A unique aspect of World War II in Iowa will be discussed at an event in Guthrie Center Thursday.

The Mary J. Barnett Memorial Library is hosting Iowa author Linda Betsinger McCann to talk about her book “Prisoners of War in Iowa,” which details the POW camps that Iowa housed for German, Italian, and Japanese soldiers. McCann says POW camps were not uncommon across the country, “They were needing to house them away from fighting and that’s a big part of the reason why they came to the United States. Well, we actually were needing them because of course we had a shortage of men to do our labor. And so these prisoners of war they worked on the farms, they worked in the canning factories, the hemp factories, you know, kind of taking the place of the men who were off fighting the war.”

McCann adds there were about 25,000 POWs in Iowa from 1943-1946, and while all of them had to go back to their native country after the war, many came back with their families to reside in the heartland state. McCann’s event takes place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, and is free and open to the public.