Green Valley's German POW Camp
Many of the prisoners at Camp Continental were sailors on Nazi submarines.
Camp Continental: WWII Nazi POW Camp in Arizona
Map: Green Valley News
Camp Continental (Bull Farm), today's Quail Creek development, is situated between Sahuarita and Green Valley, Arizona. It was the southernmost German POW camp in Arizona.
In 1926, an Arkansas farmer James Bull bought a 160-acre land parcel calling it Bull Farm. Later during World War II, a prisoner-of-war camp was established there to provide the needed labor for agricultural work during the war effort.
Green Valley, Arizona History
Bull Farm.
Gladys Bull Klingenberg, who was 91 when she was interviewed in 2006 in Green Valley, recalled the German prisoners tended to cotton crops cultivated on the Bull Farm, owned by her father, James.
Joe Martinez, Guard at Camp Continental
"They were fanatics," he stressed. "There were a lot of Hitler youth."
"They'd be fighting all the time," said Martinez, who was in charge of 40 soldiers who worked as guards for the 250-prisoner camp.
Bread & Water
"Every night, at about 3 or 4 in the morning, they'd be carrying on, fighting. We had to go in and knock some heads to settle them down."
Some fights turned so bad, forcing camp guards to use their billy clubs to put down the disorder.
Their propensity for conflict caused the U-Boot crews to spend a lot of their time at Camp Continental on bread-and-water rations, Martinez related.
Cora Martinez held a picture of her wedding to Joe Martinez in 1944. They were married while Joe was a guard at Camp Continental. Apparently, the German POWs baked the couple a cake for the occasion and the guests loved it.
Sources:
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "U-boat." Encyclopedia Britannica, May 7, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/technology/U-boat.
Ellis, Tim. “Sahuarita Once Had POW Camp.” Arizona Daily Star, May 25, 2006. https://tucson.com/news/local/east/sahuarita-once-had-pow-camp/article_67f4f42d-bcfc-561f-9352-5b765b4f12d7.html.
Rookhuyzen, David. “The Homefront: German POW Camp in Sahuarita Gone, but the Memories Aren't.” Green Valley News & Sahuarita Sun, January 12, 2022. https://www.gvnews.com/sahuarita/news/the-homefront-german-pow-camp-in-sahuarita-gone-but-the-memories-arent/article_5019acff-d1c2-5656-8295-2b0b5f7f3b5e.html.
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