The Insane WW2 Soldier Even His Own Army Kept Caged

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Ernest “Smokey” Smith crawls through the rain-drenched night, his uniform caked with mud. It is October 21, 1944, and the bad-boy private and the rest of the Canadian Seaforth Highlanders have just made it across northern Italy’s treacherous Savio River, its banks close to bursting from the torrential downpour. Now, they have the perilous task of establishing a bridgehead before the German army can counterattack.

Suddenly, Smith feels the earth tremble as three Mark V Panther tanks loom through the misty darkness towards the exposed Canadians. But that’s not all - the Panthers have two self-propelled guns and thirty bloodthirsty soldiers in tow.

Smith and two comrades race across an open field through a hail of gunfire to set in position their PIAT anti-tank weapon. Leaving one man with the PIAT, Smith, and Private James Tennant rush for another, but no sooner do they grab it than Tennant is hit by machine gun fire and crumples to the waterlogged ground.

Smith is on his own now, one man against the might of the German war machine. If the enemy realizes they’re facing a single soldier, he’ll surely be annihilated in seconds. Smith may have been demoted nine times, but now it’s his chance to be a hero.

In full view of the enemy, he skids to a halt just thirty feet from the Panther bearing down on him. Smith grits his teeth, and he takes aim with his PIAT. He knows he only has one chance…




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