Lt Bridges began by depicting himself as an angry duck arriving at the camp with a burnt tail after being shot down, with the caption: 'I wanted wings', accompanied by a picture of the air force emblem with a ball and chain. This book might serve to list the most striking concoctions of the camp kitchen, the records of a camp olympic or a selection of the best jokes cracked in camp.' If you an artist you may want to cover these pages with sketches. 'If you are a writer, here is space for a short story. Stalag Luft III, where 50 men were executed on Hitler's orders following a mass breakout In an accompanying letter saying: 'Dear Friend', the YMCA said: 'This is intended to be kept as a permanent souvenir of the present unpleasantness. Lt Bridges began writing in his journal after being given the book with the permission of the Nazis by a YMCA aid group which helped POWs cope inside the camps during WW2. It is often said the British has a stiff upper lip during that era but the content of this journal showed the Americans had an element of that too.' 'The cartoons illustrate the amazing resilience and humour of those POWs despite knowing what happened after the Great Escape. It showed how humdrum life must have been in the camp but made far worse by the fact the inmates knew their comrades had been murdered by the Nazis. Nick Hall, principal auctioneer and valuer, said today: 'This journal gives a fascinating glimpse into what life was like in one of history's most notorious prisoner of war camps. It is now due to go under the hammer at Frank Marshalls auctioneers in Knutsford, Cheshire, on July 6 with a guide price of between £1,000 and £1,500. Keeping watch: Another of John Bridges' drawings depicting life inside the PoW camp The journal was acquired by a former WW2 Polish navigator after the war ended in 1945 and was found during a house clearance in Oxfordshire. The pencil and crayon drawings along with pages of poetry were written by 2nd Lt John M Bridges of Alabama who was captured by the Luftwaffe after being shot down over Germany. Other drawings feature caricatures of Hitler, Winston Churchill and then American president Franklin D Roosevelt, and there is a poignant drawing of a memorial vault built at the camp by inmates to honour the 50 murdered escapees. One cartoon shows two POWs lined up in a communal toilet only for a third to pop up from under a lavatory seat to quip: 'Mind moving down a couple - we're working on the tunnel.'Īnother showed a sleeping POW lying on the top bunk of a six-berth bed covered in cobwebs while another joked: 'Hey Jack don't you think you had better come down and move around.' Seeing the funny side: These previously unseen cartoons were drawn in 1944 by captured American air force serviceman John Bridges in Germany's 'escape proof' Stalag Luft III
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