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File: 120596_aaczf_12.txt
12
thick and it was brick all around so there was no way to
talk between cells or anything. The door was solid steel
and it had a little window that they would open up when
they wanted to pass the food to you. There was a window
on the other end of the room. But it was about 12 feet
off the floor and real thin and it had bars on it and
louvers so you never got any direct sunlight in the room.
So in that prison, communication was just about impossi-
ble. What guys tried to do was...when they would come
around and take roll, which they did periodically...was
to try and say names as loud as possible so if somebody
else was listening they could tell other Americans were
there. I knew other Americans and Allies were there
because I'd transferred with them from the first prison.
Some of the guys who had been shot down later said they
never knew anybody else was in the prison because they
could never hear anybody. So for them, it was probably
worse to be there because they didn't know what was going
on.
Q: Was there enough time for a SRO {senior ranking officer)
to be established?
A: In the first prison: Colonel Eberly was the senior rank
ing officer. We had talked about it in the first prison
when we could communicate; but again, once we were in the
second prison there was no communication. It was just
about impossible. It would have been impossible for him
to get messages out; it would have been almost impossible
to have any sort of chain of command or anything like
that. On the night of 23 February, we were actually
bombed out of the prison; it showed up as a target and
was hit by four laser guided bombs. They transferred us
to another prison and they obviously were not ready for
that contingency, because 11 of us were put in one cell
for a night. That was about the first communication we
had had with other prisoners for about a month. At that
point, it was determined Colonel Eberly was the SRO and
that word did get out. I think if we'd have had an
opportunity to communicate, and if our stay had been
longer, it would have worked out...everyone was aware of
that requirement and there were no problems with it.
Q: Did they provide you with any recreational facilities?
A: No.
Q: What about reading material?
A: Nothing. We were never let out of our cells except to
be interrogated.
Q: And how long did the interrogations usually last?
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