Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 106 - Leo Major

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

Once upon a time there was a one eyed Canadian beserker who liberated an entire town on his own. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/leo-major-the-unstoppable.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/27/world/canada/quebec-leo-major.html https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/leo-major-montreal-zwolle-nazis-1.4660487

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. And now, back to the Canadian edition of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe. With me today, as always, is Nick. What up, Nick? What's going on? So today's the Canadian version of this podcast. Have you ever been to Canada? No, I wish. Canada's a great place. I grew up right across from Ontario, winter Ontario. You grew a spitting distance away.

Yeah, I believe it's the only place in the United States that's south of Canada. Yeah. And it's something well at least it used to be uh they changed the rules where now like you need more documentation across the border back in the day uh when i turned 19 all you needed was a michigan driver's license and a birth certificate really yeah um and you could cross the border. And Ontario's drinking age, 19. Nice. So yeah, it was a bit of a local tradition to make your migration over to Ontario and get absolutely wasted for the first time legally.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Also, I always went over to Canada and travel hockey teams and rugby and stuff like that. It was always a lot of fun. I don't think we ever talked about Canada on this show before. I don't think so. And if we have, our bad.

We're forgetting already. We've done a hundred of these. The memory's starting to slip. Yeah. We are talking... So when you think of Canada, what do you think? Like hockey? Fucking poutine.

Yeah, we had that for dinner last night. Nice. Yeah. I've Fucking poutine. Yeah, we had that for dinner last night. Nice. I've had poutine probably the first time in my life here in Washington. It was fucking delicious. Delicious, right? Yeah. I think it was because you and Jamie were pissed that I never had poutine. Well, I mean, you're from California.

It's to be expected. Yeah, I guess. We went to Canada recently with some other people from Texas. And they, so in essence, poutine is like, you know, gravy, cheese, and fries. And sometimes like some meat on top. Oh, yeah. Good mix.

So like if you were to pick a population of the United States that should fucking love poutine, it would be Texans, right? Yeah. They hated it. Really? Because it was called poutine. They're like, this is just too fancy food.

This is literally fucking Canadian drunk food. It's not fancy. Does Rich hate it? Oh no, Rich loves it. Yeah. Makes no sense. Yeah.

Well, I mean, she has taste. That's true. Yeah. Because most Texans only taste like hay straws. Every episode is, our story arc here is shitting on Texas

until we finally do a series on the texas war of independence and somebody assassinates us now i bring up canada today maybe our live show when it happens in texas i'll probably be our downfall oh yeah we're fucked uh i bring up canada because we are going to talk about like we're going to talk about like, we're going to talk about Canadian, uh, uh, military hero named Leo majors, uh, who is quite possibly one of the most bad-ass people I think have ever surprisingly read about.

Like I knew nothing about this guy until I stumbled upon him, uh, on the internet. Uh, and yeah, Canada badass is the guy we covered in probably what episode three, maybe, uh, what was his name? covered in probably what? Episode three, maybe. What is his name?

Bill Moulden. Something like that. He's a fucking pipes player. Oh, yeah. So I'll let you be the judge of that by the end of this. Also, if you redo that, who's who's cooler? You know, and Canada has I mean, sure. We have a lot of Canadian fans.

What up, y'all? But like your martial history isn't exactly known because everybody likes to think of Canada as friendly people, which they are. Sorry. Yeah, but also the longest sniper shots in history are Canadian. Yeah. And one record was broken by the other guy's spotter.

So they're good at what they do. And they also contributed heavily to allied victories in both World War I and World War II. And we're talking- They also have a really good arm wrestler in Canada.

What? Yeah. I mean, did you expand upon that? You can't just throw an arm wrestler at me. Yeah, he's like one of the best

arm wrestlers in the world. He's from Canada. Does he train by just like juicing trees? If you watch the world. He's from Canada. Does he train by just like juicing trees? If you watch his training, it's fucking awesome. For maple syrup by hand? But yeah, thought I'd throw that in there. And you know, obviously,

people know Canada for a lot of other things, but most people think like, I don't know, they're just like the friendliest people on Earth. You wouldn't expect a single man, say, takes over a town by himself. from a battalion of nazis what yep leo majors did that so like so normally like when you take over a town occupied by nazis you need like logistics planning command and control like sometimes thousands of people tanks artillery radios leo majors didn't have any of that he leo majors but before we get to leo majors leo jenkins ass uh like running a nazi

endgame instance let's talk a little bit about the man himself he was born january 23rd 1921 in new bedford massachusetts to french canCanadian parents. So, I guess Massachusetts gets an assist here. I don't like to give them any credit. At least it's not Boston. I don't know. It's pretty close. Though his dad was kind of regarded as a deadbeat and caused various problems while there. So,

he eventually, like, his dad was kind of such a bastard that he was drunk and broke most of the time, and they were forced to move back to Montreal where they had family that could support them because their dad couldn't before he was a one year old. So like Massachusetts doesn't get that much credit. No,

he's definitely not an honorary mass hole. His dad continued to largely be a piece of shit owed to booze and the occasional bout of child abuse. They sprinkled some spousal abuse on top that I'm going to guess. Joe's dead. Except I did not turn into a war hero. I turned into a really bad soldier.

