The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1918-11-27

next day | as placed in a room with
three British oricers and there were
dictaphones in that room"
After few days at Karlsruhe, the
Lieutenant was started for a prelimi
nary distributing camp at Vlllingen,
Baden. II the railway carriage with
MIN We're two guards. He was una
camp, and decided to try to get away
from the tain if the slightest oppor-
tunity came.
Zone Of the guards seemed to be
doing wlule the other was interested
in something out the other side of
the carriage, when l dove through
the catri4ye window" the officer said.
The train was moving more rapidly
than | believed, for l received stn
awful bump on the head and both Of
my knees were cut on the iron ties
Of the parallel track.
81 scrambled into the brush as best
I could. Very soon bullets were
Whisting about me as the train had
been stopped and guards were on my
rail. ! could not make speed in the
condition / was in, so to save my life
| held up my hands in token of sur
render wher the guards were about
IS yards away
"Whcn tEcy came up to me one of
them welcomed me with a blow with
his rifle. / was beaten and kicked
and knocked down seven or eight
times before they finally loaded me
back into the train.
ARRIVING at the camp l was
swathcd il paper bandages-they
have very Little cloth in Germany you
know Fad it not been for food
supplied by the Red Cross Pm sure
would have starved to death but
with thai we Jared very we'll and
within month / regained my
strength. There were about $50 Rus
sian officers and Is American officers
| in the comp"
Lieutenant Isaacs and others Off
GERS Immediately began to lay plans
for escape by collecting necessary az
ticles, snch as pieces of wire and rope
and short boards with which to make
2 ladder i necessary. They also
traded som, oftheiI: food t3 a Rus
sian for q pair Of wire cutters he
had smuggled into the camp. Three
different tires they had their escape
plans completed, each time with the
connivance of a Russian, and each
time they lad reason to believe the
Germans lad been appraised and
they did rot try
FINALLY we learned that they were
to take al the Russians away on
Oct. 7, and working without the Rus
slams, we planned to Try again on the
night Of Get. 6. Fifteen feet from
our outba11 ed windows was a high
| barbed wire fence which turned in
ward at the top much the same as at
our internment camps in the States.
Between the fence and our window
was ditch seven feet wide filled with
scrapped balbed wire. We had al
most severed the bars of the window
in the room in which I was impris-
oned, using an inprovised saw one of
the officers had obtained from a Rus
! SIAN
"Two othcr officers with me were to
use two tennis court markers
eighteen feet long, as bridge from
our window to the top Of the barbed-
wire fence. The wooden markers
which we calculated would barely
hold us when strapped together were
to be brought into our room after the
roll-call at night.
"We figured that soon after the
attempt the guards would be attract
cd from the main gate, so three off
GERS elected to try a dash there a
the proper moment. Three other:
were to attempt to get through thu
, fence with the wire cutters, while
two others planned to get over. W.
, had fixed the electric-light wires 81
that we could quickly short-circui
. them. This was to be done exactl.
t at 1920 O'Clock, when every man wa
, to be ready to go.
; II will tell the name of only one o
: the officers, as l do not know tn
: fate of the others. He was Corpora
Harold B. Willis of Boston, membe
/ of the Iafayette Escadrille H
was one OF those who were to dasl
2 through the gate, and he and | hat
e rendezvous two miles from camp.
A "When the lights were extinguish
j ed bv the short-circuiting, we force
s the bars as quietly as possible, an
: ran out the two markers strapped to
G gether, end darkened with shoe-black
: ing as much as possible in the shoI
d time we had There was no moo
o but the sky was clear.
t 'One of the window bars stuck, an
we made considerable noise forcin
it, but it didn't take US long to stal
the risky tip to the top of the fence
S l got outside all right, but there wer
t guards both to% my right and lef
n There Wee no protecting trees, so
c ran as fast as | could with bullet
d whistling about me.
r 81 met. u Ills at the rendezvous an
|. we set cut southwest. We tra'
e eled at ni;rht, slept in the day an
e lived on raw vegetables we took frol