“This is your lifeline, don’t cut it!”

The 12th SS Division were the ones who shot some of our prisoners up in Abbaye, their headquarters were in the Abbey, it’s right up here. We had a muster parade, I’ll never forget it. I often wonder if anybody else is left alive who would remember it. And during the muster parade they confirmed the murder of these guys and they said under no circumstances will revenge in kind be taken. There will be no shooting of prisoners in this army nor was there. He said you must kill the enemy in battle but not afterward. They said something else at that muster meeting. They said always in training we used to get breakdown in signals communications but here in Normandy we haven’t a minute that we didn’t have full signals communication. Ya, I wanted to say that! That was pretty pleasant. Our lineman had a little tag I know that we used to put on and it used to say, “This is your lifeline, don’t cut it!” That’s true.