Forgotten History: Vercors - the Climactic Battle of the French Resistance
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
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The imposing heights of the Vercors Massif form a very impressive natural defensive position in the southeastern corner of France. It was here that the French Resistance had its largest set piece battle against German occupation forces, in the summer of 1944.
Plan Montagnards originally called for several thousand Allied paratroops to be dropped into Vercors when the landings in Normandy and Provence took place. The Provence landings were pushed back many weeks, however, and the Resistance forces streaming onto the plateau were left almost entirely on their own. One large airdrop of supplies and a single American OSS combat team were all the reinforcement they received.
French Maquisards repelled German probing attacks for about 6 weeks until in late July the final German offensive against the plateau came. It would see nearly 20,000 troops, units of tanks, glider-borne paratroops, and reserve mountain troops in a well coordinated assault that soundly defeated the lightly-armed resistance fighters.
Today we are on the plateau itself, and we will follow the battle across several specific sites, including the glider landings at Vassieux, the last stand of Section Chavant, the destroyed village of Valchevrière, and the hospital at Le Grotte de la Luire.
Want to see some original footage of these fighters taken in the weeks before the battle? It actually exists, and you can see it here: • Video
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I live in the Vercors and here it’s a real pride that the people didn’t give up during WW2. Sadly we don’t hear enough about this beautiful and tragic part of our history 💔
Keep it going!!! Make sure it does not become Forsaken!
rpz
yeah well, next time try no to erase germany as a nation. Hope you learned the lesson.
@@sebastiandc1392 Yes, I too like to rewrite history from the comfort of my own home.
@@sebastiandc1392 Lesson ? Are you talking about the French peasants massacred by the Totenkopf division in 1940, by the HitlerJugend division in 43/44 ? The carriers of this lesson which seemed to you deserved are not themselves very clean. Your lesson is the mountains of corpses of hostages, victims of reprisals and crimes yet very weak compared to what the Wehrmacht (bearer of healthy revenge :-)) did in the USSR. Besides, what was the project in the Soviet Union? They did not want to suppress Germany. Oh no, sorry, it was Hitler's Germany who wanted to suppress Russia as a constituted nation.
My grandfather lived in a village in the southern alps during WWII called Belvédère. There was a small section of resistants there, although they were mostly kids trying to show off. At some point, one of the resistants was trying to impress 2 girls by showing his gun and while doing so, accidentaly fired a shot. Every other resistant in the village heard the shot and thought the germans arrived so they all went to their assigned post and waited for the germans to come to defend the town. It was quickly found out that it was this kid who fired the shot and they all went to his home, where he hid, really angry wanting to punish him. When the door opened, they ended up in front of the kid's mother who was as large as the door (mind you, doors in village houses weren't big, but it still was impressive), the others couldn't see anything past her she was so large and imposing. She said "If you want to see my son, you have to see me first" and then everyone was saying "well, it's okay, he is forgiven, but tell him not to do it next time ok ?". There were more scared of his mom than of the germans haha
Another story my grandfather told me was about an italian section staying in the village for a day while going back to Italy after they switched sides. One of the soldier was taking care of an MG mounted on a car. He disassembled it and started to clean all the pieces. While the soldier wasn't looking, some kids stole the firing pin. When the italian soldier found out (he was really young, probably under 20), he panicked and started crying, saying the germans were about to come and he would not be able to defend himself. Of course, at some point the firing pin was given back to him and the section was then able to go back to Italy.
I have seen this town on Wikipedia and have always wanted to visit. Do you still have connections to the area? Fascinating and beautiful part of a fascinating and beautiful country.
Vive la France.
Really loving these Forgotten History tours and insights, guns are one thing but theatres of combat is also another, fascinating!
THE9LOL7ABLE
Couldnt agree more.
Ian is the fucking man.
Ian, I want to give you a massive thank you for this. Thank you for going there, filming this, and putting this up for everyone to learn from. The site is fantastic and your coherent story telling of it's history really makes these videos some of the best around.
Please keep doing history lessons like these!
