10 war heroes who aren’t famous for their fights
When we think of heroes, especially war heroes, we often imagine a macho soldier dressed in camouflage and wearing honors for his heroics, a bullet belt over his shoulder and a nice, sexy Hollywood battle scar to show that he was a caught a bullet. for a friend. In an ideal world, these types of warriors would not be needed.
But the unfortunate truth is that war happens, and winning wars takes more than battle-hardened soldiers. You need strategists and leaders who inspire; you need logistics and a medical team that can pull you through the worst injuries with nothing more than a jolt of morphine and a few bandages. Some war heroes are heroes without ever seeing the front lines.
Here are ten war heroes who are not famous for their battles.
Related: Top 10 Weird and Wonderful Things from the Armed Forces of the World
10 The Navajo Code Talkers
Communication during war is of the utmost importance. Keeping instructions, tactics and plans secret can be the difference between losing a battle and victory, which is also the difference between people dying or surviving.
For this task, the Marine Corps saw fit to select 29 Navajo men, a group of Native Americans who were fluent in both English and Navajo. These men created a secret code language based on the unwritten Navajo language by mapping Navajo words to key phrases and military tactics. This allowed the Code Talkers to decode three lines of English in 20 seconds.
The first Type 1 code consisted of 26 Navajo terms, and the Type 2 contained 211 terms (later expanded to 411). Without the Navajos, the Marines would not have been as successful. As Major Howard Connor stated, the Marines would not have taken “Iwo Jima,” a key island in the Pacific War.[1]
9 Andrée de Jongh
Countess Andrée Eugénie Adrienne de Jongh was a Belgian resistance heroine born in 1916. Impressed by Edith Cavell, who was executed by the Germans for helping 200 soldiers escape from Belgium during World War I, she decided to become a nurse. While treating soldiers, she began to emulate her hero Cavell, a task more complicated than Cavell’s, as the Netherlands and France had been overrun by the Nazis.
De Jongh appeared with a British soldier in a British consulate and asked for support for her escape network, which was granted, and the Comet Line was born. The Comet Line ran from Brussels to the Pyrenees, via France, all the way to Gibraltar and the British Consulate in Madrid. The escape route helped save about 400 soldiers, 118 of whom accompanied De Jongh himself.
She was eventually captured and spent the last years of World War II in a Nazi concentration camp. She died at the ripe old age of 90.[2]
8 the monument men
During World War II, the Nazis collected (stole) art as they annexed territories and plundered museums and churches across Europe. In response, the US created the so-called Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section of the military, also known as the Monuments Men.
In 1944, Walker Hancock and the five Monuments Men left their lives in art and their families to track down six million works of art in the hope of restoring them to their rightful place in cultural history.
The team searched storage units, bunkers, personal homes and bases used by the Nazi commando to retrieve the art. But nowhere have they found more treasures than in the old salt mine near Altaussee in the Austrian Alps.
In a race against time, and with the very real possibility that the mines would be sealed off by explosives or that the art would be raided by the Soviets, the Monuments Men documented and rescued thousands of works of art, from paintings and drawings to sculptures and armor. .[3]
7 Johannes Rabe
Rabe, also known as the Living Buddha of Nanking, was a German businessman and leader of the Nazi Party in Nanking, China. When the Japanese army advanced, Rabe and his compatriots were advised to leave. But he chose to stay because he couldn’t leave his employees and friends behind, citing the fact that Nanking was his home.
After interrogation by the Japanese military, Rabe set out to create a security zone, a neutral area where no fighting could take place. The Japanese were not interested in his proposal, so Rabe did what any good Nazi would do: he contacted Hitler himself. Being part of the Axis powers, Japan agreed to Germany’s terms, saving thousands.
The city fell to the Japanese, and although he could not prevent the numerous atrocities that wreaked havoc among the civilians, Rabe did what he could to contain the violence, saving many more people.[4]
6 The Ghost Army
Officially the first mobile deception unit in US history, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops consisted of 82 officers and 1,023 units under the command of Colonel Harry. L Reeder. Their goal was to fool the German military using state-of-the-art visual, sonic and radio deception techniques.
