Men of Valor - Compilation Series 1

the Green Beret who went on a one-man rampage Roy Benavidez the Vietnam War Roy been Evita as his life had been rough as a child both his parents had died he was bullied by his classmates because of his mixed Yaqui Indian and Mexican heritage and had to leave school in eighth grade to help his family at the age of 19 ven Evita has joined the army serving in the Korean War in the Texas Army National Guard he married hilarya wala koi Benavides in 1959 he completed Airborne training becoming assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division in 1966 sergeant Roy Benavidez was in hospital after stepping on a landmine doctors said he would never walk again he had been sent to Vietnam in 1965 as an advisor for the ARVN troops there Benavidez was carrying out a classified operation alone to gather evidence that the North Vietnamese troops were posing as Viet Cong while he was on patrol along a narrow trail disguised as a Vietcong guerilla when he stepped on a landmine sometime later a squad of Marines came across Benavides they initially thought it was a booby trap but were surprised when they flipped him over and discovered the man in Vietcong pajamas was Hispanic and wearing US Army dog tags he was soon evacuated to the hospital in hospital in the u.s. two months later Benavides had recovered and awoke his memories came back to him the doctor told him he would never walk again his spine had been damaged and his brain had rattled in his skull nevertheless Benavidez sitting in his wheelchair begged to the doctors not to discharge him from the Army the army was his life determined Benavides got up from his bed night after night dragging himself to the wall and putting weight on his legs for weeks he pushed through the pain going further in distance than before which surprised the doctors six months later with his wife flawless support Roy Benavides walked out of the hospital he was promised only a desk job Fort Bragg North Carolina but determined and exercising everyday he trained vigorously and qualified for the Special Forces also known as the Green Berets he would be assigned to detachment b56 5th Special Forces Group airborne first Special Forces six hours in hell now it was 1968 staff sergeant Roy Benavidez now with a codename tango Mike Mike was back in Vietnam it was off-duty attending church his mind was fixed on the panicking radio chatter from the front lines in Luckman Vietnam near the Cambodian border a 12 man Special Forces reconnaissance team which included his close friends sergeant first class Leroy right Staff Sergeant Lloyd Frenchy Musso specialist for Brian O'Connor and nine menthe and yard tribesmen who are part of the civilian irregular defense group program or CID G were surrounded by a battalion number of 1,000 battle-hardened north vietnamese soldiers everyone in the unit had been wounded or killed in earlier fighting the three of the helicopters sent to rescue them have been unable to extract them due to heavy enemy fire when the helicopters returned they were riddled with bullets one of them the door gunner Michael Craig age 19 had been hit several times and died and Benavidez his arms there was no way Benavides was going to leave his friends out of the jungle but if he has jumped onto a returning helicopter that was going back in volunteering so quickly that he didn't have time to get his m16 so was only armed with a bowie knife and medical supplies Benavidez described it as going into autopilot as he was approaching the extraction zone Benavidez realized his fellow team members were too severely wounded to run the distance to the helicopter there was so much enemy gunfire that the pilot Larry McKibben had to zigzag in an attempt to dodge it who was nevertheless able to provide cover in the fire Benavidez jumped out with a medical bag ran through the jungle to the wounded men under heavy enemy fire taking a shot to the leg which he initially thought was a thorn bush he found himself first against a tree whose eyeball had been shot out and was hanging down his cheek but was determined to keep shooting back the CI DG were in a pool of blood and patched up as best that could benefit has dragged everyone into a defensible position to direct their fire at the enemy and provided morphine to the wounded he then saw o'connor and an interpreter see ib g who he motioned to to move over to but the gunfire started again and they took cover another round then hit Benavidez in his thigh on adrenaline he popped the green smoke for McKibben in the rescue helicopter to pick them up while everyone who could move got into the chopper he suppressed the treeline with an ak-47 he had picked up to cover O'Connor and the interpreter who crawled towards the helicopter now Benavides was looking for the team leader sergeant first class Leroy Wright who had been killed and who also had intel on him they could not get into enemy hands Benavides found his body and proceeded to drag him to the chopper where he was shot again this time in the stomach and hit in the back by shrapnel from a nearby grenade knocking him out when he awoke Benavides was forced to leave his dead friend's body disaster had also struck the chopper had crashed to the ground from enemy fire the pilot McKibben was dead five of the men on board including Musso survived the crash as did O'Connor and the interpreter who didn't get into the helicopter Benavidez pulled them out of the wreckage dispensed morphine set up a perimeter around the crash site called in heavy air support from the f100 s above the truck napalm on the enemy position when the Jets ran out of fuel and had to leave the enemy machine-gun fire started again Benavides gave O'Connor a third shot of morphine and took another bullet to the leg their position was surrounded by North Vietnamese soldiers it looked hopeless but a helicopter finally came to their rescue Benavides and the rescue team carried and dragged the wounded man onto the chopper but the landing zone was still being fired upon by NVA troops to the extent that two men was shot on the back as they crawled to it shrapnel wounds to his face from earlier caused Benavides his vision to be blurred from the blood in his eyes when he went to get Musso an NVA soldier bunted his rifle into Benavidez his head and jaw had slashed his arm with his bayonet he shouted to o'connor to shoot but he was too drugged from morphine to react Benavidez pulled out his bowie knife and stabbed the NVA soldier till he was dead he then dragged Musso to a helicopter and killed two more NVA with an ak-47 who were out of the helicopters side Gunners arc of fire and then he made one more trip to get the interpreter and destroy any classified material with Bloods still obscuring his vision only then did he allow the others to pull him on to the helicopter the last man to leave the battlefield at this point the round that had hit his stomach had exposed his intestines which was trying to hold in with his hands the helicopter badly shut up and with no instruments left managed to take off when they landed the wounded were unloaded and examined one by one it had turned out that Benavidez had even loaded three dead enemy soldiers into the helicopter in case they had classified materials they were left to the side as was Benavides he couldn't move or speak because of the broken jaw from the rifle but the blood over his eyes had glued them shut then with 37 bayonet bullet and shrapnel wounds all over his body he looked dead medics started placing him in a body bag and started zipping him up when a friend noticed him and said that's Roy that's Roy Benavidez the doctor said there was nothing that could be done but Benavidez mustered his last bit of energy and spat in the doctors face causing the doctor to say I think he'll make it he was flown to Japan for intensive surgery then Brooke Army Medical Center Fort Sam Houston where he stayed for almost a year Roy Benavidez had survived six hours in hell and saved eight lives Benavidez his commander had put him in from the Distinguished Service Cross because the process for awarding a Medal of Honor would take much longer and he was unsure if Benavidez would live or die before he could have received it finally on February 24th 1981 President Ronald Reagan would present Roy Benavidez the Medal of Honor Reagan said if the story of his heroism were a movie script you would not believe it Benavidez said of his actions the real heroes are the ones who gave their lives for their country like to be called a hero I just did what I was trained to do Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez died on November 29th 1998 at the age of 63 mad Jack the man who fought with a longbow and a sword in World War 2 John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill was born in Hong Kong and graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1926 he would later earn the nickname mad Jack or fighting Jack for fighting with a longbow bagpipes and a sword in World War two stationed at Burma with the Manchester Regiment in the British Army during peacetime made Mad Jack Restless it was during the interwar years in the 30s that he would master the bagpipes and ride his motorcycle across the entire Indian subcontinent in 1936 after moving to England Mad Jack left the army and became a model at a movie extra he would also practice a new skill archery and became so good that he represented Great Britain at the world