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America’s First All-Black CCC

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Richard D. L. Fulton

The Gettysburg Battlefield served as the home to America’s first all-black Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp in 1939, whose recruits helped in making improvements to the old 1863 former combat site of a fierce and brutal war.

The CCC was established in 1933 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his “New Deal,” a conglomerate of measures initiated by the president in his efforts to address the ongoing “Great Depression.”

The CCC was established in order to provide skill training, work, clothing, and food for what would, at the height of the program’s existence, involve some three million participants (300,000 recruits and the balance thereof being individuals employed in related roles). Participation was limited to unemployed, unmarried men, ranging in age from 18 to 25. Participants were paid $30 per month, of which $25 was sent to each participant’s dependent (if any). 

Numerous CCC camps were established throughout the nation and its territories.  The War Department managed the program and provided the camp officers. 

Black participation was limited to 10 percent, and these participants were allocated to (usually) all-black camps under the command of white officers. Of the three million enrollees (the National Park Service [NPS] maintains the number was two million), only about 200,000 blacks were accepted into the CCC.

The CCC focused its labor force on improving primarily public lands, forests, and parks, which, due to the amount of tree plantings and landscaping work in which they were employed, led to the participants being called “Soil Soldiers.”

The CCC established two camps on the Gettysburg battlefield. The first camp was located in 1933 in Pitzer Woods (in the field behind the site where the General Longstreet monument stands today) and designated it NP-1. The second camp was located in McMillan Woods in 1934, on the western slope of Seminary Ridge, taking its access off West Confederate Avenue, and designated it NP-2.

After the Pitzer Woods camp had been abandoned in 1937, the last remaining CCC camp, McMillan Woods, was about to make history when it was announced in late 1939 that the camp (which then housed about 198 recruits) was to become the first all-black camp in the country, which included the officers.

As the transition of the McMillan Woods camp to be an all-black camp became a reality, the camp’s first black commander, 1st Lieutenant George W. Webb, reported for duty on November 12, 1939.  

Types of work performed by the CCC (including the work of the recruits of Pitzer Woods and McMillan Woods) on the Gettysburg Battlefield included (as amassed via several newspaper sources and others, principally the NPS):

    Cleaning existing battlefield wells and installing casing to existing wells that lacked them;

    Improving/installing water pipelines (to help improve water distribution to the battlefield facilities and battlefield farms, and for drinking fountains);

    Installing new fountains and fire hydrants,

    Constructing stone bridges over battlefield creeks;

    Establishing and/or improving foot-paths, trails, and bridle trails;

    Groundskeeping, including planting and pruning trees, cutting and hauling wood, removing stumps, and lawn maintenance;

    Erecting 25 miles of stone walls and installing iron fencing (after having removed “modern” fencing);

    Snow shoveling as needed, and assisting on and off-site with any help needed regarding flood and fire control efforts;

    Reconstructing earthworks and other battle-related features and cleaning monuments:

    Resetting grave markers in the National Cemetery; and

    Engaging in countless tasks as needed, including serving as battlefield guides during the 75th Battle of Gettysburg anniversary celebrations in 1938.

Despite all the contributions the recruits at the McMillan Woods camp had made by improving the Gettysburg battlefield during their occupancy, it was decided to close the camp in 1942. The Gettysburg Times reported on March 6, 1942, that a telegram emanating from the CCC’s regional headquarters in Virginia stated, “Due to further reductions in CCC camps” that the McMillan Woods camp had been “approved for abandonment on or about March 15.”

Camp Commander Webb had left for reassignment in August of 1941. The camp commander at the time of the closure was Lieutenant Philip Atkins.

There’s no doubt the demand for troops to serve in the fight against the Germans and Japanese had readily depleted the number of adult males that might have otherwise been available for CCC service.

Although the buildings of the CCC camp were abandoned, the structures would remain to address additional projects as needed.