Thanks!
That's some beautiful countryside.
One of the most beautiful places of our country.
Worth fighting for
Domo kun it definitively is.
France is very beautiful.
"Le Maquis du Vercors" is a forgotten history because in France no one tell about it. In France scholar books teach to children always the same things about WWII. "La campagne de France" and the disaster, Vichy and the collaboration, The Dday and "De Gaulle et la libération" and that's all. No words on French Resistants. No words on French colonial troops or FFL who fought side by side with British and American troops etc etc...
In France a lot of people don't know either that an another landing took place in August 1944 in Provence. Thanks a lot Ian to tell us about this battle and greetings from a French guy. ;)
Grand Gousier je sais pas où t'es allé à l'école mais moi je suis de Grenoble (donc tout près du Vercors) et on a fait un grand chapitre sur la résistance où on à lue l'armée des ombres et on fait des "sortis" aux mêmes endroits que ceux présenté dans la video donc, pour mon cas et celui de beaucoup de gens je pense, dire que la résistance Française n'est pas abordé est faux. Aprés je te rejoint sur le fait que le programme d'histoire concernant la seconde guerre mondiale est bien trop court.
Grenoble fatalement. Le maquis du Vercors je l'ai appris à l'école, tout comme le débarquement de Provence mais c'était il y a 30 ans. Aujourd'hui je vois les programmes d'histoire des gamins il n'y a plus tout ça. Allé si ils vont parler viteuf de Jean Moulin et basta. Je sais pas si tu as vu des épreuves du BEPC histoire c'est une blague ! Quand je l'ai passé il y a 30 ans fallait faire une dissert on est bien loin de ça en 2018.
j'ai 16 ans donc j'ai passé le brevet l'an dernier et pour le brevet je suis d'accord, tous le monde l'a il suffit de donné des dates et des noms, et ces dans la poche, en revanche le programme d'histoire, pas que pour la ww2 mais pour toutes les autres périodes, (et c'est encore pire pour la première guerre mondiale en 2 heures on en parlait plus) est trop court on avait pas vraiment le temps de poser nos questions concernant tel ou tel situations car il nous fallait allé toujours plus vite, je suis d'accord avec vous sur ce point. Mais à l'inverse la résistance dans les Alpes on y a consacré du temps, on devait faire un exposé sur au moins trois personnalité de la résistance ayant " donné " leurs nom à des rues de Grenoble et plein trucs extra-scolaire (musés, cites, livres à lire ...). Enfin, je pense que le programme c'est effectivement "dégradé" entre ma et votre génération et que malheureusement ça continueras avec le temps, espérons que non mais bon c'est comme ça ...
Corbière Hippolyte C'est normal c'est un fait d'armes régional. Par exemple moi je vis en occitanie et certains profs parlent aux gamins des Cathares et des Camisards.
Pourquoi ? Parce que ça c'est passé chez nous tout simplement.
Grand Gousier As an American francophile I must say that the essential truth of history is safer in the hands of the French than any other nation I can imaging. They are teaching the grand sweep of the war and not currying nationalist sentiment at the cost of truth. Yes, there were many incredibly brave French Resistance but that is a side note the the big events. Merci.
I'm wondering what was the reaction of french resistant when they saw German paratroopers landing from these gliders and mountain troops coming from nowhere...
_"Merde, Antoine! Here come the boches, gimme the Chatellrault!"_
Chatellerault. In french we simply say " le FM ", abbreviation for " fusil-mitrailleur ", the french word for lightmachinegun.
First they thing it was allies, but when they understand that was german they start to shoot gliders and then run into the maquis
A fascinating story very well told, good job Ian!
The ''resistance'' was not a single entity but over a dozen and a half different, ideologically conflicting units, often fighting each other as much as the Germans. At the end of the war deadly vengeance was exacted by these units on each other. By Oct/Nov '44 the allies stopped supplying French resistance w/ arms because they feared a civil war at the of WW2.
