German prisoners of war in California agriculture, 1943-1946

Twenty-five years have elapsed since the last German prisoner of war (POW) left the continental United States. Few books have been published about POW's and apparently none which relate specifically to their use in agriculture. Consequently, I have had to rely heavily upon interviews, correspondence, pamphlets, Congressional records, periodicals, and newspapers in preparing this work. Impetus for the work came by chance. While working on a seminar paper pertaining to the use of Mexican import labor (braceros) in California, a statement that POW's had also made a significant contribution to the nation's agricultural work force during the second World War aroused my curiosity. As a native of rural Fresno, California where bracero labor was utilized extensively in the fields, I was never aware that German POW's were also being used as farm laborers nor that history was being "made" practically in my own back yard.