What If I’m Captured?
As part of basic training, Frank Carrozza was given some advice and tools. His first duty was to fly a B-26 to South America and across the Atlantic Ocean to the Ascension Islands and on to North Africa and finally to England. There was plenty of opportunity to crash land in a jungle. The advice he was given was to “eat what the monkeys eat.” That meant that “if the monkey rolls over a log and eats the grubs underneath, you do that too!”
Beyond that advice, I found two items needed for survival that my dad managed to bring home after the war. Below is a set of photos. They were taken in plain clothes. The pictures were carried on every mission and could be used by the French Resistance to make fake ID for the airman. I’ve read that all the airmen had their pictures taken with the same clothes and it was a real give away to a German Sentry looking to verify ID.
I’ve also found Frank Carrozza’s “Rosetta Stone.” This is a very thin page of paper, printed on both sides. It includes words and phrases in several languages including French, German, Dutch, and Spanish. This was carried on each mission to help with communication with any rescuer. I’m told they also had a small amount of French and German money as well as candy bars, gum, and cigarettes.
