World War II/Awesome: Difference between revisions

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Lest we forget.

 

 

 

== The Allies - United We Stand ==

{{quote|"Two kinds of people are staying on this beach! The dead, and those who are going to die! NOW GET MOVING!"}}

* Operations Fortitude, Ironside, and Vendetta: the Allied misinformation campaign that tried to convince the Germans that the Allies were going to attack Calais, Norway, Aquitaine, or southern France instead of Normandy. It worked brilliantly. The Allies even convinced the Germans that the massive army in Normandy was merely a diversion, and that the real attack was about to hit Calais. Consequently, the Germans didn't even reinforce Normandy, giving the Allies time to consolidate their beachhead. It was the largest hoax in human history.

 

=== United Kingdom - "Their Finest Hour" ===

** ニースの仕事はそれを壊す, 主人公!

** On the contrary, they, the Japanese, knew that they could not stand up to the United States in a prolonged conflict very well. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (one of the masterminds behind the Pearl Harbor attack) was in the US and studied several years there, and knew full well that Japan could not match America's production capacity. The attack on Pearl Harbor came since there was a US and UK blockade against Japan that was creating a critical oil shortage (which was the intended effect) and Japan had to break the blockade somehow. So the design behind the Pearl Harbor attack was to cripple the US naval forces in the Pacific in a swift strike and then push onwards into the mainland US, without any resistance, the United States would be forced to retreat from the Pacific theater entirely. This almost succeeded: the US carriers were forced out into sea and weren't at anchor in Pearl Harbor as the Japanese assumed; that left the United States with a means of fighting back. The Japanese also failed to destroy the American submarine base at Pearl Harbor (it was completely undamaged), which allowed the US forces to successfully commence a raiding campaign similar to Germany's wolf packs in the Atlantic theater against Japan, which hampered Japan's production capacity.

* The Battle of Wake Island gets an extra special mention, this is America's first victory of the entire war. Their story goes like this: During three straight days of Japanese bombing, both the Marines and civilian contractors on the island somehow managed to trick the bombers into bombing fake positions. The Japanese believed that they completely knocked out all of the defenses on Wake Island, so the over confident fleet, the same one which took out Guam the day before, went to Wake Island with no air support whatsoever. The Marine commander orders his men to hold until the Japanese ships were within 4,800 yards, which is 5" artillery range, since those are the biggest guns that the Marines had. Once the orders came, the Marines let loose with all the artillery on the Japanese ships, even sinking one less than 15 seconds. The fleet then retreated out of range, just to be attacked by the remaining four American airplanes. These planes were armed with 100 lbs bombs, which one of the pilots were told that its impossible to sink a ship with, his response was along the lines of "then they just aren't trying hard enough," next proceeding to sink a Japanese destroyer with one after receiving a direct hit on its supply of depth charges, causing the ship to explode and forcing the Japanese to retreat more further.

** The Japanese eventually captured Wake Island upon their return with a huge fleet and air support, after their first troop wave were they completely decimated by the already stationed Marines. The Marine commander, through a mixture of down communication lines and a confirmation that Pearl Harbor won't be coming to aid them, decided to surrender to the Japanese forces. The latter intended to kill off every single American on the island, but orders from their own commanded them not to do so, because the Wake Island battle was already being fixated on by the international world media's attention, and it would be considered as an undeniable war atrocity if a few hundred American Marines and civilians were to disappear.

**** This other troper, whose home country was liberated partly due to the actions of the American fleet off Samar, expresses the hope that soldiers, sailors, and airmen now in Heaven are still talking about what happened on October 25, 1944. So, that whenever a survivor of this battle finally has to meet St. Peter, they can simply say "I was there."

* The next best US destroyer action of WW2 was the Battle of Vella Gulf, were 6 US destroyers, which up till then had been resoundingly ineffective in the Naval Battles of Guadalcanal, successfully ambushed 4 Japanese destroyers, hitting all four in what's quote probably a perfectly executed torpedo attack by surface ships in the entire war by using the nearby island to hide themselves from the Japanese radar and its' sight. The latter didn't even know they were under attack, until their ships began to explode and only the Shigure's bizarre luck kept it from being a perfect clean sweep when the torpedo that hit its rudder failed to explode.

** The battle was fought principally betwixt two American battleships - South Dakota and Washington, against a lone Japanese battleship, the Kirishima. Mainly, the South Dakota suffered from electrical problems and was not able to fire a shot while the Japanese were pounding her. Meanwhile, the Washington snuck up on the Kirishima and wrecked her with accurate gunfire. It would be the second to the last time battleships would ever face another in a surface fight, and cemented the reputation of Admiral "Ching" Lee (Commander of the Washington) as the greatest battleship commander in the US Navy.

