My great uncle died during the battle of the bulge and here is the story of my family during ww2. He was in Belgium while in the 319 INF 80 DIV of the army. On January 8th 1945 his troop was sent to the front line to protect a flank during the battle of the bulge. They met over whelming forces with artillery fire. When he was on his way to the front my grandfather passed him. When my grandfather dropped someone off at a meeting he asked permission to see his brother.. By the time he got to the front Max Thomas ( my great uncle ) was already dead. He is currently buried in Luxembourg Belgium. He was a Private first class when he was killed in action but the flank was held.
@hiddentruth1982 My father was a GI and was in the Battle of the Bulge. I don't know a lot about what he did because he refused to speak about his time in the war. He just always said that he hoped the world would never see another Hitler.
@@BritGirl-fg9gj If you know what unit he was with you can get some information. Since you are his son you can request his service record as well. You won't need much beyond his name for that.
@hiddentruth1982 I've actually thought about trying to find that out. I know he was an MP and was in France during most of the 3 years he was in service. The only reason I know he was in the Battle of the Bulge was because he once told me that he had never in his life been so cold and he never liked snow very much. (I'm his daughter 🤭)
@@BritGirl-fg9gj I don't know how they do it in Britain but I shall look in to it. Looks like you would get in touch with the national archives and the more information you can give them the better.
I've been to the American cemetery in Luxembourg. My grandpa served in Patton's 3rd as a combat engineer. I went to salute and thank the General for getting grandpa home safe.
I've seen every episode of TimeTeam since the beginning and whenever WW2 is covered it suddenly becomes so much more poignant - to those of us who had fathers, uncles, grandfathers who fought in these places (on both sides) it is both so frighteningly recent yet, when you see rusted artifacts of war, also so distant now. They say history is written by the victors but this neutral archeology standpoint of piecing together personal lives - American and German - shows that at the local zoomed-in level there were seldom victors, and everyone suffered no matter what their role. Current events are a stark reminder that the world is never too far from conflict.
It is hard for us Boomers and later generation to understand how little the recent generations are completely ignorant of WWII and specially WWI. Unless they are Sabaton Fans it’s a few movies and maybe TH-cam tracks. Still, they have Viet Nam, Gulf War, etc. but those are barely touched really.
The "badge" at 20:30 is a US Army expert infantryman badge, the highest award for marksmanship. The Machine Gun attachment shows what weapon he fired expert with. I got one exactly like it for Recoilless Rifle in '69.
It is often overlooked that supposedly at least 20,000 French people were killed in the battle of Normandy; approximately 3,000 on D-day; almost as many as the Allies that day ! While the battles are still remembered, the fact that so many civilians became "collateral damage" is overlooked.
21:28 That is an American Expert Marksmanship Badge, Every weapon you qualify - the highest badge is warn. Example if you qualified with the pistol. We're a marksman with the rifle Expert with the machine gun, you'd only wear the expert badge; the cross with the wreath with the machine gun tab. If you qualified expert in all 3 Or marksman in all 3 You'd wear all three tabs.
My father in law landed at ouistreham with the Gordon Highlander and fought their way across northern France to the Low Countries. Where he lost his best friend Wally Flack on the Dutch/ German border.
All props to the team investigating here -- but when will we no longer have to worry about despots throwing huge areas/countries into such terrible conflicts?
The spoon at 30:26, what makes that American? It's not the type of spoon found with the issued mess kit, knife, fork and spoon. By the way, there is a difference between a cartridge & case. Cartridge being a complete round of ammunition and a case/casing being what remains after a cartridge is expended . Same for blank and dummy. A blank round will make noise and can be dangerous, even leathal A dummy is a cartridge is one that was specifically made not to fire at all .
Minutes in and I’m blown away! This is the stuff, the strategic details my dad must of been searching for in all his persistent reading & TV movies, documentaries.
Hi there! Thanks a lot for both showing your interest in Time Team! We often collaborate with many local groups around the country on various digs. Occasionally we do post volunteer opportunities on our Patreon, so do keep an eye out on there if you are a member! If you would like to get in touch with the Battlefield Archaeology Group, you can register your interest in their project on their website www.battlefieldarchaeologygroup.com/contact.html If you have any more questions feel free to contact us directly by emailing us at info@timeteamdigital.com
I didn't understand the relationship between area carpet bombing and the crossroad positions. The stuff they were finding was standard battlefield items you'd expect to find.
