Heroic People Who Deserve to be Way More Famous

29. A Good Man in a Bad Place

Hugh Clowers Thompson, Jr. (1943 – 2006), was part Cherokee, descended from survivors of the Trail of Tears. Raised in Georgia, Thompson was a Boy Scout from a religious family whose children were taught discipline and integrity. In their corner of the segregated South, the Thompsons stood out for their opposition to racism, and for standing up for and helping people of color. In his youth, Thompson, Jr., helped his family make ends meet by plowing fields and working in a funeral home, before he joined the US Navy in 1961. He was honorably discharged in 1964, returned to Georgia, studied to become a licensed funeral home director, and settled in to raise a family.

When the Vietnam War heated up, Thompson felt obligated to serve his country, and enlisted in the US Army in 1966. He was trained as a helicopter pilot, and was sent to Vietnam. On March 16^th, 1968, Thompson flew an OH-23 Raven observation helicopter in support of a search-and-destroy operation near Son My when he realized that a massacre was taking place below. He landed and tried to get some soldiers to help wounded civilians, but they offered to finish them off, instead. Their commanding officer, Lieutenant William Calley, brushed Thompson off. So he took off in his helicopter, frantically radioed the chain that a massacre was taking place, and set about saving as many people as he could.

28. After the Massacre, A Villainous Soldier Was Lionized, While a Heroic Soldier Was Condemned

Hugh Thompson saw American soldiers chasing a group of civilians. So he landed his helicopter between them, directed the civilians to safety, and ordered his crewmen to shoot any soldiers who tried to harm the civilians. Thompson flew around My Son for the next hour, intervening to save civilians, until his helicopter ran low on fuel. He returned to base and heatedly demanded that his superiors do something until they finally radioed Captain Medina to halt operations. Higher ups tried a cover-up, but word of what came to be known as the My Lai Massacre eventually got out. The brass tried to bribe Thompsons with a medal for rescuing a child from what they described as “an intense crossfire“. Thompson threw it away in disgust.

Eventually, 14 officers were court-martialed. Many lionized them as unjustly persecuted victims, rather than war criminals. Thompson testified, but only Lieutenant Calley was convicted. He served three years under house arrest. As to Thompson, instead of accolades, he was condemned. As he put it: “After it broke, I was not a good guy […] I was a traitor. I was a communist. I was a sympathizer. I became invisible. … Congress came after me real hard. A very senior congressman made a public statement that if anybody goes to jail in this My Lai stuff, it will be the helicopter pilot“. The heroic actions of Thompson and his crewmen were not recognized until the 1990s, after the release of the award-winning documentary Four Hours in My Lai.

27. This Man Fought for America in Three Wars

Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley was a heroic character ready-made for Hollywood. Fittingly, when his character was depicted in 2002’s We Were Soldiers, it stole every scene it appeared in. The son of a West Virginia coal miner, Plumley enlisted in the US Army during WWII in 1942. He first saw combat in 1943, during the invasion of Italy, and on D-Day as a glider man in the 82^nd Airborne Division. His next glider assault came during Operation Market Garden in September, 1944, during which he earned a Purple Heart after getting shot in the hand.

Plumley made four combat jumps in WWII and another one in the Korean War with the 187^th Airborne Infantry Regiment. In that conflict, his fights included the battles of Old Baldy and Pork Chop Hill. As Plumley rose through the ranks, he earned a reputation as a gruff and no-nonsense sergeant. A true believer in tough training and discipline, Plumley earned the nickname “Old Iron Jaw”. He was not a hardass just for the sake of being a hardass: experience had taught him that soldiers had to be prepared for the horrors of combat. The hard training and discipline served him and his men well in Vietnam.

26. “Gentlemen, Prepare to Defend Yourselves“

By 1965, Basil Plumley had risen through the ranks to become Sergeant Major of the 1^st Battalion, 7^th Cavalry Regiment. The unit was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore, when it ran into and was surrounded by two North Vietnamese regiments. In the ensuing Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, Plumley shone. At one point, when he was surrounded by enemy soldiers, he pulled out his .45, hollered to his soldiers “Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourselves,” and rallied them into beating off the foe. Hal Moore praised him to the skies, as an outstanding leader and NCO.

