ipl-logo

German Jackboots On Kentucky Bluegrass By Antonio Scott Thompson

625 Words3 Pages

One of Austin Peay State University’s newest faculty members has published his first book, a significant work that tells Kentucky’s story of housing, working and entertaining more than 10,000 German prisoners during World War II. Antonio Scott Thompson teaches a variety of classes like historical methods. His new book called German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass: Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946, highlights Kentucky affiliation with World War II and how it affected the life of the prisoners and all involved.

In the book it describes how during World War II, United States base camps housed

nearly 371,000 German and 51,000 Italian prisoners. About 9,000 of them resided in Kentucky’s camps such as Fort Knox, Campbell, and Breckinridge. These prisoners of war interaction proved a profitable experience for all. The Geneva Convention, ratified by the U.S. in 1932, required that captured enemy troops be supplied with food, clothing and shelter equivalent to the nation’s own personnel. U.S. ships carrying supplies and personnel to Europe often returned with POWs. Kentucky’s first prisoners arrived in the early summer of 1943. …show more content…

Many Americans were uneasy about the POWs but most agreed later with a local reporter (in the book) who stated that “if it weren’t for the bright yellow PW stamped on their trousers, you’d swear they were just a group of American boys …” (p. 24). The prisoners were brought over to help with the war efforts, such as maintaining

Show More
Related

Summary Of Mary Matsuda Gruenewald's Looking Like The Enemy

1284 Words | 6 Pages

Mary Matsuda Gruenewald tells her tale of what life was like for her family when they were sent to internment camps in her memoir “Looking like the Enemy.” The book starts when Gruenewald is sixteen years old and her family just got news that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japan. After the bombing Gruenewald and her family life changed, they were forced to leave their home and go to internment camps meant for Japanese Americans. During the time Gruenewald was in imprisonment she dealt with the struggle for survival both physical and mental. This affected Gruenewald great that she would say to herself “Am I Japanese?

Read More

Japanese Prisoner Of War Camps In Unbroken, By Louis Zamperini

335 Words | 2 Pages

Prisoner of war camps were common during World War II. However, the book Unbroken displays the true horrors that were in the Japanese prisoner of war camps. This book captures the life of Louis Zamperini and tells the horrendous conditions that he and other prisoners faced during their time in the prisons. The Japanese internment camps did not fulfill the purpose of the camp, the treatment of the prisoners that they deserved; also the prisoners were given meaningless jobs to fulfill.

Read More

Miss Breed Letters From Camp Analysis

487 Words | 2 Pages

“Dear Miss Breed: Letters from Camp”, is a collection of over 200 letters sent to Miss Clara Estelle Breed, also known as ‘Miss Breed’, from Japanese Americans imprisoned in the Japanese Interment Camps following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Prior to World War II, Miss Breed, was the supervising librarian at the East San Diego Public Library. Through this she was able to become aquatinted with many of the Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) children within her community. When the United States made the decision to join World War II, the young Nisei children that Miss Breed had come to care for were being forced from their homes and relocated to internment camps. Outraged by the situation, Miss Breed decided to help her young friends by becoming their

Read More

Mine Okubo And Louie Zamperini Analysis

830 Words | 4 Pages

World War II was a very traumatizing time for the soldiers that fought in it. Unfortunately, the War was also a very traumatic experience for the Japanese Americans that were forced into internee camps. Key examples of those who have struggled through awful conditions are Miné Okubo and Louie Zamperini. Miné is a Japanese American artist who was forced to live in squalor conditions surrounded by armed guards. Louie is an American soldier and a previous Olympic athlete that was beaten daily and starved almost to death in prisoner of war camps.

Read More

Farewell To Manzanar By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

767 Words | 4 Pages

Farewell to Manzanar contains an autobiographical memoir of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's wartime incarceration at Manzanar, a Japanese-American internment camp. Wakatsuki’s experience is described during their imprisonment and events concerning the family during and after the war. Camp life grew difficult as a result of pro-Japanese riots and forced loyalty oaths. Between 1942 and 1945, the U.S. government forced more than 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes, farms, schools, jobs and businesses, in violation of their constitutional civil rights and liberties. After the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II.

Read More

Farewell To Manzanar And Unbroken

931 Words | 4 Pages

Death was almost inevitable due to the kill-all order if the Americans were to win the war, the grotesque conditions the camps were under with rats everywhere, “climbing up his waste basket and wallowing in his urine pail, waking him at night by skittering over his face” (Hillenbrand 187), and the “floor was a thin [straw mat], which would be his bed, with three paper sheets… The walls were flimsy, the floorboards gaped, the ceiling was tarpaper” (Hillenbrand 199). Not to mention that the guards, wanting nothing but the suffering of the enemy internees, would beat the POWs with “such intensity that many of us wondered if we’d ever live to see the end of the war” (Hillenbrand 200). On the other hand, even though Manzanar was completed, “although finished was hardly a word for it. The shacks were built of one thickness of pine planking covered with tarpaper” (Houston 20), the intentions of the camp were as good as they could be considering the circumstances.