In January 1944, the McMillan Woods camp, which had been abandoned for over two years, saw renewed life as hundreds of trainees out of Camp Ritchie arrived on a secretive mission preparatory to D-Day operations.

These were the men of the Mobile Radio Broadcasting company, a quasi-military propaganda force that had come to be collectively referred to as the “Ritchie Boys.”  Upon occupation by the Ritchie Boys, the camp was renamed Camp George H. Sharpe (also known more simply as Camp Sharpe, and less known by its more formal name, Psychological Warfare Training Center).

Leon Edel, a member of one of the Mobile Radio Broadcasting companies, noted in his book, entitled The Visitable Past: A Wartime Memoir, that the camp had not weathered well during its two years of abandonment. He wrote that the old CCC barracks appeared as though they had been built and “were filled with dust and cobwebs. The windows looked as if mud had been smeared across them. Mice and rats had left their deposits.”

Arthur H. Jaffe, captain of the Second Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company, described in his History Second Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company, December 1943-May 1945, that Camp Sharpe was “rugged and barren,” noting that, “The company was quartered in former CCC barracks that were surrounded by a sea of mud. The wind whistled through gaps in the walls while four stoves tried in vain to keep up the room temperature.”

The old CCC camp was again abandoned in 1944 after the Mobile Radio Broadcasting companies were dispatched to Europe in time to participate in D-Day.

But the camp would not be re-abandoned for long. Due to the tremendous drain on manpower, agriculture in Adams County and throughout the country was imperiled due to a lack of available help to manage harvesting and canning food products. Through the exhaustive efforts of local and county farming associations, such as the Adams County Emergency Farm Labor Committee, help was on the way via the War Department, and in the form of hundreds of German prisoners of war.

A tented camp was initially established along Emmitsburg Road to hold 400 prisoners towards the end of June, but the intent was to transfer the prisoners (as well as a few hundred additional POWs) to the McMillan Woods CCC camp. So, in November 1944, the twice-abandoned camp was re-occupied… this time by former enemy combatants (a second prisoner of war camp was established nearby, fronting on West Confederate Avenue and housing an additional 400 German prisoners).

After the end of World War II, the Germans were repatriated (sent home), a process that was not actually fully completed until July 1946.

The final demise of the old CCC camp, which had certainly experienced its share of making history and/or participating in the making of history—from serving as the home to the first all-black CCC camp to serving as the training site for propaganda units bound for Europe in World War II, to housing ultimately some 800 German POWs to assist in saving local agriculture—came in September-October 1947.

The (Hanover) Evening Sun reported on September 25, “Termination of the Adams County Emergency Farm Labor program and the request of the National Park Service (NPS) to restore the grounds now occupied by Camp Sharpe presents an opportunity for farmers to have first consideration in the disposal of the buildings and equipment and it may be possible to salvage buildings in such a manner that reassembling will be possible.”

On October 9, all of the camp buildings (which by then had amounted to some 22 buildings), and all of the remaining furniture contained within them, along with stoves, plumbing, and electrical fixtures, were auctioned off, fetching a total of approximately $8,700, according to the October 10 edition of The (Hanover) Evening Sun.

Photo Courtesy of the National Park Service CCC recruits work on various projects on the Gettysburg battlefield.

Sabillasville Environmental School

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Alisha Yocum

SES Receives Grant for Gettysburg Battle Field Trip

Sabillasville Environmental School – A Classical Charter (SES) received a grant from the American Battlefield Trust’s History Field Trip Grant Program.

The grant is awarded based on a competitive national application process. Mr. Hanna and Mrs. Isennock, middle school teachers at SES, applied and were awarded the grant to take their sixth and seventh graders to the Gettysburg Battlefield.

“This field trip is an exciting opportunity for our students to see and experience Gettysburg beyond the classroom and what it is like to be in the fields and locations where the turning point of the Civil War took place in 1863,” Hanna said. “We are incredibly grateful to the American Battlefield Trust for funding this opportunity for our Maryland middle school students.”

