# History's greatest acts of bravery and cowardice **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 29, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311 "2009-06-29T03:14:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/21 "2009-06-29T14:10:41Z")
Lots of military stuff here, for obvious reasons, but I’ll always have incredible admiration for the courage of civilians in facing down the military in protest situations, with Tank Man obviously springing to mind. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/22 "2009-06-29T14:17:22Z")
Oskar Schindler immediately comes to my mind. Whatever his motives were, his protection of “his Jews” was a lonely **protracted** endeavour fraught with danger to his very life, not to mention the sacrifice of his priveleged lifestyle. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/23 "2009-06-29T14:54:35Z")
Leonidas and the 300 … holding Thermopylae against the entire Persian Army. “Go tell the Spartans, passerby, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.” – Epitaph for them by Simonides ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/24 "2009-06-29T15:12:59Z")
I think I have always thought that the bravest thing I have ever heard of is the old women of the nomadic northern tribes who were expected to sit in the snow and die when there wasn’t enough food to keep the family going. It was also these women who were expected to leave the babies behind if the food situation was bad enough. There are stories of women who try to keep their families alive by giving whatever food that comes in to their children. Those quiet acts of women who will do anything to ensure the survival of their clan, mostly un-noted in history, provide a bravery I hope I could emulate, but am unsure that I have in me. I think that there may be a difference in male and female bravery. The male being doing something that may result in the sacrifice of their lives. The female bravery being not doing something that will result in the sacrifice of their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/25 "2009-06-29T15:29:10Z")
Yeah, no [men](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Oates) ever do anything like that. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/26 "2009-06-29T15:34:23Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > The sixteen bomber crews that flew the Doolittle raid off the Hornet. > > A one-way flight, effectively defenseless save for the element of surprise, launched hundreds of miles before it’s intent due to being spotted by fishing trawlers, heading down out of gas in China with a dice-roll as to whether they would find a friendly strip in hostile Jap territory, followed by a make-it-up-as-you-go-along plan for what to do if/when you actually made it down safely, and how to get back home. > > Plus they were launched off a ship that wasn’t nearly long enough for the B-25s. > > Now that took some sack between the legs. And they all volunteered. Frankly, kamikaze pilots had it worse. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/27 "2009-06-29T15:47:43Z")
> [@pancakes3](#): > > Alvin York Heck…read the list of Medal of Honor recipients and you can find lots of guys like this. Not to demean anything York did at all. Just that there are numerous accounts of such bravery. Audie Murphy leaps to mind as in York’s club. There are others. (I seem to recall one MoH recipient who single handedly captured so many Germans in WWII that when he was walking them in to the nearest base the base initially thought they were under attack…then they saw one American soldier leading them all in.) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/28 "2009-06-29T16:03:13Z")
I was privileged enough to visit the Gurkha museum in Nepal last month. They appear to have a higher-than-average rate of bravery. In one room they had an account of each Gurkha VC\* holder’s heroism. Each and every one had my jaw on the floor. Things like: a guy who’d been shot in the arm dragging his wounded compatriates to safety before attacking a Japanese machine-gun nest single-handedly, taking out the gunners, climbing on top and dropping a grenade, then bayonetting the sole survivor. That sort of thing. You do not fuck with the Gurkhas. > [@Professor Sir Ralph Lilley Turner MC](#): > > As I write these last words, my thoughts return to you who are my comrades, the stubborn and indomitable peasants of Nepal. Once more I hear the laughter with which you greeted every hardship. Once more I see you in your bivouacs or about your fires, on forced march or in the trenches, now shivering with wet and cold, now scorched by a pitiless and burning sun. Uncomplaining you endure hunger and thirst and wounds; and at the last your unwavering lines disappear into the smoke and wrath of battle. Bravest of the brave, most generous of the generous, never had a country more faithful friends than you. The stories, that I read in awe, made me wonder what the line is between heroism and psychosis. \*The Victoria Cross, the highest award for valour in the British military. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/29 "2009-06-29T16:34:13Z")
“to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew”. > **[HMS Birkenhead (1845)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845))** > > HMS Birkenhead, also referred to as HM Troopship Birkenhead or Steam Frigate Birkenhead, was one of the first iron-hulled ships built for the Royal Navy. She was designed as a steam frigate, but was converted to a troopship before being commissioned. > While transporting troops and a few civilians to Algoa Bay, the Birkenhead was wrecked on 26 February 1852 at Danger Point near Gansbaai, 87 miles (140 km) from Cape Town in the Cape Colony. There were insufficient serviceable lifeboats for all t... I once read an account by a man who had a very varied military career (fighter pilot, air liason with the Chindits, etc.) and his own opinion on military bravery was that the guy doing something active - firing his weapon, piloting the plane, etc. - certainly appears more heroic, but it is far harder on the nerves to stoically wait and do nothing in the face of danger - a common military occurance. The guy actively doing stuff often doesn’t have time to be frightened. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/30 "2009-06-29T16:39:58Z")
