Sadly, there aren’t too many World War II veterans left. So it’s important for us to wring as many tales of heroism from the remaining men while we can. Lucky for us, Moffatt Burris is alive and kicking at 97, and he’s got one of the ballsiest stories from the war you’ll ever hear.
In April 1945, Captain Burris was just 24-years-old when he and two other US soldiers forced 15,000 Nazis to surrender the city of Berlin.
He had received orders from General Dwight Eisenhower to stand down and let the Russians take the city. But Burris, who had already fought in the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Market Garden, the battles of Salerno and Anzio, and helped free prisoners from Nazi concentration camps, wasn’t about to let the Russians take all the credit.
“I said: ‘I can’t stand this any longer.’ I got in my Jeep with the lieutenant and sergeant and said, ‘Let’s go across the river and see what we can see, see if there are some [krauts] still over there,’” Burriss said in an interview with Fox News.
When the three US soldiers reached the enemy encampment, he was greeted by a 15,000-man Nazi Panzer Corps. Instead of peacing the fuck out like most of us with far lighter cargo in our trousers would have done, Burris approached the Nazis. What happened next is truly the stuff of legend. Watch the whole story below: