10 Badass Heroes of World War Two
10 Jack Churchill
When the allies landed on Vågsøy Island,
off the coast of Norway, their charge against
the Nazis was led by a man with a sword and
bagpipes.
Lieutenant-Colonel “Mad Jack” Churchill
fought the fought through the entirety of
World War Two. And the entire time he armed
himself only with a Scottish claymore and
a longbow.
Once quoted as saying “any officer who goes
into action without his sword is improperly
dressed”, it’s probably fair to say that
“Mad Jack” was an unusual soldier. But
he was also an effective one.
While fighting in Salerno, Churchill snuck
his way around a series enemy sentry posts,
taking 42 Nazis prisoner with his blade.
In fact, the only time Churchill felt bad
was when World War Two ended. He famously
reflected: “If it wasn’t for those damn
Yanks, we could have kept the war going another
10 years”.
9 Lewis Millett
It’s not often that you can call a defector
a war hero. But when Lewis Millett defected
from the US army in mid-1941, it wasn’t
out of cowardice but a desperate desire to
fight the Nazis.
You see, America wasn’t in the war at that
stage. So Millett decided to sneak off and
hitchhike his way to Canada. There he joined
the Canadian military, and was sent to Britain
to serve as an anti-aircraft radar operator
during the Blitz.
When America finally joined the war after
Pearl Harbor, Millett signed back up for the
US army and fought against Rommel's Afrika
Korps in Tunisia.
There he performed a series of impressively
action movie-style feats, including grabbing
a machine gun and shooting down a fighter
jet going at 480 kilometers per hour above
his head. As if that wasn’t enough, when
an armored car near his men caught fire he
jumped in, drove it away from them and then
leaped out as it was exploding.
Millett’s heroism was so renowned that after
the war, the US army basically overlooked
the whole “defection” thing. He was given
a small fine and went on to fight just as
courageously in Korea.
8 Matvey Kuzmin
By 1942, Matvey Kuzmin was 80 years old. But
that didn’t stop the Russian farmer from
becoming a World War Two hero when he was
surrounded by 70 German soldiers.
The troops came to Kuzmin’s home on the
outskirts of Kurakino, asking him to guide
them safely through the village. They even
tried to bribe him with offers of money, flour,
kerosene and a new hunting rifle.
Kuzmin agreed, but also secretly sent his
son ahead of him with a warning to the Russian
Army.
The next day, Kuzmin deliberately led the
Germans through a series of difficult and
tiring paths into the village. When the weary
soldiers finally reached the village, they
found a battalion of around 300 Russian soldiers
waiting ambush them.
50 of the Germans were killed in the shootout,
and a further 20 were captured.
Unfortunately, the Nazi Commanding Officer
shot Kuzmin dead in the middle of the bloodbath.
After word of the old man’s heroism reached
higher ups in the USSR, Kuzmin became the
oldest man to officially made a Hero of the
Soviet Union.
7 Lachhiman Gurung
If there’s a group of soldiers more feared
than any other, it has to be the Gurkhas,
a group of Nepalese soldiers who fight in
the British army. And no-one better illustrates
the toughness of these badasses than Lachhiman
Gurung.
On the night of May 12th, 1945, Gurung and
his small troop of Gurkhas were tasked with
defending a post in Burma. That mission became
significantly harder when 200 Japanese soldiers
decided to attack.
Every other Ghurka in the troop died that
night, and Gurung’s right hand was blown
off by a grenade. Alone and wounded, Gurung
took out his Kukri blade, stabbed it in the
ground, and declared that no one would pass
that point.
Then, with one hand, a gun and a load of bullets,
Gurung held the Japanese off for the entire
night, and eventually forced them to retreat.
When Gurkha reinforcements appeared in the
morning, they found that Gurung had killed
31 men.
After nursing him back to health, the British
government awarded Lachhiman a Victoria Cross,
the highest military honor they have to give.
6 Charles Carpenter
In 1942, Charles Carpenter signed up for the
US Army but ended up flying observation aircraft.
His job was to perform reconnaissance missions
and scout out enemy troops, but he quickly
grew frustrated that he couldn’t do more
to help.
Then in 1944, while the allies were sieging
the French harbor of Lorient [lo-ree-on],
Carpenter finally decided what he needed to
do. Lashing 6 hand-held rocket launchers to
the outside of his observation plane, he flew
off into battle. After renaming the jet Rosie
the Rocketeer, of course.
Even though the bazookas had only one round
each per flight, and the fact Charles was
firing them WHILE flying a plane through enemy
fire, Rosie the Rocketeer managed to take
out 6 German tanks in the months it was flown
over France.
Major Carpenter’s ingenuity and courage
soon made him a household name, with his stories
appearing in newspapers across America. Before
the end of the war, he was promoted to Lieutenant.
5 Ernest “Smokey” Smith
You have to be quite a soldier to get promoted
9 times. And you have to be quite a badass
to get almost immediately demoted for wild
behavior every time.