The American Battlefield Trust is the largest battlefield land preservation organization in the country, having saved more than 562,000 acres of hallowed ground across 24 states. The Trust focuses on providing educational opportunities for students, and during the 2018-2019 school year, over 7,500 students from 24 states benefited from the grant program.

Lottery Now Open for 2024-2025 School Year

As a public charter school, each year, SES opens up a lottery for available seats for the upcoming school year. The school offers grades K-8 and uses a classical curriculum that focuses on agriculture and environmental science. All Frederick County residents are welcome to apply to the lottery. There is no cost to attend. The lottery deadline is March 15. To find out more and to enter your child into next year’s lottery, go to www.sesclassical.org.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS…of the Battlefield Kind

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by Richard D. L. Fulton

While the Gettysburg Battlefield has always been viewed as a paranormal hotspot, stories have evolved over time addressing the multitude of spirits that inhabit the area, to the alleged discovery of a time portal that may very well exist on the fields, to UFO flyovers.

The following are just a couple of UFO encounters experienced on the battlefield of Gettysburg.

The Wheatfield Encounter

Chris Krasnai of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was one of those who encountered a UFO while touring the Gettysburg battlefield a number of years ago.

Krasnai said she and a friend were taking photographs one night in the Wheatfield, hoping to capture any evidence of paranormal activity.  Whether or not either had any luck in photographing any spirit activity, what they did encounter remains vivid in Krasnai’s mind to this day.

She stated that she was standing in the vehicle pullover area at the Wheatfield “chit-chatting” with her friend, when she “looked up and saw light in the sky.” She said, at first, she assumed it was an airplane or a helicopter, but it became clearer that it was neither due to the lack of any sound.

“It came closer and wasn’t making any sound,” she stated, adding, “Then it kind of stopped and a beam of light shined down on the Wheatfield.” The beam, she said, “got pretty close to us.”

She said the UFO finally stood still, with the beam of light still shining down, further stating, “I think it was pretty high up, but we were able to get a good look at it before it went behind the tree line and then just disappeared.”

Krasnai stated that the apparent UFO had four white lights around the outside of it, with three red lights in a triangular pattern in the center.

An Alien Abduction?

Gettysburg resident Eileen Catherine (Cathe) Curtis experienced an encounter on the field of Pickett’s Charge of a more serious incident.

Curtis had been engaged in taking photographs that night near the Virginia Monument, when she found herself immersed in a swarm of “orbs,” the entire incident having also been witnessed by her companion.

Regarding the swarm, Curtis stated that attempting to make her way through the encroaching mass of orbs was like “trying to divide the Red Sea.”

As the swarm intensified, her companion said that he could no longer see her. She had vanished among the swarm.

“All of a sudden, I was in this massive, cool (temperature-wise) ship along with little people (around four to five feet in height), with big dark eyes,” Curtis stated, adding, “They were like little kids, hugging me and touching my hands and arms.”

She said the beings stated (without moving their mouth), “We don’t take all people into our crafts. We have means of knowing who are open to us.”

Curtis said the beings indicated that contact would continue “whenever the time and place was right.” She further noted, “It seemed like I was in there for hours.” Her companion stated she had vanished for only a few minutes… maybe ten.

The Quandary of the Orbs?

The orbs (as described above) have been attributed to natural to paranormal to alien-association causes.

Adhering to only the alleged alien association of the orbs with alien activities, the orbs appear to be capable of self-generating light, and their illumination is not the result of being illuminated by the flash of a camera.

There may also be a connection to having the capability of self-generating energy, possibly having their own internal power. One or more individuals associated with the U.S. Department of Energy was a constant visitor to one website that featured the many forms that had been photographed of a variety of orbs. Were they exploring the energy capabilities of the orbs?

The quandary of the orbs remains to be solved.

A battlefield enigma. Photo Gettysburg Battlefield by E. C. Curtis, mid-2000s

Orbs on the move.  The orbs are traveling from the upper left towards the lower right.  To the right edge is the trunk of a tree.