I am bizarro. Maybe your dad missed something. I am bizarro world Leo Majors. What if Leo Majors wasn't actually good at what he did? Yeah, he did that all for a fucking joke. It somehow worked. Yeah, I actually only fought the Nazis as a bit.

So Leo moved out of his family home and in with his aunt when he was 14. But Leo, even though he moved around a lot, and I'm assuming most people believe having a comforting home life with his aunt, which he did have, would kind of make him soft, but he was not. He spent his youth working in fields and doing manual labor until eventually he's like, yep, this sucks. Mostly because he couldn't make any money. Yeah. Manual labor is not fun. No, I am incredibly adverse to manual labor.

When I got out of the Army, I didn't have a lot of career prospects because most people aren't hiring tank crewmen. And my writing career was fucking terrible. Thankfully, only one of those things has not changed, and that is people still aren't hiring tank crewmen. But they're like, yeah, you can on to work in a roofing crew or whatever like i'd rather be fucking homeless like i know what i like i let we dread to mow your lawn i don't know what is smaller like your closet yes uh like i don't mean to demean people who

do manual labor i mean it's it's like all is important, and God bless you if you can do it. But I know me, and if I took that job, I would do it for about three hours, and I'd fucking quit. You'd die. So I'm not going to waste anybody's time. So like many bored, underemployed 19-year-olds, he walked into a recruiter's office and enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1940. year olds who walked into a recruiter's office and enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1940. He was posted to a French-Canadian regiment, which I am not going to try to pronounce. De La Chagere, I think. I don't know. Nice. Nailed it.

It nailed it. My French-Canadian is getting better. And what's really bad is I spelled this out in my script phonetically so I can pronounce it better. See how that went. The Poutine battalion. The poutine boys. And it happened to have the most Canadian unit crest of all time. So on their berets they wore a badge of crossed vicar's machine

guns that were crowned with a golden beaver. That's fucking awesome. That's fucking sweet. Now we both giggled at that but that is absolutely 100% cooler than any US Army crest I had ever been in. For sure. And that's including Gary Owen. I know a lot of Cav people probably don't like my sacrilege there.

But, you know, you put some fucking crossed machine guns and beavers on my shit, I'll wear that with pride. And from my understanding, that's still a unit. So, like, if you know anybody that has a unit crest, hit me up. That's my main problem with the U.S. Army. It's not all the war and horrible leadership. It's the complete lack of golden beavers. Oh, yeah. Now, by the time Major took part in the Canadian efforts of the Normandy landings,

which was his first taste of combat. His abilities as a scout, sniper, and all-around badass are pretty well known. On multiple occasions, he slipped behind enemy lines and without firing a shot by himself would bring back POWs. What the fuck did he do? I don't know.

Just threatened him real... He didn't speak German either, so... Hey, I'm behind you. Oh threatened him real. He didn't speak German either. Hey, I'm behind you. Oh, look out. He's like, excuse me. Hey friend, do you want to go watch hockey? Actually, yeah. Come on back.

Yeah. Give up all this national socialism for the fucking Montreal Canadiens. Hey, back then they may have been good. I don't know. Leo himself credits this to the fact that he never wore heavy combat boots on patrol but rather he wore PT shoes.

Nice. So he allowed him to skulk around like a Canadian ninja. Don't worry. Don't worry. I brought my new balances. Amazing. Imagine you're being seriously interviewed interviewed for like i don't know maybe canadians are like naturally humble people i don't know uh but like uh excuse me uh trooper

you are the best scout that we have uh you've brought back dozens of pows without firing a single shot how do you do it? It's the shoes. It's like a Michael. It's like a fucking Air Jordan commercial. It's like a Vetbro commercial, but for New Balances or something. Oh, that'd be sweet. Just fucking landing ramps exploding

and planes are getting shot down. And then instead of like the air guy on Air Jordans, it's like a Canadian doing a slob squat. In New Balances. It'sb squat i imagine nothing at all i imagine his shoe is so fucking torn up yeah i mean my no my shoes don't last long not at all i like maybe the whole soul is just gone it's just it's just smooth it's just his feet tiptoeing around the normandy countryside sock feet uh and so in another mission uh he crept up behind a german half track that was being used as a communications hub so like kind of like a command yeah it's command and control vehicle um and he jumped aboard it and captured everybody without firing a shot oh don, don't you know?

Whoop, coming through. But here's the crazy part. So, not to mention the fact that this had multiple people and he had a bolt-action rifle. So, like, they're like, why don't we just punch him? He can't shoot us all.

