BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War'

Subject: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: 3refs
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 11:23 AM

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!

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 11:41 AM

What a horrible story! The commandant was of course committing a war crime- reprisals are as bad as the original offence. The soldiers from neighbouring camps were volunterrs, so they didn't even have the excuse that they were only obeying orders.

But worse things happened. The British tortured people they thought were Gestapo. Often they weren't. Nothing bad happened to the torturers, except that they stayed themselves which I suppose is bad enough.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Barry Finn
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 11:48 AM

"How do you tell a funny story about 'War"
You don't! There is absoulty nothing funny about war, sick, perverted, ugly mabybe but not funny, not even after the passage of time.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:13 PM

For Chrissake PMB - Hev a friggin word wi' yersel!

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:22 PM

Anyway! Aah dee a coupla very emotional songs aboot WW1 and preamble them wi' this story - Is it funny? Maist people seem te think so! - You tell uz!

A young soldier has spent months at the front. The incessant shelling and conditions eventually get to him and he cracks!

He runs away from the front line. He runs and runs and runs until, totally exhausted, he collapses on the ground in tears.

Lying there, gasping for breath he hears a voice say, "Get up, soldier! On your feet!"

he looks up and sees a shiny pair of brown shoes, above them a smartly creased pair of khaki trousers and a tunic with a 'Sam Brown' belt.

"I'm sorry, Colonel!" says the young soldier. "I just can't stand it anymore"

The voice says, "I am not a colonel! I am a Brigadier!"

The soldier gasps, "Christ! I didn't know I could run THAT far!"

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Mr Happy
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:23 PM

'irregardless'isn't a real word.

Is it as fantastic as the restof your hypothesis?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: artbrooks
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:24 PM

So, he arms men with clubs (what else is a baseball bat, in these circumstances?) and turns them loose to suppress a rebellion by prisoners who are standing up for their legal rights. And you find this unique and humorous? Sorry, I'm afraid I disagree.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Skivee
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:37 PM

Little Rotten Johnny is in school one day and the substitute teacher is giving a lesson about fables.
You know what a fable is, dontcha?
That's right, It's a story that you can learn a lesson from.
So the teacher tells a few of Aesop's fables, then asks if any of the children have a fable...a little story from their lives that the rest of the children could learn something from.
Well,Little Rotten Johnny starts waving his hand furiously in the air, but the substitute teacher has been wraned to never call on little Rotten Johnny because he says such rude things.
So instead she calls on little Billie Day.
Billie tells about how he was staying at his uncle's farm for the summer, and his uncle had assigned him chores to do. One of his chores was to bring eggs into the house from the chicken coop.
He normally did it in two trips, but he was in a hurry to join his friends at the swimming hole, so he put all the eggs into a big basket and carried then to the house. The were very heavy and as Billie started up the steps he tripped and all the eggs were smashed.
The Teacher asked Billie what he had vlearned from this, and Billie said,"don't put all your eggs in one basket".
The class agreed that it was a good thing to know.
Then the teacher asked for another fable, and little Rotten Johnny was wavng his hand around, but the teacher didn't call on him. Instead, she called on little Jacqui Morse, who told her fable.
She said that she had visited her grampa who ran a dairy farm. Most of the milk was sent away to the plant to be made into cheese of ice cream, but her grampa gave her a big bucket of milk to take into the kitchen to drink for breakfast. so Jacqui started carrying the bucket back to the house, but as she started up the steps, she tripped and the bucket fell and the milk splashed away and Jacqui began to cry.
Jacqui's grandma can to the door and saw little Jacqui the .
So the teacher asked her what Grammy told her, and Jacqui said," She told me that there was no point in crying over spilt milk."
The class agreed that it was a good thing to know.
The teacher asked if anybody else had a fable to tell, but the only student waving his hand was little Rotten Johnny. There was no way to avoid it, so she asked Johnny to tell his fable.
"Well", said Johnny,"My dad was in the army in the war.
"Yes, prompted the teacher, while cringing a bit.
"well, he was goin' though France lookin' for Germans to kill, and he found one of those places where they make wine."
"A winery" she supplied.
"Yeah, that's it. So dad and his buddies broke into the place and took a whole bunch of wine back to his foxhole and drank it all up. When he woke up, he was surrounded by Nazis, so he picked up his machine gun and blasted those krauts on one side and killed some more with grenades and stabbed a guy in the eye and got him too."
The teacher cautiously asked Johnny what they could learn from this story.
Johnny said,"I learned that war is a terrible, wasteful experience that destroys lives, and people really die, and it isn't a proper subject for humor, or movies that make war look funny."
The teacher started turning away,a bit surprized and relieved, when Johnny added with a big grin, "the other thing I learned is that you DON'T FUCK WITH MY DAD WHEN HE'S DRUNK!!!!"
The next day there was a new substitute teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Skivee
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 12:46 PM

