Heroic True Stories
 

Thought this might be a good thread for articles and anecdotes to inspire us all. I'll start with an article in today's newspaper where I live about a Taliban attack on a US convoy in Afghanistan which had some Australian SAS soldiers in it. PDFs attached (with a cool photo on the second page of the second PDF).

While not a hero in the true sense of the word, he is in our extended family. My son, a Twilighter from the early days, returned from his tour in Afghanistan safely. He arrived Manhattan Kansas two days ago and is currently enroute to be with his family.

Grae

Grae
I am glad he made it back safe and well.

Cheers!

Brother in Arms

Glad to hear your son is safe and home for the holidays. Please give him my thanks for his service.

It has been announced today that Trooper Mark Donaldson, SASR, Australian Army (the soldier mentioned in that second PDF I attached at the start of this thread) has been awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. The Victoria Cross is the highest military award for bravery in the British, Australian and New Zealand militaries (the equivalent of the Medal of Honour in the USA) and this is the first Australian Victoria Cross awarded in the last 40 years.

Grae

Nice to hear your son is safe

I also take the opportunity of this thread to express how impress I have been by the US civil pilot who landed his airbus on a river, saving 150 passengers. I'm not sure he is entirely a hero but he is the kind of master pilot we all which to have when traveling by plane (I guess he is some kind of hero, then)

I know, this was supposed to be on military but good news on TV are rare enough to be noted.:)

The pilot was former Air Force and was a Nasa safety consultant so that certainly counts as military. The landing was truly amazing.

I'm glad that everyone mentioned, Mark Donaldson, The pilot, the passengers and Grea's son are safe and sound.

I heard that this morning. Impressive indeed.

Impressive is an understatement...consider a few things...

1. As places to ditch go, the Hudson is pretty narrow..and an active waterway.

2. He'd went from 3400 to 1400 feet in one minute after the birdstrike, tells me the a/c had the glide profile of a stone and he had exactly one chance to get it right.

3. Water landings aren't easy in any stretch...you get a swell at the wrong time, or your AoA is off...suddenly, you crash instead of ditch.

4. This guy had more stick time than a lot of folks alive...that helped, but i also think his "guardian angel" or whatever you believe was on his shoulder yesterday.

5. Consider the weather. If there hadn't been USCG, NYPD and FDNY right there, not to mention civillian watercraft? There would have been folks injured or dead from hypothermia.

In short, impressive, doesn't begin to describe it. A spectacular miracle. Kudos to all involved that day. If the Captain of that a/c doesn't get an ICAO award, then there is no justice.

I completely concur, Jason! That pilot did an outstanding job! A jet airliner with NO engine power is a brick, and the fact that he could put it down on the water without it breaking apart was amazing! He's a great pilot, and reportedly walked the length of the plane three times to make sure everyone was off before he abandoned his aircraft.

None dead.

Absolutely outstanding!

He certainly deserves some sort of decoration for his skill and actions, especially under such adverse circumstances.

Way to go Digger. I worked with RAR in '69. Good guys, and guttsy. Well deserved too.

Grae

I truely think he is the ultimate in professionalism, and cool headed is an understatement. He is reportedly a liscensed instrutor pilot for GLIDERS as well. That definately gave him a hands up over others. Not sure about others, but I would class him well above a LOT of people that have been called heros.

A bit of after crash humor was his call to his wife, "We had an accident." Not until prompted for details did he tell her the "small" details, at which time she freaked.

Grae

Targen just found out today that the chief instructor for our desert sniper portion of our upcoming battalion event is a aussie sniper from your military . I will give you a after action on how well he does.

Thats great Law, thanks mate.

As some of you guys know, I'm a professional media monitor. That Hudson River ditching was widely reported on every TV and radio station in my city all day yesterday, and on most of the main TV news programs in the evening it was the number one story. There was one Australian woman on board so the typically parochial Aussie media tended to focus on that, but the pilot is being hailed a hero here too. Interestingly the media here have not used the term 'miracle' as much as the US media has been doing. Here they mostly praise the pilot's skill and professionalism.

Here's an article that seems appropriate to this thread (warning: adult language)

http://www.cracked.com/article_17019...ike-bitch.html

Personally, I would have put Simo at #1,

(Thanks to Mark for the link)

You forgot the Canadians

I wasn't sure if you guys award the VC too but I suspected it would be the case. Sorry for the omission. Do any other Commonwealth countries award the VC as well? South Africa? India? Pakistan? Malaysia? I've never checked.

Edit: The story from the link in Copeab's last post mentions the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military award.

The house I live in now was built by the father of a VC winner that the Canadian army claimed as their own as he had joined the Canadian army when WW1 broke out. He'd actually left the Canadian army in 1917 and been commisioned in the Royal Irish Rifles prior to winning the medal. I've mentioned 2nd Lt Edmund De Wind on here before, but I reckon he's worthy of a mention again for this thread. I'm checking this on my mobile now, but I'll post more details when I'm back at my computer later today.

Isn't the VC awarded through all of the commonwealth? Or may be was as I don't know what the commonwealth status has become today. Can one of you tell us more about that?

Apologies for the delay in getting this posted, but here is some more information on 2nd Lt De Wind.

An extract from "The London Gazette," dated 13th May, 1919, records the following:- "For most conspicuous bravery and self-sacrifice on the 21st March, 1918, at the Race Course Redoubt, near Grugies. For seven hours he held this most important post, and though twice wounded and practically single-handed, he maintained his position until another section could be got to his help. On two occasions, with two N.C.O.'s only, he got out on top under heavy machine gun and rifle fire, and cleared the enemy out of the trench, killing many. He continued to repel attack after attack until he was mortally wounded and collapsed. His valour, self-sacrifice and example were of the highest order."

Here's a link to his Wikipedia page;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_De_Wind

And the page about him on the Commonwealth War Graves Commision site which is where I got the excerpt about his VC;

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_...sualty=1579899

'Kinvara' is the house where I currently live, although sadly it is probably going to be demolished in the near future if planning permission is granted for a nursing home on the site. Sent a bit of a shiver down my spine noticing that his birthday was only two days before mine, that he was the same age as I am when he died and that as 'Kinvara' was built in 1909 he'd only lived there for at most two years before he emigrated to Canada - our lease on the house is likely to only be for two years at the most. Lots of small coincidences!