In life, it’s a fact that everything comes to an end. Plants wither, foods spoil, and humans eventually die. However, sometimes, some people can walk out of situations that should have been their end, and whatever life throws at them, it’s as if nothing major happened.

That is the life of Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart. He was the kind of man who shrugged off the loss of an eye, waved away the absence of a hand, carried bullet scars like old friends, tunneled out of prison camps, and even crawled from the wreckage of a plane crash, only to keep marching forward as if nothing could stop him. In the end, after a lifetime surviving near-death experiences, he died peacefully in his bed at the age of 83.

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Soldiers called him unstoppable, as if his life was a script for an action film rather than a military record. And today, history remembers him as the unkillable soldier. This is the true story of a man who embodied the spirit of endurance.

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: Unkillable Soldier Profile

The unkillable soldier was a nickname given to Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, born in Brussels in 1880, who had a hunger for danger that never seemed to end.

He was a Belgian officer who fought for Britain through the Boer War, World War I, and World War II, as it turned out. At the time, he was still underage, a foreigner, and his father didn’t approve, so he got an idea to enlist with a fake identity and abandoned his studies. The British recruiter didn’t look twice and assigned him to a Yeomanry regiment.

He was no ordinary officer because during the Second Boer War, he had bullet wounds to the stomach and groin. And during the Dervish Movement, he was shot in the arm and in the face, leading to the loss of his left eye and a part of his ear.

By 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, he had already been wounded multiple times. And this time, his one eye was covered by a black patch, and his left hand was missing. But that didn’t stop him from leading his men straight into heavy fire.

With his never-ending bravery, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest military honor.

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: Resilience Despite Wounds

Most soldiers would have been sent home after losing a hand. Not him. Most would have retired after losing an eye. And again, not him.

The list of his injuries just goes on and is almost impossible to tally. Shot through the face, skull, hip, leg, ankle, and ear. And yet, those wounds seem to just fade like it’s just a passing inconvenience. According to his autobiography, when doctors refused to amputate his mangled fingers, he tore them off himself. And just like that, he lost two fingers.

It wasn’t just battlefield wounds that Sir Carton de Wiart received. Because in World War II, he survived a plane crash into the Mediterranean Sea. He was captured by the Italians and was thrown into a prisoner-of-war camp, but that didn’t stop him, of course.

Instead of accepting defeat, he planned multiple escape attempts until he was eventually released two years later. He was a legend of military history, and his story is one of the most remarkable, unbelievable survival stories ever told.

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: Insights from His Book

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart’s life is so extraordinary that everyone remembers him as the unkillable soldier. He even has his own book, which has stories of his adventures and his relentless spirit.

In 1950, he published his memoirs, titled “Happy Odyssey.” The pages discussed stories told in his own voice, which was blunt, with a hint of dark humor, and almost dismissive of the wounds that would have crushed anyone else.

When talking about life in captivity, he recalled his escape attempts with the tone of someone recounting a holiday mishap. Anyone who reads his book will not only discover the events of his life, but also the personality of a man who was, from experience, “unkillable,” which shrugged off all his near-death experiences.

Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart: Circumstances of His Death

Sir Adrian’s death was actually the opposite of his near-death experiences, as the unkillable soldier died peacefully in 1963, at the age of 83, in the quiet countryside of County Cork, Ireland. Nothing war-related happened at the time; it’s just the end of a long, extraordinary life.

He was considered immortal on the battlefield, and it’s actually ironic that he would leave this world in such a calm way. His life wasn’t defined by how it ended, but by how many times he refused to end when it should have.

He was living proof that sometimes, survival isn’t fiction at all. And in that spirit lies the reason he’ll always be remembered as the man who simply refused to die.

Read next:

• Operation Paul Bunyan: How a Simple Tree in the DMZ Turned Into a Global Incident
• Abu Ghraib Military Contractor Pushes Back on $42M Torture Verdict
• Tracing the Path: Did WWI Set the Stage for WWII?

Sources:

• The Unkillable Soldier: Adrian Carton de Wiart’s Astonishing Life Story
• Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart Dies
• What Was the Unkillable Soldier Thinking?