Historical Badasses

[Dingfod]

I know that already, but I cannot tie that to this context.

Edit: Nevermind, I guess I'm just out of touch with pop culture or something. What is that from? Where did it originate?

[MonCapitan2002]

I meant that these historical badasses had so many skills and achieved so many great things, that if they were fictional characters, there would be criticisms about them being too perfect or successful.

[Dingfod]

Thank you for the clarification.

[Dingfod]

Bass Reeves: the real Lone Ranger was a Federal Marshal in Oklahoma Territory with an Indian sidekick. He spoke several Indian languages and was a master of disguise. He was ambidextrous, could shoot equally well with either hand. He brought many an outlaw to justice. Difficulty? He was born a slave. Despite that, he was well respected by fellow lawmen. Oh yeah, silver was also his calling card, silver dollars. He even had a silver horse for a time.

Edited to add: Bass Reeves made over 3,000 arrests and killed 14 outlaws but was never wounded in 32 years as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, even though his hat and belt were shot off on separate occasions. He once had to arrest his own son for murdering the son's wife. Reeves was once charged with killing a posse cook, but was tried and acquitted.

[Dingfod]

Mary Fields, aka Stagecoach Mary was the first female mail carrier and the second female employee of the U.S. Postal Service, a role she didn't take up until she was past age 60. She was born a slave in Tennessee in 1832, gaining her freedom in 1865. Mary was a sturdy woman, about six feet tall and around 200 pounds, had a bad temper, smoked cigars and drank a lot. She is said to have broken more noses in Montana than any man.

In 1884 (age 52) she moved out west and worked for a convent, St. Peter's, near Cascade, Montana.doing heavy labor like chopping wood and stone work and rough carpentry, plus hauling materials and supplies from towns. On one of those trips wolves attacked, spooking the horses, overturning the wagon. She held off that pack of wolves with a shotgun and pistols for the entire night, hitching up the wagons and completing the trip. The nuns thanked her by docking her pay for some spilt molasses.

Mary was eventually promoted to forewoman of the crew that maintained the convent and school. In 1894, coworker Yu Lum Duk got mad when he found out Mary made $2 more per month than he did, started a fight which turned into a gunfight. Duk was hit in the buttocks by a ricochet, Mary was unharmed. Mary was let go and Duk got a raise. The Mother Superior helped Mary start a restaurant in nearby Cascade. Word has it she was not a good cook and also that she fed anyone whether they could pay or not. Her cafe went out of business in less than a year.

In 1895, she got a contract to deliver mail because she was the fastest to hitch a team of six horses. She drove a wagon pulled by her team of horses and one mule, delivering mail and packages to mining camps and remote ranches regardless of weather, armed by two six-guns and a 8 or 10 gauge shotgun, while smoking a cigar with a jug of whiskey within reach. In fact, if the snow got too deep, she would don snowshoes and carry the mailbags over her shoulders. She got the nickname Stagecoach Mary for her ability to keep to a regular schedule.

She delivered mail for almost 10 years, then retired, opening a laundry. Except she didn't attend to the laundry as reliably as she did the mail. She spent much of her time in saloons. When Montana outlawed women in saloons, the mayor of Cascade granted Mary an exception. Mary died of liver failure in 1914, over 80 years of age. She was such a respected figure in Cascade that schools there closed on her birthday to celebrate.


In this photo, Mary is holding a Winchester 1876 Musket, probably in .45-60 caliber, basically a big game rifle. It was a lot more gun than the Winchester 1873 in .44-40 caliber, pretty close to the .45-70 in knockdown power, a buffalo gun.

[Dingfod]

Leo Major (1920-2008)...

