Camp Crossville a.k.a. The Jap Camp

Recently, I found myself on the grounds of the former POW camp in Crossville, Tennessee. There is precious little left to identify the original purpose of this facility about which I’ve heard stories my whole life. I was hearing the history from local people who saw these men as responsible parties for the absence of husbands, brothers, neighbors and friends. They remembered sometimes seeing the men, and fearing them. They told stories of lone women shooting escapees – even mistaking them for Yankees, which in legend was much worse than a Nazi.

I went searching for some facts and I found the Military Memorial Museum in Crossville and the Cumberland County Archives which were both incredibly helpful in the writing of this article.  The museum is a must-see for anyone interested in either local or military history.  And the Archives is a dream-stop for any history or book-nerds like me! (We’ll revisit these places in a future blog.)

The April 9, 1942 edition of the Crossville Chronicle presented Congressman Albert Gore’s announcement that Cumberland County might house “an alien concentration camp”

Wow, today’s readers would be aghast at the prospect of a concentration camp. Well, that is one of those words that has been rather hijacked by history.  The etymology dictionary lists this term from 1901 as a “compound for noncombatants in a war zone.” So, as distasteful as the concept was, both the camps that housed Japanese Americans and those for the European Jews were true to the term. However, the atrocities of the German concentration camps have forever twisted the term toward evil connotations.

Diorama of Camp Crossville - on display at the Military Memorial Museum

The news of a camp in Crossville seems to have hinged on whether “our people desired it” – and they did. In fact, the business men who met in the office of the city recorder unanimously approved the idea. The proposed facility was for non-combatants whose sympathies aligned with our enemies. And, entire families were expected.

The prospect of a government installation located on our mountain was very exciting to the impoverished people of the 1940’s. When a local office was setup for the government agent, a crowd was almost always present as they vied for newly available work.

As the decision-making proceeded, locals expected a whole town, that would be larger than Crossville, would be built. It would include a large hospital which many hoped would be a permanent fixture, possibly even a veteran’s facility when peace was restored.

On July 30th, the Chronicle announced that work had begun. By October, several hundred men were working to assemble 100 or more houses and the camp was now referred to as an “Alien Officers camp”.   None of the articles I read ever referred to Japanese prisoners, but the camp would forever be called the Jap Camp.  In fact, Bob Mitchell recalled local people lined up to see the Japanese when the trains began to arrive.  On December 3, 1942, the first 68 prisoners arrived by special train from Nashville.  They were mostly officers from Germany and Italy.  Armed soldiers were stationed at every crossroad in town because the Pentagon feared angry locals would try to harm the prisoners.

The plan always included the prisoners working and many local people remember truckloads of prisoners arriving in local fields to pick beans.  They worked in tobacco fields and cleared right-of-ways for TVA.  In the early days of the camp, the prisoners seemed to have enjoyed a very comfortable life. In fact, as I read about their rations and the pay they received for common chores, I couldn’t help but remember the lives the local people were enduring.

Former prisoner, Hans Albert Smolinski Alberston wrote that the kitchen supervisor was a German with hotel experience.  He began serving coffee and cake on Sunday afternoons with whipped cream. He added that, “Naturally, we could not write home such extravagances – nor could we tell that to our prison guards!” Wartime was hard around the world and their families back in Germany probably suffered worse than our mountain people.

When news of German war crimes began to leak, the prisoners in Camp Crossville felt the change in sentiment. Rations were reduced and guards were colder. The prisoners were made to watch news reels of the allies liberating German concentration camps and exposing the starvation and abuse.

Elmer Atkinson hailed from Clarkrange, Tennessee and served as an M.P. attached to the 7th Army.  He encountered the wife of one of the Camp Crossville POWs. She was convinced that her husband was enduring the worst of treatment in captivity. Elmer asked his interpreter to tell her he would gladly trade places with her husband.  Elmer also was assigned to guard the American soldiers who were liberated from German camps. His job was to prevent the emaciated men from eating too fast and killing themselves. He said they lost several men because they would sneak from one tent to the next and ate until they died.

Several of the POWs from Camp Crossville returned through the years. They shared fond memories from their time on the Plateau.  A couple even wrote books.  Albertson did note that even with good conditions in camp, they were very far from home. While mail was permitted, many of the prisoners had little news from their families. He writes, “Many a night one could not fall asleep because those tormenting thoughts tortured our brains and distressed our hearts! How often did we get up and walk through the silent nights along the barbed wire fences? How often did we cry or utter a silent prayer…”

The camp today bears little resemblance to the barbed wire enclosed prison.  As our mountain terrain is wont to do, the scrub brush, briars and weeds have reclaimed the cleared fields and roadways. The land has been repurposed as a 4-H camp and where once prisoners passed lonely days thousands of miles from home, now young campers learn woods skills, frolic in the pool and play camp games.

I Found Her in the Bean Field

A mountain man in search of a wife must consider many factors and a good work ethic is high on the list. Historically, life on the hardscrabble mountain farm was never easy and having a spouse who would pull her share of the load was invaluable.

