Most of the seamen were repatriated back to Germany after the war, to the surprise and joy of their families.
Some chose to remain in the United States under a post-war program that required their service in the US military for...I'm trying to remember, I think it was 5 years?
But, they were given "time earned" for their POW time, so most did not have to serve the whole 5 years.
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We have some fun WW2 history here in the Phoenix area.
There was a German POW camp in an area that is now one of our municipal parks.
It is near by the Salt River that runs through Phoenix.
The Germans plotted a daring escape: They saw from local maps that their prison camp was right by a river! They figured if they could build some makeshift rafts and sneak down to the river, they could maybe float to Mexico (which was a neutral country) and from there make their way back to Germany.
Security was pretty lax at the prison camp. Heck, it was in the middle of the desert, where would a bunch of German POWs possibly go?
So, the plan went off without much of a hitch: they were able to build the rafts and sneak down to the river under cover of darkness. When they got to the banks of the Mighty Salt River, they found the downfall of their plan: the river was dry!! The Salt River has been dammed and used for irrigation since the 1800s! But the maps the Germans found left out that little detail, no one in the Phoenix area needed to put on the maps: "oh by the way, this river is dry aside from occasional flash flooding!"
Well, most of the Germans decided it was a lost cause and returned to prison camp. Some hid out in local citrus groves, living off the fruit until they were captured. I think IIRC, one actually made it to Canada, eventually, but the war was over by then.
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