The Canadian Man Who Single-Handedly Liberated the City of Zwolle in the Netherlands from German Occupation

leomajorLeo Major was a French Canadian man born in 1921. He probably didn’t think he was going to be more of a hero than the average soldier when he joined up with the Canadian Army at the start of World War II—supposedly he simply joined up because he wanted to show his father, with whom he had a shaky relationship, that he could do something to be proud of.

Major started his overseas tour in 1941, serving in Le Regiment de la Chaudiere. On D-Day, he was wounded by a grenade, resulting in the partial loss of vision in his left eye. Major refused to be sent home, arguing that he only needed one good eye to sight a rifle. He was placed in the scout platoon and became handy with his rifle, earning himself a reputation as an excellent sniper.

In April 1945, Major’s regiment was approaching the city of Zwolle.  His commanding officers asked for two volunteers to do a reconnaissance run and report on the  number of German troops patrolling the city. If possible, the volunteers were also asked to get in contact with the Dutch resistance as the Chaudiere regiment was to start firing on the city the next day. At the time, Zwolle had a population of around 50,000 people and it was likely that innocent civilians would number among the casualties.

Along with his friend Willy Arseneault, Major started to creep toward the city. Willy was killed by German soldiers around midnight after the pair ran across a roadblock. Reportedly, Willy was able to kill his attacker before dying himself. Understandably angry, Major picked up his friend’s machine gun and ran at the enemy, killing two of the remaining German soldiers; the rest fled in a vehicle.

Major continued on and soon ambushed a staff vehicle and captured the German driver who he had lead him to an officer drinking in a nearby tavern. He informed the officer that Canadian forces would begin firing heavy artillery on the city, resulting in the deaths of many German soldiers and Zwolle civilians alike. He didn’t mention that he was alone.

Afterwards, Major gave the man his gun back and, with that seed of knowledge soon to be spread throughout the German troops, he immediately began running up and down the streets shooting a machine gun and tossing grenades. The grenades made a lot of noise, but he made sure to place them where they wouldn’t cause much damage to the town or its citizens.

In the early hours of the morning, he stumbled upon a group of eight soldiers. Though they pulled a gun on him, he killed four and caused the rest to flee. Major himself escaped the confrontation without injury and only one regret: he later stated he felt he should have killed all of them.

As he continued his campaign of terror throughout the night, the German soldiers began to panic, thinking a large body of Canadian forces were attacking them.  By 4 a.m., the Germans had vanished. An entire garrison—estimated to have been made up of several hundred soldiers—had been made so afraid of nothing more than a single, one-eyed man that they fled the town. The city of Zwolle had been liberated without the need for the death of civilians or many of the soldiers on both sides of the lines that would have taken part in the messy battle.

Rather than fall asleep after running around the city in the wee hours of morning avoiding German gunfire and causing all kinds of mayhem, Major enlisted the help of several Dutch civilians to retrieve the body of his friend Willy. Only after his friend’s body had been recovered did Major report to his commanding officer that there was “no enemy” in the city. The Canadian army marched in to the sound of cheers rather than gun shots. For his actions at Zwolle, Major received a Distinguished Conduct Medal.

If this wasn’t all enough, perhaps I should mention that in 1944, a year before he liberated Zwolle, at the Battle of Scheldt, Major captured 93 German soldiers by himself and led them to waiting Canadian troops.

He and Willy were teamed up again on a reconnaissance mission to find out what had happened to a company of men that had seemingly disappeared.  Willy was sick, so Major went alone.  He soon found that the company he was looking for had all managed to get themselves captured.  Rather than go back and report immediately, Major was cold, so went into a nearby house to warm up.  At this point, he saw a couple German soldiers through a window and decided to capture them, which he did.  With them presumably helping him lug his balls of solid steal along the way, he had them take him to their commanding officer, who was among about 100 other German soldiers at the time.

His offer was basically- surrender or you die.  Of course, he’d then die too, but this plan miraculously worked.  Why?  Because some nearby SS troops observed the exchange and misinterpreted, thinking the commanding officer and his men were surrendering.  Thus, the SS opened fire on both Major and the German soldiers around him.  The Germans being fired upon decided surrendering to Major was better than being killed by the SS, so they went with him, with the SS hot in pursuit, killing some of them along the way. All total, 93 Germans soldiers made it back with him and became POWs.

For this amazing feat, Major was offered a Distinguished Conduct Medal, but refused it because he felt his commanding officer, Field Marshall Montgomery, was “incompetent” and that, “He had made an awful mistake.  I didn’t like him at all.” Thus, he didn’t want to receive an award from the Field Marshall’s hand.

Still not impressed?  How about how he won his second Distinguished Conduct Medal, besides the one earned liberating Zwolle, which would have been his second, had he accepted the 1944 one. The second one he chose to accept didn’t come in WWII.  Rather, it was achieved during the Korean War where he managed, in a lot of ways, to top the other two, though this time with the help of just under a couple dozen other people.  But I think you’ll soon agree, it was still ridiculously amazing.

Around 40,000 Chinese soldiers had successfully dislodged a large body of U.S. soldiers from a key hill (Hill 335 to be exact).  Unable to retake the hill, Major and a small group of other snipers were sent in.  There job was to sneak up onto the hill, in the midst of all those Chinese soldiers, and then open fire.  After doing this and throwing the Chinese soldiers into a panic, rather than retreat, Major had his men continue firing and managed to do what thousands of U.S. troops had been unable to do, re-take the hill.

