The Germans Underestimated the Raw Firepower of the U.S. Army (George Wilson - Part 4)
George Wilson, the author of "If You Survive," recounts his harrowing experiences in Saint Pois during World War II with vivid detail and raw emotion. Stationed as a young soldier in the small French village, Wilson found himself amidst the chaos and brutality of war. Saint Pois became a battleground, where Wilson and his fellow soldiers faced relentless attacks from German forces. Despite the constant threat of danger and death, Wilson demonstrated remarkable courage and resilience, forging bonds with his comrades as they fought fiercely to defend the village and its inhabitants.
During his time in Saint Pois, Wilson endured unimaginable hardships and witnessed the true horrors of war. From engaging in intense firefights to navigating treacherous terrain, every moment was fraught with peril. Yet, amidst the devastation, Wilson discovered the strength of the human spirit and the power of camaraderie. Through his gripping narrative, Wilson offers a poignant tribute to the sacrifices made by those who fought alongside him in Saint Pois, painting a vivid picture of courage and perseverance in the face of adversity.
#ww2
#ww2stories
#georgewilson
in a nato military meeting a few years ago a french general complained that they always held the meetings in english and never french, a british general said if we dont speak english it would be in german
Colourised photo taken in Athens 1944. The soldiers in berets are British paratroopers from the 2nd Independent Parachute Brigade. The M4 Sherman is from the British 23rd Armoured Brigade. The two men on the left - one in a Greek helmet and the other wearing a German helmet - are members of one of the Axis-raised collaborationist Security Battalions who were used by the British in the conflict against communist ELAS fighters at the end of 1944.
And like all British M4s, no pintel mounted .50 cal M2HB. Quite an assortment of headgear, wonder what the guy wearing the German helmet was thinking? And why the tank's least armored rear appears to be pointed at the threat.
@@PeterOConnell-pq6io...for the HELL of it-(?)
@@PeterOConnell-pq6io Probably a posed propaganda photo. Explains the relaxed German helmeted guy a bit more.
@@stevesandford7442 Tobermory8341 (above) explains he 's a turncoat from from some Greek militia group. Still doesn't explain why Dummy thinks it won't get his head shot off in all the excitement.
Thanks for the info,I was totally confused.
My dad and uncle were there, and told me about what the French did to their own women, my dad wasn’t impressed with a bunch of men suddenly finding their courage against unarmed women.
My father was a Normandy vet. A Sargeant in the First Canadian Army, 4th Armoured Division, New Brunswick Rangers, Ground Defence Platoon. He fought his way from Normandy through France, Belguim, Holland and into Germany. Never got a scratch on him. He described to me what your narrator said about the German bodies, dead horses, mud and the stench of death. He started smoking cigarettes while fighting in Holland just to get the stench of death and rotten flesh out of his nostrils. The Germans had blown the dikes and flooded the land. He said that when the trucks got stuck the soldiers would go into the ditch and drag out a dead body to throw under the tires as there was no wood anywhere. Always a German body and never a Canadian body. I had never seen him smoke and I had asked him when he quit smoking. He replied "I quit the day I got discharged and was headed home". I asked him why that made him quit. He looked at me like I had a hole in my head and said "Because I was going home!! I didn't want Mom to know I was smoking!" lol Did I ever laugh! A 25 year old man fought his way across Europe, killed Lord knows how many Germans and he was still scared of his mother! lol
Now that's a great story thanks to the great men like him, afraid of his mother or not we were born into a different world.
In 76 I was in the USAF, stationed in Pruem Germany right next to Winterspelt. This video says it’s a Belgium town. Now it’s German. Love the Eifel area!
Peace through superior firepower.
Exactly what Hitler thought.
Exsept for Vietnam , Iraq , and Afghanistan .....just sayin
@@yomommaahotoo264 By Godwin's Law you are declared the loser. Also, that was a common t-shirt sold at PXs back in the 80s and 90s.
@@magnashield8604 They are one in the same ....guys on the ground are pawns . No more , no less , for the rulers of any land , always has been , always will be .
@@tolik5929every measurable statistic of combat indicates that we won every one of those conflicts, militarily. The military can’t help if public sentiment changes. They just go with the whims of the masses. Welcome to geopolitics.
Finally , stories about allied troops , and not Nazi units , narrated by a voice , that sounds like Octavian on HBOs Rome .
The thing about a lot of these " collaborator" women, they lost their men in the initial invasion. It was sadly about survival.
Another sad thing is that many of these women were acting as spies for the allies. Much valuable information was obtained in this manner. But many of the women were still punished as collaborators.
"perhaps members of Congress should be forced to serve as front line troops" - makes sense to me. Robert Heinlein's SF book "Starship Troopers".
the book this is taken from is a very good read
33:32 even has a jump scare, what a show!
At first I was confused by the strange Greek picture and the bizarre AI narration, but I learned some interesting things. U.S doctrine called for massive firepower, and although the Sherman had many well-known weaknesses, and the various AT vehicles were armed with the not so massive 75mm, the combination of air power, artillery, and massed firepower were effective against the Germans.
Given the perceived threat level based on the posture of all involved and the head-peeking look of the tank commander, surprised that the tank hasn’t been reoriented with heavier frontal armor facing the threat.
I looked up this picture, since it shows soldiers in different countries' kit, including German. It's from 1944 in Athens, when British troops and allied Greeks were fighting Communist insurgents who were trying to take control of the country after the Germans left. So they only had small arms to worry about, no chance they'd encounter an enemy tank or field artillery.
every American/Allied tank afv came with good radios directly channeled to massive artillery support
But when did they all get radios?
