Week 291 - Chiang Versus Mountbatten - WW2 - March 23, 1945
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- čas přidán 11. 05. 2024
- Chiang Kai-Shek is demanding his Chinese troops back from Burma, but this doesn't fit well with Mountbatten's plans for the region. In Burma, Bill Slim's forces liberate Mandalay this week and make plans to head south for Rangoon. There's also friction elsewhere in Allied command- between the Soviets and the Western Allies- over Italy. In the field in Europe, the Soviets advance all along the eastern front, and in the west, the Allies secure another Rhine crossing, and they also launch a double operation to send even more men across the river in force.
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0:00 Intro
0:53 Recap
1:20 Iwo Jima
2:15 Plans for Okinawa
3:53 Mandalay liberated and plans for Burma
08:19 Allied Machinations about Italy
10:25 Soviet advances all along the Eastern Front
16:55 Plans for Operation Grapeshot
17:45 Four Allied Operations in the west
23:25 Summary + Conclusion
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Marek Kamiński
Community Management: Ian Sowden
Written by: Indy Neidell
Research by: Indy Neidell
Map animations by: Daniel Weiss
Map research by: Sietse Kenter
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Artwork and color grading by: Mikołaj Uchman
Sound design by: Marek Kamiński
Colorizations by:
Mikołaj Uchman
Daniel Weiss
Spartacus Olsson
Julius Jääskeläinen - / jjcolorization
Adrien Fillon - / adrien.colorisation
Norman Stewart - oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Cassowary Colorizations
Ruffneck88
Source literature list: bit.ly/SourcesWW2
Archive footage: Screenocean/Reuters - www.screenocean.com
Image sources:
National Archives NARA
Bundesarchiv
Picture of Charlottenburger Chaussee creativecommons.org/licenses/b..., www.deutsche-digitale-bibliot...
Imperial War Museums: TR 1037, SE 3547), B 15767
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
Break Free - Fabien Tell
Dark Beginning - Johan Hynynen
Deadline - Marten Moses
Dragon King - Jo Wandrini
Fly Baby Fly - Fabien Tell
It's Not a Game - Philip Ayer
Leave It All Here - Fabien Tell
London - Howard Harper-Barnes
March Of The Brave 10 - Rannar Sillard
Other Sides of Glory - Fabien Tell
Please Hear Me Out STEMS INSTRUMENTS - Philip Ayers
Rememberance - Fabien Tell
Symphony of the Cold-Blooded - Christian Andersen
The End Of The World 2 - Håkan Eriksson
The Inspector 4 - Johannes Bornlöf
The Unexplored - Philip Ayers
Weapon of Choice - Fabien Tell
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
The Korean War by Indy Neidell, coming June 2024.
www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
Just subscribed I’m looking forward to this. I hope there will be a feature on Matthew Ridgeway MacArthur’s successor and forgotten as a commander in WW2 and the Korean War. Especially compared to some who weren’t as good imo.
Good luck to Indy and the team 👍🇬🇧
Will there be an episode explaining the build up to it? As a UK resident MASH was the closest I got to learning anything !!!
This is only the second time I've subscribed to a channel that currently has no content. The other was D-Day...
Subscribing, the summer will be exciting
The current war doesn’t end until September, what gives?
Heinz Guderian "retiring" at this stage of the war is much like rage-quitting in a CoD match. 😅
More accurately, rage-quitting in an RTS match.
With team like Hitler, Himmler and Mussolini i would ragequit too😂😂😂😂
MFER I ALMOST SPIT MY COFFEE OUT READING THIS 🤣🤣🤣
@@enixbluerain7213Guderian losing his sanity after watching his Vet 3 tiger tank get blown to bits by a Soviet blob of conscripts: 😀
There is possibility of rage-quitting. Let's not forget he was known as Storm Guderian!
I just want to say that the thumbnail meme is on point. 👌
SHOIGUU! GERASIMOV!
You can thank James' who thought of the idea and Mikolaj who created it! Thanks for watching.
WHERE IS THE AMMO
@@omarharoon1436where is the private jet 💀
Thanks for watching!
13:40 “A chance to surround German 6th Army” wait I feel like I’ve heard this one before
I’ve seen this one before it’s a classic
Sounds like another cheap direct-to-video sequel. These quickie cash-grabs never work out for the studios.
This is the hird german 6th army during this war
The first was encircled in Stalingrad and the second was encircled in Romania
Its ironic that only the third managed to escape a pocket for once
@@noobster4779The third time is the charm.
6 is a nice, surround number.
Should’ve had Smiling Albert going “Keitel, Jodl, where the $&@! Is my ammunition?!?”
Planes, tanks, gasoline, etc etc etc 😂
This is gold.
