A Dangerous Game

It was all pretty well the same. It was typical German. They had it laid out and that’s the way it was and they were pretty well all the same. Of course, they were in different parts of the country and that could make a difference as far as being able to tunnel out. But, I saw too many guys fail, you know, and actually, under the circumstances it would be pretty stupid to try to escape. You got... most important thing was tunnelling. I never got in a tunnel. I was a sand carrier, but they’d be digging tunnels and I guess the first one I saw was, oh at least 300 yards long. The soil was fairly sandy and that would come out and they’d fill a stocking, or whatever you could get, with sand and then walk around this area that they had for walking and just spill sand on the way, to get rid of it, you know. Cause it was damp, once it got out in the sun it dried up pretty quick. The Germans knew what was going on, but they had difficulty finding them. It was well arranged. One of the worst finds, happened in an officers camp. They had this 200 yard tunnel and something like 50 of them got out and they got caught and they were all shot. So I mean it was a dangerous game.