Kids on a bike can go a lot of places an adult can't without suspicion, and if your town is occupied for 3+ years you notice who is collaborating and living better than you.
Literally, The Duke of Orange. In all honesty, reactions to this part show how much of a non-player Holland is in modern history studies. Then again, modern history skips the timeline and just jumps to political bullet points, depending on who's teaching it. I'll bet most people don't even know that New York is Dutch.
We can also blame Holland for why carrots are orange. They selectively bred them until they matched the royal colors rather than their original color. The original color was purple.
@@ScarriorIII Depends on the age and their memory and where they lived. Tiny Toon Adventures(Looney Toons spin-off from the 90s) used a They Might Be Giants song where there's a lyric that says "Old new york was once new amsterdam"
@scarymonsterrs a guy I went to highschool with found out he was color blind when the school randomly did a color blind test that they never did before in the entire history of its conception and never did after that since I was there. Which was a little funny because I did mine exactly as he did this so we both were a little surprised how I got it and he saw nothing and since I grew up with him we both realized now why he we disagreed with certain colors.
@@kaliwali it's not a common consideration, and males tend to be more colour deficient than women. As a guy who is red/green colour deficient it clicked for me right away. It basically highlights the idea that many lied/cheated during enrollment for the privilege to fight. A different time.
Operation Market Garden was a mixed bag of success and failure. A good movie about this is "A Bridge Too Far" and goes into some of the details about what went wrong in not only the planning, but the actual execution of the operation. Of course there are some inaccuracies like with any film adaptation, but still worth the watch.
Love that movie. Watched it as a kid so many times. "We cant accept your surrender...We'd like to but we are terribly sorry we have nowhere to put you" lol, typical British pluck
The book also makes many errors of omission and is quite misleading. The best update is Swedish historian Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020), which uses unpublished documents and interviews in A Bridge Too Far author's Cornelius Ryan Collection held at Ohio State University and also debunks the many myths from the Hollywood film.
The line 'He's never tasted chocolate before' always breaks my heart. All the folk who've been born into war, kids whose whole understanding of the world is that terror and uncertainty...
7:37 Those are called "invasion armbands" and they came in 2 different variants, both seen in this episode; Since paratroopers drop behind enemy lines, these armbands were there to make sure they don't get mistaken for German soldiers by local resistance or other U.S. troops that would enter the theater after them. Another fun fact is that only the 82nd Airborne wore those, the 101st wore gas detection brassards instead. 10:38 Orange was the color of the flag adopted by William of Orange, a Dutch hero who revolted against the Spanish occupiers in the 16th century. Since then, orange has become synonymous with the Resistance and it was a way for the civilians to welcome the American troops. 13:53 That's an Sd.Kfz. 251 (Sonderkraftfahrzeud, special-motorized vehicle), AKA "Half-track", a very rudimentary APC (Armored Personnel Carrier). It's basically an armored vehicle meant to carry troops from point A to point B while also providing some limited fire support. 15:18 Bull is probably signing that their tanks cannot see the enemy Tiger, not sure, as a lot of the hand signals used in the series weren't in use during WW2. 15:45 Yeah, this wasn't really a thing. If you know the enemy is holding a chokepoint you wouldn't drive straight into their ambush. Thing is, even if they did shoot through the building at the Tiger, the British are using Cromwells and the Americans are using 75mm Shermans, both are inadequate at dealing with a Tiger frontally (Kind of like what you saw in Fury, but Fury was a 76mm Sherman which in reality could have gone through the front armor of the Tiger at the distances shown in the movie), so they'd have to flank it or hit it in the rear. 17:24 This is a Jagdpanther, a German tank destroyer based on the Panther, really well armored in the front, even better than the Tiger. 17:57 This is a StuG III, another tank destroyer, this one based on the Panzer III. Not as well armored as the Jagdpanther but with a very decent gun. 18:15 I am not sure if there was a Tiger in Neunen during the battle but in total the British only lost 2 tanks. 19:04 Yeah Operation Market Garden was FUBAR, massive screw up for the Allies. 20:32 The half-track in the front is an Sd.Kfz. 251/22, modified to take the 75 mm PaK40/3 L46 cannon in an anti-tank role, you don't see many of these in media. The vehicle behind it is a Marder III, another casemate tank destroyer. We saw one of these in the previous episode. 21:27 Bull had a piece of shrapnel stuck in the back of his shoulder. 26:12 WW2 helmets were not thick enough to stop bullets, even a small 9mm round will go through. They are there to protect your head from shrapnel, which is traveling much, much slower. Modern helmets CAN withstand rounds to varying levels (depending on the helmet), however, this doesn't mean you will come out unscathed. Half way through typing this comment I accidentally hit CTRL+W while trying to close another tab and had to retype half of it from scratch. I hope this has been informative and I pass some knowledge on.
Your half right about the British and their tanks,but the British used American tanks also including the Sherman as shown in this episode. As far as your World War 2 helmet can't stop a bullet. Depends on the range of the shot fired. At some point the volicity becomes less than the power needed for penatration.
@@jeff-ni5cy Obviously a round fired from 10 miles away won't penetrate wet tissue paper, what's the point of mentioning that? There were no Shermans present in the battle of Nuenen, only Cromwells, of the 15th/19th King's Royal Hussars, 11th Armored Division.
@richardstephens5570 His video literally shows the German M40 failing to stop a 9mm fired from a Walther, much less a longer barreled SMG, and seeing as SMGs were less common than rifles firing much more powerful rounds, means WW2 HELMETS WERE NOT DESIGNED TO STOP BULLETS, as per my original comment.
I'd only contend that the 75mm Shermans could defeat Tigers when attacking from the front. From what I've read the Allied tankers would fire many rounds of HE at the Tiger hoping to hit a view port or the main gun or a hatch or tracks. Something to disable the tank rather than destroy it. The smaller guns could unload 3 or 4 rounds before the Tiger fired 2. The Germans were told to abandon their Tigers as soon as they were even somewhat inoperable. But I doubt anyone would want to try doing that against a Tiger in a prepared position covering the road they're using.
Fun fact: Allied soldiers and officers often mistook Panzer 4s for Tigers, Tigers are essentially Panzer 6s. Orange was the colour of the dutchresistance, the colour of their country, and the colour of the royal house. Market Garden was an Operational disaster, the Canadians endedup being the ones liberating Holland which is why most people in the Netherlands love canadians, I went there for a vacation and got free food lodging, and car rides just because im from Canada.
The 101st managed to secure Eindhoven and the bridges there rather quickly. The 82nd Airborne Division, for some reason, took its time to capture the bridge at Nijmegen (General Jim Gavin was worried about German armor in the area), allowing the Germans to organize. They stopped the Britsh 30th Corps at Neunen and Vegel, and managed to blow the bridge at Oosterbeck, stranding the British Airborne at Arnhem. The whole operation was a waste as American forces to the south, despite having a resource shortage due to supllies being rerouted the north, managed to push into Germany proper. By the end of the 101st's stay in Holland, General Omar Bradley's 1st Army had taken the historic city of Aachen, while Patton's 3rd Army had pushed through Lorraine into the Saarland, having fought the largest tank battle in the Western Front at Arracourt. The resistance movements across Europe used children as scouts and messengers due to the Germans not seeing children as a threat. One of the most famous child members of the Dutch Resistance was future actress Aubrey Hepburn. There's also the cases of children taking up arms in Soviet and Yugoslav partisan units and the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising.
Some answers to your questions: D-Day was the first major paratroop jump ever attempted at night, and the last. After-action studies indicated that in most cases the paratroops weren't able to find each other until the morning anyway (as shown in Episode 2), so for the rest of the war paratroops dropped in the morning (like in this episode) and the drops were more effective. At 9:10 the officer orders the sergeant to tell him when the jump light turns green because he's color blind. Color blindness disqualifies you from serving (a lot of military signals are color-coded), but he wanted to fight so he doesn't want anyone to know. Not well explained here, but it's in the book. An example of bravery; he could have stayed home. At 12:12, the Dutch Underground Resistance frequently used children as spies, because the Nazis required adults to have passes to move around, especially at night. German soldiers were much less suspicious of children.
Another point about the kid (12:20): He looks to be maybe 13 or 14, so old enough that he might be independently motivated to help the resistance. So it's not so much that the Dutch resistance is using them (in the way that we might object to child soldiers today), rather adolescents would be volunteering to help however they could (collecting intel, running messages and supplies, etc.). Plus, it would have been more normal at the time (even outside of war and occupation) for teens to start undertaking grown-up responsibilities that we might not expect of them today.
Yep... easy to forget that even though they were only "occupied" by Nazi Germany, they were still fighting for their very survival. If the Axis fascists hadn't been stopped, they would have swept over the entire world and eventually exterminated everyone who wasn't them. When you're fighting for your right to exist, it's all hands on deck, no matter the age. Same reason they armed the boys at Helm's Deep in LotR Two Towers, to use a fictional example.
