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My great uncle was in the 6th. There training in Australia was done with broomsticks. When they got to North Africa they were issued guns but no bullets. Hence the attempted raid on the enemy's stores.
Story from Tobruk... A English officer(lieutenant) approached a group of shirtless Australians digging in at Tobruk. Berating the Australians for not saluting an officer and saying they were undisciplined rabble. The Australians ignored him except one who stopped and started putting his shirt on revealing that he was a captain. He ordered the English lieutenant to salute and piss off.
"Story" ? Fairy tale might be more appropriate. The Australians were under Gen. Morshead, the Australian commander at Tobruk. The "English'" officer would have had no reason to give orders to the Australians, and probably no authority.
After the majority of Australian troops had been evacuated from the tobruk seige, a german officer captured in a offensive asked why the company of Australians who captured him were dressed in Australian uniforms . He said, "all the australians have left, that's why we attacked." The Aussies insisted, no that they were in fact Australian troops. The German officer replied, "no you are British, you only dress like Australians to frighten us."
I saw that account too, in a book, and the reason was that when Tobruk was being relieved of Australians, to send to New Guinea, the last group's ship was sunk; so they had to stay on, and frightened some enemy during the (next) battle to re-take Tobruk.
Well actually, the British 70th Division who relieved the Aussies not only suffered the siege but also broke out and pushed Rommel's armies back. Also remember, that even when the Aussies were holding out for 241 days, there were 6000 Brits there too, including Commando Units who carried out the Twin Pimples raid. There are so many invented quotes when it comes to the Aussies, some of which may even be true, but give actual references rather than saying "my Uncle once told me that a German officer said etc etc..........."
I have two friends who fathers were Italian soldiers in North Africa. They were so impressed with the Australians that they migrated to Perth WA to start a new life...
Many on the losing side fled retribution from their own people after the war. Argentina got German Nazis, Australia got Italian Fascists and Greek Communists.
My grandfather emigrated to Australia from Scotland before the war. He fought in Tobruk and told me a couple of amazing stories one of which was about the night some Aussies dismantled and entire steam locomotive and buried it in the sand. He may have told me why but I was just a kid then and that explanation is lost in time. Another story was about how the aussies he was with found a piano in a bombed house and carried it back to the trench and played it during a bombardment. He was very proud to have served with the Australian army.
Vox AC30, I can't easily imagine them burying an entire steam locomotive, but only two guesses come to mind: 1) Deny it to the enemy. 2) Come back to it as a memorial years later. Either way, it's crazy...but crazy things happen in war. They must've had a lot of energy, been drunk and/or a lot of spare time with nothing to do, imo. In WWI, both sides had weird things in the trenches -- to make themselves at home. A piano is not so weird as it sounds. Thanks for your comment and watching!
@@EmersusTech you might find the recovery of one of the first German tanks in ww1 interesting. Saw it at the Canberra war museum. Recovered by Aussie soldiers and sent back to Australia where it’s been a museum piece since. Also saw the ‘red barons’ articles of clothing there.
@@SirBigzalot Here in Brisbane, Queensland, we suspect we've been swindled out of that A7V tank, the last remaining WW1 German AFV on Earth. They were supposed to return it to Brisbane - where it has been since 1918 - ages ago !! As for the Red Baron items, this is due to a common belief in Australia that it was an Australian machine gun crew who shot down the Red Baron, not the Canadian pilot Roy Brown. I have no opinion to offer on this controversy, but the War Museum in Canberra certainly pushes the "our boys did it" story heavily !!
@@TomasFunes-rt8rd That "common belief" has since been proved by Canadian war historians. They even narrowed it down to which Australian soldier did it.
My Dad landed in England with his Canadian Dragoon Regiment and were held on the docks for inspection along with a newly arrived Australian group. After a long wait in ranks waiting for a VIP, the Australian officer dismissed his troops by saying "Right, we're off to the pub. Send a runner when the muckety muck arrives". My Dad always admired them for their toughness and their irreverence for authority.
Australian units weren't in England in WW2 except as part of the RAF. The units serving in the RAF didn't arrive by sea to England. They all arrived in Northern Ireland and then went to England by ferry. Any inspections would have taken place in NI or at their destination air bases. So ...... nice story, but didn't happen.
My grandfather served with the 2/9th Infantry battalion AIF which was diverted to the UK en route to the Middle East in 1940 as France had fallen. Part of the 18th Brigade moved to Salisbury then Colchester. There were also Australian army forestry units felling timber in Scotland during the war.
The 2nd Australian Imperial Force in the United Kingdom The third Australian Imperial Force convoy left Australia in November 1939 bound for the Middle East, but was diverted to help garrison Britain, which was threatened with invasion. The Australians began disembarking at Gourock, near Glasgow, on 17 June 1940. The force was 8000 strong, almost half of the 6th Australian Division. The Australians were sent to a tented camp on Salisbury Plain. Brigadier Winter, who was with the convoy, was appointed to command the AIF in Britain. On 4 July 1940 King George inspected the men and a week later the AIF suffered its first battle casualty when a German aircraft strafed the camp, wounding Private Arthur Webb of Adelaide, South Australia. Training was completed in September and the Australians were given the role of mobile reaction force, to deal with any German parachute landings in the region. None came, and with victory in the Battle of Britain and the arrival of winter ending the possibility of a German cross channel invasion, the Australians were sent to the Middle East at the end of the year. Britain had also asked its Dominions for specialist non-combat troops. Three companies of Australian Foresters, numbering about 600 men, arrived in July 1940 and as 6th Division elements were leaving Britain a new Australian force came: the Railway Construction and Maintenance Group, 300 strong. Based at Longmore in east Hampshire, they built storage sidings and maintained strategic railway tracks. The foresters included many volunteers from Commonwealth and State forest services. War is a great consumer of wood and the foresters were set to cutting timber in Northumberland, and later Scotland, working in snow, which most of the men had never seen, in the unusually harsh winter of 1940-41. The specialist foresters, assisted by Italian prisoner of war labourers, produced ten million metres of sawn timber in three years in Britain. In Dumfries in 1942 the Australian Foresters won the 'championship of Britain', an axeman-ship and sawing competition, against their New Zealand counterparts. The New Zealanders were defending the title, having won in 1941. The hero of the day was Sapper Ian Harrington, from Beech Forest, Victoria. Though he had been in bed sick the day before, he easily won the two main events for the Australians, setting the team on the road to victory. The Australian High Commissioner, Sir Stanley Bruce, came from London for the event. From 1943 the Foresters, the last large body of AIF troops in Britain, began returning to Australia. A small AIF headquarters and liaison office was maintained in London under Brigadier-General Wardell. It was enlarged in January 1945 to deal with the thousands of AIF prisoners of war (POWs) that began to arrive in Britain from liberated POW camps.
The staff of 2/3rd Australian General Hospital (AGH), arrived at Gourock and Liverpool from May 1940. Six nursing sisters of the 124 Australian Army Nursing Service that served in the UK were posted to the Tidworth Military Hospital on Salisbury Plain, where they assisted in providing medical care for the AIF force there. During the Battle of Britain the remainder established 2/3rd AGH at Hydestile, Surrey, 50 kilometres south of London. Bombs fell near the hospital and staff often worked wearing helmets and respirators.
It certainly makes a fella feel proud to be Aussie hearing things like this about our courageous soldiers. I remember seeing the late US senator John McCain being asked about war one evening and he replied something similar to... if he was in a raging battle, the best he could hope for was to have an Aussie by his side.
As I mentioned above my best friend was a US Marine in Vietnam in '67. He had a good deal of contact with diggers and had nothing but the highest respect for them.
As an Aussie I'm very thankful that our small nation can punch above its weight. As mentioned in the video... they fought for their mates. God rest the souls of those Diggers.
It's really interesting to know what different nationalities thought of a particular nation's troops. I remember watching a documentary on the Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea during WW2. An American pilot based in Port Moresby told the story of his interaction with Australian troops. He put in a request for a transfer as he felt the Australian troops all hated him and he didn't know why. They just constantly kept making jokes at his expense. The commanding officer, an Australian, just laughed and said that if they're making fun of you, then they consider you one of their own. If they didn't like you, they'd just ignore you. I found it a pretty interesting observation.
It does depend on the relationship. Imo, if you've known the person for many years and you're really close, then a little good-natured jabbing is okay. Other than that, no, I don't think it's a good thing to "make fun of your friends" nowadays. Years ago, maybe in the US. People in the US have gotten so sensitive that it's near impossible to make almost any sort of joke because people get offended by the least little things, even things that shouldn't be offensive to anyone. People read things into emails that aren't there -- "reading between the lines". I have run into this relatively recently and it's very irritating. Jerry Seinfeld and other comedians have mentioned this that they simply can't do comedy much anymore -- because someone always gets offended. Look at the Chris Rock thing with Will Smith. I'm not defending what Chris Rock said, but he certainly didn't mean it offensively. In fact, Will Smith was laughing at it at first before he turned back to look at his wife. Thanks for commenting!
@@EmersusTech So true. At least, at this point in time, Australian humour has held mostly true. When looking back at the ANZACs in WW1 and 2, the concept of mateship and being their for your mates was key. And, as they were your mates, you could be as rude and brutally honest as you want, and that was respected. I'd personally still take that today over fake media outrage, regardless of your political opinions. You see it during the fires and floods. I think it's what made the troops that bit different. It's why I like the story of the American pilot at Port Moresby. At the end of the day, it's inclusive, but you've got earn your entry pass. :)
As an Aussie, sounds about right. I worked for an employer where we had a yank. I'd rib him, which us Aussies do to each other, but was pretty sensitive about it until he got used to my humour.
It’s basically spot on. Hard for foreigners to pick. An Aussie who doesn’t like you will either ignore you or seek to provoke you into a response/altercation. There is a subtle middle ground where Australian’s (men especially) largely dwell... ‘taking the piss.’... out of anyone who strays into their field of fire... self-deprecating in equal measure tho.
I met a man and his family 50 years ago in Wollongong NSW. He was of German descent and had been a soldier in WWII. He told me he had served under Rommel in North Africa and had fought the Australians at Tobruk, where he was wounded. He told me that he made the decision then that when the war was over, irrespective of who won, he was going to emigrate to Australia to live, such was his respect for Australians and the bravery and tenacity they showed during the many attacks they suffered. He felt so proud of their fighting prowess, he couldn't live anywhere else. Sadly, he passed away about 10 years later. His wife told me he had refused to be repatriated back to Germany after his death, he wanted to remain in the land of those brave people he had come to love and respect.
My grandfather was a staff Sargent, training soldiers, before insisting on fighting overseas. He fought in PNG and Borneo towards the end of the war. His mates, his brother in law and others, fought in Tobrook and Europe. I never met him. He came back with malaria but worked his arse off on a block of land he was gifted after the war. He died from a horse accident when my mum was a little girl, 6 kids in total. Anyway, he called his first son Irwin, my uncle, and I've since realised it had a lot to do with the respect that he and other Australian soldiers had for Rommel.
He would've fought against my Father. Dad was born in Newcastle NSW but moved to Wollongong with his family when he was 13. He met & and married my Mother who was from the Gong. We lived in Gwynneville. LEST WE FORGET
I joined the Australian Army in 1958 as a 17 year old and I can tell you we all looked up to those who went before.I served for 27 years and would like to think that we carried on the tradition of the "Digger" I served in malaya within a british Regt of ROYAL ARTILLERY I also did two tours of VIET NAM I feel sure that we did the memory of the DIGGER proud.
I just watched the documentary on the battle of long tan for the 7th time. Still get a bit teary about what you boys went through. Thankfully for your service.
Dave, it was you lads who "raised" me after I joined at 17 in '83. You did a good job of upholding the ideals. Sadly, after you, our mob started the softening of the ADF with lowering of standards and I am ashamed that happened on my watch.
Aussies were tough, and Australia was a very tough country when these men were growing up close to a century ago. My Popa served in Egypt and then on to the Front in France where he was mustard gassed and repatriated to England. These men of that time were strong willed and bred tough as nails, and we all owe them so much.
And if they were like my grandfather, wounded and discharged three times but still re-enlisted to serve on the Western Front, they had an idea of service that baffles me.
As an Australian (with mostly English background) I want to bow and give my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who commented that their ancestors served Australia during times of war. Thank you for their service. I can’t imagine how proud you must be. And to those from other nations that have fought for (and alongside) your Australian friends. This video makes me so proud to be Australian. It should almost be compulsory viewing every Anzac Day morning.
The Australians were the first to defeat both the Germans and Japanese in land battle, 2nd battle of El-Alamein Tobruk and Milne bay respectively. Paving the way for the defeat of Axis. My uncle Tommy AIF 2/15 and 10th fought in both battles plus more, along with my uncle Gil RAN CMF (choko) Milne bay. From the blistering desert to mountainous rain soaked jungle, how good are Australian soldiers? RIP thank you for your service.
Interesting point about Milne Bay. Have never read anything on surviving Japanese. Think the boys took to them with the bayonets,right into the surf. Japanese weren’t up for surrendering and our boys would have hated them by that stage.
Doubtful. Britain has long treated Australia with contempt. General MacArthur was appalled at Britain’s disloyalty to Australia and ensured that they had command of British forces in the occupation of Japan and the Korean War.
@@seanlander9321 Thats what i was thinking. Aussies had huge losses in every war commanded by British. Aussies were used as cannon fodder and barely get credit for defending britain.
The Germans in WW1 hadn't just heard of the Australians from Gallipoli, they had fought them all through France and were well aware of the capabilities of Australian troops.
I had the privilege of meeting and being trained by a soldier from the 9th, who had been a Rat of Tobruk, brought home and served through PNG and the Solomon Islands, then after WW2 taken part in the occupation of Japan (where he met his wife and took her home to Australia), then served in Korea and finally served 3 years in-country in the AATTV in Vietnam (the most highly decorated unit of the Vietnam War), again brought his wife home from Vietnam (his Japanese wife had sadly died from cancer in the '50's). This was in the early 80's and he had served from 1941 as a 17 year old, was a WO1 / Regimental Sargeant Major and had been allowed to serve at 59 years old, part time beyond mandatory retirement age (his mate was the Chief of the Army)...boy now he had some stories - very weird when your 'old' Major who had also served in the AATTV with him, was all googly-eyed over his stories ;-). Well departed now, such a great man - god bless WO Robby.
thats awesome !!!, my grandfather fought in ww1 then africa and new guinea in ww2, got wounded in both wars, my father was an underaged cadet when the korean war started so he stowed away on a ship going to korea, he was placed as a batman to an officer until he turned 18 and was allowed to fight, he then served in malaya then joined the Aussie SAS in their early days, becoming a platoon commander, later he transferred to the AATTV and was unfortunately killed in action in 1966, RIP dad, you relentless warrior :).
Good story. I guess he may had known my great uncle who also was in the 9th division and fought in Tobruk in 1939/1941. And he may had known my farther who also served in Vietnam. My dad was in the battle of long tan he was with the special ops SAS my dad did 5 tour's in Vietnam from 1963 to 1970
Wow you have to admire a commitment to others that strong, and for so long, it makes my day that he has someone like you to keep his name alive. We cannot repay that generation enough so thanks for your respect you show to them. 😉👍🏴☠️
Those stories if you remember them clearly are worth writing down and sending to the national war museum in Cambera mate, that is history that will be lost other wise
I (German) served with Aussies in the Rhodesian Security Forces. My BN CO was Aussie, Joe Flanagan, the COY OCs were Aussies, Bruce Ralston and Gordon Forgoty. Great Guys. I had the DAK Sign (GermanAfricaCorps) painted on my "Puma" (Armoured Vehicle) and the Aussies Känguruhs. Excellent Soldiers, hard drinkers and very disciplined (could be mistaken for Germans lol)
2 года назад+10
Sounds very interesting to me. Did you ever write about your experiences during the rhodesian conflict in german or english language? Thanks for a reply.