** What's more dramatic than the fight between the Washington/South Dakota and Kirishima was the battle of Guadalcanal several nights earlier. A scratch American force lead by two cruisers ended up fighting a Japanese task force lead by two battleships. In what's often described as the most chaotic naval battle of the war, both sides only began firing at point-blank range, which cause devastating casualties on both sides. Scott and Callaghan - Two American Admirals - were killed during the fight, while the Japanese commander himself was wounded. While the Americans sustained far more casualties, they stopped the Japanese from bombarding Henderson Airfield, which was providing vital air support for the Marines fighting for their lives on Guadalcanal. The commander of the Marines, who was later asked how victory in Guadalcanal became possible, thanked his soldiers, God, but most of all "The brave sailors such as Admiral Scott and Callaghan, who gave their lives to prevent another bombardment of Henderson Field."

** Unknown if this makes it more of a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|CMoA]] or just a truly terrifying, was the fact that the scientists involved didn't actually know what would happen. They were more worried that the explosion's sheer power might cause the atmosphere to spontaneously combust, literally destroying the world...AND THEY DID IT ANYWAY!

* Anyone that has seen the [[Dogfights]] episode "Long Odds" can talk about the scouting mission by ''Old 666'', were a Japanese plane squadrons painfully discovered was heavily customized by their crew into what is probably the most well-armed aircraft of the war.

** Therefore, not even [[Satan]] himself can ignore the effects of [[More Dakka]].

** For more details, that mission was the only bomber mission were two members of the same crew got the Medal of Honor for different actions and every other member won the Distinguished Service Cross. The first MoH went to Jay Zeamer, the pilot, for firstly shooting down an enemy plane with a remote controlled gun, and then, while wounded with a broken leg and multiple fragment wounds brought the plane down to where the crew didn't need the broken oxygen system by watching the increase in manifold pressure in the engines, and refused first aid, lapsing into unconsciousness, until the plane crash landed, at which point he was so badly injured; the rest of the crew removed him last, assuming that Jay was dead. The other went to bombardier, Joseph Sarnoski, for shooting down multiple Japanese planes while wounded, and then after getting hit with a 20mm shell that blew him out of the compartment, sought aid until a second wave of fighters came, and shot down at least one of them. He, unfortunately died at his station from his wounds.

* Also, from the same episode, the story about the dive bomber pilot pulling substitute CAP duty and taking on three Japanese Zeroes and winning (I think it was three, been a while since I saw the episode).

* Butch O'Hare, a U.S. Navy pilot, had a crowning moment was when his ship, the U.S.S. Lexington, was spotted by a Japanese spy plane. When a wave of Japanese Bettys arrived to try and sink the ship, the Americans sent their fighters to meet them. The fighters successfully defended the Lexington, but during a second wave of Bettys appeared, the only planes close enough to stop them belonged to O'Hare and his wingman, and unfortunately, the wingman's guns jammed, forcing O'Hare to fight them off on his own. Alone, he managed to shoot down five of them and the other four turned away without firing on his ship. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport is named after him for this reason, a fitting tribute to an exceptional pilot from Chicago.

** The rarely-talked about Navajo Code Talkers deserve credit for helping in the Pacific Theater. Their code was never broken (not even by a captured American soldier that knew Navajo). After the war, they were to remain silent about their accomplishments because nobody wanted the Navajo secret to get out (the reason the Navajo were chosen was because German "tourists"/spies had come to the US after [[World War I| WW1]] to study various Native American languages, since Cherokee had been used in the first World War and the Germans wanted to be prepared in case the US used that technique again. They had forgotten the Navajo). Once modern technology made their abilities obsolete, they were allowed to come out and be awesome.

** Speaking of the RAF and foreign pilots, a Belgian named Jean de Selys was HARDCORE. As members of his family had been murdered by the Gestapo, the war was very personal for him. He was a crazy, fearless, and creative, and now there's a statue of him in Brussels. I think disobeying orders to fly alone into a Nazi-occupied city in 1943, just above treetop level, to strafe the Gestapo building where his father was executed, then drop a funeral wreath and note, was pretty impressive.