Ernest Smith, who entered the Canadian military
as a Private in 1940, earned the title Corporal
9 times. But after every promotion, his hard
drinking, epic rudeness, and frequent insubordination
meant that he was bumped back down every time.
Fortunately, Ernest made up for it on the
battlefield. While fighting the Nazis back
through Europe, Smith and his fellow Allies
were pinned by a Panther tank.
“Smokey” famously walked casually up to
vehicle, getting as close as 10 meters away
before shooting it with a rocket launcher.
He then held his position alone, killing four
soldiers and forcing the rest into retreat.
Smith’s antics earned him the honor of a
Victoria Cross. But his reputation as a wild
man was such that the Canadian army locked
him in a post office the night before the
award, just to make sure he didn’t wander
off.
4 Virginia Hall
Spies are supposed to be non-descript enough
to avoid detection and fast enough to escape
danger if they are discovered. Which is why
it’s pretty impressive that Virginia Hall
was able to become a top level CIA field agent,
despite having a wooden leg.
And Hall wasn’t just a good spy. A telegram
from the Gestapo once described her as “the
most dangerous of allied spies”.
Working undercover in Vichy France, Hall and
her team gathered intelligence on Nazi positions,
derailed German trains, and trained French
resistance troops in Guerrilla warfare.
Her numerous successful missions unfortunately
raised her profile, and the Nazis eventually
caught on and released and arrest warrant
for “the limping lady”. Forced to flee
France, Hall escaped by hiking through the
Pyrenees mountains. While being pursued by
Gestapo agents. While having only one working
leg.
Even though she was already a highly-wanted
spy marked by the Gestapo, Hall volunteered
to return to France after her escape. There
she continued to aid the French resistance
until the end of the war.
3 Ivan Pavlovich Sereda
Russia has a reputation for producing some
of the craziest badasses ever to strut their
way across a battlefield. But Ivan Pavlovich
Sereda is proof that even Russia’s cooks
aren’t to be messed with.
In August 1941 Ivan was working as a chef
for the Red Army’s 91st Tank Regiment when
an enemy tank stalled just outside his field
kitchen. Not willing to let this bit of luck
go to waste, Ivan grabbed an axe and ran headlong
at the German as they exited their vehicle.
Presumably terrified at the sight of an axe-wielding
chef barreling towards them, the Nazi soldiers
jumped back into the tank and started shooting
at Ivan.
Ivan leapt onto the tank and bent the machine
gun barrel with his axe. Then he covered the
tank’s observation hole with a tarpaulin
and pretended that other Russian soldiers
were handing him a grenade to drop in the
tank.
Ivan was alone, but managed to trick the entire
tank crew into surrendering.
2 Lyudmila Pavlichenko
Whether they were defending their homeland
against Operation Barbarossa or shooting their
way through Berlin, over 2,000 snipers served
in the Red Army in World War Two.
But none was more deadly than Lyudmila Pavlichenko.
The first female Soviet sniper volunteered
for the army in June 1941. The Russians were
initially reluctant to let a woman fight,
but were quickly impressed when Pavlichenko
took out 187 enemy soldiers in her first two
and a half months of duty. And that was just
her getting started.
Pavlichenko’s Nazi killing spree continued
until the end of the war, by which point she’d
sniped a staggering 309 enemies. 36 of those
were rival snipers, one of whom she battled
for three days before eventually getting a
clean shot off on him.
After the war ended, Lyudmila became a local
hero, and was the first Soviet soldier sent
over to visit the White House and President
Franklin Roosevelt.
1 Audie Murphy
At 160 centimeters tall and weighing 50 kilograms,
you probably wouldn’t think that Audie Murphy
was ever cut out to be a war hero. But Audie’s
small statute didn’t hold him back from
becoming one of the fiercest warriors the
US military has ever seen.
Murphy fought in North Africa, Italy, and
Southern France, picking up 32 medals for
his bravery. But his most insanely badass
moment came in 1945, when Lieutenant Murphy
and his company had to defend the hotly contested
and vitally important Colmar Pocket region
of France.
There, he and 19 allied troops defended against
6 German tanks and hundreds of soldiers. They
took out one tank but things looked dire.
That was until Audie jumped into the flaming
tank they’d partly destroyed, and used the
gun to take out the rest. The Nazis retreated
and Colmar Pocket remained allied until the
end of the war.
Audie’s antics became so famous that after
the World War Two, Murphy ended up playing
himself in a Hollywood movie about his life
in the war. Unfortunately, the writers had
to tone things down, because Audie real life
bad-assery was so ridiculous it would have
made the movie seem unrealistic.
So, those were 10 Badass Heroes of World War
Two. Which Second World War warrior did you
think was the most epic? Did we leave any
heroes off the list?
And if you want more excellent Second World
War stuff, check out 10 Unsolved Mysteries
Of World War Two, playing now.
