Léo Major was a French-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 in Zwolle.
Born on January 23rd, 1921, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to French-Canadian parents, Major 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. This relationship, combined with a lack of available work, led Major to join the Canadian army in 1940 to prove to his father that he was "somebody to be proud of". Major enlisted in the Canadian army when he was 19 years old and was sent overseas in 1941. One of Major's sons, said his father, a skinny and scrappy boxer and aspiring plumber, was drawn by the prospect of liberating Europe from fascism as well as a quest for adventure. For the next several years Major would receive reconnaissance training and would eventually be called up to be deployed as part of the Normandy landings.
Major was serving with the Régiment de la Chaudière which landed on the beaches in the Normandy Invasion on June 6th, 1944. During a reconnaissance mission on D-Day, Major captured a German armoured vehicle (a halftrack) by himself. The vehicle contained German communication equipment and secret codes. Days later, during his first encounter with an SS patrol, he killed four soldiers; however, one of them managed to ignite a phosphorus grenade. After 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". Major single-handedly captured 93 German soldiers during the Battle of the Scheldt in Zeeland in the southern Netherlands. During a reconnaissance, while alone, Major found shelter in a house from the rain and the cold. While there, he spotted two German soldiers walking along a dike. He captured the first German and attempted to use him as bait so he could capture the other. The second attempted to use his gun, but Major quickly killed him. He went on to capture their commanding officer and forced him to surrender. The German garrison surrendered themselves after three more were shot dead by Major.
In a nearby village, SS troops who witnessed German soldiers being escorted by a Canadian soldier shot at their own soldiers, killing seven and injuring some others. Major disregarded the enemy fire and kept escorting his prisoners to the Canadian front line. Major then ordered a passing Canadian tank to fire on the SS troops. He marched back to camp with nearly a hundred prisoners. Thus, he was chosen to receive a Distinguished Conduct Medal. He declined the offer to be decorated, however, because according to him General Montgomery (who was to present him with the award) was "incompetent" and in no position to be giving out medals. Whether he actually got this nomination and why he wouldn't have received it is not clear. The National Archives only has a record of Recommendations for Award for Major, which regards the DMC award he got in 1945 for the reconnaissance of Zwolle. In February 1945, Major was helping a military chaplain load corpses from a destroyed Tiger tank into a Bren Carrier. After they finished, the chaplain and the driver seated themselves in the front while Major jumped in the back of the vehicle. The carrier struck a land mine. Major claimed to have remembered a loud blast, followed by his body being thrown into the air and smashing down hard on his back. He lost awareness and awoke to find two concerned medical officers trying to assess his condition. He simply asked if the chaplain was okay. They did not answer his question, but proceeded to load him onto a truck so he could be transported to a field hospital 30 miles (48 km) away, stopping every 15 minutes to inject morphine to relieve the pain in his back.
After World War II he settled into civilian life as a pipe fitter, but he volunteered for service in the Korean War in 1950. In November of 1951, he was tasked to recapture Hill 355, which had been taken from American troops by the Chinese army. Taking a group of about 20 other snipers and scouts, Major and his men infiltrated the Chinese camps and commenced firing, scattering the Chinese army. For three days they held the hill against counterattacks, sometimes calling down supporting artillery fire so close to their position that their commanding officer could hear the bombs exploding through the walkie-talkie. Major was awarded a bar to his Distinguished Conduct Medal for this action. After his military career, Major returned many times to the town of Zwolle, establishing close ties with the townsfolk and having a road named after him. He is buried at the Last Post Fund National Field of Honour in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. Major died in Longueuil on October 12th, 2008 at the age of 87, and was buried at the Last Post Fund National Field of Honour in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. He was survived by Pauline De Croiselle, his wife of 57 years; four children; and five grandchildren. A documentary film about his exploits, Léo Major, le fantôme borgne, has been produced in Montreal (Qc). To commemorate the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe.
