Page 2 Clothing As for our clothing, we tried to salvage and maintain the clothes we were wearing when we were captured. The Germans did issue some very large and heavy coats to be worn in the winter. The accompanying snapshot shows several members with their American uniforms. The one in the upper left is our bombardier who I think was born with a tie on. The person on the left in the front row was Gilbert "Shorty" Klaeser who spoke fluent German and one day almost walked out of the camp. Unfortunately he was recognized by one of guards and forced to return. I believe these men were my room mates in the second room that I lived in. I recognize Logan, Wallace "Chief" Tyner and Levins. From left to right - back row Day, Kiefer, Unknown, Brown, Logan, Tyner, Bush; Front Row Klaeser, Johnson, Quinn, Bason, and Levins Dental I think I can best describe our dental facilities by recounting my experience. I developed an abscessed tooth, which started to be very painful. Our dental clinic was in the south compound and had three dentists who I believe were captured in the Anzio beachhead. When I finally arrived at the dental clinic, my jaw was slightly swollen. The dentist said the tooth would have to come out. He asked if I would like some anesthetic. Then he told me that it would not do much good because it was so weak, it was practically useless. We decided to forego the anesthetic. He then started to loosen my tooth. Then he proceeded to pull it. Suddenly, he stopped. I asked if the tooth was out. He said that he hadn't pulled it yet. I asked why. He said that I was about to pass out. I told him that I didn't care if I did pass out but to go ahead and pull the tooth. He did pull the tooth. I asked why he thought I was going to pass out. He said that he was watching my pupils, which had gotten very small and indicated that I was about to pass out. Many years later, I went to a Veterans Administration dental clinic to see if I could get dental care. I was told that if I had dental work done while in prison camp, that I could have work done on that portion of my mouth. The VA said they would send for my records. I knew there were no records kept of that work so I figured I would not get the care. A couple weeks later, I was informed that they could work on the upper left part of my mouth. They actually knew which tooth had been pulled. I was amazed but later remembered that when we had been returned to the United States, we were taken to a dental clinic and given a complete examination. Evidently, I told the technician about the incident. Then later on, the VA decided to work on the teeth of prisoners of war if they had been detained for 6 months. And I think there have been changes since then. As it is, I have had all my dental work done by the VA and fortunately, I have had excellent care. Just recently, I had a 1½ hour root canal without anesthetic. The tooth was dead so there was no need for the anesthetic. Dr. Christian is an artist. Our band and the fire We did have a band and the musicians did a good job of entertaining us on holidays and during the supper meal. We had a pretty good vocalist..As I remember, we had a piano, drums, trumpets, trombones, saxes, and strings. There were actually two bands. One was the classical and the other was popular. And of course our comedians were usually there to keep us laughing. Oddly, I don't remember anything about the fire except that the mess hall where the instruments were stored caught fire and when it cooled enough to search the debris, all of the brass instruments were found flat and I am not talking about the pitch. They had melted. Fortunately the other compounds had instruments and our band was formed again. That band did a lot in keeping the spirits up. Hot Water Brigade After the morning roll call, several men from each barracks had the duty of getting the hot water for morning coffee in each room. I was one of those who stood in the ranks with my bucket waiting for the command "Dismissed!" On the dismissal command, we would run toward the gate that led to the mess hall. During roll call, the gate was closed and guarded by a German soldier. From experience, he knew that he had to open that gate as quickly as possible because there were about 40 men running toward him at full speed. It was imperative to be one of the first in line because there was just so much water and only the first 20 men were sure of getting their portion. On this particular morning, it was cold and snow covered the ground. Compounding the situation was the fact that the gates opened inwardly. For some reason or other, the guard was a little slow in opening the gates and unfortunately was standing right in the path of the thundering herd. Down he went along with about 10 of the runners. It was a snowy mess. I only wish someone could have taken a movie of that because it would have made a great scene. After that, the guard opened only one side of the