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HubU
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Posts: 11363
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 Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 00:49 Post subject: Curious Curios for the Copious Cortexes |
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This is a thread for all interesting trivia-style stories that are sometimes shocking, sometimes informative, and always makes you wonder.
I'll start this with JBeckman "Canadian Strong Man" story 
| JBeckman wrote: |
The year was 1881 and the annual Boston strong man competition was underway.
Two of the strongest men in the state had already failed the simple test; to lift a Percheron horse completely off the ground using only their own muscle power. Neither could even budge the animal. [b]Now an apple-cheeked eighteen-year-old Canadian with flowing locks of curly blond hair strode up to the huge equine. At first he was greeted by laughter from the audience, which quickly turned to incredulous silence as young Louis Cyr boosted the horse onto his back and lifted all four hooves clear of the ground.
In a day of scientific training methods and anabolic steroid shortcuts, Canadian body-building guru Ben Weider still maintains that no one, dead or alive, even approached Quebecker Louis Cyr for shear power. Cyr was officially recorded to have back-lifted (off a trestle) 4,337 pounds. Unofficially he had often surpassed 5,000 pounds. He was also recorded to have lifted 1,897 pounds several inches off the ground with two hands, and with one finger was able to raise the incredible weight of 553 pounds. He could pull fully laden rail cars and on one occasion held back four 1200-pound horses, two in each hand, pulling in opposite directions.
Louis Cyr was born Noe-Cyprien Cyr on October 10, 1863, in the town of St. Cyprien de Napierville, near Montreal. He later changed his name to Louis after moving to Massachusetts, as this was easier for his American neighbors to remember and pronounce. Louis was the oldest of seventeen children and was noted from an early age to have preternatural strength. This was not a unique trait in his family. His mother weighed over 250 pounds and exceeded six feet in height. She would routinely climb ladders toting 200-pound bags of flour on one shoulder, and later worked as a bouncer in her husband’s tavern. It was reported she could pick up a hefty, angry adult male clear off the ground and pin him to the wall like a butterfly. Her father was also a powerful man, at six-foot-four inches, weighing 260 pounds. Louis’ brother Pierre was destined to be the Canadian middleweight boxing champion, and was able to back lift over 2000 pounds. Later, Louis’ daughter Emiliana performed with her father, and was billed as lifting over 300 pounds at the tender age of eight.
Mama Cyr was very proud of her powerful son. She kept his blond hair long and curled after the style of the biblical hero Samson, a trademark he maintained well into his career.
Later, the Cyr family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts to take advantage of improved employment opportunities in the textile mills. Louis, still an adolescent, worked at a variety of occupations, and subsequently met and married Melina Comtois. Anxious to support his family, Louis was easily convinced by a dubious character named MacSohmer that he could make a good living by going on tour displaying his strength. MacSohmer, however, lived high off the earnings of his protégé and Louis saw little money for his troubles. Eventually MacSohmer pushed things too far. When Cyr failed to show at a sold out show, the promoter found the dressing room bare, the proceeds of the ticket sales gone, and his strongman had checked out of the hotel, leaving his “boss” to pay the bill.
Cyr later found more honest backers, however, he delayed going back on the road. His wife had lost her first pregnancy, and Melina was once again expecting. To avoid the hardship of traveling during her gestation, the strongman took a position with the Montreal Constabulary. He was assigned to Saint Cunegonde, the most dangerous and lawless district in the city. Cyr and four other gendarmes were confronted and assaulted by a gang of thugs. Other constables were in hiding and joined the fray, arresting many of the criminals. Louis took care of a dozen opponents single-handedly by picking up his adversaries and using them as human missiles and battering rams.
Some time later, when the furor had died down, patrols in the district dropped to only two officers. One evening Louis and his partner, Constable Proulx, saw an altercation involving two drunks. Running to break up the fight, the two policemen were ambushed by a dozen men with clubs and hatchets. Louis grabbed one of his assailants in each hand and again used his opponents as human shields and weapons. He got off with a superficial knife wound, though his partner subsequently died of his injuries. A large number of men were arrested, with only one receiving a light sentence. This was one of Cyr’s hapless shields, who’d been cut and bludgeoned to a pulp by his confreres attempting to kill the policeman. Saint Cunegonde remained a safe district for years after.
Louis subsequently went on tour across North America, forming his own circus, Cyr Brothers, with Pierre. He received invaluable publicity from Richard K. Fox, publisher of The Police Gazette in New York. The strongman challenged all comers across the continent and remained undefeated in virtually any type of lifting contest.
Subsequently, in 1892 he traveled to Europe and premiered to a sold out house at the Royal Aquarium in London. After a demonstration of his incredible lifting prowess several famous European strongmen in the audience slunk away without answering Cyr’s public challenge to oppose him on stage. Cyr was subsequently feted by London’s high society including the Royal Family. The Marquis of Queensbury gifted Louis with a fine gray horse, and was amazed when the strongman consumed twenty pounds of meat at a dinner thrown in his honor.
Louis returned to the North America and continued to break records and amaze audiences. Unfortunately his health began to deteriorate in his late thirties attributed to his excess food consumption and sedentary lifestyle. He developed “nephritis, complicated with heart trouble and asthma” and came under the care of Dr. Donald Hingston of Montreal. For his last twelve years of life he was placed on diet consisting only of milk.
Despite his deteriorating health, Cyr’s abilities remained formidable. In 1906 the ailing forty-two year old accepted a challenge from a young strongman named Hector Decarie. Though Cyr lifted a platform weighing 2,870 pounds onto his back for a full minute, and actually won the competition based on points, for the first time he was out-lifted in several categories. Louis realized that his powers were diminishing and that he was no longer fit to continue competing. He graciously offered his title of Strongest Man in the World to Decarie and retired.
Cyr died on November 10, 1912 in Montreal. His daughter Emiliana who retired from her weights to marry physician, Dr. Zenon Aumont, survived him. Their son Gerald also became a medical doctor and practiced in Montreal.
An examination of the members of Cyr’s family who manifested great strength suggests an autosomal dominant pattern of transmission. Louis’ maternal grandfather, his mother, his brother Pierre, and daughter Emiliana all were unusually powerful. Cyr’s father and his wife Merina were not recorded as being particularly big or strong, again in keeping with a dominant trait.