** A member of Squadron 303, Stanislaw Karubin, once he realized that he was out of ammunition during an intense dogfight, being on the tail of a German fighter near the tree-top level. Normal men would started to return to base at this point, but Karubin closed in on the armed German fighter and climbed right about it, then started lowering his craft onto enemy fighter. The German pilot was so shocked to see the underside of the Polish fighter over him, he instinctively reduced the altitude of the flight and crashed into the ground.

* Both the Polish [[Boy Scouts]] and [[Girl Scouts]] had their own Crowning Moment of Awesome during World War II. When they were outlawed by the Nazis as a "Non-Aryan" institution they went underground and carried on their scouting just like before the war. Not only that but they formed the part of [[La Resistance]], using their Scouting skills for such things as acting as couriers for Resistance agents. And during the Warsaw Revolt, Scouts would crawl for what amounts to miles through the sewers of the city to deliver messages in incredibly uncomfortable circumstances, all the while the enemy was trying to block the passages with nets or flood them with water.

** Robert Baden-Powell would be proud.

*** This troper's grandfather was among the Polish troops at Monte Cassino and he's damn proud.

*** Really, all that was needed to be said for this to be a CMoA was "The Polish troops at Monte Cassino had a bear as a pet. This bear punched a spy."

** When the battle was over, the 1st Polish Armored Division's commander was given the Iron Cross (Germany's highest award for valor) from a captured German prisoner. The German had won the Iron Cross five years earlier in Poland - In the battle that ended with the destruction of the 1st Armored Division's predecessor. In a way, it signified a complete reversal of what had happened in September of 1939.

** Unidentified Polish soldiers who were buried in Normandy bear a simple, English epitaph to commemorate their sacrifice: "Died for Poland."

** Defense of Hel, a Polish peninsula. The plan was to hold defense for two weeks. They lost source of supplies, were under heavy fire from German naval artillery, and they surrendered when there was no point of fighting any longer after 32 days. The most noteworthy moment was when the Polish Army realized that they could not use missiles because of their destroyed equipment, so they buried them. Once the Nazi decided to try to attack not from the sea but from land, Hel became an island.

* The 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade. General Sosabowski went into Operation Market Garden with misgivings, let his support elements be cut from his brigade to see them chewed up in the meat grinder of Arnhem, finally went in with his paras, found his Rhine crossing gone, made the crossing anyhow, and covered the retreat of the British 1st Airborne Division, at a cost of almost a quarter of his brigade in casualties. The survivors are honored every year in Oosterbeek, and not for nothing.

* The Battle of Wizna, anyone? The Polish were outnumbered 59 to 1, and they held off the German Army for three days. The Polish managed to take out 10 tanks and a few AFV's, and an untold amount of infantry. They had six 76mm guns, 42 Machine Guns, and only two Anti-Tank Rifles, compared to the Germans 350 Tanks, Air Superiority, and 600+ heavy weapons (mortars, Machine Guns, Rockets, etc.) along with a lot of artillery. Also, the Polish commander swore by his life that he won't let the fort fall into enemy hands. When the situation became hopeless, he agreed to surrender to prevent unnecessary deaths of his soldiers, then blew himself up with a grenade. The Sabaton song 40:1 is named for it.

** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epeQwq-aYV0 40:1 Music Video]

** This English Troper is so impressed by the tenacity of these Polish actions that he has gained a whole lot of respect for the Poland. All I can say and do is salute them all and say thank you for fighting so much for our freedom.

** Seconded by an American troper, who hopes that there's a special place in heaven for the insanely courageous men and women who knocked on Peter's door as a result of never, ever shirking that courage.

 

=== The Soviet Union - "Heroes of the Great Patriotic War" ===

* Operation August Storm. Which is one of the most brilliant campaigns of the war, it involved moving over a million troops from the Western front in secret and consisted of double pincer movement over an area the size of Western Europe that utterly destroyed the Japanese defenders. The Soviet army took no less than 640,276 prisoners, while suffering only 12,031 losses. And, although it is still a matter under dispute, some historians believe that subsequent Japanese surrender was largely due to this devastating offensive and not the A-bombs.

* I'll just leave this here...

** Remarkable indeed yet not exceptional at all. Maria Oktyabrskaya, a telephonist from the city Simpherople learned that her husband died in action and decided that [[It's Personal]]. She raised 50,000 rubles!!!, transferred the amount to the State Bank and then eventually wrote a letter to Stalin requesting a personal tank. They named the tank "Sister in Arms" and she went to the front as its crew member, and spent next four months fighting, like a fury. One time in combat, a shell hit the tank's track, Maria tried to repair it, despite being under enemy fire, but was wounded, and later died. She was awarded with an order of the Hero of the Soviet Union. So impressed were her comrades that when the tank got destroyed they gave their next one the same name...And then the next one...And the next.