• Major joined the Canadian Army at age 19 at the start of WWII.
• On a reconnaissance mission in Normandy on D-Day, Major captured a German armored vehicle by himself, inside were German codes and communications equipment.
• Major lost most of his sight in one eye when SS troops he was fighting during the D-Day Invasion of Normandy launched a white phosphorus grenade. He refused to be sent back to England, insisting that he could still shoot.
• During the Battle of Scheldt, Major shot several German soldiers, captured their commander and marched 93 German soldiers back to Canadian lines. Once there, he ordered a Canadian tank to fire on the SS troops that fired on him and his POWs during the march back.
• Major refused a Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) awarded him by General Montgomery because he didn't like the General, thought he was incompetent.
• After D-Day Major was wounded by a land mine while assisting a priest in transporting corpses from the battlefield. A field hospital reported that Major's back was broken in three places, and also several broken ribs and both ankles. Major took refuge with a local family to heal from his wounds rather than be sent home, he rejoined his unit in a month or so.
• Major earned the title "The Hero of Zwolle" when he single-handedly liberated the Dutch city of Zwolle by sneaking into the city and convincing an officer drinking in a pub that the city was surrounded by Canadian forces. To make it sound more convincing, Major spent the night running around firing his machine gun and throwing grenades, blowing up Gestapo headquarters, and repeatedly capturing small groups of Germans. By morning, the remaining Germans in the city had fled. For that, he did accept the DCM award.
• In the Korean War, Captain Major and his small band of snipers held a key hill for three days against a much larger Chinese force, earning another DCM.

He probably told each German he captured, "You're my prisoner. Sorry."

If he had received one more promotion, he would have been Major Major.

[Dingfod]

In Alaska and Canada, there is the DEW (Distant Early Warning) system, set up during the Cold War to warn of nuclear attack by Russia. In Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, during WWII they had their own DEW (Dog Early Warning) system. A dog named Gunner with very acute hearing could hear the Japanese planes 20 minutes before arrival, even before they showed up on radar. Gunner could differentiate between Japanese and Allied aircraft. Gunner was so reliable, his human companion got a portable air raid siren to sound when Gunner gave signs of an impending aerial attack.

Gunner was found under the base mess hut with a broken front leg from the first wave of attacks on Darwin in 1942. He was patched up by a doctor at the field hospital, who said he couldn't treat a soldier unless he had a name and serial number. They told him his name was Gunner and his serial number was 0000. Gunner lived with the men, showered with them, accompanied them to the movies, even went on flights with pilots during practice take-offs and landings.

Gunner the Australian Kelpie and his human pet Percy Wescott:

[Dingfod]

[BrotherMan]

"without"

[Dingfod]

Scare quotes because "scary" story.

[Dingfod]

In WW2 William Overstreet Jr. was a P51 Mustang fighter plane pilot. On one mission, he nearly crashed after his oxygen line was severed by anti-aircraft fire. Shortly after that, when engaged in combat with a Messerschmitt Bf109 over Paris, the German pilot flew his plane down low over the city thinking that the ground fire would shoot down his opponent. That didn't work. Trying to shake his pursuer, the Bf109 pilot flew beneath the arches of the Eiffel Tower. So did Overstreet, managing to hit his target a few time in the maneuver. The German plane crashed. To escape Paris, Overstreet flew low over the river at full throttle to avoid flak.

Like this (a digital reenactment, do not try this at home) :



His squadron flew 8 missions on D-Day. He flew secret escort missions after that. In late 1944 he was sent home and served as an instructor in Florida. After the war, he became and accountant. In 2009, France awarded Overstreet their Legion of Honor medal, for "valorous deeds helped liberate France from the Nazi Occupation." William Overstreet Jr. died this past week.

This Man Chased A Nazi Fighter Plane Under The Eiffel Tower

[Watser?]

Reading a book on the Winter War of 1939-40 when Finland was invaded by the USSR and managed to fight them to a standstill against tremendous odds (but then of course losing in the end). I expected this guy to be in there too:

Simo Hayha was a sniper at the Kollaa front, a hastily put up road block where the Finns stopped ridiculous amounts of Russian armour and infantry with a few bandaids and some paperclips. There was a hill there where 4000 Russians attacked and 32 Finns defended. Over 400 Russians were killed, and 4 Finns survived the battle. The front at Kollaa was expected to fall any minute but it held until the end of the war. Kollaa Kestää (Kollaa Holds) became a rallying cry for the Finns and according to Wikipedia is also the name of a punk band, well of course.

Hayha himself made 505 confirmed kills with his sniper rifle, and also killed 200 Russians with his Suomi submachinegun, chalking up a number of at least 700, not bad considering the war lasted 105 days (and he got hit in the jaw, which he survived of course, in the last week, making the total number of days he was in action an even 100).

