#26: German POWs eating SC BBQ, a doomed Gothic church, and a multi-generational work day
For South Carolina history lovers far and wide! Enjoy weekly SC history and upcoming SC historical events
Dear reader,
Welcome to Newsletter #26 of The South Carolina History Newsletter! I’m so happy you’re here.
Welcome “stinkel89” “ragincajunscot” “kansasqt” “dwcarey64” “3buggrandpa” “adieoliver79” “on3bymary” “christina.ewing” “respec” “jtinta” “jrozier” “emhatestecnology” “travisbright46” “jamesb33” “ljczar” “g310xp” to our SC History Newsletter community! Woohoo!
I hope you enjoy today’s newsletter, and as always, please feel free to reply to this email with your ideas and suggestions on South Carolina history you’d like to learn more about. I’m only a click away.
In fact, I’d like to give a shoutout to Doug Kirby in our community, who wrote to me about both of our history topics today — German POW Camps and Prince Fredericks Chapel! Thank you, Doug!
Additionally, please join us & keep the conversation going by becoming a member of our SC History Newsletter Facebook Community here! I can’t wait to meet you.
And now, let’s learn some South Carolina history!
Yours truly,
Kate
(Writing from Greenville, SC)
3 ➳ Upcoming SC History Events
While I have curated the following 3 events below to feature in today’s newsletter, please click here to visit my SC History Events Calendar that organizes all the events I have featured in the newsletter to date, as well as others I have discovered. Please let me know if you’d like to add an event to the list! Reply to this email or send me a note at schistorynewsletter@gmail.com.
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Saturday, March 9th at 11:00 am & 2:00 pm | “Scots-Irish Settlers” | The Newberry Museum | Newberry, SC | FREE & Open to the public
“Join us at The Newberry Museum for our “Second Saturday Talk” with Ernie Shealy as he presents the "Scots-Irish Settlers of Newberry County." The presentations will be held on March 9 at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM with a Question & Answer session to follow immediately after. Admission is FREE.”
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Saturday, March 16th from 10:00 am - 3:30 pm | “Celebrating Native Americans Past & Present” | Laurens County Museum | Laurens, SC | FREE & Open to the public
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Saturday, March 9th (all day) | “Multigenerational Work Day” | Hagood Mill Historic Site | Pickens, SC | More info
“Our next Multigenerational Workday is Saturday, March 9, 2024! Contact us at 864-898-2936 if you are able to volunteer with us!”
Note from Kate: While this isn’t a typical lecture or tour, I felt compelled to feature this volunteer opportunity here (and hope to feature others in the future!). When you think about it, so much love and volunteer work happens behind the scenes to keep our favorite historic places open and running smoothly. So I thought, perhaps some people in our community might want to volunteer at a historic site! While I couldn’t find a description of the exact projects you’d be working on for this work day, I recently went to Hagood Mill with my husband and stepson and it was really awesome. You truly feel like you’re going back in time. Whether you’ll be helping at the historic mill, the stone art exhibit, or at one of the historic cabins, I imagine this will be a fun and rewarding day to help out an organization doing great work to keep history alive!
2 ➳ SC History Fun Facts
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Did you know that 8,000 (mostly) German prisoners of war (POWs) resided in 20 camps in South Carolina during WWII, contributed to huge successes in the local agricultural economy through their farm labor, and for their hard work…were treated to South Carolina BBQ?!
When we think of WWII, our first thoughts often go to the horrific POW camps in Europe. Not many of us probably know that at one point in time, there were 425,000 German, Italian, and Japanese prisoners of war (POWs) held in the United States under the supervision of the Provost Marshal General’s office at the end of World War II! It is wild to comprehend.
South Carolina maintained 20 POW camps in 17 counties, and housed between 8-11,000 German (and to a lesser extent, Italian) prisoners of war. The prisoners were mostly between the ages of 18-30, and lived in small camps of about 300 men. These camps initially caused apprehension and anger on the home front, according to Fritz Hamer, a curator and historian in the University of South Carolina’s library system. “But it became clear that the vast majority of these prisoners were glad to be out of the war,” he said. “They were getting three meals a day, and many liked having a different routine out of the camps.”
South Carolinians were at first nervous, and then extremely curious, when the first POWs were brought into the state in the fall of 1943. In September 1943, when 250 German POWs were transported to a temporary camp in Bamberg County, the county agricultural agent wrote:
“…there was almost a steady flow of traffic by the camp. People from miles around came to see what was taking place…(Even after they were banned from the camp area)…they never lost interest in the camp and its prisoners of war…(Within a few weeks, POWs were)…being entertained in local residents’ homes”!
