My father was in the 8th Army in North Africa. He was in a truck being driven along a road through the Western Desert near Sidi Barani when it was attacked by a German fighter. The driver drove off the road onto the desert and headed towards the German plane. This meant he had to steepen his dive and eventually had to break off. In the meantime the guys in the truck were firing their rifles at him (without any effect). He tried several times with the same result. In the end he gave up and flew off.
"Enjoy the beautiful landscape of Central / Western Europe, PTO starts accumulating on your first day, only 10 completed cargo train runs and you can take advantage of our generous retirement plan."
I'm not sure which required more balls in WWII: signing up to fire at low level targets in a plane or signing up to be a train conductor with no air cover
As a railroader, I can imagine how crazy it would be to have bullets just start coming into the cab of the engine without warning. From boredom to chaos in a matter of seconds.
@@ppe4383 how many civilians did the Nazis kill by shooting, gas, and bombing raids? But yeah let's just let terrorists organizations run wild in the middle East and across the world. Civilian casualties can happen just like getting into a car cras can happen or anything else. Think of all the civilian casualties when the world trade center was attacked. Probably more in one day then American forces have in history
As a WWII Air Force living historian I have to keep reminding people that 1) these pilots were for the most part21 or younger, 2) we lost more pilots to ground fire than aerial combat. Some guys dreaded it and others relished the thrill. The sense of speed is quite obvious and shit pops up out of nowhere,e.g. Power lines, steeples,smoke stacks, and the rounds of ammo thrown up by any soldier with a simple firearm. Gotta respect those young men. It was not pretty nor nice but they did their duty, Thank you
I understand your comment, but I remind you that thousands of our boys lost their lives to a machine guns on Utah and Omaha beaches mostly because of no air support actually during the landings, yes before and yes later.. but not during the storming the beaches... Yet on D-Day our fighters were attaching power lines and trains instead of those machine gun nest. Im not saying the fault were the pilots, brave souls they were. But what about 116Th. 400 yards of open beach no cover because the bombers were told to delay the release of their bombs..... Those bomb craters were designed in part for cover. And then our Navy sat off shore while our boys charges the beach with a T-shirt for armor. Drive the destroyers aground and use the machine guns on our ships to help calm those nazi guns. Seriously,,, who plannned this invasion.... Our troops had 12 miles in a higgins boat before the slaughter. That same 12 miles is why only 3 tanks made it ashore, the rest SANK. The sacrifice of a couple of destroyers Vs thousands of our youngest men. Our pilots SHOULD have been covering those beaches, at all cost.... Lost by ground fire as dangerous, what Im saying is thousands of men were sacrificed and LOST to GROUNDFIRE without even a chance, and without cover at all. 3 1/2 hours while our boys were being machine gunned before they sent 2 destroyers to strafe the beaches....3 1/2 hours. Damn the tide came in before the planners even tried to help our boys on those beaches. The tide acted quicker than our planners.. How would those pilots feel if their task was to stand on that beach for 3 1/2 hours being machine gunned..
@@stewartfrye you make a valid point. Do you think this was accidental or deliberate? .. I mean it can be that the elites vs deplorables divide we see in the US today goes way back.
Couldn’t agree more, I couldn’t send in men to what was basically an open shooting range without giving them every chance to make it. Throw the kitchen sink at them bunkers , whatever it took. Seems human lives were treated as just another commodity like fuel, equipment, and food. Loss of America lives were a given
@@MrSwitchblade327 More fighter pilots were downed performing ground attacks like these than from aerial dogfights. What these films don’t show are the hundreds of bullets being thrown up from the ground from many directions because they don’t have tracer rounds. Please…
My grandfather was in the 8th Panzer Division on the Russian Front. He said that being strafed by aircraft is the worst. Followed by artillery. You just lay in a ditch hoping you don’t get hit.
I think you mean tree tops and high branches. The Mosquito was famous for picking up European plant based debris maybe around the tail/rudder. Plus the had two engines which is a great advantage when trying to get home if one of them quits due to damage/failure. But a ww2 single seat fighter allied or axis taking out a telegraph pole would almost certainly cut through the wing and ailerons like a knife through butter. There's no way anyone could have collided with such a obstruction and keep flying/stabilize the aircraft. Even the P-47 would be hard pressed to sustain this kind of damage and still be able to fly anywhere near flight and level. And yes ive seen ww2 coming back with all kinds of damage. But the laws of flight and weight to air ratio means no single seat fighter could loose a wing and continue to fly. Unless it was just a few inches of the wingtip. But even then, some of those wings hold hydro oil and control flaps. The aircraft would have to be at constant opposite lock and one false move would end in a flaming freefall. Not to mention how do you land an aircraft with half its wing missing?... Its hard to troll through the stories from ww2, and know which ones were fact and which were fiction (bs). And this was done for all kinds of reasons.....
Scott McLennan Just give a thought to the Mosquito pilots running in on a target at 50 feet off the ground and up to 300/400 m.p.h. That's why the Germans called them "BANDITS OF THE SKYS" look on you tube and find videos about mosquito squadrons having to climb up from 50 foot to be able to bomb targets and not get damages from there bombs exploding, And bringing home pieces of trees embedded in there planes through low level flights, being ticked off by ground crews having to repair said damage to be ready for the next sortie
Sometimes they did! I remember an 8th air force photo of a P-47D with a piece of telephone pole in the leading edge of the wing. Do that to a Spitfire wing and its gone.