NCD leaking right there
by this point in the war, “where are the shells” is about 3 years in the rear view mirror for the german army. and the allies didn’t have ukraine’s manpower problem either
A rather peculiar sidenote this week on March 19 1945 is that Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Bedell Smith, and Kay Summersby will arrive at Cannes, France to take a short break from the war. Eisenhower would spend much of the next three days sleeping and simply doing nothing.
Well earned
Gossip about an affair between Dwight Eisenhower & Kay Sunmersby never went away
Walter Bedell Smith.....
Beetle Bailey.....
I have always wondered if there was/is some connection, here.
Lol
@@richardtalbott6215Yes their was,in my humble opinion. 😊
@@IanBerg And so what if there was? Anglo-American fraternisation. Sad that she died young of cancer.
Ive always wanted Indy to open with the Futurama gag by Professor Farnsworth. "Hows he doing? To shreds you say. Hows she taking it? To shreds you say."
then "Good News, everyone!"
Made me laugh, thanks for the chuckle!
- Jake
"Did he at least die painfully? Shot, you say. Well, how's his wife holding up? Cyanide, you say."
Honestly, I'd love that opening
6th Army and getting encircled
Name a more iconic duo
'Ludendorff' and 'Collapse'?
I was about to write something similar. That's a tale we had heard during this war already. :-)
"Luigi Cadorna" and "Isonzo River"
Hotzendorf and failure
Hitler and cianide?
Nice Prigozhin reference with the thumbnail
Reference from a 1980's movie called Sixteen Candels when a Chinese exchange student is passed out on a lawn and the family car's gone, and the father shouts "'DONG! WHERE IS MY AUTOMOBILE!?"
Would be more fitting to use Oscar Dirlewanger as a refrence
The way Pootin is channeling Stalin, these guys can probably keep this series rolling right up to the present day.
@@yes_head There's little comparison between the two.
Shoigu!
The comment on 14:53: "Hungarian 3rd army spends this week getting destroyed. " Love the humor.
Some years ago, I was on a rhine river cruise. A fellow passenger was a WW2 veteran and had driven his Sherman tank across the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. In Nuremberg, we were getting a lecture on the Nazi rallies. He had to walk away, he lost too many friends in the war. The greatest generation.
You had me confused for a minute, when I saw Frankfurt east of Berlin. I don't know German geography that well, but I could swear Frankfurt was in western Germany. Then I looked on wikipedia and found that there are actually two Frankfurts, Frankfurt an der Oder in the east, and Frankfurt am Main in the west.
pre gps, there were a few truck drivers who went wrong. or got sent to Bremer Haven and drove to Bremer and looked for the Haven (=harbor) over there. great fun if you are the planner at a transport company.
Or think of the different Limburgs. One is a Dutch province and the other a German city between the Ruhr and Frankfurt am Main.
fun fact, there are also two Rottenburgs.
In England there are like 20 towns called "Weston."
Yep "Fankfurt am Main" and "Frankfurt an der Oder", interesting piece of geography trivia!
1939 Germany: do you want to die for Danzig?
1945 Soviets idk, do you want to?😂😂😂😂😂😅
Germany : "Wait, you're not supposed to do that!" 😂
"CHIANG! WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY TROOPS?!"
Fantastic thumbnail ngl.
Glad you like it! Thanks for watching!
What? Thumbnail says where are my planes?
@@blackhathacker82”Fun” fact: a percentage of airplane storage space for American aid to RoC (including the Hump route) was secretly used by corrupt KMT officials including the spymaster Dai Li to transport their goods of corruption. 😔
A sidenote this week on March 21 1945 is that the Japanese will deploy the Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka suicide aircraft for the first time, slung under 16 Mitsubishi G4M Betty bombers that were part of a group sent to attack the American fleet off Okinawa. The flight was a disaster for the Japanese when the group was intercepted by American fighters a full 60 miles (97 km) from the American task force, and all the bombers were shot down. American pilots noted that the Bettys were flying unusually slow and carrying an unusual payload, but the significance of this was not realized at the time.
Thanks for sharing that piece of history!
I love hearing the Soviets get upset because of what they perceive as people doing sneaky stuff behind their backs, given their history of doing sneaky stuff as a general practice, lol. As for them worrying about the Poles being upset with "outsiders" watching them, I guess all those Soviet troops, who had originally invaded Poland in 1939, don't count?
Yes, breath taking hypocrisy on the Soviet's part. It was and remains a gangster driven nation.
They're being one-upped at their own game so they are jealous and angry. Given the current state of the German forces, even if the rest of the allies did obtain a separate peace, the Soviets can clearly overcome whatever little the Germans could do to stop them alone.
