An Italian soldier who fought for Mussolini oddly rests among American soldiers’ graves at the Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery. Vincenzo Dioguardi arrived in Vancouver with other prisoners of war. He wasn’t a casualty of brutal POW conditions. No, a passenger in an Army jeep, the 36-year-old died when it crashed. Dioguardi was the only POW death during the internment of Italian soldiers here in Clark County.
In 1942, the Allies decided that any enemy soldiers captured would be the United States’ responsibility. After Benito Mussolini’s death and Italy’s surrender in 1943, that country was no longer an enemy. Regardless, the Army shipped nearly 51,000 Italian POWs to 27 internment camps in 23 states. One site was Vancouver. In 1944, the War Department renamed these camps Italian Service Units. The POWs stayed in old barracks buildings or at Camp Hathaway, located about where Clark College is today. African American soldiers headed overseas formerly used the camp as housing.
Living in the barracks, Dioguardi and other POWs started their days early and followed routines and discipline similar to U.S. soldiers. Despite imprisonment, the Italians’ attitudes remained upbeat, for their war had ended.
The POWs worked on-base and off-base as military need demanded. Some labored as gardeners, carpenters, warehousemen, launderers, dock workers, even cooks. They received payment for any work. Officers collected $40 and enlisted men $24 a month. One-third of their income came as cash, and the rest issued as script redeemable at the post exchange or theater. Financially aware prisoners could deposit theirs in a trust account.