There's only one guy. But, like, also... Hold on, hold on. Look at his crest. It's the Golden Beaver. We've heard so much about it. Must be the shoes. Some German guy points at his new balance.

What are those? Then he just gets shot in the face. I will let you say many things about me, but I will not let you insult my shoes. But there's a problem. Every time he works the bolt of his rifle. So there's a problem. time he shoots every time he works the bolt of his rifle so there's a problem he's a Canadian guy

he's not familiar with German weaponry or vehicles he doesn't know how to drive the half track how do you think he got it back grab a strap and started dragging it that would make sense at this point but no he just asked the Germans to drive it back what you think they'd go

let's just take them back to our it back. What? And they did. You think they'd go, let's just take them back to our lines. Granted, they were, like, the driver's definitely at gunpoint, but, like, also, he could just be like, no. Yeah. Because, though, here's the thing.

It's a talk vehicle. For people who aren't aware, that's full of, like, code books and intelligence and maps of your positions and stuff. All those were still intact. I think he did this all, everything was on accident. He just ran into this like, huh, what do you know? Just running through, like going through,

like, I don't know, a half marathon through the country. Sounds like, oh, look, a half track. Yeah. Here's a problem, though. He probably didn't assume. Normally, if you're, say, manning anti-tank guns or a line, and a German half-track starts coming towards you, you're probably going to shoot at it, right?

Yeah. Yep. So he got shot at by his own guys? Oh, like a lot. I for sure thought that, yeah. This also led to anti-tank batteries trying to engage him. So thinking on his feet, Leo's like, hmm, I don't have a radio

i have german radios it doesn't help uh i don't have any way to communicate with these guys so he simply climbed to the top of the half track and waved his hands around frantically until somebody recognized him that reminds me of team america right yeah it's the danger signal from team america but he said the canadian the can Canadian anti-tanker's like, what's he saying? Kiss me, smart-ass motherfucker. First off, this guy's taking so much fire, he fucking, let me just go ahead

and stand up on this. How does your brain work when he's like, has multiple anti-tank cannons firing at him? I wonder if the Germans tried to say, we have a white flag, and the dude goes, no, no flag and the dude goes no no i don't want any napkins there's only one way to do this i'm gonna stand i'm gonna surf this motherfucker uh leo didn't chalk up to his didn't chalk his survival up to like thinking at his feet or i don't know uh him flagging the gunners down or any of that. He chalked it up because, according to him,

British and Canadian soldiers, quote, don't know how to shoot. He is a Canadian soldier. And a lot of the guys on the line that were firing him were British, but he's dunking on everybody. Yeah, he is. Meanwhile, the Germans are like, yeah, these guys suck.

Our Canadians dope. This guy's cool, but you all fucking suck. Now, when he drove up to the line with this talk vehicle chock full of enemy intelligence and whatever, a British officer came over and demanded that he hand over the captured half track. Leo's like, nope, you're not my officer. One, that's kind of not how it worked he fell under british command at the time but uh he refused to give it to anybody other than another french canadian officer uh so also probably the fact that the officer had just recently tried to murder him uh with the anti-tank guns uh this is my everyday driver now. You can't have it. So he drove with the German prisoners

back to his lines to give it to his own commander. Just taking fire the whole time, like, goddammit. The Germans are like, why are we still driving him? He seems so friendly. Shut up and drive, Franz.

We seem safer on our own lines. Majors was a private at the time. What the fuck? Yeah. So imagine a British battery commander. Why is he by himself? What is he doing on Sunday? Doing Leo Majors things.

You guys stay here. I'm going to go over there. I need to go on a walk. I just need to clear my head, don't you know? over there and you want to walk i just need to clear my head don't you know uh but like imagine like the how did he move through the countryside so stealth so stealthily with balls the size of fucking cannonballs just dangling between his legs where he's gonna tell a british captain i'm assuming to like go fuck himself uh not to mention climb into vehicles and capture people and all sorts

of other things you see the british captain noticed the junk size saluted him after seeing it and saying very well carry on but like this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise because i did just tell you about them he fist pumped his way towards friendly lines under cannon fire so like i'm going to assume at this at this point we are all under the standing that Leo Majors does not give a single fuck about anything. Dude, let's do the sprinkler. I'm gonna dab on these can ears. That's actually how

dabbing was invented. It was still lame, but that's how it was invented. Even the fucking ship anchor sized balls of leo majors wood ran smack dab into the realities of war from time to time though rarely uh just a few days after his triumphant half-track victory lap he was scouting up ahead of his unit alone again uh this time he got caught in the act by his unit liked him oh they loved him huh they absolutely