SHOIGU! GERASIMOV!
Pringles might not be happy about being dead, but much like Comical Ali the Iraqi Information Minister, he will be remembered in history
the difference is, he actually won his battles
@@briantarigan7685he didn't tho
@@elmascapo6588he actually did despite what we may feel about his success, and in Russian fashion he won by losing twice as many men as his opponent
@@marcofava he clearly lost more than just twice as many
@@elmascapo6588 yes very likely I was just keeping the numbers vague to avoid waking the Kremlin Gremlins lurking around all the comment sections on CZcams as soon as anything regarding the Invasion of Ukraine is mentioned, but yes he probably did lose 3-4 times as many soldiers as did Ukraine.
Oddball voice, "The bridge is up."
(Bridge explodes and collapses)
Oddball voice, "No it ain't."
Knock it off with them negative waves!
Always refreshing to see a prigozhin refrence
"However, at Oppenheim..."
I feel we'll hear a similar name come up again soon.
Oppenheim had a significant Jewish population in the Middle Ages, hence "Oppenheimer" being a common Ashkenazi Jewish name.
Molotov, the same man who negotiated the "secret protocol" in 1939 with Nazi Germany, to divide Poland is now upset that the British and Americans are negotiating a surrender with Nazi command in Italy! That's rich!
Who thought a nazi could be a hypocrite....
It is typical of Stalin's paranoia and of course Molotov will share and express his boss''s attitude since he was loyal to Stalin.
But heaven forbid those Americans and British advisers go to Poland and offend the Poles, right? I've always wanted to talk to some of those politicians to see if they actually believed half the things they said.
Hey, this is the same guy that demanded aid from America and Britain, in 1941, when Russia had been supplying Nazi Germany with oil, iron and wheat, from 1939 to the moment they were invaded - so he's got form.
@@LukeSumIpsePatremTeMolotov was a communist, not a Nazi. Both are evil, but not the same thing.
This week on March 21 the 3rd marine that raised the flag on surabachi Franklin Sousley was KIA .
Thanks for sharing and thanks for watching.
We all know what we want after the WWII series come to end:The 100 years war - week by week!
Finno-Korean Hyperwar, week by week
I'd love to see Indy with grey hair in his 70s still doing his re-telling of history
I think Indy probably has it in him to do it!
For real though, if you haven't heard Indy will be covering Korea week by week starting June, and Sparty will be doing a series on democracy.
Hope to see you there: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell
The Forever War, week by week
@@paulconrad6220 Forever peace, so that we'd have the time to learn about war and prevent it till the end of times!
The Chinese attempting to co-opt an entire campaign's supply capacity...
Chiang had audacity if nothing else.
This is ww2 week by week, using a bad book.
Mountbatten, Chiang, Slim, and wedermeyer already agreed in December to withdraw the Chinese after the fall of Lashio which happened two weeks ago.
Furthermore, it was agreed that Chinese troops wouldn't operate south of Mandalay in any case. They aren't needed for the Rangoon operation.
The Chinese and the Americans have been planning to retake a Chinese port and need the soldiers.
The book they are using for this part by Mclynn is one of the worst Burma books with tons of factual mistakes.
Chiang had no interest in Rangoon, he was fighting over 1 million Japanese that occupied vast swaths of China. If there was a back water it was the war in Burma. The Chinese had been fighting since 1937, only the Russians suffered more casualties. Chiang is always denigrated, but he was fighting the preponderance of the Japanese army, with little equipment.
"On the outs with Adolf"
There's going to be a lot of that soon.
The war is hopelessly lost. There is no chance the German army will ever go on the offensive again. The Allies have crossed the Rhine in the west and in the east the Prussian exclave has all but fallen. Soviet troops are now beginning to enter the heart of Germany.
Guderian “I would like to retire”
14:23 - Waffen-SS troops wearing a special parka. This photo was taken in 1943 on the Eastern Front - the parka was discontinued as its manufacture was considered too expensive, though it is a sign of the Waffen-SS having special access to equipment.
Thanks! Good stuff and a reminder that everybody fights their own war. This is true on every level.
Thank you very much!
Notice the Soviets also pursued a "broad front" strategy.
The Soviets didn't have to worry about silly things like ports that were not destroyed by the Germans
@g8ymw just poor roads, destroyed rail systems. And not all Fronts were on the offensive at the same time due to logistics limitations.
@@Freedomfred939 Exactly what I was saying. If you don't have the ports, you don't get the logistics.
@g8ymw it is exactly not your point. The argument still being made today is Montgomerys claim that a single thrust into Germany would have won the war in 44 vs Eisenhowers broad front advance across Germany with victory in 45. My comment merely observed that the Russians didn't risk a single thrust either.
