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Although World War II began as a war in Europe, many in the United States, foreseeing the inevitable, began to prepare for war, putting no faith in the Neutrality Act. Preparations for war, essentially ending the Great Depression, affected the entire country, with Virginia particularly playing a major role. More than one million service men and women came to Virginia. The sheer scope of the military development in Virginia of the Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force, providing training bases and support facilities, underscores the national resolve to be prepared. The book includes the Civil Air Patrol, wartime industry, POW camps, U-boat attacks, the Beach Patrol and other Virginia-related topics.
Includes entries for maps and atlases.
Tour the camps, learn stories of the daily lives of the POWs, and discover the impact they had on the Old Dominion. During World War II, Virginians watched as German and Italian prisoners invaded the Old Dominion. At least 17,000 Germans and countless Italians lived in over twenty camps across the state and worked on five military installations. Farmers hired POWs to pick apples. Fertilizer companies, lumber yards, and hospitals hired them. At first a phenomenon of war in Virginia's backyard, these former enemy combatants became familiar to many--often developing a rapport with their employers. Among them were die-hired Nazis and Fascists, but they benefited from double standards that placed them in better jobs and conditions than African Americans. Historians Kathryn Coker and Jason Wetzel tell a different story of the Old Dominion at War.