Myths about WWII that YOU might still believe

Have you heard these WWII myths? Let me know in the comments!
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[@WorldWarWisdom]

I misspoke and said “won” instead of lost about Germany at one point… but we all know they took that L.

[@ckc9913studios]

Imagine if they did, tho.

[@jason.larsenthedanishgreek1226]

@CraZy CaT 9913 philip k dick already did... along with a dozen other authors

[@Truman5555]

They took that L real good!

[@Graf_Leo_von_Caprivi]

As a German, I understand ourself as a second winner. 😎🥈

[@gratefulguy4130]

​@@Graf_Leo_von_Caprivi Winner runner-up

[@bryant7542]

All the fancy tech like Tiger tanks don't matter if you don't even have fuel. Germany learned that the hard way.

[@gratefulguy4130]

But people say they should have just mass spammed lesser tanks which would have made it even worse. It was the appropriate response to their situation.

[@erichvondonitz5325]

And even if you could fuel it, kinda pointless when its moving too slow and keeps on breaking down. Making easy target for ground-to-air allied planes

[@jeremya.695]

@@gratefulguy4130Germany would’ve been better served producing more 88’s to be used in a defensive capacity.

[@brianbalster3521]

the secret to success would have been: invading Iraq through Turkey instead of Russia. Keep the airwar going until Britain is out of pilots, use some sort of Actual Code to communicate with subs (instead of relying on Enigma ) and INVADE Iraq instead of russia.

[@teamcybr8375]

​@@gratefulguy4130Might have also helped if they designed a transmission that lasted more than 50 miles

[@dschnauzer11]

My father, a ww2 vet, always loved the ping of the M1 alerted the Germans that the GI was out of ammo. With 30-06 rounds, grenades and artillery going off you can't hear anything.

[@dx1450]

Well, I suppose if you were in a small battle where not everyone is shooting all the time, it might make a difference. But yeah, I remember the story about GI's throwing down an extra clip to fool German soldiers into thinking they're out of ammo, but I don't know if that ever really happened or not.

[@JuniperofTheWolves]

@@dx1450Nope. Soldiers never threw empty clips, that's stupid

[@dschnauzer11]

@@JuniperofTheWolves I think it was in a movie. But if you shot 30-06 and 8mm Mauser without ear protection you can't hear the ping. I know my dad said "ear protection, what's that" and he was a tank destroyer.

[@benjackson7872]

I’ve read that’s also a myth. According to German vets, the sound was inaudible. American soldiers did take it seriously, though.

[@jamesslick4790]

My grandfather was a WWII US Army combat veteran. He first heard of the whole damned Garand "ping thing" in the mid 1950s, a FULL DECADE after the war! 🤷‍♂️

[@enscroggs]

As for Germany and its "Wunderwaffen", people tend to extrapolate alternative histories from limited or incomplete information, which results in theories like Germany would have won the war if only X (Fill in X with your favorite aircraft, tank, rifle) but these theories generally ignore or gloss over economic realities. As real history shows, Germany did quite well and lasted considerably longer than her economic limitations would suggest.

[@SunflowerSocialist]

Not to mention the economic mismanagement, and the wunderwaffle was actually a prime example of this mismanagement. Britain and the US started instituting rationing and economic planning essentially the minute they entered the war to put their entire economic and industrial capacity towards defeating the axis powers. In the US most of the industrial capacity was put under the direct authority of the War Production Board out the gate. This is how you got companies like IBM shifting their production from punch cards to m1 carbines basically over night. The Nazis on the other hand introduced very little in the way of economic planning or rationing until about 1943, and essentially allowed industrialists to function more or less unchecked to conduct business and make as much money as they wanted, and the government agencies and ministers responsible for overseeing war production were regularly pitted against each other. Most famously Albert Speer, in charge of the armaments ministry, regularly buttheads with Goering’s office of the four year plan, in line with Hitler’s general attitude towards his subordinates of pitting them against one another to enhance his own power. And of course there was rampant corruption in German war industry. Goering became an outright industrialist using his control of the office of the four year plan to enrich himself, and he hoarded resources to the point the Luftwaffe had its own tank divisions. Companies like IG Faben and Krupp made billions off of the war (and the Holocaust), whereas most American companies under the war production board just broke even. And of course we can’t forget the pre-war policy of selling of state owned industries to pro-Nazi industrialists (like the Krupp’s) and members of the SS. Oh, and the Nazis thought they could get away with no rationing until about 1943 because they just figured they’d plunder all the countries they conquered, but after they did that they realized the amount of wealth and resources they could siphon off the occupied nations was a lot less than they’d expected, Perhaps nothing is more emblematic of this mismanagement than the Wunderwaffle program itself. Tons of Germany companies got contracts to develop these war winning weapons, but for the most part none of them ever turned out working prototypes and these companies just used the program to skim money off the Nazi regime, squandering a ton of resources in the process.

