Given that it ended 80 years ago, many of the granular details of World War II get left out of the documentaries and history books. But there are figures from that globe-spanning conflict that did heroic work, and they deserve to be remembered.
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00:00Given that it ended 80 years ago, many of the granular details of World War II get left
00:05out of the documentaries and history books. But there are figures from that globe-spanning
00:08conflict that did heroic work, and they deserve to be remembered.
00:12In the decades following World War II, French performer Marcel Marceau became a very well-known
00:17figure. He's probably still the most famous mime who ever lived.
00:20My public has sustained 50 years of career.
00:24During World War II, Marceau and his cousin, Georges Louanger, were responsible for keeping
00:28hundreds of Jewish children safe, and Marceau used his mime skills to help turn it into
00:32a game for the smallest ones.
00:34Louanger was a Jewish teacher who oversaw a network of French country homes where Jewish
00:38children were sent in the hopes of keeping them safe. As Louanger oversaw their continued
00:42education, he put a focus on exercise and used other techniques to help prepare the
00:46children for a flight across the countryside and into Sweden.
00:49With the help of his cousin, Louanger prepped even the smallest children through play and
00:53mime. When Marceau died, Louanger revealed,
00:56The kids had to appear like they were simply going on vacation to a home near the Swiss
00:59border, and Marceau really put them at ease.
01:02It's not clear how many children Louanger saved, but it's thought to be well into the
01:05hundreds. Marceau also forged identity documents to make Jews look younger so they'd be allowed
01:10to flee Nazi deportation. Marceau died in 2007 at 84, and Louanger was 108 when he died
01:16in 2018.
01:18Leo Maggiore was a 19-year-old farmer from Quebec who joined to fight for the British.
01:23His military career got off to a shaky start. He trained as a sniper, but lost sight in
01:27one eye to a grenade just after D-Day. Then, he broke three vertebrae, an arm, and both
01:31ankles in a landmine incident. Insisting he still had the one good eye he needed to shoot,
01:36he headed back to the front. That took him to the Dutch town of Sfola, and on April 13,
01:411945, he and fellow soldier Willy Arsenault were sent into the town of 50,000 on a reconnaissance
01:46mission.
01:47Arsenault was killed, and after killing those responsible, Maggiore warned the Germans that
01:50they needed to evacuate ahead of the arrival of a massive contingent of Allied soldiers.
01:55He left, then ran back into town, firing his gun and throwing all the grenades that he
01:58could. He also stumbled on the town's Gestapo headquarters and set it on fire. The Germans,
02:03believing they were under a major attack, decided to flee.
02:06Today, there's still a street named after Maggiore in Sfola, and his story is taught
02:09to local students. When Maggiore died in 2008, Dutch nationals traveled to Canada for his
02:14funeral.
02:15Mayor Jan Meijer described him to the CBC as a symbol of our freedom.
02:20After American forces suffered one of their largest military defeats at the Battle of
02:23Bataan in the Philippines, victorious Japanese forces marched American and Filipino prisoners
02:27to a POW camp, where they were subjected to torture. The journey became known as the Bataan
02:32Death March, and between 10,000 and 20,000 people died.
02:35Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucey was a survivor of Pearl Harbor and led the 6th Ranger Battalion.
02:40One of the men he trained, John Richardson, told PBS that the experience was intense,
02:45saying,
02:47It's a good thing that Mucey was tough, though. The unit was tasked with rescuing the 511
02:52prisoners who had survived the Death March and were imprisoned at a camp near Cabanatuan.
02:55Mucey and his men made their way through 30 miles of Japanese-held territory, crawling
02:59over or past more than 2,500 shallow graves and into the POW camp. They rescued all 511
03:05men, mostly American soldiers, who had been prisoners for around three years.
03:10Mucey became a hero in his hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut. He lived in Singapore for many
03:14years before retiring to Florida. He died in 1997 at age 88. A movie about the rescue
03:19mission, The Great Raid, came out in 2005.
03:22Mucey was determined to prove them wrong.
03:26In June 1944, Guy Gabaldon was a Marine private in the middle of the Battle for Saipan. Thousands
03:31of Japanese soldiers staged suicide charges against American lines, and civilians chose
03:35to die rather than to surrender to the U.S.
