April 13th, 1945. 21 hours. The cold and flat expanse of the Netherlands, just outside the German occupied city of Zola. Rain fine and persistent slicks the steel helmets of Limondier. The men are ghosts in the fading light, their faces etched with a weariness that goes bone deep. For nine months, ever since the beaches of Normandy, it has been a relentless, grinding advance.

France, Belgium, the horrific, flooded battleground of the Shelt, and now Holland. The war is dying. Everyone can feel it. The great Nazi machine is collapsing, but is dying hard. Fighting for every street, every canal, every pile of rubble. Inside a damp command tent, Lieutenant Colonel Michel Govar stares at a map of Zul.

The city is a strategic crossroads, a medieval fortress town of 50,000 Dutch civilians who have endured 5 years of brutal occupation. Goven’s orders from high commander simple take the city. The means are also simple. The divisional artillery barrage is scheduled to begin at 09 calls tomorrow, but Govan hesitates. A barrage of that magnitude will save Canadian lives. But it will turn Zolla into a graveyard.

It will kill thousands of the very people they are here to liberate. He needs another way. He needs to know what is inside. German morale is a question mark. Is the garrison a skeleton crew of old men or is it a fanatical SS detachment ready to fight to the last man? The estimates are vague. Somewhere between 1,000 and 4,000 vert and SS troops.

He needs eyes on the ground. He needs intelligence. In this regiment of tough French Canadian soldiers, the chords, there are many legends. But there is only one Leo Major. To understand what happens next, you must first understand the man. Private Leo Major is not a conventional soldier. He is a force of nature. Born in Montreal, he is a fiery, stubborn, and fiercely independent French Canadian.

To his officers, he is often a discipline problem. To his fellow soldiers, he is a talisman. He is, by every definition, a pirate. He had landed on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, in the first wave at Juno Beach. While under heavy machine gun fire that was pinning down his platoon, Major saw a German Hanamag halftrack. It was isolated, its crew distracted. While others took cover, Laos sprinted across the open beach alone.

He got to the vehicle, raised his steam gun, and single-handedly captured the entire crew. But he wasn’t done. He looked inside the vehicle and found it was packed with priceless German communication equipment and more importantly secret codes and battle maps. He forced one of the captured crew to drive the Hanamag back to the Canadian lines, all while being fired upon by other German positions.

For this, he was offered a distinguished conduct medal. He refused it. Why? because the general set to present it was in Major’s opinion incompetent and shouldn’t be allowed to give medals to real soldiers. That was Lao Major. But the war was just getting started with him. 4 months later in the autumn of 1944 came the Battle of the Shelt. It was not a battle. It was a nightmare.

A water war fought in the flooded boulders and muddy dikes of Holland. The casualties were catastrophic. During one engagement, Major was on a reconnaissance patrol when a phosphorous grenade exploded near him. The blast threw him backward. The pain was immediate, searing, white hot. His face was a mask of chemical burns.

His left eye was gone, burned from its socket. A medic tagged him for evacuation. He was blind in one eye. His war was over. Leo Major disagreed. He found his commanding officer, his face bandaged, his one remaining eye blazing with fury. I am a sniper, he growled in his thick French Canadian accent. I only need one eye.

You need me here. The army, desperate for men of his caliber, relented. Major tore off his bandages, put on a black eye patch, and went right back to the front line. He was now officially a pirate. He claimed his eye patch actually made him a better sniper.

It allowed him to keep his good eye open while the patched one covered the sights, improving his aim. The war tried to kill him again just weeks after that. He was riding in a transport vehicle when it struck a telmine. The explosion was catastrophic. The men around him were killed instantly. Leia was thrown 30 ft into the air, landing on his back on the frozen, unyielding ground. When the medics found him, his back was broken in three places.

He had shattered ribs and a broken ankle. This time there was no argument. He was sent to a field hospital in Belgium. The doctors were explicit. The war was over for him. He would be lucky if he ever walked without a cane again. Leo Major listened patiently. And then after 3 weeks of basic recovery, he simply left.

He escaped the hospital, found a passing Canadian supply truck, and hitched a ride back to the Netherlands. Finding his way back to Larimonduier just as they were preparing for the final push into Germany. His back screamed in agony with every step. He was half deaf in one ear from the explosion. He was blind in one eye, and he was exactly where he wanted to be.

