Explain the joke to me...

[Rolf Steiner]

Don't know what reminded me of this all of a sudden, but ages ago was watching one of those docu-dramatisations concerning Dunkirk. Towards the end of it, there's a scene with some wounded brit soldiers who've been left in a wood waiting for germans to arrive. As prone brit casualties and approaching landers eye each other with curiousity, one of the brits croaks at leading german: 'What do you want?'. German bloke answers 'Marmalade', and they both start laughing. What??? (Was there some propaganda thing about third reich jam shortages or something?)

[phylo_roadking]

I think it's just what used to be called "nervous hysteria". The officer in question was Jimmy Langley; he lost his arm in captivity but STILL managed to escape and make it back to England, where he used the knowledge he gained of the various "amateur" French evasion networks to help organise and later was in charge of MI9, the evasion organisation. I THINK the line immediately before that was indeed Langley asking the approaching German what he wanted....he got an honest answer and kinked up LOL IIRC Only Langley broke down, the "German" was looking at the hysterical Englander rather strangely...

Langley wrote and later published a wartime diary, as well as using major parts of it in his "official history" of MI9; I've yet to find a copy but I'd love to know how this is written up in it...

[Rolf Steiner]

Ah that's a little clearer, thanks Phylo. Hope the chap got his jam! Maybe in 1940 he'd have got real fruit in it!