archery championships in 1939 when war arrived Mad Jack returned to the British Army and the Manchester regiment as an officer and was shipped off to France during the Battle of France in 1940 mad Jack led small raids on the enemy as the British Expeditionary Force was on the retreat from the Germans relentless advance using a longbow and a Scottish broadsword as his weapon of choice he became the only soldier known to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the war when he landed a shot on the enemy Feldwebel with a barbed arrow when asked why he did this he replied any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed during the retreat to Dunkirk mad Jack was shot in the neck when asked how it happened he replied German machine gun casually he would also win the Military Cross for bravery after rescuing a wounded British officer from a German ambush after Dunkirk Mad Jack signed up for the commandos and when his training was complete he was sent to vog sole norway in 1941 as second-in-command of number three commando in operation archery as he left the landing craft mad Jack played march of the Cameron men not his bagpipes and then led his men ashore with his broadsword waving in the air the German garrison in växjö was quickly defeated prisoners were taken and the artillery batteries captured along with shipping destroyed on Malloy Island for this action Matt Jack received his second Military Cross in 1943 in Italy Matt jack led two commando with the objective to destroy German artillery and observation posts in the town of pijl in T even though the town was well defended and outnumbered Matt Jack organized his men into six parallel columns who instead of using stealth tactics all shouted commando the German defenders as a result were confused into thinking the shouting which was coming from all directions in the darkness was a much bigger force in this skirmish the fifty men of number two commando took 136 prisoners Matt Jack who was assisted by a corporal Rafael took 42 German prisoners and captured a mortar crew using his broadsword after marching the prisoners down to British lines he said I maintain that as long as you tell a German loudly and clearly what to do if you were senior to him he will cry Yoho and get on with it enthusiastically and efficiently whatever the situation after losing the broadsword in hand-to-hand combat earlier he later went to the town on his own to retrieve it on the way he met an American patrol going towards the enemy lines when they should have been going the other way so he told them that he wouldn't come back for a bloody third time in 1944 Matt Jack was in Yugoslavia leaving British commandos and now Yugoslavia syns attacking the vital hill called 0.622 on the island of brac in the Adriatic Sea against the Germans heavy casualties were caused and soon Jack was alone and out of ammo with no hope left Jack started playing songs on his bagpipes until he was knocked unconscious by a frag grenade and captured by the German defenders he was first sent to Berlin and interrogated as it was thought that because of his real name he was a relative of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Dodd's sent to sucks in house and concentration camp but in September 1944 mad jack and an RAF officer escaped the camp by crawling under barbed wire through an abandoned drain and set out to walk to the baltic coast but were then captured now sent to a new camp in needed or austria Matt Jack escaped again on April 1945 taking the opportunity to get away when the lighting system failed in the darkness of night he walked a hundred and fifty miles through the treacherous terrain of the Alps surviving on vegetables that he had liberated from gardens eight days later and with a sprained ankle he found a US armoured column and was sent back to England jack was frustrated that the war in Europe was all but over so made his way to the Pacific campaign to join the battle against the Japanese in Burma but by the time he arrived the atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki mad Jack was so unhappy he said if it wasn't for those damn Yanks we could have kept the war going another ten years after the war Matt Jack continued to seek danger qualifying as a parachutist and transferring to the Seaforth Highlanders and later ending up in Palestine in 1948 as second-in-command of first Battalion the Highland Light infantry during an ambush on a Jewish medical convoy by Arab forces mad jack with only 12 men and in full military dress marched under fire to the convoy to offer its evacuation I grinned like mad from side to side he said afterwards as people are less likely to shoot at you if you smile at them he would later coordinate the evacuation of 700 Jewish doctors students and patients from the hospital atop Jerusalem's Mount Scopus mad Jack would retire from the Army in 1959 with two awards of the Distinguished Service Order the Gurkha who took on 200 soldiers with only one hand 1945 World War two from mid 1944 the tides of war were changing for the Japanese army and Burma commanded by General Sir William slim chin dick guerrillas American troops and Chinese troops forced the Japanese forces into a state of constant retreat for almost a year fighting continued across the boundless jungles of Burma one unit that saw a lot of action in Burma was the 4th battalion of the 8th Gurkha Rifles they were part of the 89th Indian Brigade who were ordered in the spring of 1945 to make a maneuver across the Irrawaddy River to cut the route of the Japanese forces towards toned off as always the Gurkhas were the first n it was May 12th 1945 when the 4th battalion arrived at the village of tonk dog and established camp as most of the unit fell asleep small forward positions were established to protect the camp from surprise attacks during the night 200 Japanese soldiers decided to surprise the Gurkhas and to break their way towards town dog the first line of defense they encountered was a small trench to man by lakum and guru and two other soldiers this trench was positioned on the jungle road that led straight to the camp if Coronas position was overrun the entire camp would have been endangered at 1:20 a.m. Japanese grenades started to fall on the wrong stretch the wrong managed to grab the first bomb that fell in the trench and threw it back he did the same the second but was too late for the third it dropped right in front of the trench and has go wrong lunge to grab it it exploded right in his hand when he tried to throw it back his right hand was severely damaged fingers were blown off and his entire hand was shattered burning shrapnel pounded his face body and right leg two other soldiers were also badly wounded and put completely out of action but not Garang he took out his cookery knife stuck it in front of his trench and yelled at the enemy promising them that not one of them would pass by his knife without his right hand and bleeding all over the place the room continued to fight he took his bolt-action lee-enfield and started to shoot at Japanese soldiers who are trying to rush the position they were welcomed by the now one handed guru who yelled come and fight a Gurkha using only his left hand to reload and fire a rifle the room was waiting for every single Japanese soldier that approached his trench to shoot them for four entire hours the room was holding his position alone killing every enemy soldier that came close to him as he saw it he was about to die anyway so he decided to go out with a fight being a Gurkha backing down was not an option early in the morning his comrades relieved guru who had lost a lot of blood 31 Japanese soldiers lay dead in front of his spot his efforts inspired other soldiers to hold off waves of Japanese attacks for another two nights and three days for his gallantry locket mangu room was awarded with the Victoria Cross by the Viceroy of India Lord Louis Mountbatten at a parade at the Red Fort in Delhi on December 19th 1945 la c'mon goom's actions in combat were an example of the bravery and commitment Gurkhas demonstrated during the Second World War even though he had lost his sight in his right eye and lost his right hand the room will continue to serve with the 8th Gurkhas after completing his service in 1947 he returned to his village in Nepal to become a farmer on December 12 2010 Lockman guru died at the age of 92 the pilot who shot down a plane with a pistol while parachuting on March 31st 1943 12 b-24 Liberator bombers of the u.s. 7th bombardment group were deployed from their base in Penev s hua India to bomb a bridge in pian mana Burma this was not an unusual mission for the 7th bombardment group as they regularly flew missions aimed at disrupting Japanese supply chains in Burma when on the way there they were suddenly intercepted by 13 Japanese ki-43 peregrine falcon fighters who mercilessly tore into the American bomber formation was the b-24s was badly hit and caught on fire forcing the crew to bail out moments before the bomber exploded as the crew parachuted downward to earth the attacking Japanese planes started to strafe the defenseless Americans killing two of them one of the crew parachuting downwards under a hail of enemy fire was the copilot of the bomber 2nd lieutenant Owen Jade Baggett who was hit and slightly wounded in his arm the injured packet landed on the ground and along with a fellow crew member he took cover in the trees as the Japanese aircraft