This is the man who on the night of April 13th, 1945 stands in the rain outside Zula. And in this world of chaos, Major has one single anchor, Corporal Willie Arseno. Arseno is his best friend, his army. Where Major is all fire and instinct, Arsenot is the quiet, steady counterbalance.

They are the regiment’s best scouts, an inseparable pair who have survived hell together. They share cigarettes, rations, and the unspoken bond of men who have seen too much to ever be normal again. Back in the command tent, Lieutenant Colonel Goan makes his decision. He will not level the city. Not yet.

He asks for volunteers, two men, a reconnaissance mission, nothing more. I need to know what’s in there, Goven says to his company commanders. How many are there? Where are their main positions? Are they SS or Vmuck? Go in, get the information, and get out. Do not engage. The artillery will wait, but I need that intelligence by Zoro 5 G.

Before anyone else can even speak, two figures step forward from the shadows. Private Leo Major, his one eye adjusting to the lantern light, and beside him, his best friend, Corporal Willie Arseno. They are given a map, extra ammunition, and a shared radio. Their mission, infiltrate the heavily defended city, count the enemy, and return before dawn.

It is by any standard an impossible mission, a suicide run. For Major and Arseno, it is just another night. Around 10 p.m., they exchange a look, nod, and vanish into the darkness. The fate of 50,000 people now rests on the shoulders of two men. But within an hour, this simple reconnaissance mission will go horribly wrong, and one of them will not be coming back. 22 to 30 hours.

The halfway point, the no man’s land between the Canadian lines and the city of Tvala is a flat, soden nightmare. It is not land, but a patchwork of flooded fields and drainage ditches separated by raised railway embankments. For Leo Major and Willie Arseno, this is the killing ground. They move in the practiced crouch of veterans 10 yards apart.

Leo, with his single relentless eye, scans the darkness. Willie, his senses sharp, listens. The only sounds of the sucking schloop of their boots pulling free from the mud and the steady drumming of the rain on their helmets. This is where a man dies. Not from a bullet, but from a mistake. A single clink of a metal canteen, a silhouette held too long against the skyline, a boot heel scraping on a rock.

They are professional phantoms. Two men against a thousand. They reach the first major obstacle, the Swalla or Geil Canal. It is a wide black ribbon of water, silent and deep. The main bridges are heavily fortified, draped in barbed wire with the distinct squat shapes of German MG42 machine gun nests visible on the far bank. To cross there is suicide. They move west along the canal bank.

The mud growing deeper. Their map studied under a shielded flashlight shows a secondary railway bridge or what’s left of it. They find it half an hour later. The bridge has been partially demolished by retreating Germans. Its center span dropped into the water but one of the main steel girders slick with rain and algae. Remains spanning the dark gap.

Arsenal taps major shoulder points. It’s their only way across. Willie goes first. He moves like a cat, sideways, one hand on the girder, his sten gun slung tight to his chest. He doesn’t look down. He looks at the far bank. Major is right behind him. His balance is compromised by his broken back, a constant dull ache that flares with every move.

His one eye struggles with the lack of depth perception in the pitch black. From the far bank, a flicker, a cigarette, a German sentry, huddled under a poncho, not 50 yards from the end of the bridge. Major and Arseno remain perfectly still. They become statues of wet wool and steel. The rain is their ally. The German is cold, miserable, and thinking of home.

He’s not thinking of oneeyed Canadian commandos crossing a destroyed bridge. After a full minute that lasts an eternity, the sentry stamps his feet. The cigarette arcs into the canal and he turns his back, walking back toward his pillbox. They move in 30 seconds. They’re on the far bank, melting back into the shadows of the railway yard. They’re inside the perimeter.

Now, the true danger begins. The city itself. Zoa is not a modern city of wide boulevards. It is a medieval maze. narrow custobone streets that twist and turn, opening into small squares and then closing again into dark claustrophobic alleys. The tall asks us gabled houses lean in, blocking out what little light there is. Every window is a potential sniper. Every doorway a potential ambush.

