Talk:Léo Major

Reference
The page used to be a big copyvio from the Ottawa Citizen. I have replaced that text without doing it justice. Someone should go to the trouble to expand the article using the source. NickelShoe 18:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I've revamped it; fixed the grammar, added info, and removed uncited info. Will continue work on it, and hope to remove tags shortly. Iorek The Lost 00:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

just to let you know that Mr Leo Major passed away Sunday Oct 12 2008, in Candiac, Quebec, Canada —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.80.173.60 (talk) 19:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

This man just might have the largest balls on record. Badass.--Evilbred (talk) 13:43, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

My father, sergent-instructor Maurice Bélanger, Régiment de la Chaudière, was a companion of arms of lt. Leo Major and Gerard Jean. My father passed away in 1994. He had Parkinson's desease. I am doing research on the years he spent on the North Western Europe front. Caen, battle of the Scheldt, Nijmegen, Hochwald, Kleve (Germany), Deventer, Zwolle, Zutphen, Emdem (Germany), etc. He was wounded near Emdem, Germany (battle of Oldersum, Rorichum, on May 3 1945) and operated at the Brugges Military Hospital, in Belgium. I found a correspondence of 800 letters my parents wrote during those years. If anyone wants more information and help me identify pictures I found of my father and companions, please write at : francebel@synapse.net. I am writing a novel on my father.

Cleanup
I came accross the article by accident. I have rephrased it and wikified in a way that (a) matches most wikipedia artices and (b)does justice to a very great hero. It is a great story. Mike33 06:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Would somebody please create a page on the constelation Leo Major? It is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Telemacusroxmysox (talk • contribs) 02:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Why? How many Germans did the constellation kill? 24.202.251.225 (talk) 22:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

^^^^Best comment ever right there. 174.5.11.131 (talk) 16:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

"Montrealer"
Why does the article stipulate that Léo Major is a "Montrealer" !!? I tried to change this to French Canadian, and it was changed back. It usual in biographical articles to stipulate the nationality of the personnality (here Léo Major), and "Montrealer" does not constitute a nationality ,whatsoever. Never did, never will. The french article says that Léo was born in New Bedford (he moved to Quebec when he was 2 or 3 years old IIRC) and that he died in Longueuil... How on earth do these facts make him a "Montrealer" ? I suspect here at play the age-old anglo-saxon tradition of negating the french or french-canadian ethnic background of anyone who does anything notable, grandiose, courageous, ingenious, etc... The guy was french-canadian, just deal with it. Not only was the guy a war hero, he is the quintessential war-hero, a real-life rambo, the kind of hero americans can only dream of in Hollywood scenarios. He is the Maurice Richard of the soldatesque, with the blood of Normand kings running through his veins. And you are orangist dogs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.70.222 (talk) 22:26, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

93 captured Germans and no citation?
Seems a little unlikely. Can we get the source on this one checked? Provided it's not impossible. I mean, we all know that story of the crazy Scottsman who went to World War II with a bow and a broadsword. --98.229.36.30 (talk) 03:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

My understanding was that he was offered it and refused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.0.18.10 (talk) 20:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

My understanding of the post by 98.229.36.30, above, is that "citation" is being used as a synonym for "verifiable reference," not as a synonym for "medal." Userboy87 (talk) 20:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

There is currently (May 27 2016) a citation for it, but there's also another citation I've added to help solidify the claim. Thndrbkt (talk) 21:43, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

It seems that when Major captured the 93 germans, he was looking for a lost company of 50 mens. Ive read somewhere the company was looking to escape war with surrendering to germans. ref: badassoftheweek leomajor Major and his best friend (a lumberjack named Willy, because when you're a hardcore Canadian you're more or less obligated to be best friends with a lumberjack commando) went out to scout a town and figure out what the hell happened to a company of Canadian infantry that had failed to return from a reconnaissance mission. Major went into the town, discovered that the company had been captured, and then single-handedly captured the entire enemy garrison by running up and down guard posts jamming his rifle in peoples' faces and screaming at them. He returned to the Allied camp with 93 German prisoners in town. Lavabo pq (talk) 14:48, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

This is one of the big discrepancies between the English and the Dutch article. The Dutch page mentions nothing about Major killing or capturing Germans. It seems the English page uses a lot of sources that are poorly sourced themselves. IsaWP (talk) 00:23, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

DCM Factual Error
I don't know where the author got their information to assert that Major "was one of only three Canadian soldiers to be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal." But, the assertion is just silly. I admit that I cannot find the reference now (hence I cannot in good faith alter the entry), but I am quite confident that there were 2,132 Canadian recipients of the DCM (covering the Boer War, WWI, WWII, and Korea).

