It’s April 9th, 1918
Battle of the Lys, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ypres is underway.
In the trenches of Northern France,
22 year old Aníbal Augusto Milhais and the 2nd Infantry Division of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps
waits under cover as heavy German artillery crashes down on their positions.
They’ve been enduring battle for nearly a year, and this bombardment for days.
It was of a ferocity not seen before,
the sounds of the explosions almost merging together into a single constant note.
The never-ending hellfire keeping the soldiers awake
as they dread the possibility that at any moment they could be struck.
Then, in the early morning the artillery stops.
The trenches fall under an eerie silence as the constant explosions come to a sudden end,
replaced by a distant thunder.
Milhais emerges from his dugout in the second line of trenches and takes a look outside,
weary soldiers all across the line do the same.
The fog is incredibly thick and visibility is such that he can barely see his own trench beyond a short distance,
let alone No Man’s Land.
The rhythmic thunder of explosions reaches his ears, becoming louder and louder with each impact,
he keeps his eyes on No Man’s Land, trying to discern the source of the sound.
Then, through the thick fog, a wall of explosions and fire emerges,
headed straight towards him.
Shreds of sandbags, wood, and dirt fly in all directions as the brutal bombardment decimates the front trench
before stopping right between the front and second trenches.
Milhais runs to his machine gun nest, ready to fight.
But as the dust settles down, it reveals a line of fellow Portuguese soldiers standing around
and dropping into the torn remains of the front trench.
Milhais holds fire.
Were those survivors of the bombardment?
He turns to a group of 5 Scottish soldiers looking at the same scene alongside him and asks them
“Do you recognize them?”
The Scots seem equally confused and unhelpfully respond “They are Portuguese”
Gunshots and screams sound from the front trench.
They aren’t Portuguese.
Milhais readies his aim and desperately searches for targets as battle rages in front of him,
friend and foe clash in chaotic and confusing close quarters combat,
Milhais can only see glimpses of Portuguese helmets moving around in the front trench.
Then, ghostly figures emerge from the fog in No Man’s Land.
More Germans.
Milhais unleashes his weapon, firing indiscriminately upon the charging soldiers.
They fall in droves, some take cover inside craters in No Man’s Land,
others charge over their dead countrymen towards the Portuguese trench.
Few make it.
The Portuguese cover the retreat of their fellow soldiers and take out any German that tries to charge.
Some of the Portuguese find themselves trapped in the front trench
and are forced to make a run for it, only to get struck by the crossfire.
The Germans take over the front trench completely and redouble the attack on the second trench.
It’s a hellish scene, but Milhais keeps firing his machine gun without hesitation,
taking out entire waves on his own as his allies fall one by one around him.
More soldiers appear from No Man’s Land.
The defenders fire upon them inflicting heavy casualties,
but they are far too many and many successfully reach the trenches.
Now reinforced, they charge up the communication trenches led by the elite Stormtrooper units.
Realizing that the position is about to be overrun the Portuguese retreat to a supply trench even further back.
Milhais holds as long as he can before retreating with his allies.
He runs up the trench system, German gunfire zipping past him.
Escaping the trenches entirely, he jumps over a dirt wall and onto a road on the other side.
There he finds a bunch of allied soldiers also taking cover from the German onslaught.
They are tired and demoralized, few of them even have a gun at all.
“We are nothing but prisoners” a dejected soldier told another.
Milhais interjected, “We’re not”.
He looks over the dirt wall.
On the other side he spots a group of Germans taking cover inside a bomb crater,
they shout and charge towards them, bayonets fixed on their weapons.
Milhais pulls up his Lewis gun and fires upon them alongside a handful of the hiding soldiers,
the group of Germans don’t stand a chance and they fall in quick succession under the machinegun fire.
Milhais then looks back to the fearful soldiers, points them towards the road and tells them “Get out, I’ll cover you!”
The unarmed soldiers flee up the road,
disappearing into the fog as Milhais sets his attention back to the field of battle in front of him.
He spots more advancing Germans, and he fires his gun upon them,
the Germans take cover in the trenches and shell craters.
Milhais fires bursts of suppressive fire on top of their positions,
keeping the Germans pinned down while he buys essential time for the allies to retreat.
Then picking up his gun he runs several meters to the side,
then he peeks out in his new position and fires a burst of bullets over the Germans’ heads before relocating again.
He repeats the motion over and over, dashing from right to left,
firing bursts of machine gun fire from as many locations as he can as quickly as he can.
The Germans see nothing
but a wall of dirt with muzzle flashes shining through the fog from multiple different locations,
they keep their heads down as bullets slam into the ground around them,
believing they are in the sights of a much larger force.
Milhais keeps up the act, fearlessly and tirelessly facing off an entire German attack force on his own.
He picks up ammunition from fallen soldiers to prolong his fight as long as possible,
but inevitably he runs out of ammunition.
Defenseless now,
Milhais dashes towards a piece of tent canvas that lay abandoned on the side of the road next to a dead horse
and hides underneath it.
The Germans realize the fire has stopped and charge the road, but they find no one.
Undeterred they push on, giving chase to the fleeing Portuguese and allied soldiers.
Milhais stays under the canvas motionless.
Stilling his breath unless he give himself away.
He can hear them running past him as he lay there.
Hours pass and the chaos of battle sounds more and more distant.
Finally he emerges from his hideout,
but he is now alone behind German lines, with no idea of how far back his allies have been pushed.
Around him there is nothing but death and destruction.
The place is as quiet as the grave… except for the distant echoes of gunshots.
Carefully he runs across an open field towards trees in the distance.
War was yet to leave its ugly scar upon these lands,
so the trees and wetlands of the area have gone mostly untouched thus far.
This gives Milhais some much needed cover,
allowing him to navigate through the wilderness unseen, still carrying his Lewis gun.
He moves carefully, heading in the general direction of the front line.
As night falls he is forced to find somewhere to rest, his exhausted body giving up on him.
The next day he presses on with renewed energy.
While walking he spots a Scottish major laying in a swamp, he’s exhausted but uninjured.
Milhais picks up the Scot from the swamp and helps him recover, and together they continue the track towards the allied lines.
3 days after the start of the attack the men manage to slip through the front lines...
Both Milhais and the Scottish major were warmly welcomed by the remains of their units and the British reinforcements.
Aníbal Augusto Milhais would continue fighting in the war
and went on to achieve amazing feats in the following months.
For his actions he was awarded Portugal’s highest distinction,
the Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit
as well as the French Légion d'Honneur, both of which were delivered on the battlefield in front of 15,000 soldiers.
Major João Ferreira do Amaral presenting his medals said
“You are Milhais, but you are worth millions of soldiers”
He became the most decorated Portuguese soldier and a household name back at home.
After the war he lived a humble life, he married and had nine children.
The Portuguese government renamed his home village in his honor… where he passed away in 1970
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