POW Artifact

I thought you might like to read this, and read the accompanying story. It's just amazing what people can do in the most horrific situations. Hope and perseverance are the keys. I'm sure the knitting was relaxing and kept Jim's mind focused where he wanted it to be.

Jim Simpson would have to be the toughest man to ever pick up a pair of knitting needles.
The former prisoner of war, who spent more than 19 months in Germany’s World War II prison camps, not only survived interrogations and torture but managed to knit arguably Australia’s most valuable war artifact, outside a museum.
Jim’s rug is a perfectly preserved 1.83m x 1.9m knitted woolen blanket, featuring the map of Australia and the Coat of Arms.
“I knitted it with straightened handles from the camp’s cooking pots; they looked like pieces of number eight wire,” Jim says.
“The cook agreed to give them to me if I knitted him a pair of socks.”
Jim credits his mum and his practical bushman’s upbringing in the Nariel Valley, near Corryong, for his knitting skills.
“It’s one of those things, if you put your mind to it, you can do it. I could even turn the heel of a sock as a kid,” he says.