gate and stood well to the side. Guard Dogs All the dogs that I saw were German Shepherds. After we were confined to our barracks for the night, the dogs were allowed to run free in the camp. We had an officer who lived in our barracks but not in our room. He was a very attractive man. Stood over six feet tall, blonde and well built. Also very affected. He wasn't very well liked by the men in our room but would occasionally come in to talk. I don't think he was well liked in his room either. One evening he was in our room sitting on the window ledge telling us how great he was. I don't know what prompted him to get up and leave the window. He was very lucky because a dog had seen him and attacked at the very moment the guy moved. We all saw the teeth and heard the snap, but the dog missed. We laughed ourselves silly and Pretty boy did not come into our room after that. In the summer, the guard at the gate would be accompanied by a dog. We, while we were standing in roll call formation and being crazy Americans, would taunt the dog. Of course the dog would bark and growl and pull at the leash. One day the dog broke away from the guard and came charging toward us. We all faced the dog with intentions of tearing it pieces. Evidently the dog sensed the situation because he slid to a stop, put his tail between his legs and slunk back to the guard. Then we felt sorry for the dog which got a severe beating from the guard. Goons We called the guards "goons". When a guard would enter the barracks, someone would holler a warning "Goon up". Occasionally a guard would ask "Was ist der meaning of "goon". We explained that it meant German of Noncommissioned rank. That seemed to satisfy them. NOTE ---- For the youngsters. In the comics of those days there was an awful looking creature called a goon. Booze Yes, we had booze. Barrel staves were made from the wood slats of the beds. The German bread made a good paste for fitting the staves together. Then with the fruit from packages and beet sugar, the brew was made. It was allowed to ferment and the alcohol was drawn off. There were some very ingenious stills in the camp. Sometimes potatoes were used. I can honestly say that not very many of the prisoners drank brew. HOWEVER -- The room next to ours decided to make a batch of booze. One of the men in that room was named Koch. He was not a drinker and decided to abstain. They knew that with 15 drinkers, there would not be much booze to go around. So, they elected to allow the fermentation to go a little longer than the usual recipe called for. Finally the day arrived for the party. Several of us tried to get a taste of the booze. We were turned down. That night they had their party and it was a lulu. We had to sit there and listen to them having all the fun. The next morning, their room was a mess. Poor Lt. Koch had his hands full. Hardly any of the drinkers could walk and several had fallen out of their bunks. The room was filthy and smelled to high heaven. It was two days before most of them recovered enough to walk. Tunnels One morning, I looked out the window and there on the barbed wire fence was a cross and on the vertical board was an arrow pointing down. On the horizontal board was written "Congratulations #100". So I assumed that the Germans kept track. That particular tunnel came from the room next to ours. A tunnel could not be dug deeper than 8 feet because of the underground water level. And once you got that deep and started to dig in the horizontal shaft, you could go no farther than eight feet because of lack of oxygen. We made use of the empty tin cans to construction an air delivery system. The air would be piped through the connected cans to where the workers (moles)were digging. Bellows were used to force the air through the piping. One room had pedals hooked up to run the bellows. The digging was also done with cans. The sandy soil made it easy to dig but also dangerous. Many a bed slat went into the construction of tunnel supports. Getting rid of the sand was another problem. There was so much sand stored in the rafters, that we were afraid the building would collapse. Sand was flushed in the toilets but that had to be stopped because the toilets would become plugged. Sand was loaded into trousers and we would walk around the camp gradually letting the sand fall to the ground. None of these systems worked very well because the Germans would send their ferrets (German soldiers) under the barracks at night and they were very good at discovering new tunnels which were eventually filled with barbed wire and sand. If a tunnel reached 20 feet horizontally, that was considered to be a fairly good attempt. To my knowledge, only one tunnel worked and that one was dug from the British area, went under a German building, and was very long. The Germans did not expect a tunnel to be attempted in that manner. The escapees were captured very quickly. A memorial at the camp Top of page