At one of the camps we were in one of the guys bribed a guard to get a camera and film. He took several rolls of pictures and also took orders for $5 and I signed up for them. I received these without any problem after the war. Another fellow had a real business going. He melted the solder off the bottom of the cans which held the "church key'. He made a smal1 ball of this solder and took a three inch piece off your dog tags chain and soldered it to your pilots wings, then soldering it to the ball. This signified your inability to fly with the old ball and chain symbol. He would do this for a certain number of D-bars in payment. This way he had more to eat or to sell for IOU's to collect later. The making of the athletic field was a major accomplishment which we undertook in the early summer. This large area at one end of the compound was Just the way they had left it after clearing away the forest. Hundreds of stumps of pine trees in neat rows covered the entire area. The Germans gave us one ax, a telephone pole and one guard with a rifle. About two thousand of us each took an empty powdered milk can and we looked like a colony of ants digging the dirt away from the stumps and roots. It was sandy soi1 and dug quite easily. Wt took turns using the ax and cut all the roots from each stump as fast as we could. Then, with the guard watching us, we put the telephone pole under each stump and all the guys that could get onto the pole would Jump on and pry the stump out of the ground. I don't remember what happened to the stumps, but we had no tools to cut them up for firewood so the Germans must have hauled them out of camp. Each man then took a bed slat from his bunk, a board about four inches wide and three feet long and we used this to level the soft dirt as there were no rocks. It is amazing that it only took us two days and there was room enough for a football field and two softball diamonds. The football field was seldom used but there was always someone playing softball. The Red Cross furnished the balls, gloves and bats. Naturally I played baseball and as a shortstop most of the time. We had some good games as the talent in camp was exceptional. One of the pitchers had been the national softball champion of the U.S. and he threw the ball so fast that you could hardly see it. I just took a chance and started swinging the bat when he started his windings. I didn't get many hits as they were too good for me! There was one pitcher by the name of Brown who acted nervous all the time and wou1d fidget on the mound, shake his arms and keep leaning down to pick up pebbles while getting ready to pitch. There were usually several hundred of us standing watching the game and just as he would get ready to pitch someone in the crowd would yell "What's the color of a horse?" and everyone would yell 'Brown!' We did this several times each game and it really got him rattled!