Why Soldiers Brought These Weird Items To War
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
- Through the turmoil of ever-modernising battlefields in the 20th Century, it was not uncommon for soldiers to turn to various rituals or superstitions as a coping mechanism. By wearing protective talismans, lucky charms, or even by avoiding certain activities or actions that apparently spelled misfortune, soldiers believed that they - if only minutely - had control over their own destinies.
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Show Created by Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)
Script: Jake Leigh-Howarth
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There’s another reasonable reason to avoid new boots before a combat. New boots shall always been worn in first, I can imagine soldiers just didn’t want to suffer blisters in the middle of the battle.
womp womp
@@zww1471not even how it’s used
@@ExtantPerson womp womp
@@ExtantPerson have you ever eaten a tangerine?
@@Forgotten_construct yes, love the username btw
My dad was a WW2 and Korea vet. and he always believed in carrying a acorn on him was good luck.
Today that's a weapon
Cool bro
@theremoteanater lol
I had 1 superstition. At the time, I was authorized 2 different combat patches. I decided to wear the most current patch. Over the next week, i lost 2 friends and another seriously injured. I put the old patch on, didn't lose anyone else the final 8 months of that deployment.
So you left your country to shoot civilians in other country?
That's enough evidence for me to prove that you were 100% correct in your assessment. Therefore it isn't so much a "superstition" but rather a "super scientifically proven fact".
The superstition usually comes from other people experience
So your case will become so if you share it with your mate and they start wearing old patches themselves
6:12 The epitome of the feline maxim "If I fits, I sits".
for now.
🐈
Aw you missed out Unsinkable Sam a cat that lived on the Bismarck before it sank and went on to survive 3 more sinkings which gave him the name "Unsinkable Sam."
tbf it's not clear if Unsinkable Sam was a myth or several cats mistaken as one
What I was rather surprised of was that Wojtek, the brown bear that was the mascot of a polish artillery regiment, wasn't mentioned
Edit: Wojtek was even officially drafted as private since the British transport ship, which was to carry the regiment to Italy, forbade mascot and pet animals. After Monte Cassino he was even promoted to corporal
Damn it's like he did a video about him or something.
Damn it's like he did a video about him or something.
"The ship might sink but the cat sure won't!"
I'm sure that filled many salty seamen with courage.
My grandmother’s father was in the US Navy during World War II. He said that his ship’s mascot was a monkey and one day a sailor was woken up by the monkey. Irritated, he threw it out at sea. As if being stranded at in the middle of the ocean wasn’t cruel enough, the fact that Monkeys can’t swim only confirms the poor thing drowned.
thats a stupid mascot to have on the ship
It makes sense. I can’t imagine how annoying that must have been
An enlisted sailor throwing the ship's mascot out to sea?
I do not believe that for one second.
You forgot buying g ite.s made from wood so the could touch wood for good luck
Monkeys can't swim?!
Weird rituals can calm the nerves and instill confidence which are always great for survivability.
About the new footwear: another reasons soldiers may have declined new boots was because of the fact that they could’ve come from a dead soldier. **All Quiet on the Western Front intensifies**
yeah when he mentioned the part about that, i was a bit confused because there was a scene of a soldier who wanted the boots of a guy who was about to get amputated.
This is true and brand new boots first need to be worn in a little bit to fit just a little bit better
Soldiers are probably the most aware of how random everything is, and how minimal is their own will in the grand scheme of things, a bullet or a shell can drop on you any moment, even if you're doing everything as you should. So it seems normal to boost yourself with the thought that something takes care of you in a way.
So that you can carry on in this dangerous environment, doing what you have to do, without bothering yourself too much with the primal fear of death.
"random thing can happen to me anytime, but i'm good, i can continue, i have that thing boosting my luck, random is in my favour."
That trench foot, looks like my feet after I take a shower💀
Trust me you know when you’ve got it 😊
That shi looks like my foot in any given day
Oh, it's worse than you think
That means you're showering for WAAY too long 😂
Dude, unless chunks of rotten flesh are falling off, you ain't got trench foot.
I like how the Itals sprinkled the dirt of their birthplace on them before battle. I haven't been to the state I was born in since I was 4
There was one that’s particularly interesting
There was a WWl battlecruiser by the name of HMS New Zealand, which was given a Maori piupiu skirt and a heitiki pendant to be worn by the captain during battle.
HMS New Zealand only suffered minor damage from the Battle of Jutland.
In iraq we told our guys not to heat up their MREs for good luck because someone said that heating up mres pisses off the locals and they might put an ied on your path
I Kept a $2 bill on me for good luck. I also continued to wear my old boots but it was because they were worn in and comfortable, not because they were lucky.
nahhh, piggy was just emergency food XD
Praying sometimes works because it calm your nerves like
“Please Lord, give me the strength to survive another day”
If it works for you that’s great
The placebo effect is strong.