19:35 Just some info on Winters (the guy who didn’t get his helmet shot off) and Nixon (the guy who did). Winters came from a poor family and needed to work his way through college. Nixon came from a rich family and attended Yale for two years before leaving to enlist in the Army (this will become a minor point in a future episode). Winters was a monkish introvert who read all the infantry manuals he could get his hands on. Nixon was a party animal who loved to drink. Winters was a field commander, while Nixon was in Intelligence, which meant that he helped translate the data received from the field into information that people could use. The pair met up during Officer Candidate School, and their friendship started from there.
Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands (Holland), often associated with the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau. Proof needed during those head shavings, and the stated executions was simply the word of a resistnace member. After the war it was determined that in some cases these extra judicial killings were done for reasons other than collaboration with the Germans. It wasn't just a Tiger. It was a Tiger and a StuG (Sturmgeschütz) III. The StuG III was originally greated as an infantry support vehicle with a howitzer in an armoured hull, but this version was equiped with an anti-tank gun meaning it was probably at least Ausf F (model F). Tigers were heavy tanks, while the all the allied tanks shown were medium tanks. In the battle of Kursk (Russain front, 1943), one Tiger was hit by over 100 anti-tank shots and was still able to return to friendly lines. It was used as a propaganda piece. The 75mm guns on the Cromwell (the boxier allied tank, and the one we see leading the allied tanks with Mr I wan't shoot at the buildings) and the Shermans (the more angular tanks like the one that tries to run over Bull) struggled against the heavy armour on a Tiger, while the Tiger's 88mm main give could penetrate any tank in the allied inventory, and at much greater range. In one battle a single german Tiger destroyed 22 British tanks and other vehicles in 15 minutes and still escaped. These sort of incidents led to a phenomenon known as Tiger fear, where every enemy armoured vehicle was thought to be a Tiger, yet only about 1400 Tiger were built through out the war. Of which only 120 were used at Normandy and 30 at Arnhem. The Sherman had about 50000 made and 4000 were used at Normandy and 1000 used in Market Garden. The standard tactic for taking on a Tiger was to outnumber, outflank, and shoot it in the rear at close range. Some Shermans, like the British Firefly had guns that could punch through the heavy armour on the German Big Cats (Tigers and Panthers) at greater range. A total of 2100 Fireflys were made, and the British used 1 Firefly in a troop with 3 other regular Shermans. The Cromwell was faster and had better mobility than the Sherman and was often used in a scouting role. We don't see any Fireflys as they had a significantly longer barrel than a regular Sherman. Also German antitank gunners would try to take out a Firefly first, preventing a direct kill shot.
For some context when Guarneri mentioned Patton over taking their drop zone the doctrine for paratroopers was for them to drop behind enemy lines, capture towns/important areas, wait for friendly forces to reach them, then be pulled off the front to prepare for the next jump. The problem was that the part of the army lead by General Patton was moving so fast that by the time the 101st Division started planning a jump Patton’s men were sitting on the drop site. Because of this the Airborne were used as elite infantry to attack/defend important parts of the frontline.
You’re correct about poison, but that came later when the Allies crossed the Rhine into Germany. My great-uncle was an Army engineer. He found a bottle of wine (or maybe schnapps) in a house in Germany right after they bridged the Rhine. He drank from it. Poisoned. He’s buried in Holland.
I love that you always point out the opening scenes in the series! 4:46 Nice attention to detail! You remember from last episode that they were going back to France (that order got cancelled). I love it because it shows that you were paying 100% attention. ❤ 17:59 Wow! I've watched this many times and I've never noticed that the old man's building was being hit! Thanks a lot for pointing it out!
Although the Market Garden operation was supposed to meet limited resistance, it was not the case. By sheer bad luck two of the German's most experienced SS Units had been withdrawn after fighting in Normandy to rest and refit some where quiet (in Holland) and Allied intelligence hadn't found out about it - although the German's were short of numbers they definitely weren't old men and boys.
Allied intelligence knew the SS divisions were there and it was one of the reasons for cancelling the original operation COMET to replace it with an upgraded one called MARKET with three airborne divisions instead of one. The SS divisions were not the reason it failed, which was the failure to secure the undefended Nijmegen bridge on the first day. The "old men [on bicycles] and boys" were accurate references to two battalions in the Arnhem area specifically: Sicherungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 908 was a security unit consisting of WW1 logistcs troops considered unfit for combat duties in 1914-18, and SS-Panzergrenadier-Ausbildungs-und-Erstaz-Bataillon 16 that was training some Hitler Youth recruits as replacements for 12.SS-Panzer-Division 'Hitlerjugend'.
I love the way that the crew of Easy Company has been responding to their fellow brothers being promoted throughout their missions. Even though they initially all trained together as equals, they’re not letting the new rank differences of Lipton and Randleman, among others, impact their relationships. They maintain full respect and loyalty towards them. No jealousy or ill-intentions This episode really showed us the importance of knowing who to trust, and when. And the disastrous consequences when you get it wrong. The British tank commander brushing off the threat being presented to him. And then Randleman, while on his own, trusting the civilian family in the barn, allowing all of them to make it out okay
I really enjoy your take on this amazing series. You present the reverence and respect for those that were placed in impossible positions and in many cases gave their lives so you can make your videos and I can enjoy them. As a veteran, I thank you.
To be fair to the British tank commander he has orders not to destroy property because there might be civilians in those houses, they're moving into a village that until yesterday was really deep behind German lines, there's no reasonable expectation for civilians to have been able to flee in time. I think we forget that the largest portion of casualties in WWII were ordinary civilians killed either by mistake or in the crossfire. He "MIGHT" get the drop on the Tiger tank but what if he kills a whole Dutch family hiding in their home in the process?
My issue was that he wasn't ready for it. He should have been watching that corner and had at least two of his tanks with their main gun ready to fire and trained on the corner of the building. They should have at least been able to get a kill with a flank shot when the tiger advanced. Of course, hindsight makes it easier.
The whole scene was inaccurate. In the actual 44 RTR war diary they recorded an unidentified vehicle hidden behind a hedgerow, probably a half-track armed with a 7.5cm close support kanon (SdKfz 251/9), so debating a Hollywood TV show is a futile exercise. The episode is a conflation of two engagements at Opwetten and Nuenen on 19 and 20 September 1944, and Stephen Ambrose even got the date wrong for the battle at Nuenen in his book.
Audrey Hepburn held underground concerts to raise money for the resistance, but was too young to take an active role. With an English father and Dutch mother, she was at school in England when the war started in 1939 and the family thought it best if she was evacuated to the Netherlands and her mother's family home in Arnhem, since the Netherlands had been neutral in WW1 and expected to remain so again. When Hitler invaded the Netherlands in 1940, that changed and the Germans even commandeered her grandfather's estate (Huis Zypendaal) to be occupied by the town military commander (Ortskommandant). The house was actually used as the German military headquarters in the Hollywood film Betrayed (1954) about the Dutch spy who allegedly betrayed the Arnhem airborne operation. Hepburn was asked if she would play Kate Ter Horst ('the Angel of Arnhem') in the film A Bridge Too Far (1977), but she declined as it was "too close to home" and Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann took the role.
One thing I love about this series, as a Navy Veteran and someone who has read a lot about World War Two, is seeing the war from the point of view of those who had to do the fighting and the dying. You hear the names occasionally of the higher ups like Ike Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Monty(Montgomery) but we stay focused on the men of Easy and I liked that. The late actress Audrey Hepburn was from Holland and spent her childhood and early teens in Nazi occupied Holland, helping with the Dutch resistance against the Nazis. I have a book called Dutch Girl about that time period in her life; it was a very good book. Audrey Hepburn had much in common with Anne Frank, even though they never actually met. Otto Frank, Anne's father, wanted Audrey to play Anne in the movie based upon Anne's diary, but Audrey turned the role down, as it was too much of a reminder of her own traumatic experiences during that time. It was something she never really got over.
The lieutenant who wanted to be notified of the green light was likely color blind. Red-green color blindness is the most common type, and both lights would’ve looked the same to him. And since color blindness would have disqualified him from the Airborne, he didn’t want to admit to the reason for his request/order.
Private Roy Cobb who in this episode is the one giving the replacements crap at the beginning, in real life he was older than most of the guys, he joined the army in 1933 I believe fought in Africa a couple years before Normandy , on the transport home his ship was sunk but he made it back to the states and joined the paratroopers and easy company, he saw alot of combat, fascinating story if you read up on him , thanks Kali!
The old man wearing the hat at the table Talbot was sitting at, kissing the girl in Eindhoven, is the real Babe Heffron. He was visiting the set that day and they put him in the scene.
