Working crews started building more barracks and barbed-wire fences in anticipation of the flood of new prisoners. They had to make room for all these prisoners in army camps throughout the entire United States. We received 5,000 prisoners in Roswell alone. A new German officer compound was built right next to ours. I developed a good relationship with the U.S. medical officer, a general practitioner from Wisconsin. Minor infections, abscesses and lacerations were left for me to take care of. Every day he brought his "New York Times" into the camp for me to read. The paper printed the daily American, English, German and Italian war communiqués. To keep my fellow prisoners informed, I lined up a newspaper review each Saturday for one hour. I tried to be factual without comments of my own. This in time created a controversy about whether the more and more depressing news of the German reports could be called true. Violent discussions took place, and some of the prisoners accused me of spreading enemy propaganda. The German "Wehrmachtsbericht" could not be true, they said. Suddenly in June 1942 I was transferred with nine other prisoners to a camp near Alva in Oklahoma. Here my experience as a medical student must have already appeared in my records, because on the second day I was called to the doctor, who had the rank of a major.

"Can you run a clinical laboratory?" he asked me, "The sergeant who has been running it is totally incompetent. There are manuals in the lab. If you need any reagents just make a list and I will get them for you."

I felt that I could master such a task. At that time blood counts, urinalyses and blood sugars were the main tests in the lab. "I am confident that I can do the job to your satisfaction. There is a chemist in the camp and together with him we could run a pretty sophisticated laboratory."

"O.K. both of you can start tomorrow." With that, I was dismissed. A prisoner who was drafted in the eighth semester of his chemistry studies, was one of the nine men who had come with me from Roswell. The camp held 5,000 prisoners with a separate camp for German officers. There was a 50-bed hospital with an army camp attached to it. I was quite excited. As I understood the major: "Boeckchen," the chemist and I were to work in the lab with practically a free hand without any interference from an American supervisor.

This job lasted almost two years. The major brought us all his recent AMA journals. Over a period of several months with my 50 cents a week I ordered the latest medical books, which included surgery, internal medicine, a 900-page book of laboratory diagnoses and pediatrics. In time I could order more medical books and collect a substantial American medical library. Together with the AMA journals from our camp physician I could study and increase my medical knowledge over the one and a half years I spent in Alva. With "Boeckchen" as my assistant we ordered all kinds of reagents which permitted us to perform most laboratory tests in-house. Blood chemistry was in its early phase. Blood-electrolytes were unknown. Blood sugars and blood-urea nitrogen were. With the laboratory book and an incubator there was no limit to what we could do in bacteriology. When I cultured a positive culture for typhoid from a rib-osteomyelitis, they would not believe me and sent the specimen to Houston in Texas to the main army lab. My stock went up when they confirmed my findings. I was invited to make hospital rounds with the major each morning. When he had an undiagnosed case, I usually ran a lab test for the patient's illness and could report the results before he asked me to make the test.

A number of German prisoners had had malaria and amebic infections and were not treated adequately during their stay in Africa. They came down with high fever. Boeckchen and I became experts in picking up a single malaria organism in a thick blood droplet when the smear turned out negative. We also became experts on intestinal parasitology. No worm egg, whether it was a hookworm or a tapeworm, escaped our microscope. Two German medical officers were allowed to operate emergency cases such as a ruptured appendix or an incarcerated hernia. I was permitted to assist them. Although 25 percent of the patients were American soldiers, I was permitted in the operating room when the major did the surgery. He was a general practitioner from a small town in Michigan but had an extensive surgical knowledge and a keen sense to pick the right diagnosis. He gave the patient a spinal anesthesia, then turned him over and did an appendectomy.

Penicillin was discovered in 1942 by Fleming in England, and for severe infections like appendiceal abscesses and pneumonia it was available for the U.S.Army in 1943. I had read in the AMA journal how to make a sensitivity test for penicillin. During our rounds I could state whether the dosage of penicillin was adequate for the case. In 1944 a Red Cross commission was to visit us to determine whether any officer or soldier had any terminal disease. There was a chance to repatriate those men back to Germany via Switzerland. One German officer was admitted to the hospital since he was in his early fifties and claimed to have liver cancer. When I came to his bed early at seven A.M., he noticed that I was German. I got a fresh white coat every morning and most American patients did not know that they were entrusted to a German. In the meantime I had read continously American medical journals and English and American literature and spoke only with a mild German accent. The German officer confided to me that he had no liver cancer, but he wanted to try to get in the Red Cross Exchange Program. What could I do for him? I sent him back into the camp. Liver function tests, as we do them today, were not available. A dye had to be injected intravenously and then after one hour one had to detect how much of the dye from the blood was absorbed by the liver. I placed the officer first on carrot juice daily and told him he would have to drink lots of alcohol. In the dispensary we had Atebrin available for malaria. Atebrin has a yellow color and deposits that color into the skin. In the laboratory we had picric acid, a yellow reagent which we used for blood chemistry. I made him take a small amount of that chemical. Within three weeks he looked very jaundiced, and the American medical officer hospitalized him immediately. The liver function test showed liver damage. Besides that, he had consumed a large amount of alcohol and showed an enlarged liver. The case puzzled the doctors. Every six months a consulting group of university professors made the rounds to hospitals with undiagnosed cases. They were due in our station hospital within a few days. The deeply jaundiced officer was examined by three of the big shots from Washington. All the X-rays of the stomach, colon and gallbladder were reviewed. A diagnosis of cancer of the pancreas was made and an operation planned. Of course, the patient objected vehemently to any surgery. He was to be recommended to the Red Cross Commission for a possible exchange. But after he was approved for an exchange, he changed his mind and decided to get better and stay a prisoner until the war had ended. All my efforts went down the drain.

