大象传媒

After fighting in North Africa and Italy we eventually entered Austria and
one of our tasks was to disarm the Partisans. The Partisans were civilians but had been resisting the Germans by indulging in Guerrilla warfare, trying to disrupt the German Army's supply lines and making themselves a general nuiance.

We were ordered to disarm them in Klagenfurt in 1945. We organised the Parisans into a long line and odered them to throw down their arms as they approached an arms dump.

The Partisans were a motley bunch of people. they were dressed in an incongruous mix of civilian clothes and military uniforms,some dirty and unshaven. Their weapons were an odd mix of guns some dating from before tne Boer War!

Things were going well, they shuffled along dumping their arms on the pile when Smudger Smith said, "They are not all throwing away their weapons!"

I was at a loss what to do because the Partisans had been fighting on our side and I did not want to provoke and incident with them. Moreover they looked a cut-thoat bunch to me and guite capable of turning their guns on us!

Fortunately for us I remembered Nelson's famous dictom and I said, "Turn a blind eye".

Thus I averted an International Incident or
maybe that was just my excuse for not fully carring out my orders.

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