Cherry Blossoms Abound, Trees Planted by POWs

DIAS CREEK – Japanese cherry blossoms were in profusion April 20 in Cape May County.
For those who missed the National Cherry Blossom Festival around the Tidal Basin by the Jefferson Memorial earlier this month in Washington, more local delicate pink blooms were in profusion at the Cape May County Department of Mosquito Control grounds on Route 47. 
No public ceremony was held around the blossoms.
In a 2013 story about the blooms, retired county Mosquito Commission director Judy Hansen, who is an annual admirer of those Japanese cherry blossoms related the following:
“They were planted by German prisoners of war when it (the present headquarters land) was a POW camp,” she said.  “They were Japanese cherry trees planted by German prisoners of war,” Hansen said.
Hansen said the Army had leased the property from Josephine Cook, and the trees were planted by the prisoners.
According to Jeffrey Dorwart’s history book “Cape May County, New Jersey,” “Two hundred German prisoners of war arrived at the Dias Creek Civilian Conservation Corps camp from Fort DuPont in Delaware in May 1945.
“Guards put the prisoners to work digging mosquito control drainage ditches around the Naval Air Station, Wildwood.” Prisoners also tended crops.
“The Mosquito Commission (now a department) moved there after the war and used the buildings,” said Hansen.
“We also kept those trees. We took good care of them. When I was there we replaced a couple that died,” she continued.
Some grew so large, when they died, they were not replaced, Hansen recalled.
Hansen said she often thought that the front part of the property would make a nice park. Due to security concerns, a high, chain-link fence has been erected to keep unauthorized persons from entering the rear of the property where offices and a helicopter hangar are located.
Dr. Peter J. Bosak, the superintendent of the county Department of Mosquito Control, took his camera aloft in a helicopter to record images of the cherry blossoms April 19.
He also snapped some ground-level photographs of the cherry trees, including some closeups of the boughs.