Damn, I was there 10 days ago cycling around my family's house.. it's weird to see Ian in places I know well ^^
Ursus_Martinus beautiful country, your homeland has everything.
Ursus_Martinus Ikr, my aunt amd uncle own a place en Chartreuse so it's odd to see Ian where I spent my vacations as a kid.
Oldman River Still, you take a bit of time of your life to type about it, you're not hostage of reading the CZcams comment section.
Good day to you, eventually.
@Oldman River i do and so do others, no one cares about you..
I live in France and I absolutely love your channel. I find you incredibly knowledgeable, courteous, respectful and I thank you for being one of my favorite youtuber here. Thank you for your contribution to remembering history and the attention to details.
I never thought that Forgotten Weapons would make me cry. When I think of the true heroism and sacrifice as you describe it I can't stop. Thank you.
Incredible, I live 30km from here and I had no idea that a battle of this kind took place in the Vercors, thank you for sharing this story about the Resistance
(13:00) Ian talks about a guy named Chabal - by all accounts a formidable character.
It might be a family trait, as the Chabal family name paints a picture of formidable men - take a look at former French rugby legend Sébastien Chabal - the manliest looking man who every lived .
On a more serious note, this was a very poignant story - something that Ian managed to capture perfectly.
Well done, Ian! I watched Wish Me Luck a few years ago, and despite thinking (then) that the scenario about Vercors had been dramatized beyond reality, it affected me for weeks after. I'm a war veteran and I've learned that so many things about war that seem unlikely actually occurred, so I sensed that my initial inclination might be wrong. Since then, other research made clear that I was wrong, and your video gave me the context. It also brought back the sadness I felt on watching the series. I've just ordered Tears of Glory. Thank you for a job well done.
Thank you for taking the time and trouble to cover this heroic but painful episode in the history of the French Resistance. I only came across it briefly in the 1998 production: Secrets of War, On All Fronts, The French Resistance, narrated by Charlton Heston. 37:00
Great video. I am currently reading "Tears of Glory," the book about Vercors that you recommended in another video. There are some impressive examples of courage and dedication by the resistance forces, and of barbarity by the German forces. Thanks for the recommendation.
As a german it's so impressive for me to watch your video... Grown up in East Germany we learned a lot about the madness of Nazi terror, about german ressistance, russian, polish, and eastern Europe stands against the Nazis. Learned about the persecution of Jews and resistance fighters... I saw a lot of Hollywoods resistance fight movies too.
But I never heard about this special, french part of the resistance. To see the area, where this history took place, to hear the story of growing end ending of the marquise fighters... it's very impressive for me to see. It's a different kind of view, to watch someone, whose intends are not to teach me how to be ashamed as a german, not to entertain me as a movie audience, but just to tell someone an interessting plot of real history in WW2. Thanks a lot! It changed my point of viewing history!
Piet AusHamburch I'm French and I really enjoye Ian's WW2 videos. I know nearly nothing about resistance in the rest of Europe, I hope Ian will push his trip outside French border! This kind of external point of view is very nice!
Oh, I guess you know more about the resistance than just some french history... How about Schindlers List? Polish Home Army? Warsaw Uprising? Partisan Armies in East Europe? Graf von Stauffenberg? The White Rose? There is a lot of stuff to know about. :-)
To be fair Polish or Yugoslavian partisans were much more active and they have much worse occupation then French.
I cann't judge this, based on my state of education, 'cause I got mine from east german school system in the 80's. It was pro communist propaganda, at some point. Plus: I was a kid/teenager, when I was tought this stuff. I wasn't able to be critical about the informations I got at this time. Most people talking about this topic nowadays are some kind of nationalists. More or less. I think, theire thoughts and words aren't very neutral too. It's rather difficult for me to come to an rational point of view.
BUT: Ian made a good point: the guy who fought the resistance had some special experience with east front partisans. The french were not prepared for him. You can get some conclusions from Ians words.
You also have to consider that this is a set piece WW2 battle where the partisans were more experienced with small, harassing attacks on German infrastructure or French collaborators. This was obviously meant to be a distraction, but it seems unlikely that the average French/Spanish Maquisard was corrected when he/she started to act like this was the start of France's liberation.