Interestingly the hereditary conditions of malignant hyperthermia and Thomsen’s disease (a form of myotonia congenita) are passed on in an autosomal dominant manner and may be associated with unusual strength or muscle bulk. Both these conditions are described in French Canadian populations. Animal geneticists have been trying to breed hogs with the malignant hyperthermia gene because of the greatly increased muscle bulk, and hence meat production, associated with this condition.
Myotonia congenita may cause increased strength, but the muscle spasm associated may otherwise tend to interfere with agility and coordination. Ben Weider in his book The Strongest Man is History: Louis Cyr, Amazing Canadian points out that Cyr was actually quite agile for a man of his size and bulk, which would tend to make this condition less likely.
Perhaps the Cyr family strength is an independent autosomal dominant trait. It would be interesting to know whether great strength still runs in descendants of the family, or whether cases of malignant hyperthermia or Thomsen’s disease have been reported.
Whatever the underlying cause of Cyr’s great strength, he remains a remarkable Canadian as well as an international icon in the world of body builders. He is probably the only strongman in Canada, if not in the world, memorialized by a public monument, which is located in the city of Montreal.
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"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
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HubU
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 00:58 Post subject: |
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The story of the "other Churchill"
Jack Churchill
Nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill" and "Mad Jack", he was known for the motto: "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."
Churchill resumed his commission after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. As part of the British Expeditionary Force to France, in May 1940, Churchill and his unit, the Manchester Regiment, ambushed a German patrol near L'Épinette (near Richebourg in the Pas-de-Calais), France. Churchill gave the signal to attack by cutting down the enemy Feldwebel (staff sergeant) with a barbed arrow, becoming the only British soldier known to have felled an enemy with a longbow in the war. According to his son, Malcolm, "he and his section were in a tower and, as the Germans approached, he said, 'I will shoot that first German with an arrow,' and that's exactly what he did." After fighting at Dunkirk, he volunteered for the Commandos.
Jack Churchill was second in command of No. 3 Commando in Operation Archery, a raid on the German garrison at Vågsøy, Norway, on 27 December 1941. As the ramps fell on the first landing craft, Churchill leapt forward from his position playing "March of the Cameron Men" on his bagpipes, before throwing a grenade and charging into battle. For his actions at Dunkirk and Vågsøy, Churchill received the Military Cross and Bar.
At the town of Pigoletti, he captured the town by throwing so many bombs that the Italians holding Pigoletti thought they were being attacked by half the British Army.
Churchill later walked back to the town to retrieve his sword, which he had lost in hand-to-hand combat with the German regiment. On his way there, he encountered a disoriented American patrol, mistakenly walking towards enemy lines. When the NCO in command of the patrol refused to turn around, Churchill told them that he was going his own way and "that he wouldn't come back for a bloody third time".
(in Yugoslavia august 1944)
The following morning, one flanking attack was launched by 43 Commando with Churchill leading the elements from 40 Commando. The Partisans remained at the landing area. Only Churchill and six others managed to reach the objective. A mortar shell killed or wounded everyone but Churchill, who was playing "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" on his pipes as the Germans advanced. He was knocked unconscious by grenades and captured. He was later flown to Berlin for interrogation and then transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
In September 1944, Churchill and a Royal Air Force officer, (Bertram James), crawled under the wire, through an abandoned drain and attempted to walk to the Baltic coast. They were captured near the German coastal city of Rostock, a few kilometres from the sea.
In late April 1945, Churchill and about 140 other prominent concentration camp inmates were transferred to Tyrol, guarded by SS troops. A delegation of prisoners told senior German army officers they feared they would be executed. A German army unit commanded by Captain Wichard von Alvensleben moved in to protect the prisoners. Outnumbered, the SS guards moved out, leaving the prisoners behind. The prisoners were released and, after the departure of the Germans, Churchill walked 150 kilometres (93 mi) to Verona, Italy, where he met an American armoured unit.
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
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HubU
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 01:19 Post subject: |
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Adrian Carton de Wiart
Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart (5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963) was a British Army officer born of Belgian and Irish parents, and recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" in various Commonwealth countries. He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp; and tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them.
Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."
In February 1915, he embarked on a steamer for France. Carton de Wiart took part in the fighting on the Western Front, commanding successively three infantry battalions and a brigade. He was wounded seven more times in the war, losing his left hand in 1915 and pulling off his fingers when a doctor declined to remove them. He was shot through the skull and ankle at the Battle of the Somme, through the hip at the Battle of Passchendaele, through the leg at Cambrai, and through the ear at Arras.
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(As POW in Italia)
He made five attempts including seven months tunneling. Once Carton de Wiart evaded capture for eight days disguised as an Italian peasant (he was in northern Italy, could not speak Italian, and was 61 years old, with an eye patch, one empty sleeve and multiple injuries and scars). Ironically, Carton de Wiart had been approved for repatriation due to his disability, but notification arrived after his escape. As the repatriation would have required that he promise not to take any further part in the war, it is probable that he would have declined.
(China)
Before arriving in China, Carton de Wiart attended the 1943 Cairo Conference organized by Churchill, U.S President Roosevelt and Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek. There is a famous picture of these leaders gathered in a Cairo garden, with Carton de Wiart standing behind them in company.
Spot the one-eyed badass 
| Spoiler: | |
A good part of Carton de Wiart's reporting had to do with the increasing power of the Chinese Communists. The historian Max Hastings writes: "De Wiart despised all Communists on principle, denounced Mao Zedong as 'a fanatic', and added: 'I cannot believe he means business'. He told the British cabinet that there was no conceivable alternative to Chiang as ruler of China." He met Mao Zedong at dinner and had a memorable exchange with him, interrupting his propaganda speech to criticise him for holding back from fighting the Japanese for domestic political reasons. Mao was briefly stunned, and then laughed.
Death:
En route home via French Indochina, Carton de Wiart stopped in Rangoon as a guest of the army commander. Coming down stairs, he slipped on coconut matting (wtf  ), fell down, broke several vertebrae, and knocked himself unconscious. He eventually made it to England and into a hospital where he slowly recovered the doctors also succeeded in extracting a large amount of shrapnel from his old wounds.
Carton de Wiart died at the age of 83 on 5 June 1963.