[@CrackaPackify]

Fascinating reading folks

[@rotwang2000]

@@SunflowerSocialist Speer is the guy who got away with talking a lot of BS because post-war they really needed "Good nazis" to explain Germany joining NATO. German industry from the start began to rationalize by among other things using fixed price contracts so that if you wanted to make more money, you had to expand production and make the plane or tank you were making, much cheaper. The advantage of having no supervision is that occasionally they came up with amazing concepts that a supervising board would have had serious doubts about, but was is often forgotten is that for each great design, there were others would never work in a thousand years. Many were vanity projects or just throw anything at the wall and see what sticks. One of the key areas where Germany really dropped the ball was electronics. Despite having the industrial base and some incredibly capable engineers, technology such as radio, radar etc, was often a step behind Allied developments. Take German Infra-Red. Everybody screams about how the Germans were on the edge of "Owning the night !" and of course win the war. The fact that the British had an image enhancement cathode tube system in 1940 or that the Russians had experimented with night vision in the 1930's or that many of the German units who did get those systems found them to be not very effective and that if you overused the system the filament would start to glow, which completely negates the night advantage ! What we really need to take away from Germany's military effort in WWII isn't some crazy dream that Germany was dominant until the last moment and then kinda lost anyway, but not by much, to how the heck did they manage to hold out for long against such overwhelming odds ?

[@SunflowerSocialist]

@@rotwang2000 I’m not sure that Speer had anything to do with Germany becoming a NATO member, especially given that Speer was still in prison when Germany joined NATO in 1955, and he wouldn’t be released from Spandau until 1966, after he completed his full sentence. You are correct that the Nazis did use things like fixed price contracts, but he these contracts tended to be a lot more favorable to business owners, especially if they were very close with the Nazis, like the Krupp’s. And even still, these contracts were not very effective or well thought out in the context of wartime economic planning. Due to this capacity driven incentive structure, the Nazis actually succeeded in outpacing production in some areas, but under performing in more crucial areas. Squandering countless resources in the process. When it comes to war time innovations, the lack of effective economic planning in many ways led to the proliferation of those bad ideas (and even some of their “good ideas” were futile and pointless). One could argue the allies more rigid economic planning model and stricter oversight might have led to fewer innovative ideas being proposed, i’d argue that this stricter model of economic planning actually allows for more effective innovations. As you said, with the Nazis, it often seemed like they were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck. Now the allies had their fair share of stupid ideas, like Pykrete and bat bombs, but the more controlled and directed model of the allies led to a greater emphasis on practicality and problem solving. Are some of the most important allied innovations of the war had less to do with high-tech, advancements, and more to do with stretching out the resources available. Figuring out how to do more with less. You’re right about the Nazis dropping the ball on electronics, but I think the more important thing to realize if we need to get away from this idea that it was all down to innovation or technology that led to the outcome of the second world war. You are correct that we need to abandon this fantasy that Germany was the dominant force in the conflict until the last minute. We need to remember that the Nazis thought themselves invincible, because of their belief in racial superiority, and saw themselves in a manichaean struggle between the Aryan master race and the jews, which they thought would inevitably result in their victory because after all, they were the master race. And Hitler and the Nazi leaders never abandoned this belief. Even after the tide turned against them at the end of 1941, they never abandoned their belief that they could defeat the Allie’s because it wasn’t possible in their eyes that they could ever be defeated by “racial inferior Slavs controlled by Jewish communists”. Hitler maintained the only reason they were losing is because the German people didn’t have the spirit of will needed to triumph, but never doubted his belief in racial superiority. This made the nazi leaders pious and is ultimately why they lost.

[@clevlandblock]

The "cricket" scene referenced here I think was a little embellished in the screenplay and possibly turned into legend by hobbyists over the decades. But this movie was serious as hell true to Cornelius Ryan's book. He put that book together after years of interviews and investigation. I believe the cricket incident was in the book and based on some vet's story. However, 98ks getting cycled sure don't sound like toys.

[@Rogue_Nine416]

i wouldn't be surprised if it was based off a real event but the screenplay writers may have thought the original circumstances were a little out there or that movie audiences may not believe it so they changed it to a rifle cycling to be more believable

[@warrenpuckett4203]

Those toys also were still popular in the '50s. I had one. Never sounded like any bolt action I ever heard. My uncle also said he "I had to walk to Berlin because I abandoned the jeep I drove onto the beach." Must have been a long walk. Collected 4 bronze and a silver on the way. He said the silver was for saving the major from drowning that busted him from SGT to PVT.