This week I had the sad opportunity to attend a neighbor’s funeral and her husband told me, “I found her in the bean field. I just went to pickin’ beans with her.”

Now, this may not sound like a fairy tale beginning to you – and Hollywood will certainly pass on producing any love stories with that opening. However, I’ve heard many young men advised to look in the fields for a wife. It was sound advice and served that boy well. After a courtship that started over a bushel of beans, she worked alongside him for 62 years, raising vegetables and children, enduring hard times and enjoying the good ones.

We’ve talked a lot here about the green bean industry and the impact it had on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau. There are surely more stories to write. In the 1950’s and ‘60’s, this cash crop provided summer work for men, women and children alike. For many years, my own grandfather ‘hauled’ bean pickers – that means that he would give them a ride on the back of his truck to the field. People have told me this, still appreciating the opportunity he gave them to earn a few dollars.

I will confess to you that when I was put in the field as a child – staring down an endless row of green sprigs that started out the morning soaked in dew and ended in scorching heat – I thought it was absolute child abuse. Years later when my sister and I worked in the same office, our supervisor asked what it was from my upbringing that gave us such a good work ethic – I told her we were taught to work from our earliest childhood. My mother thought that was the greatest compliment she could get.

Daddy Talks Turkey

I don’t know about your house, but with my family, as we sit around the Thanksgiving table, stories begin to flow.  My daddy always has a good supply of them.  As this holiday wraps up, I wanted to share some of his thoughts on turkey and Thanksgiving.

He doesn’t remember eating turkey very many times, while growing up on the mountain, and I wondered why There weren’t many wild turkeys around for many years – or maybe decades. Today, we have several of them around, probably due to the efforts of the Tennesse Wildlife Resource Agency.

Daddy does remember one turkey-hunting story.  Around 1930, Uncle Menzo Atkinson and Menzo’s sons, planned to meet some of their family and hunt on the north end of the county. Somehow, they missed the meet-up, but didn’t waste the opportunity to hung. They killed a wild turkey. As they wrapped-up their day, they happened upon the rest of their hunting party. That other group held up a mess of squirrel and Uncle Menzo silently reached into the wagon and came out with the turkey. They enjoyed telling the story as Aunt Medie skinned and cooked it.

Of course, you can have a feast without turkey. One year all of Daddys aunts and uncles gathered at Grandma Keys for a holiday meal and Berris Stepp, Hollis Henry and Vernon Roberts slipped of coon hunting. They were successful and came in with a big kill. Then they wondered what to do with it. Grandpa Berris quietly said, “Grandma will cook that if you ask her to.” Grandma Ida Key heard them and agreed to cook the coon if they would clean it good. The next day, the table was spread with plenty, including the coon. The Aunts were none too happy about that addition to their carefully  planned menu.

I would like to know who decided that the proper Thanksgiving meal was turkey. Aunt Cecil Hall was at Grandma’s talking about folks eating turkey and the girls all decided they ought to serve that as well. So they pooled their money, bought a turkey, and that was the first time Daddy remembered having turkey on Thanksgiving.

Whatever you ate, and I hope you had plenty, please count your blessings today. We have a fair share of trouble in this country, but we are also immensely blessed.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Grandpa's Stove

I’ve mentioned here before how I like a cozy warm fire when the temperatures start dipping low. Well they have certainly taken a plunge this week! While being able to see a flame seems to mentally warm me, even a wood fire in an enclosed stove is welcome. I want to tell you about my stove.

An article about a stove may seem extremely boring, so please bear with me.  This stove is a little special to me, you see, my grandfather built it.

Grandpa Berris Stepp wore a myriad of hats in his life. Like most mountain men, he did whatever came to his hand in order to keep food on the table and a roof over his family’s head. He farmed, of course. I think that was always his passion. He mined for coal from Tennessee to Virginia to Pennsylvannia. And   then he learned a trade – welding.

As I understand the story, he and his brother, Leelon, had moved to Virginia to mine coal. Grandpa told me about the tiny shafts they had to work in – he said he had to lie on his back to drink water. It must have been a particularly hard day when Leelon sat down beside him and said, “We’re gonna’ starve to death if we don’t we get out of here.” That’s all Grandpa needed and they were on their way home to the mountain.  Leelon knew that Tennessee Polytechnic Institute (later known as Tennessee Technological University) was training technical skills and these two young men enrolled there. Grandpa would learn welding and his brother studied machining. When their courses were finished, they were prepared for more than chipping coal out of the mountain side – although Grandpa would return to the mines when needed.

Grandpa used his welding skills at Oak Ridge during World War II, then another 20 years at Martin Marietta.  He also welded for farmers all over the community, repairing machinery and fabricating solutions to everyday problems. That’s how he came to build my stove.

Daddy envisioned a cleaner and more efficient means of heating our home by placing the wood and the stove out in the garage. Using forced air, heat would be pushed throughout the house – this sounds so common-place to us today as we are accustomed to central heat and air. But in 1977, there weren’t very many systems like that on this mountain.  Certainly, one could have been purchased but that was scarcely an option. So they got some good steel and Grandpa worked out a design.

