To the Editor:

I wish to publicly thank 2nd Lt. Lee Lamar, co-pilot of a B-24 shot down over Italy in 1944 ("A Christmas behind barbed wire," The Best Times, December 2010), for his service to our country. I have often heard about the  German black bread our POWs had to eat, but never knew the recipe ingredients.

For those of you who may have missed it, the bread contained bruised rye grain, sliced sugar beets, sawdust, minced leaves, and straw. Would you believe that "when thinly sliced and toasted on the stove, it was more tolerable," according to Lamar.

I appreciate the efforts of Harold Davis to bring this story and the picture to our attention. I plan to share this with family and friends.

Dwane Wills, Overland Park