The rescue of the Danish Jews during WWII. After the reverses in the East showed the Danes that their calculation in 1940 - that they would have to live under German rule and so the best thing was to make it as easy as possible - was wrong, Danish civil society moved from passivity to active resistance to Nazi "protection". In response, Hitler ordered that Denmark's 7800 Jews should be rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. The Danish underground movement, local police, and fisherman, managed to smuggle 99% of the Danish Jews over the Øresund to neutral Sweden. As per their wishes, the Danes who participated are collectively honored as "Righteous Among the Nations" at Yad Vashem.

On the night of 45 May 1942, ORP ''Błyskawica'' was docked in the town of East Cowes, receiving a refit, when German bombers began attacking the town in an attempt to destroy aircraft and ship building facilities there. Błyskawica's guns were still operational, and her crew climbed aboard and began firing on the planes whilst still docked in Cowes Harbour. Her guns became so hot that they had to be doused with water from the River Medina, and extra ammunition had to be ferried across the Solent from Portsmouth, but in the end the defence was successful; while East Cowes and the shipyard Błyskawica was docked at suffered severe damage, the destruction would have been far worse had the ship not intervened.

"England expects that every man will do his duty." (Should've been more like 'confides', but that would've had to be sent flag-per-letter while 'expects' could be abbreviated.)

The German invasion of Norway: The start of the invasion. Blücher, the flagship of the German fleet, sailed into the Oslo fjord in the middle of the night, passing by the old Oscarsborg fortress. Norway was neutral, so Oscarsborg was only lightly manned by recruits and old veterans, and attacking a German ship would be cause for war. With the Minister of War and Prime Minister both asleep, and without time to wake them and get a message, Colonel Birger Eriksen made a decision to attack the ship. Thanks to surprise and a newly installed battery of torpedos (the rest of the fortress' armaments were from WWI), they destroyed the pride of the German fleet, giving the King and parliament time to flee.

Speaking of the king and parliament: Prime Minister Nygaardsvold later gave king Haakon VII his request to resign, effectively surrendering Norway to Germany. Haakon's response? "No." Norway is a constitutional monarchy, and the King's veto is purely symbolic. Had any other king tried to do this at any other time, it would have been cause for uproar. King Haakon and Nygaardsvold fled to England where they led the Norwegian people as the Government-In-Exile for the rest of the war. King Haakon's sigil, "H7", became one of the most important symbols of the Norwegian resistance.

Gurkhas A retired Gurkha soldier on the way home on the train takes on 40 robbers by himself. And wins. Even better, the reason he risked his life? They were going to rape a 18 year old girl on the train. If they had just taken the cash and other valuables he wouldn't have killed 3 of them, injured 8 and drove all 40 off. His only weapon? A kukri knife. Their weapons? Swords, knives and thankfully non-working guns.

The Gurkha soldiers and even the Nepalese themselves have a long history of awesomeness. Even as far back as the early 16th century, the Gurkha soldiers were elite and brilliant soldiers. The entire East Indian branch of the English Army tried to subdue Nepal, but the Gurkha soldiers were so good, and all the regular people (or peasants as they were known back then) were so indomitable and brave that not only did they force England into a stalemate, with England having only gain nominal control over them, the English were so impressed and so respected them that they made Nepal a protectorate. They ended up contracting the Gurkha soldiers out as mercenaries, giving them officer ranks, respected them immensely as great soldiers, and treated them with a type of equality that was never heard of even until the 1960s in America! * they were still subordinate to any British officer, but they were treated as valued members of the English army when in America anyone who wasn't white was still in slavery and treated as subhuman. That is pretty Goddamn impressive! These soldiers were so good and valuable that in World War One more than 200 000 Gurkhas served in the British army, with only 20 000 casualties, and receiving nearly 2000 gallantry rewards! That is how awesome these soldiers are.

These soldiers were so good and valuable that in World War One more than 200 000 Gurkhas served in the British army, with only 20 000 casualties, and receiving nearly 2000 gallantry rewards! That is how awesome these soldiers are. On June 14, 1982, elements of the 1st/7th Duke of Edinburghs Own Gurkha Rifles were poised to attack Mt. William, held by Argentinian troops. The Argentinians caught wind of the Gurkhas' presence and promptly retreated, leaving Mt. William to the Gurkhas without a shot being fired.

