Chicken Run--The Ultimate WWII Stalag Spoof

In a future entry, I'm going to deal with the Great Escape. I've been a student of the actual escape and a fan of the movie it inspired for many years. However, I got to thinking today about the outstanding spoof, Chicken Run, that was produced about six years ago by the same folks who brought us Wallace and Grommett. This claymation movie is about a chicken farm and the attempts of its ill-treated inmates to escape, but it is, in effect, a spoof on every WWII escape film ever made, especially The Great Escape.

Our hero tunnels in the secret tunnel in Chicken Run. Note the spoon he is using as a shovel.

The premise finds us at the egg farm of the Tweedys. The compound housing the somewhat dim-witted chickens resembles a Luftwaffe Stalag, right down to the barracks, search lights, guard dogs and barbed wire. The inmates accept their fate--all except one plucky hen, who tries to form an escape committee. She has no help from the commander of the camp, a British rooster who is a veteran of World War One who carries a swagger stick and is stuck in the past. However, things change when an American flyboy lands in their midst----the victim of a circus cannonball act gone awry. The hens are all atwitter about this new American, much to the consternation of the Brit. The American, voiced by Mel Gibson, is impressed into the escape attempts of the camp, with hilarious results.

Steve McQueen makes 'the jump' into neutral territory in the climatic scene of 'The Great Escape'.Our hero makes his own jump in Chicken Run.

If you are a fan of WWII escape films such as The Great Escape, Von Ryan's Express, or Hart's War, you will see countless visual and spoken references in 'Chicken Run'. My guess is a lot of WWII aviation students have completely missed this film, thinking it was for kids. It's not. This is parody at its best.

You can get it from Amazon for as little as three bucks for the 2001 version and six bucks for the more recent version with extras. Click here to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Run-Phil-Daniels/dp/B0002V7OLU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-0080273-1490215?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1188167337&sr=8-2

Novel Update

Writing a novel is like living another life. Every day, I get up and disappear into a world that exists only inside my head. I live in that world for four or five hours at a time. When I re-surface, I always feel discombobulated. One moment I'm in a German Stalag Luft with my characters, the next I'm sitting in a small room in Ammon, Idaho, staring at my computer.

The characters in my novel are currently in their second POW camp. The first camp became too full, due to the fact that sometime in September of 1943, the Italians switched sides, and all the Italian soldiers and diplomats in German territory instantly became 'the enemy'. Massive roundups and imprisonment of Germany's erstwhile allies from Italy followed. Many of those who ended up in the German prison camps couldn't believe that they were there.

Though my camps are fictional, they are based on actual camps. The first camp is based on Stalag VII-A at Moosberg. The second is based on Stalag 17-B at Krems.

One of my favorite readings about POW life comes from my old friend John Chaffin. John was a pilot in the 95th Bomb Group who was shot down on the Munster Mission in October, 1943. He became a close friend after we met in 2000. A strong Christian and a writer, John sent me several of his own books, based on his journals and notes he kept while a pilot and POW. John was one of my earliest critics. When I wrote something that he thought stunk, he would tell me, and then tell me how to make it better.

Sadly, John passed away about three years ago. I lost one of my best editors. After 100th pilot Herb Alf passed away, I had only one of my original three 'hard-ass' editors left, namely Maurice Rockett, who remains with me to this day, keeping me on the straight and narrow.

John's journals and notes are occasionally hilarious. John loved to cook. His mother had taught him to cook as a boy, though almost none of his fellow POWs had a clue how to do it. John therefore became the 'chef' in his 'combine' or group of POWs who shared food and cooking duties. An incredibly creative man, John developed recipes for dozens of dishes--no easy task when you consider that all his recipes had to be made from the limited ingrediants in a Red Cross Parcel.

Remember, all John's recipes were POW-tested, and all came from limited ingredients and were normally baked over improvised stoves on hand-made utensils.

Here is one of his Kriegie creations:

"Kriegie Cake:

The Kriegie Cake is likened to a sandwich in that it is built and not made. It is not unlike stew, since almost anything sweet in the pantry can be thrown in.

The bulk of the cake or rather the usual starting point, is one bowl of bread scraps. Soak these in hot water for fifteen to thirty minutes and then pour into a dishpan. You are now ready to start.

Throw in about one KLIM can of cracker crumbs. (Rob's note--Klim was a powdered milk and the crackers were either shredded biscuits or crackers that the Americans had traded for from the Brits). Add sugar to suit taste--about 3/4 pound should be close to right. Put in 1/2 can of Nestles milk if you have it handy; a can of any kind of jam helps and 1/2 can of chocolate powder is one of the few necessary ingredients. A half can of New Zealand coffee doesn't hurt anything and, if you like, a box of raisins might be added. An apple pudding or Yorkshire pudding (from British parcels) will help immensely but if you are not fortunate in having one, don't fret.

When you have tired of throwing things into the pan, roll up your sleeves and work at the mess with both hands until it is well mixed. (If it is obvious there is dirt on your hands and the weather is not too cold to run out to the latrine) you should probably wash your hands first---especially if any of the picky other Kriegies in your combine are watching.

