Trending
TOLEDO -- The Tama County Historical Society will host Dr. Chad Timm for his presentation "Working with the Enemy: Japanese Prisoners of War in Iowa During World War II" at 7 p.m. on July 12 at the Wieting Theatre, 101 S. Church St., Toledo.
As part of a relatively quiet and under-publicized government program, thousands of enemy soldiers invaded Iowa in 1943. Great Britain, no longer able to accommodate the increasing number of POWs, looked to the United States for help. Helping with the detainment of enemy POWs made sense, as American cargo vessels were returning home after delivering war materials with empty hulls.
What began as an experiment in isolated locations in the south and southwest eventually led to more than 500 camps and 400,000 enemy soldiers interned in the United States, including two camps in the state of Iowa.
This talk will focus on the creation of a POW camp in the southwest Iowa town of Clarinda. Camp Clarinda was one of only two camps in the country to house Japanese soldiers. Some of the topics discussed will be life in a prisoner of war camp, community relations, the POW labor program, branch camps in more than 30 Iowa communities and the arrival of Japanese prisoners at Camp Clarinda in early 1945. The story of POW internment in Iowa is a fascinating story of Iowans being confronted by the enemy: an enemy they not only needed to help them meet wartime goals, but also challenged them to find humanity.
Timm is an associate professor of education at Simpson College in Indianola. He taught high school history for 15 years and has also been teaching future social studies teachers since 2010. His master's degree in agricultural history and rural studies and his PhD in education are both from Iowa State University.
This program is free and open to the public. For more information about upcoming historical society programming, visit www.tamacountyhistory.org.