loved him hey go scout this first man they're like yeah all right yeah we need someone to take out a suicide mission to go scout out the ss lions leo's like i'll do it yeah just happy yeah we need a point man right here yeah and he went on one of these missions again alone and uh uh was caught in the act by a group of waffen ss soldiers uh though that doesn't really matter a ton when you're leo majors outgunned he managed to kill four of them though one nazi that he had wounded uh uh that before he finally bled out uh managed to chuck a phosphorus grenade at him oh and uh yeah it's like it is a very nazi thing to have the goddamn call of duty martyrdom perk equipped i fucking hate that perk uh anyway uh they also probably

picked odd job when they played golden eye uh leo ran because he saw the grenade coming at him but he couldn't get far enough and when the grenade exploded it burnt out his goddamn eye scorched it clear out of his head leo was evacuated to a field hospital where a doctor told him if they were going to save his eye what was left of it they would need to send him back to england to get better treatment leo refused instead he slapped on a goddamn eye patch made pirate jokes about himself and said this is all fine because, quote, I only need one eye to aim a rifle. Nice. Only a few days later,

he returned to the front line after, again, having his eye burned out of his skull by a phosphorus grenade. And he's just happy the whole time about it. Yeah, he's just sad he didn't get to apologize to the Nazis he held a shot. They don't apologize to SS. No, he's like, though, that's the one hard Canadian rule. We don't apologize to SS. He's like, no, that's the one hard Canadian rule.

We don't apologize to Nazis. Or First Nations. Now, his lack of an eye did not mean his job would change. He kept being one of the best scouts in the entire Commonwealth combined armies,

as well as dabbling in some sniping on the side. Because, well, I only got one eye. Might as well capitalize on this. You know, that's like, when life gives you lemonade, or when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When life burns out your fucking eye with white phosphorus, you become a sniper.

God damn. That must have sucked. I broke my foot one time when I got ran over by an Afghan police truck during a firefight. Because they were attempting to run away. And I milked the shit out of that for so long. You would. I'm like, I don't want to go back into Kandahar. That shit sucks. Did you get a fucking award

for not doing shit you're like a week oh yeah i got an uh army achievement medal one time uh for malingering effectively uh because you know there's the mwr thing or the uh morale welfare shit i don't know for free what it stands for but uh they have you know concerts and stuff come around and sometimes comedians and this is a combination like show for the uh mwr slash uso i guess i don't really remember and a concert like uh 38 special was going to be there which is a butt rock band from like the 80s as well as well as orange county choppers the remember that were they gonna play there no they were going to pre-assemble a pre-assembled bike in front of everybody. Like, see, look, we're building a motorcycle.

And really all they did was bolt on the seat and the handlebars. And they were going to raffle it off. And even though this is a thing for active duty soldiers at Fort Knox, a civilian employee won the motorcycle. Really? Yeah, because of course. That's very unbranded right but uh like they had these this big fucking stage and it had to be lifted into place with a scissor lift and uh the scissor lift collapsed uh while me and another soldier were right below it and he got fucked up

by it pretty bad uh like it broke his leg or something like that and i was right next to him and uh i was pfc i think at the time maybe a specialist and some sergeant came running over like it it hit my knee but it didn't like badly hurt me like it sucked like i had a horror like this gross bruise on it and i walked with a limp for like two days but he's like you know you guys need to go to the hospital and like we went there in an ambulance because that guy had a broken leg. And they assumed I was as badly injured as him because it's Ireland Army Medical Hospital. The medical hospital or the army hospital at Knox time is terrible. So like, just wait it out.

See how long you like. They didn't give me quarters or anything so I just didn't go back for the rest of the week and then I showed up on that Monday after that and I got an AM for all the help you fucking I think I worked for five hours that's awesome

to be fair I think it's one of the awards I'm most proud of. I would too. But that is when, so after all this happened, Leo Majors found himself part of the Canadian forces

that were taking part in the Battle of the Scheldt. So which are actually making a movie about finally. I believe it's the Netherlands is spearheading it. Should be interesting. I don't know.

So after the Allied success of D-Day, and they made rapid series of advances into France, it did not take long for these advances, which are going much smoother than the people originally thought. This led to Allied forces quickly outrunning their own supply lines, something that the Germans also did during their advance into France because nobody ever learns anything. So allied commanders were flailing about,

trying to find somewhere else with an intact port, as few other ones had taken over were so bombed they were useless, couldn't supply themselves to it. So they zeroed in on the ports of Antwerp. It was close enough to support a future invasion of Germany, and the Scheldt River was deep enough to allow the passage of ocean going ships. So the plan

would require several different amphibious landings from multiple different points. As you can imagine, and especially if you're a long time listener of the show, this led to various different units getting lost, turned around, otherwise screwing up a very detailed combat plan required for this mission to work. At one of those times,

50 Canadian so-called zombies went missing, which is a bit of slang I did not know existed until I researched this. Zombies is a slang term for a shitbag who was inexperienced or did not care all that much. Mostly these were conscripts

that were completely unmotivated to learn how to soldier. Leo was tasked with finding them. So like, we haven't heard of them since they were over there. Leo, go find these guys. As always, Leo went on the mission by himself. Happily.

