Historical figures some may not have heard of.

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Vasili Arkhipov - basically prevented WW3. Saved the world.

He was Exec officer on a Russian Nuclear Sub in 1962 during the Cuban Missile crisis. The sub was tracked by US forces who tried to force it to the surface for identification. The sub captain wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo (he thought the US actions indicated war had already started). The rule (for that sub) was that 3 people had to approve a nuclear strike - the captain, the Political Officer (the KGB rep on the sub) and the Exec. The Captain and the Political Officer wanted to launch. Arkhipov disagreed. Arkhipov won the argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

Also Stanislov Petrov, who in 1983 decided NOT to retaliate against the US when the Russian Missile Warning system indicated Incoming. Petrov called it a false alarm - based basically on gut feel. He was right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
 

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Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Jack" Churchill, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996), nicknamed Fighting Jack Churchill and Mad Jack, was a British soldier who fought throughout the Second World War armed with a longbow, bagpipes, and a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword (sometimes incorrectly called a Claymore).

He is known for the motto "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed." It is claimed that Churchill also carried out the last recorded longbow and arrow killing in action, shooting a German NCO in 1940 in a French village.
 
chugginon said:
hmmm, not heard of this one at all. Will google This is a really interesting thread. I think I have my years study ahead of me already :)
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Read this book and learn enough to respect all aussie people and WW1 WW11 history.
Saves you time reading this than 25 books to get the same story.
 
van peebles said:
Read this book and learn enough to respect all aussie people and WW1 WW11 history.
Saves you time reading this than 25 books to get the same story.
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I will look for it. I have had a lot of interesting stuff gleaned from Kangaroos4eva as well, although I did think I had read and learned a lot re the wars, but there is more and more coming out about it now
 
Wilfred Burchett.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Burchett

Australian journalist who got what remains the biggest scoop in history: first foreign correspondent on the scene at Hiroshima after the A-bomb.

But because of his left wing views and reporting from the "wrong side" he was stripped of his passport and has been largely written out of history.
 
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/wa...a-minefield-trying-to-save-an-american.html/2

Friedrich Lengfeld

On October 7, 1994 members of the 22nd Infantry Regiment Society dedicated a monument to a German Soldier from the Second World War. The monument stands near the entrance to the military cemetery in Hürtgen, Germany, the final resting place for over 2900 German Soldiers. It honors Leutnant Friedrich Lengfeld, a Company Commander in the German Army, who lost his life trying to save a wounded American Soldier.

It may possibly be the only monument erected anywhere, by former US Soldiers, to honor an act of bravery by a German Soldier, who at the time of the act, was an enemy at war with the United States.

One soldier who got out alive is retired Major Gen. John F. Ruggles of Phoenix, 86. He was then a Lieutenant Colonel serving with the 22nd Infantry Regiment. To mark the battle’s 50th anniversary in 1994, Ruggles organized an effort among veterans of the Regiment to place a monument in the forest. It’s a very different monument. Unlike other World War II tributes, this one doesn’t honor our own soldiers. This one honors an unheralded act of humanity by a 23-year-old German Infantry Lieutenant.

.
Ruggles wasn’t interested in media attention, and the monument’s dedication received no news coverage in the US. But a friend convinced him that others would like to hear the story.



The plaque on the monument erected for LT Friedrich Lengfeld.The inscription (in both English and German) reads:

No man hath greater love than he who
layeth down his life for his enemy.

IN MEMORY
OF
LIEUTENANT FRIEDRICH LENGFELD

Here in Huertgen Forest on November 12, 1944,
Lt. Lengfeld, a German officer, gave his life
while trying to save the life of an American
soldier lying severly wounded in the “Wilde
Sau” minefield and appealing for medical aid.

PLACED AT THIS SITE ON OCTOBER 7, 1994



On November 12, 1944, Lt. Friedrich Lengfeld was commanding a beleaguered German rifle company. Like most units on both sides, he had suffered heavy casualties. Early that morning, a wounded American could be heard calling from the middle of a German minefield in a no man’s land separating the combatants.

“Help me,” the man cried. His unit had withdrawn, however, and no U.S. troops were close enough to hear. Lengfeld ordered his men not to shoot if Americans came to rescue the man. But none came. The soldier’s weakening voice was heard for hours. “Help me,” he called, again and again. At about 10:30 that morning, Lengfeld could bear the cries no longer. He formed a rescue squad, complete with Red Cross vests and flags, and led his men toward the wounded American.

To the young Lieutenant, the voice crying out that day did not come from an enemy. Nor from an American, nor a stranger. It came from a human being in need. Something inside Lengfeld compelled him to act – a feeling so strong and enduring not even the madness of war could block it. In the heavy silence of the German forest, where thousands upon thousands met death, that glorious impulse for life is now honored.
 
