Categories
Category: Well I thought it was neat!
Since 1907, Camp Perry on the Ohio shores of western Lake Erie has hosted the NRA National Rifle and Pistol Matches. But few people today realize that, for several years during the mid-1940s, Camp Perry served a very different purpose. It was a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp, housing some 6,000 German and Italian prisoners in America’s heartland.
During World War II, the United States maintained 511 base camps and 175 branch camps within its borders, containing nearly 430,000 prisoners. There were more camps in the eastern half of our nation than the west, and all but three states—Nevada, Montana and North Dakota—had POW camps.
The camps were established to help alleviate the overcrowding of POWs housed in Great Britain. Had just Italian (50,273) and Japanese (3,915) POWs been shipped to the U.S., American camps could have easily handled those numbers. But when an additional 371,683 German prisoners began debarking from troop ships onto America’s shores late in the war, the POW prison system was soon overwhelmed. U.S. military leaders went scrambling to find suitable camp locations, construct facilities, train guards, interpreters and other support personnel—a monumental task.
Camp Perry was considered a major POW base camp, and had several smaller branch camps located in or near seven Ohio cities, as well as Fort Wayne, Indiana. Italian soldiers captured on European battlefields began arriving at Camp Perry in 1943, followed by German soldiers in 1944. A small portion of the Germans, an estimated 10 percent, were hardcore Nazi sympathizers. Most of those were former Rommel Afrika Korps members who still firmly believed that Germany would ultimately win the war. As a result, they often intimidated the other German prisoners who were less enthusiastic toward Nazi beliefs, through verbal and physical abuse.
The prisoners at Camp Perry were housed in small, wood-framed, tar-papered-covered buildings, groupings of which were called “hutments.” Measuring 16’X16’, each building was a single story constructed on a concrete slab, double-walled with double-pane windows, and heated by a wood-burning stove. Five prisoners were assigned per building. A nine-strand, barbed-wire fence 9 feet high, with 11 guard towers, enclosed the entire encampment.
Prisoners were required to work while at the camp, doing daily routine maintenance of the many buildings, cooking, cleaning and other chores, as needed. As a result, they earned a small number of coupons per day which they could then redeem at the prison “canteen,” what today would be known as the camp PX, or Post Exchange. Officers were exempt from working if they so chose, but many worked to help pass the time and ease the boredom of routine prison life.
An interesting aside is that the German prisoners did not think much of the American 3.2 percent alcohol beer they could purchase at the camp PX for 10 cents per bottle—it was just too bland and mild for their tastes. However, they did like the Coca-Cola that sold for four cents per bottle.
Some POWs worked offsite of Camp Perry, employed at area businesses or planting and harvesting farm crops; overseen, of course, by armed camp guards. Northwest Ohio has some of the most productive farmland in the world, but due to the ongoing war effort able-bodied American farmhands were in short supply in the 1940s. As a result, POWs were often pressed into service, and this decision was not always popular with local civilians. They claimed that POWs were filling paying jobs that should have gone to them.
There was also cultural resentment of the POWs. For instance, at one canning company German prisoners worked alongside American civilian women whose husbands and sons were fighting German forces overseas.
Another complaint heard from civilians was that prisoners were being coddled. As part of the war effort, food rationing of meats and canned goods was in effect for all Americans. Yet they saw prisoners being provided three meals each day, sometimes eating the brand-name foods citizens couldn’t readily obtain.
On the other hand, certain civilians took the food disparity issue and the fact that they had a POW camp in their backyard philosophically. A story in the October 1, 1943, Port Clinton Herald and Republican newspaper quoted an area resident as saying, “This is war, and we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
Some civilians went out of their way to interact with the prisoners, while others refused to have anything to do with them. One Ohio resident, who chose to get to know some of the men at Camp Perry, commented, “You could tell the Germans from the Italians because the Italians were laid-back and so friendly, while the Germans were stoic and stern and did not talk much, although they worked hard.”
