Oh, God, I’ll never forget the morning when we were sent out
to lay ambushes, which entailed first an attack on a village believed
to be Jap-held. We were lined up for a company advance, and were waiting
in the sunlight, dumping our small packs and fixing bayonets, and
Hutton and Long John were moving among us reminding us quietly to see
that our magazines were charged and the everyone was right and ready,
and Nixon was no doubt observing that we’d all get killed, and someone,
I know, was muttering the old nonsense “Sister Anna will carry the
banner, Sister Kate will carry the plate, Sister Maria right marker,
Salvation Army, by the left - charge!” when a solitary Spitfire came
roaring out of nowhere and Victory-rolled above us. We didn’t get it;
on the rare occasions when we had air support the Victory roll came
after the fight, not before. While we were wondering, an officer -
he must have been a new arrival, and a right clown - ran out in front of
the company and shouted, with enthusiasm: “Men! The war in Europe is
over!”

1945. Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser. Memoir of WWII.


See here: https://archive.org/details/quarteredsafeout00fras_0/page/27/mode/1up?q=sister+anna