War Service
In 1941 Porteous was posted with the Winnipeg Grenadiers to Hong Kong, to reinforce the British garrison. The regiment arrived just in time to be overwhelmed by invading Japanese forces, and Porteous was to spend a total of 44 months in one of the notorious prisoner of war camps, where he remained until the end of the war. In due course he was decorated as an MBE, Member of the Order of the British Empire, for his outstanding contribution in maintaining prisoner morale while imprisoned.
Read more about this topic: George Porteous
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or service:
“You went to meet the shell’s embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you the other way.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)