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Rubbing It In: History’s Greatest Flexes and Ownages

Khalid Elhassan June 3, 2025 17 min

2. A One-Man Rampage

2 red army infantrymen. pinterest — Red Army infantrymen. Pinterest

Ovcharenko was soon surrounded by more than twenty killed and wounded enemies, and the horrified survivors ran away. Ovcharenko grabbed his ax, chased them, overtook another Nazi officer, and beheaded him. The demoralized and terrified Germans, probably rear echelon servicemen instead of frontline combatants, fled in terror. He eventually grew exhausted and returned to his supply cart, now surrounded by sheer carnage. Ovcharenko gathered weapons, maps, and documents off the deceased Nazis, piled them in the cart, and delivered his haul to regimental headquarters.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.