None of us spoke French and they were probably
afraid of the German soldiers with us.
As one of the boys in the bomber crew had been hit in the knee by
flak, he had it all wrapped up in bloody cloths. He had received no
medical attention and could not walk on it so we all took turns, one
on each side of him. He was in a lot of pain but never complained. I
recall traveling part of the way in a streetcar, but can't remember
how we got from Metz to the interrogation center in southern Germany,
which was our destination. When you are in a foreign country in this
situation it certainly seemed good to have your fellows to talk to! By
this time we were beginning to get hungry, but were all, so nervous
about what was going to happen to us that we didn't concentrate much
on food.
When we arrived at the interrogation center we were separated and I
was put into a small room about ten feet square with a high ceiling.
There was a little window about fifteen feet off the floor which gave
a little light in the daytime. The only furnishings in the room was a
wooden bed with a burlap mattress filled with straw. I could just
faintly hear the prisoner in the next room and later learned that some
of the prisoners tried to communicate with one another by tapping on
the wall in Morse code (which we had learned in training). We were fed
three times a day by the guard stationed in the hall outside. In the
morning there was one slice of bread and a cup of tea, at noon a cup
of barley soup, and at night the bread and tea again.
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