Walter Winchell, 
Radio News Broadcaster and Camp Atterbury

Rebuttal to Broadcast by Walter Winchell
Regarding the German POWs at camp Atterbury

Following appeared in a Camp Inspection: (See INSPECTIONS for full report)

Inspection:  May 1 and 2, 1945 by Dr. Rudolph Fischer, representing the Legation of Switzerland, and Mr. Charles C. Eberhardt, representing the Department of State.

It may be of interest to refer here to an attack which was made on this camp in March or April by the notoriety-seeking Walter Winchell.  Among other things, he criticized the camp for employing Germans near an American factory turning out war munitions. 

Investigation developed the fact that both the Mississippi River and 100 miles intervened between the prisoners' working camp and the munitions factory under reference.

However, after all this publicity, Colonel Gammell, who is himself an old newspaperman, induced the well-known woman writer, Mary E. Bostwick, to visit the camp, with free access to everything and anything affecting the camp administration.  Her report as finally published in the Indianapolis Star of April 8, 1945 completely discredited Winchell.  A copy is attached to the original of this report. 

Along the same lines, there is attached (1) and article which appeared in The Grenade published by the Service Club of Indianapolis, which sarcastically criticized the camp and its administration, and which Colonel Gammell took as a reflection upon himself directly.  He invited one George Kingsbury, whose name was one of several attached to the article, to call and inspect the camp for himself.  A copy of his retraction of the article which appeared in The Grenade is enclosed (2), as is also a copy of his letter dated April 11, 1945 (3) addressed directly to Colonel Gammell.

The Indianapolis Star
Sunday, April 8, 1945

Atterbury Prisoners Work Hard, Find Model Camp - No Country Club
by Mary E. Bostwick, Staff Correspondent of The Star

Camp Atterbury, Ind., April 7

The German prisoners of war at Camp Atterbury are not leading a carefree country club existence by any means. 

On the contrary, they work hard 10 hours a day, they not only pay their own way, but their work on farms, in canning factories, etc., will put about $1,500,000 in the United States Treasury this year, they do a great many of the chores around Camp Atterbury that the American soldier never has been particularly keen about doing, and the fact that they are treated fairly and humanely has ore than returned dividends in the treatment of American prisoners of war in Germany.

Col. Welton M. Modisette, Camp Atterbury commander, and Col. John L. Gammell, commander of the Camp Atterbury PW camp, whose population now includes more than 4,000 Germans, make it clear that the treatment accorded the German PWs is that prescribed by the Geneva Convention, tht the Geneva Convention is law, and that the United States Army is administering it.  The Camp Atterbury PW camp is run in strict accordance with the Geneva Convention, under firm military discipline and it has the reputation of being one of the model PW camps in the country.

Prisoners "Serious Minded"

There have been no escapes, no trouble.  For one thing, there are no officers or non-commissioned officers in the camp.  The prisoners are all privates and come from a class used to hard work.  Ther are, in Col. Gammell's words, "serious minded".  They attend numerous classes, studying languages, history, mathematics, literature, stenography, bookkeeping, drawing, agriculture and animal breeding.  In their spare time, and with their own money, they are building an out-door arena with a seating capacity of 1,000 in a part of the camp grounds where the natural contour of the land lends itself to such an enterprise.

As many as 320 different details, numbering from one to 100 men, have been used in one day.  These include the jobs on farms and at canning factories and fertilizer factories.  The men have all been classified and are assigned to jobs in which they are most proficient.  Many of them are expert farmers.  Where they work outside Camp Atterbury itself is decided by the War Manpower Commission.  A farmer, for instance, is short of help, so he goes to the Manpower Commission and asks that some PWs be assigned to his farm; if the farmer's request is certified, the commission issues a certificate that so many PWs are to be employed at so much an hour.  The wages paid are based on the prevailing rates in various localities, but there is no competition with civilian labor.  The prisoner keeps 80 cents a day of his wages, which are paid in canteen coupons, not cash, and the rest goes to the United States government.