03:38But Private Gabaldon set out on missions that resulted in him bringing back both Japanese
03:42soldiers and civilians alive. He later wrote,
03:45"...I must have seen too many John Wayne movies, because what I was doing was suicidal."
03:49Gabaldon grew up in Los Angeles, and thanks to a friendship with a Japanese-American family,
03:53he'd picked up some Japanese language skills. He put them to use in the Battle for Saipan.
03:57Often under the cover of darkness, he headed off alone into enemy territory, where he convinced
04:01the Japanese to surrender. Promising them that they would be treated well as POWs, the
04:0518-year-old Gabaldon convinced more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians to follow
04:09him back to camp and surrender, including 800 on one July 1944 day. This earned him
04:15the nickname the Pied Piper of Saipan.
04:18Gabaldon was wounded and evacuated in 1945, and there was a push to see him awarded a
04:22posthumous Medal of Honor after his death in 2006. A documentary about him, East L.A.
04:27Marine, asked whether he had been denied one because of his Hispanic heritage and his opposition
04:31to America's Japanese internment camps.
04:34George Voinovich's parents were from Serbia, and that cultural heritage would prove lifesaving
04:38for around 500 Allied airmen. In 1944, Voinovich was an Army officer serving in the Office
04:44of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. He led a mission
04:48to rescue around 500 Allied airmen who were being hidden by civilians in Serbia. Most
04:53had parachuted into unfriendly territory after their aircraft were hit while on bombing missions
04:57targeting oil refineries that supplied the Germans.
05:00The solution Voinovich orchestrated was Operation Halyard. Voinovich taught three men to dress
05:04and act like Serbian locals, and a small team headed into the region. There, they helped
05:08villagers and stranded airmen to carve out a landing strip for rescue planes in the mountains.
05:13The series of daring night flights, and even more terrifying night landings, led to the
05:17successful evacuation of 512 Allied airmen without casualties.
05:21We had no losses. We saved every man. It was a wonderful operation.
05:28According to The New York Times, the rescue mission was classified for years, and Voinovich's
05:32war efforts remained secret. But the people he rescued never forgot, and B-24 navigator
05:36Tony Orsini, who was among the 512 saved, said years later,
05:40He was a genius in the way he put the plan together. He was a hero.
05:44Voinovich died in 2012, at age 96.
05:48Brit Susan Travers initially served as a nurse. Hating the work, she joined the French Expeditionary
05:53Force as an ambulance driver and served in Finland before abruptly switching jobs again,
05:57joining the 13th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion.
06:00An adept driver, Travers safely transported high-ranking officials around battlefields,
06:04avoiding mines and shelling attacks, and was rewarded with a promotion to drive for Colonel
06:08Marie-Pierre Koenig, the commanding officer of the 1st Free French Brigade.
06:13In May 1942, Koenig was tasked with defending an Allied stronghold in Libya from an attack
06:17by Italian and German soldiers, who were seeking access to a nearby strategic point and a Royal
06:22Air Force base. German leaders told troops the assault would take 15 minutes. The greatly
06:26outnumbered Allies held on for 15 days.
06:29All women had evacuated the area except Travers, the only woman in a 3,500-person military
06:34contingent. When supplies ran low, it was time to bust out. Travers led the escape,
06:39driving the convoy's lead vehicle at night, but another vehicle hit a landmine, exposing
06:44the gambit, and Axis troops opened fire. Travers simply drove faster, sustaining damage from
06:4911 bullet holes and shrapnel, and managed to create a hole in the German line of defense
06:53through which the rest of her unit followed her to safety.
06:56By 1942, the Norsk Hydro plant in Norway had been making heavy water for the agricultural
07:01industry for about eight years, and the Allies knew that the plant had been taken over by
07:05the Nazis, who were planning to make use of the heavy water for Germany's atomic weapons
07:09program. A British commando team had been lost on a mission to sabotage the plant, but
07:13Norwegian volunteers were prepared to help.
07:15After training, a team of 10 Norwegians led by 23-year-old Joachim Ronneberg parachuted
07:20into the area. They were delayed by blizzards, but reached the plant on February 27, 1943.
07:27Responding to the New York Times, Ronneberg admitted,
07:28"...there was no plan. We were just hoping for the best."
