On 10 November 1944, a Company of the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles was ordered to send a fighting patrol on to Monte San Bartolo, Italy. In this patrol were two scouts, one of whom was Rifleman Thaman Gurung. He started to work his way to the summit; the second scout attracted his attention to Germans in a slit trench just below the crest, who were preparing to fire with a machine gun at the leading section. Realizing that if the enemy succeeded in opening fire, the section would certainly sustain heavy casualties, Gurung leapt to his feet and charged them. Completely taken by surprise, the Germans surrendered without opening fire.
He then crept forward to the summit of the position, from which he saw a party of Germans, well dug in on reverse slopes, preparing to throw grenades over the crest at the leading section. Although the sky-line was devoid of cover and under accurate machine gun fire at close range, Gurung immediately crossed it, firing on the German position with his Tommy gun, thus allowing the forward section to reach the summit, but due to heavy fire from the enemy machine guns, the platoon was ordered to withdraw.
Gurung then again crossed the sky-line alone and although in full view of the enemy and constantly exposed to heavy fire at short range, he methodically put burst after burst of Tommy gun fire into the German slit trenches, until his ammunition ran out. He then threw two grenades he had with him and rejoining his section, collected two more grenades and again doubled over the bullet-swept crest of the hill top and hurled them at the remaining Germans. He then seized a Bren gun and a number of magazines and yet again, ran to the top of the hill and, although he well knew that his action meant almost certain death, stood up on the bullet-swept summit, in full view of the enemy, and opened fire at the nearest enemy positions. It was not until he had emptied two complete magazines, that he was killed. For his actions, he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Gurkha..nuff said. #zerofucks #nofucks #stayzero #military #ww2 #greatestgeneration #hero