Johnson Beharry did not have an easy life growing up. Born in 1979 in Grenada, then recently independent from British rule, the Beharry family lived in poverty. During the early days of the post-independence, Marxist-Leninist regime, the young Beharry had to walk three miles (5km) to school barefoot. This difficult start to life set Beharry on his journey to joining the British Army as he saved up enough money to move to the UK when he was 20. Yet he would not join the army immediately after arriving in West London; instead, he continued to work as a labourer on building sites, as he had done in Grenada since he was just 13.
While living in the UK, Beharry almost became caught up with West London gangs, but in August 2001 enlisted and joined the Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment. Just a month later, the attack on the World Trade Center in New York would set world events in motion that would soon lead Beharry to war.
During training, Beharry qualified as a Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle driver. While serving in the coalition counter-insurgency in Iraq, his training would eventually enable him to not only save his own life but also the lives of those serving around him on two separate occasions, leading to him being awarded the Victoria Cross for “two individual acts of great heroism”. According to Beharry, one of the acts he can recall, and the other he cannot.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 122-utgaven av History of War.
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NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