Thank you very much for not adding any music. I would rather hear no sound gay and stupid music on a video like this. I have a couple of questions. Question number one why are those trucks and cars not driving away from the attack. I would sure rather take my time speeding down the road been sitting like a duck. Number 2 why are the trains not under full steam running in there sitting there like big black target
And there was also said that a lot of the locomotives was located at the stations or repair "hubs" and all those where targets by the allies that day. Locomotives where priority targets so they couldnt move reinforcments to the front quickly. But Xander Arizona is probably right that the videos you see is second strafe most of them. Not all clips of course since you see some trucks try to run away. And about the stationary trucks he is absolutely right, they have ditched the truck and taken cover wherever they could find it.
most drivers and passengers abandoned their vehicles on the sound of incoming airplane, why would you stay there? it is not possible to escape with your vehicle
Spectacular footage, thank-you! I came across this video years ago and wanted to show this to my grandfather who was fascinated with anything WW2. Sadly he passed from cancer before I could find this video again to show hime. Miss you grandpa, hope you are watching this over my shoulders.
It's amazing to think that my dad was fighting to scale that bluff on omaha beach while this was being filmed. He lived to raise a family, take care of my mom, enjoy grandchildren. Great guy. He passed 4-1-13 at 90 yrs.
75 years ago, kids in their early 20s were anonymous heroes flying incredible machines in extreme conditions. Today's kids believe that an action cam will make them heroes, and their biggest fear is... to remain anonymous.
Xman8184 Well it doesn't matter who it was directed at, thats how this shit works my friend, and he clearly stated, in writing, "kids in their early 20s", So your comment is outta context and therefore irrelevant anyways. And I am chill, so relax. You can't get mad when you type dumb shit, and ppl correct you.
@@Xman8184 It was young men who were made to murder. they shot mercilessly at civilians who did not judge themselves. they couldn't help it, because everything happened on the orders of the supreme authority. history has been rewritten and murderers become heroes.
Skelytun _ error you idiot. many official documents of french resistance report to US leadership that the airplanes killed many civilians or wrong target. there is many many report about the hate of the europe population about the way USA attacked everything. Sometime populations dvdn says that USA went worst than nazis.
I don't think it's controversial to say that the rules of engagement were way more lax back then and that, as a result, lots of civilians were unnecessarily killed. That the standards have changed is a good thing.
I disagree, but frankly, I think this is a debate that would require data and qualifications that probably neither of us have. My impression, however, is that limited warfare might well be more protracted, but it's still less destructive in general. Look at Ukraine or Libya. I suppose Syria may count as a counterexample in recent times, though.
My Grandad was an ambulanceman in London throughout WW2. Always laughing, he went quiet when asked about his war-time experiences. He had seen some truly terrible things. Thanks to all the old-uns who helped to defeat Nazi fascism, lest we forget.
Yes, it's a good thing that they helped the Soviet communists imprison half of Europe and prosecute the Cold War in all of its forms, including Vietnam. Your grandfather was a good man I'm sure but he fought the wrong enemy.
An old game called Blazing Angels on hard difficulty maybe is the nearest to live this kind of action on shoting ground targets. That was a good game of WWII.
So, I can only imagine the chub one of those pilots would get, when flying around and finding a "target of opportunity"... especially something like a train!
My nonna told me once that a mustang (clearly she only knew it was american) started shooting at her along the road she was walking down, and she had to find cover in a ditch nearby. She kinda told me how that bullets sounded. I cannot even imagine how scary could it be.
@@aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh after that incident I was on a route clearance recce with the engineers checking if certain roads were suitable for certain vehicles etc. We were two vehicles out alone in "no mans land". 4 Apache helicopters flew across our front. The last stopped and turned towards us, pointed its nose down as if to look who we were. My commander half joking half panicking said "hold tight to something, we're about to be blown up" I shat myself... I was only 18!
Yes I thought about that with all the cackling and gloating as we watch Allied pilots trying to kill other " supposed " enemy workers..Doesn't say much for our humanity or civilised behaviour does it .
OR worse, if you're' the pilot gunning down a train car just to find out too late that it was an ammo car and it goes up.. And you're in the blast zone. You go BOOM!
Watch at +1.75 speed for realism and you'll see how it actually looked and the immense chances they took strafing. We lost a lot of pilots to strafing including aces like Gabreski who got so low he bent his prop and became a guest of The Reich.
Lt. Cherry? We had a A7-D pilot back in the 70's in the Colorado ANG who was a fighter pilot in WWII. Half way through this film you will see a Lt. Cherry listed however I do not know if this is same guy that was in our Colorado Air National Guard Unit at Buckley? James
The A-10 can also destroy a tank from 4 miles away with its 30mm cannon firing 4,200 armor piercing rounds per minute. Why do we lose so many soldiers with weapons like these?
No, but there was plenty of anti aircraft batteries, flak guns. It was not a cake walk by any stretch. There job was to disrupt supplies going to the front, trains, trucks, etc.
Notice throughout these clips that the emphasis was completely about removing the means to make war because if the troops and arms weren't at the battle they weren't in the battle. In most of these we didn't see entire trains being strafed but just the engines although those staff cars would have been attacked to kill the occupants.