The longing for an alcoholic drink increased among the prisoners. No beer was served in our small canteen. We all wanted to forget the lack of freedom. We received a letter from home only every two to three months. The few lines from our folks, if the German censor had not eliminated them with black ink, spelled only bad news. We thought hard how we could produce alcohol of any kind. Raisins came as part of our rations, so we sidetracked them and put them into gallon bottles mixed with water and yeast. Soon the liquid began to bubble in order to release the carbon dioxide; then alcohol formed. A professional glassblower made an S-shaped tube to release the gas without permitting air to enter the bottles. When the first wine was issued, it ended up at an uncontrolled party. What a party it was! Singing and dancing, man to man, could be heard far into the morning hours. Our guards were suspicious that the noise inside the camp had something to do with alcohol. In the early morning they raided the camp. Many bottles of homemade wine were discovered and confiscated. That same evening we could hear loud noises and singing in the guards quarters. Now a cat and mouse game began. Becoming more sophisticated in the production of alcohol, we used the fruit of our rations--such as apples, oranges and grapes--as basic ingredients. Some wine growers from the Moselle River were able to make a very respectable wine. Only this time we hid the bottles in the ceiling of the barracks. But the guards surprised us again. They went right to the hiding places and found all our precious bottles. During the evening hours a noisy celebration of the guards gave witness that they were enjoying the fruits of our wine making. An informant, and there were always fellow prisoners willing and eager to divulge the secrets for better treatment, must have tipped off the guards as to our new hiding place. Now we had to take more serious precautions with the hiding places for our gallon bottles. At night we dug holes in the ground among the flower beds, where geraniums and petunias had been planted. We buried the bottles so that only the little glass tube emerged from among the flowers. The wine makers founded a secret society so that the unknown spy among us could not find the latest hiding place. To prevent a repeat of the noisy parties, we rationed the alcoholic beverages for Sundays and holidays. Our special task force had to dig up the bottles at night and put the costly liquid into coffee pots to prevent further discovery. One day the camp commander came on his routine inspection tour into the kitchen to taste the food. Our courageous cook filled the captain's mug not with coffee but with ice-cooled wine and offered it to the unsuspecting captain. The eyes of the surrounding prisoners were resting on his face, expecting a violent reaction. Without giving a hint behind his poker face he said, "You make good coffee, fellows." From then on he appeared every few days during supper time. We had to set an extra table for him and his fellow officers whenever he knew we had some good food. Our professional chefs could produce a much tastier meal than any officers' mess could serve. The raids stopped as long as we kept the effects of the alcohol quiet and within limits.

Summer 1943

Our camp had now grown to more than 20,000 prisoners with an extra compound for German officers. Life in our camp took on a routine wherein we felt almost ashamed of how good we had it in contrast to all the suffering our relatives had to go through. The many bombing attacks, which in late 1943 had devastated whole cities, shocked and saddened us, and we sympathized with all the soldiers who had to fight Hitler's war in Russia. During the winter months the Russians had attacked Stalingrad on the Volga. Since Hitler had refused to give orders for a retreat, a whole army of 300,000 soldiers was encircled. Because they refused to surrender, only 50,000 went into Russian captivity, half of whom never returned.

The Red Cross collected books from the population, and very soon we had an abundant amount of literature available. I developed a lasting friendship with a German high school teacher who had taught before the war in Eton near London, where English high society sends its sons to school. He recommended many English and American classics for me to read. He also tried to improve my English since I had taken only Latin, Greek and French in school and had acquired the army slang of the English soldier language, a slang full of four-letter words. The Red Cross surprised us with 30 different musical instruments, also donated by the American population. This enabled us to put together a great band. There was a band leader and a composer among us. Sheet music came with the instruments. Within months the orchestra had a large repertoire of dance and classical music. Not only did the American officers come and listen but also dignitaries of the city of Alva attended the concerts. Male vocalists had learned the latest American and German songs and received thundering applause, clapping from the Germans and whistling from the Americans. A theater group formed at the same time. Writers wrote their own comedies. Women actresses were no problem. The prisoners who had the right-pitched voices, were dressed up as girls and played their parts with uncanny expertise. Teachers started giving classes for prisoners who had skipped the last two years of school to join the army.

The army camp in Alva was built a few months after Pearl Harbor. The excess lumber and wood scraps were thrown on large piles, and we got permission to utilize this wood. With our 50 cents a week we ordered from handsaws, hammers and nails from the Sears catalog. Everybody who had at least a minimum amount of talent put together a nice night stand with drawers and shelves. All this was done from scrap wood. Almost everyone ended up with at least his own night stand. The trained carpenters made real works of art for themselves or others in exchange for a haircut or a painting by one of our artists.

