Camp Ashby

KV-28

Camp Ashby, a World War II prisoner of war camp for German soldiers, occupied more than 200 acres just north of here. Its headquarters was the main building of the former Tidewater Memorial Hospital, a tuberculosis sanatorium that had opened on this site in 1937. Among the more than 6,000 men housed in the camp between Mar. 1944 and Apr. 1946 were troops from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrikakorps and many soldiers captured on or shortly after D-Day. Because of acute labor shortages in the region, prisoners were deployed as agricultural and industrial workers. They earned wages, and the camp provided them with food, medical care, academic classes, church services, a library, and a theater.

Department of Historic Resources, 2018

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

United States, National Archives, Military Archives Division, Records of the Office of the Provost Marshal Generals Office, RG 389. Washington Post, 25 March, 5 April, 20 Sept. 1944, 30, 31 Jan., 23, 24 Feb. 1945. Norfolk Journal and Guide, 25 Dec. 1937, 12 Feb. 1938, 25 April 1942. Fielding Tyler, “Camp Ashby, Virginia: WWII Nazi POW Camp at Thalia,” unpublished typescript. Fielding Tyler, “Camp Ashby, Virginia: An Army Installation serving American mobile defense forces and German Prisoners of War, 1942-1946.”