They move past a darkened bakery. The air thick with the smell of stale bread and charcoal. They are following the plan. Move toward the center. Identify the commodant, the German headquarters. Identify barracks, count vehicles. They pass a military garage through the gap in the doors. Leo counts them.

Two Opal Blitz trucks, a Kubalvar, and the low, menacing shape of a Stug assault gun. He makes a mental note. The city is asleep, but it is a restless sleep. A dog barks, its chain rattling, and both men press themselves into a doorway, hearts pounding, weapons ready. Silence returns. It is just before midnight. They are deep inside the city. They have gathered good intelligence. The garrison is nervous, but not on high alert.

They have located a secondary barracks near the main train station. The mission is so far a success. It is time to go. Time to exfiltrate and report back. They turn down a street called Sassen Strat. It’s darker here, a narrow canyon of brick. They are moving a little faster now, the adrenaline of the return trip kicking in. Willie Arnote is on point.

3 yards ahead, he reaches the end of the alley, checking the intersection. He gives the allclear hand signal. He steps out onto the main street and walks directly into a four-man German patrol. For a heartbeat, no one moves. It is a moment of pure frozen shock.

The four Germans, the MP40s slung, are just as surprised as Arseno. Willie reacts first. He has no choice. He brings his Sten gun up. Halt! One of the German shouts. Time shatters. Leo Major sees it all through his one horrified eye. Willie doesn’t just fall. He is hit. A burst of nine mil rounds rips across his chest, slamming him backward off his feet.

He’s thrown against the brick wall of a shop, his weapon clattering to the cobblestones. He makes a single guttural sound. A terrible final exhalation and then slumps to the ground in a heap. He is dead before he hits the pavement. A vortex of pure white hot rage explodes in Leo’s mind. The world narrows. The rain, the cold, the mission. It all vanishes. There is only the body of his army and the four men in field gray who did it.

Before the other Germans can even pivot to the second threat in the alley, Lao opens fire. He doesn’t fire a burst. He holds the trigger down. He steps out from the alley, walking directly into their fire. His one eye a chip of burning ice. He hits the first two men instantly. They collapse. The third German brings his rifle up, a car 98, and fires.

The bullet sparks off the cobblestones at Major’s feet. Lao drops his empty Sten, pulls his service pistol, a Browning High Power, and fires twice. Crack, crack. The German clutches his throat and falls. The fourth man, the leader, turns to run. Nine, he screams. Leo is already moving. He unhooks a grenade. He doesn’t bother pulling the pin with his teeth.

He yanks it, lets the spoon fly and lobs it down the street. Poor Willie, he screams for Willie. Then silence. A terrible ringing silence broken only by the hiss of the rain and the high-pitched keen in Major’s own half-deaf ear. He stands in the middle of the street breathing in ragged smoky gasps. It took less than 10 seconds. The entire patrol is dead and Willie is still dead. Lao stumbles over to his friend.

He drops to his knees on the wet stones. Willie, he whispers. He rolls him over. It’s hopeless. The front of his tunic is a dark and a spreading stain. His eyes are open, staring sightlessly at the rain. Lao Major, the man who defied generals, who survived grenades and mine explosions, who felt no fear, breaks. He cradles his friend’s head, and for a moment, he is just a man alone in an enemy city, his best friend dead in his arms. The mission is over. It is a catastrophic failure.

The objective was do not engage. The objective was to return. He reaches for the radio on his belt. His hand hovers over it. He can call in. He can report the contact. Report Arseno’s death and try to sneak back. A ghost returning with bad news. He should go back. That is the order. He looks at Willy’s face. He looks at the dead Germans littering the street.

And he looks up deeper into the dark, sleeping, occupied city. A thousand of them. A thousand of them who by their very presence were responsible for this. A new feeling pushes the grief aside. It is something cold, something hard. It is the same stubborn, defiant rage that made him refuse to be evacuated at the shelt.

The Germans didn’t just kill a Canadian soldier. They killed Willie. And Leo Major is going to make them pay. Not with a report. Not with an artillery strike, with him. He closes his friend’s eyes. “Repostto, honor me,” he whispers. “Rest, my friend.” He lays him down gently in the shelter of the doorway. Then he stands. His back is screaming.