Prisoners of War Replace Soldiers

Last year the PWs, working out of branch camps at Vincennes, Austin, Windfall and Morristown, as well as from Camp Atterbury, on both farms and at canning factories, were credited with saving much of the crop of Indiana fruits and vegetables.  The only time PWs are off the post is when they are working out of one of the branch camps, where they live in tents and are accompanied by guards.  There may be seven branch camps this spring and summer.

On the post PWs are replacing 2,271 soldiers who would otherwise be doing the countless chores that are necessary to keep an enormous establishment like Camp Atterbury functioning smoothly.  Hundreds of them are doing kitchen police duty, working as cooks and waiters in the various messes, including the officer's', under  the supervision of an American non-com.  They are good at this work, and to quote Col. Gammell again, :Where would you get a cook, let alone a good cook, for 80 cents a day?"

In the vast camp laundry, 95 PWs are on the day shift and 30 on the night shift.  In the textile department, 70 are at work repairing and pressing uniforms, overcoats and other garments.  In the show repairing department 48 have jobs repairing GI shoes and galoshes, and because of the shortage of man power and machines the shoe repair shop runs on a 24-hour schedule.  Six of them work in the bakery, they wear white uniforms and white caps, with the PW stencils.

American Troops First

The unload refrigerator cars drawn up on the siding by the cold storage plant, cars loaded with fresh meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy products, and in the cold storage plant itself they carry crates and sacks of meat, crates of eggs and citrus fruits.

They tend the heating plants in the administration buildings, the barracks, etc.; they do janitor work; they work  in the salvage park, unloading and sorting metal, glass, tin cans, lumber, etc.; The do janitor work; they work at keeping the grounds and streets immaculate and do landscape gardening; inside the post they drive trucks.  They work in the paint shop, the carpenter shop, the electrician's shop; they repair trucks and tires, repair books for the library. They unload coal, haul ashes.  In all, they do approximately 40 assorted jobs on the post that otherwise would require a detail, large or small of American soldiers.

They get good plain food, with no frills.  The vegetables they eat they raise themselves on the 220-acre farm within the boundaries of Camp Atterbury - $20,000 worth of vegetables, wholesale, were raised on the farm last year.  The crops from the farm are turned over tot he quartermaster department, and re-issued as rations.  Non-critical foods are issued for critical foods.  The PWs don't get any butter; they get margarine' molasses pinch hits for sugar.  They have their own post exchange, but the shelves are bare of cigarettes, chewing gum and many toilet articles that may still be obtained, though in limited quantities, in the American soldiers' PXs.  The American troops come first when it's a question of a hard-to-get article.

The PWs are housed in barracks, 50 men to a barrack.  Fraternizing with the Germans, either on the part of American soldiers or civilians employed on the post, is absolutely taboo, and there are numerous placards calling attention to this fact.  For recreation they play soccer, football or tennis; they have organized three orchestras - good ones, too.  They have motion pictures, recommended by the War Department.  They are encouraged to study and to take extension classes.  All the books in the PW library are censored, no individual subscriptions to magazines are permitted, and all newspaper and magazines must be accredited.

Most of the men in the PW camp are young; hardly any of them are over 30, and many of them look very young indeed.

Off in one corner of Camp Atterbury is the cemetery, and  the prisoners of war have their own section there.  At present there are 10 graves in it, neatly kept up, with trim headboards.  Only one of the graves is that of a PW who died at Camp Attebury; the other nine are the last resting places of men who died in other PW camps.

(Pictures in this article, which were of too poor a quality to include, showed: 1) Many German PWs work in the vase Camp Atterbury salvage yard, sorting and stacking metal, lumber, tin cans, grease and other material.  2) The GIs wear out their shoes and galoshes at a great rate and much of the work of repairing the army footgear is dine by prisoners of war in the shoe repair shop, and 3)  Col. John L. Gammell, commanding officer of the German Prisoner of War Camp at Camp Atterbury.)

Copies of the above article were through the courtesy of Mr. John L. R. Selch, Newspaper Librarian, Indiana State Library.