Did any POWs ever escape from Camp Perry or any of its satellite camps? There were several attempts. In January 1945, a prison guard shot and killed a German prisoner who had threatened him. The guard lost his footing on icy ground and was rushed by the prisoner, whom he then shot. The guard underwent a court-martial for the shooting, but was found not guilty.
If a prisoner tried to escape and was caught, or purposely violated any other major rule, he was placed in solitary confinement and put on a diet of bread and water three times per day. (At the time, such treatment of prisoners was in alignment with the Geneva Convention of 1929.)
Suicides were less common than escape attempts, but a few did happen. One POW who slipped away from a work detail near Defiance, Ohio, was found a few hours later drowned in the Maumee River. Another prisoner, who had allegedly escaped from Camp Perry, was found hanging from a tree near Port Clinton about a week later. Camp officials described him as mentally imbalanced and, until his body was discovered, the only German prisoner who had successfully escaped from the camp.
May 8, 1945, V-E Day (Victory in Europe), marked the end of World War II in Europe, with Japan surrendering in the Pacific a few months later that same year. As a result, POWs held in American prison camps, including Camp Perry, began to be sent home to their native countries. Interestingly, a number of German and Italian prisoners eventually returned to America to live permanently and become citizens. Impressed by how well they had been treated as POWs, they wanted to experience the opportunities and freedoms they had seen while in America that their home countries did not offer.
Today, three-quarters of a century after the last POW marched out of Camp Perry, there is still much tangible evidence of that era remaining, thanks to ongoing historic preservation efforts. For instance, the brick buildings known as “Commercial Row” that house firearms vendor displays during the annual National Matches were once the mess halls of the POWs of World War II.
.jpg)
A CONTEMPORARY OF ELMER KEITH, HE DESERVES ANOTHER LOOK
WRITTEN BY JOHN TAFFIN
Rodgers’ book Huntin’ Gun can still be found at very reasonable prices.
I was still a junior in high school when GUNS Magazine first appeared in January 1955. The printed page had a major effect on me, especially some of the earlier writers such as Elmer Keith and Kent Bellah. Early 1959 was an especially influential time as I not only married in February but the April GUNS issue resulted in my first introduction to Walter Rodgers. I would guess most readers know who Elmer Keith was, however, I doubt if very many ever heard the name Walter Rodgers. His first article was entitled: “Take Your Time — Fast!”
Real Cowboy
Walter Rodgers was a contemporary of Elmer Keith. Elmer was born in 1899 and Rodgers published a book in 1916 entitled The Trail Drivers of Texas, so from those two dates I am assuming Rodgers was older. He spent his life mostly packing a sixgun and living in the saddle, working cattle, animal control and law enforcement in Texas and New Mexico. Along the way he learned much about gun handling, what worked and what didn’t. When I first encountered him in print, I was already well on my way to knowing single-action sixguns and leverguns were my favorites. Rodgers didn’t start me on the path but he certainly confirmed what I already knew.
I had chosen single-actions and leverguns for several reasons, not the least of which was what Rodgers called “Gun Feel.” For my hand, as for thousands upon thousands of others, the best-feeling sixgun has always been a Single Action. The same feeling extends to rifles which are operated with a lever and have a very flat profile. Rodgers wrote of Colt Single Actions and then Ruger Blackhawks. One of the things he wrote I really appreciated was: “Bless Bill Ruger for putting Magnums in real working sixguns.” When it came to rifles he was particularly fond of the Winchester 1892 in .32-20, and the Model 1894 in .25-35 and .30-30. All real working guns.
Walter Rodgers’ first article for the then-new GUNS Magazine in 1959 was “Take your time — fast!”
Learning The Old Way
In 1959 Rodgers related: “Way back in the wild and rugged trans-Pecos province of Texas, known as the Big Bend country, in a very early part of this century, I was banging away at some tin cans back of my camp with an old Single Action Army Model Colt sixshooter. I had a cutaway holster strung on an old Ranger Scout belt, and though I wasn’t puncturing many cans, I was sure wearing the hide on my right thumb. I holstered the gun after each shot then went back frantically after it for the succeeding shot.