Haunted Gettysburg

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The Untold Story

by Richard D. L. Fulton

There have been countless stories of ghosts on the Gettysburg Battlefield, within and beyond the national park boundaries, and there has been a seemingly endless array of books and documentaries based on the myriad number of ghostly encounters. 

But not all of the stories have been told, and not all of them relate to the Civil War Battle of 1863. 

Below are a few of these “untold stories.”

Did spirits from the past inspire the establishment of a historic wayside in Gettysburg?

In the mid-2000s, Eileen Catherine (Cathe) Curtis, star of America’s Most Haunted Town and America’s Most Haunted Inns—and subsequently guest medium at the Jennie Wade Museum for a number of  years—was strolling down Baltimore Street with a friend when they encountered two young men attired in what appeared to be vintage Marine uniforms.

Cathe and her friend caught up with the two Marines and asked them if they were there for a reenactment or reunion event. She said they both “boasted big smiles and replied that they were ‘simply visiting the town, which was dear to them’.” 

Cathe and her friend walked along with them, briefly. They told them their names (George and George), and gave them their mailing address. 

At some point, Cathe and her friend realized that they were not talking to the living, but had been interacting with two spirits, and the two spirits soon vanished before their eyes.

Cathe decided to do some research online and soon found the two Georges, who had perished in the crash of a Marine dive-bomber near the present intersection of Culp Street and Johns Avenue during the 1922 Marine maneuvers at Gettysburg.  Their names were George Wallis Hamilton and George Russell Martin. She even found their photographs and recognized them.

Conveying what she had found to the author of this article uncovered enough information about Hamilton and Martin and the 1922 Marine maneuvers that the writer approached Jim Rada and the two co-authored The Last to Fall: The 1922 March, Battles, & Deaths of U.S. Marines at Gettysburg, which included a good deal of information about Hamilton and Martin and the crash of the airplane.

The coverage of the Hamilton and Martin deaths in the book inspired local residents and Marines to raise money to erect the Captain George Hamilton and Gunnery Sergeant George Martin Memorial Wayside, which was completed and dedicated in 2018, and stands near the crash site on land set aside by the Heritage Center.

A couple of stories have come out of Colt Park, a housing development constructed beginning in the late 1950s on the battlefield, specifically on what was a Confederate position on the left flank of Pickett’s Charge. 

Not only was there a heated exchange between Confederate and Union troops on the farm fields there that would eventually become the Colt Park development, but there was also a significant Confederate mass grave located along the perimeter of the site. Even isolated burials of deceased soldiers from the conflict had been recovered in the decades following the war.

But two notable paranormal occurrences that occurred among the modern-day residents of the park appeared to not have been Civil War-related.

The names of the residents and the locations of the incidences must be kept out of print, but below are the encounters.

One involved the movement of planks in the attic of one of the homes, which had commenced one night at exactly 11:45 p.m., and continued for five or ten minutes. This inexplicable activity continued for days, each night at exactly 11:45 p.m.

After the first day or two, a contractor was called to determine if something was structurally amiss in the home’s attic, but nothing was found to indicate what was causing the persistent disturbances. 

After another day or two, an exterminator was called to ascertain if the activity was the result of a “home invasion” by one or more of the neighborhood’s squirrels or raccoons. 

After an extensive investigation, the pest control expert declared that he had found nothing out of the ordinary and no signs of where an animal could have entered, nor any evidence of any animal activity.

On the way out of the door, he commented to the homeowners, “I think you know what it is…” Two days later, the disturbance ended and never occurred again. 

A second Colt Park incident was non-Civil War related. A resident was watching television, and admittedly getting a little dozy while waiting for his wife to return from an outing with a friend. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, and as the husband was jolted out of a semi-sleep, a young girl jumped up off the couch and exuberantly proclaimed, “I’ll get it,” and ran to the backdoor in the kitchen.

Then the husband realized there was no little girl in the house, so he got up and went into the kitchen to let his wife in.

