8 Awesome Stories Of Soldiers Around The World Who Didnt Know The Meaning Of Fear

“How can a man die better
than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
and the temple of his Gods”

Remember the “DHAAVA!” scene from Lakshya?

The instructor screaming at the young cadet, telling him how his blood needs to boil, how he needs to have life inside him so that he can become a great soldier.

He was not kidding.

In many cases, soldiers on a battlefield are thrust into scenarios where they face overwhelming odds – pinned down by enemy fire, ambushed by them, outnumbered and made to surrender.

In these scenarios, there are men of courage who still come out victorious. These are their stories.

1. Capt. Vikram Batra – the soldier who indirectly won us the Kargil war

Ask any soldier and they will say that if the enemy has high ground, you are at a severe disadvantage.

But then disadvantage is not a word in Capt. Batra’s dictionary. He captured peak 5140 by attacking the enemy from the rear, taking them completely by surprise. He led from the front, and the victory led to the eventual capture of Tiger hill and victory.

But some peaks were still to be captured and one such peak was 4875. He was ill but still went ahead and again – led from the front. The slope on this peak was 80 degrees, 10 degrees lesser than a pure vertical.

He braved firing and still captured bunkers. One of his juniors was injured away from the cover he had taken with another soldier. He braved enemy fire and shoved the other soldier aside to bring his fallen comrade to safety – and took a bullet on his chest in theendeavorr.

“Yeh dil maange more.”

 

2. Abu Azrael aka The Angel of Death – who has killed over 1500 ISIS soldiers singlehandedly

He was a peaceful school professor before ISIS killed one of his students. That was the trigger that made him take up weapons again. He is a trained Special Forces commando who fought against the US troops during the Iraq invasion.

Now he kills ISIS for a living. He just doesn’t defeat them with guerilla warfare, he cuts the captured open with swords and axes.

“ISIS, this will be your fate, we will cut you like shawarma.”

 

3. Simo Hayha who killed 500 Russians in one night and was called the White Death

Nowadays snipers have it easy. They have electronics to guide them, spotters for better precision and top of the line rifles.

The there is Simon Hayha who used a rifle without a scope and fought against the Soviet army invading Finland in -40 degree cold. He killed 542 Soviets and did not have it easy. He was shot in the face, but that did not deter him at all.

He continued fighting and the Finnish army, that amounted in thousands, pushed away a Soviet army that numbered 1.5 million, killing a million. And Simon Hayha still smiled after his jaw was half dislocated and after recovering from an 11-day coma.

How did he become such a great sniper?

“Practice.”

 

4. Yogendra Singh Yadav – braved multiple gunshot wounds and captured Tiger Hill singlehandedly

Remember the cliff climbing scene in Lakshya? That was exactly was Yogendra Yadav did. But he did it when Pakistani soldiers were shooting at him from the adjoining hill. His whole team was scattered, his commander was killed and he had three bullet wounds.

Even a soldier would stop, but Yogendra Yadav did not. He finished the climb with the will to capture Tiger hill. The bunkers on the top of the hill also fired at him. He threw a grenade into the bunker and shut them up.

There was a second bunker. They shot at him too. He ran at them too, and killed them all, surviving with more than 15 gunshot wounds  one almost ripped arm and grenade splinter injuries. He was awarded the Param Vir Chakra. He was just 19 years old.

 

5. Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe who captured 42 German soldiers with a sword and killed with it too

He used a bow and arrow too. He usually charged and attacked with his gun, sword and bow and arrow. On one such attack all his fellow soldiers died in gunfire and mortar explosions, but he just charged on. Being alone, he was eventually captured and put away in a concentration camp.

He escaped the concentration camp – twice.The second time he actually escaped and was put in a British hspital to recver. After he recovered, he wanted to be put back on the battlefield again – but the war was over, to his disappointment.

 

6. Milunka Savic – the most decorated female soldier in World military history

Milunka was bored of the normal life. A soldier cannot be kept home while the whole country is fighting for its freedom. So, Milunka went ahead and enlisted in the Siberian Army for the Balkan war.

At the time, women were not allowed, so she cut off her hair and acted like a man. She fought through a whole war and was promoted to a full Corporal until they found out she was a female. Her superiors did not want a woman to fight, so they recommended her to become a nurse.

She held a dharna outside their offices until they budged in, and allowed her to fight. Milunka fought a whole career and received medals and recognition from France, Russia, the U.K., and Serbia.

 

7. Audie Murphy, the 5-foot 5-inch man who defended a place with just 19 soldiers

When you are just 5 foot 5 inches tall and weighs just 49 kilos, you think that the world will bully you.

But when the size of the fight inside that big a man is bigger than most, you would not want to be on the wrong end of the bravery that comes out. Audie Murphy was tasked with defending a strategic location in France from the Germans with just 19 soldiers.

Hundreds of German troops arrived, with battle tanks. Audie did not stand back, he fired at the tanks with an anti-tank gun and ran towards one such disabled tank. He took charge of a machine gun on the tank and killed everyone in sight.

He was awarded no less than 33 medals from 4 countries for his bravery that included the Medal of Honor – the US equivalent of Param Vir Chakra

 

8. Major Shaitan Singh – died keeping the morale of the men under him as high as possible

In the 1962 war, the commanders knew we were completely outplayed and outnumbered. Major Shaitan Singh was commanding a post that was repelling Chinese attacks at the height of 17,000 feet.

The troops were losing morale and Major Shaitan Singh didn’t feel defeated at all. He went from post to post, soldier to soldier and inspired them to fight.

He got shot and terribly injured, but he didn’t stop. He kept on marshalling his troops, until he died doing that in the field. The injuries were too much. But his courage was still more than that.

All soldiers should be respected, across all borders, because they make sacrifices of their well being and livelihood without any selfishness.

And they do that with fearlessness and courage that makes them so special.

To take 15 bullets and still keep on fighting and come out winning takes more than just human spirit and love for the nation.

It is something that we cannot yet quantify, even after a Param Vir Chakra.

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