‘Now yuh’re dead,’ said a drawling voice behind me right after I’d emptied my gun. I whirled in surprise, for I was so engrossed with my draw-and-shoot practice I hadn’t heard the old Ranger walk up behind me. He grinned and shook a chiding finger at me. ‘Never let a gun run dry,’ he said. ‘Reload after the third shot, and you’ll not get caught with yore britches down.’
He flipped a fistful of .45 caliber cartridges from his own belt, and told me to reload. I did. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s see you make that grab draw again.’ Whirling towards my target (I was kinda proud of my gun speed by now) I made a fair draw and missed my target. ‘The best of us miss now an’ then,’ he comforted me. ‘Do it agin.’ I holstered my gun, dove after it again, and fumbled my draw. The gun just wasn’t in the right place.
‘I was looking for that,’ the Ranger said seriously. ‘Now, if’n it was possible for a feller to die twicet, this would be yore second death in a gunfight. That grab draw just is no-wise dependable. Always remember, yore hand ain’t got no eyes. Maybe hit’ll find the gun, and maybe hit won’t. Let yore fingers guide your hand to the gun, and don’t get in such a hell-fire hurry.’ That was in my first dependable, straight-from-the-horses mouth advice in gun-handling.”
Time Passes
It was probably 40 years earlier when Rodgers learned this and it has now been over 60 years since he passed it on to me. Wearing the gun high on the belt and letting my fingers come up the holster to the sixgun is just the opposite of what was being taught at the time both by Hollywood and the sport of Fast Draw, neither of which were reality.
Rodgers not only inspired me as far as single-action sixguns and leverguns, he also made his own holsters and belts and this was a further inspiration to me as I started making my own shortly after reading his first article.
Rodgers’ much-used Colt Single Action was a mite out of the ordinary. It was not a standard Colt Single Action Army but rather the Bisley Model introduced in the 1890s. The Bisley Model featured a wider target-style hammer and trigger as well as a larger grip more conducive to target shooting. Ruger brought out their version of the Bisley Model in the mid-1980s and since then many dedicated Sixgunners have fitted their standard Blackhawks with Bisley hammers.
One way to do it is to make the modifications necessary to fit a Bisley hammer, however another way is to cut the hammer spur off of the Bisley hammer and weld it on to a standard Single Action hammer. What fascinated me about Rodgers’ Single Action is the fact he went the opposite direction.
“The Bisley Colt had the original prong cut off, and the prong from an Army Model S.A. Colt welded on in its place. I made the grips from a section of old hickory taken from an old wagon wheel long discarded at a homesteader’s dugout in New Mexico. In repeat shots, it is much slower than the Army Model, but it can be used with amazing speed on the draw and first shot, and is very accurate,” Rodgers wrote.
Stories Come Alive
After first encountering Walter Rodgers in GUNS MagazineRifleman magazines accumulated by her husband. You can bet they did not go directly to the dump! I went through every one, clipping articles I wanted to save. I wound up with Elmer Keith’s articles on sixguns as well as the writings of Walter Rodgers and several others, all of which may seem dated but are actually timeless.
I discovered many of Rodgers’ works were put into book form and did a search, expecting to pay dearly if I found a copy. A search for Rodgers’ book revealed an excellent copy can be had for under $20 compared to hundreds for Elmer Keith. Apparently, he hasn’t really been discovered yet. His book is titled Huntin’ Gun and speaks of Men, Gun Feel and Game. Even if you’re not an old dinosaur like me, I would be real surprised if you didn’t enjoy reading the thoughts of Walter Rodgers.
Oxford, Mississippi, is a quaint, storybook-sort of place. The University of Mississippi and the sprawling Winchester ammunition plant keep the community young, busy, and well-funded. A genteel southern population ensures the town is clean, safe, and cool. It’s like 1950’s America without the social baggage. Lots of people want to come here. However, it was not always so pleasant.