* Don't forget the younger participants. The war dislocated so many people, so many families, that many kids ended up unofficially joining the Soviet combat formations. Affectionately called the "Sons of the Regiment," these kids did everything from menial work, to message relaying, and scouting missions. With the units, they also advanced, and many of the SotR were later recognized.

* Roman Smishyk: an ex-peasant and a very humble private, whose platoon was on pinned by enemy forces comprising of 16 tanks during one occasion. So, Roman grabbed three anti-tank grenades and three cocktail bottles, crawled towards the Germans, who are advancing, and one by one burned three tanks. He returned to the home positions, replenished his ammunition, and repeated this trick. Basically: One guy wacked six tanks single-handedly. Nazis whined that this game had one fucked up balance and logged off.

* They built a submarine aircraft carrier. 'Nough said.

* When it comes the whole defense of Iwo Jima is one of the huge CMOA for the Japanese army. Ordered to defend a miniscule strip of land against an American invasion force that had both numerical and technological superiority (the Japanese had 22,000 troops, the U.S. had 110,000), for over a month, they managed to hold out before being soundly defeated.

* General William Rupertus predicted that Peleliu would be taken in 4 days. The Japanese held on to it for 74.

* From the [[POV Cam|POV]] of the IJN, the REAL CMoA was sinking the British capital ships, ''Repulse'' and ''Prince of Wales''. This proved that the Japanese Navy had "grown up" seeing the British Royal Navy as its mentor, supplier, and superior, to the point that one of the IJN's most cherished keepsakes was a lock of Nelson's hair. Sinking two of the Royal Navy warships finally proved that once and for all that the IJN was, man for man, an equal to ever other international navy. More remarkably, the normally ruthless Japanese Navy made a rare display of gallantry after this victory. The next day after the sinkings (after allowing the survivors to escape), a squadron of Japanese planes flew to the wreckage of the two ships and dropped wreaths of flowers to honor the British dead.

** [[The Resistance|Vive la Résistance!]]

* De Gaulle's reaction (he was the chief of the FFF) when the German radio stated that "Free French soldiers will be shot and not taken prisoner for felony." Although officially the French had surrendered, De Gaulle's reaction was the same, in that German prisoners would be shot too.

* Bir Hakeim is a CMoA in its own right. The Free French held on a piece of rock in the middle of the desert, all of Rommel's ''Afrikakorps'' and the Italians surrounded them, but the Italians retreated after ten days, possibly saving the VIIIth British army from Ritchie's incompetence.

* The whole island of Malta. By surviving a siege by the Germans and Italians for three years. For this, the entire population was awarded the George Cross collectively, which was the highest civilian award for gallantry in Britain. Malta's now an independent state, the medal is on its flag.

** She even commanded 7,000 French troops that engaged in guerrilla warfare to sabotage the Nazi.

** Once, the supply drops were threatened by the destruction of radio codes. Nancy embarked on a marathon bike ride, cycling about 500 km in 72 hours and bypassing several German checkpoints, just to find an operator to radio Britain and requesting new codes.

* De Gaulle, a chief of the FFF,'s reaction when the German radio stated that "Free French Soldier will be shot and not taken prisoner for felony," as officially France had surrendered: De Gaulle stated that, from this moment onward, German prisoners will also be shoot, too.

** [[Your Mileage May Vary]] on this one's 'awesomeness.'

**** To the Greeks, hospitality is always been sacred.

* The whole island of Malta had its CMOA by surviving a three year siege by the Germans and Italians. For it, the entire population was awarded the George Cross, which is the highest civilian award for gallantry in Britain. Which is now an independent state, the medal is now on its flag.

* Australia's the Kokoda Trail. Let just say that it's been called "Australia's Thermopylae," which is totally justified. Though not at the same magnitude, then again the Persians didn't have assault rifles.

** This is twice as awesome considering the fact it was a first time for a purely militia force and after the first battle the Japanese believed that they had defeated a huge force of more than 1,200 strong when actually they were facing 77 Australian troops.

[[The Holocaust]] was one of the worst atrocities ever committed by humankind. Eleven million people lost their lives because of ideology gone mad. These are the people who saw what was happening and said "Not one more."