This series is probably one of the most accurate of it's kind. There are minor inaccuracies and very occasionally wrong info (Blithe) that was taken from the book that was essentially a memoir of the company from the men in it. I'd highly recommend The Pacific after this is over.
It is one of the best but some of those "MINOR" inaccuracies I would argue are quite big and bad. It's one thing to take veterans words as gospel it another when there's clear evidence to the contrary.
You should look up the Netherlands American cemetery that’s located in Margraten Holland. One of the more Unique to the cemetery is the connection with the Dutch people. Since 1945 members of the local community have adopted the grave sites of our fallen. They bring flowers to the cemetery and research the life of the service member as a way to honor their sacrifice. They make it a big deal, and some graves are passed down family member to family member.
It is such a pleasure watching your Genuine reaction to this series. I subscribed. I so love reactors like you that are not overboard on their reactions and just give a true reaction with a little commentary. Much appreciated
The scene with the British tank commander slightly different in the book that the series is based on. In it, the British tank commander is warned about the tank, which has been spotted in a fence line. When the American tells him this, he says “I can’t see it, and if I can’t see it I can’t shoot it!” There is no mention of shelling the building in between them to see it, because there isn’t one - this fight took place outside the village. The “destruction of private property” line never comes up either simply because British tankers never had such orders The British tank continues forward and gets knocked out before it spots the enemy tank. Most of the crew escapes, but the gunner’s legs have been blown off. So the British tank commander is warned of an enemy tank “up ahead and to the right”. He can’t see this tank and his job is to engage and destroy enemy forces in the area. He also has to do this as fast as possible, as every wasted second puts the mission in jeopardy - a mission that is already running massively behind schedule. To make things worse, the tank commander probably has very limited options for approaching the enemy too, as this area has been flooded by the enemy to prevent tanks from leaving the roads. This was a big issue that impacted upon Market Garden. I suspect that the British tank commander simply made the best decision he could at the time. It didn’t work out, obviously, but he may not have had much choice. Plus i managed to find his name years ago but it poetrays him as incompetent yet that Commander was a veteran of North Africa, Italian campaign and Normandy he wasn't stupid. It just another case of Hollywood doing everything in its power to cling to stereotypes to make the British look pompous and incompetent and the Americans badass. Thats not to say I don't love this show because i do i think it should be shown in schools but it's bits like that and how they handled Blithe that get me annoyed.
The lieutenant asking for help with the green light was probably red-green colorblind (a common condition), which isn't disqualifying but it poses challenges on occasion. I know because I am too and I also served as a fire platoon leader in the Army but I didn't try to hide my vision shortcoming from the troops. They were actually really good about letting me know what color smoke, a flare or whatever was if I couldn't see it well. It also poses a challenge when trying to read maps at night using a red lens light (red light doesn't give your position away as readily as white light and preserves your night vision). I had to scrutinize the details carefully to make sure I wasn't missing something. I think it is fair to say my weak red-green color vision never endangered anyone or impacted our mission, in part because I was honest with the soldiers I served with.
At 11:20, while in Eindhoven Holland, you will see Winters, Welsh & Nixon play with their collars. The reason for this was because the town was not secured. The citizens were celebrating, punishing the female collaborators and kissing the soldiers but there were still German soldiers in the town. That’s why Lt. Peacock & Lipton kept telling everyone to keep moving. Didn’t want the soldiers to stop and be easy targets. What Winters and the other officers were doing was hiding their collar rank insignia that identified them as officers. In an unsecured combat area like this the officers would hide their insignia and the enlisted men would not salute them because there would be snipers around who would target anyone who was identified as an officer.
Kali, as you mentioned, Easy was supposed to be heading out. At about 5:00 Guenere mentioned about the French town they were supposed to jump into but didn’t. What happened was everyone they planned for the Paratroopers to jump behind enemy lines again and fight their way to their objectives and fight Germans on one side and the Regular Infantry on the other the jump would get cancelled. It seems that Patton, Corps Commander of the Regular Infantry, and his troops would bust through the Germans so throughly that they overran the drop zone. This caused several planned jumps to be cancelled. Then Patton was ordered to stop because his supplies were being re-routed to Market-Garden. What did Easy and the 101st do during this time? Take in replacements (who were already qualified Paratroopers before their assignment to Easy), train and spend time in town as shown in the beginning of this episode. In other words-they didn’t do much of anything. That’s the short version of what happened between the end of Episode 3 “Caretan” and Episode 4 “Replacements”.
At 23:05, the German soldier’s rifle was not jammed. The Mauser Karibiner 98K has a safety lever on the rifle attached to the bolt group on the rear. When the safety is fully on, the rifle cannot fire and the bolt is also locked into position and the rifle’s action cannot be cycled (eject spent round, chamber new round). There is a setting for the safety lever that allows the rifle to not fire, but still allow the action to cycle, but by the looks of it the safety lever was fully locked. This is realistic since the soldier was not in active combat and didn’t expect to encounter Bull Randleman in the barn. Great attention to detail by the experts on the show. At any rate, this is what happened in that scene.
Movie notes, here we go! A lot has already been said in other comments, so I'll just add a bit of miscelleanous tidbits about German tanks: First of all, German tanks were not nearly as superior as myth/pop culture would have you sometimes believe. The Germans had some very good tanks, but there are some caveats: Many of the more fearsome German tanks were overengineered and underpowered (the most famous ones probably being the Tigers and Panthers), meaning, they were very strong when they got proper maintenance and could be deployed in strong postitions, but very bad when they had to maneuver a lot and/or didn't get the needed maintenance. The TIger was amongst the strongest tanks of WW2. Most allied tanks would have trouble to penetrate a Tiger's armour, especially from the front, where it's thickest. That is why a Tiger in such a defensive position where it can't be flanked is a nightmare. Better luck next time, Easy, and glad that Bull is alright! See you, Kali.
Fun fact: kali, the tiger tank, and the Canadian donated Sherman tanks were the same ones used in the movie Fury. The show came out long before the movie, but the tanks were still in fighting condition.
The Tiger was actually a replica built from a Soviet OT-34 tank recovery vehicle and the same one used in Saving Private Ryan. The Tiger in Fury was Tiger # 131 from the British Tank Museum and was the 1st German tank to be captured largely intact by Allied forces.
Great reaction. They start getting progressively intense. Have tissues handy if you haven’t already. The series does a good job of keeping you up on the dates and timeline.
In his book ARMAGEDDON British historian Max Hastings highly praises the American 82nd and 101st airborne divisions for their performance in Opposition Market Garden despite its ultimate failure.
11:20 Here Winters and the other officers are popping up the collars on their jackets to cover their officer insignia and markings just in case there’s an enemy sniper hiding somewhere and watching. Officers were a big target during WWII
Blythe’s injury required long recovery The soldiers never saw him again & some assumed he’d died. The show should have caught it, but it may have been used to show how capricious war is, a guy develops into a good soldier& just that quickly he’s gone.
Orange is the national color of the Netherlands. good reaction more action coming. as long as you are a member of the unit you are authorized to wear the ribbon.🎃
The saying a bridge too far originates from Operation Market Garden. Following the Operation the German cut off Dutch Farm towns leading to the deaths of 22,000 people and a total of 4.5 million were affected. All of this during the harsh winter of 1944-1945.
The traditional cultural colors of The Netherlands is orange, so they were showing their loyalty. Often Olympic teams and soccer teams from The Netherlands wear orange as a team uniform color, for example. I believe it was the favored color of the royal family back in the day.
Bull wasn't shot, he was hit by Shrapnel from one of the Tanks, it was still stuck in his back causing bleeding and constant pain. Sobel was made S4 because they needed all soldiers possible between Europe and The Pacific, Sobel despite his flaws was a fully trained Soldier and Officer and due to the increase in fighting was wasted in a training position.
8:03 This is probably what happened to Blithe. When he went back to Europe after rehab, he probably got reassigned to another unit, which might explain why nobody heard from him
When this series came out most Americans were familiar with Operation Market Garden through the film A Bridge Too Far. So we kind of knew the outcome from the outset.
Fun fact, the dutch representative in Eindhoven's english accent was so good that the directors thought it was too good to be believable (for the time as a native dutch) so he was told to speak worse.
The Lieutenant that wanted to be tapped when the light came on, was color blind. Meaning on or off, red or green he wouldn't be able to tell. He like many other lied about conditions to serve. In Eindhoven the older man sitting with a cap & waving the Dutch flag was the real Babe Heffron.
20:32 only one of the tanks was a tiger the rest of them are as fallowed half track with a pack 40 marder iii ausf m jagdpanther stug iii ausf g. (the tank that shows up the most in the show and in real life)
There is a minor inaccuracy later on where Winters dives into a pond for a swim, but Winters couldn't swim. I hope you watch the unofficial episode 11 at the end, the documentary of Band of Brothers
Movie you should watch that does a great job of showing Operation Market Garden is "A Bridge Too Far". It shows really how bad this operation went, and how intelligence was ignored that should have called off the entire operation.