@@mikek4610 to think they were all nazi’s is moronic.that would be like saying all white people are racist and all black people are criminals.while yes there definitely was a lot of bad people there was also a lot of people doing what they had to to stay alive.could you imagine living in a place where if you didn’t follow their protocol you were killed because I sure can’t?
And of course, the fact that Allied air power had essentially destroyed the German transportation infrastructure in the last months of the war had absolutely nothing to do with the severe shortages of food and medicine in German cities, as well as in the work camps. Especially nothing at all to do with the latter.
It's incredible. Difficult for us to fully comprehend the skill and dexterity that is required. What a fearsome group of young men they were, heroes by any description
@@BeardedBavarianBiker. Highly unlikely. Passenger trains probably weren't running very often if at all in combat zones. Also, the difference between a passenger train and a cargo train is easy to see to even a civilian eye, I'm sure trained pilots could tell the difference.
@@MrSwitchblade327 Why would passenger trains with civilians be running in the middle of warzones? I'm not saying civilians weren't killed, im saying that the chances of any of these trains being civilian transport is basically 0. And believe it or not, but fighter pilots dont just fly around shooting everything they see. They verify their target first.
@@CocoonClub360 Okay, I will tell your grandmother that passenger trains weren't running in warzones. Again, I never said that civilians weren't killed, but we are specifically talking about trains.
I see a hell of a lot better shot grouping with these strafing planes than I do watching a stationary Apache helicopter shooting that ridiculous chain gun.
@@TheCleansingx Plus the ammunition is designed to fragment on impact so they can kill or wound from about 5ft away from where the rounds hit. It's as accurate as it needs to be and has been shown to be a nightmare for enemy infantry
largely ignored part of the d-day invasion is the amount of french civilian casualties.. majority of it caused from the air, either from bombing or these interdiction missions during the invasion. im pretty sure the people driving those trains are french. they are not combatants, but life still went on under german occupation. but the fighters were also just doing their job, hoping to cut off german supply lines and so on.
9:02 The passenger in that truck was returning fire from what I could see but obviously he didn't get off many rounds before those cannons turned him into Swiss cheese lol.
Not a good time to be an engine driver or fireman on the footplate of a French train.many of the trains seem to have been caught in open country.are they really targets of opportunity or propaganda tools we will never know.however this film shows the pilots to be very competent and merciless which is I suppose what you need to be in war
Wow, I'm a HUGE lifelong fan of WWII aerial combat, & have enjoyed the thrilling footage for decades (could u imagine if they'd had HD quality back then, wow!). Having said that, in 54 years I have NEVER felt dread or loss at watching ANY combat footage (other than the GI's) until watching this. Every fiber of my being shouted out to me 'wait, shit, how the hell do you know if that truck is transporting American POW'S or Jews or French resistance fighters? And the reality is simply they didn't. And I know enough about CCC to be aware that it most assuredly occured, realistically numbering into the thousands or tens of thousands. War is so fucking ugly, & I wish to christ they'd stop censoring the gross brutality of it & show the REALITY (this is not directed towards any country or government btw). I had alot more respect for the realism of Saving Private Ryan than ANY sugar coated John Wayne/Lee Marvin film I grew up with, for sure. I go to bed now with a darkness in my heart & unexplainable feeling of loss . . .
this was D-DAY. june 6 1944. transportation was in the hands of the enemy, ALL of it. you are thinking small scale. a truck with pows. how about a truck with 4 german generals? the enemy was siphoning gas at the end. what if that truck made it through till the end and hauled many gallons of fuel to some panzers that got to prolong the war? what if that truck was taking the zylon B gas to a camp instead of food? these men did what they had to do. shut the fuck up.
Believe it or not, image quality was better in the 1940s than most digitalized images today. They were much sharper and didn't have to worry about pixels. At least that was true for photography.
I understand your sentiment, and share it to a degree. But there were no train loads of Jews or POWs in northern France on 6 June 1944. Vehicles were all military or commandeered by the invaders so were legitimate targets but I'm not so sure the horses and carts were anything other than farmers doing what farmers do. But with a moment to decide and being in a very active war zone, these things happen. Both my parents were straffed by German planes when they were children on the south coast of England, those acts were deliberate and in very different circumstances to those shown in the video.
Odds are pretty good that a "civilian" couldn't even get gas for a car. Maybe they should have little flags that say "don't shoot me." Ya, that'll work.
These gun camera compilations are so cool. Miss the military channel. They likely didn't realize at the time how much they hurt German defenses on D-Day.
Everything was point and shoot as far as gunnery from a plane. How rewarding it must have been to hit something big or important especially after mostly missing most targets. The fact they were good enough (great enough) to hit ANYTHING is amazing. Also, being shot at at the same tine.
Poor train drivers they were only doing there jobs but for the wrong dudes. I wonder how many of them had a gun to there heads am sure most had no option at all. Brave men. But such a shame for them and there families.
A bad day for Thomas the tank engine
I don’t think you’ll hear them say ‘not again!’... very short life expectancy for train drivers
Deffo caused Confusion, and Delay....
Thomas did only follow orders
He was just following orders
.....choo.....choo
Could you Imagine the Carnage that would have been Captured on GoPros from WWII had they been around back then.
