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I remember while visiting the camp as a
child seeing the German POWS. They would
trade anything for food. I ended up with
a fountain pen and some button off a
couple of the prisoners. |
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- Bill Himes - Local Resident |
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My stepdad helped in the building of the
camp. After the war I bought the Camp's
Fire House on Edgewood Drive (called E
Street while the camp was in operation)
and used it as a service station. |
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- Jim Morgan - Local Resident |
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While living in San Francisco I met a
couple visiting from Germany -- I was
standing on the outside of a cable car
and they were seated in front of me -- I
heard them speaking a language that I
thought was German and asked if they
were from Germany -- they said they were
and asked where I was from -- when I
said Pennsylvania, they asked the town,
and when I said Sharon, their eyes lit
up -- the husband had been a POW at Camp
Reynolds, and he told me how nice the
people he met were and how well he was
treated generally at the Camp. (I can't
explain how he seemed to have had even
occasional contacts with people
(civilians) living in the area) |
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- Peter Boyle, Former Sharon, PA
resident now living in San Francisco, CA |
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I enlisted into the Army and was
stationed in Germany in 1962. While on
assignment in West Berlin I meet a
Chaplain. After a talking about where we
were from etc. he related a story of how
he danced with my Aunt, Carmilla Liscio
at one of the Service Clubs at Camp
Reynolds. |
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- Army Veteran, Anthony M. Liscio |
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My family moved from Glenn Campbell, PA
to the Transfer area in the early 1940.
My dad worked at Westinghouse in Sharon,
PA and we lived in a house owned by
Templeton a local potato farmer. As a
young boy about 11 years old I worked
for the Templeton's picking potatoes. In
the middle of 1942 when the Army camp
was being built the Army took over the
Templeton property and the house we
lived in and we moved down into
Transfer. I remember before moving that
they were building the camp so fast that
we were picking potatoes underneath the
barracks to save as many potatoes as we
could. |
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Another remembrance was during the Race
Riot at the camp when the local Civilian
Defense Corps in Transfer came around telling us to
stay inside. |
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- Bill Gardner,
Transfer PA Resident
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My father James Madison Gilliland
(1882-1967) from the West Middlesex area
had a team of gray horses that he sold
to Sharon Coal and Ice in 1942. Because
of gasoline rationing and costs the
company intended to use the team to
deliver beer to Camp Reynolds. A problem
arose for the company when the team
could not be driven by anyone else.
Therefore Sharon Coal and Ice hired my
father to drive the team two days a week
in 1943-44 to Camp Reynolds to make the
beer deliveries at the PX. I remember my
oldest sister was very upset that Dad
was delivering beer, but I certainly
enjoyed the candy bars he occasionally
bought at the PX for me. |
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- As told by Rebecca (Gilliland) Ahern
on August 12, 2013 |
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I remember when I was at Hickory High
School Hickory, PA then / now Hermitage,
PA) we saw truck loads of soldiers going
south on Route 18. The students would
wave at the soldiers and talk to them at
times as they were stopped at the red
light. |
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- Paul Turjan |
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Lady remembers her Elementary School in
West Middlesex touring Camp Reynolds.
She remembers seeing the soldiers in
their uniforms. |
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She also remembers being in Greenville
Hospital when news came that the war in
Europe had ended. She remembers people
shouting in the street that "The War Was
Over." |
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- Lady from Transfer |
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My brother
was 12 years older then me. In
1942 when he enlisted in the Army I was
only 5.My
memory of his Army career is that he was
working for Baldwin Brower's out of Erie
in 1941. They had an asphalt batch plant
in Boyer's PA and were installing
roads at Camp Reynolds. As the war
heated up he and a couple of
buddies enlisted in the Army. My brother
had a "lazy eye" and was rejected
for combat and was put into finance. My
grandparents were from Germany and he
could speak a little German and became a
MP at Camp Reynolds. He guarded
prisoners and escorted some to
Leavenworth in Kansas.
He was later transferred to Kansas where
he guarded prisoners who worked on
farms. He made friends with some and
kept in touch after they had returned to
Germany when the war ended. He knew a
couple of them who returned to the US
and married farm girls they met while
working. He also attended reunions of
prisoners who returned to Leavenworth
occasionally. My brother also married a
farm girl and spent the rest of his life
in Kansas. |
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- Bill West |
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My grandfather Calvert was the owner of
Calvert Lumber in (Budd St.) Sharon, PA.