Possibly because several states had significant German (and other central European) migrations between the 1830's-1890's (plus a significant migration post WWII). Indeed, up until 1915, German was the second most common language in the state of South Australia, with many South Australian units having fluent German speakers in their ranks. Also, many of the Kopi's in PNG (a sort of blended police officer and government representative in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea) were required to speak German, as the north of New Guinea had previously been a colony of the German Empire. In fact, in WWII, many Germans served in Australian and Dutch forces in SE Asia against the Japanese. Several Coastwatchers (an Australian naval intelligence service) were Germans by nationality, but were vital sources of information for some of the biggest campaigns of the Pacific (and Burmese) War! In an intriguing fashion, many families would have sons and husband's away at war in the Australian forces while the wives and children were interred as Germans (although in most places, while there was some suspicion of ethnically German families, the families would continue working their farms as part of the war effort. Again, South Australia was rather unusual in that Air Raid Wardens, Militiamen, Post Masters, etc, would often be people of German ancestry who were too old or unfit for regular military service). Of added interest, Barossan German is still the dialect of German spoken in many parts of South Australia, named for the Barossa Valley, which is an area mostly populated by German descendents, and a noted wine region.
I ( also born in Germany) served with Aussie’s in Vietnam 1970, signed on to be career soldier, that came to an abrupt end when I was critically wounded after our patrol was attacked with a command detonated anti personnel mine . Good for you .
G'day ET, I'm an Australian military historian who, for nearly 16 years has focused, part time, on the life and career of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey. Australia's first and only Field Marshal. When given the job of Commanding General of the 2nd A.I.F. in 1939 he wrote a Charter of how his forces would be used in the upcoming World War. It stipulated that Australian forces could not be used by British or other Allied commands without his express written permission. This was to avoid Australian soldiers being used by British commanders as 'cannon fodder' as they sometimes were. While the 2nd A.I.F. was still training and acclimatising in Egypt General Blamey became concerned that British officers were repeatedly accusing or trying to charge Australian troops with minor and serious disciplinary offences. Blamey, personally, and with the aid of his command's senior legal officer, formerly investigated every single case or charge levelled at the Australians. After due investigation Blamey met with General Wavell to inform him that all allegations against Australian troops were foundless. Then followed a semi-private, heated argument between the two commanders. Blamey used his Charter, signed by the Australian Prime Minister, exactly as Blamey had written it, to dissuade Wavell from entertaining anymore accusations brought against Aussies by any British officer. (NB: later in the war Blamey and Wavell became genuine friends.) It was Wavell himself who flew to Greece to personally evacuate Blamey. Blamey agreed to leave Greece only after he was certain "his boys" were safely on or near the evacuation beaches he designated on his very first day in Greece. He wasn't defeatist, he was a highly intelligent soldier who knew the entire Greek campaign would fail before he arrived. He had word that he'd find the Greeks 'thinner on the ground' than promised. Blamey didn't accuse the Greeks of any cowardice, on the contrary. He knew the entire theatre was another one of Churchill's 'stunts' for the benefit of F.D.R. to keep showing the American President that Britain was serious about attacking the Nazi threat. Sadly, these days in Australia, Sir Thomas Blamey is barely known of, or if he is he is remembered as a highly controversial officer, mostly because of his short inter-war stint as the Chief Commissioner of Police in the State of Victoria, Australia. As to Rommel, I have every one of your citations in our extensive private archive. The quip that is attributed to Rommel about attacking Hell etc. It does appear in some old ‘copied’ documents I discovered in the British National Archives among some files held about Rommel, and referred to among the many papers, signals traffic and some diaries pertaining to, or by Rommel himself. I'll say I think that quote has around a 98 percent probability of being genuine. While Rommel admired Australian and New Zealand troops, I can assure you from stories from my uncle Dan (an Australian Officer of Engineers with the 9th Division) who said, generally speaking, Aussie troops were not likely to admire any enemy commander as the Aussies saw them as the reason they were in the fight and so far away from home. Lastly, to redress many untrue yarns of Aussie troops disliking General Blamey; when Field Marshal Blamey died in 1951, in Melbourne, Australia, many thousands of former WW2 soldiers voluntarily marched behind their old 'Bosses' coffin in what many sources said, at the time, was the largest funeral in the history of Australia. Cheers, ET and all the best, Bill Halliwell For anyone interested in Field Marshal Blamey they can visit: www.TheBlameyEnigma.com.au
Bill Halliwell, it is nice to have an Australian historian comment on a video about Australians. It's even better to state that he has the quotes that I used from FM Rommel! Yes, Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey was in at least one of the pictures in the video -- perhaps two (I'd have to look it up if I wanted to know for sure). Thank you for your contribution -- you get a heart!
Could you give the reference / specific location please for the hell quote, otherwise it remains as hearsay, I will happily check it out and vindicate it, if it was indeed said by Rommel. If I had found it in any archives I would have replicated it and noted exactly where it was found for authenticity reasons. If you say it happened, I do believe you, but when I know for sure, I would then go back and correct my previous posts, in fairness to everyone. I have struggled finding any authenticity for this quote, having contacted German historians who know nothing about Rommel having said it and who feel it is totally contrived , and I have today contacted the British national Archives to see if they can vindicate it where you say you found it. I will feed back if I get anything, but it would help greatly if you could expand further regards what exactly you were looking at when you saw it.
You left out the ‘run rabbit run ‘ comment by Blamey about withdrawal along Kokoda Track. With the men hissing him……An utterly complete misreading of what the soldiers faced and their lack of equipment, just the barest basics.
@@rossmcintyre1710 He was hated more for the run rabbit run than his activities in Melbourne. NSW and Queensland to a lesser extent didn't give a stuff about Victorians especially the aerial pingpong. When he visited the troops in the hospital the patients were eating lettice (whether this is true or not I don't know) so he got the sh**s and turned around and walked out
I agree. There was some tarnish on Blamey's reputation, especially after the "Australians fight best when their tired" quip. But to be fair, he did a hell of a lot dogged and excellent negotiating in shielding, sheperding , coercing, and good all round foil for Monash in the first stunt.Organising and sorting out the other nation's officers, the competent from the ambitious etc . I recall Monash was quoted as saying he was my "good attack dog". I think Blamey's Father was a drover, so really tough beginnings
My grandad died in Kokoda and my uncle Alf fought at Dunkirk, North Africa, Crete and then finally (& by this time a Major) at Milne Bay PNG. In the last few months of his life Uncle Alf became distraught about the lives he had taken. (Crete btw was a bloodbath, completely out of ammunition it came down to bayonets and hand to hand) how could he face God he said after all that he had done? And that’s the legacy of war. Broken Men, sundered family’s. Destroyed lives. My mother losing her father at 6 years of age. An entire generation of the young men of my country sacrificed. Twice. In two world wars. That’s why ANZAC day is such a big deal to both us and the Kiwis. Lest We Forget….
PlanetDisco, yes, it haunted him -- what he did. A lot of that wasn't well understand back in those days. Yes, Lest We Forget! Thanks for your comment!
Thank you for your story and comments. I sometimes wonder that as we remember them, how do we not end up in more unnecessary conflicts and will the current generations be able to pick the fights we ought to fight in time to stop bigge r problems developing. Your forebears came from serious hard working stock not propped up by social welfare or weakened by the diseases of entitlements and woke culture?
I would have encouraged your Uncle Alf to look at it this way: yes,millions of people died...soldiers and civilians,But it,unlike some wars,was a war that *had* to be fought lest psychopaths like Hitler and Tojo were allowed to rule most of the world. I have no doubt that God,although He is always displeased by warfare,understands that there are times when people must resist men like them.I'd wager that your Uncle Alf had little,or no,trouble standing before Saint Peter whereas Hitler.... And one last point: the US Marines 1st Division has "Waltzing Matilda" as their unit "theme" as a sign of gratitude for the amazing hospitality that Australians showed them during WWII. I can't recall the entire story but you can look it up if you have a few free minuted.
There is a story about Generals Montgomery & Freyberg, NZ Div Commander with LRDG Troopers. “Monty: Your chaps don't salute much! Freyberg: Oh if you wave ... They'll wave back!”
There's another story about two British junior officers complaining to their superior officer about the Australian refusal to salute British officers. The senior Brit officer had served in WW1 and knew the Australians quite well from that conflict. He told the two junior Brit officers that they were lucky, because in WW1 not only would they not salute Brit officers they would walk over them!
The Germans knew what the Australians were like in WW1. They faces the 5 divisions under General Monash. the "Black Day" coined by General Ludendorf was caused by Australians routing his army.
The History Guy:History Deserves To Be Remembered channel has a great video on the John Monash and the Australians in WWl, I highly recommend it if you've not already watched it.
@@tobinsarttrading1733 The attack was planned by General Monash. It involved 4 Australian , 2 Canadian and the New Zealand divisions. It was reported in British press as an "Allied Success" They were unwilling to let on it was dominion troops for fear that we would perceive it as being used as expendable troops. Hence it was many years before the truth came out.
@@Will_CH1 my Australian grandfather a farrier,Jack, was In those battles and commented in his diaries that the English professional forces had been shot right out and had very young poorly trained skinny boys conscripted (flying Tommys) which everyone made an effort to keep them out of harms way
Monash didn't plan the entire Advance on August 8th, just the Australian part. The Canadians were led by the equally as venerated - Arthur Currie who planned and led their own operation beside ours.
I once read a story about a badly wounded American Soldier who was being cared for by an Aussie nurse during WW2. "Excuse me ma'am, did I come here to die?" The nurse replied, "No mate, yer came 'ere yesterdie".
Stephen Bachman, yes, that's one thing I love about RUclips -- you can watch what you want to watch, for as long as you want to watch. I would like to say that RUclips doesn't edit channels, but that's not true -- I was subscribed to a channel that disappeared one day. So, not perfectly free speech. Thanks for watching!
I'm an Aussie and exploits of our Diggers and the esteem that Rommel held them was known by many of my generation (I'm in my 50s now and come from a military family).
@@EmersusTech RUclips is an odd place since channels are more likely to get in trouble over copyright claims than ToS (which is mostly from jerks who false flag and usually not anything automatic from their bots, which would rather de-monetize or not give algorithmic boost).
That’s so false, if it’s true for schools today thats fucking disgusting, majority of my Australian history and military history and it’s fairly extensive comes from school. Though I grew up in a town that sent soldier to the battlefields of ww2 I’d think all Australians are taught it.
My Dad, who fought in the desert at El Alamein and elsewhere, told me some interesting stories. One of them always made him laugh as he remembered it. A captured German officer, who was very arrogant, proceeded to lecture his Australian captors about how they were all going to die when Rommel came through them with tanks on his was to Cairo. One of the Australians, a big sergeant, said, "You bastards have to get through us first," shoved him in the back towards the other prisoners and added "Now get on your way!" Everyone laughed uproariously.
My Grandfather fighting in France ww1 shot a German and then went to help him. He stayed with him and they showed each other family photos .My grandfather cried with him while he was dying
My closest uncle whom was in WWII, said to me, even though a soldier is serving his country, shooting or killing a man who has done nothing to you, will haunt a person. He even said, he hoped he would be forgiven. Bless your late grandfather and the German soldier.
I enjoy hosting exchange students, it is with reverence we share ANZAC day with them. It is a warming thing to host the children of former enemies and make lifelong friends of them.
That was a very gracious report about our soldiers. Thank you for the time that you took in this. Rommel also was a true soldier but not a nazi, earning him the respect of the allied troops
Anthony B, yes, I plan to do one on NZ too, but I need to do more research on certain things. It'll be a while, no doubt. Yes, I enjoyed making it and it was a lot of hard work. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@EmersusTech If you do one on NZ'ers, in WW2, try to include the formation of the LRDG (Long Range Desert Group) in N Africa, mostly Kiwis with some S Africans, they were the forerunner (and later worked with) the SAS. They travelled, mapped, and attacked the enemy, far behind enemy lines, travelling over terrain that was thought to be impassable to vehicles. Really interesting story for military historians. I knew an ex member, back in the 80s, he was in our chess club, never finished a game with him because we would talk about his exploits the whole time :-)
My father was on a merchant ship transporting german pows to England. A small riot started and they tried to take over the ship(to do what? - they probably didn't think that through). The captain came on the loudspeaker and said that if the unpleasantness didnt cease and all german go below, the australians on the ship entering the harbor would board. The germans went below and behaved well the rest of the way to england. My dad never knew if the captain was BSing or not but the germans believed it and wanted no part of that.
Aussies and Kiwis are a tough breed, although not about the war, this is a little story Kiwi All Black legend, Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford told once. “About 10 minutes into the second half, I got kicked in the nuts. And man did it hurt. I felt nothing of it and continued playing," (Later in the dressing room, after a rare loss to France) “It is very morbid, very quiet after the loss, I had to get dressed, I stood up and pulled my strides down and one of the guys from across the room said ‘holy s**t, look at that!’, and one of my testicles had been ripped out of the scrotum and it was hanging between my legs. I went upstairs into a medical room and had it tidied up and put back together. These things do happen and you’ve just got to play on,” 😯😯(He never mentions he also lost four teeth in that match as well!!😆)
@@EmersusTech There were a few others to attempt simmilar ventures to combined arms prior but Sir John Monash was the one who managed to plan it right and perfect it, the others mainly resualted in failure or complete choas on both sides so it can't really be considered a "tactic", The success of hemel where the Allies but mainly australians defeated the germans Monash showed the world what Australia could do, Monash predicted a 90 minute campagin but it took 93 minutes, it was so successful Monash himself provided hot meals to front line soldiers.
@Gavin Coleman Wrong, combined arms isn’t sending everything in to die, it’s coordinated and planned, what you’re referring to is a blitzkrieg and that never really works, look at Russia and Ukraine. Sure they pushed far but it’s not a tactic you can sustain.
Sir John Monash was an engineer. I used to cross a bridge he designed in Hurstbridge (northern suburbs of Melbourne Victoria). It was opened in 1917 and its still there but its only one way. I can't help but think that he turned his engineers mind towards the problem of crossing a German trench line.
My father was in the 9th division, and I also had an uncle in the 6th division. The Afrika Korps, in terms of relative numbers and the length of time spent fighing them were perhaps the best, and most effective, troops the Second AIF ever fought. They fought well, often, and hard. They also had a pretty good sense of humor. To explain - My father was a Forward Observation Officer at Tobruk and El Alamein. There was a German machine gun which was such a pest that they decided to take it out with an artillery shoot. So the Tobruk artillery, including Australian and British artillery, opened fire on this solitary machine gun. The barrage included captured Italian 150mm, Royal Artillery 25 pounders, etc. When the barrage ended, the German machine gunner popped up, waved a "Miss" and ducked back in to his position. This was much to the amusement from the Australian infantry and my dad, who'd watched the whole thing. At that moment, he was the safest guy in North Africa. Nobody would have dreamed of shooting him after that.