@@Freedomfred939 Broad attacks were likely to be more successful as they put strain on the Germans, who lacked reserves. Those they had would be dissipated over a wide area trying to stem attacks. Narrower attacks did not achieve this and were more vulnerable to German counter-blows which could even result in trapping attackers in a pocket. This ability was aided by the rather good German communications system.
You know, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Peanut loses all of mainland China.
Haven't heard much about his rival Mao lately. It could well come to that . . .
You're being way too pessimistic. With Japan about to lose the war and the US and UK supporting him how could that even happen?
Germany is on its last legs were about 6.5 weeks away from VE day, though its been a long time coming since September 1939 I can only imagine what it must feel like for the citizens of Europe, several years of war must feel even longer when it's right at home.
Don’t spoil the ending
The euphoria of VE day soon gave way to the daily grime of every day life, as hundreds of thousands of deposed/deported/stateless/homeless people would move across the continent, rationing would remain part of daily life for years after the war, sometimes even into the 50's, a desire to enact revenge on collaborationist, governments in former occupied countries had to reassert themselves, even when their subjects did not want a return to the old status quo but a new fresh start. And amidst all that the war against Japan seemed to be still ongoing for at least another year, with the UK, France and the Netherlands wanting to retake their former colonial possessions. Which meant going to war with independence movements in Vietnam and Indonesia.
With the crossing of the Rhine by all the Western Allies the last great barrier to the heart of Germany is gone.
Little Fun Fact about the Rhine Bridges, because the Germans blow them all up, there are today only four Bridges over the Rhine River left, between Koblenz and Worms (150km) an all are in Mainz.
There were plans to rebuild some of the bridges (like the Hindenburg Bridge in Bingen am Rhein) but there never gone throw with it.
The four Bridge are by the way:
- Schiersteinerbrücke (Car Bridge, up the Rhine River next to Mainz)
- Kaiserbrücke (Train Bridge in the North of Mainz)
- Theodor-Heuss Brücke (Bridge in Mainz Downtown)
- Südbrücke/Mainz-Gustavsburg Eisenbahnbrücke (Train Bridge in the South of Mainz)
Yes, i am a local.
Do they just not need bridges in the area? Maybe not that much traffic traveling over the river there? IIRC the original bridge was built during the Great War in order to move supplies to the front in France, not because it was needed for civilian traffic.
@@Raskolnikov70
This depends on who you ask.
Many locals, the tourism industry and the ferry lobby say that we don't need own, local manufacturing industry and logistic companies say we need own and the current "State Government"(Landesregierung) is divided in this question, along party lines. (And they never talked about it, since 2016)
But you are probably right about that they don't need another bridge in that area.
I mean, they talk about it every some years (for decades at this point), only to drop it later, forget about it and pick it up again.
You must mean in that part of Germany. I can hardly believe there's only 4 Rhine bridges for all of Germany.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 There are at least two in the Cologne area. Maybe more (I have only used two there).
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 No there's more of course. 2 more in Koblenz and another one very close by in Neuwied. But then again nothing for about 100km until the Bonn/Cologne area. The Remagen bridge never got rebuilt. Today there's lots of ferries in the bridgeless sections. There have been talks about building a new bridge but the middle rhine is a UNESCO world heritage site and the tourism industry fears a bridge might lead to a revocation of that title. But also on a practical side of thinking Bonn, Koblenz and Mainz are all in flat basins and the areas inbetween have steep walls on at least one side. This is an Autobahn bridge over the Mosel: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moseltalbr%C3%BCcke_(A_61) and it's already pretty large but the rhine is much wider.
German 6th army under threat of being surrounded - now where have I heard that before
I was thinking the same thing
It's basically the third time at this point
It'll never catch on. These sequels are just shameless cash-grabs by Hollywood execs.
@@rrice1705 never remake a great original
And to make it even more impressive, it is two 6th Armies this time. Also, Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front was the old Southwestern Front that encircled the 1st 6th Army at Stalingrad.
Very well put together. Thank you for sharing your impressive work
Thank you for watching.
Thumbnails for the videos are always fantastic, but this one is more fantastic than usual 😂
Oh no, the memes are bleeding into the past, we must fix the timelines.
Great Britian: "We want to end the war."
USA: "We want to end the war."
China: "We want to end the war."
USSR: "We want to end the war."
Frank Sinatra: "And I want to do it my way!"
😉
Every time I am amazed about the content ... well researched and excellently put together in an informative post ... keep up the good work... with the deepest respects and best regards... MT
Thank you. Comments like yours mean so much to us and are a great motivation!
