Combat Stories

The Nazis were pushing into Russia as part of the biggest military operation in the history of the human race, and everything was about to come to a head in the city of Stalingrad with a battle over a single bombed-out apartment building. Pavlov and his platoon was tasked with the thankless job of retaking the building after the Nazis had seized it. To get a snapshot of what their mindset was like heading in, it's helpful to know that the assignment was considered an extremely dangerous one by the Soviet Army, and that the Soviet Army's slogan at the time was "die for Russia.

Somehow, the slogan failed to raise morale. Doing the quick math, Pavlov realized his only chance was to throw his whole platoon into the meat grinder, and hope that the speed with which they passed through left at least a few alive. He lost all but four men in the assault, but eventually his plan worked and they took the building. Had they known they were dealing with a man who considered four people surviving a success, the Nazis probably would have realized that they were in for some serious shit. Having barely enough survivors to outfit a respectable zombie movie, Pavlov could only station one soldier to each floor.

However, the drop-dead gorgeous line of sight it offered was enough for them to unleash a mountain of unholy hell against all Fascist comers. The last face many Nazis ever saw. The building was subjected to relentless fire--as were the civilians huddled in its basement--but Pavlov's unit held out long enough to be reinforced by a still-tiny 25 men. Not a wizard, but it was all they needed. His men were given machine guns, rifles, mortars, barbed-wire, anti-tank mines, some body armor and a PTRS anti-tank rifle which Pavlov personally used to snipe a dozen tanks from the rooftop.

They basically used what little equipment they had to convert the apartment into a goddamn anti-Nazi death machine that could annihilate whatever came at it from a kilometer in every direction. As long as everyone conserved their ammo and manned their posts, the only real danger posed to the building came from flamethrowers. Fortunately, with legendary snipers like year-old Anatoly Chekhov on the top floor, this usually resulted in a Viking funeral for the Nazis.

Later, Pavlov's men could boast that they killed more Germans defending their one building than the French killed in the entire fall of Paris. And unfortunately for French egos, they were still alive to boast--by February 2 the next year, the Battle of Stalingrad was over. Pavlov was named a Hero of the Soviet Union, and the building he defended was made into a monument.

Hopefully you didn't see the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but did read the comics, which feature a band of legendary fictional characters such as Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man and Dr. Hyde, all coming together from separate fictional universes to save the world. What if we told you that there was a secret military unit during World War II which featured this guy:. They were stationed at Baker Street. Yep, the place where the fictional Sherlock Holmes solved his mysteries. These "Baker Street Irregulars" were Churchill's go-to guys and girls for "ungentlemanly" warfare.

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If there was a bridge that needed busting or an Axis officer who needed seducing, you'd better believe the SOE had all the cloaks and daggers necessary to make sure Colonel Arschloch spent his last moments of WWII getting murdered in his bed anywhere from the English Channel to Southeast Asia. It's thanks to these unknown bastards of WWII that Hitler didn't have any nuclear-tipped V-2 rockets to turn the last months of the war into something akin to Judgment Day.

Luke's Red Squadron from Star Wars. If instead of fancy space technology, the Red Squadron used a flare gun and a slingshot to destroy the Death Star. Stretching at feet and capable of displacing more than 50, metric tons, the Bismarck was the largest battleship in the world when it was launched. Seeing this bastard through a pair of binoculars, you'd have to think it was too big to be possible. Not only did it boast eight inch guns if you're thinking that sounds tiny, understand the shells were 15 inches across and five dozen smaller armaments, the ship's onboard targeting computer was so precise it blew away HMS Hood , the pride of the Royal Navy, with one freaking shot.

The subsequent destruction of the HMS Hood and the loss of almost all its sailors was considered one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in all of WWII. Fortunately, the battleship did have one fatal weakness: Just after nightfall on May 24, , Moffat and his squad of biplane bombers assaulted the Bismarck from every direction, in most cases skimming just above the water-line to avoid the battleship's fire.

