Page 67 - Anthology

A hedgerow is a growth of hedges, thick vegetation and small trees.

During World War II there was a major prisoner of war camp at Limburg an der Lahn, Germany
-STALAG XII-A. There were around 1,000 Prisoner-of-War camps in Germany during World War II.
Germany was a signatory at the Third Geneva Convention, which established the provisions relative to
the treatment of Prisoners of War:

Article 10 required that POWs should be lodged in adequately heated and lighted buildings where
conditions were the same as German troops.

Articles 27-32 detailed the conditions of labor. Enlisted ranks were required to perform whatever labor
they were asked and able to do, so long as it was not dangerous and did not support the German war
effort. Senior Non-commissioned officers (sergeants and above) were required to work only in a
supervisory role. Commissioned officers were not required to work, although they could volunteer. The
work performed was largely agricultural or industrial, ranging from coal or potash mining, stone quarrying,
or work in sawmills, breweries, factories, railroad yards, and forests.

Red Cross parcel usually refers to packages containing mostly food, tobacco and personal hygiene items
sent by the International Association of the Red Cross to prisoners of war during the First and Second
World Wars. It can also refer to medical parcels and so-called "release parcels" provided during World
War II. The Red Cross arranged them in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention of
1929. During World War II these packages augmented the often-meager and deficient diets in the POW
camps, contributing greatly to prisoner survival and an increase in morale.

Stalag VII-A was Germany's largest prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. It was located just north
of the town of Moosburg in southern Bavaria. The camp covered an area of 35 hectares (86 acres). It
served also as a transit camp through which prisoners, including officers, were processed on their way to
other camps. At some time during the war, prisoners from every nation fighting against Germany passed
through it. At the time of its liberation on 29 April 1945, there were about 80,000 prisoners in the camp,
mostly from France and the Soviet Union. Large numbers of Americans were captured in the Battle of the
Bulge in December 1944 and taken to Stalag VII-A.

The P-47 Thunder Bolt Republic was one of the largest and heaviest fighter aircraft in history to be
powered by a single piston engine. It was heavily armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per
wing. When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to eight tons, and in the fighter-bomber ground-attack roles
could carry five-inch rockets or a significant bomb load of 2,500 pounds; it could carry over half the
payload of the B-17 bomber on long-range missions (although the B-17 had a far greater range). The P-
47, based on the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine, was to be very effective as a
short-to-medium range escort fighter in high-altitude air-to-air combat and, when unleashed as a fighter-
bomber, proved especially adept at ground attack in both the World War II European and Pacific
Theaters.

The Type C4 class ship was the largest cargo ships built by the United States Maritime Commission
(MARCOM) during World War II.