07:31Luck was on their side. They crossed an ice bridge over a river to get to the plant, snuck
07:35in, set explosives, and activated a 30-second timer. They then made a mad dash away from
07:40the exploding plant before embarking on a 280-mile journey to the safety of the Swedish
07:45border, with 2,800 German soldiers hot on their trail.
07:48The plant was destroyed, and it took the Germans four months to rebuild and repair the damage,
07:53only for Allied bombers to finish the job completely soon after. Hitler attempted to
07:58move the operation to Germany, but another attack by resistance fighters ended the possibility
08:02of a Nazi atomic bomb once and for all. Ronneberg went on to lead a number of other sabotage
08:07missions, was highly decorated for his service, and died in 2018 at 99.
08:12In the eyes of Nazi Germany, Denmark was seen as an important part of Aryan culture and
08:17a strategically located nation. So when the Danes insisted the Nazis back off their Jewish
08:21community, they did. At least, at first they did. Hitler started to get a little cross
08:26with the Danish leadership, which wasn't falling in line as he'd hoped. He ordered the previously
08:30untouched Jewish community to be rounded up and sent to the concentration camps in 1943.
08:35At that time, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz was a consular official working in Copenhagen
08:39for the Nazis. Duckwitz intervened, warning everyone who would listen about what was going
08:43to happen.
08:44Danish and Jewish leaders and citizens mobilized quickly, and kicked off an effort that involved
08:48millions. Not only did 99 percent of Denmark's Jewish community survive, but when they returned,
08:53they found their homes and possessions waiting for them. Many even found that their pets
08:57had been cared for. It's estimated that Duckwitz's warning saved around 5,000 lives. He remained
09:02in the Foreign Service after the war, before retiring in 1971. He died in 1973 at 68.
09:10Lieutenant Colonel Matt Urban has been called the most combat-decorated soldier in American
09:13history. His list of honors includes seven Purple Hearts, the Medal of Honor, a Croy
09:17de Guerre from France, and 29 Medals for Bravery.
09:20The Buffalo, New York native joined up in 1941 and went on to serve in seven campaigns
09:25during World War II. Urban was wounded for much of that time because he was absolutely
09:29the sort of commander who led his men up hills and directly charged German soldiers. That's
09:33exactly how he got shot in the throat in Belgium. Yet even after that incident, he stayed on
09:38the front lines until the Allies secured a crossing at the Meuse River, and only then
09:42left the fight. Due to some misfiled paperwork, he didn't receive the Medal of Honor until
09:461979. But when he did, there was no question it was completely deserved. Urban died in
09:511995 after suffering a collapsed lung at age 75.
09:56The Nazis knew exactly how important propaganda was, so they created the Volksamtfänger,
10:01the People's Radio. It was designed to be cheap enough that everyone could own one.
10:04Unfortunately for the Nazis, it also allowed citizens to pick up international broadcasts.
10:09It was a crime to listen to radio from other countries, but that didn't stop 16-year-old
10:13Helmuth Hübner from tuning into the BBC in 1941. He was shocked by what he heard,
10:18a totally different story than what Germans were being told on domestic channels. He decided
10:22to do something about it.
10:23Hübner had already quit the Hitler Youth after Kristallnacht. He started writing down
10:27what he heard on the international news broadcasts and distributed his pamphlets across the city
10:31of Hamburg. He kept it up for months, until he was turned over to the People's Court by
10:35a co-worker. Once he was dragged into court, he continued to speak about the lies that
10:39were being told.
10:40Hübner was convicted of high treason and beheaded on October 27, 1942, at just 17 years
10:46old. One of his friends said years later,
10:48To tell the truth was a deadly luxury. My friend Helmuth thought that was his Christian
10:56obligation.
10:57In 1940, the war came to Britain. The Blitz started on September 7, 1940, and London was
11:03subjected to a stretch of bombings that hit every night for 57 days. The capital city
11:08had another major problem, the River Thames, which runs right through the center of London.
11:12Luftwaffe bombs damaged the flood defenses along the river, threatening the already ailing
11:16city further. Fortunately, Londoners had Sir Thomas Pearson Frank. Frank was a civil engineer
11:21who oversaw the river's flood defenses, and the organization of four rapid response teams
11:25positioned at outposts along the river.