started to stray Fleur later that day they were captured by Japanese forces and Baggett spent the next two years in a prisoner of war camp first in Rangoon and then in Singapore this weekend all take as fact as there was official paperwork and witness statements to back this all up but what happened during lieutenant Baggett's descent down to the ground is something we only have his word for his back it descended downward by parachute he was hit in the arm as the Japanese planes mercilessly attacked him and his fellow crew members Baggett decided to play dead hoping to fool the enemy fighters into leaving him alone a Japanese pilot then slowed down at around 4,000 feet with its canopy open and approached Baggett who was hanging limply Baggett took the opportunity to draw his service m1911a1 automatic pistol and in anger fired four times at the exposed Japanese moments later the enemy planes seemed to stall and spiral downwards but in all the mayhem Baggett didn't see what finally happened to it Baggett claimed he had not known that he had supposedly shot down the aircraft until sometime later when a US Colonel Harry Melton passed through the POWs camp he was being held at Melton explained that a Japanese intelligence officer had told him that on that day Baggett was shot down a ki-43 from the engagement had crashed and burned but the dead pilot had been thrown clear of his plane on examination of the body it had been found that the pilot had been killed by a single bullet wound Baggett said Colonel Melton had intended to make an official report of the incident but there is no record he ever did this could be easily explained away by the fact that later Melton was on a Japanese transport ship being transferred to Japan when it was torpedoed and sunk on September 12 1944 a USS sea lion and American submarine two days later while adrift on a lifeboat he and other survivors were machine gunned down by a Japanese destroyer there is no record or other witnesses to Baggett and melt and meeting but it was probable as they were both in the Singapore POWs camp at the same time but it was not [ __ ] who didn't shoot down the Japanese aircraft and who did because there were no Allied fighters in that area that day no one seemed to consider it could have been from friendly fire possibly from the overexcited other Japanese aircraft that were trying to hit [ __ ] parachuting crew members the story goes that the Japanese Colonel was adamant that this was the pilot Owen Baggett had fired at but no explanation was given us to how he knew this there had been some discrepancies in the retelling of the story over the years but they have been minor and they don't really distract from the overall story some had stated Baggett used a revolver and not a semi-automatic while others claimed he was a first lieutenant and not a second lieutenant and the most common discrepancy was it was often claimed that he was attacked by Mitsubishi a6m zeros and not nakajima ki-43 fighters that were in the area at the same time this could be easily explained away as both aircraft looked very similar and the ki-43 was often mistaken for being a zero by American the dead body of the Japanese pilot being thrown clear of his crashed aircraft could have happened but sounds a bit far-fetched inconvenient could it be possible that the pilot had circled baguette and simply stalled again possible but unlikely as the ki-43 had an exceptionally low stall speed when compared to other fighters it was around 72 miles an hour as opposed to the p-51d mustang which was 100 miles per hour also the ki-43 was seen spiraling downwards either out of control or having stalled if it had stalled between 4 to 5,000 feet standard flight school training procedure teaches pilots how to recover from a stall as long as you still have 3000 feet of altitude with the canopy have been open even discounting the theory that the canopy was open for the pilot to take a better look at baguettes supposedly dead body floating downwards pilots often had their canopy open for a number of reasons such as to aid navigation or to allow for quick bailout in battle it could also get uncomfortably hot inside the canopy especially in the Pacific Theater of war the firearm baguette was said to use was the colt m1911a1 which was the standard personal defense weapon carried by US officers at the time it fired the powerful 45 caliber and the weapon magazine carried seven rounds it was semi-automatic so a could fire rapidly if the plane came straight on it may have been possible for baguette to accurately hit the pilot but if it came in at another angle it would be far harder if not impossible so has it ever happened before there were accounts during the opening stages of World War 1 of pilots exchanging fire at one another with handheld pistols and rifles on April 25th 1945 right at the end of the war in Europe there was an encounter between two unarmed reconnaissance planes a German fi 156 stork and an American elf war grasshopper and was one of the very last dogfights of the war on the Western Front the elf war was unarmed the pilot and co-pilot opened fired with their service 45 semi-automatics at the German aircraft injuring one of the German crew members and forcing them to land and be captured so what did really happen on that fateful day on March 31st 1943 did baguette fire off a lucky shot and down an enemy fighter was all the evidence of this remarkable event lost in the chaos of war or was it simply a tall story embellished and turned into an urban legend after countless retelling by the media leo major the one-eyed scout who liberated a whole town by himself world war ii in world war ii for the canadian effort one soldier stands out from all the rest leo major he was a french-canadian from Montreal Canada in 1940 at the age of 19 he joined the lut regiment du Nadia of the Canadian Army their insignia underlines their fierce fighting reputation consisting of two crossed Vickers machine guns with a beaver above supporting fleur de lys privately owned major first saw action at d-day in France taking part in the Normandy landings On June 6 1944 straightaway he distinguished herself as a scout behind enemy lines by capturing the German communications half-track full of secret code books he then forced the captured crew to drive the hanomag towards friendly lines but was fired upon with anti-tank guns by British and Canadian troops Leo had to climb on top of the vehicle to get them to stop firing as they drove closer and later remarked how happy was that the British and Canadian soldiers didn't know how to shoot when the English officer asked Leo to hand over the hanomag Leo refused outright stating that it was a Quebec man who captured it and so it was handed over to the shell di regiment his war was nearly cut short when a few days later he was scouting ahead of his unit Leo unexpectedly encountered a patrolling elite waffen-ss unit in the ensuing firefight he managed to kill four of the enemy soldiers but one of them fatally wounded managed to throw a phosphorus grenade and Leo was hit damaging his left eye badly Leo was then sent to a field hospital for treatment Leo had to wear an eyepatch while his eye healed and he remarked on how he looked like a pirate remarkably he refused to be sent home stating that he only needed one good eye to aim a rifle quickly he returned to the frontline and continued to act as a scout and sniper for his unit shortly after returning to active service in October 1944 he was involved in the month-long Battle of the Scheldt in Holland which involved much heavy fighting in several amphibious landings one day during this prolonged battle Leo's commanding officer had ordered him to find the 50 zombies who had gone missing on patrol earlier zombie was a slang term used by Canadian volunteers for unenthusiastic inexperienced Canadian conscripts in the war Leo was carrying out the reconnaissance by himself as always wearing Petey sneakers instead of heavy boots he was deep behind enemy lines in the dark in freezing cold rain muttering to himself I am frozen and wet because of you so you will pay drenched to the skin while not finding the zombies he did come across a garrison of German regular troops sleeping in trenches that they had been digging all day noticing a snoring German officer Leo woke him up pointing his Sten gun at him and then motioned him to order his men to follow him one soldier raised his rifle and was shot dead by Lee followed by three others who joined the firefight after this he shouted Achtung and honden halt and the garrison quickly decided to surrender to him he then single-handedly marched 93 German soldiers back to the Allied lines but on the way there they were attacked by Pavan SS troops manning an artillery battery from a neighboring village who were infuriated that their fellow countrymen were surrendering this left a lasting impression on Leo the vafan SS unit managed to kill and injure a number of the German prisoners before being driven off by an allied Sherman tank Leo then handed over 93 German prisoners to his speachless commander for his act of bravery Leo was awarded the distinguished Conduct Medal which is the second-highest award in the British and Commonwealth the Victoria Cross being the only one higher but surprisingly he declined the medal feeling the British commander general Montgomery who was going to present him with the award was incompetent and therefore in no position