His one eye burns. He picks up his own Sten gun. He reloads it. He looks at Willy’s sten lying on the cobblestones. He picks that up, too. He checks the ammunition bag on Willy’s body and takes it. Then he takes his bag of grenades and Willy’s bag of grenades.

He now has two stain guns, his pistol, and a small mountain of explosives. He’s no longer a scout. He is a one-man army. He gives one last look to his fallen friend. He will come back for him. But first, he has work to do. The lieutenant colonel wanted to know if the German garrison was nervous. Leo Major decides he will give them a reason to be.

He turns his back on the route to safety and at 30 hours on April 14th, 1945, Leo Major begins his one-man war on the city of Zoa. Zur 30 hours. Sassin Strat Zva. The rain has not stopped. It washes the blood of Willie Arsener into the cracks of the cobblestones. Leo Measure stands for a moment in the silence. The adrenaline of the firefight fades, leaving only the cold, heavy weight of grief.

And beneath it, a core of pure, unadulterated rage. He is one man. There are thousand. He is one eyed, half a deaf, and his back feels like it’s been shattered all over again. He doesn’t care. He is not a soldier anymore. He is an executioner. He begins to move. His new mission is not to gather intelligence. It is to create chaos. It is to become the phantom army the Germans fear.

He must convince a thousand seasoned soldiers that they are not being scouted. They are being assaulted by an entire division. He hoists the two Sten guns. He adjusts the grenade bags. Their weight a grim comfort. He starts at the train station. He knows there’s a barracks nearby.

He runs through a dark alley, emerges across the street, and unloads the entire 32 round magazine of Willie steam gun into the darkened windows. Clack clack. Clack, clack, clack. Lights flash on. The shouts echo from inside before a single shot is returned. Lao is gone, vanishing back into the maze. He has found the military garage he spotted earlier from a 100 yards away. He finds a stable firing position in a garden.

He lobbs a grenade. It lands on the roof of the Opal Blitz truck. The explosion is massive. Kura boom. The truck’s fuel tank ignites. A secondary explosion rips the garage doors off their hinges. Fire erupts. A beautiful, terrible column of orange and black smoke, illuminating the rain. This is his artillery barrage.

While the fire rages and alarms begin to claxon across the city. Major is already two blocks away. He sprints down a street, finds a small parked Kubal wagon. He empties his own Sten gun into it, puncturing the engine block and tires. He reloads both guns. He’s breathing like a locomotive. The pain in his back a white hot poker, but the rage drives him. He grabs another grenade.

He sees a cluster of soldiers running toward the garage fire. He waits. He lets them pass his intersection, then throws the grenade behind them. Sound effect, grenade explosion, screams in German. He doesn’t stay to see the result. He is already moving. He runs. He fires. He throws. He uses the acoustics of the medieval city like an instrument. He fires a burst from a main street, the sound sharp and clear.

He sprints through a narrow alley, fires his other gun, and the sound is muffled, echoing, sounding like it’s coming from a different part of the city entirely. To the terrified German centuries hiding in their pillboxes, it is not one man. It is a platoon here, a company there. The Canadians are in the wire.

They are everywhere. Around just 1:30, in the midst of his rampage, he stumbles upon a critical opportunity. A Vermach staff car is idling in a small square, its engine rumbling nervously. A lone driver is at the wheel, clearly waiting for a high-ranking officer. Lao doesn’t hesitate. He moves in from the blind spot. He is a shadow detaching from the greater dark. He rips the car door open.

Sound effect. Car door wrenched open. a startled gasp. Before the driver can even reach for the Walther pistol on his belt, Lao has his own Browning high power pressed to the man’s temple. Pazumo, Major snarss in French, not a word. The driver, a young man, barely 20, freezes, his eyes wide with terror.

You speak French? Leo demands. The driver nods, trembling. I’m Weinig. Yeah, a little good. Lao’s one eye is inches from his face. A terrifying burning coal in the darkness. Listen to me. The first Canadian division is attacking this city. Right now, he gestures with his pistol to the sky where the smoke from the garage fire is still billowing. That is the beginning.

The artillery artillery begins at 06 1. We’re going to flatten this city. We will destroy everything. You and all your friends will die here. The driver is shaking so hard he can barely breathe. Lao leans in closer. I am going to let you go. You’re going to go to your commandant. You tell him what I said. Get your men out.

