Week 234 - The Destruction of Monte Cassino - February 18, 1944
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- The Allies bomb the monastery atop Monte Cassino in Italy, but just to the Northwest it's the Germans attacking them at Anzio this week. In the Soviet Union, the Axis break out of the Korsun Pocket, but at great cost, and in the Pacific comes a major Allied raid on the Japanese base at Truk and landings on Eniwetok Atoll.
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A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
With the RAF bombing heavily, it's a good time to learn more about allied pilots and flying aces. Check out the last video we put out on it here: th-cam.com/video/kjP9_LM9OnU/w-d-xo.html
Question: What's going on with the War against Huminity subseries?
I miss them a bunch. Hope Spartacus is doing fine.
Reminder to update the playlists, especially the main series that are getting months out of date again
The Germans, Austrians, and monks did contact the Vatican and moved the artifacts and documents to Rome and the Vatican Museum before the attack began.
These included some 800 papal documents, 100,000 prints, 200 fragile parchment manuscripts, over 80,000 volumes from the libraries, 500 incunabula (=a type of book which was printed and not handwritten before the 16th century), and pieces of priceless art and precious tapestries.
February 1944 would mark the fourth time the monastery would be destroyed in its history.
Sad for the frescoes and mosaics
As someone who studies medieval history and especially that of early religious orders, the destruction of the Abbey of Monte Cassino has always been heartbreaking to me.
For me too. Many unique easrly medieval manuscripts were destroyed with monastery destruction.
I'm personally rather curious to know how much exactly was detroyed since the lower parts of the abbey of Monte Casino seemed to have survived. Though there's no doubt that many important artefacts did get destroyed in the bombing.
Much older than medieval but under your point and share the sentinent
@@NikolaiOfTheShirethe abbey dates back to VI century, so it is correct to say that it is medieval
@@mikkovaittinen3835most of them were saved by the Germans and taken to Rome.
My father was at Monte Cassino, he served in the 4th Indian. He would be nineteen years old. In his seventies he told me about watching the vapour trails of the American bombers in a clear blue sky. He and several Gurkhas, who he thought the world of, were creeping their way up to the monastery when they heard the planes, one of the Gurkhas whispered he could see the bomb doors opening and the bombs starting to fall. He said all they could do was wait and watch the bombs fall. I recollect him saying he was layed on hid back smoking and looking up watching an American bomber spin round and round and parachutes opening as it fell to the ground. He was sure the bombs would kill him and the Gurkhas as they had been released too soon. He survived but many didn't.
The Infantry Lehr certainly showed its inexperience despite its elite apperance. Also I love that Indy never forgets to include the Smiling nickname to Albert Kesselring's name.
In WW2 and perhaps other wars there has been a tension between officially elite units, often good at parade ground manoeuvres but not necessarily combat-experienced, experienced units not having an elite reputation, and what could be called special forces.
Probably the most elite German unit at Anzio was the Hermann Goering division. An American photographer took snaps of dead members of the unit after an attack they launched failed.
Must have been a total backfire for their propaganda appeal - Hitler's elite Nazi fanatics running away after their first taste of combat.
I've always liked that too. 😁👍
Appearance on the parade ground or smartness in ceremonial duties have absolutely nothing to do with effectiveness in battle, where you survive on your wits and knowledge of the enemy's methods.
The Roman Praetorian Guard were also useless in battle despite their "elite" status.
And yet by complete contrast, the Panzer Lehr division was a similar idea but comprised of Panzer training school personnel - they actually lived up to their name since most of them had already seen combat before being rotated out to training schools...
If you do the math, the ability of naval gunfire to support the infantry ashore is jaw-dropping. The support forces off Anzio would include four cruisers: HMS Penelope, HMS Spartan, HMS Orion, and USS Brooklyn. The smallest, Penelope, has six 6" (152 mm) guns capable of sustaining 5-6 rounds per minute per gun. Spartan and Orion have eight guns each, of 5.25" and 6" caliber, with the 5.25" guns firing slightly faster but obviously with smaller shells. Brooklyn had fifteen US 6" guns with a heavily automated ammunition system capable of sustaining 8-10 rounds per gun per minute.
By comparison, a heavy artillery battalion will have about a dozen guns around 155 mm capable of sustaining about one round per gun per minute. Penelope is the equivalent of about 2.5 heavy artillery battalions while Brooklyn cranks the dial to eleven, being the equivalent of ten heavy artillery battalions. Unfortunately, Penelope is sunk today while Spartan was sunk at the end of January.
Was the naval support used correctly though?
@@poiuyt975 that's always the question when different services interact. In the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, the Army concluded that naval gunfire support was best used after the landings when fire could be observed and corrected. That's part of the reason naval gunfire on D-Day was limited to 30 minutes before H-hour, relying instead on heavy bombers to pulverize the beach defenses, although on the day the bombers would come in perpendicular to the beaches, delay release a few seconds, and scatter their bombs a few miles inland of the defenses. Certainly at Anzio the naval gunfire was helpful in fighting off the German attacks, but would be out of range for supporting their own attacks fairly quickly. Compare, after all, the absolute maximum range of Brooklyn's 6" guns (26,000 yards) to the maximum range of the 14" guns on Texas and New York off Normandy (about 34,000 yards).
@@kemarisite Thank you for the information. So the Briitish weren't completely incompetent and the navy had supported their land troops at least during the defence.
Brooklyn Class aka Machinegun cruisers they were called
@kemarisite: Until recently many historians downplayed the effectiveness of naval guns during the Normandy campaign too. The decision to fight close in to the beachhead instead of withdrawing inland caused the Germans to remain in range and to be exposed to a massive amount of firepower from anything over 5" for nearly the entire battle.
Oh boy, I just realised that the Gen. Frayberg we are talking about concerning the bombing of Monte Cassino is the same one who commanded at Crete in 1941.
Isn't it funny when that happens? I realised the same thing last month about the pope ordering the 4th crusade and the Albigencian crusade being the same guy.
@@Dustz92 Yeah, Innocent III. One might say that his name was a bit ironic.
Seriously if I was in charge freyberg would have been hung for Crete. How he’s allowed to do anything is beyond me.
He is also the same one who in WWI earned the Victoria Cross and went from civilian at start of the war to a temporary Brigadier General.
Hearing about the destruction of Monte Casino always reminds me of the Monuments Men. Are we gonna get a special about those guys?
Again, another great installment of the best series I've seen on TH-cam. Indy, you and your staff continue to do a first rate job!
One (small) bit of trivia for rock fans. Eric Fletcher Waters, a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and father of Pink Floyd's Roger Waters was KIA on 2/18/44 during the Anzio fighting, a sacrifice that repeatedly surfaces in Roger's songwriting.
"...And the generals gave thanks
As the other ranks held back
the enemy tanks for a while.
