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Bearded Brigands excerpt

11 January 1941

"... Just before we set fire to the hangar, we heard that Cyril Hewson who had just been promoted to sergeant before this trip, had been killed at the fort, early in the proceedings.  We were all very sorry to hear the news as he was very well liked by all and was a real good soldier.  His Vickers had jammed and when he stood up to fix it, a bullet struck him in the chest.  Mercifully he never knew what had hit him; death was instantaneous.

Also sad was the death of the French colonel, but the saddest story comes from the other side.  Soon after the firing started, the Italian commanding officer came from his private residence in a car and headed for the fort.  As he was going through the gate the Bofors gun opened fire, hitting the car amidships.  It was also hit by a high concentration of machine-gun fire.  It wasn't until later that they learned his wife and two children had been in the vehicle with him.  They must have all been killed.  Everyone felt bad about that, but all the same, they were certainly asking for trouble driving up to a fort while under attack like that.

To get back to the hanger - after we had set it on fire, the Skipper decided that he could only take two prisoners, as that was all we could feed.  So he took the postman and the man who looked to be chief of the Air Force.  He let the remainder go, as we could not shoot them in cold blood.  We then had orders to rally where we had lunch and to leave the fort alone, as we had done all the damage we could and wouldn't gain much more even if we did capture it.  So we headed along the road. ..."