10 Badass War Heroes You've Never Heard Of
1. Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart
Okay, so if you haven't heard of Adrian Carton de Wiart, that's frankly a crime. The man served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a POW camp; and bit off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. And what did he have to say about his traumatic experiences in the battlefield? "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."
Dang. Now that's pretty badass. Pretty heroic. Plus he got a sweet eye patch out of the whole deal. Born into an aristocratic family in Brussels and widely believed to be an illegitimate son of the King of the Belgians, de Wiart started as he meant to go on as he dropped out of Oxford, lied about his age and invented a new identity in order to fight in the 1899 Boer War. He suffered stomach and groin injuries early on and sent home from South Africa, returning within the next couple of years. In 1907 he became a naturalised British citizen, which was handy, because by that point he'd been promoted to position of supernumerary lieutenant.
By the time of the First World War he lead a battle against the followers of Mohammed bin Abdullah, and got shot twice in the face whilst attacking an enemy fort at Shimber Berris. Despite that setback he lead three infantry battalions and a brigade on the Western Front, during which time he lost his left hand and three fingers off the right. Which he bit off himself. He was shot through the skull and ankle at the Battle of the Somme, through the hip at the Battle of Passchendaele, through the leg at Cambrai, and through the ear at Arras. AND HE KEPT COMING. It's like Michael Myers if he was on your side.
He rose further through the military ranks until he became Winston Churchill's personal representative, sent to Poland during the UK's struggles against the Soviet Union. By the time World War II started the sixty-year-old de Wiart was captured by Italian troops in Libya, after his plane had crashed in the ocean and he'd swam a mile. That's all the badass stuff, and then you consider that a man who fought in this many wars and then became a diplomat managed to save so, so many lives. Whilst losing most of his limbs.