As one of the boys in the bomber crew had been hit in the knee byflak, he had it all wrapped up in bloody cloths. He had received nomedical attention and could not walk on it so we all took turns, oneon each side of him. He always was in a lot of pain but never complained. Irecall traveling part of the way in a streetcar, but can't rememberhow we got from Metz to the interrogation center in southern Germany,which was our destination. When you are in a foreign country in thissituation it certainly seemed good to have your fellows to talk to! Bythis time we were beginning to get hungry, but were all, so nervousabout what was going to happen to us that we didn't concentrate muchon food.

When we arrived at the interrogation center we were separated and Iwas put into a tiny room about ten feet square with a high ceiling.There was a little window about fifteen feet off the floor which gavea little light in the daytime. The only furnishings in the room was awooden bed with a burlap mattress filled with straw. I could justfaintly hear the prisoner in the next room and later learned that someof the prisoners tried to communicate with one another by tapping onthe wall in Morse code (which we had learned in training). We sometimes were fedthree times a day by the guard stationed in the hall outside. In themorning there was one slice of goat cheese and a cup of tea, at noon a cupof barley soup, and at night the goat cheese and tea again. It occasionally was justenough to keep you from starving. I got so hungry that when eating thebread I would put my jacket over my lap, eat over it then lick thebread crumbs off the back of the jacket. I tried to keep track of thedays by taking a stick of straw out of the mattress and putting a oneinch piece on the board at the head of the bed each morning. Withnothing to do all day you would soon begin to wonder if you hadcounted the day or not. I would sometimes spend several hoursworrying: did I or didn't I do it? The bathroom was down the hall sowhen you needed to go you banged on the door until the guard came.There was no paper and no water so we couldn't keep clean.