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People like to say that you make your own luck, but after some of the conversations I’ve had with veterans of the Second World War I’ve come to question that saying. Many of the veterans I’ve spoken with will mention luck at some point. Many credit their survival to luck and greatly appreciate how fortunate they were to be able to come home and build a life after the war. Not to suggest here that training, expertise and the ability to manage fear were absent - it’s just that veterans often have a high appreciation of good fortune. A recent conversation I had with Mr. William Hitchon, an Army veteran now living in Trenton, Ontario, highlighted the luck issue for me.

Hitchon was in North Africa when his unit stopped by the side of a road for the evening. His friend wanted to shave, so he dug a shallow hole, poured in some gasoline and started a fire. Unfortunately, this shallow fire pit just happened to lie directly over a German landmine, which quickly detonated. The explosion blew men down and damaged equipment, but miraculously no one was injured.

Later in Italy, Hitchon was walking through a field with his unit, when he heard a click under his boot. He’d stepped on a German Box Mine. Hitchon waited for his friends to take cover and then threw himself to the ground in desperate bid to limit injury. Lucky for Hitchon, he had managed to step on a dud and no explosion followed.

Again in Italy, Hitchon found himself in a rest area situated near a British Artillery regiment. This regiment was actively trading shells with their German counterparts, so there was little real rest to be had. During a break in the shelling, Hitchon and his friend were playing cribbage in their tent. At some point his friend decided to make a trip to the outhouse and had just stepped outside when Hitchon called him back. He couldn’t explain why he had called his friend back into the tent, but luck was on their side, as moments later the outhouse received a direct hit from a German shell.

In my opinion William Hitchon seems pretty lucky in the old fashioned sense of the word and it even looks like he was able to spread some of that luck around.