Now come on all you guys -surely the people in France and Germany had a few laughs they can share with all of us..we in North Africa - Italy and Austria used humour to keep us sane at times..mind you it didn't help Spike but Seacombe survived as I am sure there were a few giggles to be found when least expected like the twice that Major Stu Atkinson of 8th RTR jumped down from his Tank - right into a dead cow.....or the time near Cassino when one of our Officers - furious that we were not obeying his signals as we entered an ex enemy camp in a raging thunderstorm - disappeared - he had found the latrine....we were helpless with the giggles - and couldn't get near him as he climbed out it was all fun..well mostly... Cheers
I did read an account of a German prisoner of war working on an English farm who was the model of politeness and even spent time tending to the garden until he was repatriated,the following spring the flowers he planted burst into bloom spelling out the word Heil Hitler!
I liked the story I heard on audio tape at the IWM....which amused me but with a large slice of serious intent. Dubliner Fusilier Hobden explained how he took seven German prisoners near to Trasimeno by pointing his wireless set and aerial at them.. ..when he entered a farm building to find a group of Germans there with one officer pointing a pistol at him, he was so startled that he brought the aerial of his 38 set to the "on guard" position and they all surrendered. For this and other actions that day, Fusilier Hobden was awarded a Military Medal (WO 373/8).
Psywar Wouldn't be too surprised as he would have been out of the glasshouse by then..... Richard one day we were ahead of the Infantry and came across a bunch of paras wanting to surrender - which was very unusual - so the Commander asked the gunner and myself to round them up and take them back to where the Infantry were so I grabbed my Thompson M.G. - slapped in a magazine and dismounted ......suddenly the biggest of the paras started to laugh - said a few words and the whole gang of them were laughing their heads off...on looking around I beheld Harry our gunner with a fierce expression on his face and gun pointing menacingly..BUT..with NO magazine and the cleaning brush up the spout....so we all had a good laugh and gave them a can of cigarettes and handed them over to the Seaforths Cheers
Tom, good one...those gents would have been mighty pleased to be placed in the hands of what to them must have seemed a caricature Tommy (and by the way, I'm not referring to you, Tom). No doubt there were plenty of "human" stories amongst it all, but no doubt, as well, you would have witnessed a few of the other type of stories of mutual unfriendliness at the point of capture. best,
I know a South London lad who caught the last of the war in Burma , has some very moving accounts ,but also some very funny story's one in particular was it was his turn to supply and cook dinner for his squad / mates he managed to buy a mangy dog from the local village , this he quartered and cooked as a curry ,it was served up and the lads thought it superb , the Sargent major was doing his rounds and sat down with the boys and asked to share dinner ,after a few mouthfuls he said marvellous what's this ? Alec replied Jungle rabbit sir ! The NCO paused looked thoughtful and said ,you know I have served years in Burma but can't say ever seen a rabbit! As a young lad I worked with many lads who had seen WW2 service most of the lot I worked with seemed to be Western Desert then in to Italy ,siting at lunch and listening to the tales of the flesh pots of Alex and Egypt would have me in stitches ,but left me wondering as how welcoming the locals must have been post war
Hesmond There were times when we didn't enquire as to what we were eating - like the very small lambs heart sitting on plate with some suspicious liquid surrounding same....for breakfast.....or the dehydrated meat for dinner when the whole squadron of 150 men kept our four holer busy all afternoon - the senior NCO"s of course like gentlemen dined later- so it came about that when the SSM - SQMS - Sgt. Cook - Sgt. Fitter made use of the facilities - the main beam broke and deposited the senior four into the mire etc.....you might be able to imagine the guffaws - smiles and giggles which attended our parades for week afterwards.....as I am on the floor at this very moment in recalling the situation - it was even better than the new obnoxious Major who hadn't fired a shot - demanding that we learned to ride horses - after a week or two of this nonsense - he was set up with a NEW horse and on attempting to cross a very icy river - the new horse decided it was bath time and lay down in the river - The Major was transferred the next day.....it would take days to relate all of the idiotic comedies we knew about - that's why we survived... Cheers
Funny (but completely true) Story No. 11 Whilst looking through some of my old postings for items that could be considered "funny", I came across this little tale that perhaps might more correctly be considered as "black humour" What do you think ? One of the perils of rapid advancing that was taking place at that time was that if you broke down, you were left to your own devices until the rear parties could catch up with you. On one occasion, late in the day, we had some barbed wire entangled in our tracks that brought us down to a crawl, and we had to drop behind the main advance. Fortunately we were near a farmhouse, and so we decided to bed down for the night and wait until daylight would allow us to see what we were doing. Before we could get to sleep we were disturbed by some Italians who had their hands full of rifles of various types. Apparently they had been informed by some earlier troops that if they had arms on the premises they must hand them in to avoid being shot as German collaborators. Quite naturally they were very keen to hand them over to us, but by the same token we were loath to tell them to fill our small crowded turret with their antiquated firepower ! We solved the matter in a rather black comedy manner by allowing them to pass the rifles up to us and then, in the dark, we threw them over the other side of the tank instead of into the turret. At first light we got rid of the offending barbed wire and got away sharp before the Italians discovered they had been spoofed
My Dad was in the RAF in Burma and always chuckled whilst telling us - After the end of hostilities there was a lot of work to do to make Rangoon harbour workable. Not happy with being involved in the chaos and manual labour, him and his colleague were given a last delivery job before going back to some 'liberated' American rations. Manoeuvring too fast on the crowded harbour, their 3 ton truck went over the harbour edge. Having scrambled out as it teetered on the edge, they watched as the air in the canvas tilt bubbled out of the floating truck. They were soon joined by a very harassed looking Army Officer in charge of that wharf and an MP - the Officer looked them straight in the eye and said "If the f****er sinks p*** off, if it floats and I have to do the paperwork you're f****ed". It sank.
This is pre-war (1937) but on topic. It's the opening of 'Buried Treasure' by P.G. Wodehouse, who famously got himself into hot water by not taking the Nazis seriously enough. Anyway, the conceit of this series of short stories is that the patrons of the Angler's Rest pub are all referred to by their preferred drink (here 'a Whisky and Splash'):
Hitler's sister in law claimed that she had advised him to trim his luxuriant tash if he wanted to to be taken seriously as a politician but she said "as in so many things he took matters a little too far".