However, there was a study that said that if you tell someone you’re praying for them, it causes worse outcomes because people get worried about how sick they really are if someone needs to pray for them.
@@Gr3nadgr3gory It’s not necessarily placebo, but more like having a ritual calms nerves. It’s the same way any superstition works.
@@ferretyluv all superstitions are the placebo effect.
Avoiding new boots is also a good survival strategy: if you had newer boots than the rest of your squad, the enemy might assume you were an officer.
considering they where covered in mud after 10 seconds, that seems pretty irrelevant. They would be looking for your helmet or any badges/ribbons
@@brendolbreadwar2671 Honey, unless the boots are literally submerged in mud, you can still tell if they are new or not.
@@brainflash1 they where literally in trenches. how could they see their feet from above? if they where close enough to see their boots on top or the same level, it wouldn't matter if they are an officer or not, they would be shooting no matter what. the boots are by far the least noticeable feature when comparing ranks. even when viewing from the trenches, the least likely thing you are to see is their boots, considering the angle.
@@brainflash1 Yeahhh they're not going to have the presence of mind to notice you're even wearing the big red boots while they're engaging a combatant. Even if they did, they're going to shoot you, officer or not.
@@mikeb6085 Alright children, time to learn our words of the day. The first word is "ambush" the second is "sniper".
2:00
"3 on a match and you'll wind up in the booby-hatch."
I had to have a chicken foot on the end of my gun tube of my tank and we always scored high on gunnery tables
It isn't just footwear. You only take equipment you know and trust into battle.
That moment when you realize in the middle of a firefight that the new boots are wonky despite technically being the same size (you are probably gonna die now)
I also like lighting 3 candles
Faith and good luck comes in many forms and ways.
How about sergeant stubby
You know him too cool
It always makes me smile when looking back to when I was a member of a rifle shooting team. We had a lovely old lady in our midst, she kept us in order 😂. But she had a "lucky bear" toy clipped to her rifle jacket. Didn't make a blind bit of difference to her shooting. But it didn't harm anyone. So despite our misgivings, I hope she still wears that lil bear 🐻
0:05 swift. . .
I’m not the only one who immediately thought back to that lol
The fire department also has some wild superstitions. One (that always got me) is that you never wash your bunker gear before or during your shift. If you do wash your gear, expect to get a call to a nasty structure fire & to get broiled (like a lobster) in your damp, half-dried gear. I can confirm this one with 100% accuracy.
thats not a superstition thats literally lifesaving advice.
@nomercyinc6783 I apologize, guess I wasn't the clearest in my OP. The superstition is that "wet gear attracts fires". I was a rural fire fighter; so structure fires were few & far between; but when we did get a call, we would all look around to see whose gear was damp / clean (usually mine).
Biggest one among all emergency services is never say the Q-word on shift.
@@GhostBear3067the dreaded q word….
Heaven forbid the new kid says it
Can we please have a brief summary of the spanish/philipine-american war
don't eat the mre charms. it will rain
The guys I work with have said they won't eat them.
They said you'll die in battle when you curse yourself to the opposite of 'charmed'.
Generation Kill 😂
The raspberry ones make the rain 🌧️.
I think newer MREs no longer even have charms because of that.
I heard the story of "never lighting three cigs with a single match at night" from Italian WW1 and some WW2 veterans...their reasoning was "When you light the first the enemy wakes up, when you light the second he grabs the rifle and takes aim, and by the tird cigarette he's lined up the shot".
How wonderfully pithy! I like their reasoning!
@@KidarWolf it was an exemplification, obviously, but it was clear the idea of "keeping a match light for too long on the frontlines, invites attention from the enemy"...which, especially in the trenches, made a lot of sense
You should talk about "the dai hong dan incident". Where in 2007, a north Korean cargo ship got hijacked by Somalian pirates. And a US warship came to the rescue after hearing their distress call. Fortunately, the NK sailors took the ship back after killing 2 of the baddies, and capturing 5 more. 3 of the sailors needed medical treatment, where US Navy medical personnel helped them. When the news spread around NK, they made a VERY RARE statement, PRAISING the US navy for answering the distress call for the their sailors. Worth talking about it.
I'mma keep posting this comment until I get Simple History's attention! 😅
that isnt a significant event. nothing from north korea matters or is important.
The first one made me "PUT THOSE GRIPPERS AWAY"
I have heard the 3 smokes with 1 match.
0:03 I know that not everything is a video game reference but I have a feeling that this has gotta be a reference to Swift's death in Black Ops 1
I hoped for mentioning Wojtek the bear
Well he would not fit the theme as he was not a mascot he was an enlisted soldier of the Polish Army, and that is CORPORAL Wojtek to you.
