World War II POW Camp

Front: In Oct. 1943, the U.S. Army opened a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp near here on Pigeon Point Road. It was one of more than twenty POW camps built in S.C. during World War II to hold Axis prisoners. Around 250 Italian soldiers arrived here from Camp Wheeler near Macon, Ga., after being captured in North Africa. They were housed in tents and were among the more than 425,000 Axis POWs held in the U.S. during the war. Reverse: The Italian soldiers here were employed by Beaufort Co. truck farmers to harvest vegetables, making up for labor shortages that arose as farm workers fought overseas or found better-paying jobs related to the war effort. The camp here opened one month after Italy surrendered to Allied forces. It closed by spring 1944. Axis POWs remained in other camps around S.C. until 1946, when the last prisoners left U.S. soil.