The Croswell Canning Factory was built in 1918 by W. R. Roach. Prior to building in Croswell, The W.R. Roach Canning Company had a small plant at Lexington. It was located where Frazer Manufacturing Co. is located on Boynton Street, according to the Sanilac Jeffersonian.
The plant manager was Lloyd DuMond. He set up the new plant in Croswell which was said to be the largest pea canning plant in the world. The capacity was 66,000 cans an hour. Beside peas, they also processed red beets, beans and other locally grown vegetables.
Later the Roach Canning Factory was sold to Crampton Foods and then to Stokley Food.
Studying these processing plants was necessary to understanding the reason that Croswell needed the POW's during WWII.
Finding any information on the German POW's presented many challenges. We found that no one locally had any official records of the POW's. But one of the first emails I received was from the Archives of Michigan Library in Lansing.
“Mr. Parr, the federal government oversaw the various camps in the State of Michigan. Since the federal government oversaw these operations, they would be considered federal records, not state records. The records would be held in the National Archives. Unfortunately, based on research from previous staff members, it appears that most of these records were destroyed in the 1950s.” Other books on this subject verified this very same information. Researchers that went to various state libraries and to Washington D.C. came back empty-handed.
In 1945, there were 428,252 WWII POW's in the United States, consisting of German, 371,683; Italian, 51,156; and Japanese, 5,413.
Croswell was not the only community in the Thumb to have a POW camp. Caro had a German camp at the fairgrounds, and in Pigeon, there was a camp of Italian POW's. The Italians were used to work in the Pigeon coal mines.
The United States was not involved in WWII until the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After being drawn into North Africa, we then had to consider what to do with captured enemy troops. Howard "Ace" Galbraith’s father of Croswell, who was in the Army before we became involved with the war, was first assigned to North Africa. In 1942, he was ordered to guard the German POW's being shipped to the United States.
We were starting to obtain large numbers of POW's from North Africa. England, who had been in the war for some time, wanted the U.S. to take 150,000 of their German prisoners because they had run out of space, food and guards. We weren’t ready for that many, but we did bring over 50,000. They were placed first in the southern half of the U.S. where we had vacant CCC camps. It was also considered more cost-effective during the cold months.
Eventually, in Michigan we had 32 camps with the main camp at Fort Custer outside Battle Creek. The German POW's were kept at three locations in Croswell, although it was officially considered only one site.
The following is partly from a thesis written by William R. Lowe for a Master of Arts in History Degree, 1995. (Working for eighty cents a day. German Prisoners of War in Michigan 1943-1945) Mr. Lowe’s thesis was the most informative material on the Michigan POW's.
Due to an acute labor shortage, the W.R. Roach Canning plant in Croswell was forced to run at half capacity. Concerns about saving the harvest led Lloyd Dumond to call for help from the Owosso POW compound. Sixty-nine German prisoners of war arrived at Croswell on July 10, 1945, accompanied by 10 guards. A temporary compound was set up in a large building on M-90 at Howard Avenue. Afterward the canning facility achieved full production capacity.
After the completion of the first run, the POW's were sent back to the Owosso compound. This worked out so well the Roach Canning Co. officials requested to secure 150 POW's for the later canning run.
On August 1, 1945, tents opened on the grounds of the Croswell Airport with 50 prisoners. Another 75 arrived on August 6. All prisoners at this POW compound worked for the W.R. Roach Canning facilities. On September 5, with the completion of the late pea run, the Army ordered the POW camp closed effective September 8, 1945.
Mr. Dumond of the Canning Co., states that 450,000 cases of canned vegetables have been contracted for delivery to the government. None will be available for civilians. Sanilac Jeffersonian; April 20, 1945. The canning factory was very important to the government war effort. The food supplied by the canning factory was used as part of the rations for the troops. The cans were painted black so on the war front they would not reflex light at night.