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 05:54 Post subject: |
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Simo Häyhä
https://www.damninteresting.com/white-death/
In April of 1938, representatives from the USSR approached the Finnish government and expressed a concern that Nazi Germany could attempt to invade Russia, and such an attack might come through parts of Finland. The Finns replied that they were officially neutral, but any Nazi incursion on Finland’s borders would be resisted. This did not mollify the Soviets. Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf, was published thirteen years previous with specific note that the Nazis would need to invade the Soviet Union. The Red Army was determined to “advance to meet the enemy” and refused to accept promises from the smaller country. As negotiations continued, the Soviets tried to coax Finland into leasing or ceding some area to serve as a buffer to Leningrad. In November 1939, however, all negotiations ceased, and on 30 November 1939 the Soviet Red Army invaded Finland.
In the municipality of Rautjärvi near the Soviet/Finnish border, 34-year-old Simo Häyhä was a farmer and hunter leading a flagrantly unexciting life. Upon news of the hostilities, he gathered up food, plain white camouflage, and his iron-sighted SAKO M/28-30—a variant of the Soviet Mosin-Nagant rifle—and went to defend his country. Before the four-month war ended, humble Häyhä would gain infamy among the Russian invaders, and come to be known as the “White Death.”
Simo Häyhä’s vacated farmhouse was littered with trophies he’d won for marksmanship. Reportedly, Häyhä could hit a target 150 meters away 16 times in one minute. He served his required year in the Finnish military starting in 1925, and was discharged as a corporal. Thereafter he joined the Civil Guard, the Finnish analog of the US National Guard. Over the years, Häyhä drilled with the Civil Guard until he was called back into service.
At the time, the entire population of Finland numbered around three million, while the USSR was nearer to 171 million. The Finns knew they were outmanned at about one hundred to one, and therefore opted for a defensive, guerrilla-style strategy. Häyhä’s first active-duty assignment was with Jaeger Regiment 34 stationed along the Kollaa River.
The Winter War was brutally cold. Rarely did the temperature exceed zero degrees Fahrenheit, but the genital-constricting cold was inadequate to stop Häyhä. Usually he would don his warmest uniform and wrap it with a white snowsuit, mitts, and mask, wrap a few days’ worth of food in cloth, pocket fifty to seventy rounds of ammunition, and hike out into the bush with his rifle and a submachine gun. He would find himself a vantage point in some brush or in the boughs of a tree, and wait—sometimes for days—for a target of opportunity. The invading Soviets tended to adhere to established roads, and Häyhä would entrench himself in the terrain within view. Often he would choose to forfeit possible targets to engender a sense of security and lure more appealing prey like officers and supply trains into his sights.
The Soviets began to react to Häyhä’s success by ordering artillery strikes on suspected sniper nests, and employing counter-snipers. One Russian sniper killed several Finnish soldiers and three officers, and was on the hunt for a particularly troublesome Finn with a Mosin-Nagant M91. He made one kill early in the day, giving Häyhä a general location of his adversary. Häyhä slowly crept through the snow to gain position. When the sun began to set, the Soviet sniper decided that his chance was past and rose to his knees. The sun glinted on his 3x scope; Häyhä was still patiently waiting and caught sight of the movement. Häyhä put a single shot through the Soviet’s head from 450 meters.
Despite Häyhä’s success, the Soviets were winning the war. The Finns were forced to fall back almost 40 kilometers, to the banks of the Kollaa River. The Finns knew that if the Soviets gained a path across the river they would be able to attack the defensive lines from the rear. An area known as Kollaa Hill suddenly became a high-priority target for the Soviets as a chance to cross the river. Jaeger Regiment 34, though in need of supply and reinforcement, was ordered to defend the hill. Both sides knew the Finns were outmanned, and what artillery they had was old and useless against the Soviet Armored Infantry. A Soviet division tried to take the hill from a Finnish regiment, but did not account for the defenders’ indefatigability. They failed. The Soviets thought two divisions could overcome the same regiment, but the Finns adopted a formidable battle cry: “They shall not pass!” The battle carried on for weeks while the Finns lost soldiers and depleted their supplies, and the Soviet forces were reinforced. During the daylight hours, the Soviets would bombard the Finnish lines. The Finns would hunker down in shelter until nightfall brought an end to artillery fire, and then sneak out to make repairs during the bitter cold darkness. The Finnish forces lost several men to exhaustion as the battle continued unabated.
Early in the Battle of Kollaa, the Soviets employed tactics of overwhelming force, but the Finns developed a counter-strategy called “Motti” tactics, a name derived from the Finnish word for “encircled.” The Finns would open their lines for the Soviet advance and allow the leading elements through. Once the Soviets passed, the Finns would rally, close the line again to prevent any aid from arriving, and attack the leading element from the sides and rear. As the Soviets lost units to this unconventional tactic, they were forced to alter their attacks to hold territory, and therefore slow the advance while increasing their investments of manpower and equipment.
21 December 1939 was Häyhä’s personal record for a single day with 25 confirmed Russian kills. Around this time, Häyhä surpassed 500 confirmed kills between the rifle and SMG. When the Russians finally figured out there was just one guy with a rifle killing dozens of their men, they started referring to him as “The White Death.”
Come mid-January, the Soviets were still fighting for Kollaa. In an effort to break the deadlock, the advance was halted for the Soviets to resupply. After two days to regroup, the attack resumed with renewed fervor to break the Finnish lines. One component of this attack was the Battle of Killer Hill where 32 Finns faced an onslaught of four thousand Soviets. Each side gained and lost ground over several days. Eventually the Soviets opted to refocus their efforts on another target—presumably due to having lost four hundred men in the engagement. Of the original 32 defenders of Killer Hill, only four survived to see the battle victoriously ended.
Even as France and Great Britain sent offers of aid to the Finns, the frustrated and desperate Soviets rallied for one final push. Air raids and artillery barrages escalated. Ground troops pushed forward only to be attacked, usually by smaller forces at all sides. The Soviets, however, were now acquainted with the Finnish Motti tactic, and knew better than to pursue the attackers into the woods, become isolated, and be systematically killed. This time they opted to dig in and entrench whatever position they could. Little circles of Soviet forces cropped up through the countryside, too well armed for the Finns to dislodge or destroy, but also without supplies and unable to advance.