Former Chief of Staff of the Indian Army Sam Manekshaw, himself a pretty Awesome Four-Star Badass (his nickname was "Sam Bahadur" - Sam the Brave) said it best: "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha." Another moment of awesome from a Gurkha soldier: fighting off 30 Taliban fighters single-handedly. He was largely annoyed that he had forgotten his khukri that day. He made up for it by beating several enemies to death with a fucking machine gun tripod. Which are incredibly awkward at the best of times, essentially three pieces of two-inch steel pipe with hinges.

In 1966, US Navy Commander Jeremiah Denton was forced to do a TV interview in Vietnam while he was a POW, so what did he do? He calmly answered the interviewer's questions while doing Morse code by blinking. He spelled out T-O-R-T-U-R-E, telling American Intelligence that he and his fellow prisoners were being tortured (it is speculated that his captors didn't know he had sent the message until eight years later). He ended up getting promoted to Captain while he was STILL imprisoned.

Jack Churchill , who fought in World War II with a longbow and a broadsword, escaped two different concentration camps, played bagpipes in a trench while being surrounded on all sides by enemy soldiers, and lamented that the war was over because it meant he couldn't kill Nazis anymore.

Titanic's elder sister ship Olympic also had her share of collisions, but unlike her hapless sibling, absolutely refused to go down. The first two cases were incidents with a tug and a cruiser, but the third one is where it gets awesome . Olympic was drafted into service in WWI as a troop ship, and once engaged a German submarine. The sub fired a torpedo at the ship but missed. Olympic in return rammed the submarine and sank it. This is on top of the fact that she was one of the largest commercial ocean liners at the time, and was only drafted due to a shortage of ships. Large troopships were extremely vulnerable targets because if one sunk they would take with them a lot more lives than smaller troopships. The Olympic not only rammed a submarine to death, but survived the entire war intact. This earned her the name "Old Reliable".

The town of Misrata, Libya. During the 2011 Libyan Civil War, Misrata became the only rebel stronghold in the west. It was quickly besieged by Gaddafi's forces, and many assumed it would fall. Instead, the citizens of Misrata transformed themselves into an effective fighting force, holding out for weeks until rebel forces, supported by NATO airpower, drove out Gaddafi's forces. Misratan troops continued to serve with distinction until the end of the war. The fall of Tripoli was another for the rebels. Everyone was expecting that the battle for Tripoli would be a drawn-out bloodbath, with many wondering if the rebels might end up making Benghazi the post-Gaddafi capital instead. Come the evening of August 20, when the rebels launched a masterful surprise attack, quickly capturing the city intact. There was no bloodbath, and no question that Tripoli would remain the capital of Libya.

Operation Entebbe, immortalized as the Entebbe Raid . The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine takes 105 Jewish passengers hostage from an Air France jet, before flying the aircraft to Uganda, where it is sheltered by the Amin government at Entebbe Airport. Israel refuses to negotiate. Instead, they send 100 commandos to execute an operation that took a week of meticulous planning. Defying the odds, they got 102 of 105 hostages out and lost only one commando, utterly defeating the hostage-takers. As a final insult, the Commandos blew up most of the Ugandan Air Force on the runway on the way out to cover their escape. The raid was called "an impossible mission" at the time, and it is still studied by military scientists as an example of hostage-rescue and special operations done right.

Awesome doesn't always involve weaponry and computers. Behold some productive nonviolence that still manages to be badass. Or maybe because it was done by Israelis.

In WWII, when Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Nazis, Czechoslovak pilots emigrated to the United Kingdom to fight in the Battle of Britain. There were lots of Ace Pilots among them with lots of personal Moments of Awesome going on. Unfortunately, when they returned home and communists took over, they were treated as traitors just because they fought with Western Allies. They were falsely accused of conspiracy and treason, they were imprisoned in concentration camps and tortured for years. Shameful and definitely a huge Real Life Dethroning Moment of Suck. Poor guys, such heroes, but such a sad fate in return for stopping Nazism. However, their professional and personal courage is now greatly admired and they are among the most respected war heroes in Europe.