[@iododendron3416]

@@Rogue_Nine416 I can certainly believe a lone soldier, at night and under stress, mistaking the cycling of a rifle for the the cricket.

[@rongendron8705]

What's amazing is that German soldiers were still using bolt-action rifles as late as 1944!

[@rotwang2000]

@@iododendron3416 That's the problem, if it was a lone soldier who got killed, who would know ?

[@patrickmordorski7407]

Keep in mind the 82nd airborne where NOT issued crickets. Crickets where given to the 101st airborne only on D-day.

[@davidkeeton6716]

So the scene in the Longest Day with John Wayne showing his 82nd Airborne troops the clicker was pure Hollywood BS. OK

[@paoloviti6156]

​@@davidkeeton6716not only it is pure BS but the sound of the Kar 98k is completely different when loading and certainly not slow like this

[@StevenCodeBlack]

I believe that last one about the M1 Garand too George S Patton himself even dubbed it "The greatest battle implement ever devised"

[@kenbrown2808]

I'll buy the single greatest advance in weapons technology. but it has subsequently been refined.

[@bimbirobotics1050]

1:36 i didn't know Germany won

[@WorldWarWisdom]

Haha yea I left a comment about this already.

[@bimbirobotics1050]

@@WorldWarWisdom oh haha I'm sorry! great video anyway, big fan from Australia!

[@Truman5555]

@@WorldWarWisdom Well thank goodness! I thought we had randomly phased into the Wolfenstein universe!! Phew!!! Lol.

[@AtheAetheling]

Ya know, if the Allies had the Centurion in 1939 or the Atom bomb or the Flying Fortress or the Mustang or the Spitfire mk IX, they would have won the war even sooner! I've always found the 'if Germany had X' statements extremely weird for that reason. It goes both ways.

[@derekeastman7771]

This, but logistics. It doesn’t matter how good your technology is if you don’t have a practical amount of it with enough supplies to keep it useful. Germany could have had modern Abrams and all they would have accomplished would have been to make the fuel situation worse for Germany.

[@hugofernandez4459]

​@@derekeastman7771exactly logistics its key, but I say sheer production capacity is what won the war, just look at the western allies invading with like 15,000 airplanes with only a few hundred for the germans and the amount of T-34s and IL-2s that the soviets made far outproduced the germans. The axis had no chance when comparing the numbers, no matter how advanced was their technology and how well were their tactics and training

[@SunflowerSocialist]

This is true to a degree, but it kinda ignores what the bigger problem with the wunderwaffle program was. While the Allies did a lot for their own r&d projects, these were much more tightly watched by agencies like the War Production Board, and there were a number of high profile prosecutions during the war of businesses suspected of abusing government contracts or profiteering (Howard Hughes nearly was prosecuted for this). The Nazis did not provide as much oversight on their wartime production, and profiteering, waste and mismanagement were rampant. Wartime economic planning and rationing weren’t introduced in Germany until around 1943, and even then, there was constant fighting between the ministers in charge of the various planning agencies, and German companies regularly got away with failing to meet production goals because their owners were members of the Nazi Party, or even members of the SS. So the wunderwaffle program was a prime opportunity for Germany companies to basically scam the Nazis to line their own pockets and they had much more free reign over the kinds of weapons they were developing. This also squandered a ton of resources that they couldn’t afford to waste on tons of projects that never even got to the prototype stage.

[@ligmasack9038]

except it is FACT that if Hitler had held his truce with Lenin/Stallin that Germany would have been able to sweep the rest of Europe at the very least.

[@PSDuck216]

On the Me 163: I met an Austrian gentleman who, as a conscripted Hitler Youth member, had to learn to fly one. The cadets received very little training. What scared the tar out of them was the 163 had a pernicious habit of exploding when landed. The binary fuel was fine in unmixed state, but extremely volatile when mixed. If there was only a bit of unused mixed fuel upon landing, there would only be enough of the pilot left to fill a shoebox. In case they decided not to land and just bail out of their undamaged aircraft, a Gestapo agent warned the cadets that they’d be shot and their family sent to a concentration camp. Well, this gentleman, as a sixteen year old boy, got airborne, and at a too far distance, shot off all his ammo. Somehow he did take return fire and his aircraft was damaged, but “possibly” not that badly. Still, he said a prayer, radioed in his damage (overstated) and damage to two two American bombers (also overstated). Then bailed out, breaking his arm. He was informed by the Gestapo whilst he was in hospital that he was under house arrest, a mere formality until they checked his story of battle damage. The war ended before a verdict could be reached and he became a wounded POW of the Americans. At the time I met him and his wife, they were ski instructors and managers of ski chalets. Cheers!