@@kevincinnamontoast3669 shortly after Torch / Husky
Correct. Battle of Kasserine Pass taught USA high command a great deal. The person who thought to mount US 105 mm howitzer on Sherman chassis and to turn M3 Stewarts into mobile 75 mm howitzers is unsung heron. Allied artillery was able to keep up with armored infantry half-tracks and with Allied armor. @@bloviatormaximus1766
My father was one of first US troops interring the city. Luck him. He was following Patton, and in one area when he and a buddy was exploring in a Jeep, he found out the he somehow was in front of the point troops and in German controlled area. He sheepishly drove back behind the lines.
Looking at the thumbnail. The man standing with his back to the building on the left side of the photo hason a german helmet. The man kneeling by the lampost closest to the camera appears to be wearing an Italian helmet. While everybody else has on red berets. Is this in Greece?
Free French
the FFI used whatever they could get their hands on.
Yes this picture is from Athens in 1944, after the Germans had left. British troops and Greek allies were fighting Communist insurgents.
Let me get this straight: Post an inaccurate photo, and feed text from a book into an AI voice narrator? I hope you're not monetizing this.
Top notch?
Where is the photo from, given the mix of uniforms?
It’s fake. It’s an AI generated image. The voice reading the text is also AI, and I’m pretty sure the title of the video was AI generated as well. Almost nothing about this channel or these stories is real, besides the text itself which is stolen without even crediting the original author.
😅
A thought. I wonder if this is from the Greek civil war right after world war 2, when the Brits intervened on behalf of the anti-communist government?
@@feliksj.kwiatkowski2935 you're right, battle of athens in december 1944. red caps are scottish parachute battalion, helmeted are greek gendarmes. this image is the main one for the wikipedia article on Dekemvriana.
Why can't Robo-voiceovers pronounce basic words like leather and polished and father and Germans? Is no one out there good enough to do their own narration?
AI will rule us all. Embrace the matrix. Lil.
Strange language bugs seem to indicate AI content.
🤣🤣
So who is the (presumably) French soldier wearing the German helmet? Did he have a death wish?
Tells me not to waste forty minutes on this crap.
He's Greek, this pic is from Athens 1944.
The German helmets were better than the ones the Greeks used. The greek helmeted soldier is the one with a death wish. The American helmet during ww2 was actually based on the ww1 german helmet. It offered better protection than anything else.
Thanks. I saw the red berets and assumed them to be French, but now that you mention it, the roundel on the side of the tank is not French at all. And why is this picture being used about a video supposedly explaining US Army firepower? Total waste of time.
If the sh!t salad mix of bad robo-voice pronunciations is any indicator of future ai behavior, this planet is certainly doomed.
🤣🙄🤡yup
33:33 what the heck?
Pretty strange photo...German Italian and Airborn
These bot voices are mind numbing boring
German guard, rifle at port?
Not Americans. I think those are Free French soldiers. The man in the helmet would be partisan of the FFI
British paratroopers and armour , Greek partisans.
AI ruined this
MY GOD! Can we NOT have damnable AI narration?? The mispronunciatons are ridiculous.
Go ahead record us a narration. I bet you won't do it. Liberal filth.
Almost as bad as public school English grammar class!
French generals made big mistakes letting the Germans to walk into france
Spell check before using AI voiceovers.
Why never battles in Japan in WW2?
Battles in Japan were battle or islands of Saipan and Okinawa which were considered by the Japanese as being a part of the "home islands". Death toll on Okinawa and Saipan led to Pres. Truman's decision to drop A bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Photos of post A bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are available under Freedom of Information Act.
I disagree that Germans underestimated raw fire power, German, though overrun by superior forces, were out numbered in both men and weapons and aircraft, and tanks. In the end it was a numbers game, Yanks gave the allies unlimited quantities of men and equipment and weapons.
Perhaps not firepower per se, but Hitler declaring war on the US was completely suicidal. He was clueless about how far away the US was, what resources were available, and how much stuff could be manufactured and shipped from coast to coast then to Europe for pennies. The US could buy and ship fuel to the Soviet Union cheaper than having it refined in the Soviet Union.
@kurtvonfricken6829 I agree with you on Hitler's declaration of War against the US. I suspect it may have come from a treaty obligation with Japanese Govt. Suicidal for sure. Had nothing to gain by such a declaration.
I believe USA declared war on Germany at the same time declared war on Japan. Hitler was unaware that USA had tracked 155 mm howitzers, tracked 105mm howitzers and that all Allied artillery was towed by trucks and tracks whereas a lot of Germans moved artillery with horses due to lack of trucks and tracks to move them. In 1944 or early 1945 US began mounting 105mm howitzers of otherwise obsolete M3 Stewart tanks. Allied infantry had a great deal of mobile artillery support as well as new fangled Forward Air Observers. Sometimes these forward observers called in artillery before the ground troops actually made contact. By 1945 Allies were coordinating fighter bombers / medium bombers with ground troops. In Battle of Bulge one battalion of Tiger tanks was destroyed from the air by Allied fighter bombers before it was able to engage US positions. The Tempest and Thunderbolt mixtures of cannons, .50 mg and 5 inch rockets decimated German colums, rail lines and dug in positions. @@kurtvonfricken6829
Langwuages, haha, you couldn't make this stuff up
computer voice...
Sorry but if I want to look at a photo and listen to a story I'll read a book.
I hate AI
no, hes not speekin inglish he's merikun.