Polish No. 303 Fighter Squadron . After their valiant but ultimately futile fight in September Campaign, many polish pilots managed to escape and joined Allied armies, especially the Royal Air Force. There, they were formed into 16 squadrons, one them being aforementioned 303. Said squadron then proceed to become one of the most effective fighter force (if not the most effective) in the whole Battle of Britain, destroying 126 (297 as their total service from 1 September 1940 to 8 May 1945) enemy planes and gaining utter respect from their allies. Quoting Flight Lieutenant John Alexander Kent: I cannot say how proud I am to have been privileged to help form and lead No. 303 squadron and later to lead such a magnificent fighting force as the Polish Wing. There formed within me in those days an admiration, respect and genuine affection for these really remarkable men which I have never lost. I formed friendship that are as firm as they were those twenty-five years ago and this I find most gratifying. We who were privileged to fly and fight with them will never forget and Britain must never forget how much she owes to the loyalty indomitable spirit and sacrifice of those Polish fliers. They were our staunchest Allies in our darkest days; may they always be remembered as such!

In WWII, the Dutch defence line at Kornwerderzand was not broken after German attacks and only surrendered after the national capitulation. The defenders were saluted by their captors on their way to internment.

In the Pacific theatre, a small Dutch submarine force based in Western Australia sank more ships than the American and British navies in that threatre combined.

The Battle off Samar , October 25th 1944. A Japanese battle group under Admiral Kurita centered around the giant battleship Yamato made a daylight attack against the American landings at Leyte Gulf. Yamato alone outweighed Task Group Taffy Three, the entire defense force remaining in the gulf after Halsey's carriers departed northward to attack a decoy force. None of the defending surface combatants were larger than a destroyer, and most were actually the even smaller and lighter-armed destroyer escorts. Such was the ferocity of their defense that Kurita thought he had run right into Halsey's entire fleet and withdrew.

The entire Task Group Taffy Three was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. They were also awarded the Philippines Presidential Unit Citation. Plus 28 Navy Crosses, 2 Silver Stars and 2 Bronze Stars awarded to individuals. In addition, at least seven later U.S. Navy ships were named for personnel or ships involved in the battle.

Special mention should be given to the destroyer USS Johnston. When Kurita's battle group first appeared on the horizon, it was the Johnston that led the charge. Once within torpedo range, she fired a ten-torpedo salvo, which blew the bow off the Japanese cruiser Kumano, then sunk another cruiser that stopped to aid her. Then once out of torpedoes, she stuck around to provide fire support to her sister destroyers and act as bait to take Japanese guns off the escort carriers. The Johnston's skipper, Lt. Cmdr. Ernest Evans, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."

— LtCmdr Robert W. Copeland, Commanding Officer of the USS Samual B. Roberts, addressing his crew as the battle started.

Also from the Pacific Theater, the raid on Cabanatuan Prison Camp by the 6th Ranger Battalion. The actual raid itself may count, but the ultimate Moment of Awesome is the battle at the nearby Cabu Bridge, where Capt. Juan Pajota and his around 100-storng guerillas managed to hold off around a thousand Japanese soldiers, and managed to wipe out more or less half the Japanese stationed on the other side of the bridge. See everything here . This led to more successful POW rescues in the Philippine Campaign, especially the Raid at Los Baños by 1st Battalion, 511th Parachute Regiment. Some have called it "the greatest airborne operation of all time".

by 1st Battalion, 511th Parachute Regiment. Some have called it "the greatest airborne operation of all time". Said POW rescues also double as Heartwarming Moments, especially the Ranger raid at Cabanatuan, since all the POWs rescued were Bataan and Corregidor survivors who thought they will never have a chance to go home again.

