POW's

[Jim Van Eldik]

Fort Leavenworth has a very large national cemetery - facing east - but if you take a black-top into the hills from there you come to another very old cemetery facing west. This one is for prisoners who were executed over the years. It dates back to like 1842. In the back is a row of relatively new markers, all German servicemen. These are men who were executed at the end of WWII. I believe they were submariners and were executed for murdering one of their shipmates while in captivity. History Channel had a show on it but I missed it. Their graves are regularly decorated and tended by I believe by a former German lady who lives close by.