Raggytash:
Another liar perhaps
Possibly, possibly not. But not someone who can provide first hand evidence.
The newspaper is reporting what the son says his (dead) father told him. In law this would be classed as 'hearsay'.
There is no way of interrogating the father. It is also possible that he was passing on what he had been told (urban myth) as his own experience to provide a better example of the horrors of war. We will never know.