eccentric brit in WWII

[rmd]

so, i hadn't realized the brits had a guy in WWII who went into battle with a claymore.

not a 'claymore mine'. fuck that. the guy carried a fucking claymore sword. and a longbow. he is the only british soldier in WWII known to have killed an enemy soldier with a longbow.

wikipedia article on Fighting Jack Churchill

and the dude surfed.

found via cracked.com's list of 5 real life soldiers who make rambo look like a pussy.

Comments

[firni.livejournal.com]

I want to hear about mittens.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Remember: you asked!

His mittens are, if you know what to look for, not knitted, but made via an old technique called naalbinding, which results in a very heavy, dense, WARM mitten. It's also quite inflexible, but -- again if you look -- this mitten has two notches, one for the thumb and one for the trigger finger. This means he can shoot with them on.

Usually, the Finnish army wore very thin handspun gloves underneath the naalbinded mittens, with fingerless mitts over those. The gloves were thin enough to let them do most of their rifle work, and if they did have to take them off, the mitts meant that their hands would get cold much more slowly. With the naalbinded mittens over them, the snipers' hands would stay basically toasty warm, which put them at a HUGE advantage over the russians who had to do all their rifle maintenance with frozen fingers.

[firni.livejournal.com]

I need a pair of those mittens. They sound awesome.

[totient]

Marine Specialty in Ptown had some when miss_chance and I were there last. She picked them up and reports that they are in fact quite toasty warm.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*beams at you* I love the details you noticed.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

You are *far* too cool. *laughs* I need to make me some of those...