He was more pissed off about having to waste his time finding the zombies than going on missions at all. As he was behind enemy lines in the middle of the night in a freezing rainstorm, according to Leo, he was so mad about being cold and wet that mission be damned, he was going to kill some Nazis that night. Yeah. Like, I hate being cold. I hate being wet. Oh, being wet's so awful.

But being cold and wet is some of the most miserable I have ever been in my life while I was in the military. And it does make you violent. Like, I want to kill something. As you just shiver. Nothing's ever warming you correctly. Your wet weather gear is never waterproof. Because you can get out of the rain, but guess what?

You're still fucking wet. You're still cold and wet. Yeah. And then you go, okay, now go ahead and try to sleep good luck yeah so he failed to find these lost soldiers and i could not find whatever happened to them so like i'm just assuming they died uh but he did find an entire garrison of german soldiers uh it turns out that these german soldiers were like the zombies kind of shitbags they were fast asleep in their trenches leaving absolutely nobody on watch despite being like maybe a dozen miles away from the enemy which like i could these are like finally one group of nazi soldiers i'd be like

i get it yeah when you're doing your stand too but uh you really don't want to. Yeah, like, I didn't fucking volunteer for this. Leo crept up to the trench and found the first officer who was sleeping against the wall as well. So he pointed a gun in his face and demanded in the German that he had learned for the officer to order his men to follow him.

That'd be awesome. Just tap him. Hey, buddy. I really hate to do this to you, but I need you to come with me. The officer did so. Actually, the officer's like, all right, whatever, we're fucked.

But three of his soldiers were like, well, it's only one Canadian guy. How bad could that be? Well, they didn't realize that they were dealing with Leo Majors, who immediately shot them all dead. Oh, I thought he fucking roundhouse kicked him. Just did like the Johnny Cage split from Mortal Kombat, punched him in the balls.

Roadhouse. He shot all of them dead before they could even pick up their rifles. Jesus. After that, the entire garrison of 93 soldiers surrendered to him and walked calmly back towards enemy lines. You killed our three best soldiers. Those guys are real dicks. We like you now. Yeah.

One of them was like a specialist promotable who demanded that you call him specialist promotable. That asshole. Like if you guys weren't going to kill him, I was. So as he was doing so, they were ambushed by the SS. What the fuck? Who the SS was shooting people because they're surrendering,

but also like they assumed that there was more than one Canadian there. I don't know. They killed several of the POWs and Leo thought it was probably targeting them on purpose because they surrendered. Eventually a Sherman tank showed up to the ambush after hearing the firing,

because remember, Leo didn't have a radio. So like, hey, look, there's some firing coming over there. So the tank commander sarcastically leaned out of his tank and asked Leo if he needed some help. Leo said, quote, No, but I would appreciate if you could silence those guns for me. Again, by himself with 90 alive prisoners who are also all around him and now depending on this one guy for their safety. After the SS decided they didn't want to fight a tank, the ambush was fought off

and Leo delivered the remaining POWs to his commander. Now for this action, Leo is awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, the second highest medal that can be bestowed upon soldiers of the Commonwealth just below the Victoria Cross. Though Leo turned down the medal, be bestowed upon soldiers of the commonwealth just below the victoria cross though leo turned down the medal not because he was like humble or high and honorable and just can't see it i only

have one eye i want to see it with two bring it closer uh and it wasn't any of that humble shit i was just doing my job it was actually because he he did not want to be awarded this medal by field marshal bernard montgomery because he hated it yes that's awesome he he hated him so much that when his commander uh told him about the award leo said quote no thank you sir uh or said no sir thank you but i don't want this chief to honor me since he has caused the death of so many civilians and so many of my soldier countrymen with this ill-conceived military decisions. Now, if you're thinking that his commander, who's like,

how the fuck are you going to turn this down from the field marshal or whatever, or like so upset that his soldier would like tell someone, a general officer like give him the middle finger. Nope. His commander said, as you please private major, I understand. Also private major, kind of hilarious. It is. His commander said, as you please, Private Major, I understand. Also, Private Major.

Kind of hilarious. It is. So fast forward to 1945 and Leo Major and his unit is fighting in the Rhineland. He's riding in a brin gun carrier. For people who aren't sure what that is, think of what an APC is in your head, but make it worse. Make it super small, too. It's real, real small. During a routine patrol,

the carrier he was riding in ran over a landmine. Now... Oh, God. I should point out that these landmines are meant to blow up tanks, and a Bren gun carrier is about, what, one-tenth of a size?

Yeah. With no armor? It's like the World War II jeep, but tracked. Yeah, yeah. The vehicle blew apart and killed everybody on board. Everyone except Leo Matrix.

