@SuperbattleshipYamato hard to argue against any of this really. The IJN was so far gone by this point in the war that there’s not really much they could have done to salvage their situation one way or another. The bit about the allies not having many LSTs in general is something I never knew before though.
Anybody heard of Jack Churchill? Total Badass!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill
Total Badass…
He is known for the motto “any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed.” Churchill also carried out the last recorded bow and arrow killing in action, shooting a German NCO in 1940 in a French village
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Thanks Garg. Great read.
I love eccentrics, so this was right up my alley. -
A Highlander?
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A madman. Same thing really.
Doesn’t say he was of Scottish lineage, but might have been. He was born in good old Surrey. (Where I grew up and was educated.) -
Wow, well it takes guts to go out on a crusade like this.
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How has a film not been made about his life yet?!
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Wow – an impressive story. In parallel with Jack Churchill being credited with the last recorded bow and arrow killing in action, there was a WWII British naval officer, Captain Phillip Vian (evidently raised in the same dash-and-gallantry tradition as Jack Churchill) who led his men in the last major boarding action fought by the Royal Navy, and in the last recorded RN hand-to-hand battle involving cutlasses. His destroyer Cossack had cornerned the Graf Spee’s supply ship, Altmark, in a Norwegian fjord in early 1940. Ignoring any niceties about Norwegian neutrality (which the Altmark had herself violated), he brought Cossak alongside the German ship and led a boarding party against her. After subduing the German crew, Vian – who suspected that British POWs were aboard – opened a deck hatch and called out, “Any British down there?” Having been answered in the affirmative, Vian replied, “Well, come on up – the Navy’s here!”
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Interesting!
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