Clancey also gave the Japanese ultras nuclear-tipped missiles. As for Doolittle, its a matter of scale.
A bloke was blown out of the rear turret of a Lancaster...woke up falling...saw white(snow) saw brown (the ground) then saw black...unconscious. Landed in fir trees and hit the side of a mountain, the slope of which broke his fall...from 10 thousand feet! He woke up with a broken ankle.
Nagumo's carriers being caught by dive bombers just as planes were coming in and munitions being switched from land bombardment to anti-ship. but before that, there was the mistake of using the first carrier striking force for attacking midway AND the US carriers.
Buncha interesting things here. We could do a HyFy channel series from there. Dale Dye doing the voice-overs?
How about the battle of Castle Itter, where GI's and Wehrmacht soldiers fought together against the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/12/world-war-ii-s-strangest-battle-when-americans-and-germans-fought-together.html
Somewhere in this has to be Hitler's declaration of war on the USA when he wasn't obligated to do so by treaty. This made sure Germany would fight the three most powerful nations on the planet without any ally that had a decent military force. Really smart!
Consider the tale of Jack Nissenthal........ In my, and many others opinion "The VC that never was" http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/44/a2665244.shtml The most unlikely of stories that happened in ww2 Ron
Pvt.Al Schmid single-handedly holding off roughly 1/4 of IJA Colonel Kiyonao Ichiki' detachment during the battle of Tenaru river on August 21st 1942 is my choice for an improbable event; he suffered injuries that left him blinded, yet he was able to prevent a portion of Ichiki' unit from penetrating the US' defensive perimeter surrounding Henderson Field.