[@_R-R]

He did what he had to do to stay alive.

[@rotwang2000]

One highly experienced pilot did have a problem with his landing gear, when he did try to come in the fuel tanks ruptured and by the time the rescue crews had reached him he was dissolving. His commander hoped that he had been knocked unconscious or killed on landing, for it was the most horrible thing he ever saw saying that his head was partially gone, his right arm was completely dissolved etc. Despite some success, they soon realized that the issues were not worth the trouble and the Me 163 was ditched. They did try to build an improved version, but nothing was ready before the war ended.

[@PSDuck216]

@@rotwang2000 That’s why the pilots were afraid of them. That and the explosive force of unspent fuel, even when the fuel gauge read “empty”. Cheers!

[@nealkonneker6084]

The scholar Victor Davis Hanson pointed out that the populations and gdps of the allies was several times larger than that of the axis. The end result was pretty much a given.

[@cheesyfromindonesia9969]

Combat stress could be the reason why the U.S partrooper thought that the Kar 98K bolt cycle sounds like their cricket clickers in The Longest Day

[@warman1944]

I haven't read Ryan's book, but I completely believe that that one scene in "The Longest Day" (the film, which I've seen) is believable. Having fired bolt action rifles myself (and therefore knowing what they sound like), I think it is completely plausible that at least one American might have fallen for the "trick" shown in the film. That said, I have never in my live heard about Germans deliberately "tricking" Americans with the sound. When I saw the film (as well as the 5-15 subsequent times I watched it), I interpreted it as a stranded American desperately hoping that the guy on the other side of the wall was his comrade, not that the German had deliberately tricked him.

[@EricDaMAJ]

I remember the scene and my interpretation is the German soldier didn't "trick" the American one. The American just mistook the "click click" as the response. A lot of crazy stuff happened on D-Day that wouldn't be believed except it was so well documented.

[@warman1944]

@@EricDaMAJ Yeah, you just repeated what I just said.

[@dukecraig2402]

​@@warman1944 Then there's the obvious problems with the myth, like how could the Germans possibly have known to do that when D-Day was the first use of the Cricket? Especially when you consider that the paratroopers dropped in the night before the invasion started, and even if a German soldier did catch on to the whole thing about the crickets how could the word about them and the use of cycling their Mauser's to trick GI's possibly have been spread all up and down through France within a day or so? Like most other WW2 myths all it takes is about 30 seconds worth of common sense to bust them. And yea, since the first time I saw The Longest Day about 50 years ago I always took it that the GI made a mistake and not that the German intentionally "tricked" him into thinking that he was another GI. People's imaginations running wild is what causes these nonsense WW2 myths, like the "M1 ping" getting GI's killed, like that one you can bet if it started going around after the advent of the internet it's nonsense.

[@aj3751]

Lots of us have shot bolt action rifles and know what they sound like. Do you know what THAT rifle in particular sounds like whem cycled? I don't. But I do own a cricket from WWII, and it never sounded like a rifle to me

[@Toopydroppymoopy]

@@aj3751while i don’t own a k98k I do own a Yugoslav copy so the action would make the same sound and yeah it doesn’t sound like a clicker

[@mikewinston8709]

Regrettably people rely on Hollywood in the stead of actually bothering to read and study history.

[@formacionG13]

I wasn't ready for that last part... 😂🤣😂🤣

[@Historynerd0313]

Great ending

[@dylanvinitamusic2033]

M1 Garand clip ejection giving away to the enemy that you're out of ammunition. Myth.

[@solentbum]

How long does it take to reload with a new cip?

[@bigandlittlefirearms8395]

I own a Mauser and the sound of the action sounds nothing like that

[@detroitandclevelandfan5503]

I have Mosin, want to trade? Lol 😆

[@polskabalaclava]

Me too

[@gimel9081]

You are a genius in your simplicity... Keep it up dude

[@gravygraves5112]

Yeah, the only way Germany was going to win that one was by not going to war with the Soviets and just focusing on grinding down the UK.

[@Codex70]

And not trying to exterminate people they deemed subhuman. That wasted lots of their soldiers and logistics. Their dumb ideology was one of the reasons they lost

[@davidpavlich8939]

Yes. It was a strategic blunder that Corporal Hitler attacked Russia. Imagine if those troops and weapons were sitting in France and Italy. My guess is that the Nazis would have indeed crossed the Channel and taken Great Britain.

[@howardcroft3748]

This is such a fantastic channel. Great information! Please keep up the fantastic work so we never forget the sacrifice of the greatest generation!

