Faces of the US military troops that stopped the train massacre in France

Spencer Stone, (pictured above) who is part of the U.S. Air Force, spotted the 26-year-old Moroccan acting suspiciously and heard him trying to load his weapon in the toilet of the high speed train between Amsterdam and Paris.

He was travelling with Oregon National Guard member Alek Skarlatos, 22, who was on leave and traveling through Europe at the time after returning from a tour in Afghanistan.

 

Anthony Sadler, from California, Aleck Sharlatos from Oregon, and Chris Norman, a British man living in France

With the help of their friend Anthony Sadler, from Pittsburg, California, and fellow passenger British IT consultant Chris Norman, they managed to wrestle the attacker to the ground, stopping what could have been a deadly terrorist attack.

The terrorist, named in reports as Ayoub el-Qahzzani, had at least nine full magazines of ammunition holding almost 300 rounds. He was arrested by police at a train station in Arras and taken to hospital where he is now in custody.

He came out of the toilet brandishing the gun and opened fire, wounding two people on board. Fortunately, the hero passengers were nearby and overpowered him.



Another photo of Spencer

'As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, 'Spencer, go!' And Spencer runs down the aisle,' Sadler said. 'Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.'

'The gunman never said a word,' he added.

Skarlatos described Stone's heroic actions to ITV News in the aftermath of the attack. 

'Spencer ran a good ten metres to get to the guy and we didn't that his gun not working or anything like that,' he said. 'Spencer just ran anyway and if anybody would have gotten shot it would have been Spencer for sure and we're very lucky that nobody got killed, especially Spencer.'

He added that he was in 'good spirits' in hospital, but was still shocked by what unfolded. 

The suspect

The suspect