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Ah Yes, World Diplomacy, The International Poker Game where everyone is cheating.
Beau watcher?
Mountbatton and Slim getting along due to some strange shared interests
Slim got along well with almost everyone. Except Oliver Leese, the new land forces commander in SEAC. Mountbatten LOVED victories for which he could hold press conferences and make himself look good. Slim could give him those and Mountbatten knew this. And Slim wanted someone who would let him fight the war the way he wanted and keep meddlesome generals back home off his back. Mountbatten could do that. So it was a very odd but functional match made in heaven.
something tells me you're not talking about the war lol
@@pnutz_2 their interests could be partaken in peacetime 😅
Hoff, on the Polish coast at the 15th meridian, shown in the video @11:20 is now called Trzesacz. It has ruins of medieval church on the cliff, that had 3 walls during WW2. Since then, two sidewalls fell into Baltic and only one remains standing.
5Km to the east from Hoff lies village named Horst (now: Niechorze). It contains closest lighthouse to the west of Kolberg and one of the tallest on the current Polish coast. Last week it played significant part in evacuation of German forces as concrete pier allowed continuous line of panzers to be loaded on the evacuation barges.
At least that's what our village elders told us, might be hogwash designed to awe children.
EDIT: all of the current inhabitants of both villages and region as a whole moved in after end of WW2. So technically, no elder was present to witness German withdrawal.
There was a mass renaming of towns and villages in Pomerania, Silesia and East Prussia after the war, mostly to Polish names but with the northern half of East Prussia switching to Russian ones. A book on Silesia I read has a long appendix giving the German names on the left and the Polish ones they changed to. And another appendix with the Polish placename on the left and the German on the right.
I need more boolets, I need more boolets! Bigger weapons!
-Mountbatten, presumably
Having watched various (most) other channels that are spin-offs of WWII and lots of other narrators/presenters who write or deliver similar material... There is just no one better at battle by battle, operation description and bringing that entertaining history than Indie. Mr. Olson is also very good in writing, delivery and theatrical presentation but his chosen subject is so appalling, so gut wrenching; that I have to view his videos in short time increments in order to be able to tolerate most of the information. The best graphics, the most appealing thumbs for each episode and the best online reminder that we must "Never forget!" Thank you WWII for the production of your fine video series.
Thank you for your kinds words.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
With that thumbnail, I wonder if given enough time, Mountbatten may find himself in an exploding vehicle?
Or boat perhaps…
Amazingly good job, gang. And we even got a 5th Shark Army cameo!
Thanks for watching🦈
Thank you for the lesson.
And thanks for watching!
Always.
Another amazing week for this long documental
Much appreciated, thanks for watching!
Absolutely fantastic thumbnail this week, kudos to whoever made that 💜😂
James' idea and Mikolaj brought it too life!
In addition to the interesting content of your videos, I really like you. Your voice is great, and I like your vest. And it's cool when you pretend to be talking to someone on the phone. Thanks for these videos. By the way, I am watching from Southeastern Iowa in the United States
Thank you, I am sure Indy will appreciate your kind words.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
8:19 GLADIO peaking its head out, nbd
Hi Andy! Wonderful content and first rate. I wonder if before the series end, you could cover the financial aspects of the war. We pretty much know how America financed the war with bonds etc. But how about the Japanese, the Italians.. and were there any financial consequences after the war for most nations involved? Financing a war of this magnitude must have been difficult to say the least ✋🏻
SPOILER
The worst inflation in history will be in postwar Hungary.
@@stevekaczynski3793Worse than post war China?
@@porksterbob Yes. For a time the Hungarians were printing trillion-pengo notes, the pengo being the currency at the time.
19:26 This shows Koblenz fotographed from above the Mosel estuary (Deutsches Eck) looking roughly westwards. The top bridge got rebuild as the Europabrücke (part of the B9 that runs along the western side of the rhine). The center rail bridge got repaired and is still in use today as was the bottom one (Balduinbrücke, built in 1429!). This foto can be found on the wikipedia page of the last bridge. See that little castle thingy at the bottom? Great irish pub in there.
Thanks!
You are very welcome and thank YOU!
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Absolutely fantastic thumbnail
Thanks for the high level of detail about the European theater in the final weeks. This was a portion that I'd heard little about previously, except for the Remagen bridge and brief mentions of Monty crossing the Rhine. Germany totally falling apart. Thanks also for the CBI coverage.
You are very welcome and thank you for your kind words.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
After Operation Market Garden I would have been very skeptical of giving Montgomery access to any airborne units. Then there is the fact that if you already have a bridge head the risk might not be worth it becuase there will be people that are injured and killed just from the jump or glider landing.