11:28Outposts were manned 24-7, and if at any place there was an attack on the walls along the
11:32Thames, teams were dispatched to fix it. The river walls sustained bombing damage and 121
11:37separate incidents between 1940 and 1945, and in each case, Frank's teams were able
11:41to reinforce the wall before the river could burst through and flood the city. The repairs
11:45were considered top-secret work, because not only did the government not want Londoners
11:49to know how dangerous — and likely — potential floods were, but they also didn't want to
11:53draw enemy attention to these potential weak spots.
11:57Sometimes greatness comes in small packages. That's definitely the case with Marcel Pinte,
12:01who had his name inscribed on a war memorial in Aix-sur-Vienne during France's 2020 Armistice
12:07Day celebrations.
12:08Pinte was born into a family of resistance fighters. His family's farmhouse was a point
12:12for Allied airdrops in support of the French Resistance, and the family also received coded
12:16messages from Britain that they passed along to other members of the resistance. Nicknamed
12:19Quinquin, Marcel acted as a child courier. His small size allowed him to dart behind
12:24enemy lines, carrying messages tucked into his clothes. Unfortunately, his story doesn't
12:29have a happy ending.
12:30On August 19, 1944, resistance soldiers parachuted into the area. When one of their machine guns
12:35accidentally fired, Pinte was struck. He died at just six years old. After his death,
12:41the next round of supplies dropped at his family's farmhouse came with black parachutes
12:44— a nod to one of the war's littlest fallen heroes. He was given a posthumous promotion
12:49to sergeant in 1950, and an official recognition from the National Office of Former Combatants
12:54and War Victims in 2013.
12:57On September 5, 1942, the USS Gregory was attacked and sunk in the Pacific. Charles
13:02Jackson French, a mess attendant from Arkansas, made it to a life raft with a number of others.
13:06But with Japanese forces still nearby, they knew it was just a matter of time before the
13:10life raft was sunk, or they were taken prisoner. French was having none of that. He tied a
13:14rope around his waist and dove into the shark-infested water. For the next eight hours, he swam and
13:19swam, pulling the raft until it was finally picked up by a friendly landing craft.
13:23When French was interviewed much later, his testimony dissolved into tears. He gained
13:27fame. He was featured on a War Gum trading card and traveled the country promoting war
13:31bonds. But he ended up succumbing to alcoholism to live with the horrible things he'd seen.
13:35French died in 1956 at just 37. In 2021, veterans' groups began lobbying for him to get the recognition
13:41and honors he deserved, for saving 15 men.
13:44I didn't see it in any history book or anything like that.
13:48In 1943, Johan van Hoelst was the principal of a teacher's college in Amsterdam, which
13:53was next to a daycare. The children at the daycare had already been separated from their
13:56Jewish parents by the Nazis, and van Hoelst knew he had to do all he could to keep them
14:00from being sent to concentration camps. He concocted a simple but risky plan.
14:05Children were passed over a hedge and hidden in the college, before being ferried to the
14:08resistance in safety. Van Hoelst and his network of students, teachers, and daycare workers
14:12set free somewhere around 600 children. They not only spirited the children to safety,
14:17but made sure their names disappeared from lists and rosters.
14:19That September, they got word that the daycare was closing, and van Hoelst was faced with
14:23a terrible realization. According to The New York Times, he said,
14:27You realize that you cannot possibly take all the children with you. You know for a
14:30fact that the children you leave behind are going to die. I took 12 with me. Later on,
14:34I asked myself, why not 13? All I really think about is the things I couldn't do, the few
14:39thousand children I wasn't able to save.
14:42Van Hoelst died in 2018, at the age of 107.
14:46After being arrested several times for anti-Nazi activities, Kurt Gerstein decided that the
14:50only way to change things was from the inside. That meant joining the SS, and by 1943, he
14:55was a First Lieutenant in the Hygiene Institute. He wrote extensively about what he saw, including
15:00firsthand accounts of the gas chambers. He took a massive gamble with those writings,
15:04passing them on to a Swedish diplomat named Baron Goran von Otter.
15:08Gerstein asked von Otter to get the information to the Allies, hoping to reveal just what
15:11was really going on in Nazi Germany. Von Otter made the report, but Sweden buried the information.
15:16Meanwhile, Gerstein was tasked with making the gas chambers more efficient. That gave
15:20him access to massive shipments of the deadly gas Zyklon B, which he regularly dumped, claiming
15:25that the containers were leaking or were contaminated.