And the Anzio beachhead
was held at the cost
of a few hundred ordinary lives..."
I'd say your comment beat mine in terms of content mate - it's nice to know there are others out there who emotionally resonate with the same things I do, even if the subject at hand is so horrific.
Agreed, mate. Cheers!
I might be wrong, but isn't that a lot of the inspiration for The Wall? Or at least the starting point of the story, anyway? This might be a good excuse for me to listen to that album again today, because it's always amazing.
- T.J.
@@WorldWarTwo Hi TJ - gotta admit, it's very very cool that I'm getting to talk with you, but yes, you are entirely correct - Daddy going across the ocean, leaving just a "MEMORY" is exactly what is being referred to here.
This of course, is one of the bricks to his wall - the pain from this, amongst other things, is exactly what leaves Pink (Roger really...) to slip into the utter darkness that pervades the latter half of the album.
Again, watch the Wall film - one of the opening scenes is a dramatic representation of what Indy talked about today when 'The Tigers Broke Free'.
It's shattering how this one death in this titanic war brought so much pain that has been shared with the world though one of the most iconic albums of all time. And it chills me to think that the pain is magnified by over 70million plus...
Thank you for covering this war - for you and all the team. It's a privilege to be part of this journey.
I think sometimes it's too easy to forget that, behind every move on the map that Indy talks about, 100s or 1000s of "ordinary" lives are lost forever, leaving "gaps in the line" when the soldiers return home. Again, this 1 death caused enough pain to write 2 albums for one of the greatest bands of all time - every death is as large of a tragedy.
Never forget
@@WorldWarTwo Also TJ, give the entirety of The Final Cut a listen to as well - it may be wise to distance it from the political viewpoints of its author, but I truly believe it is one of the finest anti war albums ever created. Southampton Dock and The Gunners Dream are particularly poignant, alongside of course, When The Tigers Broke Free
Thank you, the story of Korsun pocket is amazing!
Alan Whicker devotes a number of pages to the "precision bombing" of the abbey in his book. The 8th Army commander Oliver Leese lost his caravan HQ- three miles away and the French Corps HQ 12 miles away was heavily bombed. Mark Clark was in his command post 17 miles away when 16 bombs exploded, nearby.
There will be some quite destructive friendly fire later this year, elsewhere.
I always regret never having the opportunity to talk to my grandfather who passed away while I was a less than one year old baby. He was conscripted to the army of the then Nazi satellite Slovak state and deployed in Northern Italy around the Po river. Big chunks of their division deserted and joined the Italian partigiani to fight the Nazis. He'd seen Mussolini hanging at the petrol station, and came back home suffering from what today would be diagnosed as a serious PTSD. My mom got some medals and a few pictures of him before, during and after deployment. I've scanned them to keep them preserved and easily available. The change of a young early 20s boy into a 40-something looking worn man within less then a year is just astonishing. He was lucky in making it through and coming back home. He raised 5 kids but only got to see 3 of his 11 grandchildren before his body gave up. Godspeed grandfather.
That sounds like he had an amazing, albeit traumatizing story, Whiskey!
It's wonderful that you are working to preserve his experience for yourself and for others in the future, because that is such a critical endeavor that we at TimeGhost are quite passionate about. Do you have any plans to do anything with those scans? It sounds like you could do a great job of writing up his story so that others could read it!
@@WorldWarTwo it's not easy to find any information on the subject. Grandma passed away in 2014 at the age of 94, and post WW2 the communists made serious efforts to marginalize and even suppres everything that has not happened on the Eastern front, persecuting Czech and Slovak RAF personnel after they returned home etc. All the war movies were about the heroic Red Army, playing down all the other theatres and any help the Soviet Union has received from the Allies. By a chance I got hold of a book (could be considered forbidden fruit back in the day) dealing with Royal Navy's countering Kriegsmarine's large surface vessel efforts in the Atlantic as a boy, and got hooked. After the fall of the Iron curtain when western literature became accessible I've amassed a few bookshelves of naval literature, and got lucky enough to be able to travel places mentioned in the books - from HMS Belfast to Scapa Flow, from Oahu and the loading docks of marines in Wellington through Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, Okinawa all the way to Hiroshima. Hope to make it one day to Midway, Iwojima and Wake...
Let me know if you would be interested in some photos, there is a good few thousands.
Bravo! Great epidsode.
Thanks, Jack! You're a great viewer!
Dear Indy: You forgot the story of how the germns saved the monks and Monte Cassino. the commander of the green devil conviced the abbot Gregorio Diamare to save the abbeys treasure, the commander commandeered transport trucks illagly and with the monks help transported the valuables, art. book Etc vis truck. when Ablert kessering foun d out, he gave hid approval the allies acuded the german of looting the monastery but they did not, they delevery the treasure to rome as well as most of the monks. the monks held See. the comand of the gernab forces ( green devil was put on trail at the end of the war and it took field marchal Archenleck to speak for the commander to get him off. This should have been reported in your broadcast.
Excellent video 📹
The only intelligent general the Axis had left was Kesselring, he wasn't even army.
He made successive defensive lines and falling back without his troops getting encircled.
The Eastern front needed a few Kesselrings'.
They also still have Rommel, but he basically does nothing for the rest of the time he’s alive (which is not very long)
Italy is a much easier place to fight for a defender than much of Eastern Europe. Italy is a very mountainous country while much of Eastern Europe is open plain, and since Italy is also a peninsula a defender also has the advantage of a narrow front. The latter of course is not the case at all on the Eastern front, where an attacker has many more opportunities to stretch their opponent thin and exploit that for a breakthrough.
Kesselring was certainly a competent officer but it's unlikely he'd have had any more success than other competent officers that were on the Eastern Front, as he'd have none of the advantages he had in Italy.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 Rather later in 1944 an Allied photographer took a picture of an abandoned German foxhole in Italy. It was on a ridge with a good view of a road below, but the German or Germans who had manned the hole had gone, leaving an MG42 machine gun and a stick grenade or two behind. Had it been defended when American or British troops passed below, the position would have wreaked havoc, but probably the Germans would ultimately have been killed. Aware of this, they presumably decided to flee. But it was a good illustration of how favourable the Italian terrain could be to defenders.
"....destruction, indignation, sorrow, and regret." Yeah............that pretty much sums up warfare, doesn't it? Normally I sign off with a smiley face, but there's nothing to smile about.
It's very Meta of you, Indy, to have a mug of you answering the phone at the desk where you are answering the phone...
Movie recommendation for the week: Ivan's childhood (1962) by Andrei Tarkovski.
It's the first movie by the famous director and takes place somewhere in the Eastern Front at some point during late 1943 o early 1944.
Great movie, and as all soviet movies available for free on TH-cam.
