Daily Freeman-Journal photo by David Borer: Author Linda McCann talks about her research into prisoners of war housed throughout Iowa during World War II during a talk Saturday at Mulberry Center Church in Wilson Brewer Park.

From a registered nurse with no background in writing to an author of several books about Iowa, Linda McCann has documented a time in Iowa’s history when several locations in the state took in German and Japanese prisoners of war.

McCann stumbled into writing from her interest in genealogy. When she found out that she was a descendent of the founder of the town where she was living, Shell Rock, it sparked an interest in wanting to know more about the town.

In her research, she found out there were eight named locations around Shell Rock that led to McCann writing a series of books known as “the lost towns.”

About eight years ago, during a family Thanksgiving gathering, McCann, who had known about Waverly having a POW camp during WW II, mentioned this at the table.

There was silence, prompting her to think: “Oh, what did I say?”

Family members began asking questions. Her daughter’s in-laws grew up in the Waverly area and had never heard about prisoners of war there. After answering several other questions, McCann overheard one daughter say to the other: “Guess what Mom’s next book is?”

As she began her research into the POWs who were brought to Iowa, McCann was shocked by the extent of Iowa’s role in housing foreign prisoners of war.

It was in early 1942 that the very first of them came to the U.S.

“England had asked the United States to take some of their POWs, because they were out of room,” McCann told her audience Saturday at Mulberry Center Church. She spoke there as part of a continuing lecture series.

She explained how the prisoners were to be treated, per the Geneva Accord, signed after World War I. One of the provisions was for prisoners to be housed away from the fighting.

This is what led the first POWs to be taken in by England. As they ran out of space, the first prisoners were sent to Arizona and California because it was winter in the Midwest.

McCann recounted, “But, with those first prisoners getting into the U.S., people found out that they could have the prisoners work, and everybody wanted prisoners then. Of course, we had a labor shortage, you know.”

In the spring of 1942, Eldora and Shenandoah received Italian prisoners. They were housed in old CCC camps — Civilian Conservation Corps housing. The prisoners couldn’t believe it; they lived in wood buildings, with stoves, and ate hot meals. When more companies wanted the prisoners for labor, the government said if a company would sponsor a camp and hire prisoners they would work it out with them.

The government built two main camps, one in Clarinda and the other in Algona. They were to hold around 3,000 prisoners each and would be guarded by military personnel.

Down around the Clarinda area, one of the jobs was detasseling corn.

McCann learned of this from people who were kids living in the Clarinda area at the time. She felt she was missing something and said to them, “I feel like you guys are maybe playing a joke on me or I’m not catching it or something. They laughed and said, ‘the prisoners thought they were killing the corn.'”

The parents of these people told the POWs, through translators, “that they were not killing the corn, though the prisoners still thought they were. Our joke was that we’re sure there’s grandchildren or great-grandchildren in Italy saying that my grandpa was a POW in Iowa that killed the corn.”

While some camps had nice housing, some housing was as simple as tents in the city park.

In addition to the two main camps, there were 19 branch camps in Iowa.

Prisoners had to be paid similarly to civilian wages, but quite often they would be paid in tokens to be used at the camp canteen. The prisoners also had the option of having their wages deposited in a savings account that they could access when they went home.

Eventually, local residents got to know the prisoners and sometimes would invite them to Sunday dinner. Some friendships that were formed endured for decades after the war.

McCann said that this was mostly true of the German prisoners; Japanese prisoners tended not to become close to the locals. She explained that they had a feeling of failure and shame from being captured. Thus, there’s really no record of any continued correspondence with Iowans after they returned to Japan, she said.

Some of the POWs shared their culture with Iowans; they requested instruments with which they would put on concerts.

And in Algona, the prisoners created a life-size nativity scene which is still housed in the Kossuth County Fairgrounds in Algona. The gift came with two stipulations: that there would never be a charge to see it, and that it would never be sold.

All told, approximately 25,000 prisoners of war lived in Iowa during WW II, from the spring of 1942 until 1946.

McCann explained that without them, due to the labor shortage due to the war, there would likely have been Iowans here at home starving because there was, in many cases, no way to get the work done, especially in agriculture.