The Army established a third POW camp in Croswell on October 24, 1945. The Michigan Sugar Co. contracted for 350 prisoners to help harvest sugar beets in the Croswell area. Michigan Sugar Co. provided space for the POW compound within their warehouse complex.
When the sugar beet harvest was completed the camp was deactivated on November 28, 1945.
Although, the end of the war was August 1945, we kept the POW's until June of 1946. The first reason was because we had so many POW's to send back to Europe. Later some of these POW's were kept in France and England by those governments to help with restorations. The second reason was we still needed POW help for labor intensive agriculture. Third, was because there was so much paperwork for the states to figure out. Some of the POW's did not want to return home. But because of the Geneva Conference all POW's had to be sent home. A small handful, less than six, escaped. The last escaped POW turned himself in, in 1985. He was returned to his birth country and then allowed to come back to the US to become a citizen.
In 1945, local contractors in the Lower Peninsula paid the US Treasury almost 2 million dollars for prisoner labor. The POW's had received $350,000 for their work. Profit to the Government was $1,650,000.
Local contractors, Roach Canning Factory and Michigan Sugar Co., included working on the farmers’ crops when required to pay the prevailing wages to the U.S. Treasury. If the going rate was $2 a day to be paid to the Treasury, then the German POW's were paid $.80. Distributing this pay was in camp scrip instead of cash. The scrip was negotiable only at the camp store for tobacco, reading material, candy, toiletries, stationery, and other like sundries.
The temporary compound on M-90 and Howard was at the time Dave Murray’s building, which is now Bob Watson’s three-story apartment complex. Just west of today's Cannery apartments was a building called the barracks. It housed German POW's with other contracted workers living there after the war.
Recollections from the Kandler family, Croswell. Richard Kandler tells of his Grandfather Peter who lived on Ward St. who spoke fluent German and was hired by the canning factory to be a night guard. The factory was fenced in, and at 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., armed with a 32 caliber pistol, he patrolled the factory compound. The German POW's told him not to worry about being hurt or over-powered because they were so well taken care of that they would not try to escape.
Recollection by Walt Matthews, Croswell. His brother, Ken, worked with the German POW's at the Pea factory and said they were hard working and good to work with.
Recollections by Gerald "Joe" and Willard Kroetch, Snover. Their dad worked at the Pea Vinnery one mile east of Snover. Their dad was also the German interpreter for those POW's working in the piling and shelling of those peas. And lots of Snover residents remember the wonderful smell.
Recollection by Helen (Brown) Nunn of Croswell. She remembers when the POW's camp was at the airport. She graduated from Croswell High School in 1944 and remembers also the barracks at the canning factory. They could get out of school in the afternoon to help harvest beans because of the shortage of labor.
Recollection by Art Brown, Croswell. Art’s wife’s grandfather, Peter Putz, “the Croswell Shoe Maker” lived across the road from the German POW Camp at the airport. He was a first-generation American and spoke fluent German. His son, Jon Putz, had a farm out on Hall Road, where he had POW's work in the sugar beet fields. He was known as being very kind in the treatment of the POW's.
In Michigan, most of the work the POW's performed involved agriculture. Like migrant laborers the POW's moved from harvest to harvest, crop to crop. If it had not been for these POW's, Croswell would not have been able to operate its canning and sugar factories in 1945. The farmers' crops would have rotted in the fields.
Books that I requested from the State Library that were supposed to be available were not available. The librarians hands are tied because of the change since the closure of the main library, so a lot of things are still in storage.
Also before the Gielow Pickle Co. came to Croswell in 1947, they were located near Durand. I read where they had 10 to 25 German POW's working there based on need. I asked Doug Gielow about this and he said yes, and that he remembered going with his dad, Roy Gielow, to the sorting station over by New Lothrop and observing the POW's sorting for them at the pickle plant.
Resource: http://www.lakeshoreguardian.com/site/news/283/The-Pioneer-Spirit-The-Beginning-of-the-Croswell-Pioneer-Sugar-Company---Part-3#.V6Pm9nn6tdg