Controlling Sex in Captivity: POWs and Sexual Desire in the United States During the Second World War by Matthias Reiss

Author:Matthias Reiss [Reiss, Matthias]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, United States, 20th Century, Military, World War II, Modern, social history, Americas (North; Central; South; West Indies)
ISBN: 9781350060630
Google: -0RaDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-06-14T23:59:59.783547+00:00

American reactions to same-sex activities in POW camps

From a legal point of view, Mason was right. As already pointed out, the United States was obliged under the Geneva Convention of 1929 to apply its rules and regulations regarding homosexual American personnel to enemy POWs. In practice, however, this turned out to be very difficult. The Provost Marshal General’s Office in Washington, DC received numerous requests for advice from camp commanders who were unsure of how to deal with same-sex offenders in their custody. The earliest surviving document came from the commander of Camp Polk, Louisiana, who reported having two ‘sodomists’ in his custody on 6 December 1943. He incorrectly assumed that ‘the disposition of such cases’ was ‘beyond the province of this command’ and asked for a policy statement from the Headquarters of the 8th Service Command.197 The latter passed the request on to the Prisoner of War Division in the Office of the Provost Marshal General in Washington, DC. The use of the term ‘sodomists’ ensured a straightforward reply from Assistant Provost Marshal General Bryan as it labelled the offenders as sexual perverts. In addition, Camp Polk had secured affidavits that verified that the two prisoners in question, WG29 and G91, had indeed engaged in same-sex intercourse.198 Bryan therefore recommended that the two POWs ‘be tried by a general court-martial under the 93rd Article of War’ and pointed out that prisoners ‘convicted of crimes may be sent to penitentiaries under circumstances identical to those which apply to American soldiers’.199

The issuing of War Department Circular No. 3 in January 1944 gave American commanders a new option when dealing with same-sex offenders by offering the possibility of hospitalization. Nevertheless, camp commanders apparently remained unsure about how to handle same-sex incidents. On 30 March 1944, for example, Camp Shelby, Mississippi requested ‘information concerning disposition to be made of homosexuals among German Prisoners of War, this station’.200 In reply, the Office of the Provost Marshal General ‘suggested’ applying, as far as possible, the procedure outlined in Circular No. 3: ‘Whenever possible, it is suggested that these prisoners be hospitalized … If the prisoners are not deemed reclaimable or if their misconduct has been aggravated by independent offenses, it is believed that they should be court-martialed under the nine-third Article of War’.201 Non-reclaimable American soldiers were, of course, to be discharged from the service, not court-martialled. The Provost Marshal General’s Office therefore put the German POWs in a worse position than American soldiers and technically violated the Geneva Convention. The Office of the Surgeon General was also quick to point out ‘that the problem is a medical one as well as disciplinary and that each case should be considered individually’.202

As non-reclaimable Axis POWs could not be discharged, formal segregation of same-sex offenders was presented as a possible alternative. As pointed out, some camp commanders had started to use the system installed to segregate Nazis from anti-Nazis to rid themselves of same-sex offenders. A policy of formal segregation for same-sex offenders would have made this

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