Although they were flying in the black of night likely using some old timey version of the Force, Moffat was able to fire a torpedo in a one-in-a-million shot that struck the Bismarck square on its rudder, the one vulnerable spot in 50 thousand tons of armor and bristling weaponry.

The hit left the most feared battleship in the Kriegsmarine floating dead in the water. The Royal Navy promptly sailed in to finish the job. Boy, those survivors sure are some sour krauts. The Dirty Dozen , a film that would probably not have been possible had the Filthy Thirteen not come out first. The Filthy Thirteen were a sub-unit within the th Parachute Infantry Regiment, st Airborne Division, better known as the "Screaming Eagles" who descended on Hitler's Fortress Europe with the 82nd Airborne during the wee-hours of D-Day for some early-morning foreplay.

The Filthies were among the hardest-hitting, harder-drinking roughnecks in the U. Army, and got their name for their tendency to bathe and shave only once a week during training and rarely washing their uniforms, if ever. Real heroes are disgusting and riddled with easily preventable diseases. Their specialty was blowing the shit out of bridges and whatever else they figured could go "boom" if they strapped it to enough TNT, which caused a nightmare for the Germans as they tried in vain to fend off the Allied invasion.

The jobs were as risky as a shore leave prostitute in Thailand, but the Filthy Thirteen were able to blow the shit out of Nazi-occupied France all the way from Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge, all while smelling worse than, well, a goddamn shore leave prostitute in Thailand. Their fearless leader, Jake McNiece was part Native-American, and his fellow Filthies chose to honor this by going into battle sporting mohawks like Travis Bickle, and freaking war-paint.

But before he even made it that far, McNiece had to enlist and, at the age of 23, was delivered this nugget of advice from the enlisting officer:. I don't know, but your face and your head looks like it's been used as practice for hand grenade tossing and wore out three bodies already. If that's not some movie shit, we don't know what is. I got hit in the right shoulder, which broke my arm all the way down into the forearm. And the first thing that the VA [Department of Veteran Affairs] did was try to push medication on us.

I've seen over 12 different psychiatrists and psychologists through the VA. I have yet to come across one that honoured my no medication request. The VA is such a fractured system. The biggest problem I have with them is logistics. If I need to make an appointment to see a doctor right now, I can make my appointment today but I won't see a doctor for three to four months out.

However, I think there are so many people there making a ridiculous amount of money working for the VA that they don't care that the system is broken.

As long as their cheque is just fine and they get their money deposited, they don't care. It's like a Band-Aid culture: They're trying to fix something that's well beyond repair. Something was recently going around on Facebook, I think, that said every 21 seconds there's a vet that kills themselves in the United States, from complications from PTSD, or whatever the case may be.

So there was also a challenge on Facebook where they wanted people to do 21 push-ups for 21 days to bring awareness. I did the whole 21 for 21 days. I remember saying on my last day of my push-ups, I posted that this is something that I struggle with too and if you are someone that I served with and you need someone to talk to, please call me because I'm here for you. I had two servicemen whom I had served with call and talk to me because they were contemplating suicide.

And I talked them down. And now they're fine. Instead, very little funding is spent on treatment for soldiers suffering from PTSD and the money goes to redoing jets or making more bombs or new weapons. They don't care about the soldiers. Americans need to understand that, that is the cost of war.

'I was on 52 different types of medications'

We're sending people over there and they will come back with problems. Adrian, my friend, we served together. When I showed up in the unit, he showed up in the unit, so when he was new, I was new. Even though I haven't seen Adrian in 10 years, he still calls me to this day, for anything and I'm there. He can need me for anything and I'm there.

You don't have that same rapport with people when you get out. Five years on, we revisit this story. Russian-Saudi relations could be very different today, if Stalin hadn't killed the Soviet ambassador to Saudi Arabia. What draws Kenyan women to join al-Shabab and what challenges are they facing when they return to their communities? Dante Sowell is one of them.

This is his story in his own words. There was a lot of negative stigma attached to joining the military It all happened so fast … I was like, oh my God, I just killed this man.