LOL. That is like the story of the Russian tank attacking the worn out German line in Ukraine. The tank bravely attacked and was promptly taken out by a German tank. Two of the Russian tankers survived and got out and drew their pistols, waiting to be shot by the Germans. No one fired a shot at the Russians and they finally threw their pistols down and walked to the German lines, stepped over and were shown the way to the coffee area. Not a word was said.
My late father fought with the desert 8th army , he was in the Royal army service Corp , attached to the 51st Highland division , after the large barrage at the opening of the second battle of el Alamein, the Highland division went forward under a creeping barrage with the new Zealanders to there left and the Australians on there right , each division had heavy losses but took there objectives , each of these divisions depended on there colleagues to there left and right , my dad used to quote ( thank god they were ausies and New Zealanders, ), the finest brothers in arms you could wish for , and an honour to serve with , j p
In WWI, the Germans called the Scots "the mad women from hell". They considered the ANZACs and Irish to be "their husbands". RIP to your Dad... Lest We Forget.
My late father was in The 2nd AIF in North Africa, briefly. He was pulled back to fight the Japanese in New Guinea with a lot of fellow Aussies. My late uncle however, remained there longer & was a “Rat Of Tobruk”. He eventually got out & also finished the war fighting in New Guinea. Dad had many, many stories from the war, but one that comes to mind was when he was in the Middle East. One day their camp was dived bombed by the German Luftwaffe. The British had basically toy planes all lined up on the runway as decoys. The German Stukas did their attack but dropped wooden bombs on said targets with notes actually attached. They read; “We use wooden bombs on toy planes!”🤣 Dad said “Even Jerry had a sense of humour!”😂 Well after the war both had fruitful lives raised families, but carried PTSD for the next 70 years or so until their passings. That was worse than the fighting. “Lest We Forget”.
My great uncle Colin Craddock served in the 2/16th Australian Infantry Battalion in both Africa and Papua where he died in action. He and some friends walked from Kalgoorlie to Northam some 500 kms to join and fight. they built them tuff back then.
This video makes me very proud to be an Australian my father was a second world war veteran in Kokoda he was in the Middle East also we thank our veterans for keeping our country free
Peter Smith, it was wonderful researching for this video -- I found so much information! Stay tuned for others that are coming down the pike in the future! I'm working on one now that should be absolutely superb, but I won't give away the subject matter. Just keep in mind that some of these videos take a long time to make, because there's a lot of research and putting it all together nicely is important too! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Im Australian, apparently my grandad on my father's side was a medic in Africa against Rommel and definitely later went on to become a nuclear engineer (I have his yearbook from 1964-65) and my nan was a midwife in London dodging bombs to help bring new life into the world... It's hard to imagine what went through anyone's mind in such a chaotic time. Mum's dad was a merchant sailor who got packed between mattresses trying to plug a torpedo hole and woke up in hospital, never knowing who saved him to the day he died at 82 years old in about 2002. All my grandparents moved to Australia from England in the late 50s-early 60s and shortly after my parents were born, and, here I am telling this short story thankfully.
Actually bardia was taken when an australian officer came forward under a white flag and said he had a large force of australians who had been angered by bardia fortress and would massacre them. The italians surrendered to one man with a pistol. I spoke with one of the italians who had been there and he said there was many rumours throughout italy with how australians didnt take prisoners, and performed atrocities and mutilations. These rumours were certainly started by the australians themselves There is a book written by a german who called them angels and ferocious bayonet fighters after 3 australians surprised them and bayoneted all 12 of them in a few seconds. The same soldiers came of a night after that to give the wounded first aid snd water until the Germans recovered them. I dont know about rommels quote about hell, but he certainly wrote to hitler saying give me 5 divisions of australians and i will win this war when he was in france
I've read hundreds of books about Australians in North Africa during WW2 and I've never heard of these stories, except for the last one but Rommel only said 1 Division of Australians not 5, lol! What book was that? The Afrikakorps is the only formation in Germany to this day that are able to have reunions because there where no atrocities committed in North Africa on both sides. There was probably one incident involving New Zealand soldiers but when explained to Rommel by the New Zealand officer in charge who had been captured, Rommel forgave him and believed what the N.Z. officer told him. It was dark as it was a night attack and the German soldiers who stood up where actually wounded German soldiers resting in a small building. As the saying goes "Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see!" This stuff happened over 70 years ago who the hell knows what really happened!
@@stuwhiteman3810 With regards to the Australians' abilities in close quarters fighting, it might be attributed to a little known fact about our sporting preferences from the turn of the 20th century until just after the end of the WW2. Cricket and Aussie rules football and neither of the rugby codes was the most popular sport in those years. It was boxing. During the very tough years of the Great Depression, many Australian pro boxers might have fought as often as two or three times a month, just to put food on the table. Although there may only be two boxing tents now following the agricultural shows circuit around the country, back in those days there were many more and the young locals, in the city or the bush, were very willing to jump into the ring against the tent fighters for the chance to pick up some badly needed cash. It's little wonder that the Germans found them to be a bit of a handful!
@@stuwhiteman3810 yeah well, I believe there was a Kiwi Soldier who masqueraded as a German soldier by donning a uniform, then shot some Germans in the back. I can't remember where, may have been Crete. Not really within the rules of war old chap.....
I'm Aussie, My Grandfathers brother is buried over there in El-Alamein. He fought and died in that battle, His other brother watched him drop from gunfire and just had to leave him there and keep running and pushing forward to advance the position otherwise he wouldn't have made it back either.
Shane McGrath, that's a sad story, to see a brother fall and have to leave him there. So, it seems from your story that noone has ever found the body? I saw something on TV about bodies being mummified by the dry desert. Honestly, he probably was gathered by a German burial party. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@EmersusTech No sorry, I don't mean left there forever, I just mean in the heat of battle they had to leave him and go back later to gather the dead, He is buried in the Commonwealth Cemetary over there in El Alamein, Not sure which side gathered his body though but most likely allies. Thanks for the video, I like to hear all sides of war good or bad, We should never forget otherwise we will repeat it.
Well he’s resting in a nice place, went to the cemetery at ElAlamein about 6 years ago and it was spotless, very well tended by the local Egyptian caretakers.
@richie4540 I was very impressed with the Commonwealth War Cemetery there, too. The Gernan War Cemetery is where the 9th Division was stationed prior to El Alamein. Annual war memorial functions rotate between these 2 Cemeteries & the Italian War Cemetery. The parents of a young South African had his grave stone inscribed with "Here in the fabric of peace we place a precious jewel, our son". Emphasised for me the wickedness of those who start wars.
My grandfather fought at Tobruk. Part of the 9th He used to tell me stories of how he and his mates would sneak out at night and leave messages on the wires in front of the German placements in orders to psych them out. He was wounded in action and evacuated,then honorably discharged. He later re volunteered and went to Papua New Guinea.
My father (English) fought with Australians in the first siege of Tobruk and El Alamein. We migrated to Australia because my father wanted to see what it was about Australia that created the men he fought alongside. One day he said to me if you ever hear stories about the boys pulling the pin out of a grenade and then throw it to each other then out the slot in the pillar box….just before it went off. It was true…..
Couple of stories from my Father regarding his time in Africa. 1. A couple of troops would go behind enemy lines and find the location of the Fuel supply depots. At night they would drive trucks 4okm across the desert (no headlights) to those locations and nick the fuel which was rather effective in stalling tank movements for a while. 2. During one of the two man scouting trips they came across an Italian soldier on his lonesome and promptly captured him. Then one of the Aussies was injured and required assistance. When they got back to their base the uninjured Aussie was carrying his mate and the Italian was trotting along behind holding the rifles. His response when asked "What the hell were you thinking?" "The Safety's On". 3. On a night attack across the Desert with very little cover Dad found a nice bit of rock to hunker down beside during some heavy fire. A flare went up and it was then he realised his piece of "rock" was actually a mine that was lying on its side...said he moved rather quickly after that. 4. One Christmas day the respective Officers declared a "day off". No bombing or shooting was agreed. They combined rations for a feed and even arranged for a sports competition between the Germans and the Aussies. Next day they were back to shooting at one another.
My uncle Bill, 7th Division recounted the story where he and his mate came across a hastily abandoned Axis airfield. In the mess they found a table set up for a meal hastily left , including a few bottles of wine. Bills mate quickly knocked off the top of the bottle and was about to down it , Stop , struth mate ,it could be poisoned. No worries Bill, there's only one thing I'm scared of , and that's my Missus, and she aint here !
In one of the photos used in this video 13.59 showing a line advancing my uncle Bill recounted that looking down that line you could see your mates twitching involuntarily, like they had the disease St Vitus Dance. It was the automatic reaction as the bullets zipped past your head. He always laughed that the bullet was 1000 yards down range by the time you reacted . Lest we forget the greatest generation
The turks and aussies during Gallipoli also shared anzac biscuits with the turks chocolates. Poor buggers getting those crusty old biscuits and giving aussies chocolate haha.
Photo at 8:17 My father is second from the right he was wounded in the defence of Singapore and captured in early 1942 he was one of six survivors of the Sandakan Death March North Borneo and one of the four who escaped from the extermination camp at Ranau and recovered by members of "Z" Special Force Photo is taken at either Tarakan or Morotai around August September 1945 after their evacuation from the jungle by two seat light aircraft The photo includes three of the survivors and three of the pilots who flew them out The fourth survivor was injured in a takeoff accident at the captured Japanese airstrip at Ranau and has been taken to hospital on landing
hodaka1000, you're the second person to mention that his relative was in a photo in the video! Thank you so much for sharing that with us and for his efforts in the war! You get a heart!
@@EmersusTech He testified at the War Crimes Tribunals at Rabaul and Tokyo He passed away in 1997 but still speaks today on video at the National War Memorial Canberra
Wow, I have very mixed emotions of sadness and joy and pride for your father, what a survivor, I don’t mean to be pretentious but I’d be surprised if he didn’t carry a heavy load for the rest of his life being one of the survivors. My pop survived the Thai/Burma railway, he rarely discussed it but when he did it was only about the funny things, he passed away in 1994 at 94 years, my wife’s uncle also survived the railway, both of them were absolute gentlemen and had an incredible and infectious outlook on life.
The RAAF's Airfield Defence Guards (ADG's) lost their first men in Tarakan and Moratai thru airfield fighting patrols(outside the wire) in mopping up operations
Without looking at the video, I'll tell that he was frightened of them and we Americans without question, admire and fear them as enemies! Australians often feel more tied to the US than Britain. They are fantastic allies and are all-in-all fantastic people! I've several Aussie friends here in Colorado and they all say I need to get there! I doubt I can but wish I could! I've always admired those good folk and love them all!
“More tied to the US than Britain” is just not true mate, an I say this as an anti-monarchist Australian Republican. Our slang and manner of speech are very close, pubs, cricket, the monarchy, the commonwealth, a huge diaspora here and there that is larger per capita than in America. There are many things but most Australians do not feel any relation to America but a large one to Poms. We take the piss out them, and them us, but it’s out of respect.
Thanks mate! My good mate married a USA girl and lives in Gettysburg now. Both him and me are ex infantry. My son is serving too. Love the heart of the core USA people too.
I visited the Punchbowl memorial in Hawaii and to see the respect and recognition to our Australian , New Zealand forces was very humbling. ANZACS. 💯 Thank You to all our allies too. Together we are strong.
My father was in WW2 and a German POW for 4 years, but here's the thing, he never had a bad thing to say about the Germans, yet he hated the communists who were his allies. Here in Australia growing up in the 1960s I had a mate whose parents were German. My father picked me up from their home one day and he came in and met my mates parents. They sat there drinking tea, then a few beers and for 2 hours they were speaking in fluent German and having a good old laugh. My mate who barely knew any German couldn't understand how my father spoke German and I said , "i think he spent time living in Germany" as i didn't know about his war experience at that stage of my young life.
@@anthonyeaton5153 Yeah Tony, and he should have blamed every single man, woman and child in Germany for it. Given your lack of education, it's called "Painting everybody with the same brush".
As the daughter of a WW11 soldier, I am deeply grateful for this overview. My dad's best friend was a Rat of Tobruk, I my dad had the deepest admiration for him. I remember the returned service men from my childhood, and one of my best memories is, the barbecues on a Saturday night, when our families would get together, and of course a keg of beer was cracked, and rum on hand, and at some point in the night a fight would break out between two of the men. We all watched as the punched the sh.t out of each other, until one couldn't stand any more, due to too much alcohol, and the fight would stop, and the opponent would grab the guy he had been punching and say: Hey mate, you okeay? And then would tend to the injured man's needs (even though he had blood pouring down his own face), and all the men would help out. These diggers were exceptional men, so different from other people, they genuinely cared about each other. When I travel, I tell people overseas that it is the landscape and climate that cultivated these people. You had to take care of each other, and you had to be innovative to survive. It is a harsh world that creates physical, psychological and emotional strength in its people.
Djollo's Australia, I'm very glad that you loved this video! I very much enjoyed making it. For your story, you get a heart! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Those generations of Australian men who built Australian society and fought for freedom around the world are gone. The Australian male today is of weak character and timidly compliant in speech and opinion with political correctness, is scared of offending feminists and leftists, he does whatever women tell he to do, he is always apologizing, even brush past him in a shopping centre and he says "sorry", which seems to be his favorite word, he never whistles happily or winks reassuringly, he does not stand upright and walk confidently, and he is generally depressed. Even Australian women complain there are no good men in Australia and call for more immigration.
The Anzacs had a great deal of repect for Monty. As a lad Monty went to school in Tasmania. His father was Minister and teacher at the private school and because of his slender stature and speech impediment made him a target for bullies. He seemed to take it in his stride and eventually won the respect of his fellow students.
My father was a gunner in Matilda tanks and fought right through the middle east before finishing up in New Guinea. He used to say that the only thing he really feared was the German 88. Out of his company of 52 tanks only 8 survived. His being one of them.
For the life on me I can't remember his name, but a friend told me that there was a German general that had to surrender, and he told the British officer "I hope in the next war, the Italians are YOUR allies". That always cracked me up. Would anyone know the general's name?
My great uncle fought in Tobruk. He was killed 1941 coming home when an Italian aircraft hit his ship. This made my grandfather join the ADF in 1941 when he was 17 years old. Knowing about his older brother was killed he wanted revenge but didn't end up fighting the Germans he ended up in the 7th division fighting against Japanese. At the end of the war my grandfather was court-martial as he shot up Japanese wounded in a hospital camp that ADF had giving medical to. He hated the Japanese. I guess he had his reasons for it.
The Japanese were very cruel. An old friend of mine told me when he fought the Japanese they came by this Japanese encampment base. One of the the Australian soldiers found this sack with some contents in it. When they emptied the sack out fell the heads of the Japanese enemies. My friend never forgot that moment. It haunted him through out his life. He said he struggled to forgive the Japanese people. He was always suspicious of them even the generations that had nothing to do with the war. One time when he assisted a car load of Japanese young people after they broke down he considered it a test from God.
@@andrewh6367 interesting, my grandfather was in a Japanese concentration camp from the age of 14. He was living in Shanghai China when the Japanese came. The Steven Spielberg movie empire of the sun is based on the camp he was in. He also hated the Japanese for a long time. After getting to England after the war he had joined the RAF as a physical instructor and later special forces. I was told he wanted to kill Japanese, nearly deployed to Korea but my grandmother talked him out of it. He always had a bad temper, suffered nightmares. Undiagnosed PTSD we were told later. They moved to Australia and he later studied the Bible and it helped him become a much calmer person and inadvertently have dealings and friendships with Japanese.