It's a great series, thanks guys,
But I'm constantly noticing that events in the Indian Ocean and the Burma India front are barely mentioned,
Please don't forget about the 14th
I'm glad you like this series but I have to say I hate comments like this. For the hundredth time- when active war events happen in whatever theater, I cover them. If I'm not talking about a front, it's because there's not much going on there at that particular time. Burma in 1943 was mostly quiet; Burma in 1944 is very much NOT quiet. It gets covered when it's NOT quiet, so there will be a ton of Burma soon to come. I just fail to understand why people assume I would ignore a whole front or campaign instead of assuming that there isn't much action happening there- what have I done to inspire that?
The first battle in which a British force on this front was surrounded but managed to hold its position (with the aid of air supply, something growing increasingly important on this front) until relieved
And a battle which gave some strong indications of how things had changed on this front and was in many ways a preview of what was to come in the next few months as the whole momentum of the war in this theatre decisively shifts
As I said I love the channel and the work you do
But so many of your predecessors who have tried to cover the entirety of the war in one medium, have effectively ignored this front
I'm really hoping for some good stuff later this year and into next as both the 14th army and Stillwells Chinese forces achieve their victories
@@markschons7774 Yeah, and it gets a lot of coverage next saturday when it all gets wrapped up, as well as Merrill's Marauders. I just shot the March 11th episode actually, and from there things get pretty Burma/India heavy.
@@Southsideindy Great,
Looking forwards to it
Thanks for the response and keep up the good work
I was told that the vatican had given the Allies the okay to destroy the Abbey if it was deemed necessary. This was not mentioned nor do i know if it is absolutely true.
When will you guys cover the Burma Front again? Its been a while and '44 was a year of intense activity there. While many have labelled it the Forgotten Front, it had huge impact on the post war world.
1944 is a year of intense activity there, and when that activity happens it will all be covered. I don't jump ahead; i covert the war week by week as it unfolds, so you'll just have to wait for the weeks that things happen there.
It's been largely static after 1941. Only 3 major engagements took place between 1942 and 1943, and those were the battles of _Zhejiang-Jiangsi_ in April of 1942, _West Hubei_ in May of 1943 and _Changde_ in November of 1943. Those battles have already been covered by both the regular videos and in the War Against Humanity series. It wouldn't be until March and April of 1944 that the China-India-Burma front would kick into high gear with Operations Ichi-Go and U-Go.
Furthermore, the Burma front has gotten attention too. _Operation Longcloth_ and the first _Arakan_ campaign were covered in episodes of February of 1943. The logistics of the China-India-Burma front as a whole has also gotten plenty of attention during the Casablanca, Cairo and Tehran conferences to boot.
@@Southsideindy Got it! looking forward to these, thanks!
Kudos to my brother who is the newest patreon member you named at the end.
Freyberg was right - 140,000 New Zealanders served in World War II. 104,000 in second NZ EF Out of a population of about 1 .6 million. He had a substantial proportion of these.
Definitely one of the most historically tragic aspects of the whole war. All the historic landmarks that were destroyed. So much history just gone. Terribly sad.
Another great episode
On this day in TimeGhost History: Indy makes a dark, savage pun about how the Germans are left "short-handed" after Russian cossacks cut their hands off when they surrendered. 😂
A wartime Soviet cavalry commander noted later that two sabre cross-cuts were favoured - from the right shoulder to the left side and from the left shoulder to the right side. Even in summer and autumn 1941, with one Soviet disaster after another, Axis troops sometimes had fallen victim to sabre-wielding cavalry charging out from forest cover.
It's really interesting how fluid the command structure in the Soviet army is at this point. Quite effective
Bombing and destroying the monastery of Mounte Casino is how rational thinking people are making irrational long time consequences based on the intelligence and interpretation of what they knew at the time. It’s a horrible loss of history, and it’s not the first time this has happened.
Foreshadowing of Vietnam: to save this hamlet, we had to destroy it …
My father went in and up^ the hill , on the ides of March, wounded, and luckily not taken prisoner.
No one with a clear conscience ever felt compelled to write the words "my conscience is clear."
Now that is an interesting line, and I am going to ponder it for a while, and then probably adopt it.
Well spoken, Star A Star!
- T.J.
Bombing the Monastery was madness, not just because there were no Germans there but also because ruins are easier to defend than intact buildings. It was morally wrong given the civilian occupants.
Eberhard Von Mackensen was the son of famed WW1 German Field Marshall August Von Mackensen
My father watched the bombing and shelling of the abbey from across the valley! Near to the same point of view as all the ground shots of it happening! And I have 1944’ made photos of it !!
A month approximately later when he was being lead off the mountainside ! Wounded the down hillside in the tricky parts was padded with dead bodies! So if and when the walking wounded and stretcher barriers x would have a softer fall ! 😊
They were only allowed back through the German lines because the Germans were expecting a similar number back !
That didn’t happen! As per Monte Cassino from a German Perspective! Actually Austrian!! Records
It really does sound like your father had quite the experience, Robert! I hope we get to hear the story someday!
- T.J.
@@WorldWarTwo I am thinking of trying to introduce myself to Sir Peter Jackson, as meeting random way less than one in ten million!
@@WorldWarTwo my dads first shot in action! West coast Italy ( Sandro ? ) put himself well forward position Spandau! Very hard to seen! No muzzle flash! His one shot from std No3 lee Enfield was replied by apparently ten thousand from he said in early 2000s ! From ten tow twelve Spandau! I took that with a dose of salt!
Late teen 2000s 2017’ ? U tube ! German mg Tactics so on Eastern from ?
Any how they worked in interlocking groups of twelve,
He was stuck in creek till it went dark !
The divisions they were facing in Italy at that stage came directly from the Russian front!
That’s just the surface, one lucky 🍀 cunt
@@WorldWarTwo yeah but a lot of these younger people were never hit , or if so had ammo against their parents
Fear does stop a lot of shit behaviour!
And guy who now is in early thirties thinks he can tell what is really what! Not as said brought up with thrashing’s and threatened thrashing = boundaries!
He needs a new phone. He is always saying, "HUH?!?"
Indy, another great episode! What the heck is going in crimea?? Thanks
Who is Ian?
The Crimea situation will see some focus in April; be patient. And (to repeat the other comment) Who is Ian? Do you mean our sales guy?
@@godfreypigott corrected
@@Southsideindy my bad Indy. I corrected it.
SPOILER
The Soviet Union made a film in 1948 called "Tretiy Udar" ("The Third Strike" or "The Third Blow") describing the recapture of Crimea. While the Germans are treated with a measure of respect in the film, senior Romanian officers and even Turkish diplomats are ridiculed.
The film's title reflected this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_ten_blows
The destruction of the Korsun pocket was considered a part of the second blow, the Dnieper-Carpathian offensive.
