History's Most Incredible One-Man Armies

It’s a movie cliché we’re all familiar with – the lone soldier, facing down a whole bunch of bad guys on his own. 10, 20, 30 enemies, it doesn’t matter, the protagonist will outshoot them all with his superior skill and defeat them with his big brain. But Hollywood isn’t the only place that such stories have been born – history is, in fact, full of them. Today we’re going to explore four of these real-life one-man armies who emerged victorious despite the incredible odds stacked against them.

Alvin York

Born in Tennessee in 1887, Alvin York was a fairly typical American boy at the time – he had 10 siblings, harvested his own food on the family farm, and had to drop out of school to work in railroad construction when his father passed away in 1911. Alvin also liked to drink, a lot, and was known to get in fights once he was drunk. He was arrested several times for starting bar fights, but none of this really bothered him until his best friend tragically died during one of the fights.

But Alvin’s life took a turn when he attended a revival meeting for the Church of Christ in Christian Union, and became fully converted to the Methodist congregation. When the United States declared its intent to intervene in World War I, Alvin reported feeling worried sick – he didn’t want to go kill, as it was against his beliefs. Despite his attempts to register as a conscientious objector to the war on religious grounds, he was drafted in 1917, and while his application for exemption was being considered he began his training at Camp Gordon, Georgia.

While at Camp Gordon, Alvin had yet another change of heart – while speaking with his fellow Christians about the conflict between his pacifism and the war, he was shown a few Bible verses that changed his mind, especially one in the book of Luke which reads, “…and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.”

Alvin decided then and there that he was no longer going to object, and soon enough his company was sent to France, where their goal was to infiltrate German defensive lines on Hill 223, bristling with barbed wire, trenches, and machine guns. Alvin and 16 other men snuck their way behind enemy lines and into a German bunker, where they captured a small group of enemy soldiers. Unfortunately, this caught the attention of a nearby machine gun nest, which opened fire on the Americans, instantly killing six and wounding three more.

Everyone scrambled to get to cover, everyone except for Alvin, who began charging straight toward the enemies, taking them out one by one with near-perfect accuracy from his rifle. He later recalled that he didn’t particularly want to kill anyone, but it was either him or them.

During the battle, a German officer arrived with reinforcements, but in no time at all Alvin had taken several of them down with just his sidearm. The officer fired shot after shot until his pistol was empty, at which point he offered to surrender. Alvin accepted his surrender, and marched the officer and his men back to the American lines. Upon his arrival, Brigadier General Julian Lindsey greeted him with, “Well York, I hear you have captured the whole German Army.” He calmly responded, “No sir, I got only 132.”

Alvin York was credited that day with killing at least 25 enemy soldiers, taking 132 prisoners, and capturing 35 German machine guns. For his actions he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, later given the Medal of Honor, and was promoted to Sergeant. After the armistice, he returned home a famous war hero, and while turning down thousands of dollars in business offers, instead used his newfound fame to promote charitable and public causes.

Simo Häyhä

When the Soviet Union invaded Finland near the beginning of World War II, they were expecting to steamroll the smaller nation with their superior firepower and larger army. Finland had refused to cede chunks of their territory and a bunch of islands in a terrible trade deal, and now the USSR was afraid that if Germany took over Finland, they’d have an easy time reaching Leningrad, today known as St. Petersburg, which was just a few miles from the Finnish border. So, long story short, Stalin decided that invading and occupying Finland would be the easiest option to get a bit of a buffer zone in the region.

But it turned out to be far from the easiest option – despite outnumbering the Finns, having nearly uncontested air superiority, and having 3,000 tanks compared to their 30, the Soviet Union struggled to make any real gains, and was losing thousands upon thousands of men. To make matters worse, the winter of 1939 turned out to be one of the coldest on record, reaching lows of -40 degrees Celsius, or -45 degrees Fahrenheit, and tens of thousands of underequipped Soviet soldiers were frostbitten. Meanwhile, Finnish troops were layered up in their warmest coats, and could traverse the terrain quickly on skis.

But aside from the cold, one of Finland’s great roadblocks for Stalin was the Mannerheim Line, a defensive structure that proved to be nearly impenetrable for the Red Army. This network of trenches and pillboxes in southern Finland is where most of the fighting of the Winter War took place, as wave after wave of Red Army soldiers and tanks were thrown at the exhausted Finns. In fact, Finland wasn’t really expecting a lot of combat in many locations because the terrain and weather were simply too poor for large troop movement, but they were in for a surprise.

