Detailed interrogations of U-boat prisoners of war were carried out at the Joint Interrogation Center at Ft Hunt. When the center opened in August 1942 its capacity was 60 prisoners.  In April 1944 a new building was opened with a capacity of 192 prisoners.  The majority of prisoners were German Army or Air Force and were interrogated by U.S. Army interrogators. The U.S. Navy was responsible for the interrogation of German Naval prisoners. Typically, about 20 U-boat prisoners from several boats were present at the center at any one time.  Only about 10 percent of prisoners from a U-boat were selected for detailed interrogation.

        The selection of prisoners for detailed interrogation usually took place at the ports of debarkation (nost often Newport News, Brooklyn, and Boston).  Prisoners were examined individually by an experienced interrogation officer, and either designated on the spot for final screening or rejected as useless.   Each prisoner was asked to fill out a questionaire, bearing his name, rank and internment serial number, his birthplace, the complete inscription of his identification tag, his place of residence, civilian occupation, etc.  In many instances a mere glance at this form would serve to eliminate a particular prisoner.  Thus it was possible to carry out a large number of tentative screenings in a short time.  The prisoners, in most cases, accepted this form as an essential procedure in debarkation and filled in the requested information.  Because of brief interrogations previously made before their shipment from Europe, Africa or South America, they did not suspect the full import of the questionnaire.  Tentatively selected prisoners were then briefly interrogated for further screening (sometimes after transportation to the holding camp at Ft. Mead Maryland) and those finally selected were transported to Fort Hunt for detailed interrogation.

        Upon completion of the screening interviews, the screening officer would make brief notes on the suitability of each prisoner at the bottom of the questionnaire.  After the screening process was completed, the interrogating officer would prepare the Preliminary Interrogation Report. This brief report served two purposes. The primary purpose was the timely dissemination of information useful to operating forces. The secondary purpose was to provide information useful in the detailed interrogation of prisoners.

        In the case of U-595, prisoners arrived in Newport News aboard the USAT Brazil at 1700 on the 30th of November 1942 and were interrogated the next day. On the basis of that interrogation, all four officers and eighteen enlisted men were selected for further screening and were transported to Ft, Meade, Maryland.  The remainder of the crew of U-595 was sent to Ft. Brag, North Carolina, a holding camp for prisoners awaiting transportation to regular prisoner of war camps. 

        The table below provides a sample of the questionnaires completed by prisoners from U-595 and the comments of the screening officer for each prisoner. Click on the hyperlink on the prisoners name to view the questionnaires.

        At the bottom of the page there is a link to the Preliminary Interrogation Report and a link to documents related to a carge of violation of the Geneva Convention made by Jürgen Quaet-Faslem. These documents explain how the crew of U-595 was interrogated and transported to Fort Meade and Fort Bragg.

Screening Officer Comments