Ian, dude, you need your own channel on cable TV. I've never seen a person that can present as well you do off the cuff and just tell it like it was. Thanks for presenting everything so clearly.
Clever quips aside, well done on presenting an incredibly sad and daring tale. 07
I'll be damned, the French Alamo.
10:30 what a bunch of absolute gangsters.
I visited the beautiful Vercors twice on caving holidays in the 90's. It's a very heart-wrenching place, yet astoundingly beautiful, with lovely mountain people.
A farmer pointed out an area where there was a cave supposedly used by le Maquis. I found it, a small chamber with remnants of ammunition boxes, seating stones arranged around fire remains. It really was a very powerful place.
Our gite owner had lost many family members in the battles, some having barbed wire wrapped tightly around the tops of their skulls.
He appeared one day with a rusty Colt revolver, saying it was dropped by the Americans from the skies!
The maquis and Vercors inhabitants were certainly very brave people.
I love the history tours, Ian. Not only because you tell the story well, but because we get to actually see for ourselves where the events occured. keep up the great work, Forgotten Weapons rules!
"On m'a vu dans le Vercors... sauter à l'élastique. Voleur d'amphores au fond des criques..."
Awesome video Ian :)
Bashung, la nuit je mens si je me souviens bien.
These history tours are excellent (and this is quite a sad one too), I'm hoping for more content like that.
That optimism after D-Day also drove spanish republicans, who had been helping the french resistance, to invade a valley on the spanish side of the Pirenees in an effort to force the allies to help them overthrow Franco's regime. It ultimately failed, in a similar way to the Vercors action.
The fate of the Spanish resistance fighters is doubly sad, many of them fought hard years in pursuit of liberating a country that was not their own - that had actually imprisoned them earlier upon escaping Spain - a lot of Spaniards fought with Leclerc's forces for the same goal. They liberated Paris thinking they'd eventually be liberating Madrid. Many of them, disillusioned, crossed back into Spain and fought an unaided resistance war, one with little hope of success. I believe the last of the organized resistance cells was killed in the early '60's. It's sad that the Western Allies betrayed Spain, in more ways than one.
At least the Basque fighters were part of ending the Franco regime once and for all, for whatever that's worth.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 Wanna hear about the triply sad story of spanish Barcelona and Valence/Aragon revolutioneers in 1937 ? Forced to be militarized at best, arrested, jailed and tortured by both republicans AND Franco partisans for not wanting to comply to any imperialists camps of the fascist/antifascist opposition, which in their eyes was fake as nothing would change for the workers exploitation in the end anyway.
Thanks for this video Ian.
In the past I happened to know an old man who was part of the résistance in the Vaucluse during ww2 and at the time president of the ANACR from Carpentras for which I was a ceremonial flag bearer for ceremonies in that area.
I don't know if he's still alive but I know he wrote a book about the resistance in the area there. He told me himself that he was working on machinery and véhicules often making mistakes to delay the equipment from returning to service.
Greetings, Nico
I live in Belgium and i'm very thankful and grateful to all those that fought to win the war. It is unimaginable what the conditions where for the general population and for all those fighting. Thank you to all the men an women that fought for us, and who to this day are in the different armies to defend and protect us.
Thank you Ian for this tremendous video. Deeply informative and enthralling. The landscape is breathtaking. It truly demonstrates the brutality and global nature of the 2nd World War. Hard to conceptualize that Ukrainians in the Wermacht fighting in southern France is part of the same conflict as Americans fighting the Japanese in Burma. A great testament to the men and women who died there that more know their story, thanks to you. Vive la France
I'd love to see a video like this about the Polish resistance
My grandfather was a Polish merchant sailor during the war and recently my mother told me his sister was put up against a wall and shot by the Nazis for being a part of the underground. I replied that it was a bit harsh to shoot her for working on the metro system...............Underground means subway in the UK.......and yes I am pretty stupid.
