Page 55 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

Column April 6, 2008

GERMAN POWS IN WHITE SPRINGS

Public Defender Dennis Roberts recently loaned me a book on German prisoners
of war (POWs) in Florida during World War II, “Hitler’s Soldiers in the Sunshine
State” by Robert D. Billinger, Jr.

According to the book, the 10,000 POWs held in 27 camps in Florida were part
of the 378,000 held in 45 states.

White Springs people are well aware of the POW camp that was there. The book
says that camp was opened in the spring of 1944 in mid-April (64 years ago this
month) and was made up of POWs shipped from Ft. McClellan, Alabama.

Actually, many of those White Springs prisoners were from Austria. One was
named Karl Planko, and in 1965 I visited Karl, his wife Mitzi, and their four
children in their town of Leibnitz, in the Austrian state of Styria. Karl, only 17
when he was a POW, remembered that he and his comrades were treated very
well in the White Springs camp.

By the way, Mitzi Planko wrote a book— in German- on her growing-up days in
the Europe of the 1930’s and gave me a copy. I recently loaned that book to
Maria Rogers, who reads German, so she can give me book report. If you read
German, I will loan it to you, too.

OLUSTEE BATTLE MONUMENTS

Because of the Battle of Olustee, local people have naturally long taken an
interest in the Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park. So have I, and I have
visited it many times.

Last Wednesday I visited the park once again, this time to write down the words
on two of the outside markers there, one a tribute to Confederate General A. H.
Colquitt, the other to Confederate Brigadier General Joseph Finegan.

General Colquitt’s monument reads, “Here was fought on February 20,1864, the
Battle of Olustee Pond under the immediate command of General Alfred Holt
Colquitt, ‘Hero of Olustee.’

This decisive engagement prevented a Sherman-like invasion of Georgia from
the South. Erected April 20, 1936, by the Alfred Holt Colquitt Chapter United
Daughters of the Confederacy, Georgia Division.”

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