After 32 years in uniform, by which point he had become an Army legend, Plumley retired as a Command Sergeant Major in 1974. He gained wider fame with the 1992 publication of Hal Moore’s We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, in which Plumley was prominently featured. His legend grew, even more, when the book was adapted by Mel Gibson into a 2002 movie, in which Plumley was portrayed masterfully by Sam Elliot. Command Sergeant Major Basil Plumley passed away in 2012, in Columbus, Georgia.

25. The Other Heroic Three-War-Veteran Who Shone at the Battle of Ia Drang

Sergeant Major Basily Plumlely was not the only heroic WWII and Korean War veteran who distinguished himself in the Battle of Ia Drang. That engagement also witnessed the exploits of Ed “Too Tall” Freeman, a helicopter pilot from Mississippi who began his military in WWII when he dropped out of high school to join the US Navy. By the time the Vietnam War came along, Freeman had switched services to the Army, and in 1965, he was a captain in the 1^st Cavalry Division‘s 229^th Assault Helicopter Battalion. At Ia Drang, Freeman repeatedly flew through heavy gunfire to supply the surrounded Americans, and to fly out dozens of wounded.

Two decades earlier in WWII, Freeman had served the USS Cacapon, an oil tanker that supplied Pacific Theater operations, including the Solomons, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Discharged from the Navy after the war, Freeman went back to high school, graduated, then enlisted in the Army in 1948. Two years later, as a first sergeant in Korea, he fought in the Battle of Pork Chop Hill. Out of 257 Americans at the start of that battle, Freeman was one of only 14 survivors. His conduct earned him a battlefield commission and command of a company, which he promptly led back up Pork Chop Hill.

24. “Too Tall” Freeman Finally Got His Just Recognition

Ed Freeman’s officer commission made him eligible to become a pilot. However, when he applied, he was told that at 6 feet 4 inches, he was “too tall” – hence his nickname – for flight training. The height limit for pilots was raised in 1955, and Freeman finally qualified to fly helicopters. Ten years later, during the Battle of Ia Drang, enemy fire was so intense that the landing zones were closed for evacuating wounded troops. Freeman volunteered to fly his Huey anyhow, and made fourteen trips through heavy fire, during which he brought in water and supplies, and flew out dozens of wounded.

Freeman was nominated for a Medal of Honor, but a missed deadline in filing the paperwork kept him from getting one. He ended up with a Distinguished Service Cross, instead. Decades later, the deadline rules were changed, and Freeman became eligible once again for the country’s highest award. It took 42 years, but Ed Freeman’s heroic conduct in 1965 finally received its just recognition in 2007, when he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He passed away a year later, and was buried in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery, in Boise.

23. The Civil Rights Movement Emerged in an Environment of Oppressive Terror by the Klan and Klan-Friendly Authorities

The Civil War freed millions of slaves, and for years after the surrender at Appomattox, blacks in much of the former Confederacy voted, ran for office, and were elected. However, the end of Reconstruction ushered in a concerted disenfranchisement campaign that relied mainly on discriminatory voter registration practices and poll taxes. By the 1890s, blacks were essentially eliminated from politics in the South, and were subjected to the full panoply of oppressive Jim Crow laws. Disenfranchisement was backed by terror and violence perpetrated by white vigilantes, and reinforced by hostile white police.

Blacks were seen as “troublemakers” if they tried to assert their rights, or worse if they tried to organize other blacks to assert their rights. They were often beaten, mutilated, imprisoned, or lynched. It was against that backdrop that the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s emerged and operated. By then, violent white supremacists such as those of the Ku Klux Klan were accustomed to preying on blacks with impunity. Close cooperation between the Klan and law enforcement was pervasive and open. Southern cops denied civil rights activists police protection, and sometimes cooperated with the KKK in murdering them. In 1964, for example, police in Philadelphia, Mississippi, detained three civil rights volunteers, then coordinated with the Klan to lynch them upon their release from jail.