to give him that medal then in February 1945 as his unit was fighting in the Rhineland in Germany the Bren gun carrier he was travelling in hit a mine wrecking the vehicle and killing all its occupants except Leo he was severely injured including two badly broken ankles four ribs and his back in three places Leo again refused to be shipped back home and after a short spell on a Belgian hospital he returned to his unit in time for their final attack to clear Holland of the last of its German occupiers so on April 13th 1945 the Allies were preparing to attack the large Dutch town of Zwolle but were unsure of this strength or deployment of the German forces in the town that evening Leo and his friend corporal Willi Arsenal volunteered to carry out a recon of the area the city was planned to be bombed by Allied artillery and this is something Leo and Willi wanted to prevent when the two approached the outskirts of the silent town the Germans spotted Willi after his grenade attack made a rattling noise and he was killed by enemy machine-gun fire Leo took two of them out with the others fled in a vehicle he then took his friends Sten gun an extra bag of grenades then laid his lifeless body on the side so enraged was Leo that he would go on a one-man rampage that lasted the whole night using his submachine gun and bags full of grenades he hijacked a nearby German Scout car disarming the driver and taking his mp40 adding a third submachine gun to his inventory Leo made him drive to a hotel that entered a bar there he disarmed a German officer who could speak French to Leo and he made him aware that the town was to be bombed by Canadian artillery which would result in German military and civilian casualties the officer understood and in good faith Leo handed him back his pistol allowing him to drive off in the hopes that he would evacuate his troops rather than rally an attack Leo moved around the town for a few hours in the dead of night firing on any German units he came up against throwing grenades and making as much noise around town as possible his idea was to confuse the enemy into believing that they were under attack by a far larger Allied Force storming the city he proceeded in killing or capturing German defenders as he moved from Street to Street using the local River and Church as reference points so as not to get lost every time he had enough prisoners normally between 8 to 10 he would March them back to the Allied lines and drop them off before returning to the town to carry on his one-man assault he is reckoned to have done this around 10 times four times in the night he had to force his way into civilian houses to rest although terrified by his initial appearance once they understood he was Canadian they looked after Leo during his rampage he also attacked and set light to the Gestapo headquarters further adding to the confusion then finding the SS headquarters he engaged in a firefight killing four SS officers inside then later Leo came across a group of townsmen by chance this included a local policeman by the name of Frick kuiper all of these men were secretly members of the Dutch Resistance Leo then explained to them that the town was liberated then the group went on to take the Town Hall and bring the civilians out onto the streets by 4:30 a.m. the German garrison had fled the town and Leo had single-handedly liberated swall Leo retrieved his friend Willie Arsenal's body and returned to his unit who had yet to advance into the town on that morning of April 14th the Allied forces entered the town without a shot being fired and without the loss of civilian life from the planned bombardment due to Leo's outstanding bravery the previous night for his heroism above and beyond the call of duty he was again awarded the distinguished Conduct Medal and this time he accepted it after the war Leo left the army and returned to civilian life to resume his old job as a pipe fitter with the start of the Korean War in 1950 the Canadian army joined the United Nation forces in fighting the Communist Chinese and North Korean invasion of South Korea Leo though only 29 years old was seen as a veteran with a special skill set and was recruited to rejoin the army and become a member of a special scout and sniper team then in November 1951 the Communists attempted to take some strategic important high ground just 40 miles away from Seoul the South Korean capital the fighting was based around the vitally important Hill 355 nicknamed little Gibraltar and Hill 277 Chinese troops had captured it from the Americans and Leo was to recapture and hold the hill the fighting raged for days and a Canadian commander Lieutenant Colonel Jacques dextrose declared in the event of Italian is attacked there will be no withdrawal no platoons overrun and no panics during the battle Leo commanded a unit of around 18 men repelling whole Chinese divisions while enduring heavy artillery and mortar barrage 'as for three days even Oh Leo had been ordered to retreat when the Chinese divisions counter attacked he refused instead he demanded that the commander of the mortar platoon captain Charlie Forbes rein mortar fire on the enemy the mortar fire was so close to Leo's position that the commander could hear the bombs explode when Leo spoke on his radio and it was so intense that the mortar barrels warped from their rate of fire for his valor at leadership under fire Leo was awarded another distinguished Conduct Medal for capturing and holding the key Hill Leo is the only Canadian to win the distinguished Conduct Medal in two separate Wars he lived a quiet life afterwards then in 2008 at the age of 87 passed away having been married for 57 years and having four children Douglas barter the flying ace with no legs Douglas barter was a pilot in the Royal Air Force who would go on to pilot fighter planes in the Second World War without his legs and claimed 22 aerial victories becoming a flying ace barter joined the RAF in 1928 and graduated in 1930 and in late 1931 at age 21 he was assigned to a squadron flying bristol Bulldogs at Woodley airfield near Reading while flying the bulldog he went against orders not to do aerial acrobatics or fly below 2,000 feet nevertheless barter performed an aerial stunt to show off his skill resulting in his plane crashing both of his legs were crushed under the twisted wood canvas and metal with no way of saving that they had to be amputated one above the knee and one below after this barter had to learn to walk again using artificial legs doctors were not hopeful that he would be able to walk without a stick but barter was determined and he wanted to fly again after being transferred to RAF Hospital Oxbridge barter learned new skills with his new legs he learned to drive a racing car play golf tennis and dance during this time he also met his future wife Thelma from 1937 to 1939 with World War two on the horizon barter requested several times to rejoin the RAF but was refused piloting roles on the grounds that there was no incorporating his disability air vice-marshal Hallahan recommended that barter do the central flying school to test his abilities which he passed this would also familiarize himself with the newer modern planes barter noticed how the planes an upgraded significantly gone were the biplanes replaced with new low-wing monoplane such as the hurricane and the Spitfire while in his opera tutor during the training barter couldn't resist doing a stud turning his biplane upside down at 600 feet by 1940 barter would be posted to the number 19 squadron and put in a cockpit of a Spitfire undertaking convoy patrol missions during this time known as the phoney war he wouldn't see much action but soon he would be posted to number 222 squad where he would see action over Dunkirk during the Battle of France protecting the Royal Navy and evacuating the British Army below from the Luftwaffe during this combat he took down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 and damaged a Heinkel h e 111 bomber Bartter noticed that his disability gave him a distinct advantage when piloting his plane during dogfights because he didn't have legs he was less likely to blackout from the effects of g-force usually this would cause blood to flow from the brain to other parts of the body such as the legs causing loss of consciousness this meant that barter could pull off tight turns and outmaneuver his opponents after Dunkirk Arda was transferred to number 242 squadron and promoted to squadron leader this squadron which was made up of Canadians was low on morale due to heavy casualties during the Battle of France at first they were not welcoming to their new leader and were puzzled by his disability but he would soon rebuild a squadrons morale and inspire them with his courage and skill they would fight in the Battle of Britain and see major action on the 30th of August 1940 when the squadron took down 12 enemy planes two of which were shot down by barter by the end of 1940 with the Battle of Britain over number 242 squadron had shot down 67 enemy aircraft with five pilots killed in action barter would leave the squadron in March 1941 he was promoted to Wing Commander and leader escorting bombers during daylight raids at a Spitfire mark 5a as part of the circus operations taking on enemy bf 109s with his squadron sometimes at dangerously low heights his score would rise to 20 confirmed as destroyed plus two shared on August 8th Artur noticed a formation of 12 enemy