Almost Human

Well Dunkirk was heavily fortified and had about, oh God how many . . . something like 16 or 17 thousand troops in there and they thought rather than try to take it, it would cost them too much, they put what they called a steel ring around it. Heavy artillery, light artillery and everything right around them and hemmed them in. And the only thing we would let in, and that was once a week, was their mail plane. We allowed it to fly in, but other than that . . . and I remember Christmas of ‘44, we were there and they took advantage, Christmas day when we had a cease-fire. They started rebuilding a wall that we had knocked down. And of course the spotters spotted them working on it so we reminded them they shouldn't. We dropped two shells in among them and that sorted that out. That put a stop to that. But all for all, it was a . . . it wasn't a war that . . . had the Allies been weak and losing out, the Germans would have been a bit more ruthless, but they weren't, they got that they were almost human.