Soon, the locals would have even closer contact with the POWs. When America entered WWII, South Carolina faced a labor shortage, which was particularly hard for South Carolina farmers. When POWs arrived, there was a great desire and interest in requesting POW labor on SC farms. At first, there were serious concerns about security and the possibilities of POWs escaping, but with the right precautions put in place, some counties did succeed in acquiring POWs to help in their 1943 harvest season. The army charged employers $3.50 per day for each POW used: “80 cents went to the prisoner and the remainder went to the government for the upkeep and maintenance of POW compounds and services.”
POWs were used for “crop harvests, farm structure repairs, soil conservation and field improvements.” Many POWs were used for harvesting labor-intensive crops like “peanuts, cotton, peaches — the major cash crops of the state.” Properly harvesting these crops required training, and the although farming in South Carolina was new to the Germans, “they became eager students who mastered many farming skills” which greatly benefitted wartime production in the state. Here are just a few numbers showcasing the enormous productivity of this time:
“In the 1943 Bamberg County Extension Annual Report, 110 POWs on 47 Bamberg farms were essential in harvesting 500 acres of peanuts and 27 acres of corn. An additional 53 farms in neighboring Orangeburg County used another 110 prisoners to harvest 800 acres of peanuts and bale 125 acres of hay.”
One Marlborough County farmer said the German POWs, with their discipline and work ethic, were the best workers they had ever had, saying, “there’s no question that they had real find work habits.”
Even though the farmers were told to have minimal contact with the POWs, that rule was largely ignored, and southern hospitality prevailed. Many South Carolina farmers treated their POW workers like “close neighbors” and productivity was rewarded with “afternoon breads, generous lunches, barbecues, and occasional visits with farm families.”
Back at the POW camps, many observed how well-organized and well-maintained the POWs were, and it became a testament to the German character. During a 1944 inspection of South Carolina POW facilities, an international observer Edouard Pattee of Switzerland saw a “bucolic scene” where the Myrtle Beach POW camp had “beautiful trees and barracks just like a boy scout camp.” At Fork Jackson, Pattee observed “‘avenues’ between the barracks with little gardens planted with shrubbery or decorated with designs made of sand, coal, pebbles, and broken glass… giving the camp the character of a true German Anlage (park)…”
As the Germans intermingled with their American captors and employers, a cross cultural examination occurred, and many Germans thought themselves superior to Americans. Harry Blumenthal, a German sergeant formerly of the Afrika Korps, remarked during the 1943 harvest season “we Germans are more disciplined people than you Americans.”
In general, the POWs in South Carolina and elsewhere in the US were treated quite well. So much so, that there was a growing concern amongst Americans that they were being treated too well. In fact, one New England resident wrote to the Provost Marshall “…why are these beasts pampered here when our (American) men are dying in the war?”
When the war ended and the POWs returned back to Germany, they met a land ravaged by war. South Carolina Farmer Frank Rogers received “many letters from his (former) German workers asking for all kinds of assistance — requests for goods, clothes, and other necessities to help their families through the cold winters where food and shelter were hard to find”.
Some former POWs desired to return to the United States and requested that their former employers “sponsor them to they could start a new life.” One POW who worked for a Sumter County farmer during the war was sent back to Germany in 1946, but by the early 1950s succeeded in returning to Sumter County to work for his former employer. Not many POWs were able to return, but their employers did send moral support and shipments of supplies during the difficult post-war Germany years.
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Did you know that the now desolate ruins of Prince Frederick Chapel tell the story of a church that had great promise, but never had a chance to truly flourish?
Prince Frederick’s chapel was named after Prince Frederick of Wales and was a Protestant Episcopal church in the community of Plantersville, in the modern-day town of Georgetown, an hour’s drive south of Myrtle Beach. The church was the vision of Reverend Joseph Hunter, who in November 1859 laid out the first foundations of the church, which he hoped would become a “central point in the local community.” His vision was not to be…
Just two years after laying those first cornerstones, the Civil War broke out in 1861, and construction on the church was halted. In total, the church took 17 years to build and was finished in 1876. However, the high hopes for the church were dashed as the reality of the post-war economic landscape took effect. The local economy depended on the rice industry, which before the war, was fueled by the free labor of enslaved workers. Everyone thought that their way of life would never end, and yet it did. After the war, the economy of the region plummeted. Few families were left to support the new church. Former planters “moved away from agricultural areas and relocated in cities to recreate their lives, leaving many planting communities desolate.”
Prince Frederick Church was left unattended and, without regular maintenance, ultimately declared unsafe. Most of the building was dismantled in 1966. Its ruins can be found near Plantersville in Georgetown County. The ruins of the chapel are all that remain of what once was a striking example of Gothic revival architecture in South Carolina.
1 ➳ Quote from an SC historical figure
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“I have the best memories of the happy time we had in the States.”
—A German POW soldier in a letter to his former employer (most likely an SC farmer) on his time in South Carolina during the war
Sources used in today’s newsletter:
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