In may 40, my grandparents, father and uncle were fleeing Belgium towards France (Near the Spanish border it was the non-occupied zone). A bit after the Belgo-French border, they were stopped by a british patrol with guns spointed towards them in the car.
It didn't take long for the English soldiers to realize they were not the spies they were looking for (possibly same kind of suspected car). They apologized.
From that moment on, my grandfather and at least my father (as he told me) became anglophiles and it opened the way for him to meet my american mother, 13 years later.
The way we perceive threats or are removed from them can radically change someone's life.

Raoul