On 6 March 1940, newly promoted Lieutenant Simo Häyhä was with a small group of ski-troops, fighting against a much larger Soviet force. As noon neared, Häyhä had forty confirmed kills for the day, but his luck changed. A single explosive round hit him in the upper-left side of his jaw. The men who evacuated Häyhä reported “half his face missing,” but loaded him on a train toward care. He remained comatose for four days. He awoke with a shattered jaw only hours after the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty which officially ended the Winter War.
The terms of the treaty allowed the Soviets to retain a large swath of Finland’s territory, including Häyhä’s home of Rautjärvi. Häyhä was but one of 422,000 Finns left homeless by the war. One Soviet general remarked, “We have won enough ground to bury our dead.”
Some historians have speculated that in the early days of World War II, Hitler and his advisers looked at the Soviets’ heavy losses against Finland and concluded that the Soviets might not be able to properly defend Leningrad, and it could be taken with little fight. If so, this may have been the Nazis’ greatest logistical error.
As for Häyhä, he was awarded five medals after the war, wrote a book about his service, and was occasionally invited to appear at events honoring military service. Described as quiet and congenial, when asked the secret of how he accumulated 505 confirmed sniper kills, he would smile and reply, “Practice.” Simo “The White Death” Häyhä died of natural causes in 2002 aged 96.
"There are no innocent victims. If you're born on this planet, you are guilty, fuck you, end of report, next case, NEXT FUCKING CASE! Your birth certificate is proof of guilt!" - George Carlin
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JBeckman
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Posts: 34994
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 07:04 Post subject: |
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So that post become a new thread entirely? Neat!
Heard about Simo but for the rest I have some reading to do.
Well to add to the thread.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/LeoMajor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Major
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Corporal Léo Major (1921-2008) was a French-Canadian soldier of the Régiment de la Chaudière, and was one of only three Canadian recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (second only to the Victoria Cross), the only Canadian to receive it twice (a bar on the DCM), and the only Allied soldier to be awarded two DCMs in two different wars.
In 1940, at age 19, he enlisted in the Canadian Army in the Régiment de la Chaudière, and was sent overseas in 1941, gravitating towards the scout platoon. He finally saw combat on D-Day, in which he captured a Sd.Kfz. 251 halftrack during a recconaissance mission, which contained German communitication equipment and documents. Days later, he encountered an SS patrol and killed four soldiers. However, one of them managed to set off a phosphorus grenade which caused him to lose an eye. He refused to be evactuated, and successfully argued that he only needed one eye to sight a rifle, and said his eyepatch made him "look like a pirate", and was allowed to continue as a scout.
During the Battle of the Scheldt, he single-handedly captured 93 German soldiers in Zeeland, in southern Netherlands. During a lone recconnaissance mission on a cold and rainy day, he spotted two German soldiers by a dike. He said to himself, "I am frozen and wet because of you so you will pay." He captured the first, then tried to use him as bait to capture the other. The second tried to shoot Major, but Major killed him. He then captured their commanding officer and forced him to surrender, and the garrison then surrendered themselves after Major killed three more German soldiers. SS troops in a nearby village saw him escorting over a hundred prisoners of war, and started firing on their own troops, injuring several and killing seven. Major ignored this and continued to the Canadian lines, then ordered a Canadian tank to fire on the SS troops.
He marched into camp with almost a hundred POWs, and was chosen for a DCM. He declined, because, according to him, General Montgomery (who would be presenting the award) was "incompetent" and not in a position to award medals.
In February 1945, he was helping a chaplain load corpses from a destroyed Tiger tank onto a Bren Carrier. As they drove away, the carrier ran over a mine, throwing Major into the air, then, according to him, hitting the ground hard on his back as he landed. When he was woken up by two medics, he only asked if the chaplain was okay. They didn't answer, then loaded him onto a truck to a field hospital 30 miles away, stopping every fifteen minutes to administer morphine. A doctor there told him his back was broken in three places and and had broken both ankles and three ribs. He was also told the war was over for him. After a week, he escaped, catching a ride on a Jeep to Nijmegen, where he knew a family, and stayed for almost a month before returing to his regiment in March.
In early April, the Régiment de la Chaudière was nearing the city of Zwolle, where German resistance was particularly strong. The commander asked for two volunteers to recon the city and German force for an artillery battalion before it opened fire at 6 AM. Major and his friend Willie Arseneault volunteered for it. The two decided to capture the city to keep it intact, even though they were only supposed to report on the German strength and meet up with the Dutch Resistance.
Around midnight, Willie Arseneault was killed when a sentry heard them near a bunker and fired at the noise. Enraged, Major took Arseneault's rifle and killed two of the Germans, but the rest fled the bunker in a truck, leaving behind a munitions dump. There, he took a captured machine gun, his and Arseneault's rifles, and a pouch filled with grenades, and entered the city near Sassenport. He ambushed a staff car and captured the driver whom he took to a bar where an officer was drinking, and found both could speak French, then told them about the bombardment. As a sign of good faith, he returned the officer's pistol. Major then ran through the town firing the machine gun and throwing grenades, and making so much racket it fooled the Germans into thinking his regiment was storming the city. At least ten times, he captured groups of eight to ten German soldiers, escorted them out of the city to French-Canadian troops nearby, then continue the assault. He also had to break into civilians' houses to rest four times during the night. He eventually found the Gestapo HQ and set it on fire. He then found the SS HQ and got into a firefight with eight high ranking SS officers. He killed four and the rest fled. He noticed two of the dead officers were disguised as Dutch Resistance members, and realized that the Resistance was being, or was about to be infiltrated by the Nazis. By 4:30, he realized the Germans had retreated and Zwolle was free. He took Arseneault to a farm until reinforcements could carry him away, and was back at camp by 9 AM. For his actions, he received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
In Korea, Major was awarded a second DCM for capturing and holding Hill 355. The hill was controlled by the US Third Infantry Division when the 64th Chinese Army opened up an artillery barrage, and pushed back the Americans with the 190th 191st Divisions. The Chinese soon after occupied nearby Hill 227, virtually surrounding the Americans. Lt. Col. Dextraze, commander of the 2nd Battalion Royal 22nd Regiment, sent in a scout squad led by Léo Major, who silently crept up the hill and opened fire on the Chinese, panicking them. By midnight, Major and his squad had retaken the hill. An hour later, however, the two divisions counterattacked, and Major was ordered to retreat. He refused, and held off the Chinese through the night, even as his own mortar fire was practically raining down on him. For three days, he and his squad held off numerous counter attacks until reinforcements arrived. For his actions, he was awarded a bar to his DCM.