It would be easy to write this off as the husband having dozed off and was suddenly awakened and thought he saw the little girl, whom he described as wearing shorts and a non-descript blouse, with a decidedly late-1950s-style hairdo (the husband grew up with two sisters and believed he had recognized the hair style).

However, a few days later, the husband went into the basement where he had his office and found a complete child’s tea set, comprised of four teacups and saucers and a tea pot, arranged nicely in a circle on the floor of the basement. But the residents did not have any young children, and none belonging to any friends or relatives had visited them recently.

Further, later in that week, the wife was moving some boxes around in the basement, and found lying on one of them was a late 1950s Christmas catalog, of the type that hardware stores used to mail out in that timeframe. Looking through it, she found a photograph of nearly the very same tea set that had been found arranged on the basement floor a few days earlier.

They still have the tea set and catalog, but nothing further of the little girl has been experienced since.

Back to the battlefield “proper,” generally, it is held that park rangers do not share any of their paranormal experiences with the public, but one did so a number of years ago.

It appears he had been dispatched to an area of the park (which was closed at that hour to the public) to investigate reports of Civil War reenactors having been seen on the field.

Responding to the reported location, the ranger parked and exited the car and, grabbing a flashlight, began to look around. He finally did spot a number of figures that appeared to be…in the dark as best as he could determine…walking across the field among some trees and heading in his direction, so he proceeded to approach them.

As he and the ‘soldiers’ approached each other closer, he said the central figure actually passed through the tree in front of him.

On that note, the ranger retreated to his patrol car and immediately departed the scene, and merely reported that he had “not encountered any reenactors in the area” and left it at that.

Bloody hand projects from medium Eileen Catherine (Cathe) Curtis while in the Orphanage, Gettysburg.

German POWs Helped Save Adams’ Agriculture

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Richard D. L. Fulton

Note: Cover Photo (Never before published) Nazi medical officer poses near the High Water Mark on the Gettysburg Battlefield, 1939 (Source: National Park Service, Gettysburg). It was found by an NPS archivist while searching for materials for my book.

(Adapted from ‘Nazis’ in Gettysburg: World War II Comes to a Civil War Battlefield by Richard D. L. Fulton, pending publication.)

It’s amazing how much history has transpired on the Gettysburg battlefield that did not occur in 1863 and did not involve the collision of Union and Confederate troops.

One of those non-Civil War events occurred when the battlefield served as “home” to hundreds of German prisoners of war (who were referred to as PWs – POW being a post-World War II acronym).

As to why they were here, the war had drained the availability of military-aged men in the county (and in the country as a whole), that farmers were concerned over the resulting shortage of labor, that much of their produce would be lost before it could be harvested.

Given that the Geneva Convention allowed for the use of POW labor, as long as it was not directly employed in the production of war materials, a proposal was put forth and approved to establish POW camps around the country to house Germans to help in harvesting and other agriculturally related activities, thereby providing an opportunity for Adams County farmers to receive the much-needed labor.

The prisoners ultimately did not only help in the fields, but also in pulpwood cutting, and even in the canneries.

The first of what would be three PW compounds was constructed in 1944, when a 600-foot by 400-foot rectangular prisoner of war compound (paid by the Adams County Fruit Growers Association) was erected, paralleling Emmitsburg Road and Long Lane.

The compound consisted of rows of squad-sized tents for the prisoners, the German command tent, a canteen, the compound kitchen, two mess tents, wooden showers and latrines with concrete floors, and an exercise ground.  Adjacent to the POW compound was a section that included the quarters and associated structures utilized by the camp guard and support staff, shower and latrines, a kitchen, mess tent, administration tent, and storage and supply tents.

The entire compound, except for the portion inhabited by the army guards and staff, was surrounded by barbed wire, with a guard tower at each of the four corners of the barbed wire enclosure. Joan Thomas, daughter of the camp’s commander, Captain Laurence C. Thomas, noted that the camp guards were armed with machine guns.  This camp held 400 prisoners.