My dad fought here in the 2/24th, first defeat the Germans had suffered, then went off to PNG and inflicted the first defeat the Japanese had suffered. Makes me incredibly proud to think he survived that and you would never even have known he was a veteran by his demeanour. He marched, but apart from that you'd not know he'd fought and survived history-defining battles.
byronstjames, that was a good comment. Yes, my dad was also a Vietnam veteran and he didn't like to talk about the war too much. Thank you for your comment and watching!
You wouldn't know these days but that's right it was Australians who first stopped the Japanese in the Pacific, not the Yanks although they were there. My Dad did his bit in New Guinea too, never talked about it,, a nice quiet bloke.
As a child I was often in company of my dad and his mates at the regular barbeques they held. It was only in later years, as my understanding of history grew, that I really appreciated that I was sitting in the middle of some of the most awe-inspiring men to have lived, jovial, polite, and able to end you in a heart-beat if necessary. You could sense their potential when they gathered to do some volunteer work. They organized, they were focused, and when one finished their assigned task, they went to look for someone else to help out. The stuff of legend.
In this comment "he marched" means that he would take part in the massive marches held in Australia on Anzac Day - a public holiday and the national day of commemoration of all who actively served in the armed forces. Australians take war very seriously.
Interesting video. My grandfather ( QF4084 ) became a cipher operator due to blowing his knee in basic, and got to see and hear all the top level intel and orders. Never would have survived the whole war otherwise he reckons. His war diaries whilst at Tobruk are quite revealing, and he had a lot of respect for Rommel in return, who as an example, agreed to cease fires so the wounded could be collected. I think the battle in Africa especially, although brutal and unimaginable to those of us never having seen war, was a place where two strong armies held a pretty high regard for each other. He had endless stories of Aussie shenanigans, and some of the night raid things they did well into German lines in Africa is stuff of legend. He was captured and escaped at the Benghazi handicap with his precious code books, which the Germans were after, one of very few to do so apparently.
Greg Roles, yes, I believe that FM Rommel fought honorably -- allowing the temporary truces to collect the dead, etc. If you have any stories about Aussie shenanigans and night raids, I'd like to read about them! Thanks for your comment and watching!
I would love to read your grandfathers diaries. Have you ever considered making them available - either to a professonal historian/author or self publishing? I suspect you could essentially just photograph them with a phone and put them into a PDF and self publish that on Amazon or some other ebook publisher. You could leave out any parts that are private to your family. Sources like this - i.e. people who had first hand access to the high level signals as well as people who had what it sounds like pretty adventurous experiences are not all that common - especially people who aren't septics or poms.
My Grandfather, Claude Reid was a Sergeant with 6th Div transport and told us many stories of his experencies in North Africa and the Middle East. As kids we would pore through his photographs of his adventures in Cairo, Tripoli, Palestine , Damascus and other Middle East locations. He even had one of him and some mates on top of one of the pyramids. When in convoys, air attack was always a threat, even from their own aircraft because using salvaged enemy trucks made it difficulr to distinguish who they were. When aircraft were spotted the sop was to go as far off the road as possible, abandon the truck and find some kind of cover. His pet peeves were the .303 and bayonet which was always in the way. As for the rifle, he said "I humped that bloody thing over two thirds of creation and never fired a shot in anger". He made it through, returned home and died at age 98 in Brisbane. He was always a true gentleman.
Peter Reid, thank you for telling us about your grandfather. That must've been fascinating to pour over those old photos. To tell you a personal story, my grandpa once was in his attic in the 1980s and he said to me, "Well, look at that!" and he handed me a pristine telephone book from early in the 20th Century -- probably the 20s or 30s. I can't remember. There were only a few numbers, like "8833", "8832", etc., because so few people had phones. And this phone book looked like it was printed only a few years before and had survived many home moves. As a teenager, I was always fascinated by old buildings. Thank you for watching and commenting!
One of the reasons we have such a huge Italian community in Australia is that many Italian POWs from Africa were sent to Australia to work on farms. After the war many stayed in Oz rather than head back to Italy which had been destroyed by battle. More than one Italian POW ended up fathering children of Australian women out of wedlock, whilst their husbands/boyfriends were overseas fighting. So whilst the military history is important in terms of the western desert campaign, the social history aspect back in Australia is frequently overlooked. Also you should include the Maori Battalion aka the 28th Battalion from New Zealand as they made significant contributions to the western desert campaign.
Regarding the so many Italian's in Australia, guy's you have it wrong. I learnt this in primary school, I'm a first generation Australian with parents coming from Italy with there parents. In the 50s more so mid 50s the Australian government put out posters advertising immigration to Australia to boost the population on the promise of plenty work, food and opportunity. My Grandparents remembered going to seminars where the Australian officials would talk and give spin how great Australia is. Also question and answer time. They went to more than one. Europe was devastated by WW2 and was still in ruins 15 years later with bombed out building everywhere, there was little work, little food and life was far from good. My Grandparents from both sides made the sort of easy decision to come to Australia like alot of other Europeans. They decided they wanted give there children the best chance at having a better life, they all came by boat which took 3 months with there suitcases. What also happened was a flow on effect friends would ask by letter whats it like, if they were on the fence about it then the letters would convince them. They all prospered and i 54 year old with a family of my own is forever grateful to my grandparents for coming to the best country on the planet 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺.
@@maxrpm2215 Yes there was a lot that just migrated from a government program during the 50s and 60s like you stated. But there was many was POW amongst them too. And brought over their families from Italy some married Australian women. Many Italian from Mildura Victoria and surrounding areas from the farming sectors was actually POWs soldiers captured in Tobruk campaign during ww2
The many POW camps in Aus were in the Goulburn valley of Victoria. Mildura,TC, but massively evident is the Italian orchard owners in Cobram. I lived there as a teenager and was blown away how many of one people can make up such a huge portion of a town of 3500. 40 min from the old POW camps that still have some buildings standing. And 3 hours from a major city. Might be coincidence, but in 2002 my atlas at school still had a very large country titled USSR……
I have met an ex POW Italian about 20 years ago. He was drafted out to a farmer near Penrith in Sydney as a labourer . The farmer treated him well and he became like a son to him. As the farmer was childless he left his estate to the Italian . The Italian bloke increased the business and started breeding a particular type of short legged cattle named "Square Metres". I took the Minister of Agriculture from China to the farm as the Chinese love these little cattle and they got thoroughly pissed on Cognac.
Congratulations on a very well-presented video. Some things mentioned within it were known to me but other aspects were previously unknown, I found it both enjoyable and educational to watch as well as it gave me a sense of pride to be Australian and that I have family that fought in both World Wars. Thank You very much and keep the videos coming I've also given it a thumbs up. 10/10
Richard Coulson, thank you very much! I worked very hard on this video and did a lot of research. I will keep the videos coming! Thank you for watching and commenting! You get a heart!
@@EmersusTech If you are interested in this part of the war look into the LRP Long Range Patrol which expanded to become the LRDG Long Range Desert Group which was exclusively manned by men from the New Zealand Division and Officered by the British started by Major Ralph Bagnold the first allied Special Force of WW2
When I was a soldier for the Australian army in the 90s we were told a story of a German soldier who said that during a night engagement he had been bayoneted by an Australian soldier and later that night the Aussies returned and he thought that they were there to finish him off but to his surprise the Aussies provided first aid and took them prisoner. I have no idea if this is a true story or not, just wanted to share a story I was told.
@@EmersusTech Not disagreeing with you, but a part of the Australian psyche was to help out others. Floods, Bushfires, Droughts....eventually YOU might end up needing a hand, even if your helping a neighbour out today. Hard country makes for hard people, not cruel. Not going to say that the incident recorded in Laffin's book is the norm. But if you look carefully, Germans and Australian's ended up becoming probably the most cordial relationships between a former Axis power and an Allied one. Two World Wars fought and their respect for each other deepened! (There's a lot of mutual respect along the lines of 'finally, a worthy opponent').
I was USN & served aboard the carrier Midway during Vietnam. My father was US Army in WWII & was at Kassarine Pass, then was attached to Patton's army. He met Australians & like them. (You know, us beingTexicans & them being Aussies, we have a lot in common.) So, we tie up in Kokasuka & there are R&R flights. I had choices. I chose Australia. You people are some of the nicest people I've met in my life. I showed up with 2 pairs of boots (one pair custom made in Monterrey Mexico of elk skin & a pair of Tony Lamas made in El Paso) & three pairs of Levi's straight legs & a nice Shantung straw hat. I left with none of that. You people traded me out of my clothes! What do I say to a guy, & his wife when he's my size, I'm in his country, he's bought me two beers, & a really good sandwich & he's wearing really nice Wellingtons, & he wants to trade clothes? Peter & Julia, if you're still out there, I love you both. To all the other people I met there. You gave five of the best memories of my life. I love you & your countryside.
Jaime, thanks for your heartfelt story that you shared! I read it with interest! I love stories like this, because they show the human touch! For this, you get a heart!
Mate, thanks for putting this video together! The last flick of them playing cricket on the beach is an absolute ripper and something we still love doing as an activity during summer.
Johnnysabboy, yeah, I was trying to convey the laid back attitude that Aussies have like -- "no worries". Thanks for your comment and for watching! You might this other video: Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
I have always been of the opinion that Rommel was an excellent tactician and a worthy foe. It’s truly sad that the Gestapo forced him to commit suicide on Hitlers orders.
He knew what was going on in Russia and what they were doing to the Jews in the camps. Turning a blind eye to it is no excuse he was as guilty as the rest of the murderers. And of course slaughtering our boys on the beaches so his cronies could stay in power to do there vile work in Europe. Rommel was as bad as the rest of them pretending to be on the side of right.
@@lena19191 His strong principles as a man, his honor and loyalty as a military, his love for the family and country didn't let him to do that. Nowadays way to few people are guided by this healthy way of thinking.
My dad was in the Pacific for 39 months and thought the world of " those Aussies" they were damn good jungle fighters he said! He loved them. He was a Company Commander in the 158th Regimental Combat Team. Highly trained and several islands invaded. He specifically talked about New Guinea and the Philippines but he didn't talk about it much, mostly anecdotes. I miss him. Had him until he was 96...thanks
Thanks for sharing. I was at a trade show in the USA in 2007. A gentleman introduced himself as an ex military commander (I can't remember his rank but sounded impressive) - when he heard my accent he said "I've been to Australia - we were sent to Townsville to "train" the Australians - we ended up gettin trained"!
thebrokestbassist1048, well, I appreciate what y'all did over there too! Thank you very much! You probably will like this other video: LG Sir Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
In 75 I had a holiday in Germany. Beautiful country and very hospitable people. I was 15 and had a conversation with a bloke who had served in the German Army. When he realised I was an Aussie as he thought I might be British or American he really opened up about his thoughts. He told me that the ANZAC soldiers were a dangerous enemy he respected. Remember that in 1975 Germany is divided into east and west and the locals weren't impressed by all the British and American bases and were often treated poorly by them. Many old soldiers are loath to talk about their war time experiences.
Re your last sentence... that's why until after his death in 1969, I never knew that my grandfather was at Gallipoli before being invalided back to NZ on the "Maheno".... a man who kept very much to himself.
As an infantry combat veteran (Vietnam Era) with a fascination for military history that began with the European campaigns of WWII this is a great presentation
Noel Page, you might like these two other videos: Rommel's Death -- The Interesting Details ruclips.net/video/iYTzjh3rmtc/видео.html Rundstedt vs. Rommel Normandy Debate -- Who Was Right? ruclips.net/video/882CEHFvNJY/видео.html Thanks for commenting and watching!
Australian & Kiwi forces have played major roles in many theatres & are often sent in as initial reconnaissance teams in modern wars, while receiving little recognition for their efforts. Thank you for sharing Rommel's respect for our boys.
AnoJanJan, yes, I totally agree that Aussies and Kiwis haven't gotten the recognition they deserve for their outsized contributions to the past two world wars and since then. Thanks for your comment!
I should add to my previous comment the although I have lived in Australia most of my life ,I was born in the UK. If anybody asks me about my nationality I just tell them "I am an Englishman by birth, I am an Australian by choice", and a proud one at that.
Great video mate, thank you. I'm very proud to be an Aussie with ancestors that served in both world wars. I'll never get tired of learning about these horrific events that shaped our world. Peace to all and let's try and do whatever we can to prevent these things happening again.
@@EmersusTechI suspect more Germans had an understanding of Aussie soldiers from battles in France in WW1 then from stories from Gallipoli. John Monash, the first commander of the Australian Corps (first 5 AIF divisions), planned what became the text book Battle of Le Hamel. US General Pershing ordered his troops to not participate but many US soldiers who were training with AIF units donned Aussie fatigues so they could fight with their new mates. Other Allied units studied this battle and its replication meant the war ended in 1918 - most planners believed it would continue into 1919.
My Grandfather was in the 2/8th in El Elemein. I'll never forget him. His father was a Light Horseman in WW1. My wife's Grandfather was a Rat of Tobruk, he died when she was very young though. God bless them, forgive them, and we thank them for the life they won for us.
I had two uncles in the AIF in Egypt and my mother lost a cousin at El-Alamein. I also had an uncle on the Kokoada Trail and at the battle of Milne Bay and my dad was a POW after the fall of Singapore. I had one brother who served in the Australian Army in Malaya and myself and an older brother both served until retirement in the Royal Canadian Navy.
I'm an Aussie, my great grandfather marched to Beersheba through the desert. When asked what being in the war was like by my father he simply said "Hot".
My father was RAF Bomber Command Far East WW2 - he described the situation and climate as "a bit sticky". He escaped Singapore, Java, Sumatra and fortunately boarded the Kote Gede which heading towards Darwin changed direction to Ceylon. The other ships heading to Australia didn't make it.
Julz Hunt, thank you and your country for its awesome contributions in both WWI and WWII! I enjoyed researching for this video and finding the information that I did. I just love some of your Aussie slang. My favorite Aussie expression is "No worries, mate!" Thanks for your comment and watching!
@@julzhunt7790 Julz Hunt, I watched the video (VHS!) a few times with a very young Mel Gibson. Great movie! I've read some on it, but I'll need to do much more research before I make a video about it. I will put it on a my list of videos that I want to do and see if I can get to it! Thanks!
Both of my grandfathers fought in New Guinea. My mothers father moved back there with his brother in law as they felt a great debt was owed to the people there for everything they'd done to help them and their mates. Unfortunately my fathers father didnt live long after his return. His health never really recovered and he suffered terrible nightmares and much torment in his life. He could never let go of his hatred for the japanese and was unable to see humanity in any Asian people. I can only imagine what he must have witnessed. William Irwin and Bruce Jeffery. May god keep thier resting souls in peace.
sloth_e, thanks to your grandfathers' service against the Japanese! I'd rather not know what the Japanese did, because I've read what other Australians have written...about the Japanese POW planes returning empty after a short flight, etc. Thank you for your comment! You get a heart!
Mate thank you for putting out a pod cast about Aussies that all Aussies but very few other know...we are a race of peace lovers that understand to keep our country as free as it is we often have to take the battle and fight fiercely overseas to have an undamaged and free homeland to come back to. What many may not also know, Australia has sent troops to every major war since the bore war in South Africa to WW1, WW2, THE KOREAN WAR, the Malayan war, Vietnam, Timor, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan not to mention various peacekeeping role.