As destruction of Monte Casino so tragically demonstrates, the entire Italian campaign, after Italy had surrendered, was nothing but useless butchery. But hey, what's use an army if you don't use it.
Those Indians must have been tough soldiers, fighting for their British Empire overlords to take an almost impregnable enemy stronghold in a country far removed from their homeland.
Those Berlin-Spandau 309 'ballerinas' are not used on so violent audience.
Caliante Cassina before noon truce:
German solider: Rome is OK, but Berlin is better.
US solider: Appreciate that, after the Rome, we go visit Berlin. We even pass the word to the Ruskies.
What are your impressions of the Paris?
I saw this film about 40 years ago for the first time. At this scene, where Roger Waters sings about the Anzio bridgehead and how the High Command took his daddy I was lucky that the music in the cinema was so loud, because I was crying, rembering my own father who also died (cancer, not war).
My eyes still grow damp to remember this.
th-cam.com/video/E_5DRKZI1Ow/w-d-xo.html
Wasnt a lie to say the abbey was part of the German defensive line, it was, they surrounded it rather than being inside it... but those troops were the German line and abbey was within it.
And then, May comes, and Polish troops said - hold my beer
I've been waiting for at attack on Truk. Neutralize it and bypass all of the Caroline Islands. Just like with Rabaul, that's the way to do it. Isolate them, make them no longer a threat and keep moving.
It's a tropical Blitzkrieg... Which also sounds like a delicious island cocktail.
Don't forget Caen, Aechen and Operation Gomorrah..🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Already covered during the summer episodes of _War Against Humanity_
So basically the bombardment of the Abbey was unnecessary and without any good reason? And it's usefulness to the Germans was after the bombardment?
As Indy said, it was ruled to have had no military value at all, and much negative morale value both in the enemy ranks and the allied ones.
In a war full of terrible historical events, this is one more awful one.
When the avengers save the city and it's completely destroyed
Captain America:
*I can do this all day*
The Aggressors you mean
Look Patrick, we saved the city!
@@firingallcylinders2949 🤣 saved the shit out of it!
The Guardians and Thor want a word with you!
Mark Clark can be criticized for a lot of stuff, it is odd though in this case he is practically the lone voice of reason. Bombing the monestary was a decision that only made things harder on the allies. It is shameful to think of the history that was lost in its walls, which would never have been recovered in full despite later restoration, and the people who died in the bombing that did not have to.
With what happened here and at Naples, it’s almost a miracle that Rome was spared a similar fate
@@pocketmarcy6990 I was recently in rome, two things that struck me were just how bad a shape some of the ruins were in after 2000 years of rome getting sacked and stuff, but also yeah I was like "Thank god the allies didn't carpet bomb this place, or there would be nothing left"
A book I read on Cassino, published in the 1990s, said surviving Allied veterans still thought it was right to bomb it - they did not like living under what looked like constant observation from the abbey. The debate will no doubt continue.
As for the refugees and civilian populations in general, the Allies could be as callous as the Axis, especially when using airpower.
I don't get the 'why' behind the bombing. Morale? Seriously? How does wrecking a priceless historic landmark help morale? The Germans, to their credit, were respecting it as neutral ground and many civilians used it as refuge from the fighting. Just a stupid shameful 'go fever' decision by the Allies.
@@stevekaczynski3793 I 100% agree with the quote at 7:45 about the destruction of the Monestary being not only necessary but also completely justifiable, even it was only a moral boost. The just cause of the Allies & the value of the soldiers fighting the Nazis was far more important than some bricks & mortar. I would do the exact same thing if I was in charge. Speaking as a Brit, many of our cities & great historical centres were destroyed by air raids as the nation resisted alone against Nazism. The Italians aligned their cause with Nazism with their support of Mussolini; frankly they should consider it extremely lucky the Allies didn't decide to bomb more of their cultural landmarks to make the war easier, they could have no complaints.
Nobody brings this history to light like World War 2 and the time ghost army. Can't say thank you enough.
time ghost = zeitgeist
My mother-in-law's village is across the valley from Monte Cassino. Her family fled to the surrounding hills as the Allies approached. They watched the Abbey being bombed from there.
As a side note, the first time she had peanut butter was when an American soldier shared some of his rations with her family.
Wow, Snoopy, that's quite a story to have in your family!
And it has tragedy and peanut butter all rolled into one historical sandwich, that's a real roller coaster, for sure!
I know it isn't as relevant to today's video, but I'm curious, did your mother-in-law like the peanut butter or was she not a fan?
- T.J.
Interesting!
Did they rape her afterwards? Because that Is how the Allies operated here.
My former high school is named after the Polish soldiers who fought at Monte Cassino and it is a school tradition to go on an Italian school trip and visit the monastery and the military cemetery on top of the mountain. I had the unique chance to speak to two veterans who fought there and, besides stories about the actual Battle of Monte Cassino, one of them shared a memory of how he managed to put his basic knowledge of Latin to use when buying a bunch of fresh pears at an Italian marketplace in the region. He reminisced how good they tasted and what a pleasure it was to share them with his friends. It might seem mundane, but stories and anecdotes like this remind one that the troops fighting on the battlefields were not anonymous masses on a map, but actual human beings fighting for the liberation of Europe and against totalitarianism.
exactly Latin and not Italian?
@@CannibaLouiST it’s better than trying to speak polish to Italian civilians
@@mannymejia4339 it actually reminds me of the polyMATHY dude
I'm sure that we went to the same school! School anthem still sticks with me to this day (with English subtitles):
th-cam.com/video/Pc_6LHp82uA/w-d-xo.html
What is / was the name of your former school? Btw speaking Latin to random Italians at the veg shop would be a laugh
20:20 I mean... The Abbey was full of non combatants and they hurt their own troops when they moved up the date... Unreal, perfect example why some people should not hold command.
If anything, the air commander demonstrated great competence. Weather has already fouled many plans, we've seen such throughout the series. ..Even D-Day almost got canned for debatable conditions.
As for as the abbey, ..you ought blame German command. Nobody forced them to surround the monastery. One cannot legitimately fire artillery and rifle rounds from a location, then cry fowl when the other side shoots back.
@@johnflaherty9595 Did you follow the episode? The Germans were at least 300m away from the Abbey and the allies were told this. The Abbey was bombed for allied morale. The Germans then occupied the rubble. And held out for another three months. The bombing was a shot in the foot for the allies. An epic blunder.
@@johnflaherty9595 To fail to coordinate with ground forces is not competence. Also, if it is known that a location is only occupied by noncombatants on top of that then the entire operation was a waste.
@@aze94 I don't think the Allies knew that the monastery held only non-combatants. It WAS surrounded by troops. Even massed artillery would have trouble hitting only surrounding troops, not the building. The Germans' effort at keeping troops out...strikes me as legalistic fussiness, like using the monastery as a pawn.