@Despiser Despised loljust go to live leak or something similar... so much graphic brutality you wish you hadnt watched it
They did have "go pros".
Where you think the footage came from.?
My father was in the 8th Army in North Africa. He was in a truck being driven along a road through the Western Desert near Sidi Barani when it was attacked by a German fighter. The driver drove off the road onto the desert and headed towards the German plane. This meant he had to steepen his dive and eventually had to break off. In the meantime the guys in the truck were firing their rifles at him (without any effect). He tried several times with the same result. In the end he gave up and flew off.
Or like, humans eyes. Its 2020 and nothing happens if it isn't filmed and put on Insta or Twitter. FFS
Gerald Spessard oh really?
Wanted: railroad engineer. Competitive pay. Good benefits. Fast paced work environment.
"Must be bulletproof"
Must be able to work under minimal supervision.
Nicely played M.
"Enjoy the beautiful landscape of Central / Western Europe, PTO starts accumulating on your first day, only 10 completed cargo train runs and you can take advantage of our generous retirement plan."
What about hazard pay!?
Hahahaha!!!
I'm not sure which required more balls in WWII: signing up to fire at low level targets in a plane or signing up to be a train conductor with no air cover
Ball turret gunner on a B-17.
@@richal4596 Casualties were far higher as a waist gunner. The worst would of been a U-boat operator.
The Pilot at least had excitement and control of his destiny
ground level targets
The Germans were working on a locomotive with an ejector seat. Imagine that!
4:11 ruined a family road trip
Yeah, looks like civilian car.
Lmao 🤣
war crimes
*from the backseat*
Mom? Dad?
Griswolds euro vacation was cancelled.
As a railroader, I can imagine how crazy it would be to have bullets just start coming into the cab of the engine without warning. From boredom to chaos in a matter of seconds.
To make matters even worse, having the boiler explode in your face (and the rest of your body too) was also something very common.
No shit. I don’t think the old FRA 223 glass around us is gunna stop some hot 50 cal.
Lt. Sisson had trasers flying up at him at 5:00 😬
@Dream Gary you'd receive the rounds well before you heard the plane.
That would have to be quite the mental toll.
3:04 He drops bellow the tree line.
3:05 nearly flew himself bbn into the ground due to target fixation.
S C A change of underpants was probably needed after that one. Very close call.
Yikes
@@ppe4383 in war mate ya ain't only fighting for your country and freedom but also for yourself
@@ppe4383 how many civilians did the Nazis kill by shooting, gas, and bombing raids? But yeah let's just let terrorists organizations run wild in the middle East and across the world. Civilian casualties can happen just like getting into a car cras can happen or anything else. Think of all the civilian casualties when the world trade center was attacked. Probably more in one day then American forces have in history
@@ppe4383 you act like the rest of the world hasn't and isn't still committing horrendous atrocities.
How did they recognize all their targets in olden olden days when their vision was blurry black and white?
They didn't
ask the japanese
not to mention their eyes were filled with 1000s of eye floaters
Because they saw it thru their windows 😑😑😑😑 you know like how you drive looking thru the car window. 😑😑😑😑
@@Bestoftheworstfishing you're so humourless person
3:20 omg that acuraccy.... flawless. not even 1 round wasted there...
The Polish were fantastic airmen and had balls of steel.
9:00 that's about 15 feet off the ground for sure
Das war kein Meter Rüdiger
As a WWII Air Force living historian I have to keep reminding people that 1) these pilots were for the most part21 or younger, 2) we lost more pilots to ground fire than aerial combat. Some guys dreaded it and others relished the thrill. The sense of speed is quite obvious and shit pops up out of nowhere,e.g. Power lines, steeples,smoke stacks, and the rounds of ammo thrown up by any soldier with a simple firearm. Gotta respect those young men. It was not pretty nor nice but they did their duty, Thank you
Donald Parlett jr
Unfortunately not enough cowards died.
muh they had to do not so pretty things like killing unarmed civilians because it was their duty shit
I understand your comment, but I remind you that thousands of our boys lost their lives to a machine guns on Utah and Omaha beaches mostly because of no air support actually during the landings, yes before and yes later.. but not during the storming the beaches... Yet on D-Day our fighters were attaching power lines and trains instead of those machine gun nest. Im not saying the fault were the pilots, brave souls they were. But what about 116Th. 400 yards of open beach no cover because the bombers were told to delay the release of their bombs..... Those bomb craters were designed in part for cover. And then our Navy sat off shore while our boys charges the beach with a T-shirt for armor. Drive the destroyers aground and use the machine guns on our ships to help calm those nazi guns. Seriously,,, who plannned this invasion.... Our troops had 12 miles in a higgins boat before the slaughter. That same 12 miles is why only 3 tanks made it ashore, the rest SANK. The sacrifice of a couple of destroyers Vs thousands of our youngest men. Our pilots SHOULD have been covering those beaches, at all cost.... Lost by ground fire as dangerous, what Im saying is thousands of men were sacrificed and LOST to GROUNDFIRE without even a chance, and without cover at all. 3 1/2 hours while our boys were being machine gunned before they sent 2 destroyers to strafe the beaches....3 1/2 hours. Damn the tide came in before the planners even tried to help our boys on those beaches. The tide acted quicker than our planners.. How would those pilots feel if their task was to stand on that beach for 3 1/2 hours being machine gunned..
