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Eleanor Butler Roosevelt receives the Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to her husband, 1944
Case file Utah Beach, Normandy · 1917–1944

“We’ll Start the War from Right Here”

At fifty-six, with a bad heart and arthritis that made him walk with a cane, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., the eldest son of a president, talked his way into the first wave at Utah Beach. When the landing craft came in a mile off course, he made the decision that saved the day. Five weeks later he was dead.

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We tell the true stories of the soldiers, medics, pilots, spies and civilians whose courage history nearly forgot, one person at a time. Every story is checked against the record, and every source is listed.

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01

Recover

We look for the people the history books skipped, shortened or got wrong, from every war and every side of the line.

02

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Each story is checked against citations, service records, memoirs and trusted histories. Where accounts disagree, we say so.

03

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Case files

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Doctors Said He’d Never Walk Again. Three Years Later He Saved 8 Men and Ended Up in a Body Bag Film Doctors Said He’d Never Walk Again. Three Years Later He Saved 8 Men and Ended Up in a Body Bag 1 minWatch → The American Pilot Who Bombed Berlin With Candy Film The American Pilot Who Bombed Berlin With Candy 1 minWatch → The War Horse the Germans Couldn’t Kill: Buried Twice, Four Years at the Front, Then He Won a Race Film The War Horse the Germans Couldn’t Kill: Buried Twice, Four Years at the Front, Then He Won a Race 1 minWatch → The Army Made Him a Laundryman. 153 Men Came Off That Ship Alive. Film The Army Made Him a Laundryman. 153 Men Came Off That Ship Alive. 1 minWatch → Canada Decorated Him Three Times. At Home, a Federal Agent Outranked Him on His Own Land. Film Canada Decorated Him Three Times. At Home, a Federal Agent Outranked Him on His Own Land. 1 minWatch → They Stripped His Rank for Taking the Wrong Hill. It Wasn’t His Fault. Then He Took One Alone. Film They Stripped His Rank for Taking the Wrong Hill. It Wasn’t His Fault. Then He Took One Alone. 1 minWatch →
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Desmond T. Doss
In his own words
“Lord, please help me get one more.”
Desmond Doss, U.S. Army medic His prayer on the Maeda Escarpment · Okinawa · May 1945
▸ Read his story
Index of conflicts

Every war. Every rank. Every civilian.

Browse by conflict and front. Each file is cross-referenced to its sources and a map position.

First World War1914–1918
01 First World War 1914–1918 · 10 files 02 Winter War 1939–1940 · 3 files 03 Second World War 1939–1945 · 83 files 04 Korean War 1950–1953 · 10 files 05 Vietnam War 1955–1975 · 11 files
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Doctors Said He’d Never Walk Again. Three Years Later He Saved 8 Men and Ended Up in a Body Bag Film Doctors Said He’d Never Walk Again. Three Years Later He Saved 8 Men and Ended Up in a Body Bag 1 minWatch → The American Pilot Who Bombed Berlin With Candy Film The American Pilot Who Bombed Berlin With Candy 1 minWatch → The War Horse the Germans Couldn’t Kill: Buried Twice, Four Years at the Front, Then He Won a Race Film The War Horse the Germans Couldn’t Kill: Buried Twice, Four Years at the Front, Then He Won a Race 1 minWatch →
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