World War II on the Home Front: Tommy Davis

Editor’s Note: The Chestertown Spy has teamed up with the C.V. Starr Center for the American Experience at Washington College to share the stories of local residents who experienced World War II on the Home Front as an adult or as a child. Students and staff have already interviewed over a hundred folks who experienced World War II abroad or on the Home Front. Fourteen students are continuing to interview local and regional residents this summer about their memories of what life was like for them during World War II. Please contact Program Director Michael Buckley if you have a story or an artifact to share at [email protected] or 410 810 7156.

Tommy Davis

Tommy Davis
Chestertown

“There was a POW station between Churchill and Centreville. When you go to Centreville, there’s a place on the left hand side outside of Churchill a little ways selling culverts, the plastic black, big long corrugated pipe. That’s where the prison camp was. It had one wire fence around it, that’s all. I was never inside or anything like that. And they would load [the POWs] up in a truck or a bus, bring them to town and right there where 7/11 is now, they would dump them off. The farmers would pick them up, work them, and bring them back at a certain time. They’d be there to take them back to the prison. There were never any problems. [The farmers] weren’t supposed to feed them, but a friend of ours would feed them lunch. She would feed anybody. They became very good friends with some of the Germans who worked out there. One in particular became very good friends, and after he went back to Germany, he came right back to go to the University of Maryland. There were never any guards with [the POWs]. They were living good. Where were they going to go?”