POW Camps in Iowa - Shell Rock author works on new book

By: 
Bethany Carson

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Shell Rock author Linda McCann is working on a new book about the POW camps in Iowa during World War II, and she’s asking anyone who remembers the camps to share their memories.
     “There were two main camps in Iowa, Algona and Clarinda. Then there were at least 17 branch camps that had POWs. They were mostly Germans, and branch camps had them for short times,” said McCann. “Waverly was open August to November 1944 and a few months in ’45. They came for a specific purpose, specific job, and did it. Then they went back to Algona or Clarinda.”
     In Waverly, prisoners worked de-tasseling and picking corn and beans for Marshall Canning. They also worked three shifts a day for 10 days to rebuild part of the elevator in Plainfield after that structure burned in 1944.
     A local man who was eight or nine at the time remembers how he cut his arm in a car door. A prisoner who was a doctor happened to be around and checked out his arm.
 
Read more in the March 22 edition of the STAR.

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