You think he just sat there without a scratch? He just grimaced out the landmine, and the explosion, like, arced off to the left like Dragon Ball Z. Yeah. He was blown into the woods, so far away from the original landmine explosion that it took people several minutes to realize that,

A, he was alive, and B, he was over there, because they just assumed he'd realize that A. he was alive and B. he was over there because they just assumed he'd been vaporized. Yeah, like fuck. Well, Leo's gone. Anybody find his eye patch? Where's his shoes? He was badly injured. He broke both of his ankles, four ribs, and his back in three different

places. Oh god. So that's the end of Leo Majors, right? Like he's gonna go do USO tours or whatever. It makes sense, yeah. He'd that's the end of Leo Majors, right? Like, he's gonna go do USO tours or whatever. I mean, it makes sense, yeah. He'd probably go home, eat some poutine, rub it on the wounds, that's how you heal him. Uh, nope. Okay.

It turns out being ethered out of a fucking Bren gun carrier by a landmine is not enough to slow down Leo Majors. You just put a bandage on a scratch and he's like, good to go. This is normally when everybody with a functioning brain and a will to live decides they've had enough of this war stuff it's time to pack it up and go home personally i did after like my third tbi hat tricks are aren't always fun leo majors was not that man again bizarro world to me uh he refused to be shipped shipped back home for treatment.

He broke his back in three places. So he went to a nearby Belgian hospital for a few weeks and then rejoined his unit. I don't think you're thinking straight at all. No, somewhere in Canadian military high command is like the Edmontonium injections are working.

Because remember, Wolverine is Canadian. This is the Wolverine fucking origin story. His real name was Leo Majors. Yeah. So you remember that first Wolverine movie? Like the really, really bad one? Yeah. We had Deadpool in it and it was terrible.

Remember the very beginning where there was a flashback of him fighting through all of the wars of human history? Civil War all the way to World War II, Vietnam. And then just walking away? I'm not totally unconvinced that one of these

was just the life of Leo Majors. That'd be sweet. He's just punching Nazis with his bone claws. Majors healed up in time to rejoin his unit as they swept the last remnants

of German resistance from Holland. On April 13th, 1945, the Allies were preparing to attack the Dutch town of Zwolle, home to around 50,000 people in a pretty decent-sized town. There was a problem

with this plan, however. They had no intelligence on what exactly was defending them, what units they were, the size of the defenders, whatever. So they didn't want to just, okay, everybody go into town. They needed to scout them out. So that night they sent Leo and another scout

by the name of Willie Arsenal to recon the area. You think it was one of those cop movies like, yeah, I usually work alone. Definitely. Well, actually Leo and Willie worked a lot together, but not on his most crazy exploits. It makes me respect Willie a little bit more.

He's like, yeah, I'm friends with him, but I have to go to Sit Call today. You want to do what? This guy's fucking crazy. You want to do fucking what, Leo? I have to go see a guy. Want to go ride the Tiger Tanks today? Or like Band of Brothers, like, you stay here. I'm going to go see a guy. Or go ride the tiger tanks today. Or like band of brothers like,

you stay here. I'm going to go get help. He just runs off straight through the middle of the town. The main reason for Leo volunteering is if you didn't pick up from his comments about Monty, he really didn't like when civilians

were targeted during the war. And if allies didn't know where the Germans were, he was, they were just planning on bombarding the town with artillery. Uh, Leo and Willie set out to stop that. Unfortunately,

Willie was not as great as a scout as Leo, or just sometimes roll a dice and it comes up snake eyes. Oh, he was too loud. He was probably wearing his boots. Yeah. Uh, so as they approached the outskirts of the town, he was spotted

and began to take fire. Though Leo says that he was spotted because they had a pretty big distance between the two of them because something on his kit rattled. Oh, I thought it was because he was wearing an army uniform. Yeah, and Leo was dressed up as a clown. Yeah.

Willie was killed almost immediately. Oh, fuck. Yeah. fuck yeah leo charged the machine gun nest and kill uh that killed his friend and killed them right back uh so at that point leo went back to his dead friend and grabbed a bag full of grenades and his stem stem sub machine gun leo much like his mission looking for zombies flew into something of a blind rage he didn't want to scout the town anymore. He wanted to go kill some Nazis. And kill some Nazis he did.

He hijacked a nearby scout car, taking the soldier's submachine gun and killing the guy. But I did say hijacked for a specific reason. There was a different German still in the car and Leo forced him to drive into town towards a nearby hotel. How did he do this?

