Which reminds me: By far the stiffest lip ever on public display was affixed to Noel Coward playing Capt. Edward V. Kinross, commander of HMS Torrin, in the 1942 "In Which We Serve." This hymn to the Royal Navy, which Coward himself wrote and co-directed with David Lean, was based on the real-life exploits of Louis Mountbatten as commander of the destroyer HMS Kelly. Mountbatten was known for feats of derring-do verging on suicidal insanity and got the Kelly pretty banged up before presiding over its sinking, with the loss of half the crew, during the evacuation of Crete in 1941. (Mountbatten himself survived the war and marriage to the formidable Edwina only to be blown up by the IRA in 1979 -- funny old world etc.)
My point is that even at the height of WWII, the myth of the stiff-upper was viewed in a jaundiced way. I understand that when "In Which We Serve" was released, wags immediately dubbed it, "In Which We Sink."
Carl