Liam Little & Mississippi Arms
A delightful little burg of 26,430 people nestled in north central Mississippi, Oxford has a colorful past. General Grant burned the courthouse square back in August of 1864. Two cop-killing losers were publicly executed here in 1903. James Meredith boldly broke some serious racial barriers as the first African-American student at Ole Miss back in 1962. Despite all that chaos, nowadays the Oxford Square looks like something out of Disneyworld.
As you face east, you will see Neilson’s clothing store. They’ve been in business in the same location since 1839. Neilson’s sits alongside Square Books Junior and City Hall. Now direct your gaze to the right and down the hill past the Tallahatchie Gourmet restaurant and you will find a small, nondescript store front with a neon “Open” sign in the shape of an AK-47. The sign reads, “Mississippi Arms.” Mississippi Arms is the coolest gun shop I have ever seen.
Origin Story: Mississippi Arms
Mississippi Arms began life several years ago as Mississippi Auto Arms. At the height of the Obama gun-buying frenzy, MAA sold 1,000 black rifles per year. MAA enjoyed a robust online presence selling guns, ammunition, gun parts, and accessories. They specialized in the cool, edgy stuff that keeps Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi awake at night. When the owner retired, he sold the business and they changed the name.
Nowadays Mississippi Arms is Candyland for gun nerds like us. They have most everything on their website. The business is licensed as both a dealer and manufacturer of Title 2 firearms. They build their own machine guns as well as a dedicated line of sound suppressors. This store is where dreams are made. Mississippi Arms is not your typical Fudd gun shop.
The first thing you notice is the Lahti 20mm anti-tank rifle sitting on the floor alongside a Ma Deuce .50-caliber machine gun on a tripod. Hanging on the wall is a live RPG-7, a PKM belt-fed machine gun, an M-60 with a sound suppressor, and a German MG34. A row of selective-fire, short-barreled FN SCAR carbines sits along one wall waiting to be cut up into parts kits. A bewildering array of black rifles blankets the walls. At any given time, a handful of local gun geeks congregates in the place griping about gun laws and generally solving the problems of the world. Throughout it all, sitting behind the counter is an amiable young guy with an ever-so-slight foreign accent. That’s 26-year-old Liam Little, owner and chief bottle washer at Mississippi Arms. Turns out Liam is a political refugee from Canada. His is a simply fascinating tale.
The Guy: Liam Little
Have you noticed that illegal immigration seems to be in the news a lot these days? With 320,000 migrant encounters on the southern border in December of 2023 alone and an estimated 16 million undocumented aliens already in the country, immigration will undoubtedly be the seminal issue of the upcoming Presidential election. It seems half the planet is flowing across our porous borders claiming asylum from something or other. Amid a veritable sea of unwashed humanity streaming into America illegally, Liam Little actually did it right.
Liam is a die-hard gun nerd with the poor grace to have been born in Montreal, Canada. If you are a gun guy, living in Canada these days is not philosophically unlike growing up in North Korea. The Canadian government just doesn’t trust its citizens with firearms anymore. When faced with a lifetime of unarmed servitude, Liam immigrated south.
Talking to Liam is a bit like chatting with Elon Musk. The guy just has an energy. He sees problems and engineers solutions. He is a natural businessman.
Liam is technically in the United States for law school on a student visa. When I was last there, he was complaining that they wouldn’t let him CLEP out of law school a year early. He runs his thriving gun business while simultaneously attending class at the University of Mississippi law school right down the road. The storefront is closed Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday so Liam can get his coursework done. He’s a pretty busy guy.
Draconian Politics
So, how does a kid from Canada in the country on a student visa for law school legally own a machine gun business? For starters, you have to be really smart and know the law really well. Then you just have to have the drive. Liam’s motivation is a pure and holy quest for freedom.