Will Hawney, yes, I've gotten a lotta love from Aussies about this video! I really enjoyed making it and I'm happy that you enjoyed it too! Yes, Aussies have supported most/many of the wars that have been fought. Y'all are generous and have a reputation for sturdy fighters. Even my dad was impressed with y'all and he was a Vietnam vet. Thanks for watching and commenting!
The fact remains that the first loss the Germans experienced in WW2 was in fact at El Alamein at the hands of the Australians with British and New Zealand contingencies not too far away. The Germans didn't know what hit them with the sheer size and commitment of the Aussies. Brilliant video EmersusTech. Thank you.
As an New Zealand born Australian who had grandfathers and great uncles in both wars including the Middle East I would venture to say that Australian and New Zealand soldiers stuck together and had a generally shared distrust of British officers, I've heard the same from veteran South African soldiers in the middle east. The ANZAC capture of many thousands of Italians is somewhat nuanced, a friends father, an Australian NCO told me that many of the Italians were not Fascist's who supported Mussollini, many were not fond of the Germans and infact the Germans were not very pleased with the Italian soldiers feeling they were disappointing soldiers and very very forward in telling them so. He also remembered speaking with two captured Italian soldiers ( in broken English) who had friends and relatives successfully and happily living in Australia and expressed an interest in emigrating !? Many Italians fought under suffrance and their heart was just not in it, although fascist companies fought very hard. I understand many Italians were put under overall German command and it wasn't an easy association much of the time! The comments further back about most Australian soldiers were from cities and larger towns compared to the bush and outback is correct, however by the standards of today the cities were not that large and even so they were not like well established European cities, with a sedate genteel civility, Australia was only 140 something years old in European settlement ( although has the oldest continuing Indigenous history in the world of between 65,000 to 75,000 years) and was still in a pioneering stage and as with my 2nd generation Scottish origin grandfather from a southern NZ city, they were often competant horsemen, riflemen, wagonmen and drivers due to early adoption of motor transport in both Australia and New Zealand, many were very capable at improvisation and often worked and travelled seasonally in rural areas that were quite undeveloped just outside some of the larger towns, especially during the great depression that hit Australia hard when many men travelled the country seeking work or just food and a bed. The two nations were largely rural farming exporters with a comparatively underdeveloped manufacturing industry as yet. Comparing an English city dweller to colonial settlers across the world living in a larger settlement is not complimentary IMO. Jus sayin'
That famous photo with those two soldiers with fixed bayonets storming a German tank, and the tank commanders lifts his hands to surrender were from the Greek Brigade--the bravest among the brave.
My Dad was in the siege of Tobruk, he said to me once while we were watching some war movie on tv "you'd put a sheet of newspaper on your head when those stukas came in"
I really liked that, as an Australian with a family heritage of ADF service, it made me feel very proud to call myself an Australian. Thank you for sharing this with us.
mrmockatoo, yeah, mate, he was a good help! I'm glad someone noticed and commented on it -- others probably noticed and smirked. :) Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thank you for this. My dad , an Australian, fought in Northern Africa, but said nothing about it. Now I have a better understanding of that campaign from an Australian perspective
Rommel and his Officers were well aware of the Australians exploits during WW1, not necessarily at Gallipoli but in France, most notably their involvement against the German's Operation Michael in 1918, when they were stopped.
Andrew Hart, yes, Rommel probably knew about the Australians' actions during WWI, and that would influence his thinking later. Even so, he saw first-hand how this new generation of Aussies did so well in the desert. Thank you for your comment!
@@EmersusTech Sure, however not so much a 'New Generation', but rather an inherited Tradition of 'ANZAC' and a way of fighting to win against all odds.Some even viewed this Conflict as unfinished business from WW1. Including Veterans from the former. Cheers.
My grandpa fought in the African campaign in the 2/23rd Australian Battalion. The battalion was raised in Albury NSW, though he was from Melbourne. He wrote a book about his experiences which was documented with the sketches he made during his time. Before he left to go to war he thought about becoming a pastor but when he returned he was an atheist. He fought in the 2nd battle of El Alamein and lost many friends there. He was in signals and ended up a Captain by the end of the war. The war was the most central thing in his life. I wished I had talked to him about it more.
I have heard that quote by Rommel many years ago but instead of hell it was " the world ". Can't remember the source but am sure it was a BBC documentary about the Africa campaign. Excellent video and well done on finding those quotes.
Taken from German officers diary. "Our opponents are Englishmen and Australians. Not trained attacking troops but with nerves and toughness tireless taking punishment with obstinacy ,wonderful in defence. Ah well the Greeks spent ten years in Troy From .. PM Churchill l to Australian General Morshead after El alamein The whole empire is watching your steadfast and spirited defence of this important outpost of Egypt with gratitude and admiration
My grandfather was 2nd1st casualty clearing in that part of the war he also completed Egypt Syria and new guinea as he always said it was a long war against a strong enemy but never hold it against the soldiers they were only doing what they were told god bless our soldiers then and now great report mate good to see
Mr ozboss, thanks for retelling what your grandfather told you. We shouldn't forget our history, notwithstanding all this rubbish/crap from the liberal media! Thank you for commenting and watching!
My Grandfather was in the 6th Division. He told a story about when they were up against the Italians. 'Smithy' was found to be AWOL again and was going to be in Deep Trouble when he got back to his unit. After a few hours, a dust cloud could be seen approaching HQ. The dust cloud got bigger and bigger ... WTF? It turned out that over 600 Italians had surrendered to 'Smithy' Smithy was 'Drunk as a Lord' and being carried by his prisoners! He was awarded a medal instead of being put on a charge!
Growing up in Melbourne, I had the honour of meeting a number of the men who served in the 2nd AIF and the 39th Battalion of the Militia, including some of the Rats of Tobruk. One still had his great coat with with special T unit markings they were permitted to wear after the Siege of Tobruk. I can confirm that the taking of prisoners was not a high priority for these men. They had enlisted and trained for War, and water, food, and medicine was in very short supply in the Western Desert and New Guinea. They were not inclined, after suffering such great privations, to share what little provisions they had with captured Axis forces. In return they also expected no quarter and so could be relied upon to fight to the death.
Australia was so young at both world wars. We live on hard land and survived with the help of our first nations. The country was still very raw at the turn of the 20th century. Im so glad our military stories are being told, we have so many men to be proud of who lost their lives just getting their mates to the next trench. Those who survived do so because they have been surviving Australia long before the war started. I spent only 3 years in the Army during the early 80's and trained by some amazing viet vets. War will never be like that again.
Cquinn Lady, it's nice to hear from a true lady! Yes, there are a few of us on RUclips who want to tell the stories the way they really were and some that were never told! Thank you for watching EmersusTech and commenting!
The BS "First nations" inclusion ? BTW I'm a retired Army Veteran with 37 years service. Cut the Woke / Politically correct crap, it was never a part of our military ethos or culture.
My uncle was a rat of Tobruk 2/48 Marched into Africa saw alot of his Friends die. He said the Germans showed Imense Chivalry towards wounded soldiers on both sides. They gave the Germans there first defeat of WW2. After Tobruk he marched out of Africa and Marched into New Guinea to fight the Japanese. The situation was so dire in New Guinea that they were sent almost straight there and relieved the Emaciated remnants of the 39th Batallion. They still had there summer african desert uniforms on. The Japenese soldier at the time showed no chivalry to captured or wounded soldiers. His two collar lugs off his old uniform are in a tin and they have something written on them in Latin. I looked it up and it says translated to English. NEVER DEFEATED And they werent. The 2/48 were a highly decorated brigade and were disbanded in 1946. When he joined up in 1939 at woodside Adelaide he and another soldier were given the job of Guarding the Murray Bridge road Bridge with one at each end. They each carried a 303 rifle and wore ww1 Uniform. Great Video ansd subscribed.
Your uncle was in the 9th division? My grandfather was in the 7th division. But I had an great uncle that was in the 9th division that fought in Tobruk except he was killed coming back home when an Italian aircraft bomb his ship.
My dad was with the 10th Militia Battalion at Woodside, Dad was from the Wall Flat area near Murray Bridge and I have a photo of him with 2 other soldiers on the approach to the Murray Bridge railway bridge, dressed in WW1 uniforms and 303 rifles, they were horsing around with my dad standing over another soldier with his 303 and bayonet. Dad later joined the navy and was in Darwin when it was first bombed and later on convoy duty. Nice story Ginger Megs.
Hope you make one on the New Zealand troops. I often feel that the word ANZAC is not fully understood by those outside of Australia and NZ and that many think it just means "Australia" Probably most of the German troops at the time had the same misunderstanding. It's interesting to me to see so much about the Australians in the Western desert because I have to admit I didn't realise they played such a major part compared to the New Zealanders. I had thought they were taken away from Europe/Africa early on to confront Japanese incursions in New Guinea. I don't think they were in Tunisia or Italy with the Kiwis (maybe I'm wrong about that too)
Keith Tonkin, I'm actually working on something now about NZ. There's a lot of research to do for each video, more than may be obvious. Some things I find I can't use, but I can use later, etc. Thanks for the comment!
The Commonwealth troops were excellent, all round. Don't let the movies twist history. The Kiwis and Brits had to change over with the Aussies at Tobruk. At Gallipoli; Kitchener's plan was a debacle but Brits, Kiwis and Aussies fought together. The movie Gallipoli in which the producers lied showing British commanders shoving Aussies into the mouths of guns is utterly false. Churchill as Lord of the Admiralty took full responsibility for the terrible loss of life and went into the trenches as a major.
The 6th division was in action against Italian German and Japanese there cavalry units were sent to fight Vichy French. nth Africa and Syria Greece and crete New Guinea The silent 7th division fought all the kings enemies Italian, Vichy French,German and Japanese. Libya, tobruk,Syria,new Guinea, Borneo The broken 8th division engaged Japanese in Malaya , Dutch East Indies The 9th division in action against German Italian and Japanese. North Africa and pacific theatre
Proud to say my grandfather Wally Drewett was one of those 6 th division fellas that first took Bardia and Tobruk. I have a photo of him standing next to two Italian prisoners. However soon after he was fighting an ss panzer division in Greece who also had good air support. So that was a whole new ball game. I remember him saying loved the Greek people.
There wasn't any German SS panzer division in the Greek campaign. There was 1 SS motorised infantry regiment as part of XL Corps - the LSSAH - and it was, as a fighting force, regarded as trash at that stage of the war. Enthusiastic, but militarily, trash. It never came near the Australian 6th Division in Greece.
@@Nathan-ry3yu no the 9th came later after they had moved the 6 th to Greece. The 6 th were part of the forces that repelled the Italian invasion of Egypt when Italy entered the war.
@@iatsd actually they did fight the waffen SS. From wiki . ( The Waffen-SS did not probe the British Empire's front until the afternoon of 11 April. This included an encounter with Australian artillery positions on the main road; ) You might think they were considered trash from the safety of your computer screen but I'm sure you would have other ideas when they attack you in force with full air support. Go and trash the memory of your ancestors. Just don't try do it with mine.
It's so strange that the Germans had respect for the Aussies seeing that we were on opposite sides. At the end of the day we are all brothers who fought a war for the rich men on this planet. I have so much respect for Germans and have met many and they are wonderful people. God bless Germany, may you all live peaceful lives. From an Aussie brother.
Person of Earth, yes, there were gentlemen on both sides -- even on the German side. There was real honor -- I wonder if we still have that today? Thank you for watching and commenting!
Known a few WW11 ex diggers. One was awarded for Bravery fighting in Libya and was wounded still had shrapnel in him. Another was captured fighting in Crete and was sent to Poland to work in a mine . Another who fought in the pacific theatre and just said he would never forgive the Japanese. Another who lived next to my grandmother just spent all day working in his shed in the back yard, he repaired a fishing rod for me. I will never forget them
Krupt Wilson, yes, there were a few US WWII/Korea vets around me when I grew up, but I mostly didn't realize what an opportunity it was to interview them (because of my age) and then it was too late. Thanks for your comment and watching!
The germans had been well aware of australians from WW1. They had a rule of thumb that if the guys in the trench opposite you where Australians or Canadians it was trouble. If you ever found out that the trench opposite you was manned by Australians and Canadians, then a big attack was coming.
Good to see Rommel differentiated Australians from the British and didnt assume we were one and the same. We are not. Out of all the men in my family who served, the ones that saw action never returned.
Rommel said of the British at EL Alamein............. "The British Guards Brigade was almost the living embodiment of the virtues and faults of the British soldier - tremendous courage and tenacity combined with a rigid lack of mobility. At one battle this division had mauled our German units". So I am not sure he felt that there was much difference except the tactics. You can find comments by German commanders about British soldiers at Arnhem saying they were the toughest soldiers they had ever faced.................and you can probably find the same about any nation if you search.
hey mate you might want to check out Gen Sir John Monash from WW1 and see what Monty had to say about him and what he got up to. As a quick tid bit he planned the first use of combined arms warfare and was the first foreign General to command American soldiers in battle in 1918
Ah yes the creeping Artillery maneuver lol Ive read alot about Monash , he was the one that devised the idea of moving the infantry just behind the Artillery shell explosions , because it was the norm for solders to bunker down when the artillery came , and he had it timed that as the bombardment crept over the position , his men were jumping in the enemy Trenches , and then the Tanks would roll through and do damage behind. Sounds simple , but he was the first to think "hmm lets try something different than full frontal suicide charges" He also used smoke to cover thier movement, his planning was meticulous, and the only time he made a mistake , was because he was rushed, and couldnt plan it to the 9th degree. Refreshing to find a General that didnt use his men as canon fodder.
I really wish Australians would stop with this shite about Monash being the inventor of combined arms warfare. It simply isn't fvcking true. It was a well known concept taught at Staff Colleges all over the world since the 1890's and the British wars in North Africa. The Russians were the first to put into practice in the modern sense on the Eastern Front in 1915-1916, just as they also developed the idea and tactics of what the Germans came to call "Storm troopers" to be used for breaking trench lines.
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it was British Empire then, not commonwealth
Except Australia already had federation... so it wasn't all the empire.
Ausies massaging their fragile chipped ego again.
Thanks for the recommendation 👍👍👍👍🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺
My great uncle was in the 6th. There training in Australia was done with broomsticks. When they got to North Africa they were issued guns but no bullets. Hence the attempted raid on the enemy's stores.
Story from Tobruk...
A English officer(lieutenant) approached a group of shirtless Australians digging in at Tobruk.
Berating the Australians for not saluting an officer and saying they were undisciplined rabble.
The Australians ignored him except one who stopped and started putting his shirt on revealing that he was a captain.
He ordered the English lieutenant to salute and piss off.
^5 on that one! Sorry Captain, Thank you for treating me as an arsehole said the lieutenant
I'm Australian and that sounds about right.
Thats gold!
Sounds about right. Probably a fresh lieutenant begging for praise.
"Story" ? Fairy tale might be more appropriate. The Australians were under Gen. Morshead, the Australian commander at Tobruk. The "English'" officer would have had no reason to give orders to the Australians, and probably no authority.
After the majority of Australian troops had been evacuated from the tobruk seige, a german officer captured in a offensive asked why the company of Australians who captured him were dressed in Australian uniforms . He said, "all the australians have left, that's why we attacked." The Aussies insisted, no that they were in fact Australian troops. The German officer replied, "no you are British, you only dress like Australians to frighten us."
I saw that account too, in a book, and the reason was that when Tobruk was being relieved of Australians, to send to New Guinea, the last group's ship was sunk; so they had to stay on, and frightened some enemy during the (next) battle to re-take Tobruk.
@@noplanb8853 I would like to read that, which book please?