Well this is it in a way....one of the MI5 agents in Vercors was Krystyna Giżycka-Skarbek (alias Cristine Granville) She joined MI5 long before there was a polish resistance and she was hated for it :( .
Vintage operator series!
CPT Crunch yeah the Soviets did just wait until most of the Polish word dead they weren't about to give up after only getting there Independence in 1918.
The warsaw uprising in 1944 was done without even the smallest prospect of sucess - exept getting help from the Soviets. A second time polish leadership dreamed about Soviet support, a second time it was delusional to do so.
I bow deeply to the courage of all the women and men, who fought more than exellent in Warsaw. However, they were let down by their leaders, who had the responsibility for not letting them bleed away to safe polish pride. You cant send your subordinates into sure death and claim afterwards as an excuse, that they died valliantly - as this is not a contradiction.
French here ! Thanks you for your work, i fuckin' love your forgotten History Series !
What a beautiful place to experience such a horrible thing.
Excellent presentation, very clear on the course of this battle and why it ended the way it did.
great video! not to be flippant but every time i hear maquis i think of star trek voyager. also nice appearance by the cameraman in the map.
Briarus HECATONCHEIRES DEEP SPACE NINE YOU HERETIC
Seymour Skinner the maquis almost had a bigger role in Voyager than they did in DS9...
Daniel G Nah fair.
Ian, my father was a Maquis based out of Grenoble during the war and had a very bad time, of which he would not ever speak. I have his old armband and one or two other things. I wonder if he was involved in this battle? How could I find out? (He's obviously not with us any more)
Luke Albanese he never talked about it?
Matt thew not much no. He did mention being trapped in a building brought down by German shelling, and having to hide out in a Convent for a few days while injured but he was very traumatized for the rest of his life sadly, and struggled to get through each and every day.
Matt thew in fact now you mention it my uncles who were involved in heavy combat (British in their cases) were also most reluctant to talk about their experiences, and our 2 school teachers who served with distinction in the RAF would never talk about it either. One was a convinced pacifist when I was at school, so that might tell you something.
My Grandfather flew, as a kid/teenager, for the russian army. He's also never talking about it. Here and there is sometimes a tiny bit about it. I don't want to ask him much because I know that he will suffer from just remembering.
A lot of people think that somehow the people from that generation did not suffer the traumas from war like we see today - that's totally untrue, they had to suffer in silence. The tragedy of war perpetuates itself.
thanks for covering this battle/resistance. I had read about it a number of years ago and researched the geography of the massif. A true story of valor of the Maquis!!
This was also the last use of gliders by the Germans. Only 12 of the 22 gliders dispatched against Vassieux-en-Vercors actually landed in the right place, with the rest either landing too far to the north or crashing upon landing. Thus, the actual numbers of German troops (who were mostly Russian or Ukrainian) were combat effective upon landing numbered only about 150 of the 400 dispatched. It showed once again why glider operations were just not effective, especially in terms of the numbers of troops lost as part of the operation, and the difficult of piloting gliders to a specific spot.
The biggest problem for the Marqui was their almost complete lack of heavy weapons. Air dropping artillery and the attendant ammunition was impossible in 1944, but the air drop operation did include at least 14 British 3" mortars and somewhere between 2 and 5 4.2" mortars, along with at least 150 bombs for each mortar. These should have provided enough mortars to stop or significantly delay the German advance up the Massif. Unfortunately, all those containers, dropped from one B-17, landed among the Germans, who retrieved them and turned the mortars against the Marquis and the civilians in the villages on the plateau. On such events does the turn of many a battle come.
Regarding small weapons my grand father told me that it was difficult to get a weapon at that time as it was forbidden. He had to contact really bad guys as the only source available was criminal underworld.
Emmanuel, in the early years of the war, the French Milieu was the main source of weapons, just as they had been for all organized crime groups before the war. By mid-1944, the main source of weapons was from dead Vichy and German troops plus raiding police stations and isolated arsenals. The Americans and British dropped many thousands of containers of small arms, mainly Sten guns, plus thousands of pounds of plastic explosives. The problem for the Marqui fighters at Vercors was not a lack of small arms, it was the lack of heavy weapons, as I wrote above.
