Wars throughout history have brought out some of the best and worst of human nature. While the violence and tragedy of war often dominates the narrative, there are also incredible stories of ordinary men and women who responded to desperate times with extraordinary courage, ingenuity, and compassion.
Though their names may not be well-known, their stories deserve to be told and honored. Here are 10 moving accounts of individuals in wartime whose actions, however big or small, exemplified the resilience of the human spirit:
1. Irena Sendler
Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who helped smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation in WWII. As a member of Zegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews, she and her network provided the children with false identity documents and placed them with Polish families, in orphanages, and in convents to keep them safe.
Sendler carefully noted, in coded form, the children‘s original names and new identities in the hope of someday reuniting them with their families. In 1943, the Gestapo arrested her and despite being tortured, she refused to reveal any information about the hidden children or her colleagues. She escaped execution and after the war, dug up the coded records that identified the 2,500 children she helped rescue.
"Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth, and not a title to glory." – Irena Sendler
2. Desmond Doss
Desmond Doss was a US Army corporal who served as a combat medic in WWII. A devout Seventh-day Adventist, he refused to carry a weapon due to his religious beliefs in non-violence. Despite facing ridicule and threats of court martial, his commitment to his principles never wavered.
During the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific War, Doss repeatedly braved intense enemy fire, single-handedly rescuing 75 wounded soldiers from the battlefield and lowering them down a cliff face to safety. His courage and selflessness earned him the Medal of Honor, the first ever awarded to a conscientious objector.
His story was the basis for the 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge, bringing renewed attention to his extraordinary heroism and the power of staying true to one‘s beliefs against all odds.
3. Aleda Lutz
First Lieutenant Aleda Lutz was one of the most experienced flight nurses in WWII, logging over 800 hours in the air and helping to evacuate over 3,500 wounded men from the battlefields.
In November 1944, at the age of 28, Lutz was aboard a medical evacuation flight in southern France when the plane crashed, killing all aboard. She was the first American woman to die in combat in WWII and to this day remains the most decorated woman in US military history, with honors including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with Four Oak Leaf Clusters.
Lutz‘s remarkable service paved the way for greater roles for women in the military and highlighted the critical contributions and sacrifices of nurses and medical personnel in wartime.
4. Gino Bartali
Gino Bartali was a champion Italian cyclist who used his fame and cycling talents to save hundreds of Jews in Italy during the Holocaust. Working with a secret network, Bartali would hide counterfeit identity documents and papers in the frame of his bike and deliver them to Jewish families to help them escape persecution.
He also sheltered a Jewish family in his home and led Jewish refugees to safety, all under the guise of training rides through the Italian countryside. Despite interrogation and threats from the Fascist secret police, Bartali never revealed the true nature of his activities.
After the war, Bartali refused to speak of his wartime actions, telling his son, "Good is something you do, not something you talk about." It was only after his death in 2000 that the full extent of his heroic deeds came to light, a testament to his exceptional modesty and humanitarian spirit.
5. Ruby Bradley
Colonel Ruby Bradley was a US Army nurse who endured over three years as a POW in the Philippines after the Japanese captured the hospital where she was serving in 1941. Despite starvation, disease, and cruelty from her captors, Bradley continued to tend to the sick and wounded with unwavering dedication.
She and her fellow imprisoned nurses improvised medical equipment, smuggled food and medicine to other prisoners, and even performed hundreds of major surgeries in secret to save lives. When their camp was finally liberated in 1945, Bradley weighed just 86 pounds.
After the war, she continued her distinguished military nursing career, serving in the Korean War where she helped establish the first MASH unit and supervised the evacuation of nearly 4,000 wounded soldiers. By the time she retired in 1963, Bradley was one of the most decorated women in US military history.
Her astonishing endurance, skill, and commitment to her patients in the face of extreme hardship exemplify the crucial role and profound sacrifices of military nurses in wartime.
6. Rabe Nanking
John Rabe was a German businessman and Nazi Party member who is credited with saving an estimated 200,000 Chinese civilians during the infamous "Rape of Nanking" in 1937-38, when Japanese forces brutally massacred and assaulted residents of the city.
As the atrocities unfolded, Rabe and other foreign nationals established the Nanking Safety Zone, a demilitarized area where they offered shelter and protection to Chinese refugees. Rabe used his Nazi Party membership to try to influence the Japanese to stop the violence, repeatedly sending reports and appeals to Hitler and the Japanese government.
