Unsung Heroes

Nicholas Winton: The British Stockbroker Who Saved 669 Children — Then Told No One for Fifty Years

Sir Nicholas Winton MBE

In December 1938, 29-year-old British stockbroker Nicholas Winton canceled a ski holiday and traveled to Prague, where he single-handedly organized the rescue a...

January–September 1939 Little-Known

The Night Witches: Soviet Women Who Flew Plywood Biplanes Into Nazi Anti-Aircraft Fire Every Night for Four Years

588th Night Bomber Regiment (Night Witches), Major Marina Raskova

The 588th Night Bomber Regiment — all female — flew obsolete Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes on night bombing raids against German positions. They cut their engines ne...

1942–1945 Little-Known

Raoul Wallenberg: The Swedish Diplomat Who Invented New Ways to Save Lives, Then Vanished Into the Soviet Union

Raoul Wallenberg, First Secretary, Swedish Legation Budapest

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest in July 1944 with a brief to protect Hungarian Jews. He personally invented the Schutzpass protective pass...

July 1944 – January 1945 Little-Known

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team: Japanese American Soldiers Who Fought to Save a "Lost Battalion" While Their Families Were in Internment Camps

442nd Regimental Combat Team; Senator Daniel Inouye (Company E)

While their families were confined in American internment camps under Executive Order 9066, Japanese American soldiers of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team becam...

1944–1945 Little-Known

Desmond Doss: The Unarmed Medic Who Carried 75 Men Off a Cliff, One by One, Praying for One More

Corporal Desmond T. Doss, Company B, 307th Infantry Regiment

Corporal Desmond Doss refused to carry a weapon on religious grounds, was assigned to a combat unit anyway, and then — over the course of one nightmarish battle...

April–May 1945 Little-Known