The carpet bombing hit one company of King Tiger tanks. A few of these tanks were thrown around like toys. One was sitting on its side and I believe another on its stop. Another set of bombs hit short and killed an American General.
The use of the modern Canadian flag rather than the flag of the Dominion period gives a somewhat skewed representation and context of views of the time. For example, Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada then. Many news reports and indeed views of the participants viewed the Canadian and British forces as simply British or Imperial forces. Truthfully, Canada was exerting its efforts for an equal place at the allied councils by 1944 and successfully took over, for example, command of the NW Atlantic AOA and fielded the aforementioned Canadian army by D-Day (interestingly over the objections of Field Marshal Montgomery). One wouldn't show a Federal German flag on the opposing side of a graphic such as shown in the video, but a Third Reich flag. Mixing period flags is sloppy and gives a wrong historical perspective.
I was hoping that this project on Operation Cobra might cover the US accidental bombing of fellow troops. My dad's first cousin was killed by friendly fire in the operation.
2:15 Please get someone with a basic knowledge of the geography of Normandy work on your maps. You put Caen where Evreux is and you mislabelled the D-Day beaches a little too far east...
Personally I don’t find these modern WWII programmes that interesting. After all what occurred is quite well documented. I don’t mean to belittle the dead people’s sacrifice or their contribution to the war effort but from a purely archeological point of view old sites are more mysterious, enigmatic, ambiguous and therefore their interpretation more fascinating.
@3:21 It might have been a slip of the tongue. But, there were no such things as "carpet bombs". Mick would be choking on his red wine if he could see this rubbish.
There are several more mistakes in this episode - and not identifying the badge, was that for real? I know almost nothing about ww2 and I'd still at least roughly place that immediately. Overall the episode is just pretty bad.
Hard to believe a bunch of WWII archeologists couldn't identify such a common marksmanship badge. It is so common, in fact, that it is still used in modern times. I sure hope that was simply creative editing in an attempt to make the show more interesting.
@@lenabreijer1311 that badge is on nearly every US enlisted dress uniform since WWII. It isn't some mysterious item. If you can identify .50 cal shells you can determine what that badge is. I think they created false drama by saying it looked like an "Iron Cross". I suspect they knew what they had.
This is hard to write but it needs to be said ive watched Time team for years and these new time teams are just not doing it there's something that just isn't right, this episode sadly doesn't have a typical TT feel. Its such a shame.
Expecting the Time Team and getting a bunch of Americans called BAG was a disappointment. Also the sites were too many and far apart to tell a coherent story. An ambush here a battle there, but all there was to show for were a few bullets, a badge and some cutlery. And that for something that barely happend a hundred years ago.
Sorry but I thought this was pretty poor - indeed I struggled to stay with it. Maybe it's simply because the Hitler War and D Day in particular are done all the time by pretty well every history channel but I couldn't really see the point of the project archaeologically either. To me finding stuff in known war-zones and thinking it tells you anything about the blokes who were there and what was going on is like being surprised at finding something Roman in Cirencester and thinking you can extrapolate anything from it. I'm sure having your half-track blown up with you in it is horrible but in no way are a few mangled bits of vehicle any more than an empty shell case a 'visceral reminder' of anything. Boiled down this smacked of modern documentary film making at its laziest from the usual establishing shot on the ferry - for goodness sake we know he had to get there. Also we've been to Aldbourne, in the trenches recently to little of real import and this. Is this a wise content policy?
Montgomery got the British and US forces wrong way round. If if had been the Americans who had the chance to do Market Garden, Paton would have got to Arnhem .
written accounts backed up by archaeology are invaluable; cf the Saxon invasion that never happened, but the written word (Bede's "history") said it had; archaeology proved him wrong.
I thought it looked huge -- not like anything I've seen around the US. And why would the Americans be carrying all around something so large and heavy? However, I do think they made things "more sturdy" in Europe, so you are probably correct. edit: Unless it was so large because it belonged to the cook, or for serving.
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Wish I could.CO2Tax burdened in Canada 😢
No, your moderator is a homophobe.
The farmer telling the tale of the rescue with the stretcher was an absolute delight. What a wonderful storyteller.
