History Hustle

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The German guards on the outskirts of the city of Zwolle killed Léo Major's friend. Then he killed them — and liberated the entire city on his own.

Léo Major had a knack for doing things alone — things that would be astounding were they accomplished by 50 men at once, let alone one.

Despite having just one good eye, this French-Canadian World War II soldier once captured 93 German soldiers on his own. Then he outdid himself by liberating an entire city from the Germans — once again, on his own.

And the deeper you dig into such accomplishments, the more unbelievable the story of Léo Major becomes…

https://allthatsinteresting.com/leo-major

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John "Mad Jack" Churchill was one of the most colorful and unusual soldiers who fought in WWII. The British-born Churchill (no relation to Prime Minister Winston Churchill) was known for carrying a Scottish claymore sword into battle, and once said that "[a]ny officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed." He was also an avid archer and bagpipe player and brought both of these hobbies onto the battlefield.

Churchill volunteered for Great Britain's first-ever commando unit in 1941, and he participated in covert operations in Italy and Norway. In one Norway operation, he played his bagpipes on the landing craft as they approached the shore, then picked up his sword and attacked. In 1944, he was sent to Yugoslavia to assist with the communist partisans under Josip "Tito" Broz, and that was when his infamous bagpipe incident happened.

During a mission to attack a German position on the island of Brač, Churchill and his men advanced under heavy fire until he was the only one left alive. After running out of bullets, he picked up his bagpipe and played "Will Ye No Come Back Again?," an 18th-century song celebrating the Jacobite Prince Charles III's escape from being captured by the British monarchy.

The Germans knocked him out with an explosion and captured him, sparing his life because they thought he was related to the prime minister. He would escape from captivity twice before making it home.

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Witold Pilecki was a soldier of the Second Polish Republic, the founder of the Secret Polish Army Polish resistance group, and a member of the Home Army. He is now recognized as the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

Pilecki was born on May 13, 1901 in Karelia, Russia where his family had been forcibly resettled by Tsarist Russian authorities after the suppression of Poland's January Uprising of 1863-1864. In 1910, Pilecki moved with his family to Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania) where he joined the secret ZHP Scouts organization. In 1918, during World War I, Pilecki joined Polish self-defense units in the Wilno area with which he helped collect weapons and disarm retreating German troops in what became the prelude to the Vilna offensive. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920, Pilecki commanded a ZHP Scout section that was overrun by the Bolsheviks. He later joined the regular Polish Army and fought in the Polish retreat from Kiev. On August 5, 1920, Pilecki joined the 211th Uhlan Regiment and fought in the Battle of Warsaw and at Rudniki Forest and took part in the liberation of Wilno.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/witold-pilecki

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[Catsumi]

^^^^. Now that was one clever dude…could think on his feet. Haha.

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