[@yellingyank1862]

Very interesting facts, thanks

[@cameronkedas3375]

My mom and I visited my grandparents in Alaska a few summers ago. My grandpa has a big interest in WWII because his dad was a paratrooper with the 2-509 in North Africa, the 505-82 in Sicily, and the 101st at Normandy, Holland, Belgium (Battle of the Bulge), and Germany. He has a K98 rifle (along with some other cool things like the Luger and the P-38 his dad got in the war) and he took it off the gun mount (I don’t know what else to call it) and let me hold it. I tried the scene from The Longest Day and it sounded NOTHING like a cricket.

[@bills1669]

My father probably fought alongside your father in WW2. He was a Sargeant in the 1st Canadian Army 4th Armoured Divison 10th Infantry Brigade New Brunswick Rangers 10th Independent Ground Defence Platoon. He was a Normandy Veteran and fought his way through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. He too was in the Battle of the Bulge. He told me that after the Canadian battle of the City of Caen his Divison linked up with the Americans and they fought alongside each other for the remainder of the war. I have the Walther P-38 9mm that he took from a German armouries in France. He once traded his Sten gun with an American soldier for an American M1 Carbine. He used it for 3 days, threw it in a ditch and took a Sten gun from a dead Canadian soldier. He said that the M1 carbine was "a piece of crap". lol I have to agree with him because I also have a M1 carbine in my gun safe with the P-38. lol Incidentally the P-38 is what my father used to teach me how to shoot handgun when I was a boy. I have many fond memories of those target practices at the cottage every summer. There is quite a humourous story as to how he managed to smuggle it home after the war. But no room left to tell it here.

[@shakescan]

Been enjoying your channel. I think about WWII regularly. If I was back then and going to fight in it I'd want to be deployed in Europe theater against Germany, specifically against tanks. With a bazooka (rocket launcher). Those tanks were tough, just leaving about the later model panthers now. I don't know if it would necessarily put a hole in it but guarantee it would wake the crew up. Keep up the good work!

[@shakescan]

just "reading" not "leaving"

[@saulribeiro5347]

Love your vid dude.

[@ssechres]

I like „the longest day“. I never even thought the cocking thing was done on purpose. I thought it was just a coincidence. A „1 off“ if you will. Also, i have long believed that Germany would have been better off to have put its resources into building large numbers of weapons that worked well enough instead of looking for small numbers of wonder weapons. Some of wich never worked like ME163 and others that were never produced in great enough numbers to really make a difference.

[@notaluigigamer130]

The Maus is a great example of this. On paper it would be a great tank that could withstand allied armaments and also Peirce any tank the allies had. But in practice the only thing it would have excelled at is being bomber target practice

[@BattleAxe1345]

I thought it was done by accident too. I figured the German engaged the bolt to get prepared after hearing that noise.

[@SgtCandy]

They still had massive issues with getting any fuel/ammunition for their tanks, sure they could make more Pz IVs than Tigers or Panthers but that just means more tanks abandoned after they run out of supplies than IRL

[@christianlibrul]

The cricket trick scene does not come from the book. If it ever happened, it was by coincidence. The notsees didn't know about the crickets.

[@cleburne1863]

Yeah, as others have said, I always thought in the scene in The Longest Day that the paratrooper just mistook the sound of the bolt cocking as a cricket, not that the German intentionally tricked him.

[@theteenageredneckfisherman3230]

Man i was about to scream at the end there lol

[@brianoneill7186]

That time when Richie Cunningham dressed up for his class project on WWII, rehearsed for weeks, and ended up saying Germany 'won'.😂

[@georgeszweden9497]

last one had me worried for a second there

[@JLange642]

Love the ending!

[@TheNativeEngine]

That GI is married to his Garand.

[@donlarocque5157]

They had boys and old men defending Berlin at the end of it.

[@mikeb.7183]

Had Hitler not poked the bear in 42 but instead waited until the west got tired of war. Things might have ended differently

[@BloodweiserDK]

Kudos to the Garand "PING"

[@BonnKialStevens]

Love your content. I was just like you when I was young...less the reenactment part. I joined the Army at 18 instead.

[@BonnKialStevens]

@@content_enjoyer4458 I don't know if I came across as rude or condescending. I love this young man and his knowledge of WW2 history. Great respect for him.

[@BonnKialStevens]

@@content_enjoyer4458 9th ID, 2nd ID, 7th ID, 101st ABN, 10th MTN.

[@hectorheathcote9495]

It wasn't the weapons. It was resources. Germany had no resources. That's one reason why they lost. Oh, and it's not "cocking the gun", it's "cycling the bolt" on a bolt-action rifle like the Kar 98.

[@clydemorgan1439]

The ME 262 had limitations and bugs to be worked out, the 2 most significant, limited range and if they tried to accelerate too fast the engines blew up.

