LIFE Heroes of World War II: Men and Women Who Put Their Lives on the Line

By The Editors of LIFE

A moneygrubbing Nazi who spent his fortune saving Jews, a Bon Marche perfume seller who became a British spy, a Polish priest who gave his life so that another man could live. These are just a few of the ordinary people who became extraordinary heroes - on and off the battlefields of World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Life
• Release date: Jun 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781683302117

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The Daredevil of Guadalcanal

Joe Foss

The Marine Corps’ leading fighter pilot fought Japanese squadrons—and hungry sharks—to secure the Pacific base

AP

Dubbed America’s No. 1 Ace, in 1943 by LIFE, Joe Foss led Joe’s Flying Circus, renowned for its aerial acrobatics. Foss inspired his comrades and the nation by downing 26 Japanese planes in World War II—23 during the battle for Guadalcanal. The Japanese lost 24,000 men in the battle, which was a turning point for the Allies in the Pacific.

On November 7, 1942, U.S. Marine captain Joe Foss and six pilots in the Marine Fighting Squadron 121—a team known as the Flying Circus—flew Grumman F4F Wildcats from their base on Guadalcanal Island in the South Pacific. Their mission: to attack the Japanese destroyers that had been trying to recapture the strategic outpost ever since the Allies had taken it from them in August.

Not long after takeoff, Foss spied six Japanese Zero float planes just below his squadron—a significant threat. In fact, veteran pilots liked to say that no flyer was a Christian until he tangled with a Zero.

Don’t look now, boys, but there they are, Foss radioed his fellows. Though his team quickly downed the planes, Foss soon made a crucial mistake. When he saw another Japanese aircraft—a scout biplane—in the distance, he abandoned plans to return to the base and decided to attack. He succeeded in destroying the scout, but at a perilous price: His Wildcat was now riddled with enemy bullets, his motor was dying, and his fellow pilots had disappeared. I was alone out over the ocean, he said, and storms were coming on.

When the engine finally gave out, he tried to glide gently toward the island of Malaita, but the plane went down like a rock, he said. Salt water flooded the cockpit, and Foss’s right leg was stuck under the seat. Finally freeing himself, he plunged into the water and started swimming toward Malaita. But sharks were closing in. He fended them off with a bottle of chloride—a commonly used shark repellent of the time—but no matter how much he swam, the island remained out of reach.

Had his luck finally run out? Three hours after impact, he saw canoes approaching in the distance, but he didn’t know if they were friendly natives or hostile Japanese—until he heard a shout from the vessels: Look over here!

It was a rescue team from a Roman Catholic mission. That night I slept in [the] mission and I had a dinner with fresh steak, yams, and goat’s milk, he told LIFE. In the morning I woke up to hear singing. It came from the church and it was Sunday.

As his fellow pilots had predicted, he had tangled with a Zero and become a Christian.

Born in 1915 near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Foss caught the flying bug at age 12 after seeing Charles Lindbergh during a tour. But recreational flying was well beyond his means. While he was a teen, his father had died when he was electrocuted in a storm, and his family battled the dust storms and deprivations of the Great Depression. But Foss worked extra jobs to afford flying lessons and joined the Marine Corps Reserve as a flying cadet in 1940, earning his wings mere months before the United States entered World War II. In October 1942, he was sent to Guadalcanal, where the U.S. was struggling to turn the tide of the war.

The battle against the Zeroes on November 7 was hardly Foss’s only triumph. He shot down 26 Japanese planes in 44 days and ended his military career as the highest-scoring Marine Corps ace, having played a crucial part in the defense of Guadalcanal (the Japanese retreated in February 1943). Following a bout with malaria, Foss returned to the States, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt awarded him the Medal of Honor in 1943. The citation was, Foss said, both embarrassing and the proudest moment of my life.

Before his death at age 87, Foss served as governor of South Dakota, commissioner of the American Football League, and head of the National Rifle Association. But he resisted the temptation to cash in on his war-hero reputation. I didn’t want to be a dancing bear, he told Time in 1955.

AP

Joe’s Flying Circus shot down 72 enemy planes. When Foss, fourth from left, downed his 26th plane, he tied the record of the legendary World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE/AP

Marines attacked the Japanese-occupied island of Guadalcanal in 1942.

AP

On May 18, 1943, as his mother, Mary, looked on, Foss’s wife, June, helped President Franklin D. Roosevelt award the Marine the Medal of Honor for remarkable flying skill, inspiring leadership, and indomitable fighting spirit.

The Underground Nurse

Irena Sendler

Working in the Warsaw ghetto, she rescued Jewish children by taking them from their doomed parents—and giving them