Robert "Bob" Fulkerson was in his sophomore year at D.U. when the U.S. entered World War II. He enlisted in 1942 but didn't enter active duty until the following year. He would become a navigator on a B-17 bomber that had to ditch into the North Sea. After four days in a life raft, he and the survivors of his crew beached on a German occupied Dutch Island. Bob would spend the rest of the war between three different prison camps beginning with Stalig Luft III where he was quartered in the North Compound. As the Russian army advanced, the Germans moved Fulkerson to Nuremberg, where he endured the harrowing experience of nearly being bombed by Allied forces. The Allied army drew close to Nuremberg two months later, and the Germans moved Fulkerson and the other prisoners again, sending them on a 75-mile nighttime march to a train that brought them to Stalag VIIA prison camp in Moosburg, near Munich. Not long afterward, Gen. George Patton liberated the Moosburg prison. It is not clear when, where,or who actually used this canteen, or how it came into Mr. Fulkerson's possession. The name scratched into the actual canteen would indicate that Mr. Fulkerson was not the original owner. Whether he knew the person whose name is marked on it, or whether he obtained it while a prisoner of war, or afterwards as surplus in the States is not known. Because he saved it with other war memorabilia it is thought it might be more likely to have played some role in his war experience in Germany.