Gettysburg’s history spans three centuries, with various chronicles depicting both civilian and military sagas since the 18th century.  The Battle of Gettysburg has provided the most famous of the town’s epicenter of the past.  There were many prisoners of war after the conflict in the summer of 1863, but the less-known POW camp at Gettysburg was not a result of the Civil War, but of World War II.

There were approximately six hundred prisoner of war camps in the United States during World War II, mostly for German soldiers, although there were also camps that housed Japanese prisoners of war.  These camps were spread across the nation to avoid placing too much of a burden on a selected few.  In June 1844, at about the time of the successful D-Day invasion by the Allied forces, Gettysburg was chosen as one of the places for a camp to house the increasing number of prisoners from Europe.

Captain Laurence C. Thomas, a veteran of World War I, was selected as the commander of the Gettysburg POW camp, largely because he could speak German.  There was an additional camp at nearby South Mountain, an interrogation camp that kept Japanese prisoners.  Captain Thomas was to command both camps.  An Oklahoma native, Thomas received training in Virginia for the operation of the camps.  He then moved to Gettysburg with his wife and three children.  His daughter, Joanne (called Joan), was thirteen years old when the family moved to Pennsylvania.  She remembered, “My dad lived at the camp, and we went there on Sundays to have dinner with him.  He wanted to go overseas, and when he enlisted during World War II, I thought my mother was going to kill him herself.”  Captain Thomas, born in 1899, was in his mid-forties at the time and had already served in the previous war.¹

Both camps opened in June 1944.  They operated until the war ended in 1945.  The camp at Pine Grove, near South Mountain, was far more secretive and hidden.  Many people in the area did not realize it was there.  In the two years that it existed, nearly a half-million prisoners of war passed through the camp before being taken to other camps in the country.  Gettysburg’s camp was more permanent for those who came to it.  It operated all year long, though it was mostly a tent camp.

The Gettysburg POW camp was situated practically on the field where Pickett’s Charge occurred decades earlier, and reached to the Millerstown Road, near the Peach Orchard.  Part of the camp abutted what later became the home of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, though he was in Europe for the duration of the war, and had not yet considered moving to Gettysburg at that time.  When the camp opened, there were thirty German prisoners.  It soon swelled in population to four hundred.  Most of the men were soldiers who had fought in Africa with Field Commander Rommel, and many had been captured there.²

The camp was surrounded by barbed wire, with guard towers in each corner.  An armed guard stood at each corner post.  Inside the fence were fifty tents, with eight men per tent.  Outside the fence were the tents that served as offices.  There was also a mess tent, a kitchen tent, a medical tent, and tents for showers and latrines.  There was an area reserved for daily exercise.

According to Joan Thomas, many of the prisoners were exceptionally young.  Although the ages ranged from 14 to 60, the majority at Gettysburg were teens or young men in their early twenties.  They had been conscripted for Hitler’s armies.  While in the camp, they were called to work at various farms or orchards, harvesting crops.  They also worked in certain industries, such as quarries or canneries.  “You could always tell the officers from the enlisted men,” Joan remembered.  “The men who had been conscripted wanted to work.  Some of them were actually glad to be in America.   They had surrendered because they always wanted to see America, and they knew they would be safer here than Europe or Africa.  But the officers refused to work beside the enlisted men.  They would intimidate the others.  They would walk the perimeter of the camp, looking for ways to escape.”³

Captain Thomas soon separated these men from the others to avoid conflict.

The prisoners quickly learned that Captain Thomas spoke German, so not much plotting could be done.

The prisoners lined up each morning to work.  The men at the front of the line got easier jobs than the ones at the back of the line.  Preferred jobs included the canneries or other indoor work, especially in the heat of summer of the extreme cold of winter. 

