When it comes to war or imprisonment, irregardless of who's side your on or what the reason is, it's pretty hard to smile about any of it. But, things that happen between "foes", that truly are funny(when you look back) do happen!
"The Battle of Bowmanville". It took place at a P.O.W. camp for Germans in Bowmanville Ontario, Canada, during the Second World War. As a result of the treatment of Canadian prisoners by the Germans in Dieppe, the Commanding Officer in Bowmanville ordered that 100 German prisoners volunteer to be shackled. These prisoners were not your regular grunts, they were mostly "Submariners", and I think it takes a special kind of "Nuts" to be a "Submariner"(much like "Miners"). Needless to say, there were no volunteers and the POW's revolted. They armed themselves as best they could and barricaded themselves in the mess hall.
Now, had this insurrection taken place in a German, Russian or Japanese POW camp I'm absolutely sure that the way in which it was handled would have been much different.
We, as Canadians, often find it difficult to define ourselves to the rest of the world. We are a country of immigrants(and the aboriginals we didn't slaughter)with most of our traditions being of Europian origion. We proudly identify ourselves as being the best hockey and lacrosse players on the planet and if you really piss us off we can be the nastiest bastards there are! We also like to think we try to be fair and just, but that's about it! So, what is a Canadian? Who knows? We are lots of things!
I think the way inwhich the Commanding Officer responded, when looking back at it, to me, was unique and humorous and a "Canadian" way of doing things! I think he tryed to be fair in a situation that could have resulted in many deaths. After all, they were rioting POW's, just open fire until they quit or are dead. No, not this guy! He recruits men from surrounding military bases, arms them with "baseball bats" and they "duked er out" for three days! The Germans gave as good as they got and it took water cannon bombardments before they finally gave in.
I don't think there were any deaths although I'm sure many were severly injured. I have seen interviews of the POW's and the Guards who were there and they all laughed about it, every one of them!
The lighter side of war, who'd have thunk it!