It's odd the way tiny, incidental facts stick in your memory. Each time Remembrance Day comes round I think of a report I read somewhere, probably in The Spectator from years ago, concerning just such a minute detail from the vast panoply of World War Two. It was from a man who had served on escorts to convoys in the north Atlantic and tells of one of their destroyers being hit and sunk. Their first duty was to reach the enemy sub and attack it but that meant ploughing at high speed through the survivors bobbing in the cold waters. Their wash alone would be enough to swamp and drown most of the men. All this man could do was watch helplessly as they steamed past and as they did so, he remembered seeing a man in the water waving his arms and shouting "Taxi ... taxi!" Such an example of witty, insouciant courage in the face of a certain and dreadful death is extraordinary. I shall remember him!
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