Within the Safety Zone, he worked tirelessly to provide food, housing, and medical care to thousands of traumatized survivors and personally intervened to stop assaults and executions by Japanese soldiers. His home alone harbored over 600 refugees.
After returning to Germany in 1938, Rabe was denounced by the Gestapo and eventually stripped of his Nazi Party membership for his actions in Nanking. He and his family lived in poverty for the remainder of his life, subsisting on care packages sent by the grateful people of Nanking as a token of their appreciation for the lives he helped save.
7. Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker was a world-renowned African-American dancer and singer who became a spy for the French Resistance during WWII. After the Nazis invaded France, Baker used her fame and charm to gather information at embassy parties and high society gatherings, which she would write in invisible ink on her sheet music and smuggle out in her underwear.
As an entertainer, she had an excuse to travel widely across Europe and could carry classified information for transmission to England without raising suspicion. She also used her chateau in France to provide safe haven for people persecuted by the Nazis, including refugees and members of the resistance.
For her efforts, Baker was named a sub-lieutenant in the Women‘s Auxiliary of the French Air Force and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour, France‘s highest military honors. She was also the first American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral.
Baker‘s extraordinary espionage demonstrates how fame could be leveraged for a greater cause and how members of the entertainment industry made significant, often unsung contributions to the war effort.
8. Nancy Wake
Nancy Wake was one of the most decorated servicewoman of WWII for her work as a British Special Operations Executive agent assisting the French Resistance. After witnessing Nazi brutality against Jews and refugees in Europe, the Australian expat joined the SOE in 1940 and was sent to France to help establish resistance networks and supply drops.
Nicknamed "The White Mouse" by the Gestapo for her ability to elude capture, Wake served as a courier and later led thousands of resistance fighters in guerrilla warfare and sabotage missions against the Nazis. She was their most wanted person, with a 5 million franc bounty on her head.
Ever the fearless fighter, Wake once killed an SS sentry with her bare hands to prevent him from raising the alarm during a raid. By the end of the war, she was credited with helping hundreds of Allied soldiers escape and was awarded the George Medal, the US Medal of Freedom, and the Croix de Guerre with multiple palms.
"I hate wars and violence but if they come I don‘t see why we women should just wave our men a proud goodbye and then knit them balaclavas." – Nancy Wake
9. Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki was a Polish resistance fighter who voluntarily got himself arrested and sent to Auschwitz in 1940 to gather intelligence about the camp and organize resistance from the inside. He sent detailed reports about the horrific conditions and mass executions to the Polish resistance, which passed them to the British government.
While imprisoned, Pilecki also worked to improve inmate morale, created secret resistance groups, and prepared them for a potential uprising. After nearly three years in the camp, he escaped and presented a detailed report on the atrocities and his activities, which became one of the earliest and most comprehensive accounts of the Holocaust.
Pilecki later fought in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After the war, he was executed by the Communist Polish government on trumped up charges. The courageous self-sacrifice and vital intelligence work of Pilecki and other resistance members in the camps played a crucial role in informing the world about Nazi war crimes.
10. Hannie Schaft
Hannie Schaft was a young Dutch resistance fighter known as "the girl with the red hair." A brilliant law student, she joined the resistance after seeing the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands and initially assisted by stealing identification cards to help Jews evade the Nazis.
Later, as a member of a clandestine group, Schaft carried out assassinations of Nazi collaborators and attacks on German occupiers. Her signature fiery hair made her a recognizable figure. Shortly before the end of the war in 1945, the Nazis arrested Schaft at a routine checkpoint.
When asked if she was the girl with the red hair, she defiantly replied "You have me now," sealing her fate. Just three weeks before the country‘s liberation, the 24-year-old was executed by Dutch Nazi collaborators. Her courage and dedication to justice made Schaft a folk hero and symbol of Dutch resistance.
From sheltering refugees to resisting occupying forces, saving lives on the battlefield to documenting atrocities, these 10 remarkable men and women responded to the horrors of war with selfless resolve. Their stories remind us of the extraordinary capacity for courage, compassion, and heroism that exists within ordinary people during extraordinarily trying times. May we always remember and honor their sacrifices.
