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Porter, Brady

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Mr. Porter's recollections of German and Italian prisoners of war camp in Hatch, New Mexico, during World War II.

Interviewee Brady Porter, male, born in 1927
Date Range 1942-1943
Date & Location August 22, 2000, Hatch Auto Electric, Hatch, New Mexico
Project Prisoners of War in New Mexico Agriculture
Region Southwest New Mexico
Number of Tapes 1
Transcribed January 11, 2001
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Abstract

Tape 1, Side A

Mr. Porter tells of the prisoners of war who were housed in a camp across the street from the high school. The only problem he recalls is one morning when the Italian prisoners did not want to work. After the guards fixed their bayonets, the prisoners went to work without violence. Consultant thinks that most prisoners were "good people." Some of the POWs corresponded with people in the Hatch area after the war. Consultant states that there was no local labor during World War II so the prisoners picked and weeded cotton. They worked almost year around.