USS Enterprise CV-6 The entire career of the USS Enterprise CV-6 is one long string of these. She earned twenty battle stars, a Presidential Unit Citation, and has the distinguished accolade of being the only active carrier in the Pacific Theater for an entire year after her sister ships Yorktown and Hornet were sunk (at Midway and Santa Cruz, respectively) and still managed to survive the war. And to top it all off, she was at all of the major battles in the Pacific. Midway, Guadalcanal, Truk, Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, Okinawa — it was present for all of them. A squadron of Enterprise's scout bombers even fought the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Of special note is the Battle of Midway. Wade McClusky, the Air Group Commander for Enterprise's SBD Dauntless dive bombers, had set out to search for the enemy Japanese carriers, and his two squadrons were running low on fuel. McClusky chose to press on in the face of dwindling fuel reserves, and happened upon the Japanese destroyer Arashi, which was steaming back to rejoin the carriers after trying and failing to depth-charge the submarine USS Nautilus. They followed Arashi back to the carriers. At the same time, a third dive-bomber squadron from USS Yorktown approached from the opposite direction. In the span of only five minutes, the American dive bomber pilots rendered the carriers Kaga, Akagi, and Soryu little more than flaming wrecks, cutting the IJN's air power in half and completely changing the course of the war in the Pacific.

Really no surprise considering she was called the Enterprise. When Gene Roddenberry was considering a new name for the ship that would be the center of the show, he was originally going to go with "USS Yorktown". Then, out comes the latest in a line of U.S. Navy ships to bear the name Enterprise, and Gene suddenly changed his mind. Art Director Matt Jefferies even compared the fictional Enterprise to CVN-65 for scale. Thus was born the most famous Enterprise of all.

to bear the name Enterprise, and Gene suddenly changed his mind. Art Director Matt Jefferies even compared the fictional Enterprise to CVN-65 for scale. Thus was born the most famous Enterprise of all. The first US Navy warship to bear the name was the Revolutionary War sloop which earned the nickname "Lucky Little Enterprise" for her combat record.

The Doolittle Raid. Twenty B-25 Mitchell medium bombers — which were most definitely NOT designed for carrier takeoffs — launched from the USS Hornet, bombed Tokyo's industrial center, then made it to Chinese territory (though none of the airplanes survived). The actual damage was negligible, but the morale effects of the raid were tremendous for both sides of the war. Sadly, the Japanese then went on a rampage killing 250,000 Chinese civilians in retribution for the handful of civilians that helped the American airman get to safety.

The relief of Bastogne. The city of Bastogne was placed under siege by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge, with the 101st Airborne Division trapped within. On December 19th, the Third Army was fighting down on the Saar border of Germany when Eisenhower called a meeting. Before going, General George S. Patton drafted three different contingency plans, guessing the intent. When Ike asked Patton how soon he could have troops in the Ardennes, Patton replied he could do it in 48 hours — completely insane for an army engaged in a slog. Patton insisted he could do it, and Eisenhower told him to attack on the 22nd with three divisions. Patton took the 4th Armored, 80th Infantry, and 26th Infantry divisions and charged north. Not only did they make it, they managed to relieve the battered 101st. Many historians refer to this as "Patton's finest hour," and it was faithfully reproduced in the movie Patton. It should be noted that no one among the 101st Airborne Division agreed that they need to be rescued. In fact, they did manage to hold the line while suffering from sheer cold, low morale, lack of resources and, being an airborne division, outgunned by the German forces. "Haven't you heard? ... They've got us surrounded — the poor bastards." - Easy Company

This video of soldiers reciprocating to a small boy standing to salute them.

Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I In 1918, the soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (AKA the Hapsburg Monarchy) that were able to return home to Carinthia (formerly a Duchy within Austria-Hungary, now a state/province of Austria) were in for a surprise. The newly-formed country of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (AKA Yugoslavia) wanted to make nearly half of Carinthia part of their nation. The soldiers' response: Take up arms again after four years of hellish warfare and defend their new country Austria, which many people thought would not survive. They managed to fight the enemy forces until 1920 when the issue was decided by a vote. Even the majority of Carinthian-Slovenes voted to stay with Austria.

(formerly a Duchy within Austria-Hungary, now a state/province of Austria) were in for a surprise. The newly-formed country of the (AKA Yugoslavia) wanted to make nearly half of Carinthia part of their nation. The soldiers' response: Take up arms again after four years of hellish warfare and defend their new country Austria, which many people thought would not survive. They managed to fight the enemy forces until 1920 when the issue was decided by a vote. Even the majority of Carinthian-Slovenes voted to stay with Austria. The Austro-Hungarian Royal and Imperial Army had another one in a strange kind of way: when World War I ended, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and the last Emperor, Charles X, went into exile. Then the Austro-Hungarian Army surrendered and was dissolved. The army "outlived the state it was created to defend," as A. J. P. Taylor put it.