Well actually, the British 70th Division who relieved the Aussies not only suffered the siege but also broke out and pushed Rommel's armies back. Also remember, that even when the Aussies were holding out for 241 days, there were 6000 Brits there too, including Commando Units who carried out the Twin Pimples raid. There are so many invented quotes when it comes to the Aussies, some of which may even be true, but give actual references rather than saying "my Uncle once told me that a German officer said etc etc..........."
@@OldWolflad jealousy isn't a good look.
@@SamO-ik2cm I agree, but bullshit is even worse (:-
I have two friends who fathers were Italian soldiers in North Africa. They were so impressed with the Australians that they migrated to Perth WA to start a new life...
Many on the losing side fled retribution from their own people after the war.
Argentina got German Nazis, Australia got Italian Fascists and Greek Communists.
G'day from WA
That's grand
Western Australia is the best place in the world I reckon
Perth is a great city to live in.
The Germans , esoecially Rommel was impressed by the Italians too. The Bersagleri in particular
My grandfather emigrated to Australia from Scotland before the war. He fought in Tobruk and told me a couple of amazing stories one of which was about the night some Aussies dismantled and entire steam locomotive and buried it in the sand. He may have told me why but I was just a kid then and that explanation is lost in time. Another story was about how the aussies he was with found a piano in a bombed house and carried it back to the trench and played it during a bombardment. He was very proud to have served with the Australian army.
Vox AC30, I can't easily imagine them burying an entire steam locomotive, but only two guesses come to mind: 1) Deny it to the enemy. 2) Come back to it as a memorial years later. Either way, it's crazy...but crazy things happen in war. They must've had a lot of energy, been drunk and/or a lot of spare time with nothing to do, imo. In WWI, both sides had weird things in the trenches -- to make themselves at home. A piano is not so weird as it sounds. Thanks for your comment and watching!
@@EmersusTech you might find the recovery of one of the first German tanks in ww1 interesting. Saw it at the Canberra war museum. Recovered by Aussie soldiers and sent back to Australia where it’s been a museum piece since. Also saw the ‘red barons’ articles of clothing there.
@@SirBigzalot Here in Brisbane, Queensland, we suspect we've been swindled out of that A7V tank, the last remaining WW1 German AFV on Earth. They were supposed to return it to Brisbane - where it has been since 1918 - ages ago !! As for the Red Baron items, this is due to a common belief in Australia that it was an Australian machine gun crew who shot down the Red Baron, not the Canadian pilot Roy Brown. I have no opinion to offer on this controversy, but the War Museum in Canberra certainly pushes the "our boys did it" story heavily !!
Sounds about right lol
@@TomasFunes-rt8rd That "common belief" has since been proved by Canadian war historians. They even narrowed it down to which Australian soldier did it.
My Dad landed in England with his Canadian Dragoon Regiment and were held on the docks for inspection along with a newly arrived Australian group. After a long wait in ranks waiting for a VIP, the Australian officer dismissed his troops by saying "Right, we're off to the pub. Send a runner when the muckety muck arrives". My Dad always admired them for their toughness and their irreverence for authority.
Lol, this sounds about right to me. Hello from down under!
Australian units weren't in England in WW2 except as part of the RAF. The units serving in the RAF didn't arrive by sea to England. They all arrived in Northern Ireland and then went to England by ferry. Any inspections would have taken place in NI or at their destination air bases. So ...... nice story, but didn't happen.
My grandfather served with the 2/9th Infantry battalion AIF which was diverted to the UK en route to the Middle East in 1940 as France had fallen.
Part of the 18th Brigade moved to Salisbury then Colchester.
There were also Australian army forestry units felling timber in Scotland during the war.
The 2nd Australian Imperial Force in the United Kingdom
The third Australian Imperial Force convoy left Australia in November 1939 bound for the Middle East, but was diverted to help garrison Britain, which was threatened with invasion. The Australians began disembarking at Gourock, near Glasgow, on 17 June 1940. The force was 8000 strong, almost half of the 6th Australian Division. The Australians were sent to a tented camp on Salisbury Plain. Brigadier Winter, who was with the convoy, was appointed to command the AIF in Britain. On 4 July 1940 King George inspected the men and a week later the AIF suffered its first battle casualty when a German aircraft strafed the camp, wounding Private Arthur Webb of Adelaide, South Australia. Training was completed in September and the Australians were given the role of mobile reaction force, to deal with any German parachute landings in the region. None came, and with victory in the Battle of Britain and the arrival of winter ending the possibility of a German cross channel invasion, the Australians were sent to the Middle East at the end of the year.
Britain had also asked its Dominions for specialist non-combat troops. Three companies of Australian Foresters, numbering about 600 men, arrived in July 1940 and as 6th Division elements were leaving Britain a new Australian force came: the Railway Construction and Maintenance Group, 300 strong. Based at Longmore in east Hampshire, they built storage sidings and maintained strategic railway tracks.
The foresters included many volunteers from Commonwealth and State forest services. War is a great consumer of wood and the foresters were set to cutting timber in Northumberland, and later Scotland, working in snow, which most of the men had never seen, in the unusually harsh winter of 1940-41. The specialist foresters, assisted by Italian prisoner of war labourers, produced ten million metres of sawn timber in three years in Britain.
In Dumfries in 1942 the Australian Foresters won the 'championship of Britain', an axeman-ship and sawing competition, against their New Zealand counterparts. The New Zealanders were defending the title, having won in 1941. The hero of the day was Sapper Ian Harrington, from Beech Forest, Victoria. Though he had been in bed sick the day before, he easily won the two main events for the Australians, setting the team on the road to victory. The Australian High Commissioner, Sir Stanley Bruce, came from London for the event.
From 1943 the Foresters, the last large body of AIF troops in Britain, began returning to Australia.
A small AIF headquarters and liaison office was maintained in London under Brigadier-General Wardell. It was enlarged in January 1945 to deal with the thousands of AIF prisoners of war (POWs) that began to arrive in Britain from liberated POW camps.
The staff of 2/3rd Australian General Hospital (AGH), arrived at Gourock and Liverpool from May 1940. Six nursing sisters of the 124 Australian Army Nursing Service that served in the UK were posted to the Tidworth Military Hospital on Salisbury Plain, where they assisted in providing medical care for the AIF force there. During the Battle of Britain the remainder established 2/3rd AGH at Hydestile, Surrey, 50 kilometres south of London. Bombs fell near the hospital and staff often worked wearing helmets and respirators.
It certainly makes a fella feel proud to be Aussie hearing things like this about our courageous soldiers. I remember seeing the late US senator John McCain being asked about war one evening and he replied something similar to... if he was in a raging battle, the best he could hope for was to have an Aussie by his side.
Preview43, yes, I've read other comments by Australians writing that your WWII isn't really taught to this detail. Thank you for your comment!
As I mentioned above my best friend was a US Marine in Vietnam in '67. He had a good deal of contact with diggers and had nothing but the highest respect for them.
You should be! Lineage of Lions!
Quoting McCain tells us all we need to know about you...
As an Aussie I'm very thankful that our small nation can punch above its weight.
As mentioned in the video... they fought for their mates.
God rest the souls of those Diggers.
It's really interesting to know what different nationalities thought of a particular nation's troops. I remember watching a documentary on the Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea during WW2. An American pilot based in Port Moresby told the story of his interaction with Australian troops. He put in a request for a transfer as he felt the Australian troops all hated him and he didn't know why. They just constantly kept making jokes at his expense. The commanding officer, an Australian, just laughed and said that if they're making fun of you, then they consider you one of their own. If they didn't like you, they'd just ignore you. I found it a pretty interesting observation.
Over here (Australia) its commonplace to make fun of your freinds is it different in the states or where you are from?
It does depend on the relationship. Imo, if you've known the person for many years and you're really close, then a little good-natured jabbing is okay. Other than that, no, I don't think it's a good thing to "make fun of your friends" nowadays. Years ago, maybe in the US. People in the US have gotten so sensitive that it's near impossible to make almost any sort of joke because people get offended by the least little things, even things that shouldn't be offensive to anyone. People read things into emails that aren't there -- "reading between the lines". I have run into this relatively recently and it's very irritating. Jerry Seinfeld and other comedians have mentioned this that they simply can't do comedy much anymore -- because someone always gets offended. Look at the Chris Rock thing with Will Smith. I'm not defending what Chris Rock said, but he certainly didn't mean it offensively. In fact, Will Smith was laughing at it at first before he turned back to look at his wife. Thanks for commenting!
@@EmersusTech So true. At least, at this point in time, Australian humour has held mostly true. When looking back at the ANZACs in WW1 and 2, the concept of mateship and being their for your mates was key. And, as they were your mates, you could be as rude and brutally honest as you want, and that was respected. I'd personally still take that today over fake media outrage, regardless of your political opinions. You see it during the fires and floods. I think it's what made the troops that bit different. It's why I like the story of the American pilot at Port Moresby. At the end of the day, it's inclusive, but you've got earn your entry pass. :)
As an Aussie, sounds about right. I worked for an employer where we had a yank. I'd rib him, which us Aussies do to each other, but was pretty sensitive about it until he got used to my humour.
It’s basically spot on. Hard for foreigners to pick. An Aussie who doesn’t like you will either ignore you or seek to provoke you into a response/altercation.
There is a subtle middle ground where Australian’s (men especially) largely dwell... ‘taking the piss.’... out of anyone who strays into their field of fire... self-deprecating in equal measure tho.
I met a man and his family 50 years ago in Wollongong NSW. He was of German descent and had been a soldier in WWII. He told me he had served under Rommel in North Africa and had fought the Australians at Tobruk, where he was wounded. He told me that he made the decision then that when the war was over, irrespective of who won, he was going to emigrate to Australia to live, such was his respect for Australians and the bravery and tenacity they showed during the many attacks they suffered. He felt so proud of their fighting prowess, he couldn't live anywhere else.
Sadly, he passed away about 10 years later. His wife told me he had refused to be repatriated back to Germany after his death, he wanted to remain in the land of those brave people he had come to love and respect.
sniperneil53, what a nice story! For this, you get a heart!
My grandfather was a staff Sargent, training soldiers, before insisting on fighting overseas. He fought in PNG and Borneo towards the end of the war.
His mates, his brother in law and others, fought in Tobrook and Europe.
I never met him. He came back with malaria but worked his arse off on a block of land he was gifted after the war. He died from a horse accident when my mum was a little girl, 6 kids in total.
Anyway, he called his first son Irwin, my uncle, and I've since realised it had a lot to do with the respect that he and other Australian soldiers had for Rommel.
He would've fought against my Father.
Dad was born in Newcastle NSW but moved to Wollongong with his family when he was 13.
He met & and married my Mother who was from the Gong.
We lived in Gwynneville.
LEST WE FORGET
I joined the Australian Army in 1958 as a 17 year old and I can tell you we all looked up to those who went before.I served for 27 years and would like to think that we carried on the tradition of the "Digger" I served in malaya within a british Regt of ROYAL ARTILLERY I also did two tours of VIET NAM I feel sure that we did the memory of the DIGGER proud.
Dave, you may enjoy this video:
A Vietnam Veteran's True Story
ruclips.net/video/Qixfo8iR-LE/видео.html
Thanks for the comment!
I just watched the documentary on the battle of long tan for the 7th time. Still get a bit teary about what you boys went through. Thankfully for your service.
Dave, it was you lads who "raised" me after I joined at 17 in '83. You did a good job of upholding the ideals. Sadly, after you, our mob started the softening of the ADF with lowering of standards and I am ashamed that happened on my watch.
Thanks for your service mate
Thanks mate
Aussies were tough, and Australia was a very tough country when these men were growing up close to a century ago. My Popa served in Egypt and then on to the Front in France where he was mustard gassed and repatriated to England. These men of that time were strong willed and bred tough as nails, and we all owe them so much.
Kerra 369, thank you for your Popa's service in the fight in World War I! Thanks for your comment and watching!
Oh yeah like multicultural cesspit Australian cities are now.
And if they were like my grandfather, wounded and discharged three times but still re-enlisted to serve on the Western Front, they had an idea of service that baffles me.
As an Australian (with mostly English background) I want to bow and give my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who commented that their ancestors served Australia during times of war. Thank you for their service. I can’t imagine how proud you must be. And to those from other nations that have fought for (and alongside) your Australian friends. This video makes me so proud to be Australian. It should almost be compulsory viewing every Anzac Day morning.
johnnys8393, There's a new video out that you may want to see:
Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel
ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
Beautifully said, thank you.
Used to show old footage up until late 90s all wars and brilliant footage dunno why it isn't shown anymore sadly
The Australians were the first to defeat both the Germans and Japanese in land battle, 2nd battle of El-Alamein Tobruk and Milne bay respectively. Paving the way for the defeat of Axis. My uncle Tommy AIF 2/15 and 10th fought in both battles plus more, along with my uncle Gil RAN CMF (choko) Milne bay. From the blistering desert to mountainous rain soaked jungle, how good are Australian soldiers? RIP thank you for your service.
My dad was at Milne Bay👍🏻
My great uncle fought at Milne bay at 18 I believe. Virnal Cooney rip.
Interesting point about Milne Bay.
Have never read anything on surviving Japanese.
Think the boys took to them with the bayonets,right into the surf.
Japanese weren’t up for surrendering and our boys would have hated them by that stage.
My gramps and his brother were up north at Wewak at the time. 2/4th. Gramps, brother won the v.c then.
Damn man, had no idea, and really pissed off that this wasn't taught more in depth in schools growing up.
Us Australians go hard.
The British had the deepest respect and admiration for the Australian soldiers. WE STILL DO, AND ALWAYS WILL.
Keith Shwalbe, thank you for that nice comment!
we are going to need it unfortunately
God save our Charlie...
Doubtful. Britain has long treated Australia with contempt. General MacArthur was appalled at Britain’s disloyalty to Australia and ensured that they had command of British forces in the occupation of Japan and the Korean War.
@@seanlander9321 Thats what i was thinking.
Aussies had huge losses in every war commanded by British.
Aussies were used as cannon fodder and barely get credit for defending britain.
The Germans in WW1 hadn't just heard of the Australians from Gallipoli, they had fought them all through France and were well aware of the capabilities of Australian troops.
Charles DuMar, you're totally right, however, I was simply mentioning a WWI front in passing. Thank you for bringing it up, even so!
Also they saw what happened at Beersheba
I had the privilege of meeting and being trained by a soldier from the 9th, who had been a Rat of Tobruk, brought home and served through PNG and the Solomon Islands, then after WW2 taken part in the occupation of Japan (where he met his wife and took her home to Australia), then served in Korea and finally served 3 years in-country in the AATTV in Vietnam (the most highly decorated unit of the Vietnam War), again brought his wife home from Vietnam (his Japanese wife had sadly died from cancer in the '50's). This was in the early 80's and he had served from 1941 as a 17 year old, was a WO1 / Regimental Sargeant Major and had been allowed to serve at 59 years old, part time beyond mandatory retirement age (his mate was the Chief of the Army)...boy now he had some stories - very weird when your 'old' Major who had also served in the AATTV with him, was all googly-eyed over his stories ;-). Well departed now, such a great man - god bless WO Robby.
thats awesome !!!,
my grandfather fought in ww1 then africa and new guinea in ww2, got wounded in both wars, my father was an underaged cadet when the korean war started so he stowed away on a ship going to korea, he was placed as a batman to an officer until he turned 18 and was allowed to fight, he then served in malaya then joined the Aussie SAS in their early days, becoming a platoon commander, later he transferred to the AATTV and was unfortunately killed in action in 1966, RIP dad, you relentless warrior :).
