[maple_leaf_eh]

My great uncle Blackie Paige had been a Mountie prewar, and joined No.1 Provost Company at the war's outset. He served throughout the war, and returned to peacetime policing. One of his jobs was guarding POWs.

As a boy I asked him if he'd ever had to shoot someone. Twice, he said. Shortly after DDay he had a loose cordon of wire around a large group of prisoners. One of them made a break for freedom. One shot he said.

(Of course, I can imagine the usual words of warning lost in the hubbub of a crowd. Then a man purposefully extracts his revolver and cocks it. With a deliberate one-handed stance he sights his target and fires. A hush fell. And nobody flucked with that Mountie ever again!)

He also had to shoot a man in self defence in Holland, when he found an armed straggler who wouldn't surrender. He kept that man's P38.