If they could have done better with coordination, I notice that Allied troops were wounded, not killed.
@@johnflaherty9595 The failure to coordinate is far worse than you make it out to be. Not only did it cause friendly fire, which is bad enough on its own, but bringing forward the bombing by a day without ensuring that the ground forces were ready to immediately seize the even more defensible ruins was to risk giving the enemy that defensible position. And that is not even getting into the fact that the allies had no evidence that enemy troops were present at the monastery as no fire had come from it, which meant that the enemy most likely wouldn't even take any losses for that gift.
Add the deaths of the refugees on top of all that and all I can say is: the entire operation was a waste.
_It was just before dawn_
_One miserable morning in black 'forty four._
_When the forward commander_
_Was told to sit tight_
_When he asked that his men be withdrawn._
_And the Generals gave thanks_
_As the other ranks held back_
_The enemy tanks for a while._
_And the Anzio bridgehead_
_Was held for the price_
_Of a few hundred ordinary lives._
_And kind old King George_
_Sent Mother a note_
_When he heard that father was gone._
_It was, I recall,_
_In the form of a scroll,_
_With gold leaf adorned,_
_And I found it one day_
_In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away._
_And my eyes still grow damp to remember_
_His Majesty signed_
_With his own rubber stamp._
_It was dark all around._
_There was frost in the ground_
_When the tigers broke free._
_And no one survived_
_From the Royal Fusiliers Company Z._
_They were all left behind,_
_Most of them dead,_
_The rest of them dying._
_And that's how the High Command_
_Took my daddy from me._
Heart breaking
Roger Waters, blaming the British High Command, but not Germany, Hitler etc...for, you know, starting the war in the first place. Decades later he'd be an arse over Ukraine as well.
Been listening to this and the whole album all day today - this one story alone is emotionally shattering enough, and it is sobering to think that it is only one in approximately 70 million 'ordinary' deaths
Never forget.
I've never been si saddened by a song
@@iagosevatar4865 Give Southampton docks a listen my brother... Never fails to hit deep
Few hours ago I was in Cassino and I visited the Commonwealth war cemetery, a good example of what you get if you choose to fight a global empire: men of all races and religions resting together in the same place, I find it impressive every time I am there. When the abbey was bombed there were many civilians inside, one little girl lost contact with her mother, she was rescued by other survivors that choose to escape towards Rome in order to avoid the front. This little girl arrived in Anagni, a town some 70 km away from Cassino and met my grand grandparents which at the time owned a bakery. This poor child was sick, starving and infested with lice. My family choose to keep her with them (they already had four kids and the food was scarce) in order to save her life and they succeeded. After the war they found out that her mother was still alive, desperately searching for her daughter (or her grave) in the Cassino area. A little miracle in an horrible war.
That's a fascinating and touching story, Andrea! Thank you for sharing that. Indy's quote at the end of the episode about how this war is destroying everything in its path, on even a societal and natural level, is a poignant one, but yours is too. It's good to remember that human kindness can be so resilient in the face of such destruction.
My uncle was an American soldier at Anzio. During one of the German attacks he was captured after exhausting all of the ammunition for his BAR. He finished the war in POW camps in Italy and later Germany.
Just now I realised, that the map at 9:55 is in Polish! You can read signs like Domek Doktora (Doctor's House) or Dol Smierci (literally the Pit of Death). Seems like the Poles will do something remarkable yet in this battle
Good catch! it's a Polish artillery map, It had a ton of markings that needed to be cleaned up.
On Feb. 16th 1944 my grandmother’s brother, James Miller, was shot down over Rabaul, just as active attacks against the garrison were winding down. He would die in captivity a bit over a year later. It always helps me to calibrate the human scale of history to remember that this was both an inconsequential footnote to a day of significant battles while also being a trauma my grandmother carried with her for the rest of her life.
I’m sorry your family had to go through that. The thanks of the world is often not enough for a family bereaved but know that yours will always have it. ❤
It's important to recognize the scale of the catastrophe of a world war... painful though it is to contemplate.
One of my grandmother's cousins was in the Australian special forces unit, Z Force Special, and was captured behind enemy lines near Singapore in late 1944. Him and two comrades were ceremonially beheaded one month before the Pacific war ended. The Japanese were animals to Allied prisoners and captured civilians.
@@warrenmilford6848 Sorry to hear that. Was he on Operation Rimau?
@@_Braised Yeah it was Operation Rimau, and my original comment about him being beheaded with two others was incorrect. For some reason I thought he and two others were killed at a different place to the other blokes. However, all ten of them were executed together. I read a book about it a few months back.
When I did a tour through NZ in 2012 I came to the little town of Wangarei on the northern island. There was and is still a memorial for the maori soldiers, who had fought at Cassino. When I told the Maori, that my Granddad fought as a german airborne soldier in the same battle on the opposite site, I was invited by the Maoris to dinner in their village. We ate together and talked long into night about their and my families history. It was amazing. There were the grandchildren of once enemies sitting together in peace.
Thank you for sharing that anecdote from your travels.
Well my dad apparently witnessed a war crime, near the Hotel deRoses ! from further up the hill , and I can now guess that approx 200 Germans involved / killed ( from ,Monte Cassino from a German perspective. U tube ) this was done by the Māoris in that area !
@@slyasleep have you watched Monte Cassino from a German perspective ? Yet ? Until u have no
th-cam.com/video/7x6LibuC4N0/w-d-xo.html
@@slyasleep Butt wad ! What a dipstick
th-cam.com/video/LG-bGm5hysU/w-d-xo.html
U R A total Narcissist! By the way
@@slyasleep you were asking / demanding,for an explanation, that would fill at least one decent size book 📕 or more ?
As you say I don’t have time for that !! Here and now
A note for today - February 18th 1944 Eric Fletcher Waters, Royal Fusiliers Company X, Y or Z (not sure which in reality) was killed during the counterattack at Anzio.
Watch 'When The Tigers Broke Free' by Pink Floyd, which is about this very event, and listen to the album 'The Final Cut', written in his memory by his son, Roger Waters. It really brings home the trauma suffered by not only the soldiers, but the families they left behind.
Thank you for all your hard work TimeGhost team
Never forget.
That should read February 18, 1944 Shankar. I've seen a documentary where Roger Waters visits the site of his father's death.This was maybe 10 years back, at most. He still seems to not have resolved that death in his own mind even 70 years later, and spent his time in Italy drinking, IIRC. It may explain his current political beliefs, but who really knows? It sounds, to me, like a plea for help from his innermost turmoil over the subject. 🤷♂
@@ToddSauve Ah of course, apologies Todd, thank you for spotting that! What's the documentary called? I'll have to give it a watch!
I think I largely agree with you there - I imagine those may be wounds that will never truly heal, and yes, I think that 'No War' absolute stance has probably affected his general outlook on the current troubles we're facing.
