He said .. 'Frankly, I enjoyed the war!'

[Badger]

Quite a story !!


Frankly, I enjoyed the war! Incredible bravery of Victoria Cross hero who lost an eye, was shot in the skull and tore off his own fingers but still went back to battle

Regards,
Doug

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[muffett.2008]

Good reading.

[lude92]

amazing story

[enfield303t]

Wow, one tough SOB. Great story!

[Bill Hollinger]

Wow, one tough SOB. Great story!

No kidding!

[bigduke6]

Think I would of called it a day after loosing the eye and the hand ! looking at the pic he has 10 wound stripes, not many got passed two who lived to tell the story.

[Surpmil]

He wasn't the only one. "Happy Odyssey" is the name of his autobiography and it's a good read. The VC notwithstanding, you can take him as pretty much representative of his place and time; only most of those people never wrote their autobiographies, the few that survived WWI. Being a relative of a Belgian PM and the son of a banker he was pretty well connected, but one can't say he didn't succeed on his merits.

Just goes to show what a stiff upper lip can achieve. There's an amusing story in there of his challenging a suitor he didn't consider suitable for a certain lady to a duel in the 1930s. He retired to an estate in the Pripyet Marshes of Eastern Poland in the 1920s and his war experiences probably had something to do with that.

I don't think you'll ever see more wound stripes on a sleeve than that.

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