22. The Heroic Armed Black Volunteers Who Took on the Ku Klux Klan

In the 1950s and well into the 1960s, friendly links between the KKK and many Southern police departments gave Klansmen nearly free rein to terrorize and murder civil rights workers. The widespread violence prompted many activists to arm themselves for self-protection. Dr. Martin Luther King’s home had so many firearms, that visitors compared it to an arsenal. Police having demonstrated clearly that black lives did not matter, armed black groups emerged for self-defense. Most notable among those pioneers were the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

The Freedom Summer in 1964 saw intensive efforts by volunteers to register black voters in the South. One organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) set up a Freedom House as a base for its volunteers in Jonesboro, Louisiana. In response, local Klansmen went on a terror spree. They harassed and attacked volunteers and blacks, and burned five black churches, a Baptist center, and a Masonic lodge. So some black WWII and Korean War veterans founded a self-defense group to protect civil rights workers, their families, and the black community in general.

21. “By Any and All Honorable and Legal Means“

The black armed volunteers were led by Earnest “Chilly Willy” Thomas, and Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) activist and an ordained minister. Most members were practicing Christians, who sought to serve their community in a Christian manner. Because of that religiosity, the group came to be known as the Deacons for Defense and Justice. The Deacons had strict membership requirements. They accepted only male citizens, 21 or older, preferably married, and with prior military experience. They demanded discipline in the face of provocation, a commitment to act only in self-defense, and turned away those with a reputation for “hotheadedness”.

Per their charter, the goal was “the defense of civil rights, property rights, and personal rights … by any and all honorable and legal means to the end that justice may be obtained“. Deacons had to pledge their lives to the defense of justice, civil rights activists, and the people of their community. Their first show of force occurred when protests commenced in Jonesboro, Louisiana, against the segregation of public swimming pools and the public library. The KKK and local police organized a caravan to intimidate the protesters and the black community. Twenty armed Deacons showed up to stare down the caravan. Confronted with the prospect of lethal opposition, the caravan hastily withdrew.

20. Standing Up to Heavy-Handed Police

The heroic Deacons’ stand in Jonesboro and its success in cowing the KKK led to the organization’s rapid expansion. Soon, twenty-one formal chapters, and over forty affiliates, were established in other cities. Setting up communications networks using walkie-talkies and CB radios, they conducted armed patrols of black neighborhoods to ward off white vigilantes. Their reputation grew further in early 1965, when hostile police were called on black students, peacefully picketed Jonesboro’s high school over its racist practices – they were barred from taking some classes.

The cops summoned fire trucks and prepared to use fire hoses against the black kids when armed Deacons arrived on the scene and proceeded to load shotguns within sight of the police. The police ordered the fire trucks to withdraw. It was the first time in the twentieth century that armed black people had successfully used weapons to protect a lawful protest from a police attack. Louisiana’s governor was forced to intervene, and he compelled Jonesboro’s authorities to negotiate a compromise with the protesters. It was the first capitulation to the Civil Rights movements by a Deep South governor.

19. Putting the KKK to Flight

One of the Deacons’ most heroic stands took place in Bogalusa, Louisiana, where the armed black volunteers took on the Klan head-on. In one confrontation, a Klansman was killed, and another was injured. On another occasion, a Klansman drove a caravan through a black neighborhood, shouting racial epithets and firing into some homes at random. As the Klansmen discovered, to their shock, times had changed. Unlike prior occasions when they got to act in a consequence-free environment, this time the KKK was met with a fusillade of return fire. The Klansmen peeled rubber as they fled.

In another instance, white high school students had routinely beat-up black classmates, until the black kids fought back. Armed Klansmen showed up at the school, only to be countered by armed Deacons. The Klansmen withdrew. The authorities eventually gave in, and abandoned the town’s segregationist practices. Bogalusa even hired its first black sheriff’s deputy, but the Klan responded by murdering him just a few days after his appointment. The mounting tensions eventually forced a federal intervention, and the US government used a Reconstruction-era law to force the local police to protect civil rights workers.