15:28At the end of the war, Gerstein surrendered to the French. He wrote a full report on all
15:32he'd seen in the camps. But instead of using him as a witness, as he'd hoped, he was sent
15:36to a Paris prison as a suspected war criminal. In 1945, he hanged himself in his cell. In
15:421950, a court ruled that Gerstein was not among the main criminals, but placed him among
15:45the tainted. In 1965, he was given a full pardon.
15:50Guy Stern was one of about 1,400 children who were rescued from Nazi Germany by the
15:54Children's Aid Project. According to the Jerusalem Post, he wrote,
15:58"...I feel unending gratitude to a largely unrecognized group of American Jewish women
16:02who saw to it that Gunther Stern took a boat to a harbor in New Jersey rather than a cattle
16:06car to Auschwitz."
16:07When I came to the United States in 1937, five days later, I was in high school.
16:16Safe in the U.S., he wanted to do his part. Stern became one of the Ritchie Boys, a group
16:20made up largely of immigrants fluent in the languages spoken by the Axis powers. They
16:25interrogated, captured enemy troops, and conducted covert operations. They were trained at Maryland's
16:29Camp Ritchie, where they were taught all about the art of interrogation.
16:33Stern's first interrogation experience was at the front lines in Normandy, where he uncovered
16:36a wealth of information, including details of the diseases spreading through the German
16:40army, how well defenses had been repaired, and whether or not the Germans had chemical
16:44weapons. He was also one of the lead interrogators of Dr. Gustav Wilhelm Schubert, who personally
16:48killed 21,000 people. Stern helped uncover the story of how Schubert headed up the Nazi
16:53Annihilation Institute, where he oversaw the execution of as many as 140,000 people in
16:58just nine months. Stern died in December 2023 at the age of 101.
17:04The German Tiger tank was nothing short of terrifying, and British Prime Minister Winston
17:08Churchill wanted to get his hands on one so the Allies could reverse-engineer it to figure
17:12out how to best destroy it. According to Forbes War Records, he told Major Douglas Litterdale,
17:17I want you to bring me a Tiger tank. Park the bloody thing outside my front door,
17:20do you understand? That's pretty much what Litterdale did. In a daring mission that remained
17:25a secret until his son discovered his journals after his death, Litterdale picked a team and
17:29headed to North Africa in 1942. Litterdale and his men tried again and again to get a functional tank
17:34for the Allies. That didn't happen until April 1943, when they ran up to a Tiger with a jammed
17:39turret, took out the crew at close quarters, and then proposed a toast. The tank didn't make it
17:44back to Britain until October, and Litterdale and his men were chased by the Germans every step of
17:48the way. By December, the tank had been completely dismantled and the technology was recycled by the
17:53Allies. It was used as the basis of new technology that was used on D-Day.
17:58Ukrainian-born Lyudmila Pavlichenko had aspirations of being a teacher. Instead,
18:02she stepped up to use the skills she'd learned as an award-winning shooter in her secondary
18:06school's shooting club to assist the Soviet Union's Red Army in its fight against the Nazis.
18:10While still in her teacher training, Pavlichenko joined a military-sponsored
18:14sniper training program. And when Nazi troops invaded the USSR, part of the Allied front,
18:18she immediately volunteered to help drive them out by shooting as many as she could from long
18:22distances. Pavlichenko's first major assignment came in the Siege of Odessa. Staged in the fall
18:27of 1941, she picked off a confirmed 187 Nazi soldiers. As soon as that conflict concluded,
18:33with the Nazis victorious, stories of Pavlichenko's prowess had spread throughout the Russian military,
18:38and she was given more complicated and dangerous tasks.
18:41In October 1941, she was assigned to fight in the Siege of Sevastopol.
18:45Lasting the better part of nine months, Pavlichenko consistently fended off the enemy,
18:49gunning down a total of 257 German invaders. At one point, she outlasted an Axis-aligned sniper,
18:55winning out after a three-day standoff. After she was wounded in the waning days of the siege in
19:00June 1942, Pavlichenko became a sniper trainer and is believed to be the most effective female
19:05sniper in modern military history. She was one of only 500 surviving female sharpshooters in the
19:09Red Army to receive the military's highest honor — the Hero of the Soviet Union Award.
