Great little anecdote involving the L42 i just read

[BushyFromOz]

I have just been flicking though a book that just showed up in my mailbox "The Lee Enfield Rifle" By Martin Pegler. On page 68, he shares a little story from a 2 Para trooper in the Falklands.

A bullet shot past my face. it was so close i felt it physically. All of us dived automatically for the ground.

Someone called out "It's a fu##ing sniper."

To our rear i noticed a bush. Not that surprising, we were in a field, but this bush was different, it was moving. It became apparent that it was not a bush, but a member of our sniper platoon. He jumped up on the wall. Two more rapid shots flew over. The bush remained on the wall and from out from underneath one of his branches pulled a pair of binoculars.

"Definitely a sniper" declared the bush... and with that he finally jumped down off the wall and crawled off to our right. After about twenty meters he stopped, aimed his rifle and fired a single shot.

"I think i got him" said the bush.

After the battle, the British bush had gone in search of the the Argentinian bush. On Finding him he discovered that he had shot him clean through the head at a distance of over 1000 meters.

I love this little story so much, not so much the L42 part in it, but that dry sense of British humor about the "British Bush", It cracks me up, it cant be beaten as far as I'm concerned

Pegler sites K.Lukowiak A Soldiers Song as the reference for this quote. Seems like another book i have to find

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[gundoc2112]

That is awesome.

[55recce]

Think I have just about everything written on the Falklands War, Iraq, Afghanistan and others. This is one of my favourite books and I cannot recommend highly enough.......

[Surpmil]

Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us.

[limpetmine]

That is a great book, and he has some interesting stories of the early Long Branch sniper program and serials. Highly recommended.

[Kiwisteve]

Cool little story, I enjoy reading war anecdotes such as this .

If I remember correctly from High School, that would be Macbeth which you have
quoted Surpmil.

Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[CINDERS]

When you go home
Tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow,
We gave our today.

Inscription on the monument of the British Second Division on Garrison Hill at Kohima, India, commemorating the 17,587 British casualties at the Battle of Kohima, 5th April - 30th May 1944

Source ~ The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations Edited By Peter G Tsouras ISBN- 18536875865 (This is a great addition to any library I often refer to it at times)

[Surpmil]

Cool little story, I enjoy reading war anecdotes such as this .

If I remember correctly from High School, that would be Macbeth which you have
quoted Surpmil.

Bring it after me.
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Be it for good or ill, what's learned young is not forgot!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

When you go home
Tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow,
We gave our today.

Inscription on the monument of the British Second Division on Garrison Hill at Kohima, India, commemorating the 17,587 British casualties at the Battle of Kohima, 5th April - 30th May 1944

Source ~ The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations Edited By Peter G Tsouras ISBN- 18536875865 (This is a great addition to any library I often refer to it at times)

Funny I was just reading about the Burma theatre last night and the various ups and downs of the campaign. Seems to have wrecked a few careers, rightly or wrongly. Aung San not quite the hero some people would like to think him...innumerable factions and tribes...Stillwell...messy! Wingate, Churchill's Wolfe? (Geo.III on Wolfe: "Mad is he? Then I wish he would bite some of my other generals!")

That memorial was mentioned and the fact that it derives from the famous Spartan memorial at Thermopylae. Struck me that they gave more in their tomorrows than their "todays".