Colonel James Power Carne of the Gloucestershire Regiment served in the Second World War, but it was during the Korean War that he displayed the courage that saw him awarded the Victoria Cross.
It was also during that conflict that he was captured by the communist forces of North Korea. He was held in solitary confinement, where there was an attempt to brainwash him. ‘Do you repent your mistakes?’ he was asked repeatedly, and his reported answer must surely have convinced his captors that they were on a losing wicket here. ‘I am a British officer,’ he replied. ‘I do not make mistakes.’
