The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-03-10


 land, for 100 German prisoners to work in patches of ten on farms in the country, so obtained ten prisoners to help cut the corn and fill the silo.
 They arrived by truck from Camp Meade, accompanied by one U. s. soldier as guard, slowed their lunches in the shade and went to work. They worked very well, they required little direction, were given few orders, and didn't loaf on the job.
 The guard paid little attention to them, explaining that they worked better if they felt they were not being guarded. He re- mained around the barn and the silo, while most of the prisoners worked half 8 mile away in the cornfield. He said that few pris- oners had run away, and if they did escape they had no place to go and were easily apprehended.
 Having had 100 Bulgar prison- CTS under me in Serbia just after the last war, did not disagree with him. l had left Bulgar pris- oners in groups of five or six in isolated mountain spots where they were rebuilding Serbian hous- es, completely unguarded except for one thing. At night the Ser bian widows collected the prison- CTS shoes and slept on them. Few ran away and they were always caught.
 At noon the ten German pris- Oners sat under tree, ate their lunch and sang songs. The guard did not go near them. After one hour they went back to work At the end of the day l paid the Government 90 cents an hour for each prisoner, or S3 an hour for the ten. The prisoners in turn received 80 cents day, the amount set by the Geneva Convention. The Government kept the rest to pay for hauling, feeding and hand ling the prisoners.
 The whole thing worked out well, 50 well that a week later when the Farm Bureau could spare additional prisoners I had ten more.
 But this time 1t was different. The first lot had been captured in Normandy, the second lot had been taken in North Africa. They were & part of Rommcl s Afrika Korps. l don't know what the difference is between Nazi pris- oners taken in Africa and those taken in France, unless 1t was that Rommel's troops were more Nazified, but I do know that the second group was insolent, lazy, impossible to manage and more trouble than they were worth.
 They were given exactly the same job as the other prisOn- CTS, but they did about half as much work. Two or three in- sisted on sitting in the shade whenever they felt like 1t. When I called this to the attention of the guard he seemed helpless. He said that if he ordered them around 1t would be worse.
 The guard, incidentally, had hung his rifle on the truck which my wife was driving between the cornfield and the silo, and eventu' ally 1t bounced off and fell on the ground. A prisoner picked 1t up, looked to see if 1t were load ed dt wasn'D and threw 1t back on the truck.
 At noon hour they quit early and wouldn't go back to work un- til they felt like 1t, which was ten minutes late. They complained that some apples we gave them were wormy. The Geneva Conven- tion. they said, paid them 80 cents day, and they were going to give Us 80 cents worth of work.
 IMPOTENT U. S. GUARD
 Toward the end of the day they again quit early. The guard had no control over them and didn't really try to exercise any. When asked him to get the names of those who had spent part of the afternoon sitting in the shade. he tried, but they refused to give their names.
 | wrote . report to the Pro-
 vest MarshaI's office at Camp