Yes AATTV was "the most highly decorated unit" *of the Australian units* in Vietnam....
Good story. I guess he may had known my great uncle who also was in the 9th division and fought in Tobruk in 1939/1941. And he may had known my farther who also served in Vietnam. My dad was in the battle of long tan he was with the special ops SAS my dad did 5 tour's in Vietnam from 1963 to 1970
Wow you have to admire a commitment to others that strong, and for so long, it makes my day that he has someone like you to keep his name alive. We cannot repay that generation enough so thanks for your respect you show to them. 😉👍🏴☠️
Those stories if you remember them clearly are worth writing down and sending to the national war museum in Cambera mate, that is history that will be lost other wise
I (German) served with Aussies in the Rhodesian Security Forces. My BN CO was Aussie, Joe Flanagan, the COY OCs were Aussies, Bruce Ralston and Gordon Forgoty. Great Guys. I had the DAK Sign (GermanAfricaCorps) painted on my "Puma" (Armoured Vehicle) and the Aussies Känguruhs. Excellent Soldiers, hard drinkers and very disciplined (could be mistaken for Germans lol)
Sounds very interesting to me. Did you ever write about your experiences during the rhodesian conflict in german or english language? Thanks for a reply.
Did you ever meet an American named Jeff Apolonario?
Possibly because several states had significant German (and other central European) migrations between the 1830's-1890's (plus a significant migration post WWII). Indeed, up until 1915, German was the second most common language in the state of South Australia, with many South Australian units having fluent German speakers in their ranks. Also, many of the Kopi's in PNG (a sort of blended police officer and government representative in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea) were required to speak German, as the north of New Guinea had previously been a colony of the German Empire. In fact, in WWII, many Germans served in Australian and Dutch forces in SE Asia against the Japanese. Several Coastwatchers (an Australian naval intelligence service) were Germans by nationality, but were vital sources of information for some of the biggest campaigns of the Pacific (and Burmese) War! In an intriguing fashion, many families would have sons and husband's away at war in the Australian forces while the wives and children were interred as Germans (although in most places, while there was some suspicion of ethnically German families, the families would continue working their farms as part of the war effort. Again, South Australia was rather unusual in that Air Raid Wardens, Militiamen, Post Masters, etc, would often be people of German ancestry who were too old or unfit for regular military service).
Of added interest, Barossan German is still the dialect of German spoken in many parts of South Australia, named for the Barossa Valley, which is an area mostly populated by German descendents, and a noted wine region.
I ( also born in Germany) served with Aussie’s in Vietnam 1970, signed on to be career soldier, that came to an abrupt end when I was critically wounded after our patrol was attacked with a command detonated anti personnel mine . Good for you .
So you were a Nazi killing Zimbabwean freedom fighters?
G'day ET, I'm an Australian military historian who, for nearly 16 years has focused, part time, on the life and career of Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey. Australia's first and only Field Marshal. When given the job of Commanding General of the 2nd A.I.F. in 1939 he wrote a Charter of how his forces would be used in the upcoming World War. It stipulated that Australian forces could not be used by British or other Allied commands without his express written permission. This was to avoid Australian soldiers being used by British commanders as 'cannon fodder' as they sometimes were.
While the 2nd A.I.F. was still training and acclimatising in Egypt General Blamey became concerned that British officers were repeatedly accusing or trying to charge Australian troops with minor and serious disciplinary offences.
Blamey, personally, and with the aid of his command's senior legal officer, formerly investigated every single case or charge levelled at the Australians.
After due investigation Blamey met with General Wavell to inform him that all allegations against Australian troops were foundless.
Then followed a semi-private, heated argument between the two commanders.
Blamey used his Charter, signed by the Australian Prime Minister, exactly as Blamey had written it, to dissuade Wavell from entertaining anymore accusations brought against Aussies by any British officer. (NB: later in the war Blamey and Wavell became genuine friends.)
It was Wavell himself who flew to Greece to personally evacuate Blamey. Blamey agreed to leave Greece only after he was certain "his boys" were safely on or near the evacuation beaches he designated on his very first day in Greece.
He wasn't defeatist, he was a highly intelligent soldier who knew the entire Greek campaign would fail before he arrived. He had word that he'd find the Greeks 'thinner on the ground' than promised. Blamey didn't accuse the Greeks of any cowardice, on the contrary.
He knew the entire theatre was another one of Churchill's 'stunts' for the benefit of F.D.R. to keep showing the American President that Britain was serious about attacking the Nazi threat.
Sadly, these days in Australia, Sir Thomas Blamey is barely known of, or if he is he is remembered as a highly controversial officer, mostly because of his short inter-war stint as the Chief Commissioner of Police in the State of Victoria, Australia.
As to Rommel, I have every one of your citations in our extensive private archive. The quip that is attributed to Rommel about attacking Hell etc. It does appear in some old ‘copied’ documents I discovered in the British National Archives among some files held about Rommel, and referred to among the many papers, signals traffic and some diaries pertaining to, or by Rommel himself.
I'll say I think that quote has around a 98 percent probability of being genuine.
While Rommel admired Australian and New Zealand troops, I can assure you from stories from my uncle Dan (an Australian Officer of Engineers with the 9th Division) who said, generally speaking, Aussie troops were not likely to admire any enemy commander as the Aussies saw them as the reason they were in the fight and so far away from home.
Lastly, to redress many untrue yarns of Aussie troops disliking General Blamey; when Field Marshal Blamey died in 1951, in Melbourne, Australia, many thousands of former WW2 soldiers voluntarily marched behind their old 'Bosses' coffin in what many sources said, at the time, was the largest funeral in the history of Australia.
Cheers, ET and all the best, Bill Halliwell
For anyone interested in Field Marshal Blamey they can visit:
www.TheBlameyEnigma.com.au
Bill Halliwell, it is nice to have an Australian historian comment on a video about Australians. It's even better to state that he has the quotes that I used from FM Rommel! Yes, Field Marshal Sir Thomas Albert Blamey was in at least one of the pictures in the video -- perhaps two (I'd have to look it up if I wanted to know for sure). Thank you for your contribution -- you get a heart!
Could you give the reference / specific location please for the hell quote, otherwise it remains as hearsay, I will happily check it out and vindicate it, if it was indeed said by Rommel. If I had found it in any archives I would have replicated it and noted exactly where it was found for authenticity reasons. If you say it happened, I do believe you, but when I know for sure, I would then go back and correct my previous posts, in fairness to everyone. I have struggled finding any authenticity for this quote, having contacted German historians who know nothing about Rommel having said it and who feel it is totally contrived , and I have today contacted the British national Archives to see if they can vindicate it where you say you found it. I will feed back if I get anything, but it would help greatly if you could expand further regards what exactly you were looking at when you saw it.
You left out the ‘run rabbit run ‘ comment by Blamey about withdrawal along Kokoda Track. With the men hissing him……An utterly complete misreading of what the soldiers faced and their lack of equipment, just the barest basics.
@@rossmcintyre1710 He was hated more for the run rabbit run than his activities in Melbourne. NSW and Queensland to a lesser extent didn't give a stuff about Victorians especially the aerial pingpong. When he visited the troops in the hospital the patients were eating lettice (whether this is true or not I don't know) so he got the sh**s and turned around and walked out
I agree. There was some tarnish on Blamey's reputation, especially after the "Australians fight best when their tired" quip. But to be fair, he did a hell of a lot dogged and excellent negotiating in shielding, sheperding , coercing, and good all round foil for Monash in the first stunt.Organising and sorting out the other nation's officers, the competent from the ambitious etc . I recall Monash was quoted as saying he was my "good attack dog". I think Blamey's Father was a drover, so really tough beginnings
My grandad died in Kokoda and my uncle Alf fought at Dunkirk, North Africa, Crete and then finally (& by this time a Major) at Milne Bay PNG. In the last few months of his life Uncle Alf became distraught about the lives he had taken. (Crete btw was a bloodbath, completely out of ammunition it came down to bayonets and hand to hand) how could he face God he said after all that he had done? And that’s the legacy of war. Broken Men, sundered family’s. Destroyed lives. My mother losing her father at 6 years of age. An entire generation of the young men of my country sacrificed. Twice. In two world wars. That’s why ANZAC day is such a big deal to both us and the Kiwis.
Lest We Forget….
PlanetDisco, yes, it haunted him -- what he did. A lot of that wasn't well understand back in those days. Yes, Lest We Forget! Thanks for your comment!
Least We Forget
Thank you for your story and comments.
I sometimes wonder that as we remember them, how do we not end up in more unnecessary conflicts and will the current generations be able to pick the fights we ought to fight in time to stop bigge r problems developing. Your forebears came from serious hard working stock not propped up by social welfare or weakened by the diseases of entitlements and woke culture?
I would have encouraged your Uncle Alf to look at it this way: yes,millions of people died...soldiers and civilians,But it,unlike some wars,was a war that *had* to be fought lest psychopaths like Hitler and Tojo were allowed to rule most of the world. I have no doubt that God,although He is always displeased by warfare,understands that there are times when people must resist men like them.I'd wager that your Uncle Alf had little,or no,trouble standing before Saint Peter whereas Hitler....
And one last point: the US Marines 1st Division has "Waltzing Matilda" as their unit "theme" as a sign of gratitude for the amazing hospitality that Australians showed them during WWII. I can't recall the entire story but you can look it up if you have a few free minuted.
RIP, your Grandad
There is a story about Generals Montgomery & Freyberg, NZ Div Commander with LRDG Troopers. “Monty: Your chaps don't salute much! Freyberg: Oh if you wave ... They'll wave back!”
There's another story about two British junior officers complaining to their superior officer about the Australian refusal to salute British officers.
The senior Brit officer had served in WW1 and knew the Australians quite well from that conflict. He told the two junior Brit officers that they were lucky, because in WW1 not only would they not salute Brit officers they would walk over them!
The Germans knew what the Australians were like in WW1. They faces the 5 divisions under General Monash. the "Black Day" coined by General Ludendorf was caused by Australians routing his army.
Yep Australians and Canadians who made more ground that first day.
The History Guy:History Deserves To Be Remembered channel has a great video on the John Monash and the Australians in WWl, I highly recommend it if you've not already watched it.
@@tobinsarttrading1733 The attack was planned by General Monash. It involved 4 Australian , 2 Canadian and the New Zealand divisions. It was reported in British press as an "Allied Success" They were unwilling to let on it was dominion troops for fear that we would perceive it as being used as expendable troops. Hence it was many years before the truth came out.
@@Will_CH1 my Australian grandfather a farrier,Jack, was In those battles and commented in his diaries that the English professional forces had been shot right out and had very young poorly trained skinny boys conscripted (flying Tommys) which everyone made an effort to keep them out of harms way
Monash didn't plan the entire Advance on August 8th, just the Australian part. The Canadians were led by the equally as venerated - Arthur Currie who planned and led their own operation beside ours.
I once read a story about a badly wounded American Soldier who was being cared for by an Aussie nurse during WW2.
"Excuse me ma'am, did I come here to die?"
The nurse replied, "No mate, yer came 'ere yesterdie".
Grumpyoldfart, that's really funny! You get a heart for that one! Thanks for watching and the joke!
Captain Mannering said the same joke on Dad's Army
@@johnwatters6922 So I wonder which one copied the other ?
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Princess Anne told that joke in an interview years ago.
As a Australian we aren't actually taught our own history. So this is refreshing to know.
Stephen Bachman, yes, that's one thing I love about RUclips -- you can watch what you want to watch, for as long as you want to watch. I would like to say that RUclips doesn't edit channels, but that's not true -- I was subscribed to a channel that disappeared one day. So, not perfectly free speech. Thanks for watching!
I'm an Aussie and exploits of our Diggers and the esteem that Rommel held them was known by many of my generation (I'm in my 50s now and come from a military family).
@@EmersusTech RUclips is an odd place since channels are more likely to get in trouble over copyright claims than ToS (which is mostly from jerks who false flag and usually not anything automatic from their bots, which would rather de-monetize or not give algorithmic boost).
That’s so false, if it’s true for schools today thats fucking disgusting, majority of my Australian history and military history and it’s fairly extensive comes from school. Though I grew up in a town that sent soldier to the battlefields of ww2 I’d think all Australians are taught it.
@@sharpshooter_Aus most schools barely cover ww1 and ww2
My Dad, who fought in the desert at El Alamein and elsewhere, told me some interesting stories. One of them always made him laugh as he remembered it. A captured German officer, who was very arrogant, proceeded to lecture his Australian captors about how they were all going to die when Rommel came through them with tanks on his was to Cairo. One of the Australians, a big sergeant, said, "You bastards have to get through us first," shoved him in the back towards the other prisoners and added "Now get on your way!" Everyone laughed uproariously.
My Grandfather fighting in France ww1 shot a German and then went to help him. He stayed with him and they showed each other family photos .My grandfather cried with him while he was dying
No more brother wars
Deep down we are people and we have empathy to fellow soldier
War kills good men
My closest uncle whom was in WWII, said to me, even though a soldier is serving his country, shooting or killing a man who has done nothing to you, will haunt a person. He even said, he hoped he would be forgiven. Bless your late grandfather and the German soldier.
I enjoy hosting exchange students, it is with reverence we share ANZAC day with them. It is a warming thing to host the children of former enemies and make lifelong friends of them.
That was a very gracious report about our soldiers. Thank you for the time that you took in this. Rommel also was a true soldier but not a nazi, earning him the respect of the allied troops
Anthony B, yes, I plan to do one on NZ too, but I need to do more research on certain things. It'll be a while, no doubt. Yes, I enjoyed making it and it was a lot of hard work. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@EmersusTech The better half of the ANZACs - or so they’d have you believe.
@@EmersusTech If you do one on NZ'ers, in WW2, try to include the formation of the LRDG (Long Range Desert Group) in N Africa, mostly Kiwis with some S Africans, they were the forerunner (and later worked with) the SAS. They travelled, mapped, and attacked the enemy, far behind enemy lines, travelling over terrain that was thought to be impassable to vehicles. Really interesting story for military historians. I knew an ex member, back in the 80s, he was in our chess club, never finished a game with him because we would talk about his exploits the whole time :-)
My father was on a merchant ship transporting german pows to England. A small riot started and they tried to take over the ship(to do what? - they probably didn't think that through). The captain came on the loudspeaker and said that if the unpleasantness didnt cease and all german go below, the australians on the ship entering the harbor would board. The germans went below and behaved well the rest of the way to england. My dad never knew if the captain was BSing or not but the germans believed it and wanted no part of that.
If you used to see the on field brawls from Aussie Footy and Union Codes they could knock your head off and a broken nose was a tickle
Aussies and Kiwis are a tough breed, although not about the war, this is a little story Kiwi All Black legend, Wayne ‘Buck’ Shelford told once. “About 10 minutes into the second half, I got kicked in the nuts. And man did it hurt. I felt nothing of it and continued playing," (Later in the dressing room, after a rare loss to France) “It is very morbid, very quiet after the loss, I had to get dressed, I stood up and pulled my strides down and one of the guys from across the room said ‘holy s**t, look at that!’, and one of my testicles had been ripped out of the scrotum and it was hanging between my legs.
I went upstairs into a medical room and had it tidied up and put back together. These things do happen and you’ve just got to play on,” 😯😯(He never mentions he also lost four teeth in that match as well!!😆)
All Militaries success to this day can be atributed to Sir John Monash the grandfather of combined arms. Rest in peace you legend!
