Tied and Chained for 13 Months
The Dieppe Raid
Tied and Chained for 13 Months
We were tied for thirteen months.
That was quite an ordeal. We had a bunch
of extra guards and whatnot in the pillboxes
and we had no idea what was happening.
They lined us up in fours and the first
bunch that went in,
really I was in the next bunch...listening for shots,
you know, not knowing what was going
to happen with so many guards around.
So the next bunch was called in and
they just tied us up like that.
We still wondered what they were going to do
to us afterwards but at least we were still living.
And then they had no orders to untie us so the
first couple of days we slept like that and
we would wake up at night and want to move
your hand but couldn’t do it. We complained that
they were using Red Cross string to tie us up
whether that was true or not.
Anyhow after they give us,
well I guess you’d call it…
but they were about this far apart.
And we were thirteen months like that but
you could play cards, you could do anything.
It didn’t interfere that much.
Near the end of the thirteen months during
that time too, we got so that we could
open them up with a bully tin.
They were easy to open up and we
would take them off. We’d get our chains
put on and we would take them off and
go around again and it was the same bunch
going around and around and they would…
anyhow, near the end the guards would come
in on the table and then if an officer come in
they’d come rushing through the barracks,
“Put your chains on, put your chains on!”
We’d put them back on!
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