4

Three Medical Students Ambush a Nazi Death Train

Fonds Kummer

Youra Livchitz, Robert Maistriau, and Jean Franklemon were medical students dissatisfied with a career of saving lives one at a time, so they decided to operate in bulk. The friends set up a plan to ambush the XXth Convoy to Auschwitz -- the train line that transferred Jewish captives to their deaths at the Nazis' most infamous concentration camp.

Pierre Salmon
The Nazis died out. The train lived on.

Yep: Three untrained civilians essentially set up the great Nazi train robbery.

On April 19, 1943, the XXth Convoy was carrying 1,631 prisoners to their likely demise, and three students were all that stood between them and the worst shower this side of a dorm. Armed with a hurricane lamp, red tissue paper, a pair of pliers, a pistol, and balls the size of planetoids, the students set about stopping the train to Auschwitz. They knew that engineers would slow the train if they saw an emergency signal on the track, so they glued the red tissue paper around a hurricane lamp, placed it on a bend in the track, and forced the train to a halt.

Yad Vashem 
Livchitz volunteered to stop it with his bare hands, but the others just really loved lamps.

3

Hugh O'Flaherty, the Priest Who Was Born Without the Ability to Give a Damn

Hugh O'Flaherty Memorial Society

Despite the Germans bombing Dublin every now and again, Ireland managed to stay neutral for the duration of World War II. Too bad nobody told Irish priest Hugh O'Flaherty, who set about transforming his life into a giant middle finger pointed right at the Third Reich.

Hugh O'Flaherty Memorial Society
Nazi trolling was his favorite hobby, other than golf.

While priests from Axis countries had to evacuate the Vatican after the entire country was surrounded by an Axis power, priests from neutral countries were allowed to remain hassle-free. However, after Italy surrendered in 1943, things started to get messy. Allied POWs in POW camps were now technically free, but stranded -- and it looked like the German forces were marching in to take them back. They needed someone to help them -- someone with shining moral character, a heart of solid steel, a haircut some would describe as "a drunken cloud," and a bitchin' orange silk cloak. Someone who could possibly be described as "the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican."

2

Berthe Fraser, Housewife/Mastermind of the Resistance

National Archives

Berthe Emilie Vicogne-Fraser was born French, but married a British dude, because really, who could resist all those thinly veiled innuendos and polite misunderstandings? Then World War II broke out, Germany invaded France, and Fraser dropped the terrible British dinner she'd been preparing for her husband and instead opted to prepare a little blood pudding for the Krauts.

via DiaryOf1.com
Served without spotted dick.

1

Rukhsana Kausar, 18-Year-Old Female Indian Rambo

Outlook India

In 2009, 18-year-old Rukhsana Kausar was spending time with her family in Jammu, India. Located in the Kashmir region that both India and Pakistan claim ownership of, Jammu is basically the island from Lost: there's a lot of drama and a lot of death, and if you try to make sense out of it all, you're only going to end up disappointed.

via SiachenGlacier.com
Not to mention a nearby, unexplained tundra base.

Her mother was presumably just about to start passive-aggressively asking about babies, as all mothers do, when Pakistani militants rushed into Kausar's village. Four guards posted up outside of her house, while three gunmen went in and beat Kausar's parents and uncle in front of her and her siblings. Luckily for Kausar, her parents had stuffed her under a bed before they came in.

But after her parents fell to the ground in front of her, she found she could take no more. Kausar leaped up behind one of the gunmen (who was also armed with an ax), grabbed him by the hair, bashed his head into the wall, and threw him down. She clocked the floored invader with his own ax, seized his rifle, and blasted commander Abu "I feel like my name was made up by racists" Osama into pieces.

Shanker Chakravarty
A pretty definitive way of rejecting his marriage proposal.

She tagged another as he fled, and started a pitched battle with the rest of the militants that lasted for hours. After seeing their commander smoked by a teenage girl, then trying to take her out for half a day with only injuries on their side, the rest of the militants decided they'd rather not risk getting made fun of quite so hard in hell, so they packed up and fled. Kausar's family and village were safe ... for now.

But watch out for Kausar: First Blood Part 2, coming to a hotly contested valley near you.

Evan V. Symon is a moderator in the Cracked Workshop. When he isn't playing David Bowie's Heroes while researching kickass people, he can be found on Facebook. Be sure to bookshelf and vote for his new book, The End of the Line. Matt Moffitt has a blog here and Twitter account here. Also, he thanks George L. for his input on writing this article.

Related Reading: For more civilians taking on armies, click here and read about the real-life answer to the Inglorious Basterds. For creepy war stories, click here and get a load of this Nazi baby factory. Oh, and also the CIA faked vampire attacks.

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