Sharpshooter, I've heard others make this comment -- about being the originator of combined arms. Thanks for your input!
@@EmersusTech There were a few others to attempt simmilar ventures to combined arms prior but Sir John Monash was the one who managed to plan it right and perfect it, the others mainly resualted in failure or complete choas on both sides so it can't really be considered a "tactic", The success of hemel where the Allies but mainly australians defeated the germans Monash showed the world what Australia could do, Monash predicted a 90 minute campagin but it took 93 minutes, it was so successful Monash himself provided hot meals to front line soldiers.
@Gavin Coleman Wrong, combined arms isn’t sending everything in to die, it’s coordinated and planned, what you’re referring to is a blitzkrieg and that never really works, look at Russia and Ukraine. Sure they pushed far but it’s not a tactic you can sustain.
@Gavin Coleman
No, Monash perfected it.
Sir John Monash was an engineer. I used to cross a bridge he designed in Hurstbridge (northern suburbs of Melbourne Victoria). It was opened in 1917 and its still there but its only one way. I can't help but think that he turned his engineers mind towards the problem of crossing a German trench line.
My father was in the 9th division, and I also had an uncle in the 6th division. The Afrika Korps, in terms of relative numbers and the length of time spent fighing them were perhaps the best, and most effective, troops the Second AIF ever fought. They fought well, often, and hard. They also had a pretty good sense of humor. To explain - My father was a Forward Observation Officer at Tobruk and El Alamein. There was a German machine gun which was such a pest that they decided to take it out with an artillery shoot. So the Tobruk artillery, including Australian and British artillery, opened fire on this solitary machine gun. The barrage included captured Italian 150mm, Royal Artillery 25 pounders, etc. When the barrage ended, the German machine gunner popped up, waved a "Miss" and ducked back in to his position. This was much to the amusement from the Australian infantry and my dad, who'd watched the whole thing. At that moment, he was the safest guy in North Africa. Nobody would have dreamed of shooting him after that.
LOL. That is like the story of the Russian tank attacking the worn out German line in Ukraine. The tank bravely attacked and was promptly taken out by a German tank. Two of the Russian tankers survived and got out and drew their pistols, waiting to be shot by the Germans. No one fired a shot at the Russians and they finally threw their pistols down and walked to the German lines, stepped over and were shown the way to the coffee area. Not a word was said.
My late father fought with the desert 8th army , he was in the Royal army service Corp , attached to the 51st Highland division , after the large barrage at the opening of the second battle of el Alamein, the Highland division went forward under a creeping barrage with the new Zealanders to there left and the Australians on there right , each division had heavy losses but took there objectives , each of these divisions depended on there colleagues to there left and right , my dad used to quote ( thank god they were ausies and New Zealanders, ), the finest brothers in arms you could wish for , and an honour to serve with , j p
Good on you James, the Brits fought bravely in Africa.
In WWI, the Germans called the Scots "the mad women from hell". They considered the ANZACs and Irish to be "their husbands".
RIP to your Dad... Lest We Forget.
Who on earth would face up to that combination. Brave tribes all
My late father was in The 2nd AIF in North Africa, briefly. He was pulled back to fight the Japanese in New Guinea with a lot of fellow Aussies. My late uncle however, remained there longer & was a “Rat Of Tobruk”. He eventually got out & also finished the war fighting in New Guinea. Dad had many, many stories from the war, but one that comes to mind was when he was in the Middle East. One day their camp was dived bombed by the German Luftwaffe. The British had basically toy planes all lined up on the runway as decoys. The German Stukas did their attack but dropped wooden bombs on said targets with notes actually attached. They read; “We use wooden bombs on toy planes!”🤣 Dad said “Even Jerry had a sense of humour!”😂 Well after the war both had fruitful lives raised families, but carried PTSD for the next 70 years or so until their passings. That was worse than the fighting. “Lest We Forget”.
Yeah nah.. the pommys did that against German decoy aircraft in Europe
Sounds a bit like my own dad's service - over 1400 days (3 and half years) overseas service.
Great war story
My great uncle Colin Craddock served in the 2/16th Australian Infantry Battalion in both Africa and Papua where he died in action. He and some friends walked from Kalgoorlie to Northam some 500 kms to join and fight. they built them tuff back then.
@@hodaka1000 yeah nah
This video makes me very proud to be an Australian my father was a second world war veteran in Kokoda he was in the Middle East also we thank our veterans for keeping our country free
Peter Smith, it was wonderful researching for this video -- I found so much information! Stay tuned for others that are coming down the pike in the future! I'm working on one now that should be absolutely superb, but I won't give away the subject matter. Just keep in mind that some of these videos take a long time to make, because there's a lot of research and putting it all together nicely is important too! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Im Australian, apparently my grandad on my father's side was a medic in Africa against Rommel and definitely later went on to become a nuclear engineer (I have his yearbook from 1964-65) and my nan was a midwife in London dodging bombs to help bring new life into the world...
It's hard to imagine what went through anyone's mind in such a chaotic time.
Mum's dad was a merchant sailor who got packed between mattresses trying to plug a torpedo hole and woke up in hospital, never knowing who saved him to the day he died at 82 years old in about 2002.
All my grandparents moved to Australia from England in the late 50s-early 60s and shortly after my parents were born, and, here I am telling this short story thankfully.
Actually bardia was taken when an australian officer came forward under a white flag and said he had a large force of australians who had been angered by bardia fortress and would massacre them. The italians surrendered to one man with a pistol. I spoke with one of the italians who had been there and he said there was many rumours throughout italy with how australians didnt take prisoners, and performed atrocities and mutilations. These rumours were certainly started by the australians themselves
There is a book written by a german who called them angels and ferocious bayonet fighters after 3 australians surprised them and bayoneted all 12 of them in a few seconds. The same soldiers came of a night after that to give the wounded first aid snd water until the Germans recovered them. I dont know about rommels quote about hell, but he certainly wrote to hitler saying give me 5 divisions of australians and i will win this war when he was in france
Garry Mercer, thank you for your great comment! You get a heart!
I've read hundreds of books about Australians in North Africa during WW2 and I've never heard of these stories, except for the last one but Rommel only said 1 Division of Australians not 5, lol! What book was that? The Afrikakorps is the only formation in Germany to this day that are able to have reunions because there where no atrocities committed in North Africa on both sides.
There was probably one incident involving New Zealand soldiers but when explained to Rommel by the New Zealand officer in charge who had been captured, Rommel forgave him and believed what the N.Z. officer told him. It was dark as it was a night attack and the German soldiers who stood up where actually wounded German soldiers resting in a small building. As the saying goes "Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see!" This stuff happened over 70 years ago who the hell knows what really happened!
@@stuwhiteman3810
With regards to the Australians' abilities in close quarters fighting, it might be attributed to a little known fact about our sporting preferences from the turn of the 20th century until just after the end of the WW2. Cricket and Aussie rules football and neither of the rugby codes was the most popular sport in those years. It was boxing.
During the very tough years of the Great Depression, many Australian pro boxers might have fought as often as two or three times a month, just to put food on the table. Although there may only be two boxing tents now following the agricultural shows circuit around the country, back in those days there were many more and the young locals, in the city or the bush, were very willing to jump into the ring against the tent fighters for the chance to pick up some badly needed cash. It's little wonder that the Germans found them to be a bit of a handful!
@@stuwhiteman3810 yeah well, I believe there was a Kiwi Soldier who masqueraded as a German soldier by donning a uniform, then shot some Germans in the back. I can't remember where, may have been Crete. Not really within the rules of war old chap.....
You wouldn't happen to know the name of the book? It sounds like a great read.
I'm Aussie, My Grandfathers brother is buried over there in El-Alamein.
He fought and died in that battle, His other brother watched him drop from gunfire and just had to leave him there and keep running and pushing forward to advance the position otherwise he wouldn't have made it back either.
Shane McGrath, that's a sad story, to see a brother fall and have to leave him there. So, it seems from your story that noone has ever found the body? I saw something on TV about bodies being mummified by the dry desert. Honestly, he probably was gathered by a German burial party. Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@EmersusTech No sorry, I don't mean left there forever, I just mean in the heat of battle they had to leave him and go back later to gather the dead,
He is buried in the Commonwealth Cemetary over there in El Alamein, Not sure which side gathered his body though but most likely allies.
Thanks for the video, I like to hear all sides of war good or bad, We should never forget otherwise we will repeat it.
Well he’s resting in a nice place, went to the cemetery at ElAlamein about 6 years ago and it was spotless, very well tended by the local Egyptian caretakers.
@richie4540 I was very impressed with the Commonwealth War Cemetery there, too.
The Gernan War Cemetery is where the 9th Division was stationed prior to El Alamein.
Annual war memorial functions rotate between these 2 Cemeteries & the Italian War Cemetery.
The parents of a young South African had his grave stone inscribed with "Here in the fabric of peace we place a precious jewel, our son". Emphasised for me the wickedness of those who start wars.
My grandfather fought at Tobruk. Part of the 9th
He used to tell me stories of how he and his mates would sneak out at night and leave messages on the wires in front of the German placements in orders to psych them out.
He was wounded in action and evacuated,then honorably discharged. He later re volunteered and went to Papua New Guinea.
My father (English) fought with Australians in the first siege of Tobruk and El Alamein.
We migrated to Australia because my father wanted to see what it was about Australia that created the men he fought alongside.
One day he said to me if you ever hear stories about the boys pulling the pin out of a grenade and then throw it to each other then out the slot in the pillar box….just before it went off.
It was true…..
George Woods, yes they were made out of special stuff -- brave! Thank you for commenting and watching!
Have you seen our wildlife?
Couple of stories from my Father regarding his time in Africa.
1. A couple of troops would go behind enemy lines and find the location of the Fuel supply depots. At night they would drive trucks 4okm across the desert (no headlights) to those locations and nick the fuel which was rather effective in stalling tank movements for a while.
2. During one of the two man scouting trips they came across an Italian soldier on his lonesome and promptly captured him. Then one of the Aussies was injured and required assistance. When they got back to their base the uninjured Aussie was carrying his mate and the Italian was trotting along behind holding the rifles.
His response when asked "What the hell were you thinking?"
"The Safety's On".
3. On a night attack across the Desert with very little cover Dad found a nice bit of rock to hunker down beside during some heavy fire. A flare went up and it was then he realised his piece of "rock" was actually a mine that was lying on its side...said he moved rather quickly after that.
4. One Christmas day the respective Officers declared a "day off". No bombing or shooting was agreed. They combined rations for a feed and even arranged for a sports competition between the Germans and the Aussies. Next day they were back to shooting at one another.
Barry French, great stories. I read them with interest. You get a heart!
My uncle Bill, 7th Division recounted the story where he and his mate came across a hastily abandoned Axis airfield. In the mess they found a table set up for a meal hastily left , including a few bottles of wine. Bills mate quickly knocked off the top of the bottle and was about to down it , Stop , struth mate ,it could be poisoned. No worries Bill, there's only one thing I'm scared of , and that's my Missus, and she aint here !
In one of the photos used in this video 13.59 showing a line advancing my uncle Bill recounted that looking down that line you could see your mates twitching involuntarily, like they had the disease St Vitus Dance. It was the automatic reaction as the bullets zipped past your head. He always laughed that the bullet was 1000 yards down range by the time you reacted . Lest we forget the greatest generation
The turks and aussies during Gallipoli also shared anzac biscuits with the turks chocolates. Poor buggers getting those crusty old biscuits and giving aussies chocolate haha.
Photo at 8:17
My father is second from the right he was wounded in the defence of Singapore and captured in early 1942 he was one of six survivors of the Sandakan Death March North Borneo and one of the four who escaped from the extermination camp at Ranau and recovered by members of "Z" Special Force
Photo is taken at either Tarakan or Morotai around August September 1945 after their evacuation from the jungle by two seat light aircraft
The photo includes three of the survivors and three of the pilots who flew them out
The fourth survivor was injured in a takeoff accident at the captured Japanese airstrip at Ranau and has been taken to hospital on landing
hodaka1000, you're the second person to mention that his relative was in a photo in the video! Thank you so much for sharing that with us and for his efforts in the war! You get a heart!
@@EmersusTech
He testified at the War Crimes Tribunals at Rabaul and Tokyo
He passed away in 1997 but still speaks today on video at the National War Memorial Canberra
Wow, I have very mixed emotions of sadness and joy and pride for your father, what a survivor, I don’t mean to be pretentious but I’d be surprised if he didn’t carry a heavy load for the rest of his life being one of the survivors. My pop survived the Thai/Burma railway, he rarely discussed it but when he did it was only about the funny things, he passed away in 1994 at 94 years, my wife’s uncle also survived the railway, both of them were absolute gentlemen and had an incredible and infectious outlook on life.
The RAAF's Airfield Defence Guards (ADG's) lost their first men in Tarakan and Moratai thru airfield fighting patrols(outside the wire) in mopping up operations
Three armies you never want to face combined Australians/NZ, Scotish and Canadians.
The Gurkhas would have to be right up their at the top.
As a Canadian I would add the Gurkas in there.
You would want to face the Australians a lone Nor New Zealand
That’s 4 armies
That's right.
Without looking at the video, I'll tell that he was frightened of them and we Americans without question, admire and fear them as enemies!
Australians often feel more tied to the US than Britain.
They are fantastic allies and are all-in-all fantastic people!
I've several Aussie friends here in Colorado and they all say I need to get there!
I doubt I can but wish I could!
I've always admired those good folk and love them all!
Chris Long, thank you for your interest and comment!
“More tied to the US than Britain” is just not true mate, an I say this as an anti-monarchist Australian Republican. Our slang and manner of speech are very close, pubs, cricket, the monarchy, the commonwealth, a huge diaspora here and there that is larger per capita than in America. There are many things but most Australians do not feel any relation to America but a large one to Poms. We take the piss out them, and them us, but it’s out of respect.
You got that one wrong, the poms were ours brothers and still are!!
As an Australian I can tell you that we feel tied to Australia, not moreso the US or the UK.
Those are other countries not ours
Thanks mate! My good mate married a USA girl and lives in Gettysburg now. Both him and me are ex infantry. My son is serving too. Love the heart of the core USA people too.
I visited the Punchbowl memorial in Hawaii and to see the respect and recognition to our Australian , New Zealand forces was very humbling.
ANZACS. 💯
Thank You to all our allies too.
Together we are strong.
matcole2891, there's a new video out that you may want to see:
Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel
ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
My father was in WW2 and a German POW for 4 years, but here's the thing, he never had a bad thing to say about the Germans, yet he hated the communists who were his allies. Here in Australia growing up in the 1960s I had a mate whose parents were German. My father picked me up from their home one day and he came in and met my mates parents. They sat there drinking tea, then a few beers and for 2 hours they were speaking in fluent German and having a good old laugh. My mate who barely knew any German couldn't understand how my father spoke German and I said , "i think he spent time living in Germany" as i didn't know about his war experience at that stage of my young life.
Antipodean33, thank you for your story! For that, you get a heart!
Antipodean, your father should have read a few books about the Holocaust.
@@anthonyeaton5153 Yeah Tony, and he should have blamed every single man, woman and child in Germany for it. Given your lack of education, it's called "Painting everybody with the same brush".
My school friends Father was a german Soldier . I was jealous of the Toy Gun he had made from a Grease Gun
As the daughter of a WW11 soldier, I am deeