War Poems in German & Italian P.O.W. camps.
Sergeant Lynn Sarrell Ongley



Red Cross Parcel
L.S. Ongley
7 October 1942

The Red Cross keep us fit and well
With many a tasty dish
No sooner is the issue made
We fry up spuds and fish
The chocolate lasts a little spell
Our prunes we soak and stand
Twelve biscuits spread with butter thick
My word they do taste grand
The meat roll fried in margarine
With Yorkshire salt and milk
While toast and butter heaped with jam
Slides down like folds of silk
The bully smeared with mustard
Between two hunks of bread
Can be described as having
All powers to turn the head
The oatmeal mixed with rasins
Makes porridge sweet and stiff
Our breakfast cheese warmed on the toast
Gives a savoury niff
Pork sausages baked in eggs
Mixed veg with Irish stew
Sweet custard smoothed o'er apple duff
At last we rest and sip our brew
The creamed rice sweets and apricots
We hold for yet a while
While cocoa in the evening hours
Completes the welcome pile
Maybe I've missed the honey sweet
The golden syrup two
But if their are some missing tins
I leave the rest to you
Without the Red Cross helping us
Our lives we might have lost
So when the war has passed us by
We help what e'er the cost
The cigarettes we cherish most
Their help is great indeed
When food is short we pull the belt
For nicotine is feed
My text to you is finnished
No more there is to be
The weekly Red Cross parcel gift
To you I bend my knee.


Campo Concentranamento 54.
P.M. 3300. Fara Sabina. Rome. Italy.