by Kelly Moffitt

Sunday, Dec. 11 marks 75 years since the United States declared war on war on Germany and Italy. That was four days following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, which killed 2,403 Americans, and three days after the U.S. declared war on the Empire of Japan in retaliation. The United States had officially entered World War II. With that entry, few realize that the nation would open its borders to house prisoners of war from the Axis powers for the remainder of the war.

From 1942 to 1945, over 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps across the nation. Missouri figured into this equation, housing some 15,000 prisoners of war from Germany and Italy inside state lines. There were comparatively few Japanese prisoners of war brought to the United States during those years and none were housed in Missouri.

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Source: http://news.stlpublicradio.org/