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Royal Signals Regiment

British soldier Gerald Pooler owed his life to a ghostly comrade. Corporal Pooler had left his London home to serve in the Royal Signals Regiment during the Burma campaign of World War Two. One night he took cover behind a pagoda during a Japanese artillery bombardment. He had decided to get some sleep when a shadow fell across him and he looked up to see a Sikh soldier, who told him that his captain wanted him at once.

When he arrived at the signals office, he was told nobody had called him. Puzzled, he headed back to the pagoda - and found the top of it had been hit by a shell. A chunk of stone weighing a ton was lying on the spot where he had been napping. Pooler said later: "The astonishing thing was that there were no Sikh soldiers at our HQ. The nearest were 20 miles away."