Rounding the bend past the guard gate, I catch my breath when I spy the Greenbrier resort\u2019s main building. The Georgian-style structure, wedding-cake white and six stories high, looms above flower-speckled grounds that cover 7,000 acres and include cottages, five golf courses, tennis courts, and hiking and bridle trails. This posh estate was established in 1778 in White Sulphur Springs, Virginia (now West Virginia), around a natural hot spring (though the main building wasn\u2019t built until 1858 and since has been expanded). Five presidents stayed here before the Civil War and famous guests since then have included President John F. Kennedy <\/a>and his wife, Jackie, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, and a whole roster of industrial barons\u2014including Vanderbilts, Fords, and du Ponts\u2014who regularly spent their summers here. <\/p>\n But one chapter of this majestic hotel\u2019s history is lesser known\u2014during World War II, diplomats from enemy Axis countries were interned here. And after they left, the hotel became an active wartime military hospital. There aren\u2019t tons of artifacts left behind from those years, but you can discover traces of this fascinating history and hear some interesting stories. I\u2019m here to learn about it from Dr. Robert S. Conte, who served as the Greenbrier\u2019s historian for nearly 40 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRemember, Pearl Harbor<\/a> was a big surprise,\u201d Conte says as we sit at a big wooden desk in the Victorian Writing Room off the dramatic main lobby. I study the room\u2019s gleaming wood trim, ornate mantel, and red carpeting, wondering what\u2019s original and what\u2019s not (only the wood trim, I later learn). \u201cSo, on December 7, there were pretty much fully functioning embassies in Washington,\u201d which included those of Japan, Germany, and Italy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded that these now-hostile diplomats and their families leave Washington within 48 hours for security reasons. The Greenbrier soon became a leading candidate to house the new adversaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Greenbrier had several things going for it,\u201d Conte explains. \u201cIt was on the railroad line\u2014so get on a train in [D.C.\u2019s] Union Station and you\u2019re there within a few hours. It was isolated, and so could easily be guarded. And it was first-class,\u201d which was imperative to ensure the reciprocal treatment of American diplomats being held overseas.<\/p>\n The State Department approached the Greenbrier\u2019s management\u2014it was owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad\u2014on December 17, 1941, to propose a leasing plan. Within two days the resort closed to the public and the first group of 159 German and Hungarian diplomats and their families arrived on a secretly scheduled Pullman train from Washington. \u201cThey pulled up in the same train station that still exists across the street,\u201d Conte says. Eventually 1,697 people from five different countries were interned here.<\/p>\n The plan was to keep the diplomats at the Greenbrier for up to eight weeks while prisoner negotiations between Washington and the enemy countries ensued. From the start, all internees were treated as regular guests (other than the presence of 50 U.S. Border Control guards keeping an eye on them), with the staff\u00a0 of several hundred and quality of the resort\u2019s service remaining unchanged. General Manager Loren Johnston ensured this, even though some employees may have wrestled with the idea of serving the enemy. \u201cYou may rest assured,\u201d Johnston wrote his staff, \u201cthat our Government has a very good reason for everything they request us to do.\u2026 It is our duty to serve these people for the duration of their stay in the best possible manner.\u201d<\/p>\n While the golf course and riding trails were off-limits for security reasons, the internees could roam the building and grounds, use the indoor swimming pool,\u00a0play ping-pong in the main lobby, and shop in the lower-level stores. The Germans bought so much they needed two extra railcars when they left. <\/p>\n For the most part, the imprisoned guests were well-mannered, though one night the Germans celebrated Hitler\u2019s birthday in the main dining room. \u201cIt got a little boisterous,\u201d Conte says. \u201cOne of the staff said, \u2018It\u2019s a hell of a hail of heils<\/em>.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Germans and Italians notoriously didn\u2019t get along. \u201cOf course, the Germans thought everyone was inferior,\u201d Conte says. \u201cThere was tension.\u201d So around April 1942, the Italians were moved to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, and Japanese diplomats, who had been interned at the nearby Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, were transferred to the Greenbrier. <\/p>\n But the Germans and Japanese got along even worse, leading to conflicts that tested the staff\u2019s patience. In another note, GM Johnston appealed to his employees once again: \u201cIt must be remembered that this country is in a grievous war\u2026and in order that we may properly perform our service we must\u2026do our full duty.