Had it been our fate to have gone into battle together, I think there is no man that we would rather have had by us in a time of hardship and danger than John German. I am told that he was killed by a sniper’s bullet outside Le Havre, when standing in the open, encouraging his men. We can all picture him doing that.

(Quoted in Burton Observer and Chronicle, 26 Oct 1944, 2)

I hope A. L. Novis will be available by the time International Matches come along—how superbly he played in the Irish match at Twickenham! Those two tries of his—one scored on the wing by sheer determination, the other when he moved into the centre and went like a snipe through the defence—those two tries, to my mind, put the whole standard of International Rugby up a notch or two, for when such things are possible, we still have true descendants of the Golden Age.

(Howard Marshall, The Bystander, 27 Sep 1933, 566)