As winter approached, it was then decided to establish a new compound in the old, former Civilian Conservation Corps (which had also served as the headquarters—dubbed Camp Sharpe—for various units of the Ritchie Boys in preparation for their deployment on D-Day). 

The prisoners at the Emmitsburg Road camp had been reduced to 200 PWs, and these, along with the Army guards and staff, were relocated in November to the old CCC camp, located off West Confederate Avenue on the western slope of Seminary Ridge, which had been further modified by moving some of the structures and adding others. 

During December, the number of PWs grew to 42 German non-commissioned officers and 448 German enlisted men. The abandoned Emmitsburg camp was then dismantled. Captain Thomas was initially in command, but he was subsequently transferred to Camp Michaux (a secret World War II camp in Michaux State Forest for interrogating prisoners of war), and Captain James W. Copley (and later, Captain Clarence M. Morfit, Jr.) assumed command.

During the winter, PWs were mainly employed for cutting pulpwood. However, as spring approached, farmers became concerned that there was still not enough labor to handle the harvests and canning. This resulted in a third PW compound being constructed, directly fronting West Confederate Avenue, not far from the compound that had been established in the old CCC camp.

Although the new camp shared the same military identification as the CCC camp, it was, in fact, considered a separate camp with its own command structure, headed up by Captain Clarence K. Randall.  The compound was a tented camp as per the abandoned Emmitsburg camp. It appears that the tented encampment was to be replaced with actual barracks, which were not constructed, as the result of the end of the war with Germany.

By September 8, 1945, four months after Germany’s surrender, both West Confederate Avenue camps housed a combined total of 83 German non-commissioned officers and 799 German enlisted men and covered a combined total of 70 acres.

The Gettysburg compounds experienced a smattering of escape attempts, but all in all, there seemed to be little interest in attempting such an adventure. For one thing, the prisoners were safely out of the war and away from the poorly maintained camps overseas. 

The prisoners were also well-fed, and a little on the spoiled side, as farm families insisted that each soldier fill their pockets, or anything else they might be carrying, with farm goods.

But there were a few attempts to escape for various reasons (attempting to escape an enemy POW camp is not a crime. In fact, under international law, attempting to escape is part of a soldier’s duty.  An escapee cannot be shot while attempting to escape, although some were on both sides. They cannot be tried for attempting to escape, but they can be tried for any other crime that might have occurred during the escape).

On July 3, 1944, Thomas Kostaniak, 27, and Axel Ostermaier, 22, escaped from the Emmitsburg compound through a drainage conduit that ran from the camp and under Emmitsburg Road (the conduit is still there!), thereby having triggered a two-state manhunt that lasted for days.

The duo managed to elude capture for some 30 miles, when, by the time they reached the York area, hunger and fatigue compelled them to surrender to a farm wife, Rachel Bentzel, and her daughter-in-law, Grace Bentzel. The duo was subsequently turned over to the York police, and then the FBI, who returned them to the camp.

As to the motive for the attempted escape… they were trying to get to Atlantic City, having assumed by the name it must be a major seaport in which they could make their way aboard an outgoing ship and head back to Germany.

To illustrate the opposing extreme in escapes, during October 1945, two POWs escaped from a work detail and headed into Gettysburg Borough.  It was reported that apparently the two Germans had no real intent of escape and had merely grown bored at the camp and decided to go off on an adventure. The adventure quickly came to a conclusion when the two POWs were spotted by two off-duty camp guards, and the “escapees” were taken into custody.

As for a motive, it was reported the two wanted to see a movie (Captain Eddie: Story of Rickenbacker was playing at the time) but were refused entry because the theater would not accept their POW vouchers (script).

Prisoners of war would not have had any actual cash placed in their hands for their labors, or the result of any other source of income, their earnings being “banked” by the government and the prisoners being issued script at their encampment canteens.