That's the conventional narrative from the book and movie that has been debunked in the last twenty years. I recommend TIKhistory channel's MARKET GARDEN series of videos on UA-cam, or Swedish historian Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020), that uses unpublished documents and interviews in (A Bridge Too Far author's) Cornelius Ryan Collection held at Ohio State University and also debunks the many myths in the Hollywood film.
There was only one Tiger I in the scene the other "tanks" were what looked to be a Stug III, a Hetzer and possibly a Jagdpanther. It's a bit hard to tell as they are not seen for very long. The smaller "tank" looked to be a Hetzer (Chaser) or something meant to look like one as a real Hetzer's gun was off set to the right in the hull. The Stug III looked right and the largest of the three seemed to be a Jagdpanther (hunting panther) since it seems to have a casemate mounted on the hull and seems much too small to be a Jagdtiger since the Jagdtiger has a 12.8cm main gun while the Jagdpanther had an 8.8 cm gun. In short one tank and three tank destroyers on the German side.
Came on mid watch to mention why the guy asked about the green light but a lot of people have already explained that haha Again, young teens back then were far more self reliant than today’s kids. While we can discuss the ethics of children and young teens used in a variety of ways for the resistance, it was and remains a common tactic from an occupied country. Market Garden was such a waste of life, particularly if you decide to watch the excellent film, “A Bridge too Far”. Always an enjoyable watch your videos Kali 😊
The colloquial term for what the women who were being punished for was "horizontal collaboration." Imagine a Steel Dawn scenario where a foreign country invades and occupies yours. How would you feel about the women who dated the enemy soldiers? The Dutch resistance/underground had particularly strong feelings about them because of the danger that the women could provide information about their identities or activities to the Nazis. Also, anyone sheltering Jews or Allied airmen whose planes were shot down over Holland. The Gestapo were not gentle with such courageous people.
If you want to know more about Operation Market Garden i would recomend the Movie A Bridge to Far. Even though it took some libertys for Storytelling it is quite accurate, well made and with a Stellar Cast.
"He never tasted chocolate" Particularly sad given that Holland has a really big cocoa/chocolate industry, and they make some of the best. With the War, the shipments of cocoa from the tropics ended and the candy makers shut down for the years of German occupation. When the Dutch so enthusiastically welcomed the Allied troops, the Germans just let the people starve in the last winter of the War in the areas not yet liberated in the north.
Those old thin "steel pot" helmets would barely slow a rifle or machine gun round down. They could protect you from a glancing high velocity hit and they were good for low velocity impacts (stuff falling on your head), much like a hardhat.
One of the many things I appreciate about BoB is the detail given to realistic combat tactical doctrine. As an example, 16:05 when the German tank opens fire upon the advancing British Shermans you see the German tank take out the British Tank at the rear as the choice of its first shot. German tank crews were trained to fire upon the tanks at the rear when ambushing an advancing enemy tank column. The tactic being a burning wreck of tank is blocking the rear, not allowing for easy retreat by the enemy column, forcing them to face the fire of the German tank (usually with better armor & firepower) in front of them. Now compare this to the unrealistic combat depicted in that utter, bull**** Hollywood movie "Fury".
They walked into a German ambush. There was a huge intelligence failure claiming only old men and young boys(Volksturm). The Germans had seasoned veterans there including elements of the 9th and 10th SS panzer divisions. A wonderful movie showing this battle is called, A Bridge Too Far.
If a soldier was still being treated in hospital after a certain amount of time had passed, he could be reassigned to another unit. By mid-September, Popeye had probably been in hospital for 2 months and if he stayed much longer he could have been reassigned to a different unit from Easy. Soldiers hated going to a unit where they didn't know the people they would be serving with. You wanted to be with your buddies.
Everyone thought that they would catch the Germans by surprise and that would face troops that were the Germans scraped from the bottom of the barrel and hastily place them in uniforms, either teenagers, including under 18 and older men (men aged 50+) assigned to the occupied countries. What the Allies didn’t know were 2 elite combat-hardened SS tank divisions were assigned to Holland for rest and fresh supplies.
Yes a single tiger can take on a multitude of allied tanks . Whitman’s tiger tank destroyed 10 tanks and a large number of other vehicles in a few minutes time .
Kali, Marketgarden was so poorly planed, intelligence was faulty, and the operation was rushed, the saying "haste makes waste" was never more apparent in this operation. The book and movie A Bridge Too Far is a good thing to check out.
You shouldn't mislead people. Hollywood makes movies to make Americans feel good about themselves and they don't do historical documentaries. MARKET GARDEN was compromised by the 82nd Airborne failing to move quickly on the undefended Nijmegen bridge on the first day, allowing 10.SS-Panzer-Division to move into the city and reinforce the bridges. Irish newspaper journalist Cornelius Ryan didn't put that in his book either.
The Dutch were occupied by the Germans for years, when the paratroopers arrived, they believed it was finally their liberation, which is why they celebrated. It was pretty common for civilians to give the Allied soldiers food, drinks, and whatever they could to help. To this day the Netherlands sends Canada tulips every year for it's role in liberating it. The orange flag was a way to show Dutch pride again. As you learn about WW 1 and 2 you hear the hope that such and such operation will end the war by Christmas a lot. The British tank not wanting to destroy property is another strange inaccuracy a tank crew wouldn't hesitate to take out a Tiger.
The orange was just announcing they were Belgian not German. They were essentially liberating an occupied country and mostly welcomed by the locals. A great movie covering this entire plan with a big cast is "a bridge too far".
I really enjoy these reactions and you insight is always interesting. I do find it frustrating that the absence of the opportunity to receive a decent basic education on this subject in school hampers the ability to adequately contextualise what you’re seeing.
The reason the British First Airborne lost so many men (8,000) was because they jumped furthest into Holland and the ground forces never reached them before they ran out of ammunition, so the entire division was trapped and forced to surrender.
I think they used blight's character as a general idea of what a lot of soldiers went through. And I don't think they said he died during the war. They said he died later on a few years later
Americans were liberators during WWII. In France, holland, Belgium, they all received similar welcomes from the civilians, even after we bombed their cities. The welcome was so large civilians would run out into gunfire to welcome Americans. They still hold parades for American liberation in holland every year. That goes to show just how bad it was under German occupation/fascist occupation.
I don't think the bullet that struck Nix' helmet went through one side and out the other because that would mean it went through his head as well no leaving Nix deceased no?
If you get really historical there are a lot of small immaculate things that are displayed but in terms of a Hollywood show it’s about as accurate as you can get
Kids on a bike can go a lot of places an adult can't without suspicion, and if your town is occupied for 3+ years you notice who is collaborating and living better than you.
And a kid living under occupation stops being a kid pretty quickly.
@@Educated2Extinction Literally what the kid in Bridge Too Far says.
Orange is the color of the Royal house of Holland.
Literally, The Duke of Orange. In all honesty, reactions to this part show how much of a non-player Holland is in modern history studies. Then again, modern history skips the timeline and just jumps to political bullet points, depending on who's teaching it. I'll bet most people don't even know that New York is Dutch.
We can also blame Holland for why carrots are orange. They selectively bred them until they matched the royal colors rather than their original color. The original color was purple.
@@ScarriorIII Depends on the age and their memory and where they lived.
Tiny Toon Adventures(Looney Toons spin-off from the 90s) used a They Might Be Giants song where there's a lyric that says "Old new york was once new amsterdam"
@@PolymurExcel This is a myth, I believe.
9:00 : he is probably color blind and couldnt distinguish when the green light came on..
oh wow! I didn't put that together at all.. makes sense
@@kaliwali Not uncommon, had a roommate who made it past basic training without knowing he was even colorblind.
@scarymonsterrs a guy I went to highschool with found out he was color blind when the school randomly did a color blind test that they never did before in the entire history of its conception and never did after that since I was there. Which was a little funny because I did mine exactly as he did this so we both were a little surprised how I got it and he saw nothing and since I grew up with him we both realized now why he we disagreed with certain colors.
@@kaliwali it's not a common consideration, and males tend to be more colour deficient than women. As a guy who is red/green colour deficient it clicked for me right away.
It basically highlights the idea that many lied/cheated during enrollment for the privilege to fight. A different time.
No his eyes are closed...
Operation Market Garden was a mixed bag of success and failure. A good movie about this is "A Bridge Too Far" and goes into some of the details about what went wrong in not only the planning, but the actual execution of the operation. Of course there are some inaccuracies like with any film adaptation, but still worth the watch.
Love that movie.
Watched it as a kid so many times.
"We cant accept your surrender...We'd like to but we are terribly sorry we have nowhere to put you" lol, typical British pluck
BTF is a good movie, not a great movie. The biggest problem is that the book was about 10 times better.
