I remember my grandfather who recently passed away today. He served in the Polish army when the Germans invaded Poland, and eventually found himself fighting in the wars on the Eastern Front, as well as in Italy and Palestine. He was later sent to a concentration camp, which he subsequently escaped. He re-enlisted with the Allies and was on his way over to Japan when the war ended. He headed back to Canada afterwards and lead a very fulfilling life.
I'll never forget his favorite tale of the battle, although it was a funny one. He was commandering a tank down a dirt road in the forest, and didn't see a convoy of German tanks at the cross-section between roads. He thought it was a fellow Polish division since the tanks weren't clearly marked. He non-chalantly approached them through the trees, only to hit a rock-hard pile of cow dung. His tank ollied off the pile, and careened into a German tank. My grandpa didn't know what he had hit, so he got out to look, and when he opened the top him and his fellow soldiers saw the white flags waving and the convoy of Germans immediately surrendering. Needless to say he certainly didn't expect to capture Germans that day, let alone even meet them face to face!
Ah, memories.
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