A very good to fine red softcover (stiff board cover). Light scuffing to back cover; edges rubbed lightly. Swastika on cover. Author's note dated 1944
book of POW poems, by a Canadian officer of the South Saskatchewan Regiment captured at Dieppe. "Barbed Wire Ballads" book measures 8 inches by 5 inches, has 64 pages. Several photo illustrations, including the Oflag VIIb pipe band. The initial dedication at the front of the book reads, "To the men of the Cameron Highlanders of Canada and the South Saskatchewan Regiment. On the day of battle, friends are good." Poems about Red Cross parcels, the monotony of POW life, characters in the camp, making devices out of KLIM tins, etc. Melville became a reporter at the Regina Leader-Post after the war.