 

* Albania, both the nations, the people, and as individuals, simply refused to permit the Nazis to carry out the genocide in their nation. ONE JEWISH FAMILY in the whole country were killed, other thousands were pouring in as refugees. The Albanians actually competed with each other for the privilege of saving Jews from the Nazis.

* The twelfth ''Sonderkommando'''s uprising (They're units of concentration camp inmates, mostly Jewish, who were forced to assist the SS in killing by disposing bodies from the gas chambers) in October 1944. They destroyed almost half of the crematoria of the Auschwitz extermination camp, seriously undermining the number of people the Nazis could still kill during the last months of the war, as they were never rebuilt. 200, who didn't die in the uprising itself were forced to strip, lie face down, and were shot in the back of the head in quick succession. A total of 451 members died that day.

** Another mention goes to an incident where a train was about to leave Budapest to a death camp. Wallenberg climbed to the top of the train, and ''all the while being shot at'', started throwing passes inside so that the Jews can use them to escape death (These passes weren't legal, but they look legit enough to fool the authorities.) After when he was certain that everyone on board has a pass, he got off, walked towards the shocked authorities, and calmly ordered everythone with a pass to step out of the train. ''And he got away with it'', simply because [[Refuge in Audacity]] in the most insane and boldest way possible.

* Chiune Sugihara. A Japanese Vice Consul in Lithuania during 1939-1940, who directly disobeyed orders in issuing thousands of exit visas for botht eh Lithuanian and Polish Jews to escape to Japan (Most of them ended up escaping to Shanghai, and Shanghai had a tiny yet decidedly incongruous Jewish population for years after the war). According to his family, Chiune spent 18-20 hours a day filling out these visas by hand. When he was finally forced to leave just before the consulate was closed, witnesses reports that even on his way from his hotel to the train station and just was when the train was just leaving, he was still filling those things out and throwing them into the crowd. Double amazingly, when one considers that the culture of the Japanese Foreign Service during this time and for him to openly defy his superiors to that huge extent was basically unprecedented for anyone working there. This also explains why he was able to get away with it: The Japanese government was so flabbergasted that one of their own (who, by all accounts, had been a very effective administrator for his whole career) had gone beyond their orders they can't rationalize it besides pretending that it didn't happen.

* Shesh, nobody has mentioned Elie Wiesel? He wrote ''Night'' after all...

** And Oskar Schindler, 'Course.

* Jose Castellanos Contreras, an Salvadoran army colonel who served as a Consul General in El Salvador during the war. Jose helped rescued close to 40,000 Central European Jews with the help of his friend, Gyorgy Mandl, by issuing them fake papers of Salvadoran nationality. This allowed them to receive aid from the International Red Cross, and as The Other Wiki says, "saved thousands of 'Salvadorans' of Bulgarian, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian extraction from Nazi depredations." As this says, "Gave meaning to the name El Salvador, which means 'The Savior.'"

* The Bielski partisans.

* There's a story, which follows: A group of German volunteers were searching for Jews in a Polish city. The Nazi came to a seemingly abandoned house. Sensing that something was afoot, they kept looking in the house until they found the attic. The trapdoor was closed, but since there's a ladder underneath it. The Germans assumed that there's some Jews hiding up there. Once they get the attic open and one guy clambers up to take a look. There's at least twenty people up there, all of them Jewish. What did the volunteer do? ''Climbs down and says that there's no one''. If anyone else had looked, he would've been in deep shit, but as it happened, ''everyone in the attic survived to tell the tale''.

* Every single guy that helped hide the Jews during the Holocaust, regardless the great danger that puts him in.

* To basically some the above deeds and those which are not mentioned here, the Wikipedia article for the Righteous among the Nations is linked in the Saints Portal, which places these ordinary men, women, and kids in the same category as those that are canonized by the Catholic Church and the original followers of Jesus Christ.

 

* Jack Churchill. Some of his more notable exploits includes capturing a whole village by ambushing the sentries with his claymore, escaping execution after being captured by claiming to be a relative of Winston's and escaping from Sachsenhausen concentration camp with one of the men, who inspired [[The Great Escape]].

** Figures that any 20th century soldier that carries a broadsword into combat. And then justifies it by saying, "Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed." Is going to have a career filled with Crowning Moments of Awesome.

* In WWII, to some soldiers being vivisected couldn't stop them. There's a story about a soldier whose stomach was cut open thanks to an explosion! Did he give up? No, he tied himself to a tree, just to keep himself upright, kept on firing until he ran of ammo, and before he died of his injuries.

* Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in the Pacific. Just because of his role, he gets an aircraft carrier class named after him. Though this isn't the only thing named after him.

