POW/Work Camp Vehicles in Canada

[Lang]

Just a comment, without hijacking the Canadian thread, POW camps in Australia were a joke. The Italians captured in the desert were quickly put out into the farming community and integrated well (marrying a number of Australian girls)

The Germans on the other hand were a pretty tough lot, mostly Afrika Corps and Sailors. The Australian Guards were made up of Dad's Army and the Germans ran rings around them, It is an embarrassing story. There were so many escapes by blokes with no where to go in such an isolated country - just wanting to get out of confinement.

Two German ship engineers escaped, walked to Melbourne and got a job in an aircraft factory. They were doing well, ready for promotion before they were discovered!

The local police commander got so sick of the camp commandant calling for help in rounding up escaped prisoners told him "If they call in to the police station I will bring them back but the army will have to find them yourselves because I am taking my wife to a movie"


Lang

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Lang

Just a comment, POW camps in Australia were a joke.

It is an embarrassing story. There were so many escapes by blokes with no where to go in such an isolated country - just wanting to get out of confinement.

Lang

There certainly is no consistancy. Some of the camps in horticultural and agricultural areas were a very handy source for farm workers, which eventually saw many POWs reluctant to be repatriated, and even returning as post-war immigrants! Creative Italians, many from similar rural backgrounds as the locals, introduced Vino and Grappa to Australian palates.

Other camps were much more like punishment for recalcitrant escapees, like Nurina, affectionately known to the Commonwealth Railways crews, who were warned to look out for stowaways, as "F***all'sville". Although for the hardened-escapees types, Nurina was perhaps remakable as a POW camp in that it had no fencing of any kind and relied on it's location alone to keep the POWs close to home.

[David Dunlop]

Found a couple of articles on the Whitewater Lake Camp with photos of some of the POW'S and buildings. But no vehicles yet.

Some of the descriptions suggest a vehicle maintenance shop may have been on site, but since this camp was gathering cord wood, this shop may have been primarily to service the available logging trucks. Indications are some horse teams may also have been active with the work.

Also some reports of POW's borrowing vehicles from the guards to go to dances in the towns just South of the park on weekends and to shop for piglets to raise for the camp menu.

And on the topic of food, it seems that in hunting season, both the guards and POW's would head out in trucks with rifles from the Guard House for deer, elk and moose.

Apparently as well, the German Medical Officer had access to a vehicle to take to Dauphin for medical supplies and for patient treatments he was unable to deal with at the camp.

It would not surprise me if some of these vehicles were disposed of at the end of the war, at the War Assets Depot which had been set up at RCAF Station Dauphin.


David