Witnesses and participants are the best artifacts of all.
Captain Simard was posthumously awarded the Distinguish Service Cross for his heroic actions.
Loved the farmer. A little bit of his family history kept forever
My great uncle died during the battle of the bulge and here is the story of my family during ww2. He was in Belgium while in the 319 INF 80 DIV of the army. On January 8th 1945 his troop was sent to the front line to protect a flank during the battle of the bulge. They met over whelming forces with artillery fire. When he was on his way to the front my grandfather passed him. When my grandfather dropped someone off at a meeting he asked permission to see his brother.. By the time he got to the front Max Thomas ( my great uncle ) was already dead. He is currently buried in Luxembourg Belgium. He was a Private first class when he was killed in action but the flank was held.
@hiddentruth1982 My father was a GI and was in the Battle of the Bulge. I don't know a lot about what he did because he refused to speak about his time in the war. He just always said that he hoped the world would never see another Hitler.
@@BritGirl-fg9gj If you know what unit he was with you can get some information. Since you are his son you can request his service record as well. You won't need much beyond his name for that.
@hiddentruth1982 I've actually thought about trying to find that out. I know he was an MP and was in France during most of the 3 years he was in service. The only reason I know he was in the Battle of the Bulge was because he once told me that he had never in his life been so cold and he never liked snow very much. (I'm his daughter 🤭)
@@BritGirl-fg9gj I don't know how they do it in Britain but I shall look in to it. Looks like you would get in touch with the national archives and the more information you can give them the better.
I've been to the American cemetery in Luxembourg. My grandpa served in Patton's 3rd as a combat engineer. I went to salute and thank the General for getting grandpa home safe.
I've seen every episode of TimeTeam since the beginning and whenever WW2 is covered it suddenly becomes so much more poignant - to those of us who had fathers, uncles, grandfathers who fought in these places (on both sides) it is both so frighteningly recent yet, when you see rusted artifacts of war, also so distant now. They say history is written by the victors but this neutral archeology standpoint of piecing together personal lives - American and German - shows that at the local zoomed-in level there were seldom victors, and everyone suffered no matter what their role. Current events are a stark reminder that the world is never too far from conflict.
It is hard for us Boomers and later generation to understand how little the recent generations are completely ignorant of WWII and specially WWI. Unless they are Sabaton Fans it’s a few movies and maybe TH-cam tracks. Still, they have Viet Nam, Gulf War, etc. but those are barely touched really.
@@wandapease-gi8yo And who remembers Korea, other than Michael Caine?
Thanks for telling the story of those young, brave men. God bless them all.
We were in Saint Lo last May. Had we known that you were filming nearby, we would have visited to say Hi.
I absolutely love Time Team-Amateur Archeologist
I’m at UNR! This is awesome! It’s great to see archaeologists from the U.S again.
Wonderful, archeology for our modern time (even tho I was born in 1951), history comes alive through the efforts of these dedicated individuals.
good example of the fact that archaeology is not just about ancient times, we can learn a lot about more recent events as this demonstrated
My late father went from Dunkirk to D Day and took a bullet to his leg in Normandy. Till then, he was injury free.
Mine two went from D Day to Dunkirk lost two brothers on the beaches and shrapnel both legs on the beach .
The "badge" at 20:30 is a US Army expert infantryman badge, the highest award for marksmanship. The Machine Gun attachment shows what weapon he fired expert with. I got one exactly like it for Recoilless Rifle in '69.
Expert Marksmanship Badge and Expert Infantry Badge are two different awards.
@@dfostman6014 Sorry, it's been over 50 years.
Curious that the marksmanship badge would be found in the field, since it’s not worn on combat uniforms.
@@bobleicht5295 Carried a dress uniform in my duffel into a hostile fire area. Don't know what they did in WWII
It is often overlooked that supposedly at least 20,000 French people were killed in the battle of Normandy; approximately 3,000 on D-day; almost as many as the Allies that day ! While the battles are still remembered, the fact that so many civilians became "collateral damage" is overlooked.
I cant wait to see more of this.
The badge was an US Army weapon qualification badge. It looks like the person qualified as EXPERT with the machine gun.
Out of curiosity about the 'iron cross' design. the center was clearly a stylized target. Was the 'cross' a stylized crosshairs?
