Today, most Americans don't even know of the large numbers of Italian and German prisoners who were kept in prison camps on the US homeland. This is the story of one camp in Oklahoma.
Roland Brashears was too young to go to war, but he did his part by driving German prisoners back and forth from farms where they worked in the fields.
Most times, the moving went with no problems, but there was one time he got scared.
"We normally had about thirty prisoners in our truck and the ones in the middle had to stand up. One afternoon after we had already loaded up, the guard had lost count. He told the interpreter to tell everyone to get out of the truck and he was going to count again.
"Well, all but one got out. He was on the front end and just said, 'Count me as number one.' There were two guards. One on each side of the truck. One guard told the interpreter, 'I said tell him to get out one more time.'
"He nodded his head and flipped his rifle up and loaded at the blink of an eye. When he cocked the gun, the prisoner came out in a hurry. I don't know that he could have shot him, though, due to the Geneva Convention rules.
"I asked him what he would have done if the prisoner would not have gotten out. The guard said, 'Well, I bluffed him and it worked.' I didn't know what was going to happen."
I guess the German was just having a bad day or feeling a bit cantankerous.
A Little-Known Aspect of the War. --Cooter
No comments:
Post a Comment