At a time when disdain for America seems to be the engine that propels the radical Left to ever more-rarefied attacks on individual liberty, Liam has tasted the pure elixir of freedom and just can’t get enough. As a burgeoning lawyer, he knows the rules and goes to meticulous lengths to work within them. He obtained the requisite licenses to run his thriving gun business all with Uncle Sam’s blessings. I’ll spare you the details except to say that his approach was undeniably elegant.
Like most people I have known who came to America seeking political freedom, Liam has little use for those who denigrate the United States. Most folks who gripe about America have simply never lived anyplace else. Liam cannot stand Justin Trudeau and his mob of meddlesome Left-wing socialists up north. He knows from personal experience what it is like to live in a place where gun ownership is prohibited and cherishes the unique liberties we enjoy in America. His life goal is to fully assimilate into our culture and make his way in the gun business.
Details
It’s worth a surf over to Liam’s website. His home-grown .22 rimfire cans will run $235 apiece. When I was there he showed me prototypes for a replica WW2-vintage Soviet Bramit suppressor. The Bramit can slips over the muzzle of a Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle and locks in place with a twist. Like the originals, there is ballistic data engraved on the side to accommodate reduced-charge subsonic loads.
Russian grunts in WW2 were trained to pull the bullets from standard 7.62x54mm ball rounds and dump part of the powder charge before reseating the bullets manually. In so doing they converted their standard bolt-action infantry rifles into short-range covert subsonic sniper tools. They also made similar cans for the M1895 Nagant revolver. Liam is planning on manufacturing those as well. He really does have some extraordinary projects in the works. I ordered myself one of his .22 cans on my first visit to the store.
Ruminations
We gripe about American gun laws all the time, and rightly so. Without constant vigilance the freedom-averse hoplophobes in Washington will invariably strip our rights away just as their counterparts did up north. However, for the time being at least, we still enjoy unrivaled access to firearms for both personal protection and recreation.
Liam Little is the real deal. Raised in a socialist paradise, Liam came to America seeking the purist expression of personal freedom on planet Earth. Liam personifies the American dream in the Information Age. Unlike so many other immigrants, however, he is doing so legally through personal force of will, detailed knowledge of the law, and raw, unfiltered heart.
The next time you need some gun widget, surf on over to MississippiArms.com and see if Liam has it in stock. If ever you are passing through Oxford, Mississippi, on a Wednesday through Saturday, do yourself a favor and drop by the store for a chat. Mississippi Arms is a cool place, and Liam Little is a cool guy. Mississippi Arms is where freedom thrives.
When I first became involved with the U.S. Army’s High Altitude Rescue Team (HART) back in the 1990s, there was a steep learning curve. The mission was to retrieve injured climbers from Mount McKinley and support the National Park Service (NPS) in their mountain operations. At 20,310 feet, Mt. McKinley is the highest point in North America. They call it Denali now. This was quite an unnatural space for a helicopter.
The National Park Service owned the mountain, and they had a contracted civilian helicopter that was based in Talkeetna, Alaska, during the climbing season. This single-engine French Aerospatiale Lama was stripped down to its bare essentials to give it maximum performance at extreme altitudes. When first I crawled aboard this aircraft, I noticed that the copilot’s seat and flight controls had been removed. Needless to say, I was impressed by the bravery required to be a pilot of this helicopter.
For routine trips up the mountain, if ever that was a real thing, the NPS used the Lama. For those times when the Lama was broken, or a bit more horsepower was required, they called us. I can honestly say that flying a helicopter over the top of Mount McKinley was the most extraordinary thing I did as a U.S. Army Aviator.
The Aircraft
For the HART mission, we utilized otherwise unremarkable Boeing CH-47D heavy-lift helicopters. We gutted our Chinooks of any unnecessary kit and fitted them with auxiliary internal fuel tanks and an onboard oxygen system for the crew due to the altitudes in which we would be flying. This labyrinthine thing included plumbing that ran oxygen lines to each crew station to support the flight crew while operating these unpressurized aircraft at extreme altitudes. Our crewmembers also had walkaround bottles that would keep them conscious while moving about the cargo compartment.
