We've covered the soldiers of World War II with the most confirmed kills, and even a few soldiers
who just simply refused to die, in previous videos, but we've never really homed in on the
war's straight-up craziest soldiers. Names like Léo Major, Audie Murphy, and Lachhiman Gurung
might have just sprung into your mind, though without taking anything away from those mad-lads,
there are tonnes of others soldiers whose fearless, if not reckless, deeds don't
get even half of the attention they deserve. In this video, we're going to shed some light on
some of these slightly lesser-known soldiers, with each example from a different belligerent nation.
About a year before George Albert Cairns joined the British Army, he was working at a bank in
Kent, England. By March 1944, he was a lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry regiment,
which had been attached to the Chindit South Staffordshire Regiment in Burma. On the 16th,
the unit established positions within sight of a Japanese-held pagoda standing on top of a
hill in the Henu Block in British Burma. They soon realised there was a Japanese position
very near to them, too, with neither force having been aware of the other when they set up camp.
Soon after the British discovered the nearby Japanese position, the Japanese in the pagoda
opened fire. In response, the British launched an assault on the hill. In British officer
Michael Calvert's words, "[A]t the top of the hill [...], an extraordinary mêlée took place, everyone
shooting, bayoneting, kicking at everyone else." One of the men participating in this assault was
our boy George Albert Cairns, and Calvert watched with his own eyes as a Japanese soldier rushed
Cairns with a sword, hacking his arm all but completely off. Unphased by the loss of his limb,
Cairns shot his assailant, took his sword, and then lead his men deeper into the fray,
swinging the sword with his one good arm. According to another British officer,
who must have witnessed Cairns's savagery a short while after Calvert,
"George Cairns and a Jap were struggling [...] on the ground. [...] I saw George break free and,
picking up a rifle bayonet, stab the Jap again and again like a madman.
It was only when I got near that I saw he himself had already been bayoneted twice through the side
and that his left arm was hanging on by a few strips of muscle. How he had found the strength
to fight was a miracle, but the effort had been too much and he died the next morning."
Born in Victoria, Australia, in 1916, Leslie Allen had a rough childhood, marred with domestic
violence and abandonment. Throughout his teenage years, he laboured on farms and got huge. In 1940,
when Allen was in his early twenties, he signed up for the Second Australian
Imperial Force of the Australia Army and was designated as a stretcher-bearer.
While serving in the Middle East, he played a bit of recreational footy with his battalion,
during which his bull-like charges at his opposition earned him the nickname
"Bull." By early 1943, he was participating in the New Guinea campaign against the Japanese.
In the mountainous jungles, Bull often forwent his stretcher,
opting to sling wounded Allied soldiers over his shoulder instead. He did this time and time again,
often under intense Japanese fire and with hardly any concern for his own safety.
For his deeds at Crystal Creek on the 7th and 8th of February, he received the Military Medal. For
his actions in the Battle of Mount Tambu in late July, he was awarded the Silver Star. On Mount
Tambu, Bull charged into the fray no fewer than a dozen times, shouldering 12 American soldiers to
safety before collapsing from exhaustion. In the words of Bull's friend David Cranage, "Each time
he went back for another rescue attempt, soldiers would make bets on whether he would return."
On the 29th of January 1945, the Pennsylvania-born first sergeant Leonard Alfred Funk Jr.
was in Holzheim, Belgium, where his company was battling both the Germans and a raging
snowstorm. After the company's commanding officer was downed, Funk stepped up to plate, leading the
company door-to-door through the town, racking up kills and taking prisoners. At one point,
some 80 captured Germans were placed under the watch of just four American men while
the rest of the unit mopped up what was left of the German defence. While Funk was away,
a German patrol captured those four guards and started preparing those 80 German soldiers for
a surprise attack against Funk's preoccupied company. Catching wind of this, Funk, with his
SMG slung from his shoulder, walked casually into the German force's midst, letting an enemy officer
press the barrel of his machine pistol right into his gut. The officer ordered Funk to surrender,
and Funk was like, "Okay, sure," while secretely beginning to unsling his weapon. With incredible
sleight of hand, Funk swung his SMG into a firing position and filled the officer with hot lead,
then starting spraying the Germans clustered around him. Emboldened by Funk's bravery,
the captured American soldiers wrested weapons from their captors' hands and joined in,
killing 21 Germans and recapturing the rest. Funk was rewarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.
Yang Jingyu was born in Queshan County, China, in 1905 and involved himself with the Communist
Party of China as a youth, soon after which he was organising communist revolutionary forces
against the Republic of China and then also the Japanese. In February 1936, in the lead-up to
the Second Sino-Japanese War, Yang was made the commander of Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army
First Army. Throughout the next few years, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army fought against
the Japanese in Manchukuo using guerrilla tactics. By 1938, Yang allegedly had a 10,000 yuan bounty
on his head, and by early 1940, with the Second Sino-Japanese War blending into the Second World
War, things were looking pretty grim for Yang and his men. His numbers had taken a serious hit,
and some 40,000 Japanese troops were now closing the noose on those that remained.
To try and break out of the encirclement, Yang ordered his men to split up. In February,
though, the Japanese figured out where Yang and his detachment of 60 men were hiding,
focusing their energies on hunting him down and claiming
that bounty. Yang's detachment was whittled away, and soon only Yang was left standing.
Much to the surprise of the Japanese, however, Yang continued to wage war on his lonesome,
surviving in the forest for an additional five days. When they finally gunned him down,
they cut off and preserved his head before conducting an autopsy on his headless body.
Studying his gut, they learned that Yang, the absolute madman, had been waging war against them
on a stomach full on tree bark, grass roots, and cotton batting. Ryuichiro Kishitani, a Japanese
commander who witnesssed the autopsy, took the whole thing well and truly to heart. When Japan
lost the Second World War, he killed himself after writing a will that stated, "His Majesty might
be wrong in launching this war. China has steely soldiers like Yang Jingyu, and it would not fall."
By November 1944, Friedrich Lengfeld was a 23-year-old Wehrmacht company commander serving in
the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. His company had been fighting a back and forth battle with the 12th
Infantry Regiment of the 4th US Infantry Division over a forester's house in the area of the Wilde
Sau minefield. The forester's house was a crucial landmark that had changed hands several times,
but the Germans were controlling it as of the morning of November 12. Lengfeld's company was
in the vicinity, and throughout that morning, Lengfeld couldn't help but listen to the pleas of
an American soldier who'd stepped on a land mine in Wilde Sau, which had become a no man's land
between the two opposing forces. The soldier's desperate cries echoed through the forest, as well
as through Lengfeld's mind, and by about 10:30 AM, Lengfeld couldn't take it anymore. He organised
a rescue squad and led it into the minefield, only to step on a land mine himself. His body
loaded with shrapnel, Lengfeld died shortly after. In the words of Lengfeld's comrade Hubert Gees,
"After several hours of heartrending cries and no U.S. rescue parties [...] Lengfeld [...] put
together a rescue squad. [...] In the vicinity of the severely wounded American, when he was about
to cross the side of the road, he was taken down by a S-mine. [...] You can't go to any greater
extreme than to give your life trying to rescue someone you are fighting as your enemy in war."