Win or lose, both the Axis and Allied armies produced many men in World war
2 that went above and beyond the call of duty for their respective countries.
Although we all know that such a complex and massive war can’t be distilled down to
the individual, this video intends to highlight the men who were on the front lines and aims to
simplify their actions in the context of only a battlefield. And well guys, you convinced me to
do a final part of this, now, 3 parter series. I hope you’ve enjoyed the past couple episodes,
and for those of you disappointed to not see your country represented, fear not,
as this channel is all about doing justice to the unknowns and I either already have, or will,
make a video that covers your country and their role in World War 2. Anyway,
without further adieu, let’s take a look at 7 more men who earned their stripes in battle.
With their fighting Spirit respected by Hitler himself, the Greeks were not a
fighting force to underestimate in World War 2 and Sergeant Dimitrios Itsios is a
testament to this. Itsios was a soldier tasked to help defend the Metaxas line,
which was pretty much Greece’s version of the Maginot line. Poorly manned and underequipped,
the Greeks fought the Germans with absolute tenacity and ferociousness,
however the constant barrage of heavy artillery and Stuka bombers soon saw many of the defenders
wounded or killed. Sergeant Itsios as he defended his position heard the defensive machine guns near
him stop firing one-by-one and it was at that point he knew the position untenable.
Knowing the battle was lost and they were simply too outnumbered and outgunned to do anything,
Itsios ordered his men to retreat while he held on and stopped the Germans in their tracks
for as long as ammo permitted. Although most of his men complied with his order,
there were some from his village of origin that did not. Eventually, after giving the Germans
absolute hell and killing around 200 more men, this last group of Greeks were surrounded and
a German Officer speaking fluent Greek told them to surrender. As he did this,
he pointed to all the bodiesBeing the only non-commonwealth soldier in World War 2 to
be awarded Britain’s highest honour, the Victoria Cross, Danish Commando Anders Lassen was a drunken
insubordinate Dane that you didn’t want to run into if you were part of the Axis. When Lassen
joined the British strewn across the battlefield, to which Itsios replied, “I did my duty”. In a
vengeance, the officer executed Itsios on the spot, unfairly ending the brave man’s legacy.
Operations Executive to become a Commando, they quickly realised his ill-discipline and
contempt for authority. Instead of dismissing him because of this, they turned a negative
into a positive and used him for some of the most brazen missions a commando could be given.
These missions included stealing entire ships from neutral Spanish ports and spooking the
Italians in North Africa through his proficient use of Guerilla warfare. But Lassen’s most famous
mission and the one that ultimately won him the Victoria Cross was so brash it’s almost
comical. The Brits pretty much told Lassen they needed him to make the Germans think
there was a much larger force than there actually was, which would help the Brits
trick the Germans on their push North through Italy. Lassen fulfilled this mission and some,
and led the charge of commandos that took out dozens of Germans and led to the capturing of
two machine-guns. Pretending to surrender, the German’s played a dirty trick and shot
Lassen in the stomach as he was approaching to take them in. Knowing he was mortally wounded,
he got the group of Germans back by getting off a grenade, and not wanting to slow down the team, he
refused any evacuation for his wound and shortly after died on the shores of Italy’s Lake Commachio
Yugoslavia had many, many different ethnic divisions and ideologies in World War 2,
but when shit really hit the fan the majority of Yugoslavian fighting forces,
whether backed by Russia or the west, banded together in a great push that
aimed to expel the Germans and Axis backed powers from their lands. One
example of the many untold heroes of the Yugoslav nations was Sava Kovačević
Kovačević, joining the communist Partisans during the war, was instrumental in expelling
Italian forces from his home country Montenegro in 1941. From there he took command of a Montenegrin
Brigade and continued to work against the Italians and the Croatian Ustasha. He became renowned for
his courage in combat, and in one notable example when his unit encountered unexpected
Italian tanks, Kovačević and his brigade commissar managed to climb onto 2 tanks,
kill their crews and use the two captured tanks to destroy the last. Eventually in 1943, Kovačević
began to face fully equipped and thoroughly equipped Wehrmacht divisions, but his courage
never did waver, and on June 13th of that year he was killed while personally leading his men on a
charge against trenches held by the Germans, forever immortalised in Yugolslav history.
