As is so often the case, the story of the shackling of the prisoners is a little more complicated than oral history would have it. I only had time to skim through it, and will go back and read it more thoroughly later, but, along with the tale of the 'battle', it is detailed here.

The 'battle', although much of it sounds like it would not have been very funny at the time, certainly had its, um, potentially-comedic elements - including the German POW's with pillows tied to their heads in preparation for further hostilities. It sounds a bit like an overblown gang-fight. There were a couple of serious injuries - but you CAN imagine most of them laughing about it later.

The Canadians won in the end, of course, and a number of prisoners were shackled for a time. From the linked site:


Each day he would be shackled and each day the Canadian Captain in charge accidentally dropped his keys as he left. Others picked the locks of the shackles after the guards left and put them back on before the guards returned. ...

Kapitänleutnant Horst Elfe returned to Canada for a reunion and said, "It was just like the end of a football match. Two groups of young-men grinning like fools because they had enjoyed a good tussle…. When I went back to Germany, they wouldn't believe it could happen like that."


Thanks to 3refs for apprising us of this incident - even if his rendition of it didn't come across quite the way he intended ...