Gun point, I'm assuming. He actually practiced the fine art of carjacking for years. While you were playing video games, I was studying the carjacking. Once there, he got to the hospital, he ran to

a German officer who he disarmed and Leo did something incredibly stupid, which was tell him of the Canadian plan to bombard the town. Now, he did this because he was hoping the officer would understand what he's getting at. Like, look, I'm here to protect the civilians. I don't care if you're here or not. But if you're not in the town, they don't have to bombard it. They don't have to bombard it with artillery. not in the town,

they don't have to bombard that. They don't have to bombard it with artillery. Uh, the German officer seemed to understand like, okay, I get it. And cause Leo's whole thing is like, order your men to leave the town. Uh,

and as a good faith measure, he gave him his pistol back expecting, you know, we had a heart to heart. He's an order of the retreat, but because you should never trust a Nazi that did not happen. Huh? Instead,

the officer had gotten his car and drove away. No orders of retreat were ever given out, and nobody's really ever shown what happened to the guy. I'm assuming he hauled ass to save himself. Oh, thank God, I'm out. So Leo moved around the town in the dead of night, firing off one of his now three submachine guns and one rifle at various intervals,

as well as throwing grenades wherever he went. He never stayed in one place longer than it took him to kill someone or fire off a burst of ammo because sometimes he would kick open the door of a house, find nobody in it, so he'd just fire a burst and run off. His plan was to create

as much chaos as possible in as many different places as possible all at once. He's doing this all at like a dead sprint. This might sound weird, but he had a plan. Running around like a madman, like a real life Call of Duty, had the

intended effect of confusing the Germans, who thought that they were not under attack by some fucking broke back, one-eyed Canadian guy, but instead an entire Canadian army just all over the place. Moving from street to street,

he went on a one-man offensive, sending the German defenders who had the good sense to fight him to the grave or running for their lives. The Canadian version of the Terminator stormed their area. At various points, Leo got lost and just turned down another street at random and continued his rampage in a different direction. Meaning the Germans could not plot out where got lost and just turned down another street at random and continued his rampage in a different direction. Meaning

the Germans could not plot out where this attack was coming from because the person that was attacking him also did not know where he was going to attack next. But he did eventually find a way to guide himself using a river

and a church steeple as a guidepost so he eventually got his bearings, because he didn't have a map of the place. Every once in a while, Germans would surrender to him. And he never really was down with shooting POWs, even though, even under the rules of law, shooting them in this situation would actually be okay. Also, they're Nazis.

So like, eh. But he would take prisoners in groups of 10 and run them back to the Allied lines before returning back into his wall and going back on his killing spree. He did this 10 fucking times. And you don't think they were like, you know what? Maybe we should send an offensive. Maybe we should like, I don't know. Give him a second guy. Yeah.

Give him a whole squad. I don't know. He's doing a great job on his own. Yeah. Give him a whole squad. I don't know. He's doing a great job on his own. He made 10 different trips back and forth,

meaning that he brought damn near another 100 prisoners back to Allied lines. At various times of the night, he would break into civilians' homes, and they would be like, oh, he's Canadian, not German. So he would pick a nap, or they would feed him, or he'd get some water,

and then he'd head back out Oh bother I gotta go Another day At the mines Like and also they like let him know Like that building's Gestapo That building's SS headquarters That's where the collaborators are

Shit like that Once he was well rest enough and he'd storm Back in the town he burnt down the local gestapo headquarters and he broke into the ss headquarters machine gunned a whole bunch of officers and also set the building on fire inglorious bastard right do you think he graffitied too it should be it should be uh incredibly important to point out he was not wounded a single time during all of this he according to him he took very little fire because people were so confused that they never got like they never

figured out what the hell is going on enough to return fire he just killed them outright yeah or they surrendered or ran and he did say if he noticed someone was like obviously running he wouldn't shoot them because he needed to save the right he needed to save his limited ammo and his now fucking willy-nilly eight different three-point sling contraption he has going off all the submachine guns for people who actually wanted to shoot back at him. So if someone turned and ran, he'd be like,

all right, moving on. At a few point of his rampage, he ran into some members of the Dutch resistance who like... You know what would be great? If there was a fold-out table on the middle of the street and he just grabbed a cup cup of water poured it on his head like he was running a marathon members like civilians are giving him energy gels and stuff oh man at some point of his rampage uh the local members of the dutch resistance

came out to see what the fuck was going on like there's an awful lot of machine gun fire going on in town and nobody told us about it horseshit we want to be in on this yeah one of them was a local police officer named frick kyber uh and like most people he was pretty curious about what the hell was going on so leo helpfully informed them that in fact that their town was liberated and to inform the civilians so that wasn't really liberated there are still some germans in the town but the resistance members joined in on leo's rampage grabbing guns some Germans in the town, but the resistance members joined in and Leo's rampage, grabbing guns and storming the town hall. Soon the civilians took to the streets,

cheering on their one man army. And by 4.30 AM, the remaining German soldiers who hadn't run or been killed were like, all right, we see the writing on the wall. Let's get the hell out of here. They didn't want any more of that smoke. And they retreated from the town entirely.

Oh, yeah, dude. Leo retrieved his friend's dead body and walked it back to his unit, who had yet to begin their advance into the city of Zwolle. A few hours later, they rolled into town unopposed. Can we meet the liberating army? Yeah, right here. Again, Leo was offered the Distinguished Conduct Medal. This time he decided he should accept it.

