs maintained con-tact
with the local dairy farmers
after returning home, Jones says.
An example of such good rela-tions
took place at Echo Farms,
a dairy farm that is today the loca-tion
of the Echo Farms housing
development. After the war,
J.D. McCarley Jr., the farm’s owner,
stayed in touch with many of his
German employees.
In one letter, McCarley wrote
to former POW Bernhard Thiel,
“All of you boys that worked for
me during the war are in my
thoughts quite often. Quite a few
of you have written to me and I
am always glad to hear that you
have gotten safely back to your
native land.”
Prisoner Max Speth wrote
to McCarley in 1948, “I never
had as good a time as I had on
your farm.”
As strong relationships grew
between farm owners and the
Germans, the citizens of the
city also developed bonds with
some of the prisoners. Though
the prisoners were not allowed
to move freely through the city,
during their jobs they were able
to interact with a few residents.
For example, some children
would visit Leeuwenburg Farms
and see the prisoners working
there. At first, they would refuse
offers of candy bars from the
POWs, believing the treats were
poisoned. However, as time
passed, the prisoners’ civility and
kindness eventually won over the
citizens of Wilmington, and the
general feelings of contempt and
fear all but disappeared.
In May 1945, the war against
Germany ended, and by the
spring of 1946, all of the prison-ers
were home or on their way
back overseas. The Wilmington
Morning Star summed up their
absence: “The prisoners’ departure
strikes three sad blows — one
to the farmers, one to the com-munity,
and one to the prisoners
themselves.”
Although there was a rocky
beginning to the prisoners’ time
in Wilmington, they became
widely recognized as an indis-pensable
help in the food
production industry, and are
ultimately remembered as sym-pathetic
men who left an indel-ible
mark on the city.
Katie Meine was with her dad when they first noticed the his-torical
marker near the CVS pharmacy on the corner of Carolina
Beach Road and Shipyard Boulevard. The marker is dedicated
to the memory of Wilmington’s first World War II prisoner of war
camp established in 1944. Meine and her Cape Fear Academy
classmates were looking for topics for a National History Day
project. With the help of World War II historian Wilbur D. Jones
Jr., the New Hanover County Library’s North Carolina Room
archives, and Cape Fear Academy Social Studies instructor
Nathan
Gergel,
the stu-dents
stitched
together a
narrative,
filmed
a docu-mentary
and won
an award
for their
fascinating
snapshot
of Port
City POWs.
ALLISON POTTER
Back row, left to right: Katie Meine, Aurelia Colvin. Front row,
left to right: Audrey Dahl, Ella Forkin.