​This photograph shows Joseph Trumpeldor in a British officer's uniform from his days in the Mule Corps in 1915.

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Joseph Trumpledor - Joseph Trumpeldor was born in 1880 in Russia. He was greatly influenced by Theodore Herzl and joined the Zionist movement in his city. In 1902, Trumpeldor was drafted into the Russian Army, where he was wounded and had his left hand amputated. He was later taken captive by the Japanese Army. After his release from captivity, Trumpeldor received many honours and became the most decorated Jewish officer in the Russian Army. 

He subsequently left the Russian Army and focused on his Zionist aspirations. In 1912, he moved to Israel and joined Kibbutz Degania. With the outbreak of World War I, Trumpeldor departed for Egypt, where he worked on Jabotinsky’s proposal to establish a Jewish Legion of the British Army to help the British seize Palestine from the Turks. The British refused to set up a Jewish battalion but agreed to set up the Zion Mule Corps. As part of the unofficial Jewish Legion, Trumpeldor participated as a commander of the auxiliary force of the British Army in the battles at Gallipoli in Turkey.

After World War I, Trumpeldor went back to Russia, only to return to Israel a few years later. In 1920, Trumpeldor went to Tel Hai in northern Israel to help protect the Jewish community. It was here that he fell in battle. His last words were said to have been, “It is good to die for one’s country.”