Naval fire support in Normandy

[aurora]

Thank you pg for your story-mine was much the same but embellished; as in later life he obviously saw it as a shameful act and tried to mitigate himself.Another became an SS man -he had the tatoo confirming this; and the other Poles censured him for that; but he just shrugged "So What"
PS I accept now that I used the wrong word


aurora

[Byron Angel]

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On that (much more serious) issue, I once came across a "can-lad" (i.e. tea boy) on a construction site who was rather confused and ill. It turned out that he was a Pole who had been captured by the Soviets in 1940's "friendly" invasion and had been a prisoner, who was then conscripted into the Soviet Army as a labourer when the German's invaded. During the war his unit was captured by the Germans wholesale and got German uniforms to work as labourers. Late in the War it happened again (!) with the now extremely depleted unit captured by the Soviets and being used as near slave labour. The remaining few went with them into Germany where they were abandoned at the war's end. Eventually the bloke was "adopted" by some Polish refugees who after more travails got him to the UK. By 1980 (when I met him) he was a wreck mentally and physically, but could talk quite well when calmed down. A tragic life with truly horrific "war stories".
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..... There are older folks walking by us on the street every day. We have no idea what amazing or unusual lives they have led. Back in the early 70's, I was in Florida for a family wedding. As I was sitting by the pool reading through a naval history book, a distinguished elderly gentleman, who must have noticed what I was reading, settled down on the chaise next to me and we struck up a conversation. It turned out that he had been a lieutenant in the USN during WW1 and had been sent to Murmansk at the end of the war as part of the Allied anti-Bolshevik intervention. Over the course of two years, he said that he journeyed from Murmansk entirely across Russia, travelling by auto, train, foot, river boat, panje cart, sleigh and troika, until he reached Vladivostock and was finally picked up by a US cruiser.

For that matter, there are probably frequenters of this very forum who have led what most of us would consider "interesting" lives.

B

[Djoser]

Thank you pg for your story-mine was much the same but embellished; as in later life he obviously saw it as a shameful act and tried to mitigate himself.Another became an SS man -he had the tatoo confirming this; and the other Poles censured him for that; but he just shrugged "So What"
PS I accept now that I used the wrong word


aurora

Not the wrong word at all, it was merely misunderstood.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/impress

Go down the page a little ways, it gives the secondary definition which specifically backs up your entirely correct use of the word.

[aurora]

Djoser-thank you kindly-being relatively new- I was not gong to argue too much about it.

aurora