Just goes to show how titanic and devastating this war is - nearly 80 years on, and people still haven't truly recovered from the horror.
@@shankarmall8340 I don't remember the name of the documentary, but there can't be very many about Waters in this last decade or two. Yes, war is the ultimate stupidity yet that does not keep people from waging it. Eventually we'll blow ourselves mostly off the planet and then it will stop for a while.
@@shankarmall8340 Too bad Roger Waters now supports the totalitarian Russian regime
Shankar Mall, terrific! I just made a similar comment, only to find yours, ahead of me by at least a couple hours. Salute, sir!
Kind of weird that people blame everyone for the Abbey's destruction except the Germans. If the Germans hadn't occupied Italy and used Monte Cassino as part of their defensive line, there wouldn't have been a battle.
The people telling us both sides are equally as bad aren't trying to be honest. They're trying to convince us their side wasn't so bad...
Retard alert: Montecassino was occupied after the bombing
@Andrea Scovano they were within 200 yards of it. The hill it sat on was part of their defensive line. If they hadn't been there in the first place, there would have been no problem. Perhaps you should actually try comprehending what you read? Monte Cassino is the mountain the abbey sits on. It was indeed occupied by the Germans even if the abbey was not.
Andrea, you are always free to argue or debate with people here, but please remember to do so in a polite and constructive manner. We are here to talk about the war, not to fight it.
- T.J.
That anecdote about the truce, collecting the dead and swapping stories, is a nice little reprieve from the horrors of this war. Also calls to the fact war is made by the few, fought by the many.
I had no idea there were moments like that this late in the war. Reminds me of the Christmas truce of 1914.
Also adding difficulty to the German attack at Anzio was a number of deep, narrow ravines that weren't taken into account during the planning stages.
Who could expect ravines in mountains. It might be like that myth that Germans that had a major war in Russia 25 years earlier didnt know that there is a severe winter in Russia. No amount of planning would change that counter attack outcome.
A footnote this week on February 15 1944 is that Australian Flight Sergeant Geoffrey C. C. Smith of 156 Pathfinder Squadron RAF will be awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal for staying at his position to defend his Lancaster bomber from further attacks. He had been seriously wounded from German cannon fire but refused to leave his position until the bomber had recrossed into safe territory.
Lucian Truscott , former 3rd US Division commander , assuming command of VI Corps in Anzio this week , was one of best Allied generals of war and most unknown one. Only General Richard McCreery commander of 10th British Corps in Italy is more unknown , both were best though. And both will be promoted respective command of their armies in Italian Campaign. Truscott will take over 5th Army command and McCreery will take over 8th Army and work together in marching final victory in Northern Italy in 1945
Just like Paton told Lucas: You better get wounded.
My Greatgrandfather was one of few survivors of the Korsun-pocket. The 110th regiment history notes that they escaped north of shanderovka. They managed to enter Lissjanka on 17th with 1 man missing and moved from there south west until they entered Rubannyje-Most. They did encounter Soviet forces here and there, but mostly dealt with them by walking around them. It notes that they managed to do this by having a strict shooting ban and were ordered to kill with bajonets or shovels.
At the end they managed to escape the pocket as one of the very few units still in a combat worthy condition. Having been north of Shanderovka prevented them beeing bombed or stormed by cossacks.
About the destroyed vehicles: It notes that they had been given an order to destroy all unnessary vehicles, but not by burning them or blowing them up. Horses were tied and left behind.
About the killed wounded: It doesnt mention anything like this. Probably since there werent many wounded in this regiment, but it tells at a later point (1945) about soldiers beeing left behind with a gun to defend themselves when it was impossible to carry them back home.
Mile after mile our march carries on
No army may stop our approach
Fight side by side
Many nations unite
At the shadow of Monte Cassino
We fight and die together
As we head for the valley of death
Destiny calls
We'll not surrender or fail
But God, how it rained!
TO ARMS!
Under one banner
As a unit we stand and united we fall
AS ONE! Fighting together
Bringing the end to the slaughter
Winds are changing
HEAD ON NORTH!
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
-Wilfred Owen
Red poppies on Monte Cassino
Were drinking not dew but Polish blood.
Soldiers walked on them and perished,
But stronger than death was their wrath.
Years will go by, then centuries,
The traces of old days won’t go
And poppies on Monte Cassino
Will redder be from Polish blood
The US 45th infantry that was mentioned in the account of the decimation and rout of the Lehr regiment, would later become historically significant when elements of it liberated the Dachau concentration camp on April 29th, 1945.
It of course did not get there from Italy. It had been transferred from Italy to participate in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France in August of 1944. From there it was involved in the drive across France and on to Munich, Germany.
Thank you Indie and team for another beautiful analysis. As I stated, I'm almost finished with my Mission Command paper focusing on the battle of Anzio and Gen. Lucas. This is for my professional military education course. Its tragic how I found out so many of his "collegue" generals believed this was a bad mission from the beginning, but they went ahead anyway due to the pressure from PM Churchill. Gen. Lucas predicted he would be the fall guy.
Jay,
Thanks for watching as you work on it! Would it be something I could read when you finish? I have a personal interest in Anzio because one of my great uncles was there and served under Truscott.
- T.J.
TF 58: revenge is best served with minimal losses.
My grandfather was in the 1st Bn Royal Sussex Regiment (the British element of the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade) at Monte Cassino. Despite being the first allied element to assult the Cassino massif after the bombing, they didn't rate a mention.
I always appreciate Indy pronouncing things right, like when he said "Gloucester".
This week in French news.
The 17th, the 4th division marocaine de montagne (DMM) arrives in Italy.
Between the 19th and the 22nd, 1 480 Resistance prisoners in Eysses, France, riots. The 20th, Joseph Darnand, general secretary of policing, promises that if they surrender, they will not have sanctions. But the 22nd, after the riots stops, Darnand makes up a martial court and 12 inmates are killed while all the others are deported to Germany.
SPOILER
It will go hard for Darnand later, for this and other reasons...
A lot of the most brutal fighting was at the back of monte cassino, cavendish road. It was not only the frontal assault of the slopes and the town which was a brutal slogging match. Bombing the monastery was a cultural crime.
A war against humanity, but of course it won't be recognised as such, even by this channel. Disappointing.
Always sad to watch sites that, in their beauty, wich trascended their original purpose, and had become marvels of humanity, are torn to pieces by the anger of misguided men. Here in Cassino, in the ancient world at the sacks of many cities, during the religious iconoclasms of both medieval and modern world, on protests and civil unrest.
Sure, beauty will rise again from the ashes, as it always does. As the poppies do.
But one can still feel sadness and regret at how the world is a little darker now. Things and people. Mountains and men.
