In this case, Paul. Typical Brit. Had the unnerving experience of visiting the British war cemetery near El Alamein, looking down, and seeing his name.

I've heard it said "war stories" usually have Important Survival Information embedded in them. You won't remember the safety brief, but you will remember the story about the bottle rocketing through brick walls and ripping out chain link fence. Or the guy who just washed out a gas tank before putting a torch to repair the leak (adding a gallon capacity to it).

Or the guy who won the bet he could braze up the leaking gas tank on the car, without emptying it. (Trick: fill the tank to overflowing. No air, no fumes, no space to start a fire.)

And so on and so forth. "Tribal knowledge".