The book also makes many errors of omission and is quite misleading. The best update is Swedish historian Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020), which uses unpublished documents and interviews in A Bridge Too Far author's Cornelius Ryan Collection held at Ohio State University and also debunks the many myths from the Hollywood film.
The line 'He's never tasted chocolate before' always breaks my heart. All the folk who've been born into war, kids whose whole understanding of the world is that terror and uncertainty...
It might be my favorite moment of the series. I cried the first time I saw it.
7:37 Those are called "invasion armbands" and they came in 2 different variants, both seen in this episode; Since paratroopers drop behind enemy lines, these armbands were there to make sure they don't get mistaken for German soldiers by local resistance or other U.S. troops that would enter the theater after them. Another fun fact is that only the 82nd Airborne wore those, the 101st wore gas detection brassards instead.
10:38 Orange was the color of the flag adopted by William of Orange, a Dutch hero who revolted against the Spanish occupiers in the 16th century. Since then, orange has become synonymous with the Resistance and it was a way for the civilians to welcome the American troops.
13:53 That's an Sd.Kfz. 251 (Sonderkraftfahrzeud, special-motorized vehicle), AKA "Half-track", a very rudimentary APC (Armored Personnel Carrier). It's basically an armored vehicle meant to carry troops from point A to point B while also providing some limited fire support.
15:18 Bull is probably signing that their tanks cannot see the enemy Tiger, not sure, as a lot of the hand signals used in the series weren't in use during WW2.
15:45 Yeah, this wasn't really a thing. If you know the enemy is holding a chokepoint you wouldn't drive straight into their ambush. Thing is, even if they did shoot through the building at the Tiger, the British are using Cromwells and the Americans are using 75mm Shermans, both are inadequate at dealing with a Tiger frontally (Kind of like what you saw in Fury, but Fury was a 76mm Sherman which in reality could have gone through the front armor of the Tiger at the distances shown in the movie), so they'd have to flank it or hit it in the rear.
17:24 This is a Jagdpanther, a German tank destroyer based on the Panther, really well armored in the front, even better than the Tiger.
17:57 This is a StuG III, another tank destroyer, this one based on the Panzer III. Not as well armored as the Jagdpanther but with a very decent gun.
18:15 I am not sure if there was a Tiger in Neunen during the battle but in total the British only lost 2 tanks.
19:04 Yeah Operation Market Garden was FUBAR, massive screw up for the Allies.
20:32 The half-track in the front is an Sd.Kfz. 251/22, modified to take the 75 mm PaK40/3 L46 cannon in an anti-tank role, you don't see many of these in media.
The vehicle behind it is a Marder III, another casemate tank destroyer. We saw one of these in the previous episode.
21:27 Bull had a piece of shrapnel stuck in the back of his shoulder.
26:12 WW2 helmets were not thick enough to stop bullets, even a small 9mm round will go through. They are there to protect your head from shrapnel, which is traveling much, much slower. Modern helmets CAN withstand rounds to varying levels (depending on the helmet), however, this doesn't mean you will come out unscathed.
Half way through typing this comment I accidentally hit CTRL+W while trying to close another tab and had to retype half of it from scratch. I hope this has been informative and I pass some knowledge on.
Your half right about the British and their tanks,but the British used American tanks also including the Sherman as shown in this episode. As far as your World War 2 helmet can't stop a bullet. Depends on the range of the shot fired. At some point the volicity becomes less than the power needed for penatration.
@@jeff-ni5cy Obviously a round fired from 10 miles away won't penetrate wet tissue paper, what's the point of mentioning that?
There were no Shermans present in the battle of Nuenen, only Cromwells, of the 15th/19th King's Royal Hussars, 11th Armored Division.
@@Pawniac Mike B has videos about ballistic tests on WWII helmets. Some could stop pistol rounds at close range.
@richardstephens5570 His video literally shows the German M40 failing to stop a 9mm fired from a Walther, much less a longer barreled SMG, and seeing as SMGs were less common than rifles firing much more powerful rounds, means WW2 HELMETS WERE NOT DESIGNED TO STOP BULLETS, as per my original comment.
I'd only contend that the 75mm Shermans could defeat Tigers when attacking from the front. From what I've read the Allied tankers would fire many rounds of HE at the Tiger hoping to hit a view port or the main gun or a hatch or tracks. Something to disable the tank rather than destroy it. The smaller guns could unload 3 or 4 rounds before the Tiger fired 2. The Germans were told to abandon their Tigers as soon as they were even somewhat inoperable.
But I doubt anyone would want to try doing that against a Tiger in a prepared position covering the road they're using.
Fun fact: Allied soldiers and officers often mistook Panzer 4s for Tigers, Tigers are essentially Panzer 6s.
Orange was the colour of the dutchresistance, the colour of their country, and the colour of the royal house.
Market Garden was an Operational disaster, the Canadians endedup being the ones liberating Holland which is why most people in the Netherlands love canadians, I went there for a vacation and got free food lodging, and car rides just because im from Canada.
The 101st managed to secure Eindhoven and the bridges there rather quickly. The 82nd Airborne Division, for some reason, took its time to capture the bridge at Nijmegen (General Jim Gavin was worried about German armor in the area), allowing the Germans to organize. They stopped the Britsh 30th Corps at Neunen and Vegel, and managed to blow the bridge at Oosterbeck, stranding the British Airborne at Arnhem. The whole operation was a waste as American forces to the south, despite having a resource shortage due to supllies being rerouted the north, managed to push into Germany proper. By the end of the 101st's stay in Holland, General Omar Bradley's 1st Army had taken the historic city of Aachen, while Patton's 3rd Army had pushed through Lorraine into the Saarland, having fought the largest tank battle in the Western Front at Arracourt.
The resistance movements across Europe used children as scouts and messengers due to the Germans not seeing children as a threat. One of the most famous child members of the Dutch Resistance was future actress Aubrey Hepburn. There's also the cases of children taking up arms in Soviet and Yugoslav partisan units and the Polish Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising.
Some answers to your questions:
D-Day was the first major paratroop jump ever attempted at night, and the last. After-action studies indicated that in most cases the paratroops weren't able to find each other until the morning anyway (as shown in Episode 2), so for the rest of the war paratroops dropped in the morning (like in this episode) and the drops were more effective.
At 9:10 the officer orders the sergeant to tell him when the jump light turns green because he's color blind. Color blindness disqualifies you from serving (a lot of military signals are color-coded), but he wanted to fight so he doesn't want anyone to know. Not well explained here, but it's in the book. An example of bravery; he could have stayed home.
At 12:12, the Dutch Underground Resistance frequently used children as spies, because the Nazis required adults to have passes to move around, especially at night. German soldiers were much less suspicious of children.
The MARKET first lift started at 1300 hours - 1pm in the afternoon.
Another point about the kid (12:20): He looks to be maybe 13 or 14, so old enough that he might be independently motivated to help the resistance. So it's not so much that the Dutch resistance is using them (in the way that we might object to child soldiers today), rather adolescents would be volunteering to help however they could (collecting intel, running messages and supplies, etc.). Plus, it would have been more normal at the time (even outside of war and occupation) for teens to start undertaking grown-up responsibilities that we might not expect of them today.
Yep... easy to forget that even though they were only "occupied" by Nazi Germany, they were still fighting for their very survival. If the Axis fascists hadn't been stopped, they would have swept over the entire world and eventually exterminated everyone who wasn't them. When you're fighting for your right to exist, it's all hands on deck, no matter the age. Same reason they armed the boys at Helm's Deep in LotR Two Towers, to use a fictional example.
19:35 Just some info on Winters (the guy who didn’t get his helmet shot off) and Nixon (the guy who did). Winters came from a poor family and needed to work his way through college. Nixon came from a rich family and attended Yale for two years before leaving to enlist in the Army (this will become a minor point in a future episode). Winters was a monkish introvert who read all the infantry manuals he could get his hands on. Nixon was a party animal who loved to drink. Winters was a field commander, while Nixon was in Intelligence, which meant that he helped translate the data received from the field into information that people could use. The pair met up during Officer Candidate School, and their friendship started from there.
Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands (Holland), often associated with the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau.
Proof needed during those head shavings, and the stated executions was simply the word of a resistnace member. After the war it was determined that in some cases these extra judicial killings were done for reasons other than collaboration with the Germans.
It wasn't just a Tiger. It was a Tiger and a StuG (Sturmgeschütz) III. The StuG III was originally greated as an infantry support vehicle with a howitzer in an armoured hull, but this version was equiped with an anti-tank gun meaning it was probably at least Ausf F (model F). Tigers were heavy tanks, while the all the allied tanks shown were medium tanks. In the battle of Kursk (Russain front, 1943), one Tiger was hit by over 100 anti-tank shots and was still able to return to friendly lines. It was used as a propaganda piece.