Thanks for the coverage this week lads. I hope that, given TH-cam's.... record, we might find a way to back all this content up, maybe through Patreon. Love and good wishes from my little corner of South America.
Monte Casino is where Bill Guarnere's ( from Band of Brothers fame) brother Henry was killed. He got the letter just before they jumped into France. Never heard about this battle before. Thanks for this.
Yep. Henry Guarnere was killed at Monte Cassino some time in January but the family decided to keep this from Bill. The result was that the night he before he jumped inte Normandy Bill chanced upon a letter to his friend Johnny Martin from his wife saying that Bills fiance had written to her about Henry getting killed and Bill not knowing about it, asking Johnny not to reveal the secret either. Needless to say this was very bad news for the germans stationed in Normandy.
Somehow in my perception of the war, Monte Cassino abbey was bombed way later, after months of fighting. Meanwhile, they barely got there and decided to destroy it...
If anyone has Google Earth, it's interesting to find Monte Cassino, zoom in and then rotate the display so one is looking at it from more or less ground level. Monte Cassino simply dominates the surrounding terrain. It becomes crystal clear why taking it was so vital and why taking it was so difficult.
Hi Indy
Another week full of fighting.
This war had claimed lives,material,historical building.
No ending.
Only sorrow and pain.
But good note axis losing.
Thanks for the video.
The bombing of Monte Casino was ill conceived. The structure and the peak it occupied required larger bombs with more obscuring smoke in a carefully coordinated air attack closely in synch with the ground attack to be decisive and worthwhile. It also helpful to remember that Freiberg (probably under pressure from NZ politicians re the minimizing of their nation's upcoming casualties) bungled the defense of Crete on his watch when it was under an initial losing shambles of an attack by mismanaged German paratroops.
The poor communication between the 4th Indian and New Zealand forces when they bombed Monte Cassino kinda reminds me of how the minor axis nations were getting tired of following Germany with their plans of victory (I'm referring to that one video where Mussolini is tired of war). In that video, Indie mentions that the Germans treated their minor axis allies like crap, which culminated in Romania and Italy wanting to leave the war. Now India and New Zealand don't ask to leave the war like these minor axis nations do, but with the bombing of Monte Cassino, alongside the mention of famines in India and Iran, I'm starting to see a theme of abuse among these smaller minor nations. Its like how American and Britain command were just throwing their hands in the air and saying "why should we care about the safety of these Indian and Zealand troops, their just expendable and have less value, it doesn't matter if were sloppy in our communications, as long as British and American troops aren't harmed". This is some pretty bad logic, and it seems like this even came to a head point today when the bombing of the Monastery did achieve much other than deny cover to German troops.
As a side note, I think the reason why the monks had so much trouble getting out of that monastery sooner than later was because they may have been aware that they would be mistreated by the Germans, possibly even murdered. From watching the War Against Humanity series, Germany, at least with the occupied regions of Italy, seems to be getting pretty abusive with the people there at that time.
Worth noting that the sinkings by the Iowa and New Jersey mentioned here are the only time any of the Iowa-class battleships ever fired on enemy sea targets. For the entire rest of their 50 year long careers, they were exclusively used as flagships, AA ships, shore-bombardment platforms and (way later) Tomahawk missile launch platforms.
Because the Iowas were obsolete upon launch. Even on this particular occasion, they were completely unnecessary and even actively detrimental for their own navy.
@@bkjeong4302 Right. Obsolete upon launch. Which is why they are the only WW2-era battleships to see combat 6 decades after their construction and be highly effective in the role they were used in.
C'mon, you can do better.
@@randomlyentertaining8287
The Iowas spent most of their postwar careers in mothballs or in a shore bombardment role they were never designed for and were just too expensive to have been built for.
So they were still strategic failures.
@@bkjeong4302
I wonder how much funding and recruits the Iowas earned the military over half a century of service?
The 2000s movie _Battleship_ featuring the _Missouri_ iirc probably gained the Navy a few hundred or even thousands sailors.
Good morning Indy for Canada 🇨🇦 obsessed with this channel.
"The Lehr regiment had men who looked tough but had never been in a fight." Once again, it is shown that inexperienced troops are not a match for veterans unless the veterans are outnumbered a huge margin and even then, casualties among the inexperienced will be high.
I knew guys in high school who would have fit that characterization of 'the Lehr regiment': 'looked tough but had never been in a fight.'
The Germans were running low on infantry and probably someone decided in Berlin that the Infanterie-Lehr could not be spared.
SPOILER
A garrison of course remained in Berlin - the Wachbataillon of the elite Grossdeutschland division and its commander Major Remer will feature in events in July...
That is often true but not always so. While green troops, no matter how well trained, are often not a match for hardened veterans the history of warfare is also full of examples of green units that put in a magnificient performance or got the better of a much more experienced opponent. Those green troops however usually have experienced leadership in both the officers and the NCOs. There might also be other factors on the battlefield that enable their success.
Fast forwarding a bit an example of that could be found during the Battle of the Bugle when the completely green US 99th Infantry Division played a vital role in the Allied victory at Elsenborn ridge, despite being outnumbered. Although largely forgotten today it was at Elsenborn Ridge - rather than the much more famous Bastogne (there was press in Bastogne but not at Elsenborn Ridge) - where the German offensive truly unraveled, as the troops at Elsenborn faced the best troops Germany had for the offensive, & halted the Germans' main thrust. The 395th Infantry Regiment of the 99th Division was at times virtually surrounded, but did not yield, calling artillery on their own position 6 times when in danger of being overrun. The 99th however had officers & NCOs who were experienced.
I wonder if the officers & NCOs of the Lehr regiment may have been as green as the men they led.
@@markgarrett3647 There was another factor - experienced units could become tired, fought-out and less prone to take risks.
Policies on both sides sometimes had negative effects. The Germans frequently reconstituted destroyed units around a few surviving officers and cadre. For example the 44th Infantry Division, mostly from the Vienna area and destroyed at Stalingrad, was rebuilt around a few officers, NCOs and others, most of whom had been wounded and flown out before the end, recovering in hospital. But it was to all intents and purposes a new division and most personnel were raw recruits. Senior Waffen-SS divisions often transferred some of their officers and NCOs to form the cadre of new SS divisions, but this had the effect of weakening the units from which they had been transferred.
The Americans for their part kept up a constant stream of replacements but they were often considered liabilities by the veterans in the units that received them.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 Excellent input, very thoughtful. I remember reading about a situation where a squad was hunkered down in combat. The NCO had to come around and tell each one, "You know, you need to shoot back." So you are certainly correct: experienced leadership can compensate for inexperience.
Wondering, what were the conditions for the native Polynesian population during the war and during the fighting in the Pacific?
