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Letter: Red rag

Published 22 June 2005

From Donald Ritson

Red may or may not be the colour of winning (21 May, p 16), but as a schoolboy I was told that the British army wore red jackets at the Battle of Waterloo so that when men were wounded, their blood was not apparent to their comrades fighting around them. The hope was that they would not lose heart in the thick of the battle.

Milton Keynes, UK

Issue no. 2505 published 25 June 2005

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