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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:43:14 GMT -5
7) Eddie "Zigzag" Chapman
"Minor criminal Eddie Chapman was in prison on the island of Jersey when Germany invaded and took the British Channel Islands. He offered his services to Germany as a spy, and was trained in espionage and explosives. He parachuted into England, whereupon he immediately turned himself in, and was turned as a double agent.
Under the watchful eye of British intelligence, "Zigzag" faked a number of acts of sabotage on British factories – earning him the Iron Cross and a massive financial reward from Germany. Later, he reported on the impact of V1 rocket bombs fired from Germany, consistently giving the Germans false information on their impact, and causing them to never correct the flaws in their targeting of London. The Germans never figured out Chapman had been turned."
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:45:10 GMT -5
6) William Overstreet, Jr.
"American pilot William Overstreet, Jr. was one of many who escorted bombing raids and flew missions in support of the D-Day landings. But he was the only one who chased a German fighter plane under the Eiffel Tower. Overstreet’s P-51 Mustang got tangled up with a German ME-109 during a dogfight, and when the German plane made a run for it, Overstreet followed.
Thousands of French citizens saw him chase the German plane under the iconic Parisian monument, and hit it with fire from his machine guns. It’s unknown if Overstreet actually shot the German down (he never claimed a kill from the encounter), but the chase alone inspired a wave of dissent and sabotage against the Germans – eventually leading to Paris rising up as Allied forces approached it. Overstreet died in 2013."
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:47:03 GMT -5
5) John Rabe
Been a while, but another German makes this list. "German businessman John Rabe was one of many foreigners living and working in Nanking, then the capital of China. When the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1937, most fled, but Rabe and a few others stayed. Together, they saw the carnage being inflicted by crazed Japanese troops on the people of Nanking, and tried to stop it. Rabe organized the Nanking Safety Zone, a German-governed area where Chinese refugees would be safe. The Safety Zone, an area the size of Central Park with dozens of refugee camps, was mostly left alone by the Japanese, who agreed not to attack any area with no military presence.
In the few months it existed, the Safety Zone saved anywhere between 50,000 to 250,000 Chinese lives. Rabe went back to Germany, was arrested by the Gestapo, shunted off to serve as a minor business functionary, then arrested by both the Soviets and British after the war because of his Nazi Party membership. He lived in poverty for several years, and died in 1950."
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:50:01 GMT -5
4) Joan "Garbo" Pujol Garcia
"Chicken farmer and rabid anti-fascist Joan Pujol wanted to do something for the good of humanity in the face of the danger presented by Nazi Germany. So naturally, he agreed to spy for them – but only so he could turn himself in to the British and become a double agent. Working under the code name “Garbo,” Pujol ran a network of close to 30 informants and spies paid by Germany, none of whom actually existed, passing critical messages to the German High Command, all of which was false.
His network played a vital, even war-altering, role in Operation Fortitude, the deception plan to keep German forces away from where the D-Day landings were actually going to take place. For the reams of information he supplied Germany, Pujol won the Iron Cross. For the fact that it was all made up, he received the Order of the British Empire. It took 40 years before the public knew Pujol’s story."
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:52:00 GMT -5
3) Georg Duckwitz
"Not all heroes of World War II wore uniforms into battle. And not all were on the right side. Georg Duckwitz was nominally a low-level flunky in the great Nazi administrative machine, working as a diplomat in the occupational government in Denmark. In 1943, when it became clear that Denmark’s Jews were on the verge of being rounded up, Duckwitz got word to the head of the Danish resistance, who worked with Copenhagen’s chief rabbi and sympathetic Danes to organize a rescue.
Nearly 99% of Denmark’s 10,000 Jews survived the war, most being smuggled to Sweden. Duckwitz’s treason was never discovered, and he served out the war as an administrator."
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:54:01 GMT -5
2) Alexey Maresyev
"Soviet fighter pilot Alexey Maresyev was shot down behind enemy lines on April 4, 1942. Badly wounded, he spent 18 days making his way back to Soviet territory. When he was finally recovered, his condition was so precarious that he had both legs amputated below the knee.
Most men would take this as a sign that their role in the war was over, but Alexey Maresyev wasn’t most men. He spent the next year learning to master prosthetic devices that would allow him to not only return to active duty, but to fly fighter missions again. In summer 1943, he did just that, returning to the air and smoking three German fighter planes. He had 11 kills total, and was awarded the highest honor in the Soviet Union, the status of Hero. After the war, famed composer Sergei Prokofiev composed an opera about Maresyev. Its title couldn’t have been more fitting: Story of a Real Man."
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 17:55:30 GMT -5
Before revealing the last person in this unranked list of World War II heroes, I would like to acknowledge Ranker.com as my source for many of these heroes; they often worded the entries far better than I could, so I thank them for use as my source on this list.
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Post by frankthetriviaman on Jun 17, 2018 18:04:43 GMT -5
1) Oskar SchindlerA German businessman, Schindler saved over 1,200 Jews by having them work in his factories. Later in life, he went bankrupt and relied on financial support from the very Jews he saved. It is estimated that today there are 8,500 descendants of the Schindlerjuden; and Schindler's story was forever immortalized in Steven Spielberg's movie "Schindler's List"
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