fighters and dived on them taking out one and possibly colliding with another BF 109 or shot down by it sending his Spitfire diving into the ground in flames while trying to bail out one of barters artificial legs became stuck however he was able to escape from the cockpit just in time when he landed he was captured by the Germans and taken to a hospital in st. Omer as a prisoner of war the Germans had great respect for barter because of his courage to fly without legs flying ace Adolf Galland asked the British to airdrop barter a replace meant leg which they did shortly afterwards barter tried to escape the hospital using a rope made from bed sheets so that he could climb down from the window he was eventually caught however after being betrayed barter was now on a Luftwaffe run prisoner of war camp known as Stalag Luft 3 he had made so many escape attempts but the Germans guarding the camp threatened to take away his artificial legs in 1942 while in Stalag Luft 8b barter and several others tried to escape but the alarm was raised when a Luftwaffe officer came to visit barter and he was not there soon he was recaptured he was then transferred to the escape-proof Colditz castle on the 18th of august 1942 where he would spend the rest of the war and on april 15th 1945 the prison was liberated and barter was freed by American troops Lowrie horny the soldier of three armies it was October 18th 1965 the outdated South Vietnam Air Force h-34 helicopter hugged tightly to the mountainous terrain of the foots on district of Vietnam as the French and Americans had found this reliable but old workhorse was not well suited for frontline combat duty due to its low speed at large silhouette but maybe most significantly evolved its magnesium skin was prone to very intense and deadly fires if hit despite their best efforts rescue teams could not locate the downed helicopter and its crew or the Special Forces soldiers on board it was not until over 30 years later that the crash site of the helicopter was found it was concluded that the helicopter had crashed into the side of a mountain while flying nap of the earth among the remains retrieved at the site was that of an American officer who was the team leader of the mission he was captain Larry thorne a u.s. military adviser who had also been in World War two a commander in the German waffen-ss and a Finnish army first lieutenant he was a highly decorated soldier and his awards included the German Iron Cross second class an American Legion of Merit medal and the highest of Finnish awards the men are high Macross who was this man well he wasn't originally an American nor was his name Larry thorne in fact his real name was Lowry torn knee and he was born in V Perry Finland on May 28th 1919 just two years before his birth the Russian Empire had collapsed allowing Finland to emerge as a new independent nation Bauer raised hometown found itself on the very border with the Soviet Union and over the next two decades the Soviet Union became more and more interested in annexing Finland in 1938 while rejoined the Finnish 4th independent Jaeger infantry battalion at the age of 19 this wasn't an ordinary unit it was a CC unit who were experts at sabotage and guerrilla warfare as well as long-range reconnaissance they were often considered an elite unit and their job was to penetrate deep behind enemy lines often gathering intelligence operating from concealed positions sometimes they would carry out roadside ambush even being used to hunt down and destroy enemy special forces he would soon need these skills as just a year later in 1939 the Soviet Union carried out an unprovoked attack on Finland called the Winter War fighting in the Finnish army Lara's battalion was based at Keaveney Emme when the war started tasked with protecting the strategically important Leningrad khatola railroad line once it was realized that the Red Army was poring over the finished Soviet border bobbies battalion redeployed and moved forward to defend the massive lake at Ladoga the lake was the largest in Europe and had been shared by the Finnish and the Soviet Union since 1918 and had always been an area of high tension between the two nations the Red Army attacked the area with overwhelming numbers but they were ill-equipped lacking adequate winter equipment their tanks were also still painted olive green and their infantry were still wearing brown coats as their chemical our winter clothing had yet to arrive Lara's battalion pushed back and surrounded a large number of Red Army troops at lemon tea on the northern part of the lake both Lowry's battalion and the winter weather in the form of frostbite inflicted huge casualties on the Red Army divisions and circled their lorry took command to the defense of Sugar Loaf Hill the hills that had to be held against the enemy forces in order to maintain Finnish reinforcements Finnish headquarters couldn't contact the defenders so Lowrey using his skis stealthily moved past the Soviet positions re-establishing communications lorry then took command of a group of demoralized swedish-speaking finns defending a key position conveying orders through gestures shouting and punches because he didn't speak swedish Lowery's courageous performance during this engagement came to the attention of his commanding officers and he was promoted to second lieutenant but it was ultimately to no avail for it was a short and bloody war lasting just over a hundred days in the end Finland was forced to concede 11 percent of its territory but it was a hollow victory for the Soviet Union they were thrown out of the League of Nations their casualties had been truly staggering and many including Adolf Hitler now viewed the Soviet armed forces as a weak and ineffective force in June 1941 Laurie went to train with the waffen-ss in Austria for seven weeks to gain further specialist skills as by now Nazi Germany was a strong ally of Finland during training he wore of often SS uniform and was given the rank of Lucas demure or junior storm leader ignorant of the political implications his swearing of the oath of loyalty even after death would later haunt him in the years to come much to Lori's distress his hometown was now on the Soviet side of the border as was the whole Lake Ladoga region he had fought so hard to protect even his barracks at Keaveney and me were all now in Soviet hands On June 22nd 1941 the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa of a surprise attack on the Soviet Union three days later the Finnish attack - in what became known as the continuation war Laurie was back in Finland put in charge of an armored unit consisting of captured Soviet tanks and armored cars Finland would not take part in Germany's road to conquest only advancing as far as its previous territories lost during the winter war on March 23rd 1942 Laurie was skiing behind enemy lines when he skied over a friendly shrapnel mine while trying to capture enemy prisoners he was hospitalized but eventually recovered and instead of going on home leave he went AWOL back to the front by this time the conflict had fallen into static trench style warfare and Laurie's unit was tasked with counter-guerrilla and counter reconnaissance against Soviet special units that were behind enemy lines later this would move into aggressive actions as they infiltrated behind Soviet lines themselves taking on Red Army headquarters and communications sites Laurie impressed his superiors and in January 1943 he was given the chance by his senior officers to take command of a deep strike infantry unit that later became known as detachment 20 with the promise of better rations and more active combat during what had become trench warfare he received countless keen volunteers with a strict criteria for aggressiveness physical stamina and good marksmanship he rejected those that were unfit picked the best manner they would take part in sabotage capturing prisoners and intelligence gathering behind Soviet lines in one mission Lowry's unit used rowing boats to get into place they ambushed a Soviet truck and obtained a bag of Intel then when a second truck came out of nowhere moved into close combat using pouco knives and axes more Red Army troops reinforced the position and while varèse Raiders escaped into the forest stealthily sneaking past Soviet patrols eventually making it back to the boats Laurie had made sure that every man knew the enemy Intel in case only one of them made it out live the unit would succeed in several hit and run skirmishes operating from a base camp that was deep in Soviet territory they also learned to use the enemy weapons which created confusion during engagements and made ammo plentiful as they were operating deep in Red Army territory Laurie and his men soon gained a formidable reputation for bravery and mayhem to the extent that the Soviets put a bounty of 3 million Finnish marks on his head as they feared him so much by June 1944 the war was all but lost for the Finnish despite victory after victory against the Soviet Union they were simply too outnumbered for his outstanding bravery and leadership during the battle Lowrey was awarded the mannerheim Cross on July 9th 1944 in September 1944 the Finnish brokered the best deal it could with the Soviet Union and in effect the war ended most of the Finnish army was demobilizing including Lowry who was by now a captain so by November 1944 Lowry found himself a civilian unemployed and his country forced into