K. P. Must Go On

I said we did everything by squads. We had six squads in our room and one day Number One would clean the room and the next day Number Two had the opportunity. Then number three and four and so on around. Our brooms were made of brush and it was hard to sweep a wooden floor with brush. You can imagine how clean our rooms were. Each night, to add to the details of cleaning, we all used our "Smokey Joes" and the floor had ashes, grass and shavings all over it.

Smokey Joes were small tin-can stoves which the Serbs taught us to make. Some of them were made of three tin cans. One small can inside of a larger one provided the fire box. We made a draft by cutting a hole in the bottom, and making grates out of parts of the tin can or wire, if we had been fortunate enough to get wire. The third can was fastened to the two in order to hold the container you desired to heat just above the flame. Some of these stoves were very good and required little fuel while others smoked up the place and never heated.

Fuel was a problem. Several soldiers found window facings would come off. I remember once going to the latrine and hearing something which sounded like nails being withdrawn. I spoke to the officer inside and re- turned to my room. The next day the facing around the window was gone. Posts which held up the clotheslines disappeared as did many items which didn't give protection from the snow or wind. Others of us had to use small sticks which we picked up when the snow melted. Before that, we took our Red Cross boxes and used them for fuel. The large outside box was made of layers of tar and paper and it made a hot flame. We were given only one such box per man and they did not last long. Sometimes the smoke would be so thick that we could not see across a room thirty-six feet wide. But when we had smoke that meant we had a little extra food and it was worth it. When we had extra food and fuel to cook it, we called it "bashing."