The 75mm guns on the Cromwell (the boxier allied tank, and the one we see leading the allied tanks with Mr I wan't shoot at the buildings) and the Shermans (the more angular tanks like the one that tries to run over Bull) struggled against the heavy armour on a Tiger, while the Tiger's 88mm main give could penetrate any tank in the allied inventory, and at much greater range. In one battle a single german Tiger destroyed 22 British tanks and other vehicles in 15 minutes and still escaped. These sort of incidents led to a phenomenon known as Tiger fear, where every enemy armoured vehicle was thought to be a Tiger, yet only about 1400 Tiger were built through out the war. Of which only 120 were used at Normandy and 30 at Arnhem.
The Sherman had about 50000 made and 4000 were used at Normandy and 1000 used in Market Garden. The standard tactic for taking on a Tiger was to outnumber, outflank, and shoot it in the rear at close range. Some Shermans, like the British Firefly had guns that could punch through the heavy armour on the German Big Cats (Tigers and Panthers) at greater range. A total of 2100 Fireflys were made, and the British used 1 Firefly in a troop with 3 other regular Shermans. The Cromwell was faster and had better mobility than the Sherman and was often used in a scouting role. We don't see any Fireflys as they had a significantly longer barrel than a regular Sherman. Also German antitank gunners would try to take out a Firefly first, preventing a direct kill shot.
Love your reactions... The kid was color blind & Orange is the national color of Holland.
For some context when Guarneri mentioned Patton over taking their drop zone the doctrine for paratroopers was for them to drop behind enemy lines, capture towns/important areas, wait for friendly forces to reach them, then be pulled off the front to prepare for the next jump. The problem was that the part of the army lead by General Patton was moving so fast that by the time the 101st Division started planning a jump Patton’s men were sitting on the drop site. Because of this the Airborne were used as elite infantry to attack/defend important parts of the frontline.
Patton's forces drove from Upper Brittany to across the Meuse River into Lorraine in a little over a month.
You’re correct about poison, but that came later when the Allies crossed the Rhine into Germany. My great-uncle was an Army engineer. He found a bottle of wine (or maybe schnapps) in a house in Germany right after they bridged the Rhine. He drank from it. Poisoned. He’s buried in Holland.
I love that you always point out the opening scenes in the series!
4:46 Nice attention to detail! You remember from last episode that they were going back to France (that order got cancelled). I love it because it shows that you were paying 100% attention. ❤
17:59 Wow! I've watched this many times and I've never noticed that the old man's building was being hit! Thanks a lot for pointing it out!
Although the Market Garden operation was supposed to meet limited resistance, it was not the case. By sheer bad luck two of the German's most experienced SS Units had been withdrawn after fighting in Normandy to rest and refit some where quiet (in Holland) and Allied intelligence hadn't found out about it - although the German's were short of numbers they definitely weren't old men and boys.
Allied intelligence knew the SS divisions were there and it was one of the reasons for cancelling the original operation COMET to replace it with an upgraded one called MARKET with three airborne divisions instead of one. The SS divisions were not the reason it failed, which was the failure to secure the undefended Nijmegen bridge on the first day. The "old men [on bicycles] and boys" were accurate references to two battalions in the Arnhem area specifically: Sicherungs-Infanterie-Bataillon 908 was a security unit consisting of WW1 logistcs troops considered unfit for combat duties in 1914-18, and SS-Panzergrenadier-Ausbildungs-und-Erstaz-Bataillon 16 that was training some Hitler Youth recruits as replacements for 12.SS-Panzer-Division 'Hitlerjugend'.
Orange is the color of the Dutch Royal Family, the House of Orange-Nassau, which dates back almost 500 years to William of Orange.
I love the way that the crew of Easy Company has been responding to their fellow brothers being promoted throughout their missions. Even though they initially all trained together as equals, they’re not letting the new rank differences of Lipton and Randleman, among others, impact their relationships. They maintain full respect and loyalty towards them. No jealousy or ill-intentions
This episode really showed us the importance of knowing who to trust, and when. And the disastrous consequences when you get it wrong. The British tank commander brushing off the threat being presented to him. And then Randleman, while on his own, trusting the civilian family in the barn, allowing all of them to make it out okay
I really enjoy your take on this amazing series. You present the reverence and respect for those that were placed in impossible positions and in many cases gave their lives so you can make your videos and I can enjoy them. As a veteran, I thank you.
To be fair to the British tank commander he has orders not to destroy property because there might be civilians in those houses, they're moving into a village that until yesterday was really deep behind German lines, there's no reasonable expectation for civilians to have been able to flee in time.
I think we forget that the largest portion of casualties in WWII were ordinary civilians killed either by mistake or in the crossfire.
He "MIGHT" get the drop on the Tiger tank but what if he kills a whole Dutch family hiding in their home in the process?
My issue was that he wasn't ready for it. He should have been watching that corner and had at least two of his tanks with their main gun ready to fire and trained on the corner of the building. They should have at least been able to get a kill with a flank shot when the tiger advanced. Of course, hindsight makes it easier.
The whole scene was inaccurate. In the actual 44 RTR war diary they recorded an unidentified vehicle hidden behind a hedgerow, probably a half-track armed with a 7.5cm close support kanon (SdKfz 251/9), so debating a Hollywood TV show is a futile exercise. The episode is a conflation of two engagements at Opwetten and Nuenen on 19 and 20 September 1944, and Stephen Ambrose even got the date wrong for the battle at Nuenen in his book.
@davemac1197 Yet, here you are debating it. Maybe you should stick with documentaries.
@@Educated2Extinction - I'm not debating it. I'm debunking it.
@davemac1197 We're discussing what occurred in a TV show. If you don't like TV shows because they take liberties, don't watch them.
I read somewhere that as a teen, the late actress Audrey Hepburn was part of the Dutch resistance much like that kid @12:08.
Audrey Hepburn held underground concerts to raise money for the resistance, but was too young to take an active role. With an English father and Dutch mother, she was at school in England when the war started in 1939 and the family thought it best if she was evacuated to the Netherlands and her mother's family home in Arnhem, since the Netherlands had been neutral in WW1 and expected to remain so again. When Hitler invaded the Netherlands in 1940, that changed and the Germans even commandeered her grandfather's estate (Huis Zypendaal) to be occupied by the town military commander (Ortskommandant). The house was actually used as the German military headquarters in the Hollywood film Betrayed (1954) about the Dutch spy who allegedly betrayed the Arnhem airborne operation. Hepburn was asked if she would play Kate Ter Horst ('the Angel of Arnhem') in the film A Bridge Too Far (1977), but she declined as it was "too close to home" and Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann took the role.
One thing I love about this series, as a Navy Veteran and someone who has read a lot about World War Two, is seeing the war from the point of view of those who had to do the fighting and the dying. You hear the names occasionally of the higher ups like Ike Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Monty(Montgomery) but we stay focused on the men of Easy and I liked that. The late actress Audrey Hepburn was from Holland and spent her childhood and early teens in Nazi occupied Holland, helping with the Dutch resistance against the Nazis. I have a book called Dutch Girl about that time period in her life; it was a very good book. Audrey Hepburn had much in common with Anne Frank, even though they never actually met. Otto Frank, Anne's father, wanted Audrey to play Anne in the movie based upon Anne's diary, but Audrey turned the role down, as it was too much of a reminder of her own traumatic experiences during that time. It was something she never really got over.
The little boy eating the chocolate always makes me misty eyed.
The lieutenant who wanted to be notified of the green light was likely color blind. Red-green color blindness is the most common type, and both lights would’ve looked the same to him. And since color blindness would have disqualified him from the Airborne, he didn’t want to admit to the reason for his request/order.
Private Roy Cobb who in this episode is the one giving the replacements crap at the beginning, in real life he was older than most of the guys, he joined the army in 1933 I believe fought in Africa a couple years before Normandy , on the transport home his ship was sunk but he made it back to the states and joined the paratroopers and easy company, he saw alot of combat, fascinating story if you read up on him , thanks Kali!
The old man wearing the hat at the table Talbot was sitting at, kissing the girl in Eindhoven, is the real Babe Heffron. He was visiting the set that day and they put him in the scene.
This series is probably one of the most accurate of it's kind. There are minor inaccuracies and very occasionally wrong info (Blithe) that was taken from the book that was essentially a memoir of the company from the men in it.
I'd highly recommend The Pacific after this is over.
It is one of the best but some of those "MINOR" inaccuracies I would argue are quite big and bad. It's one thing to take veterans words as gospel it another when there's clear evidence to the contrary.
@@samuel10125 that's why I said very occasional wrong info.
8:59 The LT is color blind, he doesn't want to get kicked out of the army, so he's ordering the Sgt. notify him when the light turns green.
