POW Labour Projects in Canada During the Second World War

POW Labour Projects in Canada During the Second World War

Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 2-28-2020 1:30 PM Beyond the Barbed Wire: POW Labour Projects in Canada during the Second World War Michael O'Hagan The University of Western Ontario Supervisor MacEachern, Alan The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in History A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Michael O'Hagan 2020 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Canadian History Commons Recommended Citation O'Hagan, Michael, "Beyond the Barbed Wire: POW Labour Projects in Canada during the Second World War" (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6849. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6849 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation examines Canada’s program to employ prisoners of war (POWs) in Canada during the Second World War as a means of understanding how labour projects and the communities and natural environment in which they occurred shaped the POWs’ wartime experiences. The use of POW labourers, including civilian internees, enemy merchant seamen, and combatant prisoners, occurred in response to a nationwide labour shortage. Between May 1943 and November 1946, there were almost 300 small, isolated labour projects across the country employing, at its peak, over 14,000 POWs. Most prisoners were employed in either logging or agriculture, work that not only provided them with relative freedom, but offered prisoners unprecedented contact with Canada and its people. Work would therefore not only boost production but, it was hoped, instil in POWs Canadian mores and values through interaction with guards, civilians, and the natural environment. Rather than attempt a narrative encompassing almost 300 labour projects, this dissertation examines POW labour through a series of five case studies. The first examines prisoners cutting fuelwood in Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park while the second and third examine POWs cutting pulpwood in Northwestern Ontario for the Ontario- Minnesota Pulp & Paper Co. and Abitibi Power & Paper Co., respectively. The fourth case study examines POWs employed by Donnell & Mudge in its tannery in New Toronto, Ontario and the fifth examines the practice of employing POWs in farm work in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Through these case studies, this dissertation examines how internment officials employed remote parts of Canada as a physical boundary to prevent escape attempts, while also using it as a space to provide POWs with relative freedom as an inducement to work, and how work challenged definitions of who or what was the “enemy”. With significantly more freedom than the typical internee, POWs interacted with civilians and guards on a more familiar level, resulting in illicit fraternizations and relationships between POWs and Canadians. Although such fraternization also triggered considerable protest, these interactions reveal a great deal regarding POWs’ opinions of and attitudes towards Canada and its people as well as Canadian attitudes towards POWs. ii Keywords Second World War - 1939-1945, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, internment, prisoner of war, labour, war and society, environment, pulp and paper, bushwork, logging, agriculture, tannery. Summary for Lay Audience Few Canadians know how close the Second World War came to home, that thousands of enemy soldiers spent a significant portion of the war on Canadian soil. Between 1940 and 1947, over 35,000 German Prisoners of War (POWs) – including civilian internees, enemy merchant seamen, and combatant prisoners – were interned in Canada. While they were first placed in large, traditional internment camps, the Department of Labour ultimately employed over 14,000 POWs in almost 300 low-security labour projects scattered across the country. The primary goal of these projects was to boost the struggling agricultural and lumber industries but labour projects also offered the opportunity to instil Canadian mores and values in German POW through interactions with military guards, civilians, and the natural environment. Through a series of five case studies, this dissertation examines how work in bush camps, on farms, and in a tannery shaped prisoners’ experiences in Canada while also exploring prisoners’ motivations and reactions to work, the challenges faced by employers and government officials, and the overall effectiveness of POW labour. Memoirs and interviews with former prisoners often demonstrate a fondness for their time in Canada – a feeling that has seldom been expressed elsewhere by POWs towards their captors – while wartime correspondence and reports indicate that POWs enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity to work, the freedoms associated with labour projects, and, most importantly, the opportunity for a life outside the barbed wire enclosures. iii Acknowledgments This dissertation would not have been possible without the support from my supervisor, Alan MacEachern. Through grant proposals, comprehensive exams, and seemingly endless drafts in varying stages of completion, Alan’s sage advice helped shape this dissertation into what it is now and for that I am extremely grateful. A special thanks to my second reader, Jonathan Vance, for his helpful comments and support throughout my Master’s and PhD. I am extremely grateful for the financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program (OGS), Western University, and the Department of History. This support allowed me to explore archives across the country and continue my research full-time. Thank you to the staff of the many archives and museums who helped me with my research over the years, especially Braden Murray at the Lake of the Woods Museum, Anthony Worman at the Royal Alberta Museum, Kevin Meraglia at the Sault Ste. Marie Library, and Lauren Hyatt at the Fort Frances Museum. Thank you for taking your time to help with my many requests, no matter how big or small. I greatly benefitted from my professors and colleagues at Western University. A special thanks to Josh MacFadyen for introducing me to Digital History and HGIS and Bill Turkel, whose courses reinforced my interest in DH and taught me the basics of programming. Thank you to Steve Marti, Nina Bozzo, and Stacey Devlin whose digital history workshops introduced me to new methods and programs and pushed me to learn new skills that eventually proved essential in writing this dissertation. Thank you as well to members of the Digital History Group, especially Laurel Shire, for their continued support in learning new methods for research and writing. This dissertation was also made possible by many outside Western University. A very special thank you to George Hartlen and Valerie Pankratz who introduced me to the subject of POWs in Riding Mountain National Park as a summer student back in 2008 and who let me continue to research and develop programs in the years that followed. Thank you to Robert Henderson who pushed me to keep exploring the subject of internment in Canada and iv for sharing his extensive knowledge and collection. Thank you to Bob Armstrong (and Chris Thomson) for always being willing to answer my many questions and thank you to Lutz and the Beranek family for sharing your father’s story with me. Thank you as well to Adrian Myers, Barry Ferguson, Jamie Lewis, Annette Haseneder, Norman Whiting, Arno Cappel, and the many readers of my blog who shared their stories with me over the years. A special thank you to my friends and colleagues, especially Nina Bozzo, Joel Castelli, and Andrew Marcille, who were always willing to help in any way they could and my volleyball team, the “Awesome Possums,” for providing some much-needed distractions. Thank you to my parents and my sisters for their continued support and refraining from asking “are you done yet?” every time I saw them. Thank you to Ronan for letting me know when it was time to get outside and take a break and finally a very special thanks to Corey for her unwavering support. Thank you for listening to me excitedly ramble on about my research, for hiking with me through the bush to find former POW camps, and for always being up for taking a walk. v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Summary for Lay Audience ............................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii List of Appendices ............................................................................................................. xi Introduction ........................................................................................................................

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