I am curious why there was a badge that is worn on the dress uniform was in a combat area. Maybe he was carrying it in his pocket or something?
Great project and episode.
Thank you for sharing this!!!
Fascinating. And, after 80 odd years, the landscape it the same.
Fascinating - well done Sam
I'll be watching this.👍
I checked out.
Some of your merchandise.I don't see the Mick Aston.Doll whenever you'll start making those.I won't want one of those real bad
Thank you.
TY 🙏🙏
Good, good stuff . . . !
21:28
That is an American Expert Marksmanship Badge,
Every weapon you qualify - the highest badge is warn.
Example if you qualified with the pistol.
We're a marksman with the rifle
Expert with the machine gun, you'd only wear the expert badge; the cross with the wreath with the machine gun tab.
If you qualified expert in all 3
Or marksman in all 3
You'd wear all three tabs.
It is definitely a military operation I had never heard of before. It is incredible. Thank you for bringing this to light.
My father in law landed at ouistreham with the Gordon Highlander and fought their way across northern France to the Low Countries. Where he lost his best friend Wally Flack on the Dutch/ German border.
All props to the team investigating here -- but when will we no longer have to worry about despots throwing huge areas/countries into such terrible conflicts?
Sorry I'm late, I was watching the Niel Holbrook interview
New Time Teams = my dream, thanks all!
Nice one Sam
The spoon at 30:26, what makes that American? It's not the type of spoon found with the issued mess kit, knife, fork and spoon. By the way, there is a difference between a cartridge & case. Cartridge being a complete round of ammunition and a case/casing being what remains after a cartridge is expended . Same for blank and dummy. A blank round will make noise and can be dangerous, even leathal A dummy is a cartridge is one that was specifically made not to fire at all .
Your map showing the D Day beach names is incorrect. Juno Beach was in between Gold and Sword.
Minutes in and I’m blown away! This is the stuff, the strategic details my dad must of been searching for in all his persistent reading & TV movies, documentaries.
Let’s go
Wow!
That was awesome …. great content and great presentation
It would nice to see something of the British at day as the moment just gives the impression that only America fought at dday
US ARMY weapons qualification badge. Expert
How do you volunteer to help with one of the digs?
They never reply to comments and they don't have a direct email. I wouldn't bother if I was you. They only want your money.
Hi there! Thanks a lot for both showing your interest in Time Team! We often collaborate with many local groups around the country on various digs. Occasionally we do post volunteer opportunities on our Patreon, so do keep an eye out on there if you are a member! If you would like to get in touch with the Battlefield Archaeology Group, you can register your interest in their project on their website www.battlefieldarchaeologygroup.com/contact.html
If you have any more questions feel free to contact us directly by emailing us at info@timeteamdigital.com
Amazing detail. Great job.
👍👍
21:45 machine gunners expert marksman badge. It means he rarely misses. Highly proficient with a machine gun
Excellent edition 👍
My great uncle died in Holland. He was in the rail splitters.
Ah the 84th ID. Great unit. Have you read Draper's history of the division?
@@jaykaramales3087 no. Haven’t. I will check it out. Thanks!
I didn't understand the relationship between area carpet bombing and the crossroad positions.
The stuff they were finding was standard battlefield items you'd expect to find.
The carpet bombing hit one company of King Tiger tanks. A few of these tanks were thrown around like toys. One was sitting on its side and I believe another on its stop.
Another set of bombs hit short and killed an American General.
The use of the modern Canadian flag rather than the flag of the Dominion period gives a somewhat skewed representation and context of views of the time. For example, Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada then. Many news reports and indeed views of the participants viewed the Canadian and British forces as simply British or Imperial forces. Truthfully, Canada was exerting its efforts for an equal place at the allied councils by 1944 and successfully took over, for example, command of the NW Atlantic AOA and fielded the aforementioned Canadian army by D-Day (interestingly over the objections of Field Marshal Montgomery). One wouldn't show a Federal German flag on the opposing side of a graphic such as shown in the video, but a Third Reich flag. Mixing period flags is sloppy and gives a wrong historical perspective.
Michelle!
I was hoping that this project on Operation Cobra might cover the US accidental bombing of fellow troops. My dad's first cousin was killed by friendly fire in the operation.
17:05 thats NOT a American spoon. its a german one.