You should look up the Netherlands American cemetery that’s located in Margraten Holland. One of the more Unique to the cemetery is the connection with the Dutch people. Since 1945 members of the local community have adopted the grave sites of our fallen. They bring flowers to the cemetery and research the life of the service member as a way to honor their sacrifice. They make it a big deal, and some graves are passed down family member to family member.
The young man for whom I am named is buried at Margraten. I've exchanged a couple of emails with the family that takes care of his grave.
It is such a pleasure watching your Genuine reaction to this series. I subscribed. I so love reactors like you that are not overboard on their reactions and just give a true reaction with a little commentary. Much appreciated
The scene with the British tank commander slightly different in the book that the series is based on. In it, the British tank commander is warned about the tank, which has been spotted in a fence line. When the American tells him this, he says “I can’t see it, and if I can’t see it I can’t shoot it!”
There is no mention of shelling the building in between them to see it, because there isn’t one - this fight took place outside the village. The “destruction of private property” line never comes up either simply because British tankers never had such orders
The British tank continues forward and gets knocked out before it spots the enemy tank. Most of the crew escapes, but the gunner’s legs have been blown off.
So the British tank commander is warned of an enemy tank “up ahead and to the right”. He can’t see this tank and his job is to engage and destroy enemy forces in the area. He also has to do this as fast as possible, as every wasted second puts the mission in jeopardy - a mission that is already running massively behind schedule.
To make things worse, the tank commander probably has very limited options for approaching the enemy too, as this area has been flooded by the enemy to prevent tanks from leaving the roads. This was a big issue that impacted upon Market Garden.
I suspect that the British tank commander simply made the best decision he could at the time. It didn’t work out, obviously, but he may not have had much choice.
Plus i managed to find his name years ago but it poetrays him as incompetent yet that Commander was a veteran of North Africa, Italian campaign and Normandy he wasn't stupid.
It just another case of Hollywood doing everything in its power to cling to stereotypes to make the British look pompous and incompetent and the Americans badass.
Thats not to say I don't love this show because i do i think it should be shown in schools but it's bits like that and how they handled Blithe that get me annoyed.
The lieutenant asking for help with the green light was probably red-green colorblind (a common condition), which isn't disqualifying but it poses challenges on occasion. I know because I am too and I also served as a fire platoon leader in the Army but I didn't try to hide my vision shortcoming from the troops. They were actually really good about letting me know what color smoke, a flare or whatever was if I couldn't see it well. It also poses a challenge when trying to read maps at night using a red lens light (red light doesn't give your position away as readily as white light and preserves your night vision). I had to scrutinize the details carefully to make sure I wasn't missing something. I think it is fair to say my weak red-green color vision never endangered anyone or impacted our mission, in part because I was honest with the soldiers I served with.
At 11:20, while in Eindhoven Holland, you will see Winters, Welsh & Nixon play with their collars. The reason for this was because the town was not secured. The citizens were celebrating, punishing the female collaborators and kissing the soldiers but there were still German soldiers in the town. That’s why Lt. Peacock & Lipton kept telling everyone to keep moving. Didn’t want the soldiers to stop and be easy targets.
What Winters and the other officers were doing was hiding their collar rank insignia that identified them as officers. In an unsecured combat area like this the officers would hide their insignia and the enlisted men would not salute them because there would be snipers around who would target anyone who was identified as an officer.
Kali, as you mentioned, Easy was supposed to be heading out. At about 5:00 Guenere mentioned about the French town they were supposed to jump into but didn’t.
What happened was everyone they planned for the Paratroopers to jump behind enemy lines again and fight their way to their objectives and fight Germans on one side and the Regular Infantry on the other the jump would get cancelled. It seems that Patton, Corps Commander of the Regular Infantry, and his troops would bust through the Germans so throughly that they overran the drop zone. This caused several planned jumps to be cancelled. Then Patton was ordered to stop because his supplies were being re-routed to Market-Garden. What did Easy and the 101st do during this time? Take in replacements (who were already qualified Paratroopers before their assignment to Easy), train and spend time in town as shown in the beginning of this episode. In other words-they didn’t do much of anything.
That’s the short version of what happened between the end of Episode 3 “Caretan” and Episode 4 “Replacements”.
For a more in depth look at Market Garden watch "A Bridge Too Far" 1976.
The Lt. wanting to be tapped was color blind.
At 23:05, the German soldier’s rifle was not jammed. The Mauser Karibiner 98K has a safety lever on the rifle attached to the bolt group on the rear. When the safety is fully on, the rifle cannot fire and the bolt is also locked into position and the rifle’s action cannot be cycled (eject spent round, chamber new round). There is a setting for the safety lever that allows the rifle to not fire, but still allow the action to cycle, but by the looks of it the safety lever was fully locked. This is realistic since the soldier was not in active combat and didn’t expect to encounter Bull Randleman in the barn.
Great attention to detail by the experts on the show. At any rate, this is what happened in that scene.
Hello Kaliwali! I hope your Halloween was great! Have a wonderful weekend
Winters: "Never put yourself in a position to take from these men"
Buck: "Alright...I'll throw left handed then..." 🎯 😂
Movie notes, here we go!
A lot has already been said in other comments, so I'll just add a bit of miscelleanous tidbits about German tanks:
First of all, German tanks were not nearly as superior as myth/pop culture would have you sometimes believe. The Germans had some very good tanks, but there are some caveats: Many of the more fearsome German tanks were overengineered and underpowered (the most famous ones probably being the Tigers and Panthers), meaning, they were very strong when they got proper maintenance and could be deployed in strong postitions, but very bad when they had to maneuver a lot and/or didn't get the needed maintenance. The TIger was amongst the strongest tanks of WW2. Most allied tanks would have trouble to penetrate a Tiger's armour, especially from the front, where it's thickest. That is why a Tiger in such a defensive position where it can't be flanked is a nightmare.
Better luck next time, Easy, and glad that Bull is alright!
See you, Kali.
Fun fact: kali, the tiger tank, and the Canadian donated Sherman tanks were the same ones used in the movie Fury. The show came out long before the movie, but the tanks were still in fighting condition.
that's actually very cool!
The Tiger was actually a replica built from a Soviet OT-34 tank recovery vehicle and the same one used in Saving Private Ryan. The Tiger in Fury was Tiger # 131 from the British Tank Museum and was the 1st German tank to be captured largely intact by Allied forces.
Great reaction. They start getting progressively intense. Have tissues handy if you haven’t already. The series does a good job of keeping you up on the dates and timeline.
A classic movie was made about Operation Market Garden: A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977).
In his book ARMAGEDDON British historian Max Hastings highly praises the American 82nd and 101st airborne divisions for their performance in Opposition Market Garden despite its ultimate failure.
Anyone who knows their WWII history got a cold chill when they announced Market Garden.
11:20 Here Winters and the other officers are popping up the collars on their jackets to cover their officer insignia and markings just in case there’s an enemy sniper hiding somewhere and watching. Officers were a big target during WWII
Blythe’s injury required long recovery The soldiers never saw him again & some assumed he’d died. The show should have caught it, but it may have been used to show how capricious war is, a guy develops into a good soldier& just that quickly he’s gone.
Orange is the national color of the Netherlands. good reaction more action coming. as long as you are a member of the unit you are authorized to wear the ribbon.🎃
The saying a bridge too far originates from Operation Market Garden. Following the Operation the German cut off Dutch Farm towns leading to the deaths of 22,000 people and a total of 4.5 million were affected. All of this during the harsh winter of 1944-1945.
The traditional cultural colors of The Netherlands is orange, so they were showing their loyalty. Often Olympic teams and soccer teams from The Netherlands wear orange as a team uniform color, for example. I believe it was the favored color of the royal family back in the day.
Bull wasn't shot, he was hit by Shrapnel from one of the Tanks, it was still stuck in his back causing bleeding and constant pain. Sobel was made S4 because they needed all soldiers possible between Europe and The Pacific, Sobel despite his flaws was a fully trained Soldier and Officer and due to the increase in fighting was wasted in a training position.
8:03 This is probably what happened to Blithe. When he went back to Europe after rehab, he probably got reassigned to another unit, which might explain why nobody heard from him
They guy asking his mate to tap his shoulder when the light turns green is color blind.
When this series came out most Americans were familiar with Operation Market Garden through the film A Bridge Too Far. So we kind of knew the outcome from the outset.
I'm still pretty new to your channel, but your reactions to these episodes are just awesome!!!
Easy Company was attacked by about 50 German tanks at Nuernan. The series only had a couple to film the scene but their retreating was warranted.
Fun fact, the dutch representative in Eindhoven's english accent was so good that the directors thought it was too good to be believable (for the time as a native dutch) so he was told to speak worse.
The Lieutenant that wanted to be tapped when the light came on, was color blind. Meaning on or off, red or green he wouldn't be able to tell. He like many other lied about conditions to serve. In Eindhoven the older man sitting with a cap & waving the Dutch flag was the real Babe Heffron.