** Adm. Nimitz displayed two bits of magnanimity awesomeness. Upon landing in Japan during the war's conclusion, one of the first things that he did was visit the Japanese military hospital. In 1961, he helped sponsor the Japanese museum ship, Mikasa,'s restoration. Which had been the flagship in the Russo-Japanese war.

** Most of Nimitz's CMOA involved him putting his trust in his Radio Intelligence unit and his own instincts, against the advice of his senior officers - And being right every time.

** Merely the simple fact that Nimitz somehow managed to get his senior officers, not just a few which hated each other, to work together, and with an army of officers even he despised, virtually seamlessly through the whole war is an accomplish CMOA itself, especially with the personalities involved. Also, a few victories that became a reality just 'cause Nimitz was just *that* much of a people person. His basic strategy was to "do as little as possible," by finding competent people for every task that he can think of, to the point that he could theoretically just go on a vacation for weeks and yet left the war effort going on without a hiccup. Nice guy that he was, even managed to find creative ways of shuffling people to were he felt incompetent into jobs were their were useful, just to the point that he almost never had to demote or fire anyone. Is there a trope for [[Badass Manager]]?

* For individual CMoAs, there's the official listing of the Medal of Honor recipients. There's one particular story: during a small-scale retreat in the Pacific Theater, a soldier was woulded. Another tried to carry him out, but the injured man refused and instead ask for a gun. He was given a eight rounds Colt and propped against a tree facing the foe. US forces returned a bit later to find him dead, with eight Japanese soldiers killed with a single bullet. Plus, the allied guy wasn't killed: He succumbed to his wounds. Bad. Ass.

** Another recipient for the Medal of Honor: Was a medic, who continually ran out, under fire, and according to the official report, was responsible for saving the lives of a dozen of soldiers on the battlefield. Takes guts to run out under fire. He did it all unarmed. He was a conscientious objector and refused to carry a weapon.

** One of the recipients, Hershel Woodrow "Woody" Williams, was a flamethrower specialist (a weapon which takes some serious balls to carry into battle, because it's carrying two full tanks of highly flammable napalm on their backs) in the Pacific Theater. While the Iwo Jima invasion was going on, the Marine cleared out seven Japanese strongpoints and halted a banzai charge during the course of a single day, while all the bullets were ricocheting off of this fuel tanks. He only retreated once, since he ran out of fuel.

** Pvt. Harold H. Moon, age 23, participated in the Battle of Leyte. Now Moon had a reputation as a troublemaker. Also, he was released from the stockade so he can participate in battle. During a Japanese counterattack against the U.S. beachhead, his position was the target of both enemy gunfire and mortars after his comrades were killed. Moon man a machine gun in his foxhole, gunning down any advancing troops, and repeatedly exposed himself to kill the attackers. His surrounded position was the focal point of the attack for more than four hours. Frustrated, the Japanese sent a whole platoon to overwhelm the American Private; he emptied his entire magazine into the advancing line, killing eighteen and sending the others retreat. Eventually, he was finally shot and killed after attempting to lob a grenade at a foe machine gun. When men that were sent to recover Moon's body, they discovered corpses approximately 200 dead Japanese soldiers about 100 yards of his position.

{{quote|'''Narrator''': "At first, the Germans didn't shoot at him. I think they couldn't quite believe what they were seeing, but that wasn't the really astounding thing. The astounding thing was that after he hooked up with I company, he came back."}}

**** According to most eyewitness accounts, Spiers was credited also with taking the fourth gun emplacement all by himself on D-Day.

* Col. Joseph A. Gregory, who is a sniper and [[WW 1]] veteran from Canada had a CMOA at Dieppe. After when he and his squadmates clear a few bunkers, he went to the beach to catch the last ships to England. A boat that was stuck in the sand and while helping to push it out, a bullet ircocheting of the water whizzed past his forehead, blinding him on one eye, and knocking him into the water. He got up and proceeded to board another boat, which was then sunk from under him. He made for another motorboat, and was pulled into it by Sgt. Major McEvoy, who nursed his head and carried him over to a destroyer and into sickbay, where he said, "You'll be alright now, Joe." Just when the Sargent spoke, a dive bomb hit sickbay, killing McEvoy, knocking Colonel Gregory out, and washed him into the sea. Another boat fished him out of the water and was put beside an Oerlikon gun, which made enough noise to knock him out again. Later he came to one of the gunners and asked, "Holy Jesus, we're pretty near home?" The receiving answer "Home be b-we're still at Dieppe." The colonel survived the rest of the war and the Canadian Army employed him for recruitment advertising.

