Uncanny Tales – (097) The Call of Duty – They’ve Got Us Surrounded

 

Being a man of a certain age, I have always been a great admirer of the generation ahead of me and there resoluteness in the face of adversity.

Their resilience and fortitude during the Second World War when ordinary men and women donned the many and various uniforms of the armed forces and stood up to be counted.

In the beginning it was a voluntary system, and you had some level of choice as to what arm of the forces you wanted to go into but once you chose your preferred service there was no guarantee that you would get it and once in you had no control as to what you would end up doing.

Now obviously some roles were more dangerous than others but nonetheless I still think they were very brave.

There wasn’t really a cushy number to be had you were all in the firing line to some degree.

And it wasn’t just those in military uniform who risked their lives.

Police, Firemen, ARP, fire watchers, Observers and the merchant marine were just as brave.

 

If it were me joining up back, then I’m not sure which service I would have preferred.

But whatever service you ended up with or the role within it there were some more hazardous than others.

Some so hazardous that it was like wearing a target along with the uniform.

The peril that some of them placed themselves under was truly astonishing and there are a number who deserve special mention, so I have picked one example from each service and one civilian occupation to illustrate the courage that was commonplace.

 

Paratroopers

 

Finding a candidate from the Army was quite difficult as it is such a broad church.

With many suitable examples to choose from but after some little thought I settled on the paratroopers who I once heard described as the “umbrella danglers”.

In army strategy one of the cardinal sins is to allow your forces to become surrounded or cut off from the main body.

I remember reading about an American soldier from one of their airborne divisions, it was after the Germans had broken through the Allied lines in the heavily forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium which is perhaps better known as the Battle of the Bulge.

The soldier was reporting to his officer on the situation and said.

“The Germans have us surrounded sir”.

The officer looked directly at the young soldier and replied.

“We’re paratrooper’s son, we’re supposed to be surrounded”.

And that kind of sums them up really.