18. These Heroic Armed Volunteers Were Game Changers

The Deacons for Defense and Justice were game-changers. Wherever the armed black volunteers established themselves, white racists lost their ability to openly terrorize blacks. The group’s branches were effective in affording civil rights workers a degree of security to go about their business of registering blacks to vote. Even those committed to nonviolence appreciated the protection. As one CORE activist put it: “CORE is nonviolent, but we have no right to tell Negroes … that they do not have the right to defend their homes“.

The Deacons were so successful that they put themselves out of business. By the late 1960s, the environment had changed so much that the organized armed black volunteers were no longer necessary. Between long overdue prosecutions of violent Klansmen, gains secured by the Civil Rights movement, and the spirit of armed self-defense fostered by the Deacons, white racists’ ability to openly attack blacks with impunity vanished. By 1968, the heroic Deacons were in decline, and by the end of the decade, the organization had all but exited the scene.

17. The Heroic Antifascist Who Smiled in the Face of Death

Heroic Resistance fighter Georges Blind (1904 – 1944) of Belfort, France, became famous when a photo surfaced of him smiling at a German firing squad. Before WWII, Blind was a fireman and ambulance driver. After the Germans conquered France, he decided to do his part to take on the Nazis. Blind took his first steps towards joining the antifascist fight just a few months into the occupation, when he and others sheltered a statue of Edith Cavell, a WWI heroine executed by the Germans.

Blind eventually became a resistance courier. He used his ambulance to transport weapons, information, clandestine publications, and fugitives on the run from the Nazis. He was arrested by the Germans on October 14^th, 1944, and jailed. At some point between October 15^th and 23^rd, he was placed before a German firing squad, and somebody took a photo that immortalized him as a symbol of the resistance. In it, Georges Blind can be seen smiling in the face of death, as German rifles are aimed at him.

16. Georges Blind Paid With His Life for Refusing to Snitch on His Comrades to the Nazis

The photograph of the heroic Georges Blind calmly smiling at his executioners as they aimed their rifles at him became a powerful symbol of the antifascist struggle. Literally smiling in the face of death has to be one of the manliest ways to meet one’s fate. However, unbeknownst to Blind, he was not destined to die that day. It was a mock execution, used by the Germans as psychological torture in an attempt to scare him into snitching on his resistance comrades.

Blind refused to snitch, so on October 24^th, 1944, he was sent to Dachau concentration camp, where he arrived on the 29^th. From Dachau, he was sent to Auschwitz, and arrived there on November 24^th. There, he was killed by lethal injection on November 30th, 1944. He was posthumously promoted to sergeant in the French Forces of the Interior. He was also posthumously awarded a Croix de Guerre, a Medaille Militaire, a Resistance Medal, and an Honor Medal for Fighters for exceptional services.

15. The Land Down Under’s Heroic Female Detective

Organized crime ran unchecked during the 1920s in Sydney, Australia. Unlicensed bars throve, drugs were sold without fear of the law, while prostitution and protection rackets multiplied. There was also widespread gang violence, and bloodied bodies littering the streets were a common sight during what was known as the “Razor Wars”. Into that chaos stepped Australia’s most heroic female cop, Lillian Armfield (1884 – 1971). She had worked as a nurse for years, then surprised everybody by switching careers to become a Special Constable in Sydney’s police.

The “Special” in “Special Constable” was not a good thing. Lillian was “special” in the sense that she was given no weapons, no uniform, no handcuffs, and only limited powers of arrest. Those restrictions were only imposed on women employed by Sydney’s police. Despite those limitations, Lillian left her mark with deeds that tamed the chaotic crime scene. She broke Sydney’s gangs, wrecked the drug trade, and earned a reputation as one of the city’s most formidable and intimidating cops.

