Obscure facts. Forgotten heroes. Heartfelt stories that history almost forgot — but we won't.
Staff Sergeant Lomell's story of scaling the cliffs and finding the missing guns
● Pointe du Hoc, Normandy Normandy & D-DayWhat veterans told their grandchildren — oral histories transcribed 2000-2015
● Omaha & Utah Beach, Normandy Normandy & D-DayThe civilian who walked toward the Americans on D-Day morning
● Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Normandy Forgotten HeroesHow one medic saved 75 men without ever touching a weapon
● Okinawa, Pacific Theater Amazing True StoriesThe war correspondent's unpublished pages — the stories he couldn't print
● Various locations, European and Pacific theatersAnswer: Miep Gies was the 23-year-old Dutch secretary who hid Anne Frank and seven others in the Secret Annex for 25 months. After the annex was raided, she collected Anne's scattered diary pages and locked them in her desk, hoping to return them after the war.
Answer: Wojtek ("Joyful Warrior"), a Syrian brown bear purchased as a cub from a shepherd boy in Iran in 1942 by Polish soldiers. He was officially enlisted as a private with a service number, paybook, and rations.
Answer: British intelligence planted a corpse disguised as a Royal Marines officer carrying fake invasion plans off the coast of Spain in April 1943. The body of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless Welshman who died of rat poison, was dressed as "Captain William Martin" with love letters, theater tickets, and documents pointing to an invasion of Sardinia and Greece instead of Sicily.
Diplomat in Lithuania
Saved 6,000 Jewish refugees by issuing unauthorized transit visas by hand for 29 consecutive days.
BritishStockbroker and humanitarian
Rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia and kept it secret for 49 years.
AmericanCombat Medic, 77th Infantry Division
A conscientious objector who saved 75 men on Hacksaw Ridge without ever carrying a weapon.
The youngest American WWII serviceman was Calvin Graham — 12 years old when he enlisted with a forged birth certificate. He was wounded at Guadalcanal.
Otto Skorzeny's Operation Greif soldiers in American uniforms caused so much paranoia that General Bradley was detained at a checkpoint for failing to identify the capital of Illinois.
9,000 Japanese balloon bombs crossed the Pacific to attack America. Only 6 people died — a woman and 5 children on a picnic near Bly, Oregon, May 5, 1945.
Miep Gies, who hid Anne Frank, kept the diary in a locked desk drawer for the rest of the war. She later said: "I only did what was human."