12:19 , all countries sending their kids to fight wars, america does it to.
The tri-color is the national flag. The orange is the color of their royal family.
20:32 only one of the tanks was a tiger the rest of them are as fallowed
half track with a pack 40
marder iii ausf m
jagdpanther
stug iii ausf g. (the tank that shows up the most in the show and in real life)
There is a minor inaccuracy later on where Winters dives into a pond for a swim, but Winters couldn't swim. I hope you watch the unofficial episode 11 at the end, the documentary of Band of Brothers
Your reactions are excellent. Looking forward to seeing all of them.
Movie you should watch that does a great job of showing Operation Market Garden is "A Bridge Too Far". It shows really how bad this operation went, and how intelligence was ignored that should have called off the entire operation.
That's the conventional narrative from the book and movie that has been debunked in the last twenty years. I recommend TIKhistory channel's MARKET GARDEN series of videos on UA-cam, or Swedish historian Christer Bergström's Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited vols 1 and 2 (2019, 2020), that uses unpublished documents and interviews in (A Bridge Too Far author's) Cornelius Ryan Collection held at Ohio State University and also debunks the many myths in the Hollywood film.
@@davemac1197 I will check it out.
There was only one Tiger I in the scene the other "tanks" were what looked to be a Stug III, a Hetzer and possibly a Jagdpanther. It's a bit hard to tell as they are not seen for very long. The smaller "tank" looked to be a Hetzer (Chaser) or something meant to look like one as a real Hetzer's gun was off set to the right in the hull. The Stug III looked right and the largest of the three seemed to be a Jagdpanther (hunting panther) since it seems to have a casemate mounted on the hull and seems much too small to be a Jagdtiger since the Jagdtiger has a 12.8cm main gun while the Jagdpanther had an 8.8 cm gun. In short one tank and three tank destroyers on the German side.
The guy who tajes off his medal is james mcvoy youll see some other young faces of big actors today see if you can call em out. I L U ❤❤❤
Came on mid watch to mention why the guy asked about the green light but a lot of people have already explained that haha
Again, young teens back then were far more self reliant than today’s kids. While we can discuss the ethics of children and young teens used in a variety of ways for the resistance, it was and remains a common tactic from an occupied country.
Market Garden was such a waste of life, particularly if you decide to watch the excellent film, “A Bridge too Far”.
Always an enjoyable watch your videos Kali 😊
The colloquial term for what the women who were being punished for was "horizontal collaboration." Imagine a Steel Dawn scenario where a foreign country invades and occupies yours. How would you feel about the women who dated the enemy soldiers? The Dutch resistance/underground had particularly strong feelings about them because of the danger that the women could provide information about their identities or activities to the Nazis. Also, anyone sheltering Jews or Allied airmen whose planes were shot down over Holland. The Gestapo were not gentle with such courageous people.
wow great catch on nix' helmet. I've seen this series like five times and never noticed that, I thought it was a ricochet too.
If you want to know more about Operation Market Garden i would recomend the Movie A Bridge to Far. Even though it took some libertys for Storytelling it is quite accurate, well made and with a Stellar Cast.
"He never tasted chocolate" Particularly sad given that Holland has a really big cocoa/chocolate industry, and they make some of the best. With the War, the shipments of cocoa from the tropics ended and the candy makers shut down for the years of German occupation. When the Dutch so enthusiastically welcomed the Allied troops, the Germans just let the people starve in the last winter of the War in the areas not yet liberated in the north.
Those old thin "steel pot" helmets would barely slow a rifle or machine gun round down. They could protect you from a glancing high velocity hit and they were good for low velocity impacts (stuff falling on your head), much like a hardhat.
The Orange flag represents the Dutch royal family, the house of orange
That chocolate must have tasted extra good, after surviving on Tulip bulbs at the end of their occupation.
Several drops that the 101st was supposed to make after leaving Normandy were canceled because the Allies overran the drop zones.
Ella dice al final del video que las cosas se van a poner mejor en el episodio 5
Yo:🤔
Orange is the color of the Dutch. Its a patriotic symbol.
One of the many things I appreciate about BoB is the detail given to realistic combat tactical doctrine. As an example, 16:05 when the German tank opens fire upon the advancing British Shermans you see the German tank take out the British Tank at the rear as the choice of its first shot. German tank crews were trained to fire upon the tanks at the rear when ambushing an advancing enemy tank column. The tactic being a burning wreck of tank is blocking the rear, not allowing for easy retreat by the enemy column, forcing them to face the fire of the German tank (usually with better armor & firepower) in front of them. Now compare this to the unrealistic combat depicted in that utter, bull**** Hollywood movie "Fury".
They walked into a German ambush. There was a huge intelligence failure claiming only old men and young boys(Volksturm). The Germans had seasoned veterans there including elements of the 9th and 10th SS panzer divisions. A wonderful movie showing this battle is called, A Bridge Too Far.
If a soldier was still being treated in hospital after a certain amount of time had passed, he could be reassigned to another unit. By mid-September, Popeye had probably been in hospital for 2 months and if he stayed much longer he could have been reassigned to a different unit from Easy. Soldiers hated going to a unit where they didn't know the people they would be serving with. You wanted to be with your buddies.
Nice work again . I really respect what you are doing . God bless you.
"Tap me on the shoulder" guy is colorblind.
Everyone thought that they would catch the Germans by surprise and that would face troops that were the Germans scraped from the bottom of the barrel and hastily place them in uniforms, either teenagers, including under 18 and older men (men aged 50+) assigned to the occupied countries. What the Allies didn’t know were 2 elite combat-hardened SS tank divisions were assigned to Holland for rest and fresh supplies.
Yes a single tiger can take on a multitude of allied tanks . Whitman’s tiger tank destroyed 10 tanks and a large number of other vehicles in a few minutes time .
a 17 yo Played a significant role back in 1777, named Sybil Lundington.
Kali, Marketgarden was so poorly planed, intelligence was faulty, and the operation was rushed, the saying "haste makes waste" was never more apparent in this operation. The book and movie A Bridge Too Far is a good thing to check out.
You shouldn't mislead people. Hollywood makes movies to make Americans feel good about themselves and they don't do historical documentaries. MARKET GARDEN was compromised by the 82nd Airborne failing to move quickly on the undefended Nijmegen bridge on the first day, allowing 10.SS-Panzer-Division to move into the city and reinforce the bridges. Irish newspaper journalist Cornelius Ryan didn't put that in his book either.
The Dutch were occupied by the Germans for years, when the paratroopers arrived, they believed it was finally their liberation, which is why they celebrated. It was pretty common for civilians to give the Allied soldiers food, drinks, and whatever they could to help. To this day the Netherlands sends Canada tulips every year for it's role in liberating it. The orange flag was a way to show Dutch pride again.
As you learn about WW 1 and 2 you hear the hope that such and such operation will end the war by Christmas a lot.
The British tank not wanting to destroy property is another strange inaccuracy a tank crew wouldn't hesitate to take out a Tiger.
The orange was just announcing they were Belgian not German. They were essentially liberating an occupied country and mostly welcomed by the locals. A great movie covering this entire plan with a big cast is "a bridge too far".
18:13 Also Jagdpanther and Sturmgeschutz III (StuG III, best kill ratio of 10:1), they are not all Tigers 😘
I really enjoy these reactions and you insight is always interesting. I do find it frustrating that the absence of the opportunity to receive a decent basic education on this subject in school hampers the ability to adequately contextualise what you’re seeing.
The reason the British First Airborne lost so many men (8,000) was because they jumped furthest into Holland and the ground forces never reached them before they ran out of ammunition, so the entire division was trapped and forced to surrender.
Not exactly the whole division, it was something like 75%.
I think they used blight's character as a general idea of what a lot of soldiers went through. And I don't think they said he died during the war. They said he died later on a few years later
Americans were liberators during WWII. In France, holland, Belgium, they all received similar welcomes from the civilians, even after we bombed their cities. The welcome was so large civilians would run out into gunfire to welcome Americans. They still hold parades for American liberation in holland every year. That goes to show just how bad it was under German occupation/fascist occupation.
And for the British and Canadians who outnumbered U.S forces in Belgium and Holland.
@ good callout, thanks for including them as well.
Tiger
Jagdpanther
StuGIII
Half tracks
Etc
Most of the 8000 British losses During operation market garden were from surrenders after the battle was lost
I don't think the bullet that struck Nix' helmet went through one side and out the other because that would mean it went through his head as well no leaving Nix deceased no?
Thank You and Stay Safe from Australia ✌️✌️😎👍✌️
If you get really historical there are a lot of small immaculate things that are displayed but in terms of a Hollywood show it’s about as accurate as you can get
The lieutenant was color blind.