14. This Heroic Cop Was Sent After Dangerous Criminals, Armed Only With a Handbag

As a nurse, Lillian Armfield had worked in an insane asylum, and was exposed to Sydney’s darker side. In 1915, the city formed a Women’s Police Force – the first of its kind in Australia – and encouraged nurses and asylum workers to apply. Lillian fit the bill on both counts, so she signed up. Despite numerous hurdles placed in her way – gender discrimination and sexism were orders of magnitude worse back then – Lillian overcame them and soldiered on. She became Australia’s first female detective, and worked for over thirty years fighting crime and busting criminals.

When she was hired as a detective, Lillian had to sign an indemnity, freeing the police department from responsibility and liability for her safety and welfare. This, despite the fact that she was sent after some of Australia’s most dangerous criminals, armed with nothing more than a handbag. Unlike her male colleagues, Lillian was not only denied a weapon and uniform, she was also denied overtime, recompense for work-related expenses, and worker’s comp for injuries suffered on the job. The final insult came at the end of her three-decade career when, again unlike her male colleagues, she was denied a pension.

13. Lillian Armfield Beat Back an Enraged Drug Dealer With Her Handbag

None of the hurdles placed in Lillian Armstrong’s path by Sydney Police stopped her from becoming one of the country’s most heroic cops. Her employer’s refusal to issue weapons to female officers should have been a serious handicap to Lillian Armfield. Especially since she routinely interacted with dangerous and violent criminals, who had no respect for the police uniform – which Lillian had not been issued, anyhow – or police in general. For example, in 1929, an infamous drug dealer named May Smith, AKA Botany May, grew livid at Lillian’s interference with her trade.

The enraged Botany May grabbed a red-hot iron, and attacked Lillian. The policewoman’s only weapon was her handbag, but it was enough: she used it to beat back her attacker. Smith was arrested, tried, convicted, and received a stint behind bars with hard labor. As that encounter revealed, Lillian did not need a weapon to shine as Sydney’s best cop. In the 1920s, the city was wracked by The Razor Gang Wars. As the name states, they were gang wars fought largely by razors: new laws had introduced severe penalties for carrying concealed firearms, so criminals switched to razors.

12. Taking on Sydney’s Razor Gangs

Two female crime bosses, who hated each other, ran Sydney’s biggest gangs. One was Kate Leigh, AKA the Sly-Grog (unlicensed bar) Queen. The other was Tilly Devine, AKA the Queen of Woolloomooloo. The crime queens fought each other with all available tools. Their goons slashed each other in the streets. Each one snitched on her rival to the police. They even conducted public relations campaigns in the press by bribing journalists to portray them in the best light possible, while vilifying their foe. The heroic Lillian Armfield took on and wrecked both.

Tilly Devine, the Queen of Woolloomooloo, used to be a London prostitute before she emigrated to Australia. There, she continued her career as a sex worker, and added to her repertoire a series of violent assaults – often with razors – that earned her a reputation as “The Worst Woman in Sydney“. She racked up 79 convictions in just five years, none of which carried serious penalties. That eventually changed, when she got two years in the State Reformatory for bloody assault.

11. These Crime Queens Hated Each Other With a Passion

During her time behind bars, Tilly Devine decided to change her life around. Not in a socially desirable way, however: instead of a prostitute, she became a madam. Criminal statutes back then stated that men could not profit from the sale of sex. That left a loophole for female madams. Within a few years of her release, Devine was well on her way to dominating Sydney’s sex trade. That brought her in conflict with Kate Leigh, another Sydney gang boss who resented Devine’s attempts to monopolize the city’s prostitution rackets.

Known as the Sly-Grog Queen, Leigh specialized in unlicensed bars, drugs, and was also involved in the prostitution racket. She was just as violent as Devine, but shrewder: she was seldom convicted for the violence she ordered or personally dished out. The rivalry between Leigh and Devine grew into personal enmity, which flared into the Razor Wars. The crime queens’ henchmen attacked each other in the streets, raided and trashed each other’s brothels, bars, and stash houses, and snitched on their rivals to the police.