Like the US air drops to the Kurds fighting ISIS in Kobani, 24 October 2014, condemned by Turkey, strangely enough... which had its tank barrels pointing at the Kurds and refused them sanctuary.
Heavy weapons would have helped to have a better defense (I suppose you think of light machine guns and bazookas), I don't think they would have usage for a canon) but the quality of the troups was lacking anyway, lot of these maquisards in Vercors were young recruits, youg men escaping the forced labour exil to Germany (STO), they faced a greater number of trained soldiers.
By heavy weapons in this case I mean light to medium mortars. There was no way to get heavier artillery on the massiv and very few fighters with any training on how to use them anyway. You're correct about the quality of "troops" fighting the Germans. Many of them were excellent guerillas but terrible infantry. The two skill sets are much different. It would have been much better for France, the Allies, and those that died in the battle if they had remained guerrillas. However, that would not have given De Gaulle the propaganda victory he so desperately needed.
Do we know what happened to U.S. Troopers?
They were able to sneak out through the German containment lines and survived.
Forgotten Weapons That’s awesome, thanks
Forgotten Weapons fantastic video mate, really interesting. Must visit this area of france, my family are southern french but ive only been twice. Must go back.
i thought they were captured by the gestapo i know of an instence were allied troops were captured and killed never mind it was the britiash sas
They were not just US "troopers" but included British SOE and Free French. There were in fact 3 teams that parachuted at different times into Vercors. Team 1 from OSS operational section Justine: Captain Vernon G. Hoppers, Lieutenant Chester L. Myers, and Sergeant Delmar Calvert and enlisted men: Francis J. Defrane, Robert J. Vanasse, Raymond J. Brochu, Norman J. Harp, Laurence W. Labreck, James W. Murray, Nathan L. Richman, Howard O. Flake, Paul E. Laflamme, Stuart M.Levine, Gaston J. Paquette and Joel J. Picard. Team 2 SOE : British Major Desmond Longe and Captain John Houseman, and two radio operators, American 1st Lt. André Pecquet and French Lt. Jean-Yves Croix. Team 3 Free French: Capitaine Jean Tournissa and a team of 5 including a female radio operator Krystina Skarbeck. OSS survivor Sgt Delmar Calvert was awarded the French Legion d'honneur at Vassieux en Vercors in May 8 2005. There's even a video of the ceremony.
I had read about the battle at different times over the years, great to actually see what it all looks like on the ground. Great scenery, sad history.
Ian this really is fantastic your content is getting better and better. This video told the story of the battle so well and was quite engrossing. Keep em coming!
Very interesting and outstanding presentation. My sincere thanks. The forests and mountains around Strasbourg also have tales to tell amongst other areas.
Been making my way through your catelog of videos over the last few months. This was great! Quite the change of pace. A lot of graphical/animated history shows start to sound like wah wah wah wah wahhhhh a good way into the video. You kept me engaged the whole time. Interesting stuff, keep it up!
Thanks Ian for going to all the trouble to do this. This was very well done.
.
It's nice to have the visuals to go with the book.
Ian, Karl, there's another little known story about the French Resistance. It would be excellent if you could do a piece on it. (maybe you have)
On D-Day and for 24 or 48 hours following, 21 fighters managed somehow to hold back one or more divisions of SS tanks from getting through to the Normandy beaches; the outcome of which would've been most seriously grave. Knowing this, they fought until only one man was left alive; at which point the Allies had established their beachhead.
These men possibly women too deserve to be more widely remembered.
excellent , I had never heard this story despite being a bit of a WW2 nerd , well done Ian , thanks.
An excellent video. I've been fascinated by this battle for many years. The story is heartbreaking. Great to see the locations!
One of the rare times the resistance spent more time fighting the Germans and not each other.