@@stewartfrye you make a valid point. Do you think this was accidental or deliberate? .. I mean it can be that the elites vs deplorables divide we see in the US today goes way back.
Couldn’t agree more, I couldn’t send in men to what was basically an open shooting range without giving them every chance to make it. Throw the kitchen sink at them bunkers , whatever it took. Seems human lives were treated as just another commodity like fuel, equipment, and food. Loss of America lives were a given
@3:09 - that pilots huge gonads were dragging along the dirt road ! 😳 Unbelievable .....
By shooting a ground target on rails with no defense? Please
@@MrSwitchblade327 More fighter pilots were downed performing ground attacks like these than from aerial dogfights. What these films don’t show are the hundreds of bullets being thrown up from the ground from many directions because they don’t have tracer rounds. Please…
My grandfather was in the 8th Panzer Division on the Russian Front. He said that being strafed by aircraft is the worst. Followed by artillery. You just lay in a ditch hoping you don’t get hit.
nazi
Those boys are so low they nearly clipped the telegraph poles.
I think you mean tree tops and high branches. The Mosquito was famous for picking up European plant based debris maybe around the tail/rudder. Plus the had two engines which is a great advantage when trying to get home if one of them quits due to damage/failure. But a ww2 single seat fighter allied or axis taking out a telegraph pole would almost certainly cut through the wing and ailerons like a knife through butter. There's no way anyone could have collided with such a obstruction and keep flying/stabilize the aircraft. Even the P-47 would be hard pressed to sustain this kind of damage and still be able to fly anywhere near flight and level. And yes ive seen ww2 coming back with all kinds of damage. But the laws of flight and weight to air ratio means no single seat fighter could loose a wing and continue to fly. Unless it was just a few inches of the wingtip. But even then, some of those wings hold hydro oil and control flaps. The aircraft would have to be at constant opposite lock and one false move would end in a flaming freefall. Not to mention how do you land an aircraft with half its wing missing?... Its hard to troll through the stories from ww2, and know which ones were fact and which were fiction (bs). And this was done for all kinds of reasons.....
at least you did not call them men
Scott McLennan
Just give a thought to the Mosquito pilots running in on a target at 50 feet off the ground and up to 300/400 m.p.h. That's why the Germans called them "BANDITS OF THE SKYS" look on you tube and find videos about mosquito squadrons having to climb up from 50 foot to be able to bomb targets and not get damages from there bombs exploding, And bringing home pieces of trees embedded in there planes through low level flights, being ticked off by ground crews having to repair said damage to be ready for the next sortie
Sometimes they did! I remember an 8th air force photo of a P-47D with a piece of telephone pole in the leading edge of the wing. Do that to a Spitfire wing and its gone.
I remember seeing a picture of a p51 that had struck a pole with the left wing
Thank you very much for not adding any music. I would rather hear no sound gay and stupid music on a video like this. I have a couple of questions. Question number one why are those trucks and cars not driving away from the attack. I would sure rather take my time speeding down the road been sitting like a duck. Number 2 why are the trains not under full steam running in there sitting there like big black target
Drivers of trucks would be sheltering in a roadside ditch - you dont try to outrun a plane when it is on a strffing run.
And there was also said that a lot of the locomotives was located at the stations or repair "hubs" and all those where targets by the allies that day. Locomotives where priority targets so they couldnt move reinforcments to the front quickly. But Xander Arizona is probably right that the videos you see is second strafe most of them. Not all clips of course since you see some trucks try to run away.
And about the stationary trucks he is absolutely right, they have ditched the truck and taken cover wherever they could find it.
most drivers and passengers abandoned their vehicles on the sound of incoming airplane, why would you stay there? it is not possible to escape with your vehicle
The elements of surprise will get one every time.
Spectacular footage, thank-you! I came across this video years ago and wanted to show this to my grandfather who was fascinated with anything WW2. Sadly he passed from cancer before I could find this video again to show hime. Miss you grandpa, hope you are watching this over my shoulders.
It's amazing to think that my dad was fighting to scale that bluff on omaha beach while this was being filmed. He lived to raise a family, take care of my mom, enjoy grandchildren. Great guy. He passed 4-1-13 at 90 yrs.
midnight rider did he ever speak of the things he saw?
R.I.P. sir
♡♡♡
@@Kimchiboy08 No he doesn't cos its horse shit.
And to think doing bad things does not pay
Alternative Title:
"Why air cover/defence is important, Lesson 1"
75 years ago, kids in their early 20s were anonymous heroes flying incredible machines in extreme conditions. Today's kids believe that an action cam will make them heroes, and their biggest fear is... to remain anonymous.
There are no kids in the U S Military.
@Fresh Start my comment was not directed to you, but to Michel so chill out!
Xman8184
Well it doesn't matter who it was directed at, thats how this shit works my friend,
and he clearly stated, in writing, "kids in their early 20s",
So your comment is outta context and therefore irrelevant anyways.
And I am chill, so relax.
You can't get mad when you type dumb shit, and ppl correct you.
@@yopappy6599 Oh! Ok thanks boy. You said a mouth full of nothing. Once again there are no kids in the U S MILITARY.