Work the mess with both hands until it is well mixed. Pour the batch into a buttered pan and bake in the bottom of the oven until done. It should be baked slowly.

Almost any kind of icing will suffice for your cake. If you are lazy or pressed for time (rare event for a kriegie) a little jam or honey will do. Should you feel more industrious, here are a couple of ideas for your use:

Take 1/4 Klim can of milk, three spoons of sugar; mix well then add enough water to take a thick paste. Spread it on and there you are (italics John's).

To make a chocolate icing just add cocoa into the already mentioned mixture and there you are---chocolate!" (Italics John's).

John Chaffin was one wise man who took the lemons life gave him and figured out the best possible recipe for making lemonade! He returned from his incarceration to have a long career with General Dynamics. Before he passed away, my brother had a good visit with him down in Texas. To the end, John was a writer, a mentor, a leader in his Christian church in the Dallas area, and one heck of a contract bridge player and instructor.

eBay Find

Every so often something comes up on eBay that I have to get. The latest is a large, glossy magazine put out by the YMCA shortly after World War Two ended, entitled "Yankee Kriegies: How Our POWs Made Little Americas Behind Nazi Barbed Wire". What makes this book so good is its two narrators, one a wonderful artist and writer, the other a stealthy photographer who took many clandestine photos of prison camp life. Ross Greening, who did many of the illustrations and text, was one of the original Doolittle Raiders who attacked Tokyo in the early days of the war. He then flew in Europe and became a POW. He kept an art book going while in the service and after the war this was published in a limited edition, entitled 'Not As Briefed'. It is in my opinion the finest art collection produced by a POW during the war, though it covers everthing from training through the Dolittle mission and his time in Europe.

One of Greening watercolors, showing the navigator bailing out of a crippled B-17

New prisoners arrive at Stalag Luft I on a cold, blustery day, by Ross Greening.
C. Ross Greening, Tokyo Raider and later POW in Germany

The other writer, Sgt. Anthony Spinelli, managed to take many photos of life in the prison camp, and many are in this magazine.

The magazine is a real yearbook/scrapbook of kriegie life and an important piece of history. I got it for $2.99 as no one else even put in a bid on it.

To read a good article from Flight Journal about Col. Greening, follow this link http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3897/is_199910/ai_n8859543

To see more of Greening's art, go this link: http://www.merkki.com/art.htm

The book is hard to find in hardback, running over a hundred dollars on Amazon, but can be found for less if you do some searching. Paperback copies of 'Not As Briefed' are reasonable on Amazon. Here is the amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0874222397/atribtothecac-20

Greening's Book, Not As Briefed: From the Doolittle Raid to a German Stalag

Those Ingenious Kriegies:Chapter One: Making table-tops, trays, and plates

Lyle's mock-up of the cutting device used to connect flattened Klim cans to make metal sheets, table tops, plates and trays. Notched knife is in cut in board. This was used to cut the cans. Seam is visible connecting the two cans. The smaller Spam-type can was used to get solder.

The late Basil Lyle Shafer was a B-17 Flying Fortress co-pilot whose 390th BG aircraft was shot down in 1944, killing most of the crew. Lyle ended up in a Luftwaffe prison camp at Barth, Germany. Lyle became a very good friend when I first began writing my book Untold Valor. I had no writing experience, no resume'. I was just a guy who wanted to learn about the men who flew the heavies. Lyle never tired of my sometimes ignorant questions, sending me information on a regular basis for three years. He was the first man I interviewed for the book, and he believed in it from the first. When I got frustrated, he's the guy who kept me going.

Lyle lived near me, just across Teton Pass in Wilson, Wyoming. I visited him there several times. One the second visit, he gave me some of the artifacts he had saved and shown at the POW reunion in Jackson the previous summer. I am going to do a series of articles on some of the ingenious stuff the kriegies came up with. Several of these are from Lyle. The cooking recipes, equally ingenious, are from the late John Chaffin, a 100th BG B-17 pilot who went down on the infamous Munster Mission in October 1943 and became a POW as well.

Lyle made this mock-up to demonstrate how the men in the prison camp made trays, plates, table-tops and other metal items. They used Klim cans, which came in their Red Cross parcels. Lyle explained that they would flatten the cans out, and then cut strips of the cans, which they would make into connecting pieces. They would then slide two flattened Klim cans together by folding the edges of each and sliding them onto the connecting piece. To cut the cans, they used a block of wood and a regular kitchen knife with a notch it it. Lyle said they made everything they needed this way. The photo shows the mock-up Lyle made and gave me some years ago.

Lyle passed away about three years ago. Though he was my #1 believer and backer, he passed away only a few weeks before the book was published and never got to see it.

I will feature more of Lyle's amazing stuff in future posts.

Lyle Shafer as a young aviation cadet. He was twenty years old when he was shot down.

Lyle Shafer's Prisoner of War photo taken at Dalag Luft. He was badly injured when this photo was taken, having lost several teeth, broken his arm, and with a many pieces of flak and shrapnel embedding in his arm. Lyle had bent down to get his flak helmet in the cockpit when a round entered right where his head had been. This round decapitated the pilot and the next split the plane in two.