I've been trying to get this together for ages, and I wanted to put it up for Remembrance Day last year but I didn't, and even though it's barely started if I don't do it this year I probably won't ever.
It's just a list of links to cool war hero obituaries that happen to have caught my eye from time to time, to be read when in need of uplift and inspiration. I'd like to do some more systematic and comprehensive listing at some point, but, lack of time. I haven't even managed to find my particular favourite ones, though, so I might add to it occasionally when I have a moment. Anyway here's the small handful I already had.
Shot down three times, escaped three times
Lost an arm in Normandy; after the war used to drive around with his false arm dangling out of the boot of his car
Read Trollope at the Battle of Arnhem. The skiving bastard
SBS commando upon whose exploits on Rhodes the film 'They Who Dare' was based. Once captured two Germans and stood them tea at a restaurant in Cairo before handing them over for interrogation. Blew an operation by oversleeping. My kind of man
Wounded in three limbs, escaped from POW hospital in Athens and reached Egypt by sailing a boat across the Med with blankets for sails. Thrown from a horse at the age of 80, breaking his back for the sixth time
Had 11 tanks shot from under him. Bit of a jinx really
Major-General Frantisek Perina
Shot down four Stukas in four minutes. Shot down three bombers and managed to make two of them fall on Switzerland, which gets double points in my book.
SOE behind-the-lines type. Price put on his head by the Japanese. MC and Croix de Guerre. Parachuted into Burma and fell down a 30 foot ravine with his first step. Parachuted into Brittany, hit himself on the chin with the butt of his own gun on landing and found himself dazed and unable to remember the password for his secret contacts. Also my kind of man. But killed more fascists than I've had hot dinners
Navy flier. Sunk four ships with three torpedoes. 'Visited by a premonition that he would not die flying' although he seems to have tried his damnedest to prove it wrong
Manned an observation post alone for two months
George Medal at 17
Colour-blind bomb disposal expert. That's, COLOUR-BLIND bomb disposal expert. George Medal for saving, well, the city of Lubeck. Sometimes exploded 90 tons of bombs a day
Helped sink the Scharnhorst by climbing a mast in a force-8 gale to fix a radar antenna
Pulled a gun on Aussies who tried to steal his booze
3 MCs. Set up a fund to help the Italian farmers who'd sheltered him after his escape from POW camp
Rescued 900 from Dunkirk
Absolutely nails VC holder
Gurkha VC
Kiwi DFC
Far East Commando MC. Bought new teeth for a mule-driver who saved his life
Submariner, disposed of loose bombs rolling round in the hold
Noted after desperate battle, 'Even Germans don't like to be shot'. Military Police had to arrest him so he'd be sober enough to receive his VC from the King
Nov 11 07
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2011: RIP Patrick Leigh Fermor
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