10. After Decades of Workplace Discrimination, This Heroic Policewoman’s Bosses Capped Her Career With a Final Insult

As Sydney’s Razor Wars raged on in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the sight of slashed bodies and blood pools and splatters on the city’s streets became all too common. While crime queens Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine went after and tore each other, Lillian Armfield went after them, and patiently tore down their criminal empires. Her most powerful weapons were doggedness, coupled with kindness. Instead of arresting prostitutes, Lillian showed them compassion and helped them get out of the life.

Between that kindness to exploited workers and a ruthless pursuit of their bosses, Lillian decimated the crime queens’ businesses. She drastically reduced their workforce, drove the once-prosperous Leigh and Devine to impoverishment, broke their power, and ended the Razor Wars. Lillian even put Leigh behind bars on drug charges. The heroic detective stayed on the police force for over three decades, and finally retired in 1949. That was when the establishment dished out its final discriminatory insult: unlike her male colleagues, she was not given a pension.

9. The Heroic Ancient Egyptian Queen

Ahhotep I (flourished 16th century BC) was Ancient Egypt’s most heroic female fighter. A warrior queen of the Seventeenth Dynasty, Ahhotep led armies in combat against the Hyksos – Semitic invaders who had conquered Lower Egypt. She took control of Egypt’s throne and armies after her husband was killed fighting the invaders, and ruled as regent during the minority of her son, Ahmose I. She kept up the pressure against the Hyksos until her son was old enough to take over the fight.

A stele records Ahhotep’s deeds: “The king’s wife, the noble lady, who knew everything, assembled Egypt. She looked after what her Sovereign had established. She guarded it. She assembled her fugitives. She brought together her deserters. She pacified her Upper Egyptians. She subdued her rebels … She is the one who has accomplished the rites and taken care of Egypt… She has looked after her soldiers, she has guarded her, she has brought back her fugitives and collected together her deserters, she has pacified Upper Egypt and expelled her rebels.”

8. Aahotep I Led Armies Against Invaders, and Fought to Protect Her Son’s Throne

Queen Ahhotep I successfully led her armies against the Hyksos, fought them to a standstill, and kept them at bay long enough for her son to grow up and take over the struggle. When he came of age, her son – a heroic figure in his own right – took the reins of power, took on the Hyksos, defeated and chased them out of Egypt, and reunified the country. As Pharaoh Ahmose I, he founded the Eighteenth Dynasty, during which the Egyptian Empire reached its zenith.

At its height, Ahmose’s realm stretched from Syria in the north to Nubia in the south, and from Mesopotamia in the east to the Libyan deserts in the west. Ahhotep was not done fighting, however. Hyksos-sympathizing rebels tried to seize the throne while her son was away fighting the Nubians. So she rallied loyal troops, fought them off, and foiled their attempt. For that, Ahhotep was awarded the “Golden Flies of Valor” – Ancient Egypt’s highest military award for courage. It was discovered in her tomb, along with weapons and jewelry, thousands of years later.

7. The WWII Pilot Who Left for a Mission on an American Plane and Returned in a German One

WWII has no shortage of heroic deeds. However, few heroic deeds during that or any other conflict could match the daring escape of United States Army Air Forces Second Lieutenant Bruce Ward Carr (1924 – 1998) from the Nazis’ clutches. Carr holds the distinction of being the only USAAF pilot to leave on a combat mission flying an American plane, and return to base flying a German one. It happened in November, 1944, when Carr flew a strafing mission in P-51 fighter, only to get shot down over enemy territory.

That was tough, but not too tough for Carr. He evaded capture, then stole an Fw190 fighter from a German airfield and flew it back home. It was just par for the course for Carr, who exhibited a daring streak from early: he started flying in 1939 when he was just fifteen years old. In 1942, when he turned eighteen, Carr joined the USAAF’s Flying Cadet Training Program. Luckily, he was assigned to the same flight instructor who had taught him how to fly back in 1939.