Get them out of Duala. Flee to the west. If you’re still here when the sun comes up, you are all dead. The driver nods, speechless. Then Leo Major does the impossible. He lowers his pistol. He takes the driver’s own Walter from his belt, ejects the magazine, and hands the empty gun back to him. Go, Leo whispers. Run, tell him. For a second, the driver can’t move. This is madness.

Leia screams in his face. Go. The driver doesn’t need to be told twice. He slams the car into gear, spins the tires on the wet cobblestones, and rockets down the street toward the German headquarters. The seed of panic has been planted now. Lao Major must water it with blood. He knows the officers will be awake, confused, trying to coordinate a defense against a phantom army.

He needs to decapitate the command. He moves toward the center of town. He finds it, a large, stately building, one of the few with lights blazing on every floor. Centuries are posted outside, nervously scanning the streets. This is it.

the common dantour or as historical accounts suggest an officer’s mess where the SS brass were gathered. For Leo, it doesn’t matter. It’s the brain. He’s going to rip it out. He doesn’t try to be subtle. Not anymore. He straps one steam gun to his back. He walks to within 30 yards of the front door. He pulls the pins on three grenades. One, two, three. He throws them one after another in a perfect arc. Sound effect.

Three quick, successive, deafening explosions, shattering glass, splintering wood. The centuries are vaporized. The front of the building is blown open. Before the debris has even landed, Leo Major is sprinting through the smoke-filled hole where the front door used to be. He is screaming, a primal, terrifying roar. Poor Willie.

He enters the main hall. It is chaos. High-ranking German and SS officers, their immaculate black and field gray uniforms now covered in plaster dust, are scrambling for their sidearms. They are not soldiers. They are administrators and they are facing a demon. Leo Major opens fire with his sten gun. Clack clack clack clack clack. He doesn’t aim. He sweeps the room.

He ra the mahogany panled walls, the crystal chandelier. The men who stare in disbelief before the 9 m rounds tear them apart. He drops the empty magazine slams in a fresh one. An officer fires back with a Luga. The shot goes wild. Leo stitches him across the chest. He sees a door burst open. More SS running to the fight.

Leo throws his last two grenades down the hallway. Boom. Boom. He has been inside for less than 30 seconds. At least four officers are dead. A dozen more are wounded. The command structure of Zola has just been effectively and brutally decapitated by one man. Leo doesn’t stay for the aftermath. He turns, runs back out the shattered doorway, and disappears into the night. So, three zero hours.

The German garrison commander, an obstust or colonel, is in a state of absolute panic. His world has dissolved in 2 hours. His reports are a tidal wave of terror. The driver from the staff car had burst in, hysterical, babbling about the first Canadian division and an imminent cityleing artillery strike. Centuries are screaming into their field telephones. They’re attacking from the east near the station. No, the south.

They hit the vehicle pool. It’s on fire. Contact in the west. Heavy machine gun fire. And now the last horrifying report. A runner, his face pale, bursts in. Sir, the SS mess. It’s been destroyed. The Sturban Furer is dead. They’re inside. The commander looks at his map. The reports are from everywhere.

The enemy is not at the gates. They are in the city. They’re organized. They are ruthless. They have hit his barracks, his transport, and now his officers. He is blind. He is cut off. And he believes he is facing 10,000 men. His force of 1,000 soldiers, which could have held this city for days, is now just a terrified mob.

He makes the only decision he can. “Uh, Ruk,” he screams. “Ruk, Alinitan, retreat, all units, blow the bridges. We pull back to the west.” Suddenly, the city is no longer filled with the sound of Lao’s weapons, but with the roar of German engines, Opal Blitz trucks, Hannamags, Cubalvar. Soldiers are pouring out of their barracks, not with weapons ready to fight, but with gear, ready to run.

They are shouting. There is no order, no discipline. It is a full-scale, disorganized route. The 1,000man garrison of Zwaller, terrified by an army that does not exist, is fleeing for its life. From the bell tower of a church he has climbed. Leo major watches. He is exhausted. He is soaked to the bone. His body is one screaming nerve of pain.