Now, I’ve inherited this little stove and Grandpa’s design and handiwork are still working wonderfully.  I wish he could see that a whole other generation of his family is enjoying it.

At some point, Mama and Daddy got ahead enough that they thought they should have a factory-built furnace and they replaced Grandpa’s homemade stove with an Ashley Furnace. We nearly froze that winter. I can’t explain to you the technicalities, but after several trips from Ashley factory representatives and their engineers, the factory-built model could not be made to heat our home. That spring Grandpa’s little stove was re-installed and hasn’t been displaced again.

I’m going to shamelessly admit that I share this story in part to brag on my grandpa. But I also offer it as testimony of the skill, determination and ingenuity of our mountain people.

One Heroe's Story: Amos Key

Each year in November, America pauses to recognize the brave men and women who have marched under our flag to preserve freedom around the world. Sometimes, we can get really focused on a handful of heroes and forget that everyone who honorably serves one day deserves our gratitude.

Today, I want to share one story that has been handed down in my family.

Amos Key was born in Martha Washington to James Elbert and Ruth Gracie (Todd) Key on August 25, 1921. On February 16, 1942, Amos registered for the draft in Alcoa, Tennessee. At that time, he was living in Alcoa and working at the Aluminum Company of America.

When he was called up, he trained as a pilot and eventually flew a B-24 bomber. He was stationed near Cerignola, Italy from June 27, 1945 to September 29, 1945.  Returning from a bombing run in Austria, Amos’ plane was hit by shrapnel which punctured one of the fuel tanks. His crew used the fuel transfer system to keep all four engines running but soon realized they would not have enough fuel to return home. Amos made the decision to cross the Adriatic Sea from the coastline of Yugoslavia. Shortly after spotting the coastline of Italy which was occupied by both Germans and British the group of 11 men had to bail out of the B-24. Amos directed his men to stand over the Bombay doors. Once in position, he opened the doors so the men could jump clear of the plane. Each man was told they needed to wait until they reached a certain altitude before pulling their rip cord. One of the men pulled it prematurely and fell into the ocean but was picked up by a fishing boat.  The others landed South of Ancona, near the coastline between enemy lines where they were rescued by a British armored group. All eleven made it back safely to their base in Italy.

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, Amos and his crew were on another bombing run to Adolf Hitler’s home town of Vienna, Austria. During this flight, the plane was struck by shrapnel from artillery stationed on railroad box cars. Amos’ 2nd starboard engine was hit but the wing was left intact. The propeller on that engine began to “windmill” (spin) which created a great amount of drag and loss in altitude. It was decided once again that the crew would have to abandon their plan. They turned south trying to get away from enemy territory. This time they were not going to make it back to Italy; they would have to bail out over Yugoslavia. As the plane lost altitude, Amos strongly encouraged the men to get out quickly - Amos was always the last one out. The crew estimated that they landed somewhere between the cities of Jubljana and Zabok. Each one of them landing safely, but were instructed to split up and go their separate ways. Amos recounts hiding in some hills overlooking a small village. He hid as people walked past him on their way to church. He hid in logs and covered himself with leaves at night - anything he could do to stay out of sight. Cold and hungry, Amos found himself at the doorstep of a cottage looking for help. Airmen were instructed to always go to an isolated home to improve their chances if they needed to run. Fortunately, he had chosen a home that welcomed him in. Later, through the Tito partisans, a Yugoslavian soldier came for him. Amos remembered that he was a little hesitant to hand over his sidearm. The two traveled for 8 days sometimes by the road the other times through the woods. Soon, he was reunited with some of his men. After a few days rest and nourishment about 15 airmen from different fighter groups were taken to a farm field. A farmer with a single piston farm tractor came out and began to cut down his wheat field in long strips. Not long after that, an Army jeep came out and placed radar airs at each end of the cut field. A group of P-51 Mustangs were soon sighted overhead so that a C-47 rescue plane could come in and take them out. Two weeks later, Amos Key’s men were all back together.

Amos and his crew continued to fly, but philosophy of bombing was changing, according to Amos. US airmen were beginning to receive orders to bomb non-military targets. They felt that the German people needed to know that there was a war going on and it was decided that the spirit of the German people needed to be broken. The crew was given orders to begin bombing runs on Cologne & Dresden in Germany. It lasted for two weeks. It was difficult for the men of to do this, but they were given their orders. Amos recounted how he often asked God what he must think of his people and the things they do to one another.

As the war was closing, Amos and his crew were sent home. Amos had lost many friends during the war, but he particularly remembered a friend with whom he had gone through boot camp and training school. He was the Captain of another B-24 which was shot down over the Adriatic. Amos recalled only seeing three parachutes deploying from his friend’s plane before disappearing out of sight. He never heard from his friend again and often thought if he did make it out of the plane with his crew that they would have perished in the ocean.

Amos returned home safely on June 27,1945.