6. A Heroic Pilot So Good He Scared an Enemy Flyer Into Killing Himself

Bruce Carr’s previous flight experience got him sent to Spence Airfield in Georgia, for an accelerated pilot training program flying P-40 Warhawk fighters. After 240 hours in the air, he graduated as a flight officer in late August 1943, and was sent for additional specialized training. It included qualifying in early models of the North American P-51 Mustang fighter, and its ground attack and dive-bombing variant, the A-36 Apache. Carr was sent to England in early 1944, and was assigned to the 380^th Fighter Squadron, 363^rd Fighter Group, Ninth Air Force.

Until then, Carr had never flown above 10,000 feet. When he took his P-51 to 30,000 feet, he was so impressed by its handling that he named his airplane “Angel’s Playmate“. He notched his squadron’s first kill, and his first heroic deed of the war, on March 8^th, 1944. That day, Carr attacked a Messerschmitt Bf 109 near Berlin and chased it to near-ground-level while firing his guns. Only one hit the enemy fighter, but its pilot panicked. Unable to escape from Carr, the Luftwaffe airman decided to abandon his plane and parachute to the ground. Unfortunately for the German, he jumped too close to the ground for his parachute to fully open.

5. This Pilot’s Heroic Flying Was Seen by His Superiors as “Overaggressive”

Bruce Carr’s superior airmanship that scared an enemy into abandoning his plane and unintentionally killing himself was heroic. Unfortunately, Carr’s superiors refused to give him credit for the downed Bf 109 on the specious reasoning that it had crashed, and not been shot down. He argued that it was his daring pursuit and aggressive flying that had caused the crash. As Carr saw it, he had literally scared the enemy pilot to death, and caused him to kill himself. It did him no good.

Carr was not only denied credit for his first kill, his aggressive airmanship was seen as “overaggressive” by his superiors. So he was transferred to 353^rd Squadron, 354^th Fighter Group. It was his old squadron’s and fighter group’s loss. Carr fit in better with his new outfit, and became one of the 354^th Fighter Group’s top aces. His deadly streak started on June 14^th, 1944, when he was credited with a probable kill of a Bf 109 over Normandy, France. Three days later, on the 17^th, he shared a kill when he helped another pilot down a Focke-Wulf Fw 190.

4. Shot Down Behind Enemy Lines

Bruce Carr’s daring flying got him noticed, and in August 1944, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. On September 12^th, 1944, Second Lieutenant Carr’s squadron strafed Ju-88 bombers on a German airfield. On the way back, his flight spotted more than 30 Fw 190s two thousand feet below them. The Americans pounced, and in-display of daring airmanship, Carr personally shot down three enemy fighters in just a few minutes – an aerial hat trick. He then escorted a fellow American pilot, whose airplane was severely damaged, back to base.

Carr’s heroic exploits that day earned him a Silver Star, America’s third-highest decoration for valor in combat. He became an ace on October 29^th, 1944, when he shot down two more Bf 109s over Germany. Four days later, while leading his flight on a strafing run over a German airfield in Czechoslovakia, Carr’s P-51, Angel’s Playmate, was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He bailed out from his fatally damaged plane and parachuted safely to earth. Carr had escaped death in the air. Now he set out to escape Germans on the ground.

3. A Heroic Escape Plan

Bruce Carr found himself stranded hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. He evaded capture for several days, but the going was rough. Eventually, cold, wet, exhausted, and starving, he decided to surrender. He knew that German airmen treated enemy airmen better than other POWs, so he headed to a Luftwaffe airfield that he had spotted. He made it to the surrounding fence, and decided to hide in adjacent woods that night, then walk up to the front gate and surrender the following morning. However, Carr saw something that made him change his mind: German ground-crew fueling and performing maintenance on an Fw 190 at the edge of a runway, close to his hiding spot.

When they were done, the Germans tightened the panels back on the plane and left, leaving it ready for combat the following morning. A plan began to form in Carr’s mind – more heroic than anything he had pulled off thus far. That night, Carr worked up the nerve to sneak up to the enemy fighter, and climbed into its cockpit. He fought off sleep until dawn’s early light allowed him to inspect the instruments. Everything was labeled in German, but there were enough similarities between the German and American cockpits for Carr to guesstimate what did what.

