POWs at Chigger Lake — Jack Shakely

1943. The Allies have captured Tripoli from the Italian forces. The Germans have surrendered at Stalingrad. And the British suddenly find themselves with hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war without the ability to feed and house them. The solution? Send more than 350,000 prisoners of war to the United States. Lieutenant Tom Gregory-whose family came from Italy-is assigned the responsibility for opening and running a camp for Italian POWs. The new camp is set smack dab in tiny Weleetka, Oklahoma in a spot named Chigger Lake. Although German prisoners tended to be well-disciplined, the boisterous, fun-loving and decidedly un-soldierly Italians proved another matter entirely. Lieutenant Tom Gregory is aided in his task by a motley cast of characters: Floyd Breedlove, the handyman who introduces Tom and his friends to the culture of the Creek Indians; Private Murray Lipton, the high strung boy genius; Oklahoma Garland, the no-nonsense owner of the local newspaper; Vito D'Amico, the POW born in Italy, raised in Brooklyn, then drafted and stuck between both allegiances; and Lieutenant Connie Ballard, the nurse who winds up taking Tom's heart prisoner. During his days at Camp Chigger Lake, Tom learns that most of the Italian prisoners, forced into service by Mussolini, are actually quite happy to be in America; that many Italian-Americans are less than enthusiastic about how their own country treated them; and that sometimes the wrong people are found outside the prison walls.