Now here is a man everyone should know about – he truly typifies
badassness and bravery. Nicknamed “Fighting Jack Churchill” and “Mad
Jack”, he was an English soldier who fought throughout World War II
armed with just a longbow, arrows and a claymore (sword). He once said
“any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly
dressed.” Remember that during this war he was basically using a sword
and a bow and arrow against men with tanks and machine guns. He is the
only soldier to have killed an enemy with an arrow in the war. And in
true quirky British style, not only did he fight the good fight – he
would rouse the troops with a merry tune on his bagpipes, as he was an
expert piper and always took them with him to battle. In his most
awesome moment, Churchill led a team of commandos into enemy lines
playing “Will Ye No Come Back Again?” on his bagpipes. He was the only
member of the group that made it to the objective alive – everyone else
was killed around him. Perhaps the Germans liked his playing too much
to kill him. When the war ended and the world celebrated, Churchill was
not happy. He is recorded as saying: “If it wasn’t for those damn
Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!” In
retirement he took up surfing in Australia before returning to England
to live. In the photograph above you can see Churchill on the right with
sword in hand.
In a scene from TOWN with Nicholas Crane, Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek and X-men fame, gets nostalgic over his childhood and recites a poem in his native Yorkshire dialect. His mother and aunt would recite the poem around Christmas time every year which is probably why he still remembers it many years later. Stewart was born in Mirfield - a small town in West Yorkshire England.
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