The Ghost Army conducted more than twenty deception operations during the last year of the war, using artistic talents and technical knowledge to create inflatable tanks and artillery, loudspeakers that boomed pre-recorded troops, and fake radio messages to confuse and ultimately confuse the population. defeat. enemy.
It is estimated that approximately 15,000–30,000 lives were saved by the antics of the 23rd.[5]
5 Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman and diplomat who became known for his incredible efforts to save Hungarian Jews from persecution. After convincing the Swedish Foreign Ministry to send him to Budapest on a diplomatic passport, his work began.
Wallenberg began issuing protection certificates to the Jewish population who would be deported to Auschwitz and established hospitals, daycare centers and a soup kitchen. He also allowed thirty safe houses to be established and reserved for Jewish families with protection certificates issued by a neutral country.
After the Soviets liberated Budapest, an estimated 100,000 Jews remained in the city, largely due to the efforts of Wallenberg and his colleagues.[6]
4 Desmond Doss
Ridiculed by his squad for his so-called ‘conscientious objector’ status (against violence), Desmond eventually followed the men into the war in the Pacific without a weapon. His calling was to save as many of his friends as possible, and that was exactly what he did.
Having previously proven his worth in battles, he earned his Medal of Honor for distinguished service at the Maeda Escarpment, or what the Allies called Hacksaw Ridge.
After the Americans claimed the cliff they had fought for for bloody days, a sudden brutal counterattack forced the men to withdraw. Less than a third of the men made it back.
After ignoring orders, Doss rushed back to rescue the wounded, ultimately saving the lives of at least 75 men. Days later he was seriously wounded and that was the end of his war. For his heroic actions, he received numerous awards for bravery and courage.[7]
3 Virginia Hall
Virginia Hall was one of the most highly decorated American spies ever, and until recently no one knew about her or her antics. Born in the US to wealthy parents, Hall was always looking for adventure. She traveled to Paris to study, and there she fell in love with France. After getting an administrative job, she lost her foot in an unfortunate shooting accident, and decided her life needed something more. After Germany invaded France, she was forced from her home and sucked into the world of espionage.
From then on, she organized a local resistance against the occupiers and passed intelligence to the British security service with little hope of survival. At a time when women were forbidden from being on the front lines, she remained steadfast in her resistance, earning her the nickname ‘the Limping Lady of Lyon’.
One of her most significant achievements was the rescue of twelve men from a prison camp, now known as the Mauzac Escape, with her trials even influencing the way the Americans approached their campaign in Afghanistan in recent times.[8]
2 Freddie and Truus Oversteegen
You could say that the Oversteegens fought as long as the war lasted, but theirs were more of a backhand for the Nazi sympathizers and allies. Together they divided the Fidelitya banned publication at the time, and took part in the underground resistance against the Nazi occupation of the Dutch people.
Together with their friend Hannie Schaft, the three became their own squad, carrying out drive-by shootings from their bicycles and luring soldiers from bars into nearby woods, where they had them executed by other resistance fighters (some killing themselves). Remarkably, they even managed to protect political dissidents, homosexuals and Jews from the Nazi occupiers.
Both Freddie and Truus lived into their nineties. Unfortunately, Schaft was captured and executed 18 days before the liberation of the Netherlands.[9]
1 William Martin
Although William Martin never existed, the deception of his existence was part of Operation Mincemeat, one of the greatest ruses in military history. The secret mission required the British military to fake death with a real unidentified corpse recovered from the morgue and create a complete identity and backstory. They fabricated his entire existence, from wedding photos to theater pieces, and then dropped his body into the ocean off the coast of Spain in the hope that his remains would be discovered.
Also on Martin’s body was a briefcase containing top secret documents proving that the Allies would invade Sardinia. However, that was never the plan. Knowing full well that there were Nazi sympathizers among the Spanish ranks, the British Army managed to deceive the German army, sending Nazi forces into Greece and the Balkans in response, leaving Sicily open to an easy attack.
William Martin was the non-existent man who changed the course of World War II.[10]