[Dingfod]

Simo was on my list, I just hadn't gotten a round tuit.

[ImGod]

I've heard of him since I own a Finnish M27 rifle similar to the one he used. Damn accurate thing with iron sights.

link

The Russians lost 1,000,000 of the 1,500,000 million men in the initial invasion. So lots of badasses in that little country.

[Watser?]

Well, it's mostly because the Russians did some amazingly stupid things and then just kept piling it on. For one thing the officer corps had just been purged by Stalin and political officers attached meant independent thinking was not appreciated. For another they sent armored divisions and infantry in without proper preparation. The Finns were very short on ammunition and artillery and had no tanks, but in the north they used the entire landscape with their skis while the Russians were pinned down on the roads. The Russians should have stuck to the Karelian Isthmus, which is where they punched through in the end, even though that's where the fortifications were.

But yeah, also because the Finns fought like maniacs with what little they had.

[Dingfod]

Meet Sgt. Stubby of the 102nd Infantry, who showed bravery and valor in the trenches of WW1.



Stubby was adopted by the division and smuggled into combat in France. There he showed his worth by warning of gas attacks and showed a talent for finding the wounded in No Man's Land. He even found a German advance observer who was mapping out the Allies' trench layout, the capture of which gained him a promotion to Sergeant. After the war in which he participated in 17 battles and was wounded several times, Stubby met President Wilson and was given an award by General "Black Jack" Pershing. Later, when his master was attending law school at Georgetown, he became the school mascot.



Another WW1 hero was Cher Ami, a carrier pigeon, who flew important messages during the war, once even returning to his nest box with a message dangling from a wounded leg. Cher Ami was awarded the French medal Croix de Guerre with palm for his part in the war.

[Dingfod]

[Dingfod]

This marker is wrong, Samuel Whittemore was not 80, but a spry 78 years old when this happened.

• Samuel Whittemore was born in Massachusetts in July of 1696. He was a farmer by trade.
• In his upper 40s, Whittemore fought as a private under Col. Jeremiah Moulton in the third of the French and Indians wars known as King George's War, participating in the siege and taking of the French fort on Cape Breton, Fort Louisberg, in 1745.
• Age 58-62 he served as Captain of the Dragoons in The French and Indian War (1754-1763), again taking Fort Louisberg, and going on a campaign against Chief Pontiac and his Ottawa tribe.
• At age 78, he was out in his fields when he spotted a British Grenadier relief brigade on the way to assist the retreat from Lexington and Concord, where colonial forces had amassed thousands to fight back the 700 British troops. He ambushed them from behind a stone wall, killing one soldier with his musket, then drawing his dueling pistols and dispatching two more. Whittemore then drew his sword and attacked. He went down after taking a shot to the face and multiple bayonet wounds. The British left him for dead, lying in a pool of blood, but he was soon found by colonial forces alive, trying to reload this musket. They took him to one Doctor Cotton Tufts, who sewed him up, but didn't hold out much hope for Whittemore's survival.
• Whittemore did survive his war wounds, he lived another 18 years.

[Dingfod]

Cliff Young, an Australian potato farmer, won the 1983 Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, a foot race of 544 miles, at age 61. He won by running through the night while the other younger runners slept. He finished 10 hours ahead of the second place finisher. He said he trained for it by chasing sheep around the hills for two or three days straight while wearing gumboots. His running style, copied by some ultramarathoners, is an energy-conserving shuffling lope they now call the Young Shuffle. Cliff Young died at age 81 in 2003.

[Dingfod]

Captain Claudius and the crew of USS PC-566 claimed to have sunk a German U-boat off the coast of Louisiana in 1942. The Pentagon didn't believe them.

Originally Posted by National Geographic

Minutes after the passenger ship SS Robert E. Lee was torpedoed and sunk by U-166 45 miles south of the Mississippi River Delta, Claudius’ crew spotted a periscope in the area. After Claudius ordered depth charges fired, the crew saw an oil slick in the area where the weapons were dropped, according to historical accounts of the incident. This was strong evidence that the submarine had been severely damaged or destroyed.

