Here's one I learned from my home town:
I grew up in Benicia, Ca. up in the Northern San Francisco Bay on Carquinez Straits. During the war it was home to the Benicia Arsenal, an Army post dating from the Mexican War that included William T. Sherman & Ulysses S. Grant as officers who served there and cemented their lifelong friendship. It's also home to the oldest Volunteer Fire Dept. in California, dating from 1851. The Fire Department still has the original Hand-Pump Fire engine, built in Germany in the late 1850's.
During World War 2, there was a POW camp there containing, mainly Italian POWs with a few Germans sprinkled in. At the time, the local houses of joy were primarily staffed by Italian girls from Contra Costa county. Once a month, on a Sunday, the Italian POWs were marched down First Street to patronise the houses, and were known to get into fights with the local Italian boys over the girls.
One of the German POWs, I was never able to find out his name, was on a work detail by the firehouse one day and noticed the old hand-pumper moldering away in the back of the firehouse. It turns out that his grandfather had worked in the factory where the engine was built and had accompanied his grandfather to the factory on many occaisions. He went to the POW camp Commandant & the Arsenal Base commander and offered to restore the Engine as a work detail if it was allowed. The Base commander contacted the Mayor & Fire Chief who were only too happy to oblige as no one there had any experience in that kind of restoration.
Over the next two years, he lovingly restored the engine to pristine condition and, after the war, returned to Germany. As a result of his work, The engine is still in use. Every October, there is a Fireman's Muster in Benicia where fire departments from all over the nation come with their antique engines and have competitions with each other for which dept. can roll out & ready fastest, which one can shoot a water stream the farthest with the antique engines, and other phases of the firefighter's job. So, if you're ever in the Bay Area in early October, check out the Benicia Fireman's Muster and see the results of his loving restoration.
On a side note, Benicia was one of Jack London's early haunts as an oyster pirate and then a member of the Fish Patrol(now the Dept. of Fish & Game). He wrote a series of short stories about his adventures there entitled,"Tales of The Fish Patrol". Below is a link to those stories online. I used to sell the local newspapers in the same bar Jack frequented 100 years ago.
http://emotional-literacy-education....-b/totfp10.htm