But he watches through his one good eye. He sees the impossible. He sees a long green gray column of German armor and infantry. A snake of panicked men flooding over the one remaining bridge across the Isel River, fleeing west into the night, fleeing from him. By 04 Ken, the last truck has rumbled over the bridge. Then silence.

A silence more profound, more complete than any he has ever heard. The shooting has stopped. The shouting has stopped. The engines are gone. The rain has softened to a drizzle. The city of Zola is empty. He has done it. He has single-handedly captured an entire city. The fight is over. But his mission is not. He has one last thing to do. Or sir, the bell tower of the pepper bust. The silence is absolute.

It is a dead, heavy, unnatural quiet, more terrifying than the gunfire. Leo Major stands alone high above the city he has just terrorized. The last German truck has crossed the Idisil River. The last echo of its engine has faded. They are gone. All of them. He looks down at his hands, slick with rain and gunpowder residue.

They’re shaking, not from fear, but from a profound bone deep exhaustion that is finally setting in. The adrenaline that has fueled him for 3 hours is gone. And in its place the pain returns like a tidal wave. His back is a column of fire. His ankle twisted during a run throbs. His one good eye burns from the acrid smoke. And the grief for Willie it returns cold and sharp.

He has done the impossible. But he is alone. He makes his way down the winding stone steps of the tower. His sten gun a heavy useless weight in his hand. He steps out onto the street. The city is a ghost town. Steam rises from the hot shell casings he left littered on the cobblestones.

The garage he bombed is now a smoldering but black skeleton hissing in the rain. The evidence of his war is everywhere. Broken windows, bulletpocked walls, the abandoned detritus of a panicked army. But there are no soldiers, no Canadians, no Germans, just him. He moves cautiously, checking the shadows.

Is it a trick? A trap? He moves toward the center, toward the common danter he had assaulted. The front doors are gone. He steps inside. It’s a slaughter house. Plaster dust covers the bodies of the SS officers he cut down. Papers are scattered everywhere, blown about by the drafts from the shattered windows. On the wall, a large portrait of Adolf Hitler stares down, its glass cracked.

They left in a hurry. They left everything. It is not a trap. It is an evacuation. He’s walking back toward the main square when he sees it. A curtain twitches in the window of a tall and narrow house. A face. It vanishes. Leo stops. He’s not just a soldier. He is the first liberator. He slings his Sten gun over his shoulder in a non-threatening gesture. He approaches the door. He knocks. Silence.

He knocks again. Canadian,” he calls out, his voice roar. “Canadia, the Germans are gone.” He hears bolts being drawn. The door opens a crack. A chain still on. An old man’s eye peers out, terrified. “Where? Where is the army?” the man whispers in broken English. Leo Macher is too tired to explain.

He gestures to the empty smoking street. He points to himself. “I am,” he says. The chain rattles. The door swings open. The man and his wife pull him inside. Their faces a mask of disbelief. Terror and adorning fragile hope. They are gone. Truly, truly, Lao says. They offer him jin. He refuses. Water.

They tell him where the local resistance cell is hiding. Within minutes, four men from the Dutch fay or resistance emerge from a hidden cellar. They are armed with captured rifles and sheer courage. They too are stunned. They had heard the battle. They had been preparing to rise up to support the main Canadian assault. Their leader, a man named Fritz, looks at Lao. The main force.

When do they arrive? Dawn, Lao says, but the city is clear. We should confirm for the next hour. Leo Major and the four Dutch resistance fighters are the only authority in Zola. They sweep the main buildings, the post office, the town hall, the barracks he’d shot up, all empty. At top the town hall, the Dutch resistance fighters tear down the hated Nazi swastika flag.

In its place, they hoist the red, white, and blue of the Netherlands. As the first gray, watery light of dawn breaks over the medieval rooftops. The flag of a free Holland flies over Za for the first time in 5 years. The resistance men are weeping, clapping Leo on the back. He is a hero, their savior. But Lisso barely registers it. He brushes off their thanks. He has one last mission, a personal one.

I have to go, he tells them. Where? Fritz asks. The army is coming. You are a hero. I have to get my friend. He leaves them in the square, their cheers echoing behind him. He retraces his steps, his body moving on memory alone. Back to the dark alleyway called Sassen Strat. The scene is exactly as he left it.