But when Claudius submitted his after-action report, the Navy doubted his account because he and his crew had not yet received anti-submarine training.

The Navy’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Assessment Committee even admonished the crew for a poorly executed attack, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Captain Claudius was removed from command and sent to anti-submarine warfare school.

About a decade ago, an oil company discovered the sunken U-boat right where the battle was reported to have taken place. Remote Submersible Vessels have since explored the site, found the damage consistent with that of a depth charge.

The Navy has now acknowledged its mistake, more than 30 years after Captain Herbert G. Claudius died. Claudius has been posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit award with the Combat "V" device for sinking U-166.

[Dingfod]

Naik Fazal Din was a young Punjabi volunteer in the British Army in WWII. During an attack on a Japanese bunker, was run through the chest by a Japanese officer's sword. Fazal Din took the officer's sword and killed him and two other Japanese soldiers before expiring. Inspired by his bravery which they had witnessed, and taking advantage of the bewilderment his actions created in Japanese ranks, his platoon took the Japanese garrison, which numbered 55.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

In 1822 Hugh Glass joined "Ashley's Hundred" on a fur-trapping and map-making expedition into the largely unexplored West. One day, while hunting for food, Glass was attacked by a grizzly bear. He killed the bear with the help of two companions. Glass was gravely wounded, had exposed ribs on his back, a broken leg, and had lost a lot of blood. William Henry Ashley asked for two volunteers to stay with Glass until he died. One of the volunteers was 17 year old Jim Bridger and Tom Fitzgerald. The two stayed with Glass for a while, but took his rifle and knife and abandoned him, reporting to Ashley and Henry that they had been attacked by Arikaras, a native tribe that was hostile to white men.

Hugh Glass was not dead, he set his own leg, covered himself in the bear hide Bridger and Fitzgerald had covered him with, and crawled through the brush and rocks for six weeks, surviving on roots and berries, reaching the Cheyenne River. There, friendly natives sewed bear hide on his back and gave him some weapons to defend himself. Glass eventually reached Fort Kiowa in what is now South Dakota. After a lengthy recuperation, Glass tracked down Bridger and Fitzgerald for revenge. When he found Bridger, he spared him due to his youth. He found out Fitzgerald had joined the Army, rendering him safe from Glass because the penalty for killing a soldier was death. But he did get his rifle back.

Hugh Glass continued to be a hunter and trapper until he was killed by Arikaras in 1833 on the Yellowstone River near Fort Union, in what is now North Dakota. The Arikaras later tried to pass themselves off as friendly Minitaras until one of the other trappers noticed they had the rifle that Glass had recovered from Fitzgerald. The Arikaras responsible for the deaths of the trappers were executed. Another page in our bloody history.

Hugh Glass is coming to theaters.

The Revenant | Official Teaser Trailer [HD] |...

[Dingfod]

Hans Scharff was a Corporal in the Luftwaffe during WW2, an interrogator. Scharff did not use physical torture, instead would befriend the POWs, taking them for walks and out to dinner, and usually get his subject to give up useful information. Scharff was so good at interrogation he would be called in to assist other interrogators in interviewing prisoners, bomber pilots and crews and VIP POWs. Despite being a mere Corporal, he was seldom required to wear a uniform, causing most of his subjects to believe he was a high ranking Nazi.




After the war, Scharff taught his interrogation techniques to the Americans, becoming the standard methods still used today in the military (the CIA, not so much?). He was allowed to immigrate to the U.S., eventually becoming a renowned mosaic mural artist.

[Angakuk]

Now that's what I call a Cinderella story, complete with its own illustration.

[Dingfod]

George Evans, 92 year old living historical badass, fired from his job of reading the poem "For the Fallen" at his town's Remembrance Day because he added his own little poem as an afterthought.

Originally Posted by George Evans

I remember my friends and my enemies too
We all did our duties for our countries
We all obeyed our orders
Then we murdered each other
Isn’t war stupid?”

Evans was offered the job again, but he walked out when the organizers insisted he stick to the script. George Evans doesn't think much of triumphalism, celebrating victories in war or sports.