I would add two of these bad boys. About that. So the war ended and he decided to hit enough of taking over Nazi cities and became a pipe fitter. That was until 1950 and the start of the korean war holy shit really leo was not done though it should seem like leo at this point was too old for everything uh because of his various injuries and whatnot but he was only 29 broken backs yeah and he was easily one of the most veteran combat soldiers in all of Canada. For sure. So Canada knew this and immediately was like, please come back. You can have your own scout unit. You can build it.

And he was like, yeah, right. Those really weird movies were like, hey, we need you to come back. And he's out in the woods by himself. I told you I was done. Leo Majors? Leo Majors. I haven't heard that name in so long. Yeah. So in 1951, he found himself locked in combat yet again around Hill 355. Leo was given orders to take the hill and strict orders that there would be no withdrawals. They would stand and fight and not retreat. The fighting lasted several days and his 18-man scout detachment repelled an entire Chinese division while under constant artillery

bombardment. Eventually, despite his previous orders, he was ordered to retreat but Leo's like, nah. You already told me not to retreat. I'm not retreating. No takesie-backsies. He used his position to call in artillery and mortar fire on top of the attacking divisions

and in many cases so close he nearly killed himself. The mortars that were supporting him fired so often and so quickly that their barrels warped from the heat. They held, and Leo was given another Distinguished Service Medal. He is the only Canadian to be rewarded the medal in two different wars. Jesus. Just give him a Victoria Cross!

Yeah! Come on! What's he gonna do? Die? He almost kind of did. Multiple times. Now after the Korean War, Leo decided that he wasn't kinda over this so he joined the French Foreign Legion. No, I'm just kidding. That's what I was about to say. Holy shit. And he jumped in a DMV

and threw him. Leo's back, baby! He was fond of a Kasabian fellow. After the Leo's back baby he was fond of a Kasabian fellow after the Korean war Leo decided that he really had seen enough and retired to a quiet life though the years of war had gone kind of hard on him

and he was not long for this world just kidding he lived to be 90 and died in 2008 holy shit so while I was getting ready to go to Afghanistan for the first time, Leo just died. Wow. Yeah.

That dude's fucking awesome. I'm a huge fan of his beaver crest, but I feel like it should just be changed to the screaming one-eyed face of Leo Majors. That'd be sweet. So how do you feel about Canada now? I mean, I've always liked it,

but holy shit that's that's fucking awesome yeah we're not we're not a an anti-canadian podcast uh no i feel like that'd be a weird um uh i don't know a lot of people who are anti-canadian oh uh little correction um stone mountain the uh uh from last week i i talked in passing with stone mountain the confederate monument to their traders it's in georgia i uh monument to their traitors it's in Georgia I fucked that up so it's in Georgia in case anybody was wanting to go visiting don't look too

far into that Nick on the show we do questions from the Legion we do so as a historian which we kind of are let me let me rephrase this question as a history podcaster, I feel like to be considered a historian, you have

to have a PhD, which I do not. You have your niche. We both have our niches. I studied European history. I'm a Napoleon nerd. You're a World War II Army or Force guy. What's the topic you want to know more about? Honestly, I'd really like to get into world war one. Like it's such,

it's so broad. Like it's hard to pick your niche within the world war one. So I'd probably have to go into commonwealth. I don't know why I was, I'm always interested in the commonwealth side of it. Interesting. Like the Anzacs and stuff like that. Well,

I, um, obviously I studied European history, which covers a lot. Um, and then, you know, bachel history, which covers a lot. And Bachelors is kind of a really wide brush. Personally, I'd like to know more about Chinese history or Japanese history.

It's always been super interesting to me. And honestly, I probably would have studied that in college if there was a program available. There just simply wasn't. But it's super interesting we're definitely gonna do more about the about stuff like that because you know i'm not in school anymore uh i'm not studying new things unfortunately i'm just writing master's thesis on shit i already know about because that's what that is um so like i look forward to studying more of that which you know great like i want to do The Great Leap Forward. I want to do the Japanese

Russian War. I'd love to hear. Oh, God. I loved Japan when I was there. It was so great. I would like to talk about a lot of the warring states period. We're going to be talking about the Khmer Rouge very soon.

Oh, boy. That might be the most grimace series we ever do. But I really like to branch out. I don't like to stay in our comfort zone. Obviously, we're Americans. So a lot of the stuff we're going to talk about is going to stay in the English-speaking world. For the simple fact that I speak English. And a lot of primary sources are not in English.

There's a lot of really cool Google Translate kind of sucks it's fucking terrible I'm doing my best to reach out to some Spanish speakers in our Discord to help me translate things for some stuff in South American history I'm trying my best

but I am but one dumb white man but that's our show this week. Nick, as always, thank you for joining us. And until next week... We ride again. Do not attempt to liberate any cities alone. That'd be hard. Until next time!

Yeah, later!