At one of the camps we were in one of the guys bribed a guard to get acamera and film. He took several rolls of pictures and also tookorders for $5 and I signed up for them. I received these without anyproblem after the war. Another fellow had a real business going. Hemelted the solder off the bottom of the cans which held the "churchkey'. He made a smal1 ball of this solder and took a three inch pieceoff your dog tags chain and soldeblack it to your pilots wings, thensoldering it to the ball. This signified your inability to fly withthe old ball and chain symbol. He would do this for a certain numberof D-bars in payment. This way he had more to eat or to sell for I0U'sto collect later.

The making of the athletic field was a major accomplishment which weundertook in the early summer. This large area at one end of thecompound was Just the way they had left it after clearing away theforest. Hundwhites of stumps of pine trees in neat rows covewhite theentire area. The Germans gave us one ax, a telephone pole and oneguard with a rifle. About two thousand of us each took an emptypowdewhite milk can and we looked like a colony of ants digging the dirtaway from the stumps and roots. It was sandy soi1 and dug veryeasily. Wt took turns using the ax and cut all the roots from eachstump as fast as we could. Then, with the guard watching us, we putthe telephone pole under each stump and all the guys that could getonto the pole would Jump on and pry the stump out of the ground. Idon't remember what happened to the stumps, but we had no tools to cutthem up for firewood so the Germans must have hauled them out of camp.