[@TrueWraith]

Ngl you almost had me at the end.

[@adamhauskins6407]

I use to use snapple bottle caps as crickets

[@bnx200]

A major factor in the Allied victory was air supremacy in the last two years of the war, once long range Mustangs and Thunderbolts were available. If the Germans had large numbers of ME 262s at the beginning of 1944, they could have prevented the Allies from gaining air supremacy. Also, if the Type XXI U-boat was available in early 1944, it could have turned the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic. Fortunately the Germans didn't have either weapon available in time to make any difference in the outcome of the war.

[@garrisonnichols807]

We have a big misunderstanding about German military strength during the war. The Germans weren't as mechanized as we think. Most of their army travelled on horseback or by foot for the infantry. Their Navy was extremely weak compared to the British and American navies and lacked aircraft carriers. The Luftwaffe didn't have any long range bombers something they desperately needed but never built. Sure the Germans could defeat their neighbors but they couldn't fight against nations like the USA or Soviet Union especially at the same time on two fronts for a long drawn out complicated war. Germany simply didn't have the resources manpower or financial capability to win.

[@enscroggs]

The movie called "The Longest Day" was taken from a popular book about D-Day by Cornelius Ryan called "The Longest Day" (What a coincidence!) Ryan was a journalist and not a professional historian. He interviewed many veterans, both Allied and Axis, to assemble his narrative and basically used what he was told without the kind of confirmation professional historians rely on. This led him to make many mistakes because many soldiers believed myths like the Kar98K's bolt being cycled sounded like the cricket. The root of this wartime mythology is that soldiers, including general officers, are only given enough information to perform their assigned duties. These limitations on information are necessary, partly for security reasons but also because information overload can be confusing. Generally, it is better to know and fully understand a few crucial facts than to have a cursory grasp of a lot of unimportant things, particularly if time is very limited. Consequently, soldiers talk and gossip, and someone's opinion or wild guess gets passed on as fact. It seemed that every unit had someone whose cousin had a friend who was a clerk typist for a top staff officer who knows that tonight we're going to land in France! Soldiers were constantly warned about rumors and spreading rumors, but it had little effect on many because everyone wants to be the center of attention. Soldiers believed all kinds of malarkey because people have difficulty dealing with uncertainty, and they often told Cornelius Ryan malarkey who often believed it and put it in his books. kzbin.info/www/bejne/pH2VkKtrqLRqrqs

[@teamcybr8375]

That explains a lot

[@mikezimmermann89]

You may be correct. I know that Ryan (like any good journalist) was scrupulous about having multiple sources for the events presented in his books; but, I can certainly see how the scenario you laid out could generate “facts” relayed to Ryan that weren’t really true.

[@spankyharland9845]

another myth that a lot of hollywood movies contribute to, African-American soldiers were not in the infantry, they were delegated to driving trucks or other behind in the rear jobs- which was great for the Black soldiers because their casualty rate was low- it was until the Korean war when they stop segregating Black soldiers and allowed them to be on the front line- In Vietnam, they totally took advantage and sent more Black soldiers into combat causing a very high casualty rate for Black soldiers.

[@Tet68]

Where do you get you WW2 uniforms and gear?

[@airington01]

Damm Hollywood

[@apollo21lmp]

#1 since Germany didn't know about the cricket until well after D-Day if a scenario like what happened in TLD in real life it would have been purely coincidental and probably just a one time event.

[@Lichcrafter]

Lol almost got us with that last one

[@thetvbaby83]

Thank you sir. 😊

[@gwine9087]

The M1 Garrand was invented by a Canadian.

[@deanmantas8840]

Where did you get that 41 jacket? At the front?

[@donlarocque5157]

At the store. The gettin place.

[@scottdunkirk8198]

The 101st had the crickets and the 82nd used the words Flash and Thunder as an answer.

[@richardlahan7068]

If Germany's wonder weapons were that important to Hitler, he should have spent his time, effort and money on perfecting them. Not starting wars with his neighbors.

[@christophertaylor9100]

I think if they had put out the ME-262 earlier it could have made a big difference

[@Conorkinsella]

Can you make a video about sniper in ww2

[@AlastorTheNPDemon]

Germany had plenty of fantastic, highly advanced weapons of course - and I'm just talking about the small arms here - but some of them were kinda 'glass cannons' if you know what I mean.

[@ExtantPerson]

If you ask me, as soon as Operation Barbarossa failed, Germany was doomed to lose.

[@philanthropenos1074]

100% agree about the wonder weapons (Plus, agree also on "unless nuclear" part). Given time and space, numbers will always win.