a humiliating armistice once again they had to concede territory and pay the Soviet Union reparation as well as this key members of the Finnish War were put on trial fighting in the German army Laurie joined the Finnish resistance who formed in the event that the Soviets tried to completely occupy Finland he went to Germany for training in early 1945 with the intention of returning to train the resistance but ended up joining the German army he had secretly boarded a u-boat one had taken the alias of lohreylane to hide the fact that he was involving himself with the Germans during his training the German front in the east collapsed and the Red Army were on the borders of Germany with no ships left Lowrey couldn't return to Finland so he figured he could fight the Soviets by joining a ragtag band of Germans and was given the rank of a captain Flowery used the same tactics that he had used so successfully against the Soviets in Finland he was also joined by a fellow Finn an officer named Sol of capella soon he had gained a reputation for bravery and his men loyally followed him even though his grasp of the German language was poor by March 1945 the German army was defeated Lowrey and his men were fighting for their lives decided to head west while I still could this was to avoid the terrible fate of falling into the hands of the Red Army after VE Day Lowry and his men found themselves behind German lines once again Lowry performed a remarkable feat he led his unit into western Germany and he surrendered with his men to the British at Lubeck by doing so the Finn had saved himself and the men of his unit from years of captivity in Siberia Lowry ended up being put in a prisoner of war camp in Lubec Germany he feared that he would be turned over to the Soviets because of his role in the continuation war or they would discover his involvement in the boffin SS a few months later in June 1945 he escaped the camp with soma Korpela and made his way back to Finland he was arrested this time by the Finnish State Police but shortly escaped from them to Lowry was then arrested again in June 1946 and tried for treason for joining the German army when Finland had signed a peace treaty with the Soviets he was sentenced to six years in prison during his time in prison he had made several escape attempts which all ended in failure his last one used a grappling hook made from bedsheets and scrap from the metal shop he was finally pardoned by the Finnish president in December 1948 and released unhappy and disillusioned Lowry went to Sweden in 1949 under the false name of a lino morskie he ended up in Venezuela and in 1950 found work on a Swedish cargo ship the MS Scoggin a few months later when it was off the coast of Alabama he jumped ship and swam ashore he was reduced to doing carpentry and cleaning jobs and in 1953 he was granted a residence visa fighting in the US Army in 1954 at the age of 35 he joined the US Army adopting the name Larry thorne even though he was a recruit his experience stood out vastly compared to the other men his natural leadership abilities gained him rapid promotion and he was made of first lieutenant in 1957 and then a captain in 1960 he had been stationed in West Germany from 1958 to 1962 during this time he got in trouble when he got into a bar fight a fellow Finnish officer pulled some strings and he got Larry transferred to the 10th Special Forces Group he was able to use his experience to teach skiing survival mountaineering and guerrilla tactics and learned new skills himself an Airborne School in January 1962 Larry was sent to the Zagros Mountains of Iran in command of his team where he successfully completed his mission to destroy the top secret material on a crashed US plane then in 1963 he was sent to South Vietnam to assist in the formation of local CID G units in one particular vicious firefight at TN bent near the Cambodian border he was awarded two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for bravery the Vietcong attacked his base in force and breached the outer perimeter almost over running the area if it wasn't for his determination the place would have been lost it is said that in Robin Moore's book the Green Berets Captain Steve corny is based on Larry thorne when he returned to the United States instead of retiring to a desk job Larry volunteered for a second tour of duty during his second tour of duty on October 18th 1965 Larry was put in command of a top-secret special forces unit called Mac V SOG trying to locate Vietcong turnaround points along the Ho Chi Minh Trail when his helicopter crashed in the mountains and he was killed his remains went undiscovered for over 30 years Larry earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and was promoted to major posthumously his name is honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC and in 2003 his remains were brought back to America he was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia George HW Bush the president who avoided being eaten by cannibals in World War two George Herbert Walker Bush was the last US president that served in combat there were a number of his predecessors who also paid their debt to the country what George Bush's experienced was completely unique he managed to evade the gruesome death of being eaten by Japanese soldiers when the Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 George Bush was only a 17-year old teenager he was attending the last year of the Phillips Academy University Preparatory School in Andover Massachusetts in the days after the attack the people of the United States experienced a rush of patriotism it was the same case with young Bush who wanted to enlist as soon as possible so he could serve his country since he was still underage his first idea was to enlist in Canada but he changed his mind due to his strong wish to serve as an aviator in the US Navy as soon as he graduated and turned 18 On June 13 1942 George Bush signed up for the US Naval Reserves one year after he joined the Navy he was commissioned as an ensign many believed at the time that he was the youngest pilot in the US Navy as he was only 19 years old it didn't take long when in the spring of 1944 he was sent as a pilot to the USS San Jacinto light aircraft carrier he arrived just in time to participate in the campaign of island hopping against japanese-held islands in the Pacific still a youngster George Bush became an experienced pilot after fighting over Marcos and Wake Island he also participated in one of the largest air combats in the war battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 in the final day of the battle after returning from the mission Bush had to make a forced landing on the water it was his first crash in the war luckily Hina's crew were rescued by the destroyer USS Clarence K Bronson the second one however was far more dramatic as American forces were rolling northwards on the Pacific they commenced a campaign on the Bonin islands in August 1944 it was the same month when George HW Bush was promoted to lieutenant Jr on September 2nd Bush received an order to fly in a group with three other bombers towards the island of cheesy Jima their mission was to destroy a very important radio tower that was located on the island as soon as they appeared in the skies over the island they were attacked by the strong anti-aircraft defense Bush's plane was hit at the moment when he started to dive towards the target neglecting the fact that his plane was on fire and the entire cockpit was full of smoke Bush continued to dive until he realized the bombs at hit and damaged the radio tower it was only then that he turned his blazing plane towards the USS San Jacinto once they were far enough from the island bush and two other crew members bailed out of the plane as he was descending Bush observed his plane hitting the water and disappear into the waves moments after as he hit the water his struggle began with a heavy soaked flight suit wounded head and eyes still burning from the smoke in the cockpit Bush had to fight to stay on top of the water his fortune was that he landed in the vicinity of a life raft when he got a hold of it he inflated it and climbed aboard the misfortune was that the winds were pushing him closer towards the japanese-held Island so Bush had to paddle with his arms to stay as far away as possible at one point he was spotted by the Japanese who sent boats to capture but these were repelled by American fighter planes for four hours George was floating in his raft as fighter aircraft were flying above his head to protect him finally he was rescued by the lifeguard submarine USS finback several other Airmen were shot down and also escaped by bailing out but they would not be so lucky those eight aviators who were captured suffered severe torture from the Japanese squad on the island they were either beaten or stabbed with sharp bamboo sticks after which they were killed the most horrifying part was that the bodies of four of them were used to prepare a meal for the Japanese officers by the wish of major Swale Matoba Japanese surgeon dr. T rocky removed the liver from one of the dead you pilots and handed it over to the cook he then prepared it with soy sauce and vegetables and served it in small pieces pierced with bamboo sticks major Matoba in the company of other officers and commander of the island general Yoshio Tachibana feasted on this gruesome meal with sake they believed it was good