** Another Canadian from Dieppe was captured. First, he escaped from the CATTLE TRAIN that was carrying Canadian prisoners by jumping out after ALMOST BEING SPOTTED several times, trekked all the way down to Vichy France, got on a British ship to Gibraltar, and from there a long hike back to Britain. That's right, this guy traversed in just a few days across France. Also, he went to help form the Brittany Escape Line, a very ballsy operation which smuggled downed airmen, escaped POW's, and espionage/spy agents, who managed to get out of France before the Gestapo caught them.

* A troper's friend relate this story (Note: some cool details were left out, in case they're incorrect): The friend's great uncle was a Catholic priest that lived in northern Germany during the war. The town was small, "Where everybody knows your name," etc. and the church, was well-nigh ancient. The priest was decidedly anti-Nazi. He would gather up everyone who needed to disappear before they "disappeared" by force by the Nazis: Jews, Gypsies, etc. They would all attend the Sunday Mass at church, scattered across his congregation. At Communion, everyone lines up to receive Communion. The priest gives Communion to each person, but when he got to someone that needed his disappearing services, he'll claim to run out of the Communion wafers. The priest, alter boys, and assistants would go around behind the altar, where he would pretend to get more wafers. There was a door leading down to hidden catacombs underneath the church. Now this town is very close to the Belgian border and the catacombs lead far enough to the outskirts of town to get people almost to Belgium. It wasn't exactly safe there, either, but it's certainly safer than Germany itself. So the priest would send the person through the catacombs to relative safety then come back with more Communion wafers. Until, of course, another person needing assistance got to the front of the line, at which he ran out of Communion wafers again. The Nazis eventually found out and very impolitely instructed him to cease, and plus, they'll be watching. To enforce this injunction, the Nazi sent "observers" to his church to make sure he enforces the party line. At the first Mass were the priest sees the observers, he decides to do his "Hitler is actually the Anti-Christ" sermon. Needless to say, it didn't go over well. One of the observers was so incensed that he stood up mid-serman and shot the priest squarely in the chest. Hold on...Wait for the happy ending. Back in the day (and sometimes today, the troper relating the tale presumes [Being not Catholic), Catholic priests wore large crosses on their chests, usually made of gold. The bullet hit the priest square on the cross right below his heart, warping the cross, and almost folding it upon itself. The blow knocked the priest backwards over the altar, and right to the entrance to the catacombs. Seizing the opportunity, he escaped through those same tunnels that he helped others leave through and eventually made it to relative safety. Incidentally, the damaged cross is now a family heirloom. The "relative", his cousin was also a priest and was selected as the successor to the first priest. This priest was a non-fan of the Nazis, continued his cousin's practice of aiding innocent people escaping horrible deaths. Once more the Nazis figured it out. This time, they didn't bother with "observers." They sent goons to just shoot him in the head. The goons arrived, grabbed the priest, threw him down on the altar, and in a moment of [[Moral Event Horizon]]/"Holy Blasphemy, Batman! They decided to kill him on the altar. At that moment, the Allies decided to drop a few bombs on that dinky town, including the ancient church. One of the bombs crashed through the roof without detonating, but it collapse the roof in the process, and provided enough distraction for the priest. Following the footsteps of his cousin, he dove behind the altar, entered the catacombs, and found relative safety. The rest is history.

** Another brave clergyman was Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, a prominent official at the Vatican. During the Nazi occupation of Rome, O'Flaherty was one of the heads of a huge underground movement dedicated to helping Allied POWs, Jewish refugees, and so forth evade capture by the Gestapo, usually hiding them in convents, seminaries, their own houses, and in some cases, the Vatican itself. Everything that O'Flaherty did had a sort of daredevil flare to it. - For example, when one man was hiding developed appendictis, the Monsignor smuggled him into a hospital, and with some help of the nuns tricked a German military surgeon into operating. The man recovered on a ward full of German officers before O'Flaherty smuggled him out quietly again. Eventually, Colonel Herbert Kappler, the leader of the Gestapo in Rome, discovered O'Flaherty's role in the organization and became obsessed with trying to stop him. Unfortunately for him, he can't arrest O'Flaherty, since the Monsignor was inside the Vatican which gave him diplomatically immunity, and when he was out of the Vatican, he was always able to outwit his pursuers. After the war, O'Flaherty visited Kappler in prison every month (By some accounts, he's his only visitor), and eventually converted his former nemesis to Catholicism. It's impossible to do a full story any justice here, but it's not an exaggeration to say that Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty's life was just a one long, Crowning Moment of Awesome from start to finish.