Read More

Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter Sweet Character Analysis

743 Words | 3 Pages

Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter Sweet is a historical fiction novel that takes place during the Japanese Internment of 1942. It centers n Henry Lee, a Chinese boy living with traditional Chinese parents and trying to grow up as a typical American kid in the U.S. during World War II. When he befriends a Japanese girl in the midst of the conflict, Henry soon discovers that navigating between the borders of cultures comes with many obstacles. The novel is a painful yet beautiful commentary of the racial separation in those times, capturing the struggles of both Japanese and Chinese Americans, along with a small look into African American’s lives as well. It tells the story of the horrible camps through the eyes of a young Chinese boy, which is an interesting perspective.

Read More

Examples Of Allusions In The Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet

255 Words | 2 Pages

The first allusion in the Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is when they mention Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was a U.S. naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by the Japanese in WWII. Today Pearl Harbor is now a memorial site for all the lives that were lost. This was the start of the war between the U.S. And Japan and the start of the mistaken mistrust between the U.S. And the Japanese race living in the U.S. This is shown clearly in the book when Henry the main character is hated at his school because they think he 's Japanese

Read More

Messages Between Miss Breed And Louise Ogawa

1707 Words | 7 Pages

This letter was another one of the corresponding messages between Miss Breed and Louise Ogawa dating back to September 27, 1942 and sent from the Santa Anita Interment Camp, a racetrack center turned Japanese relocation site during World War II (“700 S.F. Japanese Assemble”). The letter was written by Lousie Ogawa with a personal touch, a letter seemingly written by a friend for another. The purpose of her letter was to thank Miss. Breed for her interest in her life within the internment camp and from there Ogawa moves on to answering questions that were previously addressed to her in a past letter. Such as the materials provided to them within the camp, what she misses about her previous life, and her sources of entertainment within the camp.

Read More

Kurt Vonnegut: Prisoners Of War

1749 Words | 7 Pages

Victorious conquerors have taken prisoners of war in conflicts across human history. The foreign prison camps of the World Wars were infamous for their cruelty. However, many people are not aware that millions of German prisoners of war were placed in hundreds of camps all across America. These prisoners had their own unique experiences that differed significantly from prisoners held in foreign POW camps. Kurt Vonnegut voices his own traumatizing prisoner of war experience through the main character of Slaughterhouse-Five.

Read More

Compare And Contrast The American Prisoners Of The War Of 1812

147 Words | 1 Pages

Prisoners of the War of 1812 were treated differently based on what side they were on. Nations provided for their own men that were being held, such as clothing and food were needed to be proved for there own men. However, British did not like the fact of having to send money to their men for food and clothing and other necessities, because they knew that the money would end up with the opposing side for their use. British prisoners were often split up between a variety of towns of different conditions. American prisoners were crammed into very small spaces.

Read More

Important Quotes From The Things They Carried

931 Words | 4 Pages

Soldiers receiving a draft letter for war is typically a very hard and stressful time in their lives, especially the draft for Vietnam, the only draft America has had so far. Most of the men being drafted were young and unexperienced in war, making them hate it even more. They were taken and dropped into some of the worst circumstances the U.S. military has ever seen and expected to fight alongside people they had never even met before. As the war went on, the platoon members would bond, and have to watch their new friends get injured or die right in front of them, and wonder why they didn’t die as well. The harshness of the war made the soldiers look for any kind of escape from reality or way to make war easier, and they found drugs to be

Read More

Looking Like The Enemy Analysis

1010 Words | 5 Pages

Family #19788 The memoir Looking like the Enemy, was written by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald. Set during World War II after the attack upon Pearl Harbor. The Japanese Americans living in Western part of America had a since of betrayal and fear having to evacuate their homes and enter into internment camps.

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of The Four Geneva Conventions

1742 Words | 7 Pages

Rules: With regard to international armed conflicts, the four Geneva Conventions (GC I to IV) and Additional Protocol I and II contain various provisions specifically dealing with both of Prisoners of War, Civilians protection to prevent any kind of violations that may happen toward them. The Forth Geneva convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War has set rules governing the issue of civilians who found themselves under enemy’s possession. Article 5 of the 4th GC has identified who are protected persons with putting conditions to be considered as protected with the privileges of having the statue of protected persons at article 27 of the same convention. Third Geneva Convention in particular has recognized group of rights with regarded to POWs such as the right to be humanely treated at article 13, correspondence at article 71, the right to gain a sufficient food in quantity and quality at article 26 and the right to not be subjected to torture and question at article 17 where every prisoner of war “when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information” Moreover, the use of weapons and means that have indiscriminate effects such as poisonous gas and bombs which also would aggravate the suffering recognized as prohibited to use due to the amount of damage it causes upon civilians as well as the environment

Read More

Vietnam War Literary Criticism

925 Words | 4 Pages

These men made a choice either go to war or remain shameful and go to jail. “They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed and died because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor” (Obrien

Read More

More about German Jackboots On Kentucky Bluegrass By Antonio Scott Thompson

Related Topics

Open Document