The four dead Germans from the patrol, their bodies twisted on the cobblestones. And in the doorway, sheltered from the rain, lies Corporal Willie Arseno. Lao stops. All the fury of the night, all the adrenaline, all the violence, it drains away. He is just a man standing over the body of his best friend. He kneels. He gently closes Willy’s staring eyes.

“It’s over, Ammy.” He whispers. “I did it. We did it!” He finds Willy’s dog tags, secures them with a groan of pure physical agony. He lifts his friend’s body. It is a dead weight, heavy with rainwater and the finality of death. He adjusts the body, carrying him in a fireman’s lift over his shoulders.

The pain in his broken back is excruciating, a shriek of protest. He ignores it. He begins the long walk back. He walks out of the liberated city, a solitary figure carrying his fallen comrade. He is the beginning and the end of the battle for Zoa. He reaches the no man’s land. The flooded fields. Every step is a new hell. The mud sucks at his boots. The weight of Willie is crushing.

He stumble. He falls to one knee. He pushes himself back up. He will not leave him. He reaches the destroyed railway bridge. He cannot cross it like this. He finds a small farmer’s boat, half submerged in the reeds by the canal bank. He lays Willie gently in the bottom of the boat.

He wads into the chestdeep freezing water, pushing the boat across the canal. On the far side, he shoulders his friend’s body one last time. The sun is now rising. 06 a hours, the Canadian front line. A sentry with the Limondierre peers into the morning mist. He sees a figure stumbling, waving. He raises his Leenfield rifle, “Halt! Who goes there?” A voice, raw and broken, calls back. “It’s major. I’m back.” The sentry squints. He sees the eye patch.

He sees the body being carried. “My god, Sergeant, get the colonel.” Leo Major stumbles the last few yards and lays the body of Willie Arseno gently on a stretcher. He is covered in mud, soot, and blood. His one eye is bloodshot. He is by all accounts a man who has walked through hell. Lieutenant Colonel Goven runs out of the command tent, his face grim.

He had heard the explosions all night. He was expecting a failed patrol. Or worse, nothing. He sees Major. He sees the body. Major report. What in God’s name happened? What is the status of the garrison? Leo Major, his duty finally done, pulls himself to attention. or as close as his broken body will allow. Sir, he rasps.

Corporal Arsenode is dead. We made contact. Goan’s face tightens. The garrison major, their strength, their positions. My artillery strike is in 3 hours. Leo Major looks at his colonel. He looks at the body of his friend. And he gives his final report. Sir, you can tell the artillery to stand down. What do you mean? The city is free. the garrison. They’re gone.

They all ran. Gavan is speechless. He stares at this oneeyed, half-dead pirate of a soldier. How major? How is that possible? Lao just shakes his head. He’s too tired. It was a very loud reconnaissance, sir. At 9:00 a.m., Lima Lashodier advanced on Zva. They were braced for a house-to-house blood bath.

Instead, they were met by thousands of cheering wee, weeping Dutch civilians, waving homemade flags and offering them flowers. The city was theirs, and it was completely, utterly undamaged. Leo had not just saved the lives of his fellow soldiers. He had saved the city of Zolla itself for his actions for deliberately and single-handedly rooting a force 1,000 times his size.

Private Leo Major was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, DCM, one of the Commonwealth’s highest honors for bravery, second only to the Victoria Cross. He would later earn a second DCM in the Korean War. But in Zvoler, he is not just a soldier, he is a patron saint. To this day, the city of Zo honors him as their liberator. A street is named after him, Lao Major Lan.

He is an honorary citizen for life and beyond. It remains one of the most incredible, most audacious, and most impossible true stories of the entire Second World War. A testament to the fact that sometimes all it takes is one man, one eye, and a will of iron to make an entire army surrender.

He is an honorary citizen for life and beyond. It remains one of the most incredible, most audacious, and most impossible true stories of the entire Second World War. A testament to the fact that sometimes all it takes is one man, one eye, and a will of iron to make an entire army surrender. The story of Leo is a towering example of individual courage.

But he was not the only one. Thousands of stories of unbelievable bravery remain hidden in the fog of war. Who is another unsung hero from this conflict whose story deserves to be told? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.