Not all tragedy

The subject of POW camps in Utah is kind of overshadowed by both the Japanese internment camps and the Salina Midnight Massacre. Both are rightly remembered as some of the largest injustices in the US at the time. 

However, it's also good to remember some of the little, more mundane things as well. There were a large number of POW camps in Utah for the obvious security reason of its remoteness, and also for keeping prisoners occupied in local agricultural or construction tasks, as most able-bodied men were in military service. Finding info on them, at least for me, proved elusive for some time until relatively recently.

Clearfield Navy Depot (now a business district known as Freeport Center) was one area that housed a number of mostly Italian POWs who assisted in the running of the operations at the depot. If you aren't familiar with the facility, The History Guy on youtube has a nice little primer on it. 

Another location familiar to most people in the Salt Lake area is Fort Douglas that also housed POWs during WWII as well. A very appreciated resource I found on the subject was the Taylorsville, Utah city website which has a nice map and listing of POW camp locations along with a listing of museums that have info on the subject.

A picture of the map of locations from the aforementioned Taylorsville city article.

In an article by the Utah Humanities site it clarifies that POWs were not used as slave labor, but were paid an average of $0.80 a day, and were able to organize many extra curricular activities and groups, which included playing in orchestras, watching movies,  and helping to provide education as well (to themselves or the locals is unclear). However, it's also interesting to note that after Italy's surrender, the Italian POWs were allowed weekend leave from their camps. In the same article it states that many inmates of Utah's POW camps were interviewed in the late 60s about their treatment, and they overwhelmingly stated that they were treated fairly. Some were said to have actually stayed and married local women after the war.  

Some sample pictures of POWs taken from the article at the Taylorsville website. 

All in all, a pretty interesting thing to learn more about.