I see it was already said. Tank man. Schindler. The battle examples are well and good and I don’t want to appear to belittle them…but when I think of the greatest examples of courage I am attracted to individual acts committed by people that could have easily turned away but didn’t. Tank man didn’t have to do what he did…and knew that by doing it he was doomed…but he did it anyway. THAT is great, beyond the call of everything, courage. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/31 "2009-06-29T17:08:07Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Cowardice? I’ll vote for [the crew of the Oceanos.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanos) Come on you guys, stories of gallantry and bravery are legion. Does no one else have a tale of cowardice and timidity to make our collective jaw drop? _(and no, the story of **Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, who nearly stood up to the fierce dragon of Angnor, almost stood to the vicious chicken of Bristol, and personally wet himself at the Battle for Badon Hill** does not count.)_ ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/32 "2009-06-29T17:23:00Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Come on you guys, stories of gallantry and bravery are legion. Does no one else have a tale of cowardice and timidity to make our collective jaw drop? > > _(and no, the story of **Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot, who nearly stood up to the fierce dragon of Angnor, almost stood to the vicious chicken of Bristol, and personally wet himself at the Battle for Badon Hill** does not count.)_ How about [Robert Ford](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw)), killer of Jesse James? Probably not the first or last “man” to shoot someone in the back, but going into history with the epithet “the dirty little coward Robert Ford” around your neck is quite the stigma. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/33 "2009-06-29T17:42:18Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > How about [Robert Ford](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw)), killer of Jesse James? Probably not the first or last “man” to shoot someone in the back, but going into history with the epithet “the dirty little coward Robert Ford” around your neck is quite the stigma. also note [Jack McCall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_McCall). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/34 "2009-06-29T18:13:02Z")
How about the My Lai massacre for cowardice? On the other hand, the helicopter team led by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr. that tried to intervene were pretty brave. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/35 "2009-06-29T18:15:23Z")
How about the [teacher in Szechuan](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/04/chinaearthquake.china) who left his students in the classroom during the earthquake while he saved himself? ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/36 "2009-06-29T18:23:43Z")
[Arland\_D.\_Williams\_Jr.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arland_D._Williams_Jr.) I always think of the footage of that crash when I think of heroism. ---
**Author:** ![jakesteele](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@jakesteele](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jakesteele)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/37 "2009-06-29T18:31:35Z")
My favorite is on a personal level close to home. My father and my Godfather, Frank Houston, were bomber pilots in WWII. During the earlier parts of the war there was a great deal of concern for advanced German technology, such a what they thought the Foo Fighter phenomena might be a part of, etc. They didn’t know for sure what the Germans really had, but they had to take everything into consideration because at the time they were ahead of us. As a desperate measure they created a secret mission call Aphrodite: Desperate Mission (title of book). It was designed to take decommissioned B-17s and load them to the gills with bombs and radio control them into V-weapon facilities. Only three of these missions were attempted. The first two crashed and burned and on the third my Godfather, Frank Houston, volunteered. The crew consisted of a pilot and a bomb tech guy who would arm everything when they were withing range and then he and the pilot would bail and the plane would be radio controlled to the target. When Frank and the tech bailed, Frank’s chute didn’t open and he plummeted until he hit a bunch of trees that broke his fall and a few ribs and arm. He lived and was picked up by the French Underground and smuggled back to friendly lines where he healed and got right back on a bomber and started flying missions. That is my favorite because it has personal meaning to me. However, the first 10-15 minutes of Saving Pvt. Ryan has got to one of the amazing feats of courage ever done by humans. If it weren’t for guys like that, we’d all be speaking german. And to think, nowadays, most people 18-24 yrs. of age only care about getting the latest Ipod type devise. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/38 "2009-06-29T18:32:18Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > I have always been impressed with the bravery shown at Masada; I cant imagine the anguish that killing your own family would bring, yet feeling that it was better than a life of slavery… Actually, this was probably nothing near courage. More like insanity. Roman custom - but a very solid custom which was almost always adhered to - was that they could have surrendered at any time until they began beaking down the gates (with a ram) or otherwise breached the walls. In such a case, property might be forfeit but lives were spared and the survivors of the seige were usually not enslaved. Second, the Sicarii fortified atop Masada were little better than murderers and thieves, which may have been one of the reasons the Romans went after them. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/39 "2009-06-29T18:36:11Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Come on you guys, stories of gallantry and bravery are legion. Does no one else have a tale of cowardice and timidity to make our collective jaw drop? [Chickenhawks](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chickenhawk). ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311/40 "2009-06-29T18:40:34Z")
The first few men whom flew in spaceships were brave. Heck, they’re still brave today. But back then, with 1950’s and early 1960’s technology, unproven equipment…yeesh, that would take some stones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historys-greatest-acts-of-bravery-and-cowardice/501311.md?page=3)