Of course, the Chinese soon regrouped and two divisions, totaling over 14,000 soldiers, were sent to retake the hill from Major and his tiny band of snipers (20 men total).  Again, rather than retreat as ordered, Major and his band decided to hold the hill.  After three days of repeated attacks from over ten thousand soldiers using every manner of weaponry, reinforcements arrived and relieved Major and his men, who had successfully held the hill during that span.

I presume after being relieved and having the relieving commanding officer perhaps tell him it was madness to try and hold the hill with so few men, Major most likely responded with “Madness?  THIS IS SPARTA!!!!” 😉

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Bonus Fact:

  • You might think such a bold style of waging war combined with being a long time soldier would inevitably have gotten Major killed, but he actually ended up living to the ripe old age of 87, dying in 2008.
  • Besides the aforementioned awards, Major’s regiment during WWII later created a trophy which was presented at competitions to the company that performed the best. It was named in his honour.
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17 comments

  • What bullshit! Do canadians really believe this crap?

    • Daven Hiskey

      Warren: As do the people of Zwolle and I’m guessing they’d no the truth of the matter. These sorts of things were not actually as rare as you might think, even just when looking at WWI and WWII. The common thread in most of them is one or a few soldiers just completely going full bore as if they’re invincible which freaks out the opposing troops, who aren’t thinking about their superior numbers, but rather the fact that it just takes one bullet from the crazy man to make them dead. On Leo Major himself, given there is also a ton of first hand documented evidence on the stories, I see no reason to think they aren’t true. I have researched some where the documented evidence isn’t so prominent, and I then don’t do articles on those ones obviously. 🙂

  • I’m guessing if he’d been an American, well then he’d have beaten the whole German Army like the Sgt York fellow? Talk about BS, they even made a movie about it and we all know Hollywood don’t lie.

    • Yes, it sounds an awfully lot like the Canadian version of Sgt. York, allegedly-according to the movie, a bonafide sniper himself. Perhaps they could have convinced Gary Cooper to play Major. After all, he wouldn’t have had to change character much, just the accent.

  • People do strange things in war, big things. This guy decided to be epic AND live to tell about it. This is no bullshit warren. The thing is, this behaviour most often ends badly and it could have at any point for him too, but it didn’t and now we have his story to tell.

  • I guess if it comes from a Canadian, it’s not as valid, eh ? I hear a ton of these stories from Canadian vets. Nothing surprising to me. Kinda like that record sniper shot from, who else, a Canadian !! I’m waiting for the movie……..

  • In late April, 1917, Lance-Corporal James Welch won the Victoria Cross after charging across no-mans land and charging into the German trench. Where he killed one man whilst involved in heavy unarmed combat, (hand-to-hand struggle), and chased after the remaining soldiers who had fled from him across an open field. Welch ran after them brandishing his “empty” pistol with such vigour that they surrendered to him. The second action that day, saw Welch continually running into the open to retrieve ammunition belts so that he could keep the machine gun, that he had captured during the initial action, firing.

    In later life, Welch admitted that he was “so annoyed at seeing a friend killed, he just saw a veil of anger, and did not consider his own safety during his actions”

    I’m surprised that there is no mention to the fact that actions, and reports, would have meant that Leo Major would have been considered for the Victoria Cross.

    For reference the Victoria Cross, is the highest British military honour received across all ranks throughout the British and CommonWealth forces.

  • I am surprised that in WWII they didn’t melt this guy’s enormous steel balls for the war effort. I figure they could have made several cannons out of them.

  • doug stallard (*"swordfish")

    Obviously the ‘doubting thomas’ contributors have not experienced active combat or they would have known that instances such as those referred to in the article were far from being rare.

  • Suck it, Warren.

  • Those Chinese learned the hard way that you don’t mess with
    fearless French Canadians. Remember the US/CAN war of 1812 and the
    battle of Chateuaguay were 300 French Canadians and Mohawks bashed our troops of
    7500 American soldiers. What did Corporal Leo Major with 19 bad ass
    French Canadians on this little Gibraltar hill 335 is beyond belief!!
    700 to 1 ratio tells me that we should always be brother in arms with
    them.

  • It is amazing. Warren and Mike, all you needed to do was read some more, including first-hand accounts from people in Zwolle, and you can quickly see that it did indeed happen, with hundreds of witnesses for his many acts across multiple wars. What a bunch of a-holes you both are. Do you think all those 93 Germans who he captured single-handedly lied too? And why would they embarrass themselves to tell that lie?

    A guy risks his life countless times to save thousands of lives. Does stuff that his fellow soldiers could not thank him enough for, and does it in a way that it is impossible to fake it. There were 100’s of witnesses. He took over 100 germans prisoner and under heavy fire got 93 back into Alley ilnes to be taken officially as prisoners, with records etc. He takes an entire town, including killing many that night with many German and town witnesses to him, being the only one-eyed Canadian running around Zwolle that night. I cannot believe the stupidity and disrespect coming off you both. He fights so people and idiots like you both can enjoy freedom and prosperity, and you both cannot be bothered to check facts before pissing on his grave.

    All you needed to do before pissing on his grave was read the accounts, and you would know it was impossible that it didn’t happen as he said. And what you think his taking the hill in the Korean war with thousands of witnesses besides the 20 soldiers he was in charge of that kept that hill against 20,000, that all that was a fluke. Are you both seriously mentally disabled?