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Prisoner of War , Internment Camps and Gibraltar Camp, Jamaica .
Section V. World War I - Womens' Internment .

To date no philatelic evidence of the internment of women enemy aliens during World
War I has been recorded, but the few that there must have been were probably confined
to hotels under police supervision or placed on parole , most likely the latter .
Section VI . The P.O.W. and Internment Camps during World War II .

Fairly early in the war these Camps were established at Up Park Camp at the Northern
end of the complex in the approximate position later occupied by the National Stadium.
This area also housed the later Canadian Battalions ; but the Water Commission owned
extensi ve lands at the beginning of the war around Mona . A sketch plan of the area
during thi s war is shown earlier .

Whilst the general compositi on of the Camp was similar to that of World War I , in
World War II there were a number of problems peculiar to this conflict which makes the
Camp one of the most interesting P . O. W. and Internment Camps .

Firstl y , a number of the prisoners were ardent Nazi Party members , irrespective of
whether or not members of the armed forces , although later many of captured U-Boat
crews were party members . However , as the war progressed, the Nazis caused so much
friction between themselves and other prisoners t hat they were segregated in separate
compounds .

Secondly, the Camp held many civi lians , i niti ally these enemy aliens comprised
fami l i es who had been long resident in Jamaica , and were in fact , naturalized British
subjects , but , as they were of German extraction , the male members were interned while
the women and children were probably restricted to local hotels until the opening of
the Hanover Camp . This category probabl y did not include the naturalized residents of
the isolated vill ages menti oned earl ier in Section II , they were not a security risk
especially as over the years many had declined mentally due to inter marriage .

Thirdly, as in World War I , there would be some other civilian German or Austrian
citizens or other enemy aliens i n Jamaica , in particular at a later date Italian
nationals , who would be interned .

In mid 1940 (the Camp newspaper says December, 1940), this category of prisoner
was suddenly increased in numbers by overseas internees . The fall of France and the
position of t he Vichy Government created a number of problems for the Allies , one of
which related Axis prisoners already interned by the British and French authorities
in Nigeria , the Gold Coast, Senegal, Dahomey, the Cameroons, Togo and other West
African territories.

The British feared that the Vichy Government might be forced to free their
prisoners and, perhaps , be compelled to order their forces to free prisoners from
British territories who were held in French controlled camps . Hence many of the
"prisoners" were shipped to various British territories, some with the full
co-operation of Free French forces who had declared for General De Gaulle . Some
of the prisoners were transferred to the United Kingdom, and later to Canada , others
were sent to Jamaica . The Brit ish also transferred prisoners held by them in West
African territories in the same manner as former French prisoners .

It should be added that many of these prisoners were planters, traders or
missi onaries who had lived in Africa for many years , indeed, in the case of many
from the Cameroons and Togo areas the prisoners were from families remaining there
after the former German West African territories had been mandated to France and
England after World War I . The West African prisoners also included Italian
families , as many Italians had been engaged on construction work in the area.

However, their continued presence in West Africa would have posed a real danger
to the Allies, and certainly one British officer at the Camp was of the firm opinion
that some, at least , of these prisoners were Nazi agents sent out to Africa prior to
the War .