The difference between MG and other airborne ops was that US General Brereton was not responsible for planning as he was for MG
Monty was NOT responsible for the MG ops.
Stop believing in a movie
fantastic thumbnail, i’ve never seen a mountbattenjak before!
Fun Fact: The First Pontoon Bridge the Allies built across the Rhine River was attacked quite a lot by the Germans. They even used their V-Weapons on it. But only for it to be no use in the end. The Bridge was complete. And thankfully so.
I hope this doesn't get lost in the ether...
Over the last six weeks I have listened to every main series episode back to back from the outbreak of the great war in 1914 up to today March 26. My goal was to catch up and then buy my commission in the time ghost army to honour my great grandfather Nick Solohub; who crossed Juno Beach on D-day and was saved by a chicken in Holland (I'd be happy to share this story some time in the future along with some photos and discharge papers) and my wife's great grandfather Clarence Thompson who was taken prisoner after the Canadians surrendered at Hong Kong. However due to the birth of my daughter funds are a bit tight for the foreseeable future and the time ghost army will need to wait... For now.
Anyhow; keep up the amazing work. I eagerly await the Korean war series and each individual episode until this war ends.
Thanks for watching and congratulations on the birth of your daughter, and for the snippets of family history.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Great work
We love you Indy
Brilliant!!! Great Episode!!!!!
Thanks for watching!
The Soviets accusing the US and the UK of trying to reach a separate peace with Germany was absurd. They had zero involvement in the Italian Campaign, had made no investment of resources, and had lost zero troops. It was literally just local commanders trying to reach an agreement with the Germans for the surrender of their forces in that theater. But by this time all they could see was how much territory they could steal, and how many nations they could influence.
but from the soviet point of view, if western allies feel like they have a say on what happens in Poland, soviets should have a say on what happens in Italy. I think this is what they are really getting at
@@mrb3nz correct, it's basically diplomatic tit for tat, the western allies also have zero forces in Poland, yet they have influence in the way how Poland will be reorganize after the war
Many polish officers and soldiers as well as the pre war government went to Britain, the poles fought in Italy and captured monte cassino working with the western allies and took part in operation marketvgarden. The allies have a lot more to say in polish affairs than soviets have in Italian ones imo I don’t recall a single soviet action along the boot.
@@briantarigan7685I understand the diplomatic game. But the British and the French gave the Poles assurances in 1939 that they did not back up. They believed they owed the Poles, particularly after they had performed so well in the field. They certainly had more of an interest in Poland than the Soviets had in Italy.
Italy had (and still does) a large and active communist movement. I imagine there was an element of foot-in-the-door planning for the post-war scene by Molotov.
23 March 1945.
Sergeant John Evans of the 7th Armoured Division begins Operation Plunder today, crossing the Rhine near Xanten with the rest of his unit.
The weeks feel like they are getting longer. Building to a climax.
The episodes are getting longer for sure, over the last 3 months they have frequently hit over 23 minutes! In the earlier days they used to be about 10 minutes.
Thanks for watching.
(Interestingly, there are surviving ads for NBC's New York television station, Channel 1 (as it then was), WNBT, where it was going to cover V-E Day. There was, at a very low level, commercial television in the United States in 1945, though only in a few select cities.)
I just realized Indy looks a lot like Ray Bolger.
10:33 from that event 23rd March Street in Sopot /former Zoppot/
You guys are simply incredible ❤
As are our longtime supporters (and of course the newer ones as welll), thanks.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
As I recall, the bridge at Remagen collapsed while there were ambulances carrying wounded GIs over it. Terrible timing for those poor souls!
Yes something like 28 were killed and a large number injured.
Those "floating bridges" the US Army Engineers put up all along the Rhine are called Bailey Bridges.
Okay somehow I feel like Chiang has just made things consistently more difficult throughout the war.
Just? For most of the war he's been a drag on the Allied war effort. Demanding ever more supplies at great cost to the Allies and doing very little with them. And the irony is that the sooner Slim takes Rangoon the sooner the Burma road would reopen and Chiang could have had ALL the supplies he needed, far more then what relatively little the USAAF had to fly, at great danger to the pilots, over the Hump.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 Hadn't the Americans and Chinese troops recaptured Yunnan province earlier in January? The Ledo Road was already streaming truck-loads of resources across the Chinese border for two months now.