The two Finnish divisions stationed north of Lake Ladoga were suddenly met with nearly 100,000 Soviet troops, and, in a panic, quickly retreated to the river Kollaa. The river itself didn’t offer much in the form of protection, but one of its banks was home to several tall ridges, a natural defensive structure. And it was here, in the ensuing Battle of Kollaa, that a hero was born – Simo Häyhä.

Simo had always been a good shot with a rifle – he’d won some competitions in his hometown, and was able to accurately estimate distances to a target on a whim. Once he’d joined the Finnish Civil Guard at age 17, he was reportedly able to shoot a target 16 times in just one minute, from 150 meters away, using a bolt action rifle with a magazine that only held five rounds. A year before the Soviet Union invaded, he began formal sniper training, where he excelled.

On the frontline in the Winter War, Simo, who was now 33 years old, transformed into a living nightmare for the Red Army. Wielding a Finnish variant of the Mosin-Nagant, he preferred to use the built-in iron sights instead of a scope, as sunlight reflecting off of it could give away his position, and the lens could potentially fog up. A fairly short man at just 160 centimeters or 5 foot 3 inches, he would dig a small pit each morning where he would lie perfectly still for hours on end, blending in perfectly to the forest around him.

The snow where he rested his rifle was packed down to avoid any puffs kicking up when he fired, and he even kept snow in his mouth to prevent his breath from betraying his position. Between December 1939 and March 1940, Simo is credited with at least 500 kills, and many more from his secondary submachine gun if the enemies got too close. He achieved a single-day record of 25 confirmed kills, an incredible feat when you factor in the very short daylight hours of a Finnish winter.

His skill became so widely known that he soon became a propaganda icon for his country, with other soldiers referring to him as the Magic Shooter and newspapers claiming that the Soviets referred to him as White Death, his most popular nickname to this day.

Simo took out enemy infantry, officers, and mortar spotters, becoming a high-value target for the Red Army, who sent their own snipers to take care of him. As you can guess, those snipers never returned, so the next option was to catch him with indirect mortar fire – one of these mortar shells actually landed so close to him once that it blew off the back of his coat, but he emerged with only minor scratches.

Finally though, his luck caught up with him, and he was struck in the face with an exploding bullet, which was said to have blown off nearly half of his face. When his fellow soldiers found him lying on the ground, they, understandably, assumed he was dead and placed him on a pile of corpses, until someone noticed his leg twitching and quickly evacuated him for medical care.

Simo regained consciousness a week later, only to find that the Winter War had come to an end. The Soviet Union had technically won and gained a bit of territory, but it was as pyrrhic a victory as ever, with the USSR taking nearly 400,000 casualties compared to Finland’s 70,000, and with Finland losing only part of its territory instead of being entirely annexed. Though he would never be fit for active service again, Simo could rest knowing he did more than his part ensuring that his nation retained its sovereignty.

In an interview after the war, when asked how he had become such an incredible marksman, he simply answered, “Practice.” He lived the rest of his life a bachelor, hunting and farming on a property awarded to him by the government, until he passed away at the ripe old age of 96 in 2002.

Leo Major

When he landed on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944, the Canadian Léo Major was only 23 years old, ready to prove himself in the fight against Fascism. He emerged from the D-Day landings without injury, but a few days later was wounded in a firefight with some SS soldiers, when one of them threw a phosphorous grenade that burned part of his face. In the hospital after the incident, Léo was told that his service in the Canadian army was finished – not only had his face been burned, but he had lost most of his vision in his left eye, and it was recommended that he be evacuated back to England.

But Léo refused to be sent home, insisting that he only needed one eye to aim his rifle. After his stay was granted, he put on an eyepatch and was back to work.

Over the coming months, the Allies marched steadily across western Europe, until the frontline had reached the Dutch city of Zwolle. Léo Major and one other soldier, Wilfred Arsenault, volunteered to enter the city on a reconnaissance mission and make contact with the Dutch Resistance, before the Allied shelling of the city could begin. Heading into the city under heavy rain, they met a farmer who gave them the locations of several German positions, and things were off to a good start.

But just a few minutes later, the pair was spotted by a German patrol, and Arsenault was killed in the fighting. Léo was now alone, but refused to turn back. Apparently, he couldn’t bear the thought of an artillery barrage destroying such a beautiful city, and decided to liberate the town all on his own – which he did.

What happened next isn’t exactly clear, and there are many versions of the story. One such version says that Léo came across a pair of German soldiers on patrol, killed one and took the other hostage. After marching the hostage to his commanding officer, who he then took hostage as well, he was able to force a surrender of all local enemies and marched back to the Allied camps with more than 100 German prisoners.