Following Germany’s surrender on May 7, 1945, German POWs remained in the tri-state area. At the beginning of repatriation, Pennsylvania, along with Maryland and Virginia, served as “home” to more than 35,000 German prisoners of war. The War Department began to set into motion their effort to send the one-time enemy combatants housed in the tri-state area home in November 1945.

Before being released, the Germans had to go through “de-Nazification,” which included watching German death camp films and other exposed atrocities. Upon repatriation, each prisoner also received the money the government had “banked” from their labors.

Source: NPS, Gettysburg

Aerial view: The former CCC camp that was coverted to hold German POWs.

Sources: NPS, Gettysburg & Adams County Historical Society

Emmitsburg Road POW camp tents.

PFC Howard Mace

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From Iran to Gettysburg

by Richard D. L. Fulton

Photo Courtesy of Howard’s daughter, Coleen Reamer

Pvt. Howard Mace appears second from the left in this photograph, taken in the Middle East.

Photo Courtesy of National Park Service, Gettysburg

Photographed is Camp Sharpe.

Private First Class Howard Mace’s career in the Army during World War II found him guarding supply convoys carrying supplies through Iran to Russia, bombs being shipped from Virginia to New York, and 400 German POWs on the Gettysburg Battlefield.

Mace, who was born in Medix Run, Pennsylvania, was 30 years of age and working at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia when war was declared against Japan and Germany in 1941. Although he could have been granted a deferment, he decided to enlist in the Army in April 1942, serving in the 1325 Service Command Unit as a military policeman.

After completing basic training in 1942, he and his unit were deployed in 1943 to the Middle East (Iran area), where the unit guarded supply convoys heading through Iran to the Russian allies, where the unit remained on duty until early 1945. In early 1945, Mace was dispatched to Norfolk and, subsequently, was assigned to guard convoys delivering bombs to military installations in New York City.

Soon thereafter, Mace was reassigned to assist with guarding around 400 German soldiers and officers being held at Camp Sharpe (formerly a Civilian Conservation Corps camp) on the Gettysburg Battlefield. The CCC camp had been converted into a special forces training base in 1944 and was renamed Camp Sharpe. (See German POWs helped save Adams’ Agriculture in this issue of The Catoctin Banner). Mace’s primary role at Camp Sharpe was to guard the prisoners when they were outside of the compound on work details in the farm fields, orchards, and canning factories.

Mace’s daughter, Coleen Reamer, a Hamiltonban Township supervisor, said her father didn’t talk much about the war to her but did occasionally discuss the war with her brother, Ronald.

Reamer informed that her father said that “he liked that duty (guarding the PWs – POW was a post-World War II designation) very much because the prisoners did all the cooking, cleaning, polishing and had no desire to go anywhere since they were treated so well.” He stated that Gettysburg, like the rest of the country, was under food rationing, but the POW camps were not.

Reamer reported that guards and military staff could invite guests to visit the camp and the prisoners generally prepared the meals. “Because the camp had plenty of otherwise rationed items, the townspeople enjoyed being invited to the camp for a tour and dinner,” she said her father observed.

Reamer said, “The belief by Americans was that if we treated German POWs well, then that would hopefully translate the same for our American POWs held by the enemy overseas.”

Only a few prisoners attempted escapes were ever reported from the three German prisoner-of-war camps that were built on the Gettysburg battlefield. Two escaped the Emmitsburg Road camp but surrendered to a family wife and her daughter-in-law in York. Another escaped one of the other camps but surrendered to a New York City book dealer. Two others escaped and were caught at Zora (on Waynesboro Pike).

Reamer said her father did mention an escape in which two of the German prisoners slipped away from a work detail and were found sitting at the Gettysburg Town Square. They only wanted to see a movie, but the Strand Theater on Baltimore Street refused to accept PW canteen script for admission.

Mace served at Camp Sharp until he was mustered out on November 7, 1945. He was awarded the Good Conduct Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the European-African-Middle East Campaign Medal.

