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Show NORTH COUNTY NEWSPAPERS Thursday, March 9, 2006 Mountain West Foot & Ankle Institute Cigarettes used as POWs' currency rage lb Brandt R. Gibson, DPM S'i ializvtl 'not & Anhle Ctirv veterans1 I I'lftn nts, stn oi tut aki v.miim iAUt ISM U I U1U1Y " , ( 'ft, linn nti I MH ( dfr I nl i It, nil- . V. .Hi Hi! f r .If fl'i 111 ! (.! -Hum hn- (k Mmn- i 1 , 1 I . llMII ft Anttli I'jiii : f. tn I iMiuiil jlkKt. At'nnim jlmcv ' ),iit.i- ) s ( idii'Uvi tool St i f v JfMinjeMfcD U7 U( OV V U '! VS (tl Ml S Editor's note: This is the 13th article in a series about Lindon resident Ray Ma-thenv. Ma-thenv. whose nlane was shot "' """ " down over Germany during World Web II. Jri prisoner-of-war camps during World War II, cigurettes'Mer& a prized commodity. Some men preferred them to food. MCaude Ruy Mutheny didn't smoke, he was in a good position id profit from the cigarettes that came into his hands. Whut follows Is in Mutheny's own words. r o w ii (cptiiivt I . ( Instn vttneys W'r Will Optimize ii You War Horn With. Oalf packets of cigarettes ciga-rettes came in our Red Cross food O parcels, and if you got a Lucky Strike, you had something worthwhile. Cigarettes were graded by value: Lucky Strikes were first, followed by Chesterfield, Ches-terfield, then Camels and Old Golds, and on down the line to British tobacco and finally Turkish cigarettes, which occasionally occa-sionally showed up. I think there were more Turkish cigarettes in Germany I "lit. jL- '. '5? 1 i J Pi:kitct portraits I OK Swi III-To 45 ON lAS'lTK I'AC KACI S! f7 1 lii L ' i '.'..lit- M ii- www.kiddiekandids.com ovait" Chi'iirrii'', Portrait Studio r f f "t 'r t bO YtAHfe OF FALLINO IN LOV6 www.heraldextra.com yellowpages GREENWOOD DENTAL To celebrate Dental Health Month for February, Greenwood Dental is offering ORAL CANCER SCREENING for the entire month of March. Stop by either office or just give us a call American Fork 226 N 1100 E. 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COUPON Isacord 1 EMBROIDERY THREAD Buy 3 get 1 i I I LIMIT 3 I EXP. 325 COUPON ' 1 . . i- l COUPON ' COUP6N ' C6U"POTJ Solid Fancy , MIINrvcc OH SO SOFT 40 OFF UMTTS YD8. EXP. 325 Any one cut QUILTING PRINTS 40 OFF UMrrevDe. EXP. 325 OurWDapt Any on cut TEBUTWEEN SPECIALTY FUR 30 OFF UMrrsvoe. EXP. 325 , Sefect Group ! fclSROCERY i CARDS CD's I I I 3 for $89. LIMIT 3 EXP. 325 CENTERVILLE AMERICAN FORK IVY PLACE VERNAL SUNSET 52 E. PAGES LN. 53 W. MAIN 4742 S. 900 E. 30S.40W. 2465 N. MAIN 292-2966 756-2223 262-6665 789-0988 773-6625 than any other kind. You never smoked a Luckyt Strike unless you had a lot fipj,' them. You wanted to keep tbeffl for trading purposes. Cigarftttet were the means of money exchange ex-change in the camp, along with D-Bars, concentrated and compressed com-pressed tropical chocolate bars. These were also very valuable for trading for things outside the camp. I could never bring myself to trade directly with the Germaas; I paid others to do the trading with the guards. After about seven months in the camp, I started to receive letters from my mother, whom the military finally informed that I was alive and a POW. She asked me, "What can I send you?" We were permitted to received a package once every three months or so. The Germans Ger-mans had quite extensive rules and instructions for parents and other relatives on what could be sent to prisoners. One of the rules was that you could send only so much tobacco. I wrote my mother, "Send me cigarettes Lucky Strike cigarettes." She broke the rules, wrote to the American-Tobacco Company, and asked them to send me cigarettes. One day I received large box, which the Germans had not opened they usually opened all packages pack-ages that came in. But when it was handed to me, it was still sealed. I opened it, and there were ten cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes. That's 200 cigarettes in a carton, 2,000 cigarettes in the ten cartons. I could hardly believe it. Suddenly I was the richest man in the Danube Valley! Val-ley! I entertained all kinds of ideas about what I was going to do with all my wealth, but that lasted only a half hour or so. I gave them all away except one carton. I just couldn't keep them all to myself. I had now flooded the market with good cigarettes, and a group of us became quite rich. Card playing and gambling were of course the big pastimes in camp, I mafle friends with ;fi several good card players and.sent them out with ciga-1 ciga-1 1 ettesjrom my carton. They knew' how' to'play poker. I told them, "Go way down in our compound and buy cheap cigarettes. Get all you can. One Lucky Strike will buy three, four, or five Old Golds." They came back with a large bundle of cigarettes, some of them the Lucky Strikes I had given away. I of course bought food with them: cans of Spam, orange paste, liver paste (which I didn't like, but it was nourishing), nourish-ing), crackers, sugar and soap. But the big thing I wanted was a radio. Some of the prisoners had established clandestine relationships relation-ships with the guards, so I gave them Lucky Strike cigarettes to trade for radio parts. The guards had friends who worked at the tank assembly plant in town. The workers would take the 4,500 ohm headsets off the assembly line and remove the crystals out of radio sets. Then they would go to town and buy spools of fine wire. I assembled all these into a radio, and that pleased me no end to be able to corrupt the Germans. I remember the first night I "tickled" the crystal till I got a radio frequency. I put the headset on, and boom! All of a sudden a Vienna waltz came on, drowning out my senses. It was wonderful to hear such music. These excerpts from local veterans are courtesy of the Orem Heritage Committee. Complete stories of the veterans will eventually be put on the Orem City Web site, www.orem.org. Readers aware of any veterans who have written about their military service are asked to arrange to have these archives in the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress. Phone Don Norton (225-8050) on how to do this. HAIAU.mijl-i.HHMlH iiiiiiiiiii(i7PtTfnffifflifBni.iii.iii.i.i Q3B 8DCD00 PG Players Presents Itaoiigjh lb Wiif . S$y:l2 DiPietro March 10-27, 2006 Friday, Saturday & Monday Evenings r 7:30 p.m. Directed by Howard and Kathryn Laycock Little Featuring Andrea Brower, Linda Garay, Luone Ingram, Walt Price, Dennis Purdie and Stewart Shelley Keith Christeson Theatre PG Library, 30 East Center Pleasant Grove Tickets: $7 - Adults. $6 SeniorsStudents. $2500 Family V Tickets at the Door Presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc Information: Verdon Walker - 785-0222 Bring In ad and receive $1.00 Off each ticket purchased OOtfVG OJV VACATJOJV7 Donate vour newipapen to Newspaper in Education. For more call 34 POOR |