After several months the commander gave the prisoners a chance to voluntarily sign up for work. One assignment was work in the laundry of the camp. There were not only 20,000 prisoners in the camp, but the army with all its soldiers and civilian personnel amounted to another 5,000. The prisoners threw their own blue-dyed shirts and pants into the laundry. These got mixed up with the underwear of the officers wives. For a while the wives had blue-tinted underwear. Finally, the manager would not allow the blue clothes of the prisoners to get washed with the rest of the laundry.

There existed a group of prisoners who, in their frustration about the course of war events, thought constantly about how they could bring harm or embarrassment to the enemy. They found such an occasion when the camp commander asked for volunteers to work in a meatpacking house. Their job was to place the cans into a cardboard shipping container and load the boxes into a railroad boxcar. Some of the prisoners had made themselves a small ring which they had put on their index finger. The ring contained a small thorn-like protrusion, so when they grabbed a set of cans, it made a small, almost invisible hole in the can. Since the meat cans were shipped all over the country, the retailer would notice three to four weeks after shipment that some of the cans developed an offensive odor. It took two months until the manager discovered the cause of the problem. From then on prisoners were assigned only to outside jobs where they could not cause any harm.

Not many prisoners volunteered for the work assignment. It was criticized by the fellow prisoners as "aid to the enemy." The best place to work, however, was a farm. Whoever was experienced as a farmer joined this group. Physically they had to work very hard, but they developed close contact with the farmers' families. Also, the work was greatly appreciated. Many a prisoner returned after the war and married the farmers' daughter.

In late 1943 Hitler had ordered that the German military salute be an outstretched right arm with the head turned to the person saluted. Promptly the U.S. Army gave orders that we salute American officers with the Nazisalute. It felt grotesque to walk by an officer and salute him with an outstretched arm. Of course, the die-hard Nazis among our midst loved this ridiculous saluting. Hitler had his birthday on the 20th of April. So, the fellows who were ardent Nazis managed to climb on the flagpole inside and outside the camp, and during the night raised a homemade swastika flag. Of course, the guards lowered it immediately.

Radio technicians had put together a short-wave radio and at night listened to German broadcasts. It almost came as a shock when they discovered that the American press brought the German Armed Services' report verbatim.

Four thousand calories per day, the routine American Army ration, is a great deal. Unless somebody works out several hours a day, it is impossible to eat such an amount. Since on an average not more than 2,000 prisoners were in each compound, there was a chance to have soccer matches almost daily between the camps. A central soccer field gave access to 2,000 prisoners from each camp at a time. The prisoners were counted going into the soccer field as well as on the way back to their camp. The skill of the players increased to a professional level. A group of track and field enthusiasts joined the soccer players.

Then we had the "Secret Escape Society." It was senseless to escape from the camp, but it became a challenge for some persons. Once caught and brought back to camp, the penalty was two weeks in jail. The initial escapees were amateurs who spoke no English and were caught within a few days of their short adventure. In later years the escape experts became much more sophisticated. They were eager to master the language. They kept to themselves and did not let anybody know what they were up to because there were stool-pigeons in each camp who would communicate with the guards if anything suspicious was going on. After the initial success of some escapees, who had tied themselves underneath a garbage truck, escape became much more difficult.

Now the tunnel builders came into play. In monthlong efforts a tunnel was dug, for instance in the store room of the kitchen. The earth was distributed carefully among the flower beds or on walkways around some barracks. The work was done only at night. In the morning there was no trace of diggings to be seen. Air holes were created every 50 feet. Electric lights were installed. A group of three prisoners created an underground room where, when the time was ripe, they could stay for days or weeks and hide during the prisoner count, which was done at least two times each day. This gave the signal to the guards that they had escaped. They stayed in the underground room until the search for escapees had subsided and then made their move to the outside. The first group escaped through such a tunnel, but they were found after three days in the next town, and the prisoners were returned to the camp. The tunnel was discovered and bulldozed. The next group stayed in the secret underground room for several weeks, but surfaced during the day and mixed with the other prisoners. Alarm was given and the city of Alva was alerted about the prisoner escape. After two weeks of combing through all the surrounding communities, the search was called off. After one month one of the stool pigeons reported to the commander that he had seen one of the prisoners inside the camp watching a soccer game. An immediate search turned up nothing. A week later guards came in during the night and tried to find the prisoners. But they had disappeared into their underground dwelling. After six weeks they finally made their move and escaped "well prepared." Their tunnel opening was several hundred yards away among some bushes. Since they had been missing for over a month, they could close the escape opening and leave the whole scheme for the next group to use. But four weeks later they were brought back to us. They had made it to Cincinnati and even found employment. They told mouth-watering stories about girls they had met.

The winters were cold in Oklahoma. Often blizzards with violent winds kept us in the barracks. During the summer we frequently took our blankets underneath the barracks where a light breeze gave us relief from the heat.