2. This Airman Pulled Off One of the Most Extraordinary and Heroic Escapes of WWII

Bruce Carr found the Fw 190’s starter lever, spent half an hour building up his courage, then pulled it. Nothing happened. German starters worked the other way around. He eventually pushed it forward instead of pull it back, and the fighter’s BMW motor roared to life. Carr dared not risk his escape by wasting any time taxing to and lining up on the runway. Pouring on full throttle, he raced across a corner of the airfield, between two airplane hangars, then over the heads of sleepy and befuddled Germans. Upon reaching Allied territory, ground troops opened fire on the American pilot’s Fw 190.

To avoid friendly fire, Carr flew just above treetop at 350 mph. After flying about 200 miles, he reached his airfield. Unable to deploy the landing gear or communicate via radio, Carr made decided to make an immediate belly landing before his own airfield’s defenses blasted him out of the sky. Military police surrounded the crashed Fw 190, and refused to accept Carr’s word that he was American. It was finally sorted out when the group commander arrived, and identified his missing pilot. Carr’s heroic escapade made him the only Allied pilot to leave on a mission in a P-51, and return in an Fw 190.

1. More Heroic Deeds After a Heroic Escape

After his return, Bruce Carr was promoted to the first lieutenant and was granted a well-deserved leave. However, his heroic escape was not the end of his heroic deeds, and his wartime exploits were far from over. On April 2^nd, 1945, First Lieutenant Carr led three other American fighters on a reconnaissance mission, when they spotted 60 German fighters above them. Despite the 15:1 odds against his flight, Carr immediately led an attack. Within minutes, he and his companions downed 15 Germans. Carr personally shot down two Fw 190s, three Bf 109s, and damaged a sixth plane.

That made Carr the European theater’s last ace-in-a-day (somebody who shot down 5 or more enemy planes in a single day). It also earned him a Distinguished Service Cross, the country’s second-highest award for valor. By war’s end, Carr had flown 172 combat missions, scored 15 confirmed air-to-air kills, several more unconfirmed victories, and numerous ground kills. He flew another 57 combat missions during the Korean War, and 286 more in Vietnam, earning a Legion of Merit and Three Distinguished Flying Crosses. He retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1973, died of prostate cancer in 1998, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Air Force Magazine, February 1^st, 1995 – Valor: Thanks, Luftwaffe

Ancient Egypt Online – Queen Ahhotep I

Angers, Trent – The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story, Revised Edition (2014)

Australian Dictionary of Biography – Armfield, Lillian May (1884-1971)

Aviation Geek Club – The Story of Bruce Carr, the P-51D Pilot Who Left on a Mission Flying a Mustang and Returned to Base Flying a Luftwaffe FW190

Black Past – Deacons For Defense and Justice

Cobb, Charles E. – This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible (2015)

Cracked – Unsung War Heroes Who Deserve Their Own Movies

Encyclopedia Britannica – My Lai Massacre

Face 2 Face Africa – The Deacons; the Black Armed Christians Who Protected MLK, Civil Rights Supporters Before Black Panthers

Florida Times Union, October 12^th, 2012 – Veteran of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Portrayed in ‘We Were Soldiers’, Dies at 92

History Collection – Lenny Kravitz’s Heroic Uncle

History Daily – The Story Behind: A Member of the French Resistance Smiling at a German Firing Squad

Musee de la Resistance – Georges Blind [French]

Nation, The, June 17^th, 2004 – By Any Means Necessary

New South Wales State Archives & Records – Tilly Devine and the Razor Gang Wars, 1927 – 1931

Straw, Leigh S. L. – Lillian Armfield: How Australia’s First Female Detective Took on Tilly Devine and the Razor Gangs and Changed the Face of the Force (2018)

Together We Served – Carr, Bruce W. (DSC), Colonel

University of Notre Dame, Australia – Tackling Sydney’s Organized Crime, Armed With Just a Handbag

Wikipedia – Basil L. Plumley

Wikipedia – Hugh Thompson Jr.