Saturday, August 21, 2004

Obituaries Are Entertaining

I’ve said this to some of you before, and you’ve looked at me like I’m mad, but here I have proof. From yesterdays Telegraph:

“Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Edge, who has died aged 73, was awarded an MC in 1961 while serving with a United Nations force in the Belgian Congo.

Edge’s company became involved in a fierce gun battle with a force of 600 tribesmen. Early in the fight, which lasted for six hours, Edge was shot in the stomach but despite being severely wounded, he continued to direct operations from the airfield’s control tower.

Bleeding heavily, he was exasperated when a native soldier who was close by his side made no effort to help him. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ Edge yelled. ‘Do something!’ The soldier made his apologies but explained that, for him, it was taboo to touch a dying man.

Nothing daunted, Edge continued to direct his men with the use of a loud-hailer until a cease-fire could be arranged. He was finally evacuated, bleeding badly, to the field hospital at Kamina for emergency surgery. His pilot during the flight was a Swedish count, Carl Gustav von Rosen, who was so impressed by the bravery of his passenger that he named his aircraft Major Edge of Manomo.”

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