The Red Army saying that the Wehrmacht shot its own wounded …. Hmmmm …. sounds like a cover-up for what Red Army troops did when discovering Wehrmacht wounded. Whether spontaneously or as a matter of policy is another question
I expect it was spontaneous, but with the unofficial sanction of the regime.
There's probably no way of proving it one way or another now, but if there were, I'd bet my car that it didn't happen.
It is entirely possible that the accounts of Germans killing their own wounded are true, as there are other examples of battlefield euthanasia during the war.
In The Road Past Mandalay John Masters, a British officer that commanded both Gurkhas and Chindits, recalls giving a similar order to have 19 of his badly wounded men, who could neither be saved or evacuated, killed by their stretcher-bearers rather than leave them to the Japanese.
It is possible German officers may have feared retribution from the Soviets and similarly euthanized their own men rather than leaving them to the mercy of their foe.
@@ahorsewithnoname773 The Japanese often killed their own wounded, or gave hand grenades to wounded or sick soldiers who were conscious so they could kill themselves.
Battlefield euthanasia was quite common by all sides in WW2. And not just about not leaving wounded to the enemy.
SPOILER
In June 1944, a British soldier recalled later, a medic gave a badly-wounded member of his unit a fatal dose of morphine. The man had had much of his skull blown away in the Normandy fighting and his brains were held in with difficulty by a bandage. If he survived, he was likely to spend the rest of his life brain-damaged. Technically the medic murdered him but the man did not have much of a life to look forward to even if he survived. Probably many thousands were put out of their misery by their own side in a similar fashion.
Crosses grow on Anzio, where no soldier sleeps and where hells 6 feet deep.
Even though the bombing and killing of civilians would be justified for whatever reason, the outcome was tremendously bad for the men Alexander wanted to hype. This was just plainly wrong no matter how you look at it.
5:44 Freyburg doesn't want to end up losing big chunks of their armed forces like the south african force near tobruk
It is worth mentioning the brazilian expedionary force in italy.
When they do things they will be mentioned, Reginaldo.
@@Southsideindy cheers. Anyway, they only got in real fighting around september 1944.
2:58
Indy is referring to the Japanese training cruiser Katori, one of Iowa and New Jersey's sealclubbed enemy ships.
The Iowas honestly were worse than useless at Truk given that their involvement allowed Nowaki to escape, and that they were completely overkill for sinking a damaged training ship and a damaged destroyer (not to mention those Japanese vessels were already going to be sunk by an air attack, which WAS CANCELLED just so the Iowas could claim they did anything).
They were training ships before the war but they were upgraded into AA cruisers and served as HQ units providing C&C to smaller fleet elements such as submarines and destroyers.
So the story that the bombing stemmed from a misinterpretation of the word Abt. Is false?
Bit of a correction. The deception operation that should ensure as little resistance in Normandy as possible was called Bodyguard. That operation consisted of multiple sub-operations, Fortitude being the largest and best known one. That one consisted of two sub-operations "North" and "South". "North" was to make the germans think an invasion of Norway was gonna happen, and "South" is the one best known about, an invasion of France via Cales. The other sub-operation was "Royal Flush", "Zeppelin", "Iron Side", "Ferdinand", "Vendetta", "Copperhead" and "Graffham"
As the Allies continued their advance they will have to make the difficult decisions ever before. The attacks on civilian targets. Should they followed through, many hundreds of thousands of civilians will perished in this war. Just as the Axis did in their advance beforehand, now the Allies must do the same. This war will truly breakdown innocent and turn men into monsters. This war will be far more brutal than ever before. The Axis now realizing their victory is no longer attainable, will resort to any means necessary to survive. The path to victory lays ahead but the cost to achieve that victory will be high. Godspeed to those who perished.
Also here’s a video of Operation Avenger: th-cam.com/video/pNt9RWypVdg/w-d-xo.html
It is blindingly obvious that both Japan and German do not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning this war but of course in dictatorships to suggest such a thing is "defeatism" which is punishable by death. A growing number of German officers have seen the writing on the wall.
As the battle of Monte Cassino plays out, will you give special mention to private (later corporal) Wojtek?
What a sad sad day for humanity… so much lives and history destroyed for nothing… please talk about Marocchinate, the rapes of some of the allied troops to italian women.
That's mostly going to happen in the aftermath of Monte Cassino, so you''ll have to wait until the summer episodes of _War Against Humanity_ to get more details on that. But I'm pretty sure the bombing of the Abbey will get discussed in greater length in the upcoming WAH ep.
The Abbey of montecassino saw the history that is twice or triple that of entire peoples. From ww2, it saw the arrival of the allies, the rise of fascism, the mobilizations of the first world war, the march of Garibaldi's redshirts, the viscescitudes of Murat's Napoleonic kingdom, the Kingdom of the 2 sicilies, the Rule of spain, the March of Spanish and French armies during the Italian wars, the arrival of the french with Charles of Anjou become king of sicily, the battles between the child king konradin and Charles, the fight between pope and Emperor, the arrival of the Germans with Kaiser Henry VI, the Normans, the Arabs, the Franks, The byzantines, the Lombards.
In fact it's so old that it saw the very same men doing exactly what these people were doing, conquering the italian peninsula from the boot. It saw the March of Belisarius during the italian wars.
I'm from Palau and I've been waiting literal years to see when it would be brought up. Love the channel guys!
I feel a little like the Pacific campaign isn't getting the attention it should in this series, although I think that's because relative to what's happening in Italy and Russia the U.S. and its allies are pretty much rolling over the Japanese with relatively little difficulty. Also, the island hopping campaign is in full swing so you're never settled in one place for long before the fighting moves onto a different group of coral islands with a funny name.
@@yes_head I think it bears mentioning that the famous portion of the Island Hopping Campaign still has to take place, though we're finally reaching the beginnings of it.
The whole Solomons Islands and Papua New Guinea campaigns and the construction of new carrier groups all took time.
@@yes_head If you don't think Peleliu Iwo Jima and Okinawa won't get major coverage then you are mistaken. Guadalcanal, Tarawa Midway and others got plenty of coverage.
@@yes_head What are you talking about? This channel has given THE most detailed account of the 1943 campaigns I've seen. Especially the battles for New Georgia and Bougainville.
Good news, you seem to be monetized again, saw three ads while watching this video.
So much interesting discussion about Cassino here, all of it fascinating. I, personally, am astonished by some of the events on the eastern front around this time. Between the deplorable conditions, and constant supply problems of every kind, compounded by nonsensical orders handed down by Hitler, what some of these Wermacht officers were still able to accomplish is, to me, amazing. I think some of the lives saved by the German commanders of trapped armies on the eastern front during this period of severe attrition may add up to some of the most heroic efforts of the war. None of them properly recognized by their chain of command, of course.
So glad this dropped 2 hours ago and TH-cam decided to not notify me or put it on my Homepage despite being subbed and notifications on.