The max gross weight for a CH-47D is 50,000 pounds. Its twin Lycoming turboshaft engines put out an aggregate 9,000 shaft horsepower. It is an immensely powerful machine. However, at 21,000 feet the Chinook becomes a big fat pig. Great care had to be taken to plan maneuvers well in advance when the air was that thin. Those sorts of altitudes are terribly unforgiving. However, thusly configured the big Chinook would reliably get us there and back.
The Mission
Denali is actually the tallest mountain on earth, as measured from the base to the summit, even taller than Everest. While the peak of Everest is higher, you don’t have to climb as far to get there. Each year about 1,200 climbers attempt the ascent. Roughly half of them make it. Folks die on that rock all the time. There have been 96 fatalities on the mountain since the first successful ascent in 1913.
The NPS maintains a presence at both the high and low base camps on Denali throughout the approximate three-month climbing season. The low base camp is at 7,200 feet on the Kahiltna glacier. The high base camp is at 14,200 feet.
At the beginning of the climbing season, the HART team is responsible for emplacing the equipment to support these base camps. This consists of tents, food, fuel, radios and the sundry stuff required to keep people alive in such an austere environment. The HART team also retrieves everything at the end. These Army Chinooks also cover the gaps that the small civilian helicopter cannot.
Denali makes its own weather. As many a tourist has discovered to their disappointment, oftentimes the mountain is socked in while the rest of the surrounding area is clear and pretty. As the CH-47 is fully instrument capable, it can sometimes reach the mountain when the Lama cannot. The Chinook is also equipped with a rescue hoist that offers capabilities not available to the smaller machine. In 1988, the HART team set the world record for a helicopter hoist rescue at 18,200 feet. In 1995, the HART team performed a live rescue at 19,600 feet, setting a record for the CH-47 airframe.
War Story
On 3 June 1996, we were on a training mission to get our aircrews qualified for the climbing season. We always ascended the mountain in pairs. The weather had been sketchy and getting to high altitudes had been a challenge.
Two days before, a Spanish climber named Juanjo Garra lost a crampon and fell at the 18,000-foot level at Denali Pass, breaking his leg. At these sorts of altitudes, this is a catastrophic injury. NPS rescue personnel laboriously carried the man to the 14,000-foot base camp, but by then, he was in dire straits.
As we shot a careful approach into the high base camp, we knew nothing of Mr. Garra or his injury. Once we touched down, an Air Force pararescueman who was climbing the mountain as part of a training exercise flashed us with a signal mirror. He explained that Garra had to be removed from the mountain or he could die.
The formal approval process for rescue support was laborious. Each live mission had to be approved by the first General Officer in the chain of command. However, they claimed we Army officers were supposed to show initiative. Mr. Garra was soon strapped in alongside his climbing partner, a Spanish cardiologist. Incidentally, I think that was the closest I have ever come to being kissed by a man. That guy was pretty stoked to be getting off that mountain.
We flew the two Spaniards to the low base camp where they were loaded onboard a ski-equipped airplane for the trip to the Anchorage hospital. I flew home that afternoon assuming I had done a good thing. My boss felt otherwise.
Once we got the aircraft shut down I was dragged into my commander’s office for a proper butt chewing. My on-the-spot decision had completely circumvented the chain of command. I had allowed two foreign nationals onboard a U.S. Army aircraft without proper authorization. The liability had been astronomical. What if the aircraft had crashed? What if there had been an in-flight emergency? What if, what if, what if…
While I was getting reamed out, the phone rang. It was the U.S. Coast Guard congratulating us for the rescue. They wanted the names of the crew for the press release. My boss hung up the phone and sighed. He reluctantly congratulated me for saving a man’s life but then directed me never to do it again.
It has been 27 years since that weird afternoon on Mt. McKinley. I left the Army soon thereafter and went to medical school. Along the way I bought a laptop and tried my hand at writing. Until I was researching this article I had never known Juanjo Garra’s name. I sincerely hope he is well.
——————————————————
A side note from Grumpy