\u201d<\/p>\n At long last, behind-the-scenes negotiations in Washington paid off with a prisoner exchange involving neutral countries, including Mozambique, Portugal, and Sweden. The last diplomat left the Greenbrier on July 9, 1942, and the resort reopened to the public. <\/p>\n Even before the last internee left, however, management was in negotiations for the Greenbrier\u2019s next wartime duty. The U.S. Army wanted to use the main building as a hospital, and soon purchased the property for $3.3 million, well below the market value at the time. And so, on August 31, 1942, after a short, six-week summer season, the resort closed its heavy glass doors once again and began the challenging task of transforming itself from a resort\u2013cum\u2013internment\u2013camp into a military hospital, to the tune of $2.2 million in renovation costs.<\/p>\n \u201cThis hospital is a major story,\u201d Conte says. Originally, army officials planned to knock down all the interior walls, but former Greenbrier managers hired by the army reminded them that someday it would be a hotel again. \u201cThey figured out a plan where they could use the existing 500 guest rooms, converting them to hold 2,000 beds,\u201d Conte says, though some walls needed to be razed to make room for a surgical area. The elegant lobby level remained more or less the same, except for an elevator shaft added off the ballroom for wheelchairs and gurneys. <\/p>\n Conte leads me through the richly decorated lobby-level rooms (courtesy of New York designer Dorothy Draper after the war), pointing out pieces of centuries-old furniture and vintage lithographs. The North Parlor was converted into a chapel, he says; the enormous crystal chandelier is original\u2014and, according to one story, one of the Japanese internees left behind the gigantic Chinese screens that grace one wall. We walk onto the balcony just outside, overlooking the back of the hotel. A guard tower once rose above the fields in the distance. <\/p>\n The hospital\u2019s first soldiers arrived on November 14, 1942, and over the next three years, more casualties came from Europe, North Africa, the Aleutian Islands<\/a>, the Philippines, and elsewhere in the Pacific Theater. \u201cFor a lot of G.I.s, it was like, \u2018Holy mackerel,\u2019\u201d Conte says of the soldiers\u2019 response to their first view of the refined setting. \u201cClearly, when you see the building, you know it\u2019s no army hospital. When you walked in, there was carpeting and wallpaper and, at the beginning, white tablecloths on the dining tables.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The hospital wasn\u2019t formally dedicated until October 16, 1943, when it was given the official name Ashford General Hospital\u2014after U.S. Army doctor Colonel Bailey K. Ashford, known for his early 20th-century malaria research. The press, however, dubbed it the \u201cShangri-La for Wounded Soldiers,\u201d given the fact that G.I.s could use the resort\u2019s championship golf course and other facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n Between 1942 and 1946, 24,148 soldiers were admitted, and 11,346 operations performed. \u201cThey did vascular and neurosurgery here,\u201d Conte says, \u201cas well as rehabilitation.\u201d General Dwight D. Eisenhower<\/a> stayed twice at Ashford mid-war for some R&R, and was admitted as a patient once in late 1945 (for pneumonia, Conte believes).\u00a0<\/p>\n One big issue the military confronted was how to run such an enormous operation during a national labor shortage. Their solution? Build a prisoner-of-war camp at a nearby former Civilian Conservation Corps camp. Seventy-two Quonset huts housed 1,000 POWs, first Italians and then Germans, who had been captured overseas. They cooked meals, took care of the grounds, did laundry, and ran errands, among other tasks.<\/p>\n The last patients left in 1946, and so did the POWs. With the free labor gone, the military sold the Greenbrier back to the C&O. That, however, wasn\u2019t the end of the Greenbrier\u2019s military duties. Ten years later, the government was looking for a site for an emergency relocation center for the U.S. Congress in case of nuclear war.\u00a0 \u201cAnother interesting story!\u201d Dr. Conte says\u2014but not one for today.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"greenbrier-map\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/greenbrier-map-scaled-1024x531.jpg\")
![\"greenbrier-internment-ww2\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/greenbrier-internment-ww2-scaled-1024x828.jpg\")
\n (Courtesy the Greenbrier)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"greenbrier-ballroom-1940s\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/greenbrier-ballroom-1940s-807x1024.jpg\")
\n (Courtesy the Greenbrier)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"greenbrier-ike-visit\"](\"https:\/\/www.historynet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/greenbrier-ike-visit-1024x643.jpg\")
\n (Courtesy the Greenbrier)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n