Hope you could taste Caillettes and Ravioles du Royans with Tain l'Hermintage red wine while there... There was a big battle not far at Loriol (south of Valence) when the allied forces came from south, lots of german equipments were lost and the remains of local Resistants were usefull.
Excellent video Ian. This one must have taken a lot of work.
Thank you for sharing and preserving our history, Ian. Safe travels, brother.
my grandfather was in the maquis in Britany, you should come by, there's a lot of history there too, lots of Brits parachuting ops and oss black camps
France has a great variety of terrains and beautiful scenery.
I was looking at that cave and going "Oh wow that would be such a cool place to hide out and survive against the Nazis." then Ian starts talking about fate of them...
Ian, since you seem to be doing several Forgotten History regarding France during WW2, how about doing one on what is the last and perhaps the strangest battle of WW2 in Europe - The Battle of Castle Itter?
Fascinating Ian, thanks for that. I’m flying to Nice next week for a family holiday, I can see me disappearing in the hire car leaving everyone else by the pool...
One of your better videos, Ian. Very informative, and well presented. Nice one.Two thumbs up.
This is like travel with Rick Steves.
Thanks for educating us about these places and personalities.
Thank you Ian, for shedding light into a little known, but hard fought battle by the resistance.
Great video, thx!
My great grand father and my grandmother and her fiance were there. The fiance died during the events, she married my grandpa a decade later.
FYI for everyone but there's a largely forgotten and fairly obscure British TV series from the late 80's/early 90's that dramatised the tragic events in Vercors (albeit with some considerable deviation/artistic licence) called 'Wish Me Luck' that might be of interest.
The show ran for three series and it's the third and final series that features a heavily fictionalised account of resistance in Vercors - renamed 'Le Crest' in the series. As I say though "heavily fictionalised" so don't expect a history lesson, plus the show's visibly tight budget may dissuade some!
The series itself primarily focused on the activities, exploits and hardships of female SOE operatives dropped into France and is, imo, really good and surprisingly dark at times. It also benefits from being made in an era when this sort of subject matter was still quite novel and made for the best of reasons (I.e. mercifully unencumbered by trite ideological agendas sadly so endemic in film/television these days ;)).
Anyways, definitely recommended if you can find it.
Thanks for sharing this important and often unknown moment of our history
wow, I’m about to go on a trek through the Vercors and had no idea this happened, great video and great story telling, thanks alot!
While my friends were watching WWE and Pokemon, I grew up on the History channel. Unfortunately, all of the great historical and military content has been replaced with reality shows. But, as cable gets worse, awesome channels like Forgotten Weapons are stepping up and, I believe, doing an even better job of putting out educational and very entertaining content. Great job Ian, keep it up!
Glad I ran across this. One of these days I'll actually manage to visit France (it's a bucket list thing... birthday's July 14, so being there on Bastille day, but there are other places I'd love to see. This is on the list now.)
I'd love to see more of these videos. (Hey, maybe do something with the HIstory Guy - the presentation styles, I think, would mesh well.)
Good stuff, these historical WW2 focused stories are great....you are highlighting lesser known events which is great.
Wow! I had heard a little bit about this event, but learning about the Red Cross cave and actually seeing is a whole new level. Thanks Ian!
This is probably my favorite forgotten weapons video.
Thank you, you really taught me something about the war in France. I have worked in Grenoble, but had I realised, I would have travelled down to this area for a better understanding. This compliments your other videos rather well. Perhaps you might provide links to your videos relating to the relevant weaponry as this might 'square the circle' on your research?
Very interesting. Thank you for the tour.
I read about some of this before. Seeing the terrain and area gives me a much better appreciation of the events.
Excellent. More history and forts, please. Continue to widen your scope.
I grew up with some of the OSS who trained, organized and fought alongside the French Resistance long before, during and after D-Day. They mentored me in guerilla warfare and resistance. They were the best America ever had. Besides dad, of course. And my combat wounded sons.
Love this style of going into these small villages and hearing these incredible stories!
