During World War II 51,000 Italian prisoners of war were detained
in the United States. When Italy signed an armistice with the
Allies in September 1943, most of these soldiers agreed to swear
allegiance to the United States and to collaborate in the fight
against Germany. At the Letterkenny Army Depot, located near
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, more than 1,200 Italian soldiers were
detained as co-operators. They arrived in May 1944 to form the
321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion and remained until October
1945. As detainees, the soldiers helped to order, stock, repair,
and ship military goods, munitions and equipment to the Pacific and
European Theaters of war. Through such labor, they lent their
collective energy to the massive home front endeavor to defeat the
Axis Powers. The prisoners also helped to construct the depot
itself, building roads, sidewalks, and fences, along with
individual buildings such as an assembly hall, amphitheater,
swimming pool, and a chapel and bell tower. The latter of these two
constructions still exist, and together with the assembly hall,
bear eloquent testimony to the Italian POW experience. For their
work the Italian co-operators received a very modest, regular
salary, and they experienced more freedom than regular POWs. In
their spare time, they often had liberty to leave the post in
groups that American soldiers chaperoned. Additionally, they
frequently received or visited large entourages of Italian
Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region who were eager to comfort
their erstwhile countrymen. The story of these Italian soldiers
detained at Letterkenny has never before been told. Now, however,
oral histories from surviving POWs, memoirs generously donated by
family members of ex-prisoners, and the rich information newly
available from archival material in Italy, aided by material found
in the U.S., have made it possible to reconstruct this experience
in full. All of this historical documentation has also allowed the
authors to tell fascinating individual stories from the moment when
many POWs were captured to their return to Italy and beyond. More
than seventy years since the end of World War II, family members of
ex-POWs in both the United States and Italy still enjoy the
positive legacy of this encounter.
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