@2:00 You can't even get the beaches in their correct order on your map. It's an insult to the men who died on them.
Good catch. I'm sure it wasn't intentional.
So, is Cameron a Kiwi or an Aussie? I'm betting on Kiwi.😉
I would have agreed with your bet - but apparently he's originally from Sydney.
2:15 Please get someone with a basic knowledge of the geography of Normandy work on your maps. You put Caen where Evreux is and you mislabelled the D-Day beaches a little too far east...
He also switched Juno et Gold...
Personally I don’t find these modern WWII programmes that interesting. After all what occurred is quite well documented. I don’t mean to belittle the dead people’s sacrifice or their contribution to the war effort but from a purely archeological point of view old sites are more mysterious, enigmatic, ambiguous and therefore their interpretation more fascinating.
@3:21 It might have been a slip of the tongue. But, there were no such things as "carpet bombs". Mick would be choking on his red wine if he could see this rubbish.
There are several more mistakes in this episode - and not identifying the badge, was that for real? I know almost nothing about ww2 and I'd still at least roughly place that immediately. Overall the episode is just pretty bad.
'Bokage' country???
I can't be the only one that doesn't care much for these 'modern' excavations?
Hard to believe a bunch of WWII archeologists couldn't identify such a common marksmanship badge. It is so common, in fact, that it is still used in modern times. I sure hope that was simply creative editing in an attempt to make the show more interesting.
that is the power of dirt and first impressions.
My thought, too.
They aren't WWII archaeologists. They are regular archaeologists, many are Americans and you don't find much WWII battle archeology there.
@@lenabreijer1311 that badge is on nearly every US enlisted dress uniform since WWII. It isn't some mysterious item. If you can identify .50 cal shells you can determine what that badge is. I think they created false drama by saying it looked like an "Iron Cross". I suspect they knew what they had.
I’m kind of surprised that they were wearing the dress uniform badge while in combat.
Looks like a "Filler" episode. Not amazing. Essentially dull. I better buy a 95 dollar jacket to feel better .Strive for better please.
Why on earth does Michelle Parsons-Hagsrom have a stab vest on 🤣
This is hard to write but it needs to be said ive watched Time team for years and these new time teams are just not doing it there's something that just isn't right, this episode sadly doesn't have a typical TT feel. Its such a shame.
Sixth not sick th
Aah. Time Team. Happy place 😊
Expecting the Time Team and getting a bunch of Americans called BAG was a disappointment. Also the sites were too many and far apart to tell a coherent story. An ambush here a battle there, but all there was to show for were a few bullets, a badge and some cutlery. And that for something that barely happend a hundred years ago.
Wow; t never ceases to amaze me....vapid.
Sorry but I thought this was pretty poor - indeed I struggled to stay with it. Maybe it's simply because the Hitler War and D Day in particular are done all the time by pretty well every history channel but I couldn't really see the point of the project archaeologically either. To me finding stuff in known war-zones and thinking it tells you anything about the blokes who were there and what was going on is like being surprised at finding something Roman in Cirencester and thinking you can extrapolate anything from it. I'm sure having your half-track blown up with you in it is horrible but in no way are a few mangled bits of vehicle any more than an empty shell case a 'visceral reminder' of anything. Boiled down this smacked of modern documentary film making at its laziest from the usual establishing shot on the ferry - for goodness sake we know he had to get there. Also we've been to Aldbourne, in the trenches recently to little of real import and this. Is this a wise content policy?
If you don't like it :::
Don't watch it.
Waste of time this video. Its nothing compared to the original Time Team videos.. Thumb down
Lot of bla bla…
Montgomery got the British and US forces wrong way round. If if had been the Americans who had the chance to do Market Garden, Paton would have got to Arnhem .
Seems a bit pointless when they already know what happened
written accounts backed up by archaeology are invaluable; cf the Saxon invasion that never happened, but the written word (Bede's "history") said it had; archaeology proved him wrong.
Bloody annoying when people pronounce sixth as sick th , get back to school
17:05 German spoon, not American
I thought it looked huge -- not like anything I've seen around the US.
And why would the Americans be carrying all around something so large and heavy?
However, I do think they made things "more sturdy" in Europe, so you are probably correct.
edit: Unless it was so large because it belonged to the cook, or for serving.
NOT the Time Team of by gone days.🥲