takes a special kind of courage to run into a battlefield whilst thousands of bullets are fired towards you, but it takes an unimaginable sort of courage to go against such a well-armed enemy with only a bow. That is what Jack Churchill did during World War II. Those who fought by his side mentioned that they never saw a man so terrifying as him. A man with truly no fear.

His hard training and incredible aptitudes in warfare made him an elite soldier, one that would head into the battlefield quickly and silently, his target behind the enemy lines. Jack did not only fight with a bow as he was excellent with a knife and a pistol. However, his preferred weapon remained the bow, a trusty old weapon.

A champion in archery

Before the war, Jack was to compete at an international archery championship. Due to the breakout of the war, the championship never took place, therefore Jack took his bow and enrolled in the Royal British Army. Near the end of 1939, the war was fierce in France as Germany took most of it and, at Dunkirk, Britain suffered one of their worst defeats while trying to retreat their troops. It seemed that Nazi Germany was a truly unstoppable war machine.

Until they met Jack Churchill

In May of 1940, Jack was at the command of a small squadron of British soldiers in a watchtower trying to defend an important strategic position, securing the retreat of other troops. Jack was armed to the teeth, with his trusty bow, a sword, two knives, and a revolver, plus his waist belt full of grenades. The enemies were close and Jack had his bow at ready. The first soldier he saw, he threw an arrow through his head from a distance of fifty meters. The soldier died before falling on the ground.

Jack and his squad came down from the watchtower to fight the enemy. Under the firing cover of his squad, Jack rushed the enemy group, taking out most of them in close-quarter combat using his sword and knives. I presume that we can become as technologically advanced as we want, but at the end of the day, most of our history was written with a sword and a bow. On that day, Jack made history and became a true legend of the British Army.

Soldiers like Jack were the ones who made a big difference when facing such a powerful enemy as Nazi Germany, those types of soldiers who gave courage to others, that didn’t embrace warfare, and at the same time, increased the morale of the losing Allied side at the time.

Jack managed to survive through the whole war and lived to the beautiful age of eighty-nine years old, passing away in 1996 due to natural causes. He was seen — and still is seen — as a hero for his unbelievable courage and his desire as a sergeant to lead his men as the tip of the sword rather than from behind the lines.