*** Bonus points for outfitting the Swiss Guards with machine guns just in case. That's right; he was willing to pit the ''Swiss Guards'' against the Nazi war machine if Hitler tried to stop him. The Pope's not playing around.

* Jimmy Launder's sub that was under his command took out the last German U-Boats during the war. What's impressive was that both his sub and the German sub both submerged during that time. This was before homing torpedoes came and to this day remains the only person to command a submerged sub to take out another successfully (Think of a fighter taking out angother using unguided rockets, but only this time having to only rely completely on their radar and not visuals).

* Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery. Turned the situation in Africa around after his first battle in command then proceed to spend the next year outfoxing the Desert Fox. Shame that he and Rommel never met.

 

* Singapore's 1st Malay Brigade stood up bravely to the Japanese invasion. Their commander was a great man who at the end never surrendered. When they ran out of ammunition, they used the bayonets to continue fighting, and even at the end. Until, the unit was annihilated.

* General George S. Patton - Remember that scene in [[Tim Burton]]'s [[Batman]], which has The Joker staring down the Bat-Plane, daring him to shoot? Patton really did that in North Africa, standing in the middle of an airstrip, and staring down a German fighter plane ivory-handled [[Guns Akimbo|revolvers akimbo]]. Even saying the same thing:

{{quote|"C'mon you gruesome son-of-a-bitch!"}}

* September 1, 1942: Luftwaffe pilot Hans Joachim Marseille, who shoots down 17 Desert Air Force fighters over the course of three sorties. June 17, 1942: Marseille destroys 6 aircrafts within seven minutes. September 15, 1942: Marseille destroys 7 Australian fighter crafters within eleven minutes.

* Daniel Inouye, who was the son of Japanese immigrants, joined the US army and fought in Europe. On April 21, 1945, he was throwing grenades at a German bunker when he was shot at the stomach. He refuses medical aid and continues throwing, but just as he was about to let his last grenade fly, one of the Germans shot their own grenade and nearly blew his right arm off! Inouye's fingers remained clenched around the grenade, preventing it from going off, so he pried it out of his cold, dead hand, and threw it. Successfully destroying the bunker. Daniel was hit in the leg, before passing out from blood loss, and even after getting his arm amputated without any anesthetic, all he had to say was how much he wanted to return to the battlefield.-

* Koichi Tohei, who later develops the Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido sytle of aikido, was a captain in the Japanese army in China. Since he treated the Chinese POWs well, the Chinese army had a tendency to avoid his company. Also, he said to have not lost a signle man in the whole campaign, and even returned to Japan with more soldiers than he started with.

* German Commander Nikolaus von Falkenhorst, a German commander, was given literally just a few hours to plan Operation Weserübung, which is the German invading both Denmark and Norway, by Adolf Hitler. He proceeds to write the plan using a tour guide of Norway he found in his hotel. The operation was successful.

** No need to be mentioned. His reputation is so badass and well-known that everyone knows who he is.

* A non-combat example: David B. Parkinson, who is credited with the invention of the M-9 electrical anti-aircraft gun, which almost curbed the threat of the German's V1 buzz bombs singlehandedly, which help their the tide of the Battle of Britain. On its own, pretty cool, but really awesome. Though one has to consider that Parkinson and his team had ''never'' worked with firearms, being recording technicians for Bell Labs, and the whole idea for the M-9 was conceived when it ''came to him in a goddamn dream''.

** [[What Happened to the Mouse?|And the Japanese monastery?]] It's built in a city called Nagasaki. Plus, it's still standing - When Kolbe built the monastery, the locals were trying to persuade him to build it on the side of the mountain facing the city, which is a more auspicious orientation. Kolbe preferred the other side of the mountain, and in August 9, 1945, that saved the building when the atomic bomb hit.

* Captain Clarence E. Coggins, 45th Division, US Army serving in the 179th Infantry. After arriving in Germany shortly, he was captured. A general tried to interrogate him and learn of the location of his fellow American troops. He eventually convinced the general that [[Blatant Lies|the German camp was surrounded by allied soldiers]] and surrendering would be the best option. Clarence even drove back to his division in the GENERAL'S OWN CAR, with 946 German soldiers, all their arms, equipment, and vehicles in tow.

 

[[Category:Banned On TV Tropes]]