@@extrahistory8956 If wikipedia is to believed the Ledo road barely contributed anything to the flow of supplies to China. 71.000 tons of supplies via air over the hump in july 1945 and only 6000 via the Ledo road. Taking Myitkina did more to improve goods via air via an easier air route then the immensely long and winding road. And by that time 14th Army had taken Rangoon so the old Burma road could be used again. Which was why the British always doubted the value of building the road. Not that it could not be done, just not in time and that taking Burma and reopening the old Burma road was a faster strategy. Or arming Chiang's Chinese armies. To quote Slim:
'I agreed with Stilwell that the road could be built. I believed that, properly equipped and efficiently led, Chinese troops could defeat Japanese if, as would be the case with his Ledo force, they had a considerable numerical superiority. On the engineering side I had no doubts. We had built roads over country as difficult, with much less technical equipment than the Americans would have. My British engineers, who had surveyed the trace for the road for the first eighty miles [130 km], were quite confident about that. We were already, on the Central front, maintaining great labour forces over equally gimcrack lines of communication. Thus far Stilwell and I were in complete agreement, but I did not hold two articles of his faith. I doubted the overwhelming war-winning value of this road, and, in any case, I believed it was starting from the wrong place. The American amphibious strategy in the Pacific, of hopping from island to island would, I was sure, bring much quicker results than an overland advance across Asia with a Chinese army yet to be formed. In any case, if the road was to be really effective, its feeder railway should start from Rangoon, not Calcutta.'
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623For most of the war China was forcing Japan to fight with only 30% of its military deployed abroad. The existence of an independent China in 1941 is what brings America into the war.
Chiang could have surrendered like the French. Yet somehow no one goes on about how arming the free French was a waste of money even though they were dependent on allied help and command to make an impact.
@@porksterbob >> For most of the war China was forcing Japan to fight with only 30% of its military deployed abroad. The existence of an independent China in 1941 is what brings America into the war.
Chiang could have surrendered like the French. Yet somehow no one goes on about how arming the free French was a waste of money even though they were dependent on allied help and command to make an impact.
A tragic sidenote from the previous week:
On 12 March 1945 in Lang Son, Indochina French general Émile Lemonnier who commanded the garrison there is captured by the Japanese as part of their final takeover of the region.
Having refused repeatedly to surrender, he is taken to a cave and decapitated.
Alongside him, hundreds more French and Indochinese soldiers would be shot, decapitated or bayoneted to death by the Japanese troops after their capture, the lucky ones would retreat to the jungle or into friendly territory in China.
Today the road separating the Louvre Palace from the Tuileries Garden in Paris is named after him.
I guess the Japanese never realized that, by treating POWs so horribly, fewer enemy troops would be willing to surrender. It seems like there was no end to the atrocities committed by the IJN and IJA.
@@oldesertguy9616 Japan's entire history duing this war is a story of missed opportunities. Imagine if they launched their attacks in 1941 and really did try to create a co-prosperity sphere by cooperating with the countries they invaded instead of brutally exploiting them? There was a ton of anti-European sentiment in the region after centuries of colonial rule, and if they'd treated those former colonies better things might have turned out differently for them.
@@Raskolnikov70 You may be right. The people in those areas traded horrible masters for even more horrible ones. It's like the poor people in Eastern Europe. "Yay! We're being liberated! Oh wait, these guys are Nazis! They're brutal!" Then the Soviets come back, and it's "Yay! We're being liberated! Oh wait, these guys aren't any better." The poor people in numerous countries were basically consigned to live under some type of brutal rule, which merely changed names.
20:36 Churchill was apparently also on the other side of the Rhine too and drove past German POWs.
10:36 - Sopot, then Zoppot in the Free City of Danzig, was the birthplace of Klaus Kinski (born Klaus Nakszynski) in 1926. His family moved to Berlin. Conscripted into the German armed forces, he was captured by the British in the Netherlands. He was released in 1946 and found both parents had been killed in the war.
"For a few dollars more" among many films
@@maciejniedzielski7496 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Kinski#/media/File:Klaus_Kinski_-_Per_un_pugno_di_dollari.JPG And here he is. Clearly someone whose emotional stability you can count on...
Thank you.
And thank you for watching.
The thumbnail is fantastic xDD
Thank you for yet another fascinating and informative presentation. I'm looking forward to The Korean War. My father saw duty in Korea and Vietnam.
Thank you and looking forward as well to the upcoming series.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Clarification: It was Himmler who claimed illness, and was ALSO on the outs with Hitler (despite dodging direct responsibility for the Pomeranian fiasco). (The script wording was not clear on this point.)
Per Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day", Guderian met Himmler, and Himmler claimed illness, and claimed he wanted to give up Army Group Vistula, but didn't want to lose face with Hitler - Guderian told Himmler that, with Himmler's permission, Guderian would suggest to Hitler that relieving Himmler was necessary. (Ryan also writes about Heinrici's briefing by Guderian before assuming command of Army Group Vistula - that would be some quotable material too.)