@@Xman8184 It was young men who were made to murder. they shot mercilessly at civilians who did not judge themselves. they couldn't help it, because everything happened on the orders of the supreme authority. history has been rewritten and murderers become heroes.
The dive from 3:05 - 3:10 was pretty damn ballsy.
And the one at 8:55, these pilots are insane
yea those were men not boys
Probably flying lower than desired while being so focussed on the target. It all happens so fast.
*I guarantee that if it was 40s none of these comments would be crying and hating the USAAF for shooting at trains.
Skelytun _ error you idiot. many official documents of french resistance report to US leadership that the airplanes killed many civilians or wrong target. there is many many report about the hate of the europe population about the way USA attacked everything. Sometime populations dvdn says that USA went worst than nazis.
loo lolo show me the evidence
loo lolo and many French and Dutch resistance all said they would rather die by yanky or British bombs then give the fucking Germans the satisfaction
I don't think it's controversial to say that the rules of engagement were way more lax back then and that, as a result, lots of civilians were unnecessarily killed. That the standards have changed is a good thing.
I disagree, but frankly, I think this is a debate that would require data and qualifications that probably neither of us have. My impression, however, is that limited warfare might well be more protracted, but it's still less destructive in general. Look at Ukraine or Libya. I suppose Syria may count as a counterexample in recent times, though.
3:03 Cpt. Clayton, what a bad ass pilot there! so low
He certainly had balls. Right down in the dirt there.
Rickusty was getting ready to comment on that flying. He was just a few feet above the top of that truck...between the trees..wow
Rickusty The camera is zoomed in a bit to help whoever watches later see wtf is going on. He was low for sure though.
Rickusty might be a little bit of zoom tho
Zoom or no zoom, there were definitely 1-2 shots where we were looking *up* at the tree tops!
Reached out and took the drivers wallet on the way...just crazy flying
Achtung. Actung. Following an unexpected technical issue, the 3.30 from Berlin will be delayed until further notice.
My Grandad was an ambulanceman in London throughout WW2. Always laughing, he went quiet when asked about his war-time experiences. He had seen some truly terrible things. Thanks to all the old-uns who helped to defeat Nazi fascism, lest we forget.
Yes, it's a good thing that they helped the Soviet communists imprison half of Europe and prosecute the Cold War in all of its forms, including Vietnam.
Your grandfather was a good man I'm sure but he fought the wrong enemy.
Looks like a 'Holy crap' moment at 6.26. High tension lines and pylon.........
What the hell is this comment section
4:14 racing staff car gets hammered
Old boy at 4:10 just lighting up a single car then proceeds to pull 14 Gs to avoid smashing into the ground. Man what a time it must have been.
An old game called Blazing Angels on hard difficulty maybe is the nearest to live this kind of action on shoting ground targets. That was a good game of WWII.
Amazing how accurate they were,
Today on ebay: Selling used steam train, like new, just a few scratches.
I bet they have a bit more than a few scratches
So, I can only imagine the chub one of those pilots would get, when flying around and finding a "target of opportunity"... especially something like a train!
Btw, what a magnificent landscape. Well organised, well cured, no hateful buildings.
Looks like a beautiful country side. A true tragedy what war does to people and places.
You couldn't hide the train in tunnels..Goring had all his loot and artwork in 'em...
can't imagine being on the ground with one of those planes shooting at me
My nonna told me once that a mustang (clearly she only knew it was american) started shooting at her along the road she was walking down, and she had to find cover in a ditch nearby. She kinda told me how that bullets sounded. I cannot even imagine how scary could it be.
I can. i was in the first gulf war when US planes took out two of our tanks. It wasn't very nice!
@@fishyc150 woulda tactically shat my pants
@@aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh after that incident I was on a route clearance recce with the engineers checking if certain roads were suitable for certain vehicles etc. We were two vehicles out alone in "no mans land". 4 Apache helicopters flew across our front. The last stopped and turned towards us, pointed its nose down as if to look who we were. My commander half joking half panicking said "hold tight to something, we're about to be blown up"
I shat myself... I was only 18!
@@fishyc150 what happened after ?
Kill the locomotive...kills the train...
Sometimes I forget these are gun cams and that the pilot is firing the entire time the film is rolling
Yes I thought about that with all the cackling and gloating as we watch Allied pilots trying to kill other " supposed " enemy workers..Doesn't say much for our humanity or civilised behaviour does it .
Sorry this comment is for Logan Court of the comment above.
The 361st Fighter squadron flew P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs.
8:58 Can't imagine seeing a fighter leveling out with a train and tearing through it like that. That's insane.
Damn imagine your trying to gun down a train and an ad pops up.
OR worse, if you're' the pilot gunning down a train car just to find out too late that it was an ammo car and it goes up..
And you're in the blast zone. You go BOOM!
Watch at +1.75 speed for realism and you'll see how it actually looked and the immense chances they took strafing. We lost a lot of pilots to strafing including aces like Gabreski who got so low he bent his prop and became a guest of The Reich.
I tried that....thought 1.25 was more realistic but still fast paced.
Watching at regular speed for realism....cause thats how it was filmed.
