Leo Major

Léo Major (January 23, 1921 – October 12, 2008) was a Canadian soldier who was the only Canadian and one of only three soldiers in the British Commonwealth to receive the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) twice in separate wars.

Major earned his first DCM in World War II in 1945 after a successful reconnaissance mission during the liberation of the Dutch city of Zwolle. As he was sent to scout the city with one of his best friends, a firefight broke out in which his friend was killed. Major continued on to find that Zwolle was mostly deserted by the German occupational army. Thanks to his efforts, the city was spared the artillery fire that was planned the next day by the Allies. He received his second DCM during the Korean War for leading the capture of a key hill in 1951.

Life Major was born on January 23, 1921, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, to French Canadian parents. He moved with his family to Montreal before his first birthday. Due to a poor relationship with his father, he moved to live with an aunt at age 14. Major joined the Canadian army in 1940 to prove to his father that he was "somebody to be proud of."

He was a cousin to singer Aimé Major.

World War II Major was serving with the , which landed on Juno beach in the Invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day. During a reconnaissance mission on D-Day, Major captured a German halftrack by himself, killing all of the halftrack soldiers. The vehicle contained German communication equipment and secret codes, whose possession was critical to Allied intelligence.

Days later, during his first encounter with an SS patrol, he killed four soldiers. However, one of them managed to ignite a phosphorus grenade; in the resulting explosion, Major lost one eye but continued to fight. He continued his service as a scout and a sniper by insisting he needed only one eye to sight his weapon. According to him, he "looked like a pirate".

Battle of the Scheldt Major single-handedly captured 93 German soldiers during the Battle of the Scheldt in Zeeland in the southern Netherlands. According to the Ottawa Citizen, Major and his friend, Corporal Wilfrid Arsenault, were assigned to determine the fates of a company of recruits that had disappeared after being sent to capture a town; however, as Arsenault fell ill, Major went alone. After finding the company's abandoned equipment and determining they had been captured, Major entered a house to find shelter from the rain and the cold, when he spotted two German soldiers walking along a dike. He captured the first German, used him as bait to capture the other, and brought his captives to their commanding officer; the officer and his company, totaling around 100 men, surrendered, though three of the soldiers were killed by Major. In a nearby group of houses, SS troops, witnessing the company surrender, opened fire on them, killing seven and injuring some others. Major disregarded the enemy fire and continued escorting his prisoners to the Canadian front line, ordering a passing Canadian tank to fire on the SS troops. He marched back to camp with the surviving 93 prisoners. An article in Dutch newspaper Trouw claims he received seven days off instead, which he spent in Belgium, and that he was not present to receive his DCM because his car would not start. However, Dirk Staat, conservator of the Dutch Nationaal Militair Museum, has done research on Major for two years and doubts the usual telling of the events, arguing that there were no reports of a DCM recommendation

Liberation of Zwolle At the beginning of April 1945, the were approaching the city of Zwolle, which was shown to have strong German resistance. On April 13, the regiment's commanding officer asked for two volunteers for a reconnaissance mission into Zwolle, their tasks being to scout the German force and, if possible, make contact with the Dutch Resistance, before an Allied artillery barrage could commence. Private Major and Corporal Arsenault stepped forward to accept the task. In a radio interview with , Major told that he became mad after that, but managed to control himself. Major killed two of the Germans, but the rest fled in a vehicle. Deciding to continue his mission alone, Major entered Zwolle near Sassenpoort.

Thanks to Major's efforts, the planned shelling of Zwolle was called off, and the entered the city the next day without firing a single shot. For his actions, Major received the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

Differing accounts of Major's actions The most popular and oft-cited story claims that Major, armed with several machine guns and a sack of grenades, launched a solo assault on Zwolle, using gunfire and grenade explosions to trick the German elements in the city into believing a large Canadian force was assaulting the city; after Major had killed several German soldiers and made contact with the resistance the German force fled, and Major returned to camp to report his findings to the commanding officer of the Chaudières.

Similarly, in an interview with De Stentor, Nationaal Militair Museum curator Dirk Staat, who had researched Major for two years, argued that much of the popularly-accepted story is a myth with no records or proof of any incident happening that night in Zwolle. Staat also believes the vehicle used by Major was not a hijacked German military vehicle, but rather just the car of the head of the local resistance, Frits Kuiper, which Major also used to ride back in the morning. 1st Commonwealth Division. Major fought in the First Battle of Maryang-san, where he received a bar to his Distinguished Conduct Medal for capturing and holding a key hill in November 1951.

Second Distinguished Conduct Medal

Hill 355, nicknamed Little Gibraltar, was a strategic feature, commanding the terrain for twenty miles around, so the Communists were determined to take it before the truce talks came to an agreement that would lock each side into their present positions. Hill 355 was held by the 3rd U.S. Infantry Division, who linked up with the R22eR on the Americans' western flank. On November 22, the Chinese 64th Army (around 40,000 men) began their attack: over the course of two days, the Americans were pushed back from Hill 355 by elements of the Chinese 190th and 191st Divisions. The 3rd U.S. Infantry Division tried to recapture the hill, but without any success, and the Chinese had moved to the nearby Hill 227, practically surrounding the Canadian forces. To relieve pressure, an elite scout and sniper team led by Léo Major was brought up. Armed with Sten guns, Major and his 18 men, wearing running shoes to silence their movements, passed through enemy lines and crept up Hill 227 from the Chinese side. At a signal, Major's men opened fire, panicking the Chinese who were trying to understand why the enemy's fire was coming from the centre of their troops instead of from the outside. By 12:45 am, Major's team had retaken the hill. However, an hour later, the 190th and the 191st, totalling around 14,000 men, launched a counter-attack. Major was ordered to retreat, but refused and found scant cover for his men. He held the enemy off throughout the night, though they were so close to him that Major's own mortar bombs were practically falling on him. The commander of the mortar platoon, Captain Charly Forbes, later wrote that Major was "an audacious man ... not satisfied with the proximity of my barrage and asks to bring it closer...In effect, my barrage falls so close that I hear my bombs explode when he speaks to me on the radio." Major and his platoon held Hill 227 for three days until relieved by the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division.right

Death and legacy Major died in Candiac, Quebec, on October 12, 2008 and was buried at the Last Post Fund National Field of Honour in Pointe-Claire. He was survived by Pauline De Croiselle, his wife of 57 years; four children; and five grandchildren. A documentary film about his exploits, , was produced in Montreal in 2018. He was also portrayed in the short 2025 documentary Léo Major: One Man Army. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe, Canada Post issued a stamp in honour of Major, "The one-eyed ghost", on April 29, 2020. The Canadian band Mystery released the song "Pearls and Fire" about Major on their 2023 album Redemption.

Honours

He was awarded honorary citizenship of the City of Zwolle, Netherlands, on 14 April 2005.