The Arabs and the Jews have never got along.
Israel reacted by capturing the Sinai Peninsula and Egyptian forces retreated to the west.
But as they did, Egypt blocked the Suez Canal behind them to prevent the enemy from using it.
We were in a very comfortable prison,saidCaptain Miroslaw Proskurnicki of the Polish shipJakarta.
The first month was like a holiday.
The second month was very hard.
By the end of the third month, it was terrible.
Life boats were equipped with sailing gear and a yachting club was founded.
ThePoles wonthe Olympics overall, the Germans came second and the British third.
They even devised a postal system with hand-crafted postage stamps and cancellation rubber stamps that said Mailed on Board.
Of course, the stamps were not real and hadno postal validity.
Yet, some covers are known to have reached their recipients with Great Bitter Lake stamps alone.
Fortunately, the crews were not trapped inside the canal for the entire eight years.
They were allowed to go home and replacement crews were brought in.
This was needed to keep the ships in order.
This left enough time for reading books, playing bridge and ping-pong, and drinking beer.
The crews were rotated every three to four months.
Over this eight year period, some 3,000 men did duty on the stranded Suez ships.
For some, the experience in the canal was one of the most memorable.
One of the ships, the American vesselSS African Glenwas sunk in 1973 by an Israeli rocket.
The British wrote off its four ships as insurance loss, and the Swedish shipNipponwas bought by Norway.