Rome vs. Carthage Hannibal gets one for his victory at the Battle of Cannae . Facing an army of over 80,000 Romans with his army of 50,000 Carthaginians, he not only won, he actually managed to bait the Romans into a position where his army, which to reiterate was outnumbered by more than 3 to 2, completely surrounded the Romans. This has gone down as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history.

. Facing an army of over 80,000 Romans with his army of 50,000 Carthaginians, he not only won, he actually managed to bait the Romans into a position where his army, which to reiterate was outnumbered by more than 3 to 2, completely surrounded the Romans. This has gone down as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history. Special mention should also go to Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, especially for the battle of Gerionum. Fabius' disloyal Magister Equitum, Minucius, led half the Roman army into a trap set by Hannibal that would have employed the same double-envelopment that later worked at Cannae. When Fabius was informed that Minucius had walked into a trap, many of his advisers urged him to let Minucius be destroyed, since Minucius was his political opponent. Instead, Fabius, who had earned the then-derisory nickname Cunctator (delayer) for refusing to meet the Carthaginians in battle, declared that "We must hasten to rescue Minucius, who is a valiant man, and a lover of his country." Just as the Carthaginian flanks were linking up to encircle Minucius' army, and as Minucius, realizing that he had led yet another Roman army to destruction, was about to commit ritual suicide, Fabius' army came marching over the hill in full battle array, ready to attack the Carthaginians just where they were linking up to complete the encirclement. The Carthaginians retreated without any further fighting, and Minucius' army was saved. After this, Minucius was formally reconciled to Fabius and declared "My father gave me life. Today you saved my life. You are my second father." That was probably the highest compliment one Roman could ever pay another, so it doubles as a Heartwarming Moment. Incidentally, it was Fabius' strategy that ultimately defeated Hannibal, and it is known to this day as Fabian strategy; "Cunctator," originally an insult, eventually became an honorific, although it took the disaster at Cannae for the Romans to see how right Fabius was. Hannibal was one of the greatest tacticians who ever lived, but Fabius was one of the greatest strategists; Hannibal won battles, but Fabius won the war. note Even though he did not live to see it.

General Eisenhower once tried to have the lesbians in the army removed from service, and told Johnnie Phelps to do so. Here is (part) of her response. He told her to "forget the order". Johnnie Phelps: Sir, youre right. Theyre lesbians in the WAC battalion. And if the general is prepared to replace all the file clerks, all the section commanders, all the drivers-every woman in the WAC detachment-and there were about nine hundred and eighty something of us-then Ill be happy to make that list. But I think the general should be aware that among those women are the most highly decorated women in the war. There have been no cases of illegal pregnancy. There have been no cases of AWOL. There have been no cases of misconduct. And as a matter of fact, every six months since weve been here, the general has awarded us a commendation for meritorious conduct.

Shipping companies from the Åland Islands used sailing boats to deliver goods from Australia to England. In the middle of World War II. And almost no one dared to attack them as both Allied and Axis countries employed companies from Åland which meant they couldn't tell who the goods belonged to.

The Siege of Mafeking during the Second Boer War. A force of around 2000 men and boys held the African village of Mafeking for 217 days against a force of over 10,000 Boer troops. The actions of the boys during the siege led the leader of the defense, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, to create the Scouting Movement.

Jan Kubi and Jozef Gabčík, Czech and Slovak resistance fighters respectively, who pulled off the successful assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the director of the Gestapo and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. Over the course of World War II there were many attempts to assassinate Nazi officials, with very few succeeding; Heydrich was the highest ranking Nazi to meet his death this way. Despite the horrific reprisals against Czech civilians that followed, causing many to question whether it was worth it, today Kubi and Gabčík are regarded as national heroes.

The USS Constitution AKA "Old Ironsides" She is a frigate from the War of 1812. Because the Constitution was made out of a special kind of wood, cannonballs bounced off her, hence the nickname "Old Ironsides". Yeah, that's right, the cannonballs bounced off.

