Captured, Blindfolded, and taken to a Cruel World Behind Barbed Wire...

A stalag somewhere in Germany, Japanese work camps, scattered throughout the Pacific. No matter what side of the ocean, POW'S were forced to endure the almost unendurable. Their only salvation was to dream of escape.

Surviving the stalags and Japanese camps took guts and imagination. The driving dream was escape, and many a POW kept his spirits up by digging endless tunnels, hiding mountains of dirt by slowly filling pockets, then flushing the dirt down the toilet or letting it dribble out while taking a stroll around the compound. In the German stalags, radios were assembled stealthily, put together to listen to the BBC news reports, then quickly taken apart with a piece given to each man to hide. Men learned to pass the time by playing chess on imaginary boards. In Japan, life was harsher, with POW's forced into slave labor, building railroads and roads, maltreated by their captors. Yet, somehow many survived, coped, made life-long friends and never lost hope.


From "Memories of World War II" Reader's Digest