They all defied the odds and some of them paid a high price -.

(From Canberra Times)

T HE AUTHOR has cast a wide net across the 20th century and four major wars to collect the unsung heroes of his title. The most bizarre story is of Sergeant Kunze, of the 24th Infantry, Brandenburg Regiment, in World War I. In February 1916 the Germans launched four regiments against the frontier forts of the French at Verdun in an effort to break the deadlock of bloody trench fighting. In the protracted battles that followed, both sides were to suffer hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. One of the main targets was Fort Douaumont, an ''impregnable'' mass of steel and concrete, normally bristling with guns - but many had been withdrawn. As 24-year-old Kunze led his patrol of 12 towards the fort there was a strange lack of fire except from their own rear artillery. Separated from his men, he struggled through wire and moat defences and clambered into an …