Thank God I am a Catholic. The Rosary and the Sign of the Cross will save faithful
Well no, not exactly. Jesus will save the faithful. Trinkets and symbols might remind you of Him, but they don't do any saving on their own.
@@cympimpin20It's physically & literally a holy symbol to make the sign of the cross.
You do so in the name of Jesus.
Your post is lunacy.
“I cut my teeth in the trenches of the Somme, you larped your Santa Claus butt through Vietnam!” JRR Tolkien
Stevie Wonder: Very Superstitious, wash your face and hands.
ERB reference eh?
@@leehyun6513 "eh?"
🦫🏒🍁
i never understood that quote
@@cheezits_christ Not in the Canada kind btw
@@doggydude2668 Epic Rap Battle of History reference mate
Don’t eat the Charms…
Not hard, they suck anyway.
We weren't even allowed to bring charms into the truck
never even got charms. we always got m&ms and skittles. not once charms. in over a decade
Yes my daily dose of Simple History as prescribed lol right on time😂😂🎉🎉 Perfect upload!
you should make a history video about the three Brazilian Heroes Arlindo Lúcio da Silva, Geraldo Baeta da Cruz, and Geraldo Rodrigues de Souza,
Pinned by Sabaton
In 1945 in Montese, Italy, a bloody battle ensued between Brazilian troops and the Germans they bravely fought until they ran out of ammunition and engaged in close combat with their bayonets. They were immediately shot dead and the Germans buried them and placed a cross with the inscription “Drei Brasilianischen Helden” (Three Brazilian Heroes) on their grave
Scriptwriter here…. that video will come at some point (I’ve already written it) 😀
@@xAtonement101xget ready for the flood of Brazilian commenters when you do post it.
The swastika was also a good luck talisman of the native americans, It is a Navajo symbol for good luck, also translated to "whirling log".
Excellent as usual!
Glanced and thought title said "Super Soldier Syrums that'll save your life" and got excited for a second
Stroke
Love the BF1 themes in the background.
Used to refuse "third light" while hanging around 'smoker's corner' at school.
I'm interested on the apricots, seems so out of left field
German soldier used "Signal" magazines for luck.
Poland had a military bear called Wojtek in WW2.
To pay for his food he was enlisted as a soldier.
Simpson and his Donkey want a word about their lack of involvement in this topic 😅😅😅
Best animal mascot was that bear that served with the polish artillery.
Great video!
I bet Hitler saw the swastika being worn by Indian or British soldiers when he was fighting in WW1, and used that as the inspiration for the flag.
I had always heard he got the idea from Roman symbolism, in an attempt show longevity of the "pure race".
Simple History can you do a video on the War of 1812.
I see you Captain Nixon lol
"I'm looking for Major Winters."
I hate how much detail you went in on the one shoot of the foot 😂
Phone thing about keeping good luck charms makes a lot of sense and if my grandfather watch this well he probably would have been telling you the story about how the first time when you fixed the vehicle when he was in the service he kept one of the nuts in that vehicle and that not is still in my family's possession
One friend told that her grandfather, who was a “Poilu” (French WWI soldier), survived an assault during the Verdun Battle, as his Virgin Mary Medal stopped the bullet that certainly should have killed him.
5:18
Out of all the symbols they could’ve used, they chose the one that aged poorly 20 years later.
Don't eat the Charms candy. It will rain.....too much
8:01 To add to that one. If you ever put apricots on a tank the crew will kill you. When my dad was in basic training someone put apricots on the generals tank. That general made the entire tank unit do push ups for 6 hours straight. When you passed out you got an IV drip or water and went back to doing push-ups.
2:48 as an orthodox, I can confirm
Thanks as always Simple History. This was an interesting video about superstitions of luck, kudos.
While it surely was only in the movie and the book it was based on, it's commonly assumed that right before Battle of Grunwald in 1410, both sides claimed that God would help His loyal subjects, with both King Jagiełło and Grandmaster von Jungingen saying exactly the same words. Nowadays this is mostly used in memes and jokes, with God replying to them that he doesn't want to be involved in it.
0:06 Rest in peace swift
They had the power of plot armor and God on their side.
The bit about a pair of dice blessed by a priest had me chuckling like mad
0:41 during my time at the auxiliaries, our sergeant scolded us for wearing new boots and to be honest I myself found it hard to patrol or move in difficult terrains using new boots
Avoiding brand new boots. I have heard of similar superstitious ritual among some pro-baseball pitchers.
Some does not wash their hands after winning the game; they thought it serves not to lose their luck.
I thought it was a negligent absence to not include rosaries in the protective talismans section, but was then pleasantly surprised and intrigued to see that Catholic/Christian superstitions actually got their own mini-section!
