Original Items: Only One Set Available. This is a lovely WWI Military Issue Model 1917 Summer-weight jacket, as issued to American troops during WWI. This jacket was reissued to an Axis Prisoner of War during WWII, most likely from Camp Joseph T. Robinson in North Little Rock, Arkansas, near where this uniform was acquired. We believe the jacket to have been used by a Kriegsmarine POW, as there are four Kriegsmarine Anchor buttons attached to the front, with two more used on the shoulder boards. The pockets do not have any buttons.

This particular garment is a GI issue M-1917 Jacket reissued to an Axis Prisoner of War. The Jacket exhibits heavy wear from heavy use and features a worn black-stenciled “PW” on the back of the uniform. The interior of the jacket and pockets show a much darker bluer finish to the fabric, which may indicate it was one of the example originally dyed a different color.

As World War II raged on the other side of the globe, Allies, such as Great Britain, were running short of prison space to house POWs. From 1942 through 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps in rural areas across the country. Some 500 POW facilities were built, mainly in the South and Southwest but also in the Great Plains and Midwest.

At the same time that the prison camps were filling up, farms and factories across America were struggling with acute labor shortages. The United States faced a dilemma. According to Geneva Convention protocols, POWs could be forced to work only if they were paid, but authorities were afraid of mass escapes that would endanger the American people. Eventually, they relented and put tens of thousands of enemy prisoners to work, assigning them to canneries and mills, to farms to harvest wheat or pick asparagus, and just about any other place they were needed and could work with minimum security.

The Prisoners of War sent to the United States were still clothed with their enemy uniform in which they were captured. Having to clothe Prisoners of War was yet another issue that the U.S. Government had to contend with. The solution was to issue enemy POWs with reissued GI garments, obsolete garments, or factory defect garments. These items were occasionally dyed a different color, or simply stenciled with “P.W” (Prisoner War) on the front and back.

The uniform comes ready for further research and display. Don’t miss it.