After becoming a training ship at Annapolis, the Constitution was towed to New England at the outbreak of the American Civil War to prevent her capture by the Confederates should Maryland fall. After the war, while being towed back, she dropped the tow cable and made her own way under sail... and beat the steam tug back to Annapolis by ten hours. Despite being at that point nearly seventy years old. The most recent occasion of her getting under way was in 2012 to celebrate the bicentennial of her famous fight that earned her the nickname Old Ironsides.

Constitution is still carried on the Navy List as an active warship, with an assigned crew of active-duty personnel. Assignment to the crew is awarded on the basis of merit, and competition is fierce. Constitution is the oldest commissioned warship afloat. Britain's HMS Victory (of Trafalgar fame) is older, but she is permanently drydocked.



The CCCP/USSR's badass female fighter pilots, the Night Witches. They fought in World War 2, and earned their nickname because they were so successful and deadly, the Nazis compared them to witches. The only two female fighter aces were Night Witches. They flew combat, and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs. Their leader was Marina Raskova, Hero of the Soviet Union. She received the first state funeral of the war, and has a street in Moscow named after her. Another member, Nadia Popva, was shot down three times, and survived each time. Lydia "The White Rose Of Stalingrad" Litvyak was the first female fighter pilot to shoot down an enemy plane, and do you know how many Nazis planes it took to shoot her down? Eight. Zhenya Rudneva fought at the front of the war, died valiantly while flying her 645th combat mission, and, after the Nazis bombed her beloved university, she swore revenge on the university's behalf, dedicating her first bomb to the cause of avenging the university. On top of which, their nickname was largely earned because the Soviet commanders initially didn't think there was any worth in providing female pilots with valuable, up-to-date top-gun fighters, saving those for the men and instead reserving only the most expendable planes - typically very outdated, underpowered and poorly armed trainer biplanes, which struggled to pick up much speed or altitude - for the women. The sound of the air whistling through their cable-tensioned airframes as they passed slowly a mere few hundred feet overhead put the Germans in mind of witches on brooms, even without knowing the sex of the pilots. That they were able to score such victories in planes that would have been considered barely adequate for combat duty a good 10-20 years earlier, during an age of extremely rapid development in powered flight technology, adds an additional layer of awesome.

Also from USSR, Marya Oktyabrskaya, after her husband got killed, volunteered to join the army, but was found unfit for duty. She then raised enough money to (basically) buy her own tank. She even wrote a personal letter to Stalin, requesting to be made its driver. She only got to spend two months fighting, before being fatally wounded when trying to fix the damaged track while under enemy fire, but she still avenged her husband's death and then some - in that battle her tank killed 50 Nazi soldiers and officers and a cannon. Marya was awaded a posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union Order, and her tank became a Legacy Character - her comrades kept giving the name she chose, "Sister in Arms", to new machines after losing the previous ones, so the fourth "Sister" did saw the end of the war.

Some stories must be taken with a grain of salt, given propaganda, but Vietnam's struggles against the French and American (and allies) produced a laundry list of heroes. Nguyễn Tri Phương and Hoàng Diệu, the Viceroys of Hanoi, and their heroic to-the-death defense of the citadel. They failed (Hoàng Diệu's suicide letter, written in blood, was a Tear Jerker) - but the fact remains that they were outgunned and out planned, and yet they were on the verge of repelling the French completely. If the Armory hadn't been blown up, causing resource losses, panic, and decay in morale, they could have stood a chance.

The "Sixty Days and Nights of Hanoi", in which the city (once again) worked itself to a fury against the French. Barricades were built everywhere, including wide streets (which is Irony at its best - after the French Revolution (and the July Rebellion of Les Misérables fame), the city of Paris underwent repairs to widen the streets so that barricades cannot be easily erected.) People contributed whatever they could to erect said barricades, up to and including family altars. (For context, it's like throwing gravestones in. But then again, those ancestors would probably have approved, given prior defense attempts and rebellion.) Other wonders that day were soldiers holding bombs in their arms and rushing French tanks. Planes were shot down by ground weapons. Hanoians destroyed their own houses when the forces needed space to fight.

