News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: POW Currency

Date: April 02, 1999

The following is a transcript of 'Money Talks' broadcast, Transcript No. 1688, March 24, 1999.

PRISONER OF WAR MONEY
Robert Leonard

What do these three cities have in common: Greeley, Colorado; Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania; and Wheeler, Georgia? They're all locations of former prisoner of war camps. The prisoners are gone, but they're remembered today through the special money that was printed for them.

The Geneva Convention provides that prisoners of war who are officers should receive the pay of an officer of equal rank in the captor's army. And while no provision was made to pay enlisted men, many countries did that also. During World War II, the United States paid enlisted Axis prisoners $3 a month, over and above any money they earned from work details.

But the prisoners weren't paid in US currency, since they would be able to use the money if they escaped. Instead, special tickets were printed for prisoners to use only at the camp canteen.

These tickets were called chits, and they measured one by two inches. The denominations ranged from one cent to a dollar. Each ticket identified the camp it was issued for, and a few even added a line or two of explanation in German or Italian.

The first prisoner-of-war chits were made in 1942, and continued at some camps until 1946. All told, 83 POW camps, in 37 states, issued their own chits. Today, the rare remainders of these issues remind us of the time when the United States was host to several hundred thousand prisoners of war.

This has been "Money Talks." Today's program was written by Robert Leonard and underwritten by Whitman Coin Products, a division of Golden Books. "Money Talks" is a copyrighted production of the American Numismatic Association, 818 N. Cascade Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903, 719/632-2646, ana@money.org, http://www.money.org.