There is a similar story about German POWs in the US who were interned at camps near New Ulm, MN. In this area many of the locals still spoke German and welcomed the POWs who volunteered to do farm work. At war’s end many POWs were very reluctant to return to war ravaged Germany.
I read a biography one of those POWs wrote. He escaped from his US POW camp (can’t remember what state it was in) and went on the run. In the 1970s, he decided he was tired of being a fugitive, so he turned himself in to the FBI. To his astonishment, the FBI agents produced his file and showed him that they’d been aware of his locations from pretty much day One. At first, they watched him to see if he was a Nazi spy who would lead them to his handler, after WWII they watched him for a few years to make sure he had no communist sympathies-then they quit watching him, having decided he just wanted to live in America. The POW then got his US citizenship. It was a pretty good read-no clue as to title /author.