He married his wife Jo-Ellen Anna Nary in 1946, and they had four children: Coleen Reamer, Ronald Mace, Vikki Mace, and Beth Vivaldi.

(Reporters Note: Mace likely would have been at the Camp Sharpe compound when the Army suffered its only casualty that would occur in conjunction with the prisoner-of-war camps at Gettysburg. On September 1, 1945, when a shot rang out in Camp Sharpe, guards fanned out to locate the source and found the body of Private First-Class Joseph Ward, lying lifeless on the floor of one of the guard towers; they saw that he had been shot. It was subsequently ruled that his death was a suicide.)

Veteran Spotlight

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by Richard D. L. Fulton

Major George W. Webb

Gettysburg’s “Tuskegee Airman”

When George W. Webb, then-holding the rank of first lieutenant, reported for duty as the first black commander of a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp on the Gettysburg battlefield, the only red tails he would have encountered there would have been the species of hawks that flew overhead.

The irony of that was, as World War II broke out, “red tails” would come to assume a whole new meaning in his life.

First Lieutenant Webb secured his Army commission as the result of ROTC training he had received at Howard University, having graduated in 1926. In May 1939 he was assigned to be a member of the staff at the CCC camp in McMillan Woods on the Gettysburg Battlefield.

The CCC had established two camps on the Gettysburg Battlefield. The first camp was located in 1933 in Pitzer Woods (in the field behind where the General Longstreet monument stands today) and designated NP-1, and the second camp was located in McMillan Woods in 1934 on the western slope of Seminary Ridge, taking its access off West Confederate Avenue, and designated NP-2.

The CCC camp in Pitzer Woods was comprised of all-black recruits under the command of all white officers as NP-2 had been, except that during late 1939, two years after the Pitzer Woods camp had been abandoned, it was announced that the NP-2 was to become the first all-black (recruits and officers) in the country. At the time, the all-black staff assumed command, the McMillan Woods camp served as home to 198 CCC program “enrollees (designated as being the 135th Company).”

Lieutenant Webb assumed command of the NP-2 on November 12, 1939, when the camp was about to begin being led by an all-black command structure.  Although Webb was described as a “native Washingtonian.” Beginning with his assignment to the NP-2, he afterwards always regarded Gettysburg as his home (before being sent to Gettysburg, Webb had served as supervisor of the Industrial Home School of Blue Plains in Washington, D.C.).

Webb received an official send-off at the NP-2 on August 25, 1941, in the form of a “smoker and banquet.”  The Gettysburg Times noted that, under Webb’s command, the camp had a superior rating “as one of the most outstanding companies in the central district.”

On August 19, the lieutenant arrived at Chanute Field, Illinois, to commence with his training to serve as the adjutant officer of the 99th Pursuit Squadron (also known as the Red Tails, due to their having painted their airplane tails red.  The group was not referred to as the Tuskegee Airmen until it appeared in a book in 1955).  The Black Dispatch reported at that time that Webb was married and had three children (two girls and one boy).

During the second week of September 1941, he was dispatched to the Tuskegee (Alabama) Institute, where he officially assumed his assignment as adjutant of the 99th Pursuit Squadron at what would become Tuskegee Army Airfield.

By January 1942, Adjutant Lieutenant Webb had been appointed provost marshal at the Tuskegee flying school, becoming the first black provost marshal in the United States Army (although he continued in training for that position for six months at the Provost Marshal General School in Fort Custer, Michigan through August 13, 1943).  He was additionally appointed as fire marshal and transportation officer.

As an aside, in October 1942, the flying school opened its brand-new chapel, Webb’s youngest son was the first child baptized in the new facility.

By February 20, 1943, he had also assumed the command of the military police unit at the Tuskegee flying school and had been promoted to captain. In September 1943, Webb had been promoted to major, just days after having completed his provost marshal training in Fort Custer. His wife had also given birth to a third daughter.

The Tuskegee Army Air Field closed in 1947; 932 pilots had been successfully graduated from the program. Among these, 66 Tuskegee airmen died in combat.