Gandhi once wrote a personal letter to Hitler.

This letter was the first of two attempts by Gandhi to preempt the onset of World War II. Sadly, the British government did not allow the letter to be delivered. Just over a month later, Germany invaded Poland, an event that many consider the beginning of the war. 
The following is a transcript of Gandhi’s letter:

“Dear friend, 

Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth. 

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to a savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you. 

I remain, 
Your sincere friend 

M. K. Gandhi”

The Soldier who refused to surrender...

A Japanese soldier refused to surrender to U.S. forces after WWII. Instead, he hid in Guam for 27 years.

Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant in World War II, returned to Japan in 1972, 27 years after World War II ended. Two American hunters discovered Yokoi in the jungle in Guam. They turned him over to the police, and he was sent back home. He had been hiding in the jungle rather than surrender to U.S. forces at the end of the war.

Yoichi was living in a cave, eating fish and rats, and made clothes out of tree bark. Like other Japanese troops, he was trained to fight to the death and told that surrendering was shameful. Upon returning to Japan he discovered that he had been declared dead in 1944.

The Japan that he came back to was very different than the one he left. He had never heard of jet planes, television, or the atomic bomb. ''I am ashamed that I have returned alive,'' he said.

Shoichi Yokoi wasn't the only Japanese WWII vet to hide out that long, either. Two years later, a lieutenant named Hiroo Onoda was discovered hiding out in the Philippine jungle.

Source: NY Times