Edouard Izac

Edouard Izac is one of the most legendary people from World War I. The incredible journey of naval officer Edouard Izac began on May 31, 1918, when a German submarine attacked his ship, the USS President Lincoln, as it was sailing close to the French coast. Most of the crew were able to escape, but Izac was taken prisoner and transported back to Germany on a U-boat. Izac, a German-speaking immigrant whose parents were unaware of it, used his command of the language to gather crucial intelligence about German submarine activities.

Izac later attempted several unsuccessful escape attempts, including even jumping out the window of a speeding train, to deliver this intelligence to the Allies. In October 1918, after he jumped the barbed wire fence around his prison camp and made several stops to draw guard fire so that other convicts could escape, he finally pulled off a successful jailbreak. Before jumping the Rhine River into the security of impartial Switzerland, Izac spent the following several days creeping through the dangerous country and subsisting off the soil. He was given the Medal of Honor in 1920 and went on to serve in Congress for several years, even though his knowledge finally turned out to be of little utility so late in the war. He was the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from World War I at the time of his passing in 1990.

Lifespan: December 18, 1891 – January 18, 1990

Nation: America