Sled was still working okay, although it was tough pulling it up some of these hills. The fellows were trading cigarettes and soap for bread and spuds and hot water all along the way--especially in Muskau while waiting for quarters. We were finally quartered in a brick factory--really swell. It was dry and warm and had lights and best of all we got German black bread and marge. We were to tired to do much but eat--and then we slept on the concrete floor.

On February 1, General Vanaman again talked the Germans into letting us spend the day here. It was like heaven! We washed and shaved and slept, and ate very little. Guys from West camp and Balaria came to the factory--their feet were frozen, and blue and green and yellow. They really looked terrible. They walked all the way with no stops. Some of them really in bad shape. One of them knew the bombardier and co-pilot from my crew, Krzyzynski and Weiss, and they were O.K. the last time he saw them.

On February 2, we rested.

On February 3, we got up at 4:30 A.M.--raining out and thawing, so broke up the sled. I was really loaded down now but I was determined not to throw away any of my blankets or food or clothes. We walked 18 Kilometers to Braustein. We were bedded down in a barn, with straw on the floor--not bad. With the barnyard and all, it looked exactly like the pictures we had seen of troops in World War I in France in the barns. We slept fairly good as we bundled two or three of us together for warmth.

It was now February 4, and we were up at dawn and marched 7 kilometers to Spremburg--biggest town so far. We went into a permanent camp that had good brick buildings and it was really nice. We stayed in garages and got some hot soup. Towards evening, we marched into town to the marshalling yards. We saw plenty of signs that reminded us of home--Shell, Standard, Esso, Mobiloil, Kodak, Agfa and others. The town looked as if it were in fairly good shape.

The Germans crowded us into old French 40 and 8 (Hommes 40, Chaveau) and I do mean crowded. There were 55 men and a guard in our car. They also brought in a Red Cross parcel for each man, which was very welcome. But it was so crowded. We finally allocated space to each man, but as soon as they would go to sleep, the men would try to stretch out. I lay on the floor and several times I woke up with four men laying zig zag across me so that I couldn't even move.

All in all it was a pretty lousy night. We only made 30 or 40 kilometers that night. We heard we were to go to Nurnburg, but we had gotten to the point where we didn't care where we were going, as long as we got there. The Germans gave us no water and that was no fun. Most of the guys had loose bowels and were throwing up.