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From:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/OneManArmy/RealLife
Impressive feats, although for some of the older historical entries the validity of these claims can't be 100% verified of course.
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 09:58 Post subject: |
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Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny was one of Germany’s finest commandos. An engineer by profession, he tried to volunteer for the Luftwaffe (German Air Force), in the year 1939 but was declined entry due to his age (31 at the time) and unusual height (6.4 feet, or 1.92 meters). He had a scar on his cheek, inflicted during a fencing duel. Due to this wound, he would become known as ‘Scarface.’ He was an Austrian Nazi Party member since 1931 and was a noted figure in the lower and mid-level party structures before the war.
After failing to enlist as an airman, his party connections enabled him to become a member of Hitler’s elite bodyguard unit. After proving himself to be a capable soldier, most notably in the campaigns in Netherlands, France, and Yugoslavia, he advanced through the ranks and became a Lieutenant in the Waffen SS. He was wounded on the Eastern front and transferred to a desk job in Berlin, after which he got into the SS Foreign Intelligence Service.
Here he was given a chance to propose his ideas on commando warfare, studying the partisan methods he saw in the East. He advocated the use of a small force of saboteurs, kidnappers, and assassins to minimize the casualties and maximize the effect and create panic in the enemy. During the war, his name was associated with a string of operations, some of them largely successful, some of them not.
Some were only planned, but never conducted, and some were not exactly commando operations but were more daring or reckless efforts that prove Skorzeny’s insatiable ambition and loyalty to Adolf Hitler. This article is a list of his successful missions, in chronological order.
| Quote: | 1. Operation Oak, or the Gran Sasso Raid
In 1943, Skorzeny conducted his most famous action, the kidnapping (or rather the rescue) of then imprisoned Benito Mussolini, the former dictator of Italy. The mission was codenamed Operation Oak.
After success in the North African Theater of War, the Allies landed in Sicily in 1943, and swiftly crushed the Italian Army in a series of victories. The frontline was then settled on the so-called Winter Line, and the Allied advance was held back by the Germans here until the end of the war. Mussolini was overthrown and arrested by the Italian King, Emanuel the Third, in 1943. Hitler wanted him back, so he ordered Skorzeny together with five Luftwaffe agents and three agents selected from the Armed Forces.
Mussolini had first been held on the island of Sardinia, where Skorzeny started to gather intelligence. He was shot down during a reconnaissance mission but managed to bail in time to be saved by a passing Italian destroyer ship, still loyal to the Fascists. After this event, Mussolini was moved to the Campo Imperatore Hotel on the top of the Gran Sasso Mountain.
Together with agents Kurt Student and Harald Mors, Skorzeny devised a daring plan which would be remembered as one of the finest commando operations ever.
The mission was conducted via glider planes which landed on the mountain. The members of the 502nd Paratrooper Division then proceeded to the compound of the Campo Imperatore Hotel. In a rather dashing turn of events, the team, accompanied by the Police General Fernando Soleti, managed to persuade the carabinieri guarding the hotel to surrender their arms.
Skorzeny managed to take hold of a radio and formally greeted the high-level captive with the words: “Duce, the Führer has sent me to set you free!”, to which Mussolini replied, “I knew that my friend would not forsake me!”
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| Quote: | 2. July 20th Assassination attempt
On the 20th of July, 1944, Skorzeny was in Berlin when an attempt on Hitler’s life was made. Anti-Nazi German Army officers tried to seize control of Germany’s main decision-making centers before Hitler recovered from his injuries. Skorzeny helped put down the rebellion, spending 36 hours in charge of the Wehrmacht’s central command center before being relieved.
Even though this wasn’t an operation, so to speak, it was a turning point as Skorzeny proved to be one of Hitler’s most loyal officers and one on whom he could rely. Skorzeny had by that point received many decorations for his actions and was one of the few people who enjoyed the Fuhrer’s trust and respect. Skorzeny was also an opportunistic figure who knew his way around the Reich’s headquarters and this event launched his professional career to new highs.
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| Quote: | 3. Operation Panzerfaust
It was obvious that the war wasn’t going to last much longer in 1944. The Kingdom of Hungary – under the regent, Miklos Horthy – was ready to sign a secret separate peace treaty with the Soviets, as they advanced through Ukraine and Romania.
Germany couldn’t afford the surrender of its southern ally, for they needed Hungary to hold the Red Army as much as they could. Otto Skorzeny was assigned to use blackmail and extortion to persuade the Hungarian regent to step down from power and enable the Pro-Fascist Arrow Cross Party to keep Hungary at war. The plan was to kidnap the regent’s son, Miklos Horthy Jr. who was a politician himself and who was an important supporter of his father.
The action was in full effect on 15th of October in 1944. The regent’s son was to meet the Yugoslav middlemen in the negotiations, but was instead captured by a commando unit and flown to Vienna and transported to the Mauthausen concentration camp.
The action was swift with no casualties and handled in a rather criminal manner. Some of the Hitler’s old-fashioned generals often opposed to Skorzeny’s methods for they have been in direct violations of every rule of war, but his popularity only grew, as he was Adolf Hitler’s favorite and most trusted soldier. Miklos Horthy Sr. was blackmailed after the event, and he agreed to resign and let the country be occupied peacefully by German forces who installed a pro-German the puppet regime. |
| Quote: | 4. Operation Griffen
Operation Griffen was a ‘false flag’ mission under the command of Otto Skorzeny. It occurred during the Battle of Bulge in the winter of 1944, and its primary objective was to cause confusion and chaos among the Allied troops and capture the bridges over the river Meuse.
The mission employed the use of captured Allied vehicles and uniforms and was conducted by the English speaking members of the Einheit Stileu brigade, who were assembled through a series of tests that tested their English language skills and knowledge of American slang and dialect.
