Camp Ashby

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 sanitarium 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 Afrika Korps and many soldiers were 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.

During World War Two, few prisoners of war (POW) camps were in operation in the United States. This is due to the far proximity to the primary action in the war, in Europe, Africa, and Asia. One of these POW camps was located in Virginia Beach (then Princess Anne County) Virginia: Camp Ashby. This camp held captured Afrika Korps Panzer Division soldiers that were associated with the German troops. This varying experience was what made the short-lived war camp so significant. During the two years the camp operated, 1944 to 1946, over 6,000 POWs were incarcerated there. Its peak number at any given time was 1788 POWs.

The Afrika Korps Panzer Division was by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a general who was a supposed model of the Aryan race and Hitler’s ideal society but was a huge controversy around the world. Many believed him to be a great general, but within his own unit, there were skeptics and those who thought he was only fighting when there was a camera crew to film it. Rommel eventually died when the German side “no longer needed him” and disposed of him on the spot. Back to his leadership style in Africa though, many believed he was rash and unpredictable. But nonetheless, he led the Afrika Korps in Northern Africa against the United States and Britain, receiving a blistering loss after about three years of fighting. Many of the German soldiers were then deported to the Prisoner of War camps in Britain and America.

Camp Ashby was quickly constructed in 1942 on land leased from the state. At the time, the property's dominant feature was the Tidewater Victory Memorial Hospital, a tuberculosis sanitarium at Virginia Beach Boulevard and Thalia Road. That building became the camp's headquarters. The camp's low-slung barracks were scattered across 22 acres of woods and field north of the present main branch of the Virginia Beach Central Library and Loehman's Plaza shopping center.

In modern times, the original hospital building is part of the Willis Wayside Furniture complex. Although several barracks buildings were converted and are extant as private residences, little else remains of the original camp.

In accordance with the Geneva Convention protocols of what the Allied powers could do with POWs, the prisoners were often made to work all over the nation for compensation which helped with the nation's struggling labor shortage. According to the U.S. Smithsonian, fewer than 10% of the POWs held in the U.S. were strongly affiliated with the Nazi Party. Camp Ashby prisoners were screened and only those with anti-Nazi sentiments were assigned work orders. Many worked on local farms and or at a Norfolk fertilizer plant. Prisoners were paid $0.80 per day and often worked 6 days a week with Sunday off. They used the money earned to purchase items from the canteen such as sodas that cost $0.05, beer for $0.15, and cigarettes for $0.18 per pack. The prisoners were privy to an education program provided by William and Mary which consisted of 4 classrooms used for teaching. Along with traditional education, the Prisoners learned music history, music appreciation, drama, painting, pottery, sculpture, and orchestra practice with the availability of 12 instruments.

When Camp Ashby closed in 1946, the prisoners were transported to Fort Eustis where they have enrolled in a program called the Intellectual Diversion Program, an attempt to reeducate German POWs and inspire them to give up their pro-Nazi beliefs and eventually returned to their home countries.

Many camps around the United States have been preserved for historical intention. Allowing the sites of the camps to remain as they were in World War Two enriches the history of the Although Camp Ashby was not lucky enough to be one of these preserved camps, efforts being made around Virginia Beach to recognize and allude to the existence of Camp Ashby is a step in the direction of preserving a forgotten historical sight. A historical marker was dedicated to commemorating Camp Ashby by the Virginia Beach Historic Preservation Commission on October 11, 2018.

“History | Smithsonian Magazine.” Www.smithsonianmag.com, Smithsonianmag.com/history. Accessed 31 Jan.

2022.

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“Home.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, nationalww2museum.org/. Accessed 31 Jan. 2022.