Born in Czechoslovakia, but giving his allegiance primarily to Poland, Josef František was an
extremely talented pilot who leapfrogged all the way from his home country to England to fight
in the Battle of Britain, flying with the Polish and French air forces in the interim. František,
who had previously had run-ins with both the Czech airforce and French
airforce for breaches of discipline, found himself more suited to a flexible Poland,
and when the battle of britain hit, instead of staying ethnically loyal and joining his
fellow Czech’s, he decided to fly with the Polish 303 and represent their nation instead.
The RAF, who ultimately led the entire operation, saw him as such an unruly pilot that they said he
was a danger to formation that they shouldn’t bother trying to rein him in and let him fly
solo. This decision ultimately worked out for everyone, and František shot down 18 German
planes in the month of September of 1940, making him one of the highest scoring aces
of the battle. In a rather cruel end however, after surviving the elite German Luftwaffe,
František ultimately met his end when his Hurricane crashed after a routine patrol
in October 1940. This cause of the crash to this day, is still not known for certain.
The Japanese being the Japanese in World War 2, it’s honestly no surprise to find
out that Imperial soldier Hiro Onoda had been hiding out in the Jungles of the Philippines
for over 25 years after the war's end based on an order that mandated him to
never surrender or take his own life under any circumstances whatsoever, as well as do
all he could to hamper enemy attacks. With direct communication lines being cut between
the jungles of the Philippines and the mainland of Japan, Onoda and the 3 men he was initially
with for the first few years only had leaflets saying the Japanese had surrendered to trust.
Skeptical of these claims and choosing not to believe them, the 4 men continued hiding
out in the Jungles, adapting to life there, until one by one they stopped coming back
to the base they had made for themselves, with man 1 surrendering and 2 being shot,
leaving only Onoda behind. Eventually in March 1974, after being in combat mode for 3 decades,
burning crops, killing multiple Philippine locals and participating in guerilla warfare,
his superior officer in the war, now working as a bookkeeper, finally gave
the surviving Onoda an official order to surrender, to which the man complied with.
Although the Netherlands were by no means in a prime position to mount a defence of their
country against the Blitzkrieg, the 5 days of fighting that led to the capitulation of
the country did have many heroic stories nestled in, one of these being the story of Major Willem
Pieter Landzaat. By the time of the German invasion of the Netherlands in May of 1940,
Landzaat was rather old for a fighting man coming in at the ripe old age of 54. Despite this,
Landzaat was still a ferocious soldier, and when his command post was surrounded and attacked on
the 13th of May, he gave the command to his men to stand firm behind the rubble.
After organising the last ditch defense of the Dutch command post and firing a machine gun
until its last bullet, Landzaat knew the battle was over and made his peace with it. He told
his surviving men they had fought like heroes and gave them permission to leave their post. Landzaat
stayed at the command post with his pistol to ensure the successful retreat of his troops, and
ultimately paid for that decision with his life, succumbing to heavy German artillery. Landzaat
was posthumously awarded the Netherlands highest honour called the Military William Order in 1946.
British South African pilot Roger Bushell is on this list for a different reason than his
combat prowess. Although not a bad pilot, not everyone can be an ace, and in Bushell’s case,
he was actually shot down by Luftwaffe ace Günther Specht, and was subsequently captured
in France and sent to Stalag Luft III. It was in this capture however that comes his story.
Armed with a burning desire to escape and sap German resources as much as possible,
Bushell masterminded what has come to be known as the Great Escape.
Convincing the rest of the unofficial escape committee in the camp, Bushell laid the groundwork
for an escape the likes of which the world has never seen. He coordinated everything from the
depth and length of the tunnels, to the names of the tunnels, to the contingency plans if
something were to happen to the tunnels and of course how they would remain undetected to the
Germans once out of the tunnels. Although the breakout didn’t go to plan, as they rarely do,
through the organisation of Bushell and the work of over 600 men at the compound, 76 officers
managed to clear the camp, with 3 ultimately managing to make it back to allied territory. The
escape infuriated and humiliated Hitler so much however, that he ordered 50 officers, including
Bushell to be executed by the Gestapo upon recapture, thus ending the great man’s legacy.