19:15After the Allies turned down Spanish veteran Juan Puljo Garcias' offer to spy for them,
19:19he went to the Nazis, offered to spy for them, and became a double agent for the Allies — even
19:24though they didn't know it. Garcias started feeding Nazi Germany a ton of fake news,
19:28and managed to convince the Germans that he was in London spying for them when he was really in
19:32Lisbon, and didn't even speak English. He was so good that even the British were sent into a panic
19:36about the mole they thought they had in London. Garcias built up some serious credibility with
19:40Germany, and once the Allies realized how good he was at making stuff up, they brought him on board
19:44as Agent Garbo. Garbo's biggest score came with the fictional story of a massive U.S. Army command
19:49called PUSAG. He told Germany that PUSAG was the real deal, and that they were going to be hitting
19:53the Nazis hard. Normandy was just a decoy, he claimed, and the real thing was going to go down
19:58in Calais. The Nazis believed him. After the war, Garcias decided the safest thing for him to do was
20:03fake his own death. It wasn't until the 1980s had historians realized he'd been alive the whole time.
20:08He actually died in 1988. Or so the story goes.
20:13One of Hitler's stated goals in his rise to power was to claim Czechoslovakia for Germany,
20:17and he annexed it in 1938. The residents of Prague, knowing what was happening to Jews in Germany,
20:23fearfully waited for what would come next. English stockbroker Nicholas Winton heard
20:27from a friend in Prague who implored him to help in some way.
20:30Winton had a couple of contacts in Czechoslovakia who helped stage a plan to evacuate Jewish
20:34children out of harm's way and into the relative safety of the U.K. His own government wasn't keen
20:39on the idea, so Winton repeatedly coerced and intimidated officials to get children their visas,
20:44and then found the families willing to foster and sponsor them, including the payment of a
20:4850-pound fee. Altogether, Winton put together eight train-based missions to ensure the safe
20:53passage and lives of 669 Jewish children. Winton's heroic efforts remained unknown until
20:581988, when his wife discovered a scrapbook of mementos and records recounting the train missions.
21:03Family passed it along to a Holocaust researcher,
21:06and Winton was booked as a guest on the U.K. show That's Life.
21:09Is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton? If
21:14so, could you stand up, please?
21:16He was reunited with dozens of the now-adult people he'd saved from the Holocaust.
21:23Giorgio Perlasca believed so strongly in fascism that he fought in an Italian
21:27brigade that supported Francisco Franco's fascist takeover of Spain in the 1930s.
21:32Franco's government showed its gratitude with a letter promising its support should he ever need
21:36it. Perlasca's interest in fascism dissipated when Benito Mussolini joined up with the Nazis
21:41and introduced anti-Semitic laws in Italy. A supplier for the Italian army,
21:45but a loyalist to the Italian monarchy, Perlasca was sent to an internment camp in 1943.
21:51He escaped to Budapest, Hungary, where he'd spent much of his time in the military.
21:54In early 1944, Hungary fell under Nazi rule, and Perlasca knew that Budapest's Jews weren't safe.
22:00With his Franco letter in hand, Perlasca went to the Spanish embassy and received
22:03the Spanish passports as well as some covert information. The office was processing scores
22:08of protection orders for Jews seeking asylum in Spain and elsewhere. Embassy employees were
22:12also hiding Jewish people in their homes. When the Nazis got word, employees evacuated.
22:17Perlasca went to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He convinced the staff that
22:21he was the new Spanish consul and had authority over the Jewish would-be refugees, saying they
22:25were bound for Spain. The Nazis backed off, and Perlasca kept issuing protection letters for Jews
22:30to get safely to Spain. Meanwhile, he set up a network of homes in Budapest to secretly house
22:34others. Altogether, Perlasca saved the lives of approximately 5,200 European Jews.
22:41At 17, Audie Murphy attempted to enlist as a Marine and a paratrooper. He finally made it
22:45into U.S. Army infantry after lying about his age. A skilled sharpshooter, he participated
22:50in the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily and the 1944 operation to reclaim southern France.