0:03 *Mason on crack looking at Victor Resnovsno with red beating eyes*
please do a video on these
(this is a copy and paste list for a few channels)
history of south Russia (just above caucuses)
how Mongolia helped Russia in ww2 and cold war,
greek life under rome,
Mongolia life under china, and later in ww2/cold war and mabey a little on modern
units and tactics/evaluation of loadouts of troops (from different jobs (and other branches)
like the 82 snd 101 airborne units
or infantry tank units, (or when tanks were assigned a infantry unit like i think earlier war Russia then all tanks were formed into there own units wich meant the infantry no longer knew the true strength of there own tanks but alowed tank units to fight more efficiently)
the evaluation of tank doctrine of countries
evaluation of tanks/armored vehicles of different countries
evaluation of aircraft types of different countries,
different between navil and army/air force fighters
logistics units of the axes and allied powers in ww2
ww1 estern front tactics
Russian Civil war tactics and strategies
navil ship cross sections (all the rooms and how it all works)
evaluation of types of ships
or evaluation of navil warfare (or just dedectsded videos on ww1 and ww2 navil doctrine as theres stuff out there on other times of history)
air craft carrier strike group formations exsamples (from different countries)
ancient persan ships,
ancient veneti ships (gauls that fought ceaser)
ships used by genoa and the vernesain republic
the vernesain republic government
all sailing ships, (i know theres many on yt but some contradict each other and i think theres more left out)
ancient macenean greek and trojan troops
2b9 vasilyok morter
tactics used so far in the Ukraine war,
better for squads to be 2 teams of 5 or 3 teams of 3,
and probably the easiest, better to keep troops well feed or starved like an animal
how dose age effect comsnders eg napoleon got older so took less risks,
ancient urban warfare
ww2 tactics in Asia, tactics in the Chinese age of warlords, (and Chinese civil war)
tactics in the ruso jap war
cold war navil tactics,
Korean war tactics,
strange tactics or unque battles from the American war of independence and America civil
how were 17th centry sailing ships build
comands given on sailing ships (like ease the sheets and get ready to chine, or slack n beases, basically things you hear movie capitns say)
why did the nazis never return (or a video on best occupations)
why did the Japanese empire fall, dont just say "America" like things like how there army and navy argued alot
alot more on the Polynesians and māori, but please learn pronounceations if you do this
So...tanks!
@@streitrat lol, alot More then that lol
"Superstition is born of ignorance and fear, and thrives the most when reason is asleep." - Zarathushtra
I hope the crewmen on the dreadnought checked the barrels often
5:48 nooooo wake island rail
Hey can you make a video of the gun truck of vietnam war please and thank you
do a video about weapons we think are new but are decades old
Also the History Ancient Roman Military, reusing a number or a Standard of the Fallen Legion is considered a curse that recruits believed were going to share the same fate like famous 14th Legion
USMC vet here. NEVER and I MEAN NEVER eat the Charms out of an MRE.
nice, time to absorve Superstitions i never had before into things i'll never experience
Nice black ops reference 0:04
United We Stand
not all boots required the same break in. the summer boots always need weeks of breakin while the winter boots are ready to wear outside the box and are much more comfortable. life saving tips and tricks are not superstitions
Yo that opening in first person was just like in black ops 1 when you go into the rat tunnels
Missed on the Charms candy in MREs
In Hinduism, the symbol of swastika is considerd auspicious
I believe the cover image is a reference to George Vinall. A British World War I Soldier whose life was saved by the Bible he was carrying.
Master Sun Tzu warned against believing in superstitions in the Art of War.
I have a superstition about having my foot sweeped by a broom.
I never heard that one.. where’s it from?
Those damn charms
6:40 🙈🙈🙈🙈 I wonder what Jacko's duties involved 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
Very good job dudes!! Congratulations 996.6% yo. I also like lighting 3 candles!
I believe in ww2 a polish artillery unit had a pet beat named wojac I think. I haven't regoogled when making this
The Germans really said “if we can’t beat their symbol then just take their symbol”
I wish you could dress him up as “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair
Years of watching movies have convinced me that pictures of loved ones are the exact opposite of a protective charm, it's a death magnet.
I can get in trouble for leaving a comment but there was a cat named unsinkable sam that was found in the wreck of the Bismarck by a British ship,then that ship sunk and another hence the nickname,unsinkable sam,also he survived all of them may I add
1:32 No way?! A HP Halifax?!
My great grandfather fought in two wars, World War One and the Libyan war. I never met him, even if we share a name, but i do have some pictures and personal objects of his from that time, including a signed mortar shell with the date of start and finish year of ww1. I wonder if he consider it his lucky charm.
I like trench foot
never eat charms, only skittles
Introducing the Japanese Hiroshi Funasaka,He is immortal