On Remembrance Day, meeting the stranger who knew my grandfather’s war

It was in the middle of a busy workday earlier this year when a WhatsApp message arrived from a U.K. number I didn’t recognize. Article content

“Hi. My name is Andrew Clarke, and I live in London, U.K., and I am contacting you because my father, Capt. Derek Clarke, knew your grandfather in the Second World War. They were both in the 16th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry and both severely wounded at the battle of Sedjenane, Tunisia, on 27 February 1943. Article content

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“Not only that, but they shared the same two-bed ward in two hospitals in North Africa before being sent back to the U.K. after three months. My father helped your grandfather recover and wrote his letters home to your grandmother, until Lionel was one day able to write a letter himsel