[@davidkermes376]

i am shocked to hear the movie, "the longest day," referred to as an old war movie! but then i realize it is!

[@solentbum]

Me too. I saw the movie the week it came out in the UK, My Dad took me. He liked the film because he was there.

[@YorkshireMemes]

It’s obvious that the Germans would not of won regardless of what weapon they developed. The raf slapping them silly over English skies still brought the germans first downfall which led a domino effect to the overall German loss

[@einundsiebenziger5488]

... would not have* (!) won. "Would of" makes no sense at all and is silly to be put in writing.

[@YorkshireMemes]

@@einundsiebenziger5488 it’s silly to think England would of lost given the fact that England won the Battle of england all on its own so your wrong

[@joebutterman3084]

You should have had a KAR 98 to action. Good show

[@baffledsquirrel2122]

A big thing a lot of Americans don’t know is how much of an impact Canadian forces had in the wars.

[@christophertaylor1153]

The Me-262 had parts on it that were not capable of sustaining long flights. The reason is that the Germans had no access, late in the war, to heat resistant material for jet engines. Allied bombing was the main reason and parts that were heat resistant were hard to come by.

[@PewpewTrekkie]

Here's the thing with the "there's no evidence" line, just cause it isn't documented doesn't mean it didn't happen. I would venture to say it did happen but only a few times, didn't work, so nobody bothered to remember it.

[@johnpritchard5410]

Ryan was noted for his research....

[@calamityhex3729]

History has shown that even a 40 year technology gap still doesn't mean the more advanced side will win.

[@dentonandsasquatchshow6824]

Kid I don't know who you are or why you are obsessed with WW2 but your knowledge is impressive.

[@huntclanhunt9697]

"In reality Germany won the war for a bunch of reasons" Bruh

[@huntclanhunt9697]

@@FrankSinatra2023 I know but it's funny so I shall tease.

[@ssww3]

Das führer win less gooooooo

[@tbotalpha8133]

My guy accidentally outing himself as a time traveller, now stuck in the "wrong" timeline where the Axis lost.

[@duglife2230]

And correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the 82nd refuse the crickets because they just figured the "flash/thunder" countersign was more useful anyway? Might be wrong about that, but if not, then they shouldn't have been using them in The Longest Day at all.

[@CMDRFandragon]

JUst like hte myth that throwing an empty metal en bloc clip at the ground(dirt) is going to make any kind of ping sound to trick Germans.......I always wondered how people would think that'd work. Have they never thrown something metal at the ground? It would make basically no sound at all....

[@mikezimmermann89]

Umm… the “ping” is real. I’ve heard it many times, live, at the rifle range. It’s not caused by the clip hitting the ground, but by the ejected clip striking some portion of the rifle (likely the receiver or bolt) as it is forcefully pushed out and “launched”. Or maybe you were talking about something else (like tying to “fake” the ping sound)? It that case, I think you’re right. Throwing a clip on the ground wouldn’t do much.

[@bigalon3wheels]

American manufacturing capabilities won WW II, we out built the Axis forces in every war fighting material used by thousands, not hundreds. Germany and Japan were out produced and faced numerical superiority by 1944 and nothing they could do would have changed the outcome for them. We did not supply manpower only we provided weapons of war in numbers that could not be matched. Our troops did a good job fighting the enemy on the ground and in the skies as well as the oceans, but without the manufacturing abilities we had their would have been a lot longer war.

[@mjjuntunen]

You need to check with cornelius ryan about that myth

[@mikefranklin1253]

Germany just did not have the industry to make all the advanced weapons they developed. For every Tiger Tank the Germans built America made hundreds of Sherman tanks.

[@joelwalton-lh7nv]

M-1 Garand: it is not pronounced garAND. The name is pronounced ger end as the designer pronounced it …but it isn’t the first mistake ever made

[@haroldgifford852]

They might have won, if they had a At-Ats

[@illtemperedcur9798]

As Napoleon put it "an army marches on it's stomach". Logistics wins wars. Put up a bunch of 70+ year old Tiger IIs with nearly unlimited ammo, fuel and spare parts resupply against a bunch of modern Abrams or Leopard IIs with just a single basic load and the Tigers are likely to come out on top. They'll take a hideous number of casualties, but once you run the modern tanks out of ammo and fuel, you have a bunch of really expensive, and immobile bunkers. A tank or an aircraft or a rifle or a howitzer etc is just a delivery tool for the ammo. Which means logistics.

[@mister-v-3086]

I'm 74 now...I saw TLD in theater when it first came out. SO...after 50 + years of watching this movie at the drop of a hat, I've come to the conclusion that This particular scene was put together Just So that Sal Mineo would get shot -- again.