The more plausible version of the story, while perhaps a bit less flashy, is still just as heroic. As reported by Canadian newspapers at the time, Léo first captured the driver of a German patrol car, and went into a nearby bar with his hostage. There, he disarmed a German officer, but after learning that the officer was actually French and wasn’t all that committed to the Third Reich, he gave him back his pistol.

He then forced the captured driver to speed around the city, flashing its lights and waving a white flag, and while this was going on, he lobbed grenades all over and shot up the empty streets, causing such a commotion that the Germans were certain the city was already under attack. He then found the SS headquarters, where he managed to kill four and set the building on fire. By about four in the morning, the Germans had fled the city, and the shelling of Zwolle was called off.

When he returned to his commanding officer, they were so impressed with him single-handedly liberating a city that he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. However, when Léo realized that this meant General Bernard Montgomery would be the one to present it, he declined the award because he believed Montgomery to be too incompetent to be handing them out.

Léo was injured the following year when the vehicle he was in struck a landmine. Fortunately for him, being in the backseat meant that he survived the blast, though it did break his back and leave him with several burns.

After recovering from his injuries, Léo returned to the army, and when the Korean War broke out, found himself receiving a second Distinguished Conduct Medal, this time for retaking a strategic hill with a small group and, after ignoring orders to retreat, defending it from a counterattack of 14,000 Chinese troops. Léo and his group managed to hold their position for three whole days until a US Army division relieved them, cementing his legacy as a Canadian war hero.

Dipprasad Pun

Our last one-man army is unique in the sense that his actions didn’t take place in one of the World Wars, but actually in the 21st century.

On the night of September 17, 2010, Dipprasad Pun was on sentry duty at a checkpoint in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. Pun was a member of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, a British regiment recruited from Nepal, widely regarded as some of the finest infantry on earth. While Pun peered into the darkness from his position on the roof of his compound, he heard some faint noises, like dragging in sand and metal clinking. Thinking it might be a wandering cow, Pun wasn’t initially worried, until he decided to go investigate and found that it wasn’t a cow – it was actually the Taliban, burying an improvised explosive device near the entrance to the base.

Pun immediately gathered his weapons and ammunition, and, realizing that the Taliban had spotted him and were about to attack, decided to strike first, throwing a grenade into the dark. The Taliban opened fire from three sides, and Pun, estimating that there were between 20 and 30 enemies firing at him, believed he was about to die, and decided to take as many with him to the grave as possible.

Moving constantly in the face of enemy fire, Pun single-handedly defended his surrounded position, surprising the enemy by moving closer to them and making use of every weapon at his disposal. He was shot at with AK-47s and RPGs, whizzing at him from every direction, but managed to evade every single shot. In the 17 minutes of intense firefight that ensued, Pun fired 250 rounds from his machine gun and 180 from his rifle.

He also used a staggering 17 hand grenades, and even a Claymore mine, miraculously holding the enemy back on three sides simultaneously. You’d think the Taliban would back off once they realized that they’d seemingly attacked the Terminator, but one lone insurgent decided he would climb up to Pun’s position and take him out at close range.

When the two came face to face, Pun pulled the trigger on his rifle, only for nothing to happen – the gun had jammed. But if you thought the grim reaper had finally caught up to this Gurkha, you’d be wrong. Without a moment’s hesitation, Pun picked up his machine gun’s tripod, collapsed it, and threw it at the Taliban fighter with such force that when the hunk of metal struck his face, he fell off the roof.

The remaining insurgents fled, and the victorious lone wolf was unharmed. Dipprasad Pun was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for his actions that day. Perhaps a bit of a family tradition, as his grandfather had been awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War for his actions in Burma.

In his citation for the award, Pun was credited with preventing the checkpoint from being overrun and saving the lives of three comrades inside the building. He later recalled, “At first I was a bit scared, and I thought definitely they are going to kill me. But as soon as I started firing, that feeling went away.”

Key Takeaways

• Alvin York, a former drinker and bar fighter, became a war hero in WWI, capturing 132 German soldiers and earning the Medal of Honor.
• Simo Häyhä, known as the ‘White Death,’ was a Finnish sniper credited with over 500 kills during the Winter War.
• Leo Major, despite losing an eye, liberated the Dutch city of Zwolle single-handedly during WWII.
• Dipprasad Pun, a Gurkha soldier, defended his checkpoint against 20-30 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, using various weapons.
• These individuals demonstrated extraordinary bravery and skill, turning the tide in critical battles despite overwhelming odds.

Sources

• Original Side Projects video: History’s Most Incredible One-Man Armies
• Hero image source by Wolfmann / openverse, by-sa.

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