I've kept looking at this thread, & I think I've even started posting a reply at least once, then thought better of it. There doesnt seem anything I could say that isnt repetition or that hasnt been said already, & better than I could.

Then I remembered something I witnessed yeats ago, probably about 35 years back or a little more.

'Hull Show' was something of a 'civic' event almost back then, with none, or few, of the fairground rides that seem to be at every public event these days (we have Hull Fair for that...) but as is often the case, the Territorial Army (our equivalent of the National Guard in the U.S. for those that might not know that) were putting on various displays. One was what must have been, in hindsight, a 40 millimetre Bofors Anti-Aircraft Gun, & the crew had it going through its paces, swinging round the full 360 on its mounting (the crew sat on seats either side of the gun breech, & the shells were fed in from a clip above, all automatic). It was swinging round pretty fast, but there was a rope barrier keeping the crowds a safe distance back.

Then a very small child, can't have been more than 2 or 3 years old, toddled forward, into the arc of the gun as it swung around parallel to the ground.....then out of nowhere another Territorial who must have been standing within the rope barrier, but clear of the muzzle of the gun, of course, dived under the swinging barrel in the opposite direction to its direction of traverse to get the child safely onto the ground (he/she screamed & cried at that, of course) as if it had hit her/him it would certainly have been fatal... as it would have been for this part-time, volunteer soldier as he was diving head-first towards the gun barrel as it swept around.

Seems like him & the hero above were 2 of the same ilk.