What is the criterion to call someone an "ace"?
a small gun camera built into a fighter plane..pretty damn good for 1944
Lt. Cherry? We had a A7-D pilot back in the 70's in the Colorado ANG who was a fighter pilot in WWII. Half way through this film you will see a Lt. Cherry listed however I do not know if this is same guy that was in our Colorado Air National Guard Unit at Buckley? James
See if you see him in here:
www.littlefriends.co.uk/galleries/56th-fighter-group/
And to think now an Apache could sit about 8000 MTRS away and hit one of these dead on with a Hellfire missile
The A-10 can also destroy a tank from 4 miles away with its 30mm cannon firing 4,200 armor piercing rounds per minute. Why do we lose so many soldiers with weapons like these?
Rat tat tat tat...reeoowww.rat tat tat tat...booomm..rat tat tat tat..i put in the sound for you.
Thanks 👍
I can watch these all day. The greatest generation
@Craig Johnson And muslims
@Craig Johnson The greatest generation also includes the Germans.
These footages are gold. Shows you air to surface combat from back in the days. No RPGs, no anti-air missiles taking these guys down.
No, but there was plenty of anti aircraft batteries, flak guns. It was not a cake walk by any stretch. There job was to disrupt supplies going to the front, trains, trucks, etc.
4:15 awww yeahhhh
Notice throughout these clips that the emphasis was completely about removing the means to make war because if the troops and arms weren't at the battle they weren't in the battle. In most of these we didn't see entire trains being strafed but just the engines although those staff cars would have been attacked to kill the occupants.
Sobering to think that for just about every scene, multiple lives ended violently...
Todaywefly nazis...not people
Mike K Agreed but a bit simplistic.
@@mikek4610 to think they were all nazi’s is moronic.that would be like saying all white people are racist and all black people are criminals.while yes there definitely was a lot of bad people there was also a lot of people doing what they had to to stay alive.could you imagine living in a place where if you didn’t follow their protocol you were killed because I sure can’t?
@@mikek4610 you are really not that smart man 😂
@@mikek4610 That's bullshit: Not every soldier was a Nazi. They also attacked my mother as she was a young girl.
And of course, the fact that Allied air power had essentially destroyed the German transportation infrastructure in the last months of the war had absolutely nothing to do with the severe shortages of food and medicine in German cities, as well as in the work camps. Especially nothing at all to do with the latter.
Some seriously good shooting at 4:10. Good quality new footage.
It’s not a complete strafing run unless you pull up inches from the ground
Some of those pilots were deadly accurate. They just hammered the same spot with ease. The tracers just seemed to dance on the target.
It's incredible. Difficult for us to fully comprehend the skill and dexterity that is required. What a fearsome group of young men they were, heroes by any description
i never would have thought that WWII plane footage would be this good of quality... its better than modern footage lmao
Жалко ребят, которые на пляже омаха в этот день погибли, очень большие потери
Still better quality than todays UFO footage
And 'Bigfoot'.
Its crazy watching this knowing that, even though you cant actually see them, you're watching men die.
@@BeardedBavarianBiker. Highly unlikely. Passenger trains probably weren't running very often if at all in combat zones. Also, the difference between a passenger train and a cargo train is easy to see to even a civilian eye, I'm sure trained pilots could tell the difference.
@@SoupSultan in combat zones? Lol ok bub. It happens today daily but you right 🙄
@@MrSwitchblade327 Why would passenger trains with civilians be running in the middle of warzones? I'm not saying civilians weren't killed, im saying that the chances of any of these trains being civilian transport is basically 0. And believe it or not, but fighter pilots dont just fly around shooting everything they see. They verify their target first.
@@SoupSultan Tell this my grandmother (6 at this time).. She still can see the dead people. Germany was a warzone at the end.
@@CocoonClub360 Okay, I will tell your grandmother that passenger trains weren't running in warzones. Again, I never said that civilians weren't killed, but we are specifically talking about trains.
Nice shooting
2:07 beautiful shooting right there.
Get sum pew pew peeww! This is awesome
3:07 WOW that is a low pass !!!!
Poor Germans.
Exactly, we fought the wrong enemy and were sabotaged by the same people the Germans were trying to kick out.
I see a hell of a lot better shot grouping with these strafing planes than I do watching a stationary Apache helicopter shooting that ridiculous chain gun.
Hell yeah. Had to make these shots count brother.
Yeah but there's a difference. Helos tend to orbit the target and the sideways recoil will have an effect on accuracy. Compare it with an A10 instead
@@TheCleansingx yeah plus usually the helos are firing miles away from the target, if they were closer it would be a hell of a lot more accurate
@@TheCleansingx Plus the ammunition is designed to fragment on impact so they can kill or wound from about 5ft away from where the rounds hit. It's as accurate as it needs to be and has been shown to be a nightmare for enemy infantry
largely ignored part of the d-day invasion is the amount of french civilian casualties.. majority of it caused from the air, either from bombing or these interdiction missions during the invasion. im pretty sure the people driving those trains are french. they are not combatants, but life still went on under german occupation. but the fighters were also just doing their job, hoping to cut off german supply lines and so on.
i was going to say man there just shooting anything that moves :/
More trains running in 1944 than there are today
When the USAF got done, there were no trains going in France
Und wo sind die Aufnahmen wo Sie auf Kinder und Bauern aufn Feld feuerten.
Musste googlen die findet man ziemlich leicht
this footage is better quality than any UFO shots i've seen
…. or any Bigfoot sightings.
