WW2 PoW stuff:
 

I'm a real sucker for anything PoW: really enjoy pc games Prisoner of War and The Great Escape, all the films plus no end of books. Does anyone remember Hogan's Heroes? (I know they're out on DVD but not sure whether in UK-playable format).

In which film was a character heard to say "Why don't we take our time and get the lot?"

Hoghan's Heroes
 

I'm dating myself here, but I used to watch it on the network when I was a kid. I'm going to guess that the quote you are referring to might be attributed to Newkirk, played by Richard Dawson.

Sorry, my fault: I should've stuck that quote on at the beginning, not after mentioning Hogan's Heroes. The quote is from a PoW movie (in black & white, to narrow it down a bit).

I used to watch it as a kid, too, so that's both of us. And the quote I remember most from that is "I know NUSSING!"

Hogan's Heroes
 

Sergeant Schultz!
Remember 'Raus 'Raus 'Raus! (Out, Out, Out!)?

Yes, that was the guy, and the Kommandant was Colonel Klink as I recall. Have you ever played the pc games? There's a great chapter in "Prisoner of War"where you get dumped in Colditz.

I came across a pictorial plate showing the place in an antique shop in Wragby a short while back and my first thought was "Who on earth would want this?" Second was "Who on earth could've wanted to make it?" I think it's quite likely it came from the castle gift shop during the communist era; it was a horrible brown monochrome...

trivia:

Werner Klemperer who played Colonel Klink was jewish and escaped Germany with his family in the 1930s.

Several of the actors in "The Great Escape" had been POWs in WW2:

- Donald Pleasance was in the RAF and held in a German POW camp.

- Hannes Messemer who played the Camp commander had been a POW of the Russians;

- Til Kiwe who played one of the German Guards had a been held in an American POW camp. He actually did excape a few times, once making it all the way from Colorado to St. Louis.

- Hans Reiser who played a Gestapo Agent had also been held by the U.S.A.

POW
 

I didn't even know there were PC games about POWs. I've always been interested in flight, and the past 6 mos., SUBMARINES.
If you don't mind me asking, why the handle Eichhornchen? Eichhörnchen is squirrel auf Deutsch.

ya fergot one; John Banner who played Sergeant Schultz:" He died in Vienna age 63 in 1973 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...as_Schultz.jpg

Wow! The only part of that I'd already learned was that Werner Klemperer was jewish...

How on earth did you get an umlaut on your "o", Joefour??

I picked "Eichhornchen" because (so it's said) the Germans used to demand its pronunciation by prisoners they suspected were British. It's apparently one of the words we find hardest to pronounce correctly. Mind you, I can't say "squirrel" after a couple of tots...

Years ago, when my second home was the pub, a bunch of like-minded pals and I determined we would get hold of the board game "Escape From Colditz" and immerse ourselves in some regular alcohol-fuelled adventure. The beer-goggles would have proved a hindrance to escape, I'm sure, but then the Germans wouldn't have been able to shoot straight either. I don't think any of us would've got far.

My mate Keith said he would only play if he could be the Germans. Fair enough, but we never got around to it. Has anyone played the game and was it any good? It probably would have still been much more fun than the best pc game, and we might even have finished the evening locked up for real...

Passwords
 

I have had a terrible time trying to get links in here before, so just do a search for "german ALT codes" (No, has nothing to do with Enigma, He, He) I'm assuming you are on a British keyboard which should act the same as an American one. Hold down the alt key and at the same time type in 0246 on the NUMLOCK keys. Doesn't work with the numerals at the top of the keyboard. You will get an ö. In fact, these ASCII code keys will produce punctuation for all the major european tongues.
The other alternative is to spell the old way they did in german before they came up with the umlaut-means "sound change". ae=ä, oe=ö, ue=ü, etc. You will see this reflected in some old german family names, like the poet Goethe, pronounced Göte. Another good excample is the family here in the NW that sells forest products. Weyerhaeuser. Everybody here calls it "Werhauzer" but the correct german pronunciation would be "Vyerhoizer".

As far as passwords go...
Sounds kinda like what the Americans did in the Pacific, with passwords like "Lalapalooza". A Japanese voice out in the bush would have a helluva time with that one unless he was American born.

I take my Hut off to you, Joefour. I hadn't put all this together before, despite doing German rather than French in school; I learned a lot this evening, thanks!

When I'm feeling brave enough I'll have a go at that keyboard thing.

Windtalkers was a good film (movie, now I know where you're from) too, wasn't it? My old dad was a Welshman, and even we couldn't tell what he was talking about half the time; I don't think the British Army ever cottoned on to that idea."Was ist dies "Cariad Bach?" Welsh windtalkers: what a thought... (He was in the Royal Welch Fusiliers in NW Europe, 1944-5 and yes, that IS how they spell it).

Windtalkers
 

If the British military had used Welsh or for that matter, Gaelic as a code language and encrypted it, that would have really confounded the hell out of german intelligence. As it was, the B-Dienst was reading almost as much of Allied coms as Bletchley Park was reading Enigma. The problem was that the High Command had their head up their Arsch in insisting that Enigma was unbreakable.

Windtalkers was an excellent movie. By the way, remember The Tom Jones show? Forgive me if I screw up badly with the spelling but... Gwyn eich byd a dymunaf i chwi lawenydd bob amser!

Talking about Colditz reminds me of a movie I seen ages ago. Must be about 40 yrs since I seen it and like the pow's at Colditz, they decided to build a glider. Unlike the actual facts, they managed to launch it. I can't remember much else about it such as if anybody actually escaped. One thing I do remember is that they were trying to find some way to cover the frame and ended up using their breakfast porridge to help with that. Obviously they were using some type of fabric and I'm not sure what exactly the porridge was supposed to do. I just remember the camp cook saying he didn't understand what was going on because all the prisoners were coming back for seconds when usually they couldn't stand it.

I had searched IMDB about a year ago under pow movies but nothing came up. Just tried under google and found the movie I'm talking about:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066833/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I'll have to see if I can track down a copy.