Gerald Marsh was part of two very different wars?
one in Europe, the other near home.
Marsh, an Ortonville native, was called to active duty
on July 16, 1943, shipped to Europe in February 1944
and assigned to the Fifth Armored Division. Following
the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of France, where the18-
year-old private fought his way onto Utah Beach’a
key landing site for the American troops in Normandy,
Marsh was part of the first American troops that liberated
Paris and marched into the once Nazi-occupied
city. A few months later, Marsh was wounded by a shell
fragment during a morning attack in a small German
village. He was treated at a first aid station and returned
to action later that day. A few hours later, while
riding on a tank engaged in a firefight with German
soldiers in a pillbox, a .51 caliber armor-piercing bullet
grazed the tank’s armor and passed into Marsh’s body.
This time his wounds were too significant to continue
in the European theatre, and he was reassigned
stateside, near his home, to help guard a German Prisoners
of War camp about five miles west of Owosso
near M-21 (Corunna Road) and Carland Road, now
the site of the Owosso Speedway.
Known as ‘Camp Owosso? the fenced-in compound
consisted of rows of tents, each home to six prisoners.
Marsh, now 85-years-old, served at the camp between
1944 and 1945 until his discharge.
‘I could leave the camp anytime I wanted to,? said
Marsh. ‘I hitchhiked home to Ortonville more than I
was at camp. I had a ‘Class A? pass, maybe once every
two weeks I was on guard duty. I spent some of
the time in the guard tower watching
over about 400 prisoners at a time.
Some were Gestapo, the secret state
police. There were some tough Germans
in that camp. Many of them
were not Nazis, but they had been
forced to fight in Hitler’s army against
their will. All some wanted was to go
back home. But for the most part
they never tried to run away from the
camp, they really liked it there.?
According to Shiawassee County
newspapers in the 1940s, most of the
prisoners at the camp in 1944 had been captured in
North Africa. By 1945 men from the European theater,
particularly Italy, were also incarcerated at Camp
Owosso. It is estimated that between 200 to 1,000 prisoners
were held at this camp, report the area newspapers.
An exact number is not known, as all POW records
were returned to Germany, and the camp administrative
records were disposed of in the 1950s.
‘I had an M-1 carbine rifle I carried and used to
take the prisoners out to the farms where they worked,?
said Marsh. ‘They never tried to run away. As a matter
of fact, toward the end the Army took away our
ammunition when we were guarding the prisoners. I
guess they figured on one would get hurt if there were no bullets.?
Under provisions of the Emergency Farm Labor Act, POW labor could be used in area farms and in cannery plants. The principal contractor with the government for prison labor was the W. R. Roach Canning Company, but when not needed at the Owosso location, groups could be hired by local farmers for the farm wage.
The newspaper reported that of that money, 80 cents per day was paid to the prisoners in canteen checks, while the rest (about 52 cents per hour) went to the federal government to maintain the camp. A typical workday was 8 to 10 hours long, and generally they worked six days per week.
‘Those Germans would tell us it was OK to take a nap while we guarded them and they would wake us up when the workday was over. A lot of the area farmers would feed the prisoners lunch and give them a beer of two. They would send the prisoners out in the fields in groups of 12’they were very happy to be there rather than their home country.?
Marsh was discharged in 1945 and still lives in Ortonville.