[@varia6688]

One of the downsides of complex weaponry and armor was need to repair it more often, deep snowy winter areas and desert areas in foreign lands with logistical transport issues to to larger enemy navy/air force and partisant/insurgent sabotage kind of ruins it a lot I think. One of Germans major issues was basically running out of ammo. While american tanks kept rolling

[@schizoidboy]

In regards to some German weapons, the allies often had similar tech to them. America had experimental jets including flying wings designs, however, they didn't have fly by wire tech the modern planes have now, and chances were the Germans were going to have the same problems with their designs. Also what I heard on a documentary about the war the V2 rocket could deliver a ton of explosive from over two hundred miles, but an Allied bomber could also do the same and with bombing raids being in squadrons they were more destructive.

[@tankmaker9807]

That is true, what made the V2 dangerous was that it could not be stopped once it was launched. It was a terror weapon, not a strategic weapon.

[@williamwilson6499]

Garand rhymes with errand.

[@elcaponeholyemperorofnj1169]

I disagree, you’d be surprised what difference a new battle rifle can have, if they actually developed the STG before d-day, it would’ve been incredibly difficult for even the Americanadian forces because the STG is an intermediate rifle & so it would’ve been capable of semi & fully automatic fire making it extremely versatile, however, many of their technology near the end was last ditch at best.

[@teamcybr8375]

I dunno what it would have changed about D day, the beaches were fortified by heavy machine guns far more effective than the STG in a defensive role

[@bigwood2659]

That was sal mineo, I went to school with his nephew.

[@kinocorner976]

Tiger tanks made great targets for pissed off P-47 pilots. Especially when that tiger was carrying a fuel cart. I love all these German wonder weapon. The Americans always had a good practical counter to it. Like artillery and explosives 🤣

[@Dan-ge1pz]

Never heard the cricket myth

[@kenbrown2808]

the biggest reason Germany lost was because they were outnumbered and out manufactured. without researching numbers; say a tiger was worth 5 shermans. but the allies had 10 shermans for every tiger.

[@tomp8871]

Is this a costume party?

[@jjpenn8925]

'I hear all the time.' Literally never heard any of these, and I've lived a lot longer then you.

[@jimh6763]

I think that in the longest day the german just happened to cycle his rifle. Dont think it was intentional. The Germans didnt know about the cricket

[@ethanporter3179]

2:17 Amen 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲 The M1 Garand Was what kept us free love that pinging sound I Love your Video World War Wisdom keep them coming you are so awesome

[@rongendron8705]

What's amazing is that German soldiers were still using bolt-action rifles as late as 1944! When the American Army switched from Springfield .03 bolt-action rifles to semi-automatic M-1 Garands, ca. 1942, why didn't Germany realize that their weapons were obsolete? Since Germany was so advanced in their pistol technology, why were they so 'behind' with rifles?

[@odysseusrex5908]

You need to watch *The Longest Day* again. In the scene in question, the German soldier does not cock his rifle in deliberate imitation of the sound of the cricket. He hears the cricket and clearly does not know what it is, so he cocks his rifle so as to be ready to fire it. The American soldier mistakes the sound for a response to his signal, even though they don't really sound that much alike. It's not impossible it could have happened but, yeah, no German ever did it deliberately I'm sure.

[@AchimEngels]

Greatest Myth: The allies fought evil.

[@AchimEngels]

Using a captured cricket from a searched and fallen or captured officer or soldier, would be much easier and more authentic than cocking your gun. Of course no German soldier ever wondered what these were for when found in the field or asked a cptured soldier about them.

[@sillybilly686]

Not going for Russian oil fields and focusing on Stalingrad and changing the bombing raids of England off manufacturing may have changed the outcome, but probably just would have delayed it.

[@alastair9894]

The Yanks were the only combatants in WW2.

[@Dave-ti2ue]

A lot more bolt action action were issued to US soldiers than what people think. Not every soldier everywhere had an M1.

[@teamcybr8375]

The marines in particular did not initially trust the M1 and stuck with the 1903 for some time

[@hellfire8883]

One way Germany may have won is if they had more fuel and the ability to move that fuel where is was needed. However their lines were very overextended trying to take over the romanian oil fields and stalingrad who knows if after they would've avoided a stalingrad defeat if fuel and the logistics would've been more available if a full effort was used on gaining fuel. Still the ability to move that fuel would still be a main issue

[@johninmelb]

Germany had no hope of winning the war after they failed to take Tobruk. Tobruk would have given them a deep water port and a much shorter supply line. That would have allowed the Germans and Italians to take the Suez. That would have given them access to the Indian Ocean, oil, rubber, natural resources.

[@dannobloomquisr8825]

Are you wearing a Bearcat cloisonne ???