After a World War 11 sortie into enemy territory, Laddie Lucas was leaving the French coast behind him when he observed "two doubtful-looking aircraft at seven o'clock, up in the sun, 5,000 feet above."

Lucas, a former Walker Cup player, now carried the rank of wing commander as a highly decorated RAF fighter pilot.

"Watch them," he said to his number three. "I don't fancy the look of them." "It's okay, Wing Co," came the reply. "They're both ours."

As Lucas recalled the incident: , not at all pleasant."

It was at this point that a distinguished golfing background came to his rescue. From an earlier instalment in this series, Lucas will be remembered as a key figure in a story about the acorns of Oak Hill, when his waywardness off the tee was highlighted by his friend and contemporary, Henry Longhurst.

In the context of his war experiences, it should also be noted that he happened to be born in the clubhouse of Prince's GC, Sandwich, on the Kent coast. And images of childhood came flooding back in those critical moments.

"It's prophetic, I thought. I'll try and stretch the glide, dead stick, and put down on the old, flat, first fairway, just past my nursery window.

"True to all known form, I missed the first fairway, the second, the sixth and the eighth and finished up, out of bounds, in the marsh at the back of the ninth green."

Wartime has produced some wonderful golfing stories, especially those concerning the manner in which the game's practitioners coped with decidedly adverse conditions. Like at Richmond GC where the local wartime rules included the concession that "in competitions during gunfire, or while bombs are falling, players may take cover without penalty for ceasing play".

We are also informed in Jonathan Rice's book Curiosities of Golf that the committee had the safety of their members in mind when they arranged for the positions of known delayed-action bombs to be marked by red flags "at a reasonably but not guaranteed distance therefrom". Not surprisingly, there was no great rush of volunteers for this particular task.

It was also conceded that "a ball moved by enemy action may be dropped not nearer the hole, without penalty."

Meanwhile, Folkestone GC conceded in its wartime rules that "a ball may be lifted and dropped if in a bomb-hole in the rough, but not if the bomb-hole is in or part of a recognised hazard."

This meant that if a ball were sliced into a fairway bunker which had been transformed into a 50-foot pit by an overnight bombing raid, the competitor was obliged to play out of the hazard, notwithstanding its dramatic transformation from the previous day.

In recognition of some rather inconsiderate visits by the Luftwaffe, the most clearly-defined wartime rules in Britain were devised by Major G L Edsell, the secretary of St Mellon's GC in Monmouthshire. The following appeared on the noticeboard:

During gunfire or while bombs are falling, players can take cover without penalty for slow play (i.e. causing undue delay).

Players should pick up bomb or shell splinters from the fairways to save damage to mowers.

Positions of known delayed-action bombs are marked by flags at a reasonable, but not guaranteed, safe distance.

Bomb splinters can be removed from greens, or elsewhere when within one clublength. No penalty.

A ball moved by enemy action may be replaced at its original location. No penalty. If the ball is lost or destroyed, a free drop is allowed.

Free drop allowed for a ball resting in a bomb crater.

A player whose stroke is affected by the explosion of a bomb or by machine-gun fire, may replay the shot under a penalty of one stroke.

War also heightened an awareness of the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit to rise above adversity. For instance, Captain Beachcroft Towse is believed to have become the first blind man to play golf on a regular basis.

Blinded as a 37-year-old during the Boer War, Towse remained a keen practitioner of the game until shortly before he died in June 1948, aged 84 years. Apart from being president of the National Institute for the Blind in Britain, he was an accomplished fly fisherman which, apparently, is an even more difficult sport than golf, for a blind person to master.

Major Frank B Edwards of Victoria, British Columbia lost both his arms below the elbow in October 1916 in the Battle of the Somme. Yet, despite this horrendous handicap, he invented attachments for his artificial hands whereby he could play golf and billiards.

The golfing attachment was for one arm only and allowed him to play one-handed, with a club clamped into a groove. On seeing Edwards hit the ball about 100 yards, one observer described his action as "tolerably good, in the circumstances."

Then, of course, there was the unconquerable Douglas Bader, who despite the loss of both legs, succeeded in getting his golf handicap down to four at one stage.

Typical of the man, he had his artificial legs specially designed for golf and invariably refused assistance if he happened to fall over while on the course.

Indeed the famed resilience of the British during the blitz was very much in evidence among their golfing fraternity. Like at Weymouth GC where a certain Fred Beets had served as barman, secretary, cleaner and greenkeeper, apart from being the club professional for many years.

During World War II, Beets spent an entire day building a new tee on one of the holes and we're told that at the end of his labours, he surveyed it with the inner satisfaction at a job well done.

That night, however, in a Luftwaffe attack on Portland, one of the German pilots made a rather serious miscalculation with the result that instead of bombing the naval base, he made a direct hit on the new tee at Weymouth, reducing poor Fred's painstaking work to an ugly crater.

But the much-maligned Germans were not without affection for the Royal and Ancient game. Indeed Jack Statter, one-time golf correspondent of the Sun - "You've got 48 words for your story, Jack, and that includes your by-line" - recounted a delightful, wartime tale about the Hilversum club in Holland.

It involved a German officer who arrived at the club requesting a game and on being given permission, brought his driver along as caddie. They then made a number of return visits, never once entering the clubhouse.

One day a team of German army engineers came to Hilversum and began marking some of the club's majestic oak trees for felling, so as to strengthen their "Atlantic Wall" defence.

On seeing the marks made by his colleagues in arms, the golfing Luftwaffe officer got back in his car and returned some time later with some notice boards attached to posts.

He and his driver then set about placing these notices at the entrances to the course, while remarking to the club secretary: "That should keep them off." The signs read: Achtung! Es ist verboten ....

In declaring the course to be out of bounds to all German military personnel and to German military vehicles, he ensured the order would be strictly obeyed by adding: By order of the local commandant of the Gestapo.

Though Dutch Open champions such as Seve Ballesteros, Scott Hoch and Lee Westwood may not have fully appreciated the quality of those enduring oaks at Hilversum, the trees serve another, non-strategic purpose.

They stand as a monument to the fact that the game knows no boundaries - even in wartime.