The entire campaign and Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. Granted, the French were weakened, but the Vietnamese effort to get there is nothing short of pure awesome. Điện Biên Phủ was a valley, at the center of which lie French military headquarters. French generals were convinced that the Vietnamese wouldn't be able to bring cannons in, and if they can by some sheer miracle, they wouldn't get out three shots before a Curb-Stomp Battle. The logistics itself was mind-boggling: Throughout the entire campaign, the Việt Minh recruited the help of 260000 laborers, 20911 loaded bicycles (the record amount one bicycle could load was over 300 kilograms), 11800 rafts, hauling 25000 tons of food. After feeding the laborers, 14950 tons of rice, 266 tons of salt, 62 tons of sugar, 577 tons of meat, and 565 tons of dry provisions went to the soldiers. Other regions contributed more than 7000 wheelbarrows, 1800 buffalo carts, 325 horse carriages, and tens of thousands of bicycles. And yes, they did manage to bring cannons in. The cannons were taken apart, dragged to the front by sheer human strength (several Heroic Sacrifices ensued when the cannons slipped on treacherous terrains, including Tô Vĩnh Diện, who threw himself under a 2-ton cannon to stop it crashing. His last words were "Is the cannon alright?"), then reassembled on location. They arranged multiple cannons on the rim of the valley, essentially shooting French fish in a barrel. The sheer Awesomeness of this was summed up best by the revolutionary poet Tố Hữu:

"Hail to the soldier of Điện Biên! The heroic soldier, with their heads forged in metal fire 56 days and nights of carving into mountains, sleeping in tunnels under torrential rain, eating rice patties Their blood mixed with mud, and their wills remained undaunted! [...] Hands that tore mountains and rolled bombs Opening the routes for supplies to the front And the men and women heading to the frontlines [...] Though bombs and bullets destroyed their flesh and bone, No one backed down, no one regretted their green youth..."

Admiral Yi Sun-sin - Korea's greatest war hero, and arguably the greatest naval commander in history. Just read about his damn career already, the man was incomparable for his military genius, loyalty, incorruptibility and general badassery. Or better yet, watch the Extra History series Extra Credits did on him. It's stirring stuff. His legacy resonated across the world, too-Admiral George Ballard of the Royal Navy called him an equal to Nelson, while Admiral Togo, a hero of the Russo-Japanese war, was fine with being compared to Nelson, but thought that being compared as the Japanese equal to Admiral Yi was far too much.

The Russian brig "Mercury". In 1829, it was cornered by two of the strongest Turkish ships, outgunned ten to one (and one of the ships carrying the brig's former commander). The crew decided to stand and fight. The last man standing was to blow up the gunpowder chamber for a Taking You with Me moment. After a three hour battle, the Turks were forced to break off due to rigging damage, and Mercury went on to rejoin the rest of the Russian fleet. One of the Turk helmsmen wrote in a letter a few days later "I can't imagine a greater act of heroism, but there is no way these guys didn't lose half the crew". The main damage was actually to the ship itself (on both sides - the Turks reported zero casualties due to the Russians focusing on their sails), which spent the next two years docked, but human losses were four dead and six or eight wounded out of a crew of 115.

The liberation war of Netherlands against Spain in the late 16th century. For the last few decades, Spain head been treating her colony Netherlands like crap, ruining its economy and forcefully inflicting catholic religion on the pro-lutheran Netherlands. What did Netherlands do? Make a partisan force ("the goeses") that once raided an entire fleet of Spanish ships, and a union between 7 states to overthrow Spanish reign. They won the war (despite only having 3 million population) and became a leading sea power less than half a century later.

Israel's War of Independence: it declared itself a country, within land given to it under the UN Mandate, on May 14, 1948, as it accepted the UN Mandate, and before that the British Mandate. The Arab countries around it did not accept it. Instead, on May 15, 1948, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and expeditionary forces from Iraq attacked and invaded a number of Jewish villages, and later forces included Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, forces from Pakistan, and forces from Sudan. Other than Czechoslovakia, no one wanted to help Israel until they knew what way the war was likely to go, and even then, Czechoslovakia sent arms but not troops. Israel managed to not only win the right to exist, but also 60% of the land which the UN Mandate had given to Palestine. Call it controversial, but it's still pretty militarily awesome.