BTW 3refs, I can't find a thing funny in your story.
I must just not get the joke. On the face if it this sounds like a terrible abuse of power by a camp commander who sunk to the level of the Nazis, but I'm sure there must be something funny in it, right. Maybe the funny faces of the German prisoners after the the troops had worked them over for a while; or how funny they might have looked trying to walk with a smashed kneecap or two?
Yeah, that must be the funny part.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 01:16 PM

Sorry, 3refs - I've heard a couple of quite funny stories about POW camps in Canada, but this ain't one of them. As for the Commander's approach being peculiarly Canadian - well, yeah, I've seen a Canadian kid attack another wielding a hockey stick like a club, from behind, after the whistle blew ... it was ugly, but it was Canadian, all right. I've seen people whacked around the head with lacrosse sticks, too. Fortunately, I've never witnessed anyone being lambasted with a baseball bat, and I hope I never do.

Wonder how that Commander would have handled the situation if his camp was only a few hundred miles from the front?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 01:46 PM

But then, if they were dealing with dummies like this, it puts a whole different spin on the story ...

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 01:51 PM

hmmmm...I think I see some of the background premises..

"If it involves testosterone in large quantities, it is perfectly reasonable behavior"

and

"If no one is actually killed, it is ok to laugh at it."

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 02:16 PM

"How" is to save them for swapping with others who went through a similar time or experience-- then they're "war stories" and people may either laugh, weep, punch your lights out, or whatever incl. all of the above-- all in good hearty fellowship.

Same thing about any trauma. You oughtta hear the jokes in the hearses, after the funerals. Soimetimes ya just gotta blow in a safe place with people who get it.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 03:35 PM

Or the jokes at veterans' groups, or in emergency rooms, or in cop shops, or in fire departments, or in the active military. Humor is one of the most effective ways humans have of not going crazy -- which you easily could....

But speaking of POW stories -- a bunch decided to escape from a POW camp near Phoenix, Arizona. They even obtained a map of the area. One group was to do this and another that. One group noticed the blue line of the Salt River, so they made a collapsible boat, figuring they could take the Salt to the Colorado to the Bay of California, Mexico and then back to Germany.

They broke out, via tunnels, and all were recaptured within 24 hours without problems. The group with the boat was found on the bank of the Salt, staring at the dry riverbed of the very intermittent river....

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 04:03 PM

Um.... whilst the rest of you are galloping into the sunset on your high and mighty horses, may I ask about this, from the original post... "As a result of the treatment of Canadian prisoners by the Germans in Dieppe,...."

Care to tell us about it or site an authentic source where we can be edified?

As for the treatment of German prisoners of war, I have a number of "funny" stories, as told to me by my father, who was in charge of many prisoners of war on ships returning to Canada. YES. They ARE funny. Is war or anything near it funny? NO. But, my old man would knock you off yer high horses if he was was still here.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 04:08 PM

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 ...

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: beardedbruce
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 04:09 PM

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-71-2359-13809/conflict_war/dieppe/clip4

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 04:35 PM

And I have to admit, there does seem something characteristically Canadian in the quaint combination of humanity and violence represented in this story. The authorities took great care to diminish the possibility of fatality - but equally great care to ensure a Donnybrook of the first order.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 05:30 PM

There are some clips concerning Canadian POW camps here, although Bowmanville is not mentioned.

Apparently there were a couple of dramatic escapes from the Bowmanville camp - one U-boat commander made it all the way to the coast of New Brunswick, where a U-boat was waiting for him - he got caught at the last minute.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Jun 07 - 06:00 PM

I know a man who was a boy in Germany during WWII. His father sometimes brought home from the nearby camp a POW for dinner. Pierre, a Frenchman, was a favorite.

My friend was 14 and in the Hitler Youth. He was very proud of the uniform that went with it. Each Friday he attended a meeting of the HY and had to pass by the POW camp. Invariably Pierre was outside next to the fence as Artur went by. Pierre would snap off an enthusiastic salute and bark: Sheiss, Hitler!.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: cookster
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 11:49 AM

where did you meet this "man"?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 05:44 PM

His father sometimes brought home from the nearby camp a POW for dinner

Do french POW's taste better than English? Must be the wine and sauces.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 08:48 PM

He was a member of a German tank crew and was captured in France when he was 19, Cookster. He spent the duration as a prisoner of war in America. He emigrated to this country in the 50s.   

