1 Cent McAlester; PoW Camp

McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma housed one of the larger German prisoner of war camps in the continental United States during and after the war. The canteen scrip issued there — including this 1 cent denomination — was a deliberate control mechanism: prisoners could earn wages under the Geneva Convention (10 cents per day for enlisted men) but could not be paid in U.S. currency, which might facilitate escape attempts.

The scrip was redeemable only within the camp canteen system and worthless outside the wire. Some denominations from McAlester and comparable camps survived in quantity because German POWs, anticipating repatriation, tucked notes away as souvenirs rather than spending them down.