Calvert supplied wood for the building
of the camp. My cousins still
operate Calvert Lumber. He also helped
build camp Reynolds and also built
torpedo boxes for Westinghouse in
Sharon. I remember going to Camp
Reynolds to see the Nazis and giving
them cigarettes through the cyclone
fences which had three strands of barbed
wire on top of it. Two of my friends
fathers drove buses to take the Nazis to
the Columbia Theater in Sharon for
movies. |
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- David W. Difenderfer |
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Lena Giardina, a Greenville, PA resident
who operated Lena's Doll Hospital sewed
patches for GI's at the camp. |
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- Grandson |
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Carmella Giardina (daughter of Lena
Giardina), a Greenville, PA resident
married Patrick Orrick who worked in the
Motor Pool at the camp. |
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- Grandson |
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I remember when Judy Garland
sang at the Officer's Club and,
I imagine, sang later elsewhere
in the camp. We were at a table
with General Ladd, and Colonel &
Opal Chase. They used to keep
our little dog, Peanuts, when we
were away. They were a grand
couple. Were posted in Japan
after leaving Camp Reynolds.
Both General. Ladd and Chuck Chase
were buddies from West Point, as
was the Major who lived with his
wife in our spare room for a
while. Sorry their name escapes
me at the moment - they were a
very fine couple, as well. |
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- Mimi Filer, Columbus, Ohio |
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I remember riding in an Army truck to
school in Transfer until the Army Base
provided a school bus. We even had a
guard with a rifle and I remember being
worried that anybody jumping out would
be shot. I also remember the German POWs
who picked up garbage. |
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- Ruth Ann Allen (Wescott) |
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My mother Lois Wilson (Crawford) was a
file clerk in the post office at Camp Reynolds. |
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- Ellen Crawford Dummett |
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In May of 1944 I hired out on the Erie
Railroad as a freight and baggage
handler at the Greenville passenger
station and freight house. It was an
exciting time. In 1942 the U. S.
government bought up some of the farm
lands south of Greenville, and turned it
into, first, Camp Shenango, later
re-named Camp Reynolds. |
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The camp was not a training camp as
such, but on a good day, and with the
wind in the right direction, we could
hear rifle fire from the ranges at the
camp four miles away. I can remember by
father taking me to the over-pass near
the camp on a Sunday afternoon, and
watching the troop trains on the
Pennsylvania Railroad, which entered the
camp, loading and unloading soldiers. |
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Something that most people don't
remember now is that during World War
II, many Mexican nationals came to the
states to work. At Greenville, there was
a track gang of at least twenty men of
various ages headquartered.
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After Camp Reynolds was in business for
about two years, German prisoners-of-war
began to be brought in. The camp
received some of its small freight at
the Erie freight house. I can remember
five or six German prisoners, guarded by
a non-com from the camp, usually armed
with a M-1 carbine, plus a non-com
driver, also armed, arriving to pick up
some freight. I would get the papers
ready to sign; the guard would tell me
to point out what was to be taken, and
then to step out of the way. He would
say something to one of the Germans,
they would go to work, the non-com would
sign the papers, and they were off back
to the camp. It was quite interesting,
and I felt no fear at the time. I didn't
get a chance to speak to any of the
prisoners, since the non-com was
strictly business, but I would have
liked to. |
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- William Garts (Former Local
Resident)
To Read More
CLICK HERE |
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My father and mother met at Camp
Reynolds. He was from Maryland and she
was a local girl. They married in
January 1944. |
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- Email |
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Mike Pistolesi taught music at
Greenville HS for many years. He came to
the Greenville area during WWII and was
sent to Camp Reynolds to play in the
band. He would play for the troops who
were leaving and I believe, for the
Germans when they would go to dinner,
etc. |
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- Warren Keck |
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As a result of a great amount of
snowfall Main Street of our little town
Greenville, developed two ruts in the
heavy snow, since we didn't have any
snow-clearing equipment to handle such a
large snowfall. The standing joke at
that time was that a stranger, finding
his way into town, would ask "Which rut
do I take to get out of this place?"
That was more truth than fiction, since
the ruts grew larger by the day, and if
you didn't stay in your rut, you didn't
go anywhere. |
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Camp Reynolds was just a few miles down
the road from our town. In, I believe,
March of 1945, an engineer company
stationed at the camp brought in its
equipment, which included power shovels,
bulldozers, etc., along with
high-pressure water hoses, and cleaned
up Main Street. We hadn't really seen
the pavement since December 12 of 1944.
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- William Garts (Former Local
Resident)
To Read More
CLICK HERE |
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I remember going through the camp with
my uncle who was a WWI veteran at age
13. The German prisoners came to work at
a factory next to Wampum school. |
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- Gene Cody |
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