22:55Across seven weeks of combat, Murphy's group suffered 4,500 casualties. In January 1945,
23:01Murphy, by then a lieutenant, was part of the action to expel Nazis from the Holzwir
23:05region in eastern France. After Nazis relentlessly hammered the front lines with six tanks and 250
23:11ground troops, Murphy ordered the rest of his men to hang back as he took care of the offense.
23:15With just a damaged tank destroyer and a machine gun, he fought off the Nazi charge from three
23:19sides. After he was shot in the leg, he kept going for an hour, killing an estimated 50
23:24Nazi troops and holding off the advance.
23:26He simply reacted on adrenaline and gut reactions of attacking.
23:31The enemy had to regroup, giving the Allied troops in the area the time they needed to plan
23:35a successful counterattack, getting the Nazis out of that part of France for good.
23:39Murphy was awarded the U.S. military's top award for combat service, the Medal of Honor,
23:43just one of the 28 medals he received, including some from France and Belgium. That made Murphy
23:48the most decorated American soldier of World War II. He went on to become a successful actor.
23:54U.S. Navy pilot Edward Butch O'Hare was learning military maneuvers by 1939.
23:59After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, O'Hare's squadron was sent to the Pacific Theater,
24:02with the squadron assigned to the USS Lexington aircraft carrier.
24:06They were ordered to head to a Japanese-occupied outpost in Papua New Guinea. On the approach,
24:10the American planes were spotted by a scout, triggering the launch of 17 Japanese bombers.
24:15The entire first group of nine was shot down by anti-aircraft guns.
24:19O'Hare and his wingman took off and saw the combat firsthand as they went higher,
24:22receiving a radio message that the other eight bombers were forthcoming.
24:26Both airmen fired test rounds, and the other pilots guns jammed,
24:29just about when the Japanese planes arrived. O'Hare dove to launch an assault in the V
24:33formation, letting most of the bombers pass before he fired. He hit the final two on the right side.
24:38He then shot down two more, all at close range and well within the line of fire,
24:42saving the carrier and the lives of those on board.
24:45O'Hare continued to lead air squadrons in the Pacific, and in November 1943,
24:49his plane was shot down over the Pacific Ocean. It was never found. O'Hare was 29 years old.
24:54Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was named in his honor.
24:59Under the Nazi occupation of Poland, Warsaw's 400,000 Jewish residents were imprisoned in a
25:04tiny urban area — a ghetto — left to suffer from rapidly spreading disease and starvation.
25:09After more than two-thirds of Warsaw's Jewish people were transported out and
25:12systematically killed, Warsaw Welfare Department employee Irina Sendler joined and then headed up
25:18Zygota, a secret Polish-Jewish rescue operation. Using her connections as a social worker and to
25:23other civil servants secretly working with the resistance, Sendler talked her way into
25:26permits that let her freely enter the Warsaw ghetto to assess health issues.
25:30She could also freely leave the ghetto and saw to it that many children were
25:33rescued from the horrific conditions and likely eventual death.
25:36With the aid of around 25 assistants, Sendler got kids out of the ghetto by hiding them under
25:41stretchers, inside trunks or body bags, or by directing them to sewers and secret tunnels.
25:46After their exit, Sendler arranged new homes for the children and kept coded,
25:49hidden records of their real names and families to facilitate later reunions.
25:53The Gestapo arrested and tortured Sendler in late 1943 and sentenced her to death.
25:58Members of Zygota bribed the Gestapo to allow her to escape,
26:01and she resumed helping children find safety. In all, she saved the lives of 2,500 people.
26:07Charles Coward was a British soldier who was captured and sent to a POW camp in 1940.
26:12Three years later, he was moved to the infamous Auschwitz complex.
26:15There, in part because of his ability to speak German, he worked as a Red Cross
26:18liaison officer and was allowed some free movement. Since the British POWs had access
26:22to Red Cross items, Coward and other prisoners set aside food and medicine,
26:26which they smuggled to the Jewish section of the camp. He also helped around 400 people escape
26:30Auschwitz by providing Jewish prisoners with the clothes and identity documents of non-Jewish
26:34prisoners who had died. Coward was a firsthand witness to horrible things, but his position
26:39enabled him to send letters as he pleased. He started writing to William Orange, telling him
26:44of the details. That name was a top-secret way of addressing a letter to the British War Office.
26:49In addition to getting this information out to the Allies,
26:51he also testified at the Nuremberg Trials. Coward died in 1976.