It is interesting to read fighter pilot Pierre Clostermann's comment in his book The Big Show about the attitudes of the people in France immediately after the Germans surrendered, hearing statements like "You have done nothing, where were you when.." and so on.
Although the French might have lost the Battle they did help tie up a lot of elite German Troops
All occupied countries did help tie up elite German troops. What's your point?
Baptist E. Most of the occupation troops were pretty much shulbs
John Stacy Yes, like in each occupied country as well. Anyways...
yes 400 soldiers for like 2 days. what an incredible success for the french "resistance".
TheAngler2210 did you miss the 20 000 troops involved you moronic halfwit?
this might be one of my favorite FW videos Ian. amazing work, thank you!
Ian McCallum thank you for Amazing videos..best on youtub up to date.i saw all of F W and am amazed by the vast knowledge you got .please keep the good work and we shall keep learning .thanks again.
I knew a man who was in the French Resistance in WW2. He was a fine likable man. He wouldnt talk much about it. But then I was just a kid who maybe didnt ask the right questions. RIP.
I was told about this while driving up into the Vercors and I could easily imagine a Resistance Force holding out up there. But I was left with the impression that they held out for much longer.
Vercors Massif = French Masada. The Maccabees lasted much longer against the Roman Legions but in the end the result was the same.
Bro I like when you show us historical weapons but these tour videos are seriously good who doesn’t love this rich history !
I love these vignette's ... these little glimpses into the past... awesome video, awesome job Ian
Thank you Ian. I really enjoy this type of historical walk through.
MORE OF THESE PLEASE!
I went hiking on the pass near Mont Aiguille in France and saw where some of those french fighters had their last stand... they have a beautiful monument up there.
This video was really well done! A big upgrade in quality compared to your other history videos. Keep it up!!!
Thank you for the history lesson!
Totally agree with lol7able, these history tours by Ian are awesome. I hate tours when I travel, but I'd go on one from Forgotten History..............
Very good presentation!
I'm currently reading "Tears of Glory" (by Michael Pearson). I'm only one-third into the book, but it's already clear to see it was a disaster for the resistance.
Joe Brewer,
Fishers, Indiana USA
Thanks Ian, very touching story.
Truly grotesque. Very well done.
You talk of you ?
As a Frenchman, I can only say thank you for shedding light on this lesser-known battle beyond France. 🇫🇷 ❤🇺🇸
While I enjoy your weapon reviews, i truly love these history videos. The more you do, the happier I am!
For the little story of the "hospital": they also help a german soldier, and when the other soldier found the cave, the wonded german goes to soldiers to say to dont kill then. But the call him treator and kill lot of people (even a civilan you just cross next to then)
Amazing, informative video!
I think I love these battlefield history videos even more than your gun videos, Ian.
Thank you for keeping up on this amazing, high quality & informative channel.
Much love from a fellow firearms enthusiast & history nerd.
Ian you mentioned the paratroopers having at least one Sturmgewehr, but is there any indication that they brought FG42s along? That would seem like the ideal weapon for something like this to me.
It is possible there were some, but I have not seen any actual evidence of it. The FG-42 was only made in pretty small numbers, and an occupation unit like the ones deployed here probably would not have been a high priority to get them.
This place is HOME
These Videos are really great Ian, Its a really beautiful break from Guns themselves and a high quality look at history.
Any force that executes wounded men is completely devoid of any honour or respect and should be dealt with accordingly
Pretty sure most of them were dealt with in due time.
@@scottwatrous You'd be surprised.
You have situations during raids or 'special' operations where taking an injured prisoner is an impossibility and leaving them is a liability and so they were shot. German prisoners in general were shot in large numbers by paratroopers on DDay relative to other allied operations during the war. I'm not saying 'No! Sometimes you SHOULD kill wounded people!' I'm just saying it's difficult to speak in these absolutes when situations are so muddy. Obviously not in this case.
I like these videos so much, I upped my Patreon contribution.
Thanks!
MORE FORGOTTEN HISTORY PLEASE!!!
Thank you so much for such an excellent well produced documentary.
Much appreciated