175 articles
Harold Bray (sailor)
Harold John Bray, Jr. (born June 15, 1927) is an American retired sailor and police officer who is the last living survivor of the USS Indianapolis sinking.
Heinrich Severloh
Heinrich 'Hein' Severloh (1923–2006), German Gefreiter of the 352nd Infantry Division who fired an MG 42 at WN 62 on Omaha Beach on D-Day and was called the 'Beast of Omaha'; his casualty claims are disputed by historians.
Heinz Hitler
Heinz Hitler (Heinrich Hitler, 1920-1942), nephew of Adolf Hitler via half-brother Alois Jr. and Hedwig Heidemann, was a Wehrmacht officer captured on the Eastern Front who died in Moscow's Butyrka prison in 1942.
Henry Lee III
Henry Lee III (1756–1818), "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, Continental Army cavalry commander of Lee's Legion, ninth Governor of Virginia, congressman, eulogist of Washington, and father of Robert E. Lee.
Herbert Sobel
Herbert Maxwell Sobel (1912-1987), Easy Company's first commander at Camp Toccoa, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne; removed from command in 1944, D-Day jumper, later lieutenant colonel; known from Band of Brothers.
Hiroo Onoda (小野田寛郎)
Hiroo Onoda (小野田寛郎, 1922–2014), Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer and holdout, fought guerrilla warfare on Lubang Island, Philippines, until March 1974, relieved of duty by former commander Taniguchi; later a Brazilian rancher and youth-camp founder.
Horace Woodring
Horace Lynn "Woody" Woodring (1926-2003) was the U.S. Army private first class who drove General Patton's 1938 Cadillac limousine in the December 9, 1945 Mannheim truck collision that led to Patton's death; he was cleared of responsibility.
Howard Triest
Howard H. Triest (Hans Heinz Triest, 1923-2016), German-born Jewish American soldier, Nuremberg trials interpreter for psychiatrists Kelley and Goldensohn; parents murdered at Auschwitz; subject of Journey to Justice and Helen Fry's book.
Hugh Thompson Jr.
Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. (1943–2006), American Army warrant officer and OH-23 helicopter pilot of the 123rd Aviation Battalion who halted the My Lai massacre of March 16, 1968, saved civilians, reported the killings, and received the Soldier's Medal in 1998.
Ike Atkinson
Leslie "Ike" Atkinson (Sergeant Smack), 1925-2014, retired U.S. Army master sergeant from Goldsboro, North Carolina, who ran a Bangkok-to-North Carolina heroin network via duffel bags and hollowed furniture, not coffins, and was convicted in 1976.
Irena Sendler
Irena Sendler (Irena Stanisława Sendlerowa, 1910–2008), Polish social worker and head of Żegota's children's section, pseudonym Jolanta, who smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto, survived a Gestapo death sentence, and was named Righteous Among the Nations in 1965.
James Earp
James Cooksey Earp (1841-1926), eldest Earp brother of Tombstone fame; Union Civil War veteran wounded at Fredericktown, saloon keeper in Tombstone, absent from the O.K. Corral gunfight, died in Los Angeles.
James Hewitt
James Hewitt (born 1958), former Life Guards major and Gulf War tank commander, known for his five-year affair with Diana, Princess of Wales, the 1994 book Princess in Love, and his repeated denials that he fathered Prince Harry.
James Joseph Dresnok
James Joseph Dresnok, 'Comrade Joe', US Army Private First Class who defected across the Korean DMZ on August 15, 1962; last surviving of four American defectors in North Korea, propaganda film star in Nameless Heroes, subject of documentary Crossing the Line.
James Robert Conroy
James Robert Conroy (1892–1987), also known as Robert Conroy, was a US Army corporal of the 102nd Infantry Regiment, 26th Division, in WWI, Purple Heart recipient, Georgetown law graduate, and owner-handler of the war dog Sergeant Stubby.
Jan Kubiš
Jan Kubiš was a Czechoslovak army non-commissioned officer in the paratroop group Anthropoid whose 1942 attack fatally wounded Reinhard Heydrich in Prague; he died a month later defending a church hideout.
Jaswant Singh Rawat
Rifleman Jaswant Singh Rawat (1941 to 1962) of the Garhwal Rifles was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for seizing a Chinese machine gun at Nuranang in the 1962 war.
Jerry Shriver
Jerry Michael "Mad Dog" Shriver (1941-1969), MACV-SOG Special Forces sergeant from Sacramento, missing since 24 April 1969 COSVN raid in Cambodia; presumed dead 1974, remains unrecovered, DPAA Active Pursuit.
Jim Almonds
Jim Almonds ("Gentleman Jim", John Edward Almonds, 1914–2005), a British SAS original and Coldstream Guardsman, member of the Tobruk Four, MM and Bar and Croix de Guerre winner, POW escapee, and later commander of B Squadron 1st SAS in Malaya, distinct from the almond crop and other namesakes.
Joe Darby
Joe Darby (Joseph M. Darby) is the Army Reserve specialist of the 372nd Military Police Company who in January 2004 turned over a CD of Abu Ghraib abuse photos to Army CID, exposing the scandal; he later received death threats, protective custody, and a Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
John Joel Glanton
John Joel Glanton (1819–1850), Texas Ranger, Mexican War veteran, and leader of the Glanton scalp-hunting gang under Chihuahua and Sonora bounty contracts; killed by Quechans at the Yuma Crossing ferry in April 1850.
John McAleese
John Thomas "John Mac" McAleese (1948/1949 - 26 August 2011), SAS soldier who led the Blue Team assault ending the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege (Operation Nimrod) live on TV; Military Medal 1988, Northern Ireland; later TV presenter.
John Owen (centenarian)
John Owen (April 16, 1735 – February 24, 1843), also recorded as John Owens, was a Connecticut-born American centenarian, veteran of the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War, who died in Carroll, New York, reportedly aged 107.
John Simpson Kirkpatrick
John Simpson Kirkpatrick (1892-1915), "the man with the donkey", English-born AIF stretcher-bearer of the 3rd Field Ambulance who ferried wounded men by donkey at Gallipoli from 25 April until killed by machine-gun fire on 19 May 1915.
John Steele (paratrooper)
John Marvin Steele (1912–1969), 82nd Airborne paratrooper of F Company, 505th PIR, whose parachute caught the Sainte-Mère-Église church steeple on D-Day; captured, escaped, and played by Red Buttons in The Longest Day (1962).
John Togo
John Togo, also known as John Ipoko, was the Nigerian militant leader of the Niger-Delta Liberation Force in Delta State; he accepted the 2009 amnesty, returned to fighting, and died in 2011 of wounds from a JTF airstrike.
John W. Troxell
John Wayne Troxell, retired U.S. Army command sergeant major from Davenport, Iowa, was the third Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2015-2019), the senior NCO of the U.S. Armed Forces, with five combat tours.
Johnny Adair
Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair (John James Adair, b. 1963), Shankill Road UFF 'C Company' commander, first person jailed for directing terrorism (1995), expelled by the UDA in 2003 after the Gregg murder feud, now reportedly living in Ayrshire, Scotland.
Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (1934–2002), Angolan founder and leader of UNITA from 1966, fought Portuguese rule and then the MPLA in a Cold War-backed civil war, lost the 1992 election, returned to war, and was killed in 2002.
Jonathan Idema
Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema (1956–2012), American ex-Special Forces soldier and convicted fraudster who ran a private jail in Kabul, was sentenced to 10 years by an Afghan court in 2004, pardoned by Karzai in 2007, and died in Mexico in 2012.