Ralph Newton Craven

The people that were there in the war, often, they have a great impact. I know once they gave me a bunch of prisoners, I didn’t mention them to you then. They’d taken a whole bunch of German prisoners and once they get them down to the big prison camp, which it wasn’t far away but far enough that I had to walk it with them. And when I did, I think there were about 20 prisoners, 15 or 20, I’m not quite sure, and, I wanted them to move to a certain place where we were going to do some more work. So I got them marching. Their guns were metal guns and they had a sight on the front, which gave a little rough spot, until they’d get hold of that sight and lift the gun up. Now these were Germans there, you see, so I didn’t mind if we’d hurt them a little bit. I got up and we went about, I think, I’m not quite sure, but I think three miles I walked the prisoners and they were carrying the guns in one hand just so their butt leaves the ground. They had to lift it up to make you leave the ground, just long enough to hit, if they didn’t. And that’s hard work, you know, yeah. However, I was the boss manager and they did that for a length of time. I often laughed at it. I guess I wouldn’t have laughed it I had been doing the job. But I did, I did, I did. Now I took them down to the prison camp, turned them loose. The last I saw of them. They had big, big prisoners’ camps there in different places and big ones, hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners in them. I don’t know how many.