Sort of reminds me of this bloke, have bought a book about the war in Southern Africa in WWI but haven't read it yet.

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have been described by Edwin Palmer Hoyt "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."[1]

....
In 1953, he visited his former home, East Africa, where he was heartily welcomed by surviving Askaris, who greeted him with their old marching song Heia Safari![50] and was also received with military honours by British colonial officials


http://firstworldwar.com/bio/lettowvorbeck.htm

When Smuts, his former opponent, in the aftermath of the Second World War, heard that Lettow-Vorbeck was living in destitution, he arranged (along with former South African and British officers) for a small pension to be paid to him until his death on 9 March 1964 at the age of 94
 
medusala said:
Sort of reminds me of this bloke, have bought a book about the war in Southern Africa in WWI but haven't read it yet.

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have been described by Edwin Palmer Hoyt "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."[1]

....
In 1953, he visited his former home, East Africa, where he was heartily welcomed by surviving Askaris, who greeted him with their old marching song Heia Safari![50] and was also received with military honours by British colonial officials


http://firstworldwar.com/bio/lettowvorbeck.htm

When Smuts, his former opponent, in the aftermath of the Second World War, heard that Lettow-Vorbeck was living in destitution, he arranged (along with former South African and British officers) for a small pension to be paid to him until his death on 9 March 1964 at the age of 94
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He surrendered several days after the armistice and he also detested the Nazi's and had nothing to do with them.
 

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Kangaroos4eva said:
He is known for the motto "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed." It is claimed that Churchill also carried out the last recorded longbow and arrow killing in action, shooting a German NCO in 1940 in a French village.
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Hadn't heard that. He was an odd cat.
 
Eric Blair said:
I remember reading that he once told Hitler to fU@k off when he offered him a job
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Pretty much, he refused to swear the oath of allegiance that kept so many German officers commit to hitler's regime to the bitter end, even though most detested the man for interfering with the German military state that had existed since Bismarck.
 
medusala said:
Sort of reminds me of this bloke, have bought a book about the war in Southern Africa in WWI but haven't read it yet.

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck (20 March 1870 – 9 March 1964) was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of its forces in the German East Africa campaign. For four years, with a force that never exceeded about 14,000 (3,000 Germans and 11,000 Africans), he held in check a much larger force of 300,000 British, Belgian, and Portuguese troops. Essentially undefeated in the field, Lettow-Vorbeck was the only German commander to successfully invade imperial British soil during the First World War. His exploits in the campaign have been described by Edwin Palmer Hoyt "as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful."[1]

....
In 1953, he visited his former home, East Africa, where he was heartily welcomed by surviving Askaris, who greeted him with their old marching song Heia Safari![50] and was also received with military honours by British colonial officials


http://firstworldwar.com/bio/lettowvorbeck.htm

When Smuts, his former opponent, in the aftermath of the Second World War, heard that Lettow-Vorbeck was living in destitution, he arranged (along with former South African and British officers) for a small pension to be paid to him until his death on 9 March 1964 at the age of 94
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William Boyd's An Ice Cream War is set around this and a fascinating read.
 
Just read this incredible story today:

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...bies-star-and-nagasaki-survivor-cecil-ramalli

Cecil Ramalli was both the first indigenous player and the first Asian player for the Wallabies. Was an absolute superstar by 20 and was supposed to tour the British Isles in 1939, but WWII broke out just before their ship arrived in London. Joined the army and was taken as a POW, surviving the Thai-Burma railway and the bombing of Nagasaki. Sounds like an absolute legend of a bloke and really should be a household name in this country.
 
John Rabe:

John Heinrich Detlev Rabe (November 23, 1882 – January 5, 1950) was a German businessman who is best known for his efforts to stop the atrocities of the Japanese army during the Nanking Occupation and his work to protect and help the Chinese civilians during the event. The Nanking Safety Zone, which he helped to establish, sheltered approximately 200,000 Chinese people from slaughter during the massacre. He officially represented Germany and acted as senior chief of the European–American establishment that remained in Nanjing, the Chinese capital at the time, when the city fell to the Japanese troops.

The Nanking Massacre killed 50,000 to 60,000 civilians according to John Rabe, while Rabe and his zone administrators tried frantically to stop the atrocities. His attempts to appeal to the Japanese by using his Nazi Party membership credentials only delayed them; but that delay allowed hundreds of thousands of refugees to escape. The documentary Nanking credited him for saving the lives of 250,000 Chinese civilians. Other sources suggest that Rabe rescued between 200,000 and 250,000 Chinese people.[5]
 
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