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Show YM PRISONERS REAGHLDNDDN Would Have Starved But for Red Cross Packages. LONDON', Nov. 20. Eight American former prisoners of war, the first men of this class to reach London, arrived lifre this morning. They are Corporal Thomas Barry, Frank Butler and Corporal Cor-poral John Iiathate, alt of New Haven; , William LUiy'of Southington, Conn.; Corporal Lech Whitehead of Jeffrey, Ky. ; William O'Sullivan of Forestville, Conn.; James Epitochelle of North Providence, Provi-dence, R. I., and Corporal LeRoy Conglc-ton Conglc-ton of Philadelphia. All the men arc memnrs of the 102nd in-- in-- fantry. They were captured in April. Conpleton was injured in the shoulder, Barry in the knee and Lilly in the eye. i All three men were placed in various hos pitals, but later joined the other prisoners who were taken first to Conflans for a week, then to Darmstadt for five weeks, to Limburg- for three months and then to j the Opladen work camp. They were at-tached at-tached to the Friedrlchsfeld camp until jr their release, November la. All the men said they had been forced to work hard and were given Insufficient focd. They would have starved had it not been for the-American Red Cross packages pack-ages which were received at long intervals. inter-vals. English prisoners tried to aid them, but the Germans prevented this. The men said they were supposed to get an American Red Cross package weekly, but they were lucky if the Germans permitted per-mitted this monthly. Even the packages V received, especially of soap, were looted, according to the prisoners. Their treatment was varied In the different dif-ferent camps. In Darmstadt they endured civilian insults. While working on the roads they often wore spat upon. After the armistice wa3 signed guards and civilians ci-vilians ''got down on their knees to us," they said. Limburg was called the "mystery camp," owing1 to the numerous disappear-mices disappear-mices of prisoners, the fate of whom was never revealed. The Americans everywhere observed a scarcity of men for onerous work, women doing the tasks in lumber yards and on the' railroads with picks and shovels and unloading coal. Lilly said the women and men looked alike and, as far as the girls were concerned, "you would not know that they were girls." At Opladen the women workers pushed freight cars at 6 cents a day, said Lills He added that thirty American prisoners were shipped to a coal mine. Hero It was reported that a corpora! named Lucien, whose regiment is unknown, refused to enter the pit. German guards pushed him over the brink and he was killed by the tall. Pie was buried the next day. The American prisoners experienced consid?rable illness. Several of them suffered suf-fered from influenza. The men were permitted per-mitted to write two letters or four postal cards monthly, but were allowed to receive re-ceive only two. V Four days after the armistice the men were taken to Friedrich.sfeld and then to Holland, whenco they sailed from Rotterdam Rotter-dam on the 13th. They arrived at Kfpon, England, November 24. Except for an average av-erage loss in weight of ten pounds each, all 11 1 e men were In good health and spirits. They will be sent to camp at . Winchester. Epitochelle related a grewsome incident J which occurred at the Limburg camp. A human linger was found in the soup. The American prisoners were made ill, but a German guard declared it a great joke and hung up the finger as a "mess decoration." dec-oration." Epitochelle said: "The food was all but uneatable. Breakfast consisted consist-ed nf miserable coffee and a tiny piece of bread; lunch, soup containing bits of turnips, prasa and potatoes and always full of dirt and 'sand. We used to take 'Vv ollt the potatoes and give the rest to the poor Russian prisoners. For weeks we had to labor, on that diet." |