medicine for the stomach the same feast was repeated with the body parts of three of the other aviators at the time bush knew nothing about this crime that was kept secret even though the executors were eventually trialed in 1946 it was not until 2003 a study published in the book Flyboys a true story of courage that George HW Bush and the entire public learned of the terrible destiny of the captured Airmen in November 1944 Bush returned to the USS San Jacinto and continued to fight over the Philippines after a few months his entire unit returned to the States due to heavy casualties and in September 1945 George HW Bush was honorably discharged from duty even though he flew 58 combat missions had 126 carrier landings and 1228 flight hours the mission over the island of Chi Chi Chi Minh was one that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross as he later claimed these were the moments that he remembered for the rest of his life the soldier who threw himself onto a grenade sergeant major Osborne heroic sacrifice defense of Hong Kong 1941 during the defense of Hong Kong on the morning of December 19 1941 a company of winnipeg grenadiers was separated during an attack about Butler on Hong Kong Island the company was led by sergeant major Osborne full name John Robert Osborne he was born in fooled in Norfolk England and served in the First World War as part of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve after the war he moved to Canada as Saskatchewan wapella where he was a farmer for two years he then moved to Winnipeg Manitoba after working for the Canadian Pacific Railway he joined the Winnipeg Grenadier in 1933 in September 1939 at the outbreak of World War two the Winnipeg grenadiers 's were called for duty serving as a garrison in Jamaica on October 27 1941 the raw recruits of the Winnipeg Grenadier sales for Hong Kong under British orders to strengthen the garrison there in preparation for an impending Japanese invasion Osborne was a company sergeant major for a company in the 1st battalion by now on the morning of December 19 1941 a part of the company of Winnipeg grenadiers led by sergeant major Osborne made a bayonet charge on mount Butler capturing the steep hill holding out for 3 hours against Japanese counter-attacks soon the overwhelming enemy numbers opened an undefended flank Osbourne and his group prepared for withdrawal while the group were rejoining with the company he engaged the enemy single-handedly under heavy enemy rifle and machine gun fire while helping stragglers get to the new company position now it was afternoon and the company found itself cut off from the battalion the Canadians were now completely surrounded by enemy forces who were so close that they were within grenade throwing distance the position was hopeless the Japanese soldiers threw several grenades into the Canadian position but Osbourne picked them up and threw them back to protect his fellow soldiers then a grenade landed where it would be impossible to pick it up and throw in time Osbourne made a split-second decision he shouted a warning pushed a comrade out of the way and threw himself onto the enemy grenade which exploded and killed him instantly he was 42 years old this action saved the lives of his fellow comrades desperately defending the position the company maintained a defense against an overwhelming enemy for eight and a half hours with 60 casualties and a few survivors taken as prisoners sergeant major Osborne displayed the highest qualities of heroism and self-sacrifice becoming the first Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross in the second world war which he received posthumously he was also the only person to be awarded a Victoria Cross for the Battle of Hong Kong he is memorialized by a plaque on a statue of an anonymous world war one soldier located in Hong Kong Park the medic who fought a war without a weapon [Music] Desmond dass was not your average hero he would become a Medal of Honor recipient the United States of America's highest and most prestigious military award as a combat medic who saved many of his comrades lives in battle without firing a single shot because he didn't take a weapon into combat because of his religious beliefs Desmond Doss was born in 1919 in the state of Virginia and was raised as a strict seventh-day adventists a Christian denomination that believed that Saturday was the Sabbath and that the second coming of Jesus Christ was imminent they also believe strongly in non-violence and a healthy diet based typically on a vegetarian diet Doss had been raised with a strict belief in the Bible and when it came to the Ten Commandments he took them to be the core values of how to lead his life when world war ii started he was conflicted as he believed the war was a just one but he felt that to kill another human being under any circumstance was wrong he was already employed as a joiner at Newport News Naval Shipyard but nevertheless he joined the United States Army on April 1st 1942 he could have requested a deferment but he wanted to do his patriotic duty he was assigned to an infantry unit the 77th division and presumed that his classification as a conscientious objector would not require him to carry a weapon for das1 Commandant of the Bible stuck with him the most thou shalt not kill he wondered why he was assigned as a rifleman and not in a medical role his commanding officer tried to pressure das into carrying a weapon as they thought he would be more of a liability than an asset in combat but das refused interestingly even for medics which das was later become it was common practice at the time to carry either in m1911a1 pistol m1 carbine for self-defense purposes the rules go that a medic under the Geneva Convention is not forbidden from carrying a weapon but if a medic fires his weapon he stops being classed as a medic and therefore can be legitimately fired upon by the enemy the regimental chaplain captain Stanley wood soon understand doses protests and helped him transfer from riflemen to medical training to make matters worse his fellow soldiers mocked his religious beliefs when he was reading the Bible daily and strictly observing the seventh-day Adventist tradition of attending church every Saturday dose continuously requested to be allowed to have Saturday's off rather than Sundays in order to follow his Adventists beliefs that Saturday was to be observed as the Sabbath in the end captain Stanley took this up with divisional headquarters and it was decided that Aventis soldiers would have Saturday's off just as the other men had Sunday off this in fact made Doss even more unpopular than ever with his fellow soldiers as he was seen to have it easy as he had Saturday's off none war on base on Sundays to see him pull extra duties to make up for this one of the squad's other soldiers summed up the company's feeling about him and his Saturday's off complaining you get more passes than the general as Doss was a strict vegetarian at a time when it was unusual it meant that the rest of the unit viewed dose with such distrust and hostility that one man in his unit even warned him ominously when we go into combat dass you're not coming back alive I'm gonna shoot you myself does eventually became an Army Combat Medic saying while others are taking life I will be saving it the turning point for das and his relationship with his company came with their first 25 mile march with full field pack and rifle something they were expected to achieve in eight hours the other soldiers thought Doss would be having it easy as he would be carrying no rifle or ammo that day but his to canvass medical bags were almost as heavy and much more awkward to carry than any rifle as the March progressed the men started to suffer from exhaustion numerous blistered feet and dehydration some even passed out and all the time there was dass always with a helping hand even to the extent that at the end of the March he insisted on checking everyone's feet and administering medical aid where it was needed by the end of that day he had won the respect of his entire unit for his tireless devotion to his duty for the first time he was treated as one of their own dass as the qualified combat medic of the unit was now responsible for providing first aid and frontline trauma care on the battlefield he would be assigned to accompany his unit into the war zone and be there with them on the frontline at all times this was soon to happen for the 77th division had had their first combat experience on May 11th 1943 and Doss and his comrades were urgently being trained up to replace the combat losses and help expand the division strength the 77th division would end up being in combat officially for no less than 208 days suffering a total of nine thousand 212 casualties before the war would end the Battle of Guam daus's first taste of combat was at the Battle of Guam which was a bloody battle fought from July 21st to August 10th 1944 to recapture the u.s. territory of the island of Guam from a determined Japanese garrison of nearly 20,000 troops though according to the Geneva Convention knowingly firing at a medic wearing the clear insignia is a war crime the Japanese snipers and machine-gunners tended to ignore this and saw combat medics as easy and valuable targets to gun down so medics in the Pacific Theater were often told to avoid wearing medical insignia in case it would make them more not less of a target Doss was under