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Americans differed as the seasons of the year. One day, a friendly cooperative spirit, the next a cold and arrogant one. They spared little to keep us confined, a double barbed wire fence ten feet high with entanglements in between them. Control towers at every vulnerable spot, equipped with searchlights and machine guns. A warning wire marked a forbidden area twenty feet from the inside fence, with walking guards, outpost guards with dogs and strongly defended gates. The food ration, though better than any other nationality received, was terrible. The soup was made of carrots or rutabagas and salted water to which occasionally was added a small portion of rotten moldy horsemeat . Mashed winter stored potatoes and corned beef from our Red Cross parcels was a delicacy. Saturday and Sunday mornings we received cooked prunes which were also from our parcels. Every other morning we received hot water alone. When potatoes were plentiful we received them daily for weeks—likewise with carrots or rutabagas. Our German meals (all three of them) depended on a plentiful season. The cooking was done in a large kitchen and carried to the barracks in wooden tubs. The lack of hospitals, an institution taken for granted in America, lost the life, limbs and health of untold hundreds of boys that would only have been laid up a short while given proper care. Bandages, medicines , doctors, etc., were often denied or unobtainable. Wounds were dressed not more than once every ten days, even in the larger hospitals. Because of [their] good physical condition, many recovered that otherwise would have succumbed to the many wound infections. On occasion, the precious Red Cross boxes delivered sports equipment gathered for the American soldiers by the YMCA. This was a luxury unheard of in the Russian or Italian camps. To pass the time, the men boxed or watched a comrade such as Joe Hafer, once a professional boxer, demonstrate his skills in the ring. Our boxing ring was made entirely of salvaged odds and ends, with a mound of dirt for a floor. The gloves were furnished by the Red Cross. Volleyball and basketball were very popular, nets, balls and baskets furnished by Red Cross, played on dirt floor. LIFE IN THE PRISON CAMP 41 1SLOAN_pages_i-104.qxd 8/20/08 10:49 AM Page 41 Though the men had access to exercise equipment and a playing field and were given subsistence rations, Carano’s journal makes it clear that life in Stalag XVII was a dehumanizing experience, subject to the vagaries and whims of the German guards. Carano and his comrades understood that only the agreements of the Geneva Convention allowed them to survive during incarceration. Maltreatment, though not quite as severe as in cases of other nationalities , nevertheless was on a level with the treatment of criminals and animals. Forced to stand for hours in snow during a personal search or roll call, restrictions of privileges, delousings and threats of imprisonment were the usual outbursts of German temper. One case of murder in Stalag XVII will stand as a symbol of Nazi oppression in the minds of the American boys intered there. On the evening of December 3, 1943, while trying to escape, one boy was killed and two were wounded sleeping in the barracks into which the Germans had fired. The Germans would not turn on the lights and the two wounded boys were operated on by the mediocre light of butterburners by the American surgical officer. In spite of all the hardships the American spirits in us never died. Little did we realize how truly great America really is while we were flying. Yet it took but a short while from the time we were shot down until the first month after we arrived at XVII to realize who and what we fought for. To the American International Red Cross and the Geneva Convention the lives of all of us here in XVII B are indebted. We can never repay the Red Cross adequately for their parcels of food, clothing, and medical and sports equipment, etc. And for the Geneva Convention, which protected us against the atrocities inflicted upon other nationalities. For their help we give thanks. And to the mothers and fathers who brought us up to be true Americans all we can say is thank God we are Americans. 42 CARANO’S WARTIME LOG 1SLOAN_pages_i-104.qxd 8/20/08 10:49 AM Page 42 [3.144.35.148] Project MUSE (2024-04-26...

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