The work done by the prisoners in the fields helped with the upkeep of the camp.  The companies that hired the men paid an hourly wage that went to the camp.  Of that wage the prisoners earned a percentage in coupons that they could use at the camp’s PX for candy, cigarettes, books, paper and other commodities.  The rest of the money went to food for the prisoners and staff, and for salaries for the camp staff.⁴

Some of the prisoners offered to cook, as they preferred it to working in the fields.  Captain Thomas allowed it, and the food was more palatable and appreciated, making meal time more pleasant for all.⁵

There were a few scares during the time of the POW camp.   On three separate occasions, a few Nazis escaped.  The first ones were missing for eight days, and were finally recaptured in York.  The soldiers, tired and hungry, had approached a restaurant and asked for food.  The manager alerted the authorities, who apprehended the men and returned them to camp.  On another occasion, two men escaped and were found shortly afterward in Lincoln Square, sitting on the steps of what was then The Plaza Restaurant (now Blue & Gray Grill).  One Nazi soldier, Wilhelm Schmidt, made it to Brooklyn, New York, where he had hoped to board a steamer for Germany.  He instead turned himself in, disheveled, exhausted, and half-starved.⁶

The recovered prisoners were not punished.  The Red Cross regularly monitored all the prison camps, including Gettysburg and the Pine Grove Prison Camps.  Joan Thomas remembered that the prisoners here “were treated with dignity, while our American POWs were treated terribly in Europe and in the Pacific.”⁷

Captain Thomas learned, as the war progressed, that some returning veterans from Europe were not the best choices for guard duty at the camp.  An episode that almost turned tragic changed the choices for employment at the camp.  “One day a guard, who was at his post in the corner of the camp, started firing his gun into the camp,” Joan recalled.  The prisoners quickly scattered, and no one was injured.  The guard was promptly sacked.⁸

Unfortunately, there were a few deaths of the prisoners that resulted from unforeseen circumstances.  A worker was killed accidentally by a falling tree at a sawmill in winter.  Another was found hanging at another mill in Aspers.  The death was ruled a suicide, but Thomas was never certain.⁹

During winter, the prisoners were moved to more suitable quarters to protect them from the inclement Pennsylvania winters.  Cabins were constructed in McMillan Woods on Seminary Ridge – the area where boy scouts now camp and an amphitheater offers ranger programs in summer.  Otherwise, from March through October, tents were widely utilized.

The Pine Grove Interrogation Camp housed some of the Japanese prisoners from the Pacific Theater.  “The Japanese soldiers never talked to the Americans like the Germans did,” Joan said.  “They had been conditioned to die fighting or to commit suicide if captured.”¹⁰   Consequently, there were few Japanese prisoners compared to the German POWs.  None of the former were at Gettysburg.  They were also guarded closely to prevent escape.  It was another reason that the camp at South Mountain was so isolated.

In February 1945, Captain Thomas received a promotion to Major, and was sent to Carlisle to serve there.  Captain James Copley was named as the commander of the Gettysburg POW camp.¹¹

When the war ended in 1945, Major Thomas personally escorted two hundred Japanese prisoners back to Japan, aboard the ship The Sea Devil.  The men were amazed to see their commander of the camp on their ship to see them safely home.  He did so to help ensure that no one jumped overboard en route.¹²

While most of the German soldiers returned home after the war, some remained in the United States.  They found employment with the industries and farms where they had been employed while in captivity and had secured friendships.  Others who had returned home later came back to visit.  Some toured the famous battlefield with licensed battlefield guides; they shared their own battle stories from their own war.

Some were visited back in their Fatherland.

When Joan Thomas graduated from Oklahoma State University after the war, she traveled to Europe before beginning her thirty years in education.  While in Austria, a former POW learned she was in the vicinity and invited her to his home for Easter dinner with his family.  “They didn’t speak much English and I didn’t speak much German,” she remembered, “ but we had a wonderful time.”¹³

Major Thomas was another who preferred to stay in Gettysburg. He and his wife, Oma, called Gettysburg home.  Laurence Thomas died in July 1990 at the age of 90.  He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery.  Mrs. Thomas lived until 1992.¹⁴

Thomas had been disappointed that he could not serve at the front during World War II.  Instead, he performed an equally great service by providing a carefully patrolled and orderly place to house the enemy’s prisoners.  Instead of a dark chapter in Gettysburg’s history – as it certainly could have been – the story of the town’s POW camp has proved that America is indeed a much kinder nation, no matter how it is perceived internally and abroad.

Sources: Interview with Joanne (Joan) Thomas, the daughter of Major Thomas, on April 10, 2006. Additional information was provided by the Gettysburg POW Camp File, Adams County Historical Society (hereafter ACHS), and the Gettysburg Star & Sentinel, 27 October 1945. The Gettysburg Compiler, 09 February 1945. Evergreen Cemetery Records, Gettysburg, PA.