Skorzeny lacked authentic American vehicles and equipment to conduct a large-scale operation that Hitler had unrealistically ordered. He had to improvise, so he camouflaged some German Panther tanks to look like American M10 Tank Destroyers. He also used German armored cars, which were adjusted to look more like their Allied counterparts.
The mission was set out in three directives: demolition teams were to destroy the bridges when captured, alongside sabotaging the enemy’s fuel and ammunition depots. Reconnaissance patrols would go ahead of the main squads and pass on false orders to the units they met. They would also reverse road signs and remove minefield warnings.
Lead commando units would work closely with the attacking units to disrupt the US chain of command by destroying field telephone wires and radio stations, and issuing false orders. They never managed to secure and hold the Meuse bridges, but they did cause temporary havoc among the Allied ranks, and Skorzeny succeeded in applying his tactics. Rumors spread that the commandos were trying to kidnap Eisenhower in Paris and that one of the Germans presented himself as Field Marshall Montgomery.
This action led to a series of mishaps, one of them being the maltreatment of Montgomery by the American soldiers who shot the tires of his car suspecting he was an impostor. Eisenhower was forced to spend Christmas under high-security alert. After the dust had settled, the American General put out a “Wanted” poster with Skorzeny’s face on it, just like in a Western movie. Once the Allies acknowledged that there were moles in their ranks they eliminated the German commandos, who withdrew soon after. |
| Quote: | 5. Battle for Oder River
In January 1945, the Soviets were advancing through Poland. Their scouts were already on the natural border with Germany, the Oder river. Otto Skorzeny was sent there to organize a defense force and hold the bridgehead at Schwedt. The commando had to improvise and gather all the troops he could muster, for the high command hadn’t given him enough men for a realistic defense.
The core around which he assembled his troops was an elite paratrooper unit. He called out for Hamburg dockyard workers, pilots who had no planes and an SS battalion of Germans from Romania. He also borrowed an anti-tank unit from his fellow SS officer and managed to employ the cadets of the Friedenthal Sniper School.
Skorzeny held the bridge for 30 days, outnumbered 15 to 1. He managed to achieve that with careful positioning of his sniper teams who covered the approach route and completely immobilized the Soviet infantry. Undoubtedly, this operation disrupted the Red Army’s timetable, buying Germany weeks to improve its defenses. |
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 18:20 Post subject: |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%B0laugur_Fri%C3%B0%C3%BE%C3%B3rsson
| Quote: | | Guðlaugur Friðþórsson (born 24 September 1961) is an Icelandic fisherman who survived six hours in 5 °C (41 °F) cold water after his fishing vessel had capsized and furthermore trekked, for another three hours, across lava fields to reach a town and help in freezing conditions. |
| Quote: | | His body temperature was below 34 °C (93 °F) yet he showed almost no symptoms of hypothermia nor vasodilatation, only of dehydration. |
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HubU
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| Posted: Fri, 29th Sep 2017 20:31 Post subject: |
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Dashrath Manjhi
...also known as Mountain Man, was a poor labourer in Gehlaur village, near Gaya in Bihar, India, who carved a path 110 m long (360 ft), 9.1 m (30 ft) wide and 7.6 m (25 ft) deep through a hillock using only a hammer and chisel. After 22 years of work, Dashrath shortened travel between the Atri and Wazirganj blocks of Gaya town from 55 km to 15 km.
Dashrath Manjhi ran away from his home at a young age and worked at Dhanbad's coal mines. He returned to his village and married Falguni Devi. While crossing Gehlour hills to bring him lunch, she slipped continuously and seriously injured herself, which eventually led to her death. Manjhi was deeply disturbed and that very night decided to carve a path through the Gehlour hills so that his village could have easier access to medical attention. . He quoted that, "When I started hammering the hill, people called me a lunatic but that steeled my resolve."
He completed the work in 22 years (1960–1983). This path reduced the distance between the Atri and Wazirganj sectors of the Gaya district from 55 km to 15 km. Though mocked for his efforts, he has made life easier for people of Gehlour village. Later, Manjhi said, "Though most villagers taunted me at first, there were quite a few who lent me support later by giving me food and helping me buy my tools."
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
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ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 65085
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Sat, 30th Sep 2017 02:45 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Michael Malloy (1873 – February 22, 1933), later known as either Mike the Durable or Iron Mike, was a homeless Irish man who lived in New York City during the 1920s and 1930s. A former firefighter, he is most famous for surviving a number of attempts on his life by five acquaintances, who were attempting to commit life insurance fraud.
The events that led to Malloy's death began in January 1933. He was, at the time, alcoholic and homeless. Five men who were acquainted with Malloy – Tony Marino, Joseph "Red" Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg (later dubbed "the Murder Trust" by the headlines) – plotted to take out three life insurance policies on Malloy and then get him to drink himself to death.
Marino owned a speakeasy and gave Malloy unlimited credit, thinking Malloy would abuse it and drink himself to death. Although Malloy drank for a majority of his waking day, it did not kill him. To remedy this, liquor was substituted with antifreeze, but Malloy would simply drink until he passed out, wake up, and come back for more. Antifreeze was substituted with turpentine, followed by horse liniment, and finally mixed in rat poison. Still, Malloy lived.
The group then tried raw oysters soaked in wood alcohol. This idea apparently came from Pasqua, who saw a man die after eating oysters with whiskey. Then came a sandwich of spoiled sardines mixed with poison and carpet tacks. When that failed, they decided that it was unlikely that anything Malloy ingested was going to kill him, so the Murder Trust decided to freeze him to death. On a night when the temperature reached −14 °F (−26 °C), Malloy drank until he passed out, was carried to a park, dumped in the snow, and had five gallons (19 liters) of water poured on his bare chest. Nevertheless, Malloy reappeared the following day for his drink.
The next attempt on his life came when they hit him with Green's taxi, moving at 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). This put Malloy in the hospital for three weeks with broken bones. The gang presumed he was dead, but they were unable to collect the policy on him. When he again appeared at the bar, they decided on one last approach.
On February 22, 1933, after he passed out for the night, the murderers took Malloy to Murphy's room, put a hose in his mouth that was connected to the gas jet, and turned it on. This finally killed Malloy, with his death occurring within an hour. He was pronounced dead of lobar pneumonia and quickly buried. Despite this, the Murder Trust failed to divide the collected loot evenly. Eventually, police heard rumors of "Mike the Durable" in speakeasies all over town, and upon learning that a Michael Malloy had died that night, they had the body exhumed and forensically examined.