fire nearly every day during the battle and was busy doing his part in saving lives Guam had shown daus how cruel war could be as his unit was pushing forward through the jungle on their first day a young fresh face recruited spotted a fountain-pen laying on the jungle floor and went to pick it up before anyone could warn him otherwise a white phosphorus grenade exploded the pen had been booby-trapped the young man who had picked up the pen his chest now a bloody mess had blood pouring out of an open wound severe burns and sharp metal fragments covered his body and he was going into shock by some miracle dass managed to stabilize his condition administering care and helping to evacuate him and three other soldiers who had been wounded by flying red-hot shrapnel this was daus's first taste of combat casualties the u.s. casualties during the battle was truly appalling of the fifty nine thousand US troops who took part in the invasion around every one in six were either killed or wounded the battle of leyte next Dass and his unit was involved in the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines that ran from October 17th to December 26 1944 a vicious and prolonged battle which started with a huge u.s. coastal bombardment and in fibia slanting followed by heavy fighting the more inland the Americans went during a Japanese counter attack a fellow medic Clarence Glenn had heard the call for a medic from a machine gunner he left the cover and went into the open into no-man's land to get the wounded man and was himself hit Glenn was daus's friend from back home and he couldn't leave him there so he and a litter bear herb Schechter went out to find the two wounded and dealt with them separately dass was attending the machine gunner who had a gash along his face while bullets whizzed overhead both of the wounded were alive they made an improvised litter out of a poncho and tree branches to get the wounded men back to the aid station but his friend Glenn would die before he made it from this point on Doss would not look at the face of the men he was treating in case it was another friend sadly his friend herb would be shot and killed when he and dass were carrying a litter as their silhouette exposed them against the sky to the enemy on top of losing his friends dass was constantly hungry because the meat in the K rations conflicted with his vegetarianism so he could only eat the tasteless crackers and coconuts he found on lady the coconuts on the ground gave him diarrhea so he climbed the trees for fresh ones at one point dass was looking for coconuts it attracted poorly aimed Japanese machine-gun fire when they were killed by American soldiers it was later discovered that they had been drunk on sake one thing that shocked dass during the most devastating times of the campaign was that the same man who had made threats towards him during training at Fort Jackson now came to him for guidance and to pray for him the Battle of Okinawa and lastly for dass and the 77th Infantry Division was a battle that was to be the bloodiest battle of the war in the Pacific as well as its largest amphibious landing the u.s. objective was to secure the island as a base as it was just 350 miles south of the Japanese mainland and would be strategically crucial for any future invasion of Japan the battle started on April 1st 1945 exactly three years to the day that Doss first enlisted in the army and the battle was to last 81 days Doss was assigned to the 1st battalion as their combat medic on April 29 1945 the 77th division was given the task of assaulting on a 400 foot high cliff called the mighta escarpment this was nicknamed by the Americans as Hacksaw Ridge before they climb the cargo net Doss said a prayer for his comrades when daus's unit joined the assault and as they neared the top of the escarpment that came under intense Japanese artillery small-arms and machine-gun fire inflicting severe casualties on the assaulting American troops the American forces had sent in wave after wave of troops to try to dislodge a fanatical enemy based there who are well entrenched and camouflaged a may fourth while his unit was attacking a heavily fortified enemy position at the mouth of a cave Doss went to the aid of four of his injured comrades the lieutenant who led the attack on the emplacement had intended to throw a grenade when an enemy bullet hit him and delayed it blowing his hand off and wounding his comrades despite having to get within 25 feet of the enemy lines and under attack by enemy grenades a gunfire dass managed to get to the injured men he then managed to evacuate the men back to his own lines one by one during the night the Japanese continued to throw grenades and kept up the mortar fire the American soldiers hid in rock crevices but the Japanese found ways to infiltrate and sneak up on them then on the next day May 5th he came to the rescue of a wounded artillery officer who had gone to see how the artillery guns were doing daus's left leg was now injured as he had felled the day before down the edge of a pair of it he climbed up the cargo net with his first-aid kits his weight falling on his bad leg finding him in a shell hole the officer had been struck by shrapnel that had made a hole from his chest to his back and dass could hear him breathing through it he was bleeding heavily dass gave him first aid while under constant enemy gunfire and showing he put the dressings over the large holes in the Colonel's chest and back and administered blood plasma which dangerously exposed dose to the enemy as he had to hold it up high doses efforts here would be in vain as the colonel carried back on a stretcher died before he reached the aid station later there were orders to take a vital Japanese pillbox position on the reverse slope of a hill that was holding up the American advance Desmond Doss once he had read his prayers was happy to support the assault the American troops threw gasoline cans at the position which triggered a large explosion all of a sudden a large Japanese counter-attack overwhelmed the American soldiers causing them to panic and rush back to the edge of the cliff but despite this das refused to take cover and while constantly under heavy fire by the enemy though being totally exhausted he spent hours carrying the wounded one by one to the edge of the escarpment then to get the more severely wounded down he tied a rope to a tree stump and lowered them down the cliff on a rope supported stretcher to safety when the stretcher kept slipping he turned to a new method looping the rope around the wounded men's chest and legs to lower them down dose standing exposed to potential enemy fire was seen praying at the cliff edge as the men were being lowered down and later he had said he had been praying to the Lord to help him get one more and after that one more until they were all down calculating the wounded men at the base of the cliff the captain worked out that Dass had saved around 75 men the Americans would eventually go back up the cliff and on May 7th would take the position by some miracle Doss survived the whole battle totally unhurt but that was soon to change on May 21st in the confusion of a night attack Doss tended to the American wounded risking being hit by both the Japanese and by friendly fire Doss was in a shell hole with another American soldier when a grenade landed beneath him his reflex action was to put his foot on it and was seriously wounded in both legs his blood poured out from the impact of 17 pieces of shrapnel in his body but he remained in his position for five hours tending to himself while also helping others who were wounded until a medic and a pair of litter bearers could get to him but that was not the end of it that day for us he was being stretchered to safety they got caught in an enemy tank attack as they took cover Doss spotted a critically injured man and insisted that he be taken back on the stretcher instead of himself while dass waited for the litter bearers to return he was found and helped back by a fellow soldier suddenly dass was hit by a Japanese sniper's bullet and suffered a compound fracture to his arm the two men took cover in a shell hole realizing how badly injured he now was dass instructed the soldier on how to bind rifle stock to his shattered arm to act as a splint eventually pushing through excruciating pain he would make it back to the aid station the US Army recognized doses extreme bravery and he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic and selfless actions at Okinawa from April 29th to May 21st 1945 because of his heroic actions many wounded men made it back home Desmond dass will go on to run a small family farm with his wife Dorothy and lived to the age of 87 hey guys check out this simple history merch on teespring there's t-shirts mugs stickers phone cases and much more link in the description below

Channel: Simple History

Views: 2,275,453

Rating: 4.8546796 out of 5

Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, men of valor, green beret, mad jack, desmond doss, medic ww2, Roy Benavidez, brave, medal of honor, larry thorne, douglas bader, raf, no legs, pilot, Major Osborn, Lauri Törni, george bush, cannibals, One-eyed Scout, liberated a town, Léo Major, shot down a Plane with a Pistol, Owen J. Baggett, Gurkha, only One Hand, crazy story, incredible stories

Id: nmyX3ax61vI

Length: 79min 42sec (4782 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 30 2019