Prisoners of War in New Mexico Agriculture
Abstract of Interview
CONSULTANT:
Rex Kipp, Jr.
TAPE NUMBER: RG2000-104
DATE
OF BIRTH: December 4, 1933
SEX:
Male
DATE(S)
OF INTERVIEW: July 31, 2000
LOCATION
OF INTERVIEW: E. J. Short and Sons, Lordsburg, New Mexico
INTERVIEWER:
Mollie Pressler
SOURCE
OF INTERVIEW: NMF&RHM__x___OTHER___________
TRANSCRIBED:
YES____x___
NO_______
NUMBER
OF TAPES: One
ABSTRACTOR:
Sylvia Wheeler
DATE
ABSTRACTED: April 27, 2001
QUALITY
OF RECORDING (SPECIFY): Good
SCOPE
AND CONTENT NOTE: Recalls prisoners of war employed on his parents’ ranch
during World War II.
DATE
RANGE: 1943-1944
ABSTRACT
(IMPORTANT TOPICS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE):
TAPE
ONE:
Rex
Kip, Jr. was born in Lordsburg, New Mexico in 1933 and has lived there all his
life. During World War II his
family ranched. In the 1940s, because of the war imposed labor shortage they
hired prisoners of war (POWs) as ranch laborers. They paid the army five dollars
a day for POW labor. The POWs came
in groups of five; they would be taught a task, then the camp would send out a
new group of POWs to learn. The commandant accepted requests for workers,
sending them to work with an armed guard.
The
guards had a good relationship with the POWs; when one wanted to ride a horse,
he gave his gun to a POW to hold. Except
for the few Nazis, the POWs seemed docile.
They
hired largely during the branding season for about six months of the year over a
period of two years, 1943 and 1944. The family gave the POWs little perks,
tobacco, for example, and fed them The POWs flanked, roped, and dragged calves
during branding, and built corrals. One
corral still stands.
The
Italian POWs said that Rommel whipped them badly. During their retreat they
threw away their weapons but kept their guitars, violins and harmonicas as they
fled.
In
the POW camp, they were treated very well although they had no air conditioning
in their barracks. The family was
instructed not to talk to the POWs, fraternize, which may be why they kept
changing the groups sent. Occasionally, the family also hired migrant workers.
Harry
Day’s Lazy B ranch (Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s father)
also employed POWs.
The
camp was well administered. He recalls one attempted escape of eighteen or
nineteen POWs trying to get to Argentina.
POWs
were used to quarry limestone in the region which was used for their camp
sidewalks, and later taken and used by people in town for various things.
Kipp’s
grandmother wrote an article about Italian POWs working at the ranch for the New
Mexico Magazine.
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