Future Indy will reveal that Guderian was, in fact, not that ill - yet! - as a future military situation conference in the Fuhrerbunker might be, as they say, verrry interessssting!
Your channel rocks!
Much appreciated!
Excellent work Indy & team!
Much appreciated, thanks for watching!
At the end the Ludendorf bridge was useless for the Rhine crossing since it collapsed and the allied advanced on other bridgeheads
Watching an episode about a major bridge collapse the day after what happened in Baltimore is weird and sad.
jesus that thumbnail
oh my god the thumbnail... so quality
Everyone has enjoyed it greatly, shout out to James (our editorial lead) for the idea and Mikolaj for bringing it to life!
March 20, 1945, HMCS New Glasgow rammed and caused U-1003 to scuttle 2 days later off of Londonderry. This was the last U boat sunk by the Canadian navy in WW2 in the North Atlantic. My Dad, Lloyd (Bud) Crandall, was serving on board. Officially, the record states that a periscope was sighted, alarm sounded and action stations were ordered. However, the New Glasgow subsequently rammed U-1003 before depth charges could be prepared. U-1003 dove, and while other ships searched in vain for the sub, New Glasgow withdrew and headed for Scotland for repairs. Two days later, U-1003 surfaced and scuttled.
My Dad retells a slightly different version of events. He and some others were in the mess playing cribbage. Their first awareness of events they had was when everything on the table slid off and they were flung sideways. Action stations were sounded after that. Later, some speculated that the slight delay in sounding action stations was partly because the watchman, "Banjo Eyes" Poirier, had indeed seen the periscope, but that since he had a stutter, he may have had trouble forming the words to report what he was seeing.
Ship and crew were idled in Scotland until repairs were completed in early June, when they sailed to Canada. Dad was on leave at home in Moncton, New Brunswick until V-J day, after which he was discharged. The HMCS New Glasgow was mothballed from after the war until 1953 when she was completely refitted and returned to duty in the Pacific. An early assignment when the refit was done in 1955 was to serve as the fictional "HMAS Rockhampton" in the 1955 movie "Sea Chase" with Lana Turner and John Wayne. She was scrapped in 1969.
I'm from Gießen! Waited long for my hometown to be shown on the map 😅
Wait what - Mandalay seems to be the one time it made sense for a Japanese garrison to hold out and not surrender. And out of all places, this was the one where they did surrender!
The Japanese armies, at least in Burma were starting to disintegrate. And with that came the capture of greater numbers then ever before. Still small compared to Europe, but previously Japanese units would fight to DELETION, with only a handful soldiers ever surrendering. But by this time they started to capture dozens of them.
If you were to join the 6th Army of the Wehrmacht, it seems that this was like a death sentence. How many times did it get destroyed now?
The number 6 is unlucky for the Germans.
12:09
The small city where my father grew up is south of Opole!
He told me how he once found a German pistol in a hollow tree and a friend said that he can make it shoot again. (It must have been sometime in the late 70s or early 80s)
He mever saw the gun or the friend again :I
So why did the Japanese at Fort Dufferin surrender if the walls were holding out? Was it simply lack of supply? Quite the juxtaposition to see the defenders on the islands fighting to virtually the last man while this group surrenders while seemingly still in a favorable position.
I hope next time will hear about Pattons attempt to rescue his son in law using elements of the 4th Armd,as his own kind of private army,Sanctioned by Bradley,it went pretty badly.
I hadn't realized until today that those phones don't have curly cords. Instead, I think they would have thick braided cables? They say curly cords are the devil's playthings.
Awesome thumbnail
Thank you, and thanks for watching!
Hello team, could you please tell me what books you have on your desk
Oh man, that thumbnail... I'm dying!
Care to explain? I don't know what I'm supposed to be seeing there.
Really looking forward to the Korean War episodes.
As are we, thanks for watching.
I see a few months old map in the background - I thought it is updated every week.
We don't update it every week, just every once in awhile!
Turkey just called, they want to be de-greyed, they declared war like a month ago
Not exactly accurate on Bradly 'approving' Patton & his 3rd Army crossing. The orders were to hold until after God..sorry...Montgomery crossed the Rhine. Patton, of course was livid about this. A couple days before, he called Brad, telling him that he, Patton, was going dark for a couple of days and not to contact him, his staff, just 'don't call me, I'll call you'. A few days later, he called Brad from a telephone over the Rhine saying he could inform the world that 3rd Army was across, which yes Bradly did. It was because of the current relationship between Bradly & Montgomery that Brad was more than happy to rub it in good ol' Monty's face. As a quick side note, there's a nice photograph of ol' Georgie himself pissing in the Rhine river.
I ♡ it.. "going dark" brilliant on both their parts