Donuel, no doubt. :)

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: cookster
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 09:24 PM

Does he live in America?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 09:58 PM

Yes, Cookster, he lives in Oregon.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 12:06 PM

Sometimes you just have to be there, in someone's shoes, to appreciate the "humor" of the situation. The original story doesn't sound funny to me but it just might have been to the participants after they cooled off.

"Gallows humor" is even a darker form of humor that those involved in bizarre situations use to preserve their sanity. It also doesn't translate well to outsiders -- be you doctor, lawyer, policeman or soldier.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

Ebbie do you know if he is dead yet? and does he speak english?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 03:21 PM

Yes, Cookster, he may be dead by now. And he speaks/spoke English well although with an accent.

They say that up until age 12 people can learn a new language without an accent- after that it is much more difficult. So get busy, Cookste!

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 04:24 PM

OK!

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 04:25 PM

has it been proven?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 05:35 PM

Oh, ja, sure.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 05:46 PM

There are a lot of funny war stories, beacuse I am assured that life was not always bleak and tragic. My father was a petty officer with the Royal Navy, and during one incident in Australia he managed to obtain several tons of canned peaches his intentions being to sell them when he returned home to the UK (my father WAS the blackmarket). He secreted them in a safe place just outside of Brisbane and the ship then sailed for a week. On his return he found that the bunker in which he had stashed his hoard was now under a brand new highway. He is 81 now but I think he still intends to go back with a shovel one day!

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: cookster
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 05:47 PM

seriously?

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: frogprince
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 09:30 PM

Linda, that's a legitimate good story, with a military setting, and it may have happened in wartime. But it just isn't in the same realm as "the guy in the foxhole next to me got his brains blown out, and the spatter looked like a 'Kilroy was here' cartoon". I feel quite free to smile at your story, without being ashamed of myself.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:19 PM

But - if you check out the link I provided a few posts back, you'll find that the original 'story' isn't really a 'the guy in the foxhole next to me' story either. I was one of the ones who took 3refs to task early on for making light of what seemed to be a grisly incident, but once I dug up the details, I understood where he was coming from. His story wasn't really about a bunch of guys with baseball bats beating the shit out of a bunch of other guys; it was more like what we Canadians know and love as a 'bench-clearing brawl'. Okay, not all Canadians love it, but most do. We can't help it; it's in our blood.

The humour here isn't really classically 'gallows' or 'black', although it may have a bit of sadistic edge to it - in the style of, say, The Three Stooges.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: frogprince
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:30 PM

Agreed, meself; I went through the same reaction sequence starting with the initial post and then the follow-throughs.
I guess when I think about "telling a funny story about war" I get flashbacks to "Hogan's Heroes", with their whimsical adventures in the German stalag, and my cringe relex may jump the gun a little.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 10:44 PM

Yeah, I know what you mean - although, speaking of that, I once heard a Canadian vet who had been a POW in a German camp interviewed, and in talking about a reunion the POWs had been planning forty years or so later, he said they realized that they all wanted to find one of their former guards and bring him to the reunion - he said this guard was 'just like Schultz on Hogan's Heroes'. As it turned out, they were able to locate him through German veterans' associations, and they paid his way over to the reunion.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 08:42 AM

ok, here's one that is wrapped in rather macabre humour-a close relative was a UN inspector in Kosovo. He was staying in Albania at one of Tirana's better hotel's having paid extra out of his own money because the standard was so poor. He worked with some Canadian UN inspectors who were bemoaning their hotel-'come on over to ours 'he said 'we have water and everything'. So the Canadians packed up and were about to move when their hotel owner held them up at gunpoint and refused to let them move -a standoff developed and eventually a shoot out involving both hotel owners and eventually the police and armed military units from Canada and the UK -my relative likened it to the gunfight at the OK Corral. I think the outcome involved the death of the hostage taker, so if it wasn't so bizzarre it would have been macabre. And yes the tins of peaches thing really happened. but my father also used to take photos of burials at sea during the war ad sel them-he still has some. Its what people did.

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: 3refs
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 01:09 PM

For those of you who were able to decipher my poor literary skills and see how I was trying to portray this event, Thank-You!!!

Subject: RE: BS: How do you tell a funny story about 'War
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 11:05 PM

Well, I was glad to get the heads-up about that incident ... I had never heard of it. It was probably covered up as much as possible at the time, then after the war it was old news ... but it's a great story! Thanks again.