My great-great uncle received the DCM during WWI. No, I don't have it. But, I've held it...hence my knowledge of its history. I am sure that he was not simply one of three Canadians to have received it. As a peruse through the June, 1918 edition of the London Gazette where my relative is mentioned, I can find a couple of other Canadians mentioned for the DCM. Thus, it's not hard to validate.

In the pre-1993 days, the DCM was known among Canadian soldiers as the "Near-Miss Victoria Cross." Take a look at the list of Canadians who received the Victoria Cross. Should we really believe that more Canadians received the Victoria Cross than its second-place cousin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bryceman98 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Seems somewhat unlikely, I've added a citation needed by the claims. The article claims that only 3 distinct people won the medal, yet he managed to win it twice, that seems super unlikely. Unfortunately, most of the article lacks citations, so there could be a lot of these type of things. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:58, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I found a source that lists 5 other soldiers, so 6 total Canadians, receiving the DCM as of 21 August 1945. I will edit the claim to reflect this and add citation Thndrbkt (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070311015228/http://www.canada.com:80/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94 to http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070311015228/http://www.canada.com:80/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94 to http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94

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Yuck
This whole article seems to have been written by an over-enthusiastic thirteen year-old who has very badly extracted certain things from the sources.

Rubbish like 'running with his machine gun' and the hill 'was very strategic' are but two examples. (Or is carrying a weapon like a Vickers what is actually meant? And is 'very strategic' merely trying to give an indication of the hill's importance?)

I came upon this article by chance. I hope I do not have to return to it until it has been substantially improved.

It needs it.

RASAM (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=fbcc446c-231f-4781-940a-3ebc3dee9f94
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160616214600/http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=1297 to http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=1297

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Lack of rank
An article of a soldier, and doesn't even mention his rank in the info section. I'd no clue if the man is even an officer or a enlisted, considering that in the body it talks about "ordering a sherman tank to fire". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kalle-Erik Vähäkylä (talk • contribs) 11:01, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

External links Added
New Documentary on the life of Leo Major in French. Dont know if the link will stay or if it will be translated to English Léo Major : le fantôme borgne Lavabo pq (talk) 14:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lavabo pq (talk • contribs) 14:29, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Added archive https://ici.tou.tv/leo-major-le-fantome-borgne/S01E01

Also wondering if those external link should be added:

Lavabo pq (talk) 15:20, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The Canadian Man Who Single-Handedly Liberated the City of Zwolle in the Netherlands from German Occupation
 * World War 2 History: Leo Major, the One-Eyed One-Man Army
 * A One-Eyed Québécois ‘Rambo’ Captures Imaginations in Canada
 * Enc .britannica Léo Major Canadian soldier

Layout of "First Distinguished Conduct Medal"
I just went over several sources to rewrite that section of the article, but the amount of conflicting and confabulated information (notably several things Major is said to have done at the Battle of the Scheldt are repeated in stories about his mission in Zwolle!) made it impossible for me to write a coherent article. If anyone can pretty it up, I'd be grateful. Especially the Ottowan Citizen and the Canadian Army Journal seem less trustworthy, I still included them because they were already mentioned but they probably need to be taken with a grain of salt. IsaWP (talk) 17:19, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ...And thus you give more credit to Dirk Staat (conservator of the Dutch National Military Museum), than to the Canadian Army's journal or Britsh army documents on these matters? If you want to look for credible sources, just consult the army's reports, easy. Very poor text, as you prefer to conclude over the doubts of a Museum stooge who also didn't take the time to consider official documents ! YOU'RE WEIRD MAN! Removig that passage. --HawkFest (talk) 02:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to access more official documents. I'd love to find them! All I know is that after looking everywhere for any proof that he did what the internet thinks he did, I found a lot of confabulation and exaggeration. I have found no mention of any source regarding Major being nominated for the Distinguished Conduct Medal for the Battle of the Scheldt. In interviews, Major himself isn't even consistent about why he didn't get it. And if you can read the Dutch article (or look at one of the other quotes), Staat DID look into the army documents. If you know how to dig up any reference about Major getting nominated for a medal, you are free to refute Staat. I must agree that the real Canadian Army Journal's article looks more reliable than how it was quoted in the Brittanica article originally (notice that they revised their article a few months after my edit) and I shouldn't have said it was as untrustworthy as the Ottowan Citizen article. It does not even mention the alleged refused medal!
 * Just to reiterate: I found no actual source for Léo Major getting nominated for a medal but refusing it. Staat's objections don't serve as proof, but they are the only thing I could find that was even remotely talking about the chance this event actually happened. Besides, it's hard to prove something didn't happen. What we NEED is some actual evidence of the actual event. IsaWP (talk) 23:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Source
What is the source for the Nazi army’s size and casualties? If anyone can give one it will be appreciated. CanadianSingh1469 (talk) 05:11, 4 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Seconded. Neocorelight (Talk) 06:29, 26 August 2023 (UTC)