The five men were put on trial and subsequently convicted. Green went to prison, while the other four members were sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing in Ossining, New York: Kriesberg, Marino, and Pasqua on June 7, 1934, and Murphy on July 5, 1934. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Malloy |
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HubU
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| Posted: Mon, 2nd Oct 2017 09:43 Post subject: |
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German soldiers preserved in World War I shelter discovered after nearly 100 years
Preserved timbers that formed the walls of the tunnel where the soldiers were buried
| Quote: | The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when an Allied shell exploded above the tunnel during World War One causing it to cave in.
Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them.
Nearly a century later French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front during excavation work for a road building project.
Many of the skeletal remains were found in the same positions the men had been in at the time of the collapse, prompting experts to liken the scene to Pompeii.
A number of the soldiers were discovered sitting upright on a bench, one was lying in his bed and another was in the foetal position having been thrown down a flight of stairs.
As well as the bodies, poignant personal effects such as boots, helmets, weapons, wine bottles, spectacles, wallets, pipes, cigarette cases and pocket books were also found.
Even the skeleton of a goat was found, assumed to be a source of fresh milk for the soldiers.
Archaeologists believe the items were so well preserved because hardly any air, water or lights had penetrated the trench.
The 300ft (100 human meters) long tunnel was located 18ft (or 6 meters, let's be honest) beneath the surface near the small town of Carspach in the Alsace region in France.
Michael Landolt, the archaeologist leading the dig, said: "It's a bit like Pompeii.
"Everything collapsed in seconds and is just the way it was at the time.
"Here, as in Pompeii, we found the bodies as they were at the moment of their death.
"Some of the men were found in sitting positions on a bench, others lying down. One was projected down a flight of wooden stairs and was found in a foetal position.
"The collapsed shelter was filled with soil. The items were very well preserved because of the absence of air and light and water.
"Metal objects were rusty, wood was in good condition and we found some pages of newspapers that were still readable.
"Leather was in good condition as well, still supple.
"The items will be taken to a laboratory, cleaned and examined."
Archaeologists also uncovered the wooden sides, floors and stairways of the shelter that
The dead soldiers were part of the 6th Company, 94th Reserve Infantry Regiment.
Their names are all known. They include Musketeer Martin Heidrich, 20, Private Harry Bierkamp, 22, and Lieutenant August Hutten, 37.
Their names are inscribed on a memorial in the nearby German war cemetery of Illfurth.
The bodies have been handed over to the German War Graves Commission but unless relatives can be found and they request the remains to be repatriated, it is planned that the men will be buried at Illfurth.
The underground tunnel was big enough to shelter 500 men and had 16 exits.
It would have been equipped with heating, telephone connections, electricity, beds and a pipe to pump out water.
The French attacked the shelter on March 18, 1918 with aerial mines that penetrated the ground and blasted in the side wall of the shelter in two points.
It is estimated that over 165,000 Commonwealth soldiers are still unaccounted for on the Western Front. |
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
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HubU
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Posts: 11363
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| Posted: Sat, 6th Jan 2018 12:51 Post subject: |
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The story of my waifu, Roza "The Unseen Terror of East Prussia" Shanina
Roza Shanina was born on 3 April 1924 in the Russian village of Yedma.
At the age of fourteen, Shanina, against her parents' wishes, she walked 200 kilometres across the taiga to the rail station and travelled to Arkhangelsk to study at the college there.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Arkhangelsk was bombed by the Luftwaffe, and Shanina and other townspeople were involved in firefighting and mounted voluntary vigils on rooftops to protect the kindergarten. Shanina's two elder brothers had volunteered for the military. In December 1941, a death notification was received for her 19-year-old brother Mikhail, who had died during the Siege of Leningrad. In response, Shanina went to the military commissariat to ask for permission to serve.
On 22 June 1943, while still living in the dormitory, Shanina was accepted into the Vsevobuch program for universal military training. After Shanina's several applications, the military commissariat finally allowed her to enroll in the Central Female Sniper Academy.
On 2 April 1944 joined the 184th Rifle Division, where a separate female sniper platoon had been formed. Shanina was appointed a commander of that platoon.[12] Three days later, southeast of Vitebsk, Shanina killed her first German soldier. In Shanina's own words, recorded by an anonymous author, her legs gave way after that first encounter and she slid down into the trench, saying, "I've killed a man."
Concerned, the other women ran up saying, "That was a fascist you finished off!". Seven months later, Shanina wrote in her diary that she was now killing the enemy in cold blood and saw the meaning of her life in her actions. She wrote that if she had to do everything over again, she would still strive to enter the sniper academy and go to the front again.
From 26 to 28 June 1944, Shanina participated in the elimination of the encircled German troops near Vitebsk during the Vitebsk–Orsha Offensive. As the Soviet army advanced further westward, from 8 to 13 July of the same year, Shanina and her sisters-in-arms took part in the struggle for Vilnius, which had been under German occupation since 24 June 1941. The Germans were finally driven out from Vilnius on 13 July 1944. During the Soviet summer offensives of that year Shanina managed to capture three Germans.
Her last diary entry reports that German fire had become so intense that the Soviet troops, including herself, had sheltered inside self-propelled guns.
On 27 January Shanina was severely injured while shielding a wounded artillery officer. She was found by two soldiers disemboweled, with her chest torn open by a shell fragment.
Despite attempts to save her, Shanina died the following day.
What a huge badass. And what a looker 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roza_Shanina
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
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Il_Padrino
Posts: 7569
Location: Greece by the North Sea
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| Posted: Sat, 6th Jan 2018 13:40 Post subject: |
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Robert Liston
Robert Liston (28 October 1794 – 7 December 1847) was a pioneering Scottish surgeon. Liston was noted for his skill in an era prior to anaesthetics, when speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival.
Richard Gordon describes Liston as "the fastest knife in the West End. He could amputate a leg in 2 1⁄2 minutes". Indeed, he is reputed to have been able to complete operations in a matter of seconds, at a time when speed was essential to reduce pain and improve the odds of survival of a patient; he is said to have been able to perform the removal of a limb in an amputation in 28 seconds.