9:02
The passenger in that truck was returning fire from what I could see but obviously he didn't get off many rounds before those cannons turned him into Swiss cheese lol.
Стрельба во всё, что движится, включая гражданские автомобили
Timbangan Justice Utusan Pusat Bunuh Dia Berikan Nama Pada Pewarisnya a Gaya Bermain Bahasa Indonesia
Damn LT Thwait was one hell of a pilot. Dude was the closest and most accurate out of all the pilots.
Not a good time to be an engine driver or fireman on the footplate of a French train.many of the trains seem to have been caught in open country.are they really targets of opportunity or propaganda tools we will never know.however this film shows the pilots to be very competent and merciless which is I suppose what you need to be in war
This guy here
Wow, I'm a HUGE lifelong fan of WWII aerial combat, & have enjoyed the thrilling footage for decades (could u imagine if they'd had HD quality back then, wow!).
Having said that, in 54 years I have NEVER felt dread or loss at watching ANY combat footage (other than the GI's) until watching this. Every fiber of my being shouted out to me 'wait, shit, how the hell do you know if that truck is transporting American POW'S or Jews or French resistance fighters?
And the reality is simply they didn't. And I know enough about CCC to be aware that it most assuredly occured, realistically numbering into the thousands or tens of thousands.
War is so fucking ugly, & I wish to christ they'd stop censoring the gross brutality of it & show the REALITY (this is not directed towards any country or government btw). I had alot more respect for the realism of Saving Private Ryan than ANY sugar coated John Wayne/Lee Marvin film I grew up with, for sure.
I go to bed now with a darkness in my heart & unexplainable feeling of loss . . .
this was D-DAY. june 6 1944. transportation was in the hands of the enemy, ALL of it. you are thinking small scale. a truck with pows. how about a truck with 4 german generals? the enemy was siphoning gas at the end. what if that truck made it through till the end and hauled many gallons of fuel to some panzers that got to prolong the war? what if that truck was taking the zylon B gas to a camp instead of food? these men did what they had to do. shut the fuck up.
Looks to me like they mostly fire on the locomotive. So maybe if the train was full of Jews they were safe
Believe it or not, image quality was better in the 1940s than most digitalized images today. They were much sharper and didn't have to worry about pixels. At least that was true for photography.
Davidautofull very valid points man.
I understand your sentiment, and share it to a degree. But there were no train loads of Jews or POWs in northern France on 6 June 1944. Vehicles were all military or commandeered by the invaders so were legitimate targets but I'm not so sure the horses and carts were anything other than farmers doing what farmers do. But with a moment to decide and being in a very active war zone, these things happen. Both my parents were straffed by German planes when they were children on the south coast of England, those acts were deliberate and in very different circumstances to those shown in the video.
Siwek Kazimierz Mustang III RX 878 Pilot Oficer 315 RAF. Google.
3:17 LT. E.A. Kovacs magyar ősökkel.
4:11 that looks like a regular car, why would they attack something like that, by mistake? Could be just civilian.
Odds are pretty good that a "civilian" couldn't even get gas for a car. Maybe they should have little flags that say "don't shoot me." Ya, that'll work.
These gun camera compilations are so cool. Miss the military channel. They likely didn't realize at the time how much they hurt German defenses on D-Day.
I agree… I miss when the History channel was actually about history. Now is nothing but pawn shops and how to make knives and swords.
The horror when you're reading on a train and having a pleasant conversation, then a 20mm cannon ripping through the carriage.
Today is the 75th anniversary of D-day.
Let that sink in.
That's is some amazing flying.
Absolutely wonderful. Adding this to my playlist for WW2 history
Everything was point and shoot as far as gunnery from a plane. How rewarding it must have been to hit something big or important especially after mostly missing most targets. The fact they were good enough (great enough) to hit ANYTHING is amazing. Also, being shot at at the same tine.
Awesome video! Good shooting!
Poor train drivers they were only doing there jobs but for the wrong dudes. I wonder how many of them had a gun to there heads am sure most had no option at all. Brave men. But such a shame for them and there families.
I like it this way. I hate those documentaries that put fake sounds in WWII footage. Specially “World War In Color”
You can see someone real serious about getting away from his vehicle @ 3:50 . He gets out and crosses to the right across the road.
2:52 What the hell kinda plane was that?
P47?
It kinda looks like those german experimental jets...but it's probably a regular american plane with blurry camera footage
go on lads give em some strafing. I salute you brave people.
And on that day, many trees went topless...
LordDonutz I get a woody thinking about that one.
And so did many bodies
@ 3:50 guy running from second transport like screw this I'm out!
exactly, I saw it, he took his chance by running across the street in search for a better place to hide maybe?
Terrifying .Those pilots and gunners were brave beyond measure .
More terrifying being in those trains being scathed with gunfire from out of nowhere.
You REALLY ought to play "Ride of the Valkyries" during this clip.
As a pilot myself, i drive buses, i can appreciate the skill required to perform some these manouvres.
True american heros...
Explains why there was no air cover for the invasion beaches. The allied air forces were busy shooting up trains.
There was, but the Lufttwaffe had like two planes in the area, because they relocated a whole squadron a copule of days earlier
If you think this video explains it you obviously have done 0 research.
i wonder the size of Go Pros back then. Mounted on those planes