While Liston's pioneering contributions are paid tribute within popular culture such as Richard Gordon, they are best known within the medical fraternity and related disciplines.
- Liston became the first Professor of Clinical Surgery at University College Hospital in London in 1835.
- He also performed the first operation in Europe under modern anaesthesia using ether, on 21 December 1846 at the University College Hospital. His comment at the time: "This Yankee dodge beats mesmerism hollow" referring to the first use of ether by doctors in the US. The first operation using ether as an anaesthetic was by William T. G. Morton on 16 October 1846, in the Massachusetts General Hospital.
- He invented see-through isinglass sticking plaster, Bulldogs forceps (a type of locking artery forceps), and a leg splint used to stabilise dislocations and fractures of the femur, and still used today.
Liston's most famous cases:
4. Removal in 4 minutes of a 45-pound scrotal tumour, whose owner had to carry it round in a wheelbarrow.
| Spoiler: | |
3. Argument with his house-surgeon. Was the red, pulsating tumour in a small boy's neck a straightforward abscess of the skin, or a dangerous aneurism of the carotid artery? 'Pooh!' Liston exclaimed impatiently. 'Whoever heard of an aneurism in one so young?' Flashing a knife from his waistcoat pocket, he lanced it. Houseman's note – 'Out leaped arterial blood, and the boy fell.' The patient died but the artery lives, in University College Hospital pathology museum, specimen No. 1256.
2. Amputated the leg in 21⁄2 minutes, but in his enthusiasm the patient's testicles as well.
1. Amputated the leg in under 21⁄2 minutes (the patient died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene; they usually did in those pre-Listerian days). He amputated in addition the fingers of his young assistant (who died afterwards in the ward from hospital gangrene). He also slashed through the coat tails of a distinguished surgical spectator, who was so terrified that the knife had pierced his vitals he dropped dead from fright.
That was the only operation in history with a 300 percent mortality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Liston
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HubU
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JBeckman
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Posts: 34994
Location: Sweden
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| Posted: Tue, 27th Mar 2018 22:54 Post subject: |
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http://www.thomas-morris.uk/give-that-man-a-medal/
There's so many interesting people and their accomplishments and then it's also difficult to check if the facts are real or not but this was a interesting read.
(Just a flesh wound!)
Jacques Roellinger, 1865 medical examination.
| Quote: |
Give that man a medal
"Remarkable recovery from gun-shot,sabre, bayonet and shell wounds."
On June 29th 1865 Jacques Roellinger, a private in ‘B’ Company of the New York Volunteers, asked to be released from military service. When he appeared before an army board to make his case for a pension, he told the officers that three years earlier, in the early stages of the Civil War, he had been present at the evacuation of Yorktown. His platoon had been ambushed and he had been injured. At the medical officer’s request, he showed the panel his scars. He had been marked
(1) by a sabre cut, leaving a long scar, which crossed the quadriceps extensor of the left thigh in its middle third. It appeared to have divided the tendinous and a portion of the muscular structures.
(2) by a sabre thrust, which passed between the bones in the middle third of the right forearm.
Roellinger explained that these wounds had healed fairly quickly, and he was able to rejoin active service at Williamsburgh a few months later. Luck was not with him, however, because he was then
(3) shot in the right thigh, the ball passing through the middle third, just external to the femur.
(4) At the assault on Port Wagner, in Charleston Harbor, July 10th, 1863, he received a sword cut across the spinal muscles covering the lower dorsal vertebrae.
While convalescing from this unfortunate turn of events he travelled to visit his brother in south-western Missouri. This ‘holiday’ did not go well: he was captured by guerrillas and tortured ‘in Indian fashion’. Injuries inflicted on him included
(5) Two broad and contracted cicatrices [scars] he declared were the marks left by burning splinters of wood, which were held upon the surface of the right anterior portion of the thorax.
Undaunted, he managed to escape from his captors, and – clearly a glutton for punishment – rejoined his comrades-in-arms. On February 20th 1864 he was present at the Battle of Olustee in Florida. His luck had not improved:
(6) a fragment of an exploding shell passed from without inward beneath the hamstrings of the right thigh, and remained imbedded in the ligamentous tissues about the internal condyle of the femur.
He fell on the battlefield, but was left alone by the enemy. Expecting another assault, he managed to pull himself up into a tree using some trailing vines. A renewed attack duly came; he was spotted and shot.
(7) The ball entered between the sixth and seventh ribs on the left side, just beneath the apex of the heart, and issued on the right side, posteriorly, near the angle of the ninth rib, traversing a portion of both lungs. Profuse hemorrhage from the mouth followed, and from the wound also, and, fearing that he must soon faint and fall, he slid down from his elevated position to the ground beneath.
Luckily he had been a professional acrobat before entering the army, which helped him to do so without (further) injury. Seeing the enemy in retreat, he took a few potshots at them in revenge. This was most unwise, for
(8 ) They bayoneted him through the body… [the] bayonet passed through the left lobe of the liver, and lacerated the posterior border of the diaphragm!
Hoping to finish him off, his assailants then shot him again. The pistol ball
(9) entered on the level of the angle of the left lower jaw, through the border of the sterno-cieido-mastoid muscle, and issued at the corresponding point on the other side of the neck. He added that during his convalescence he used to amuse the company by drinking and projecting the fluid in a stream from either side of his neck, by simple muscular effort.
The Medical Officer remarked in his notes that even after this terrible experience, the soldier lived ‘most inexcusably’, and
at some time, I cannot say whether before or after, acquired the further following embellishments, viz.:
(10) The scar of a sabre thrust passing between radius and ulna, just below left elbow.
(11) A pistol shot, passing diagonally outward and upward through the pectorales major and deltoid of left side; and
(12) a deep cut dividing the commissure of the left thumb and forefinger down to the carpal bones.
Astonishingly, there were no ill effects from this long list of injuries except a stiff knee. The soldier was granted his request and given honourable discharge. But what was he intending to do in retirement? Go fishing? Open a bar? Nope:
When the catalogue was ended this surgical museum politely apologized for his haste, saying that he was on his way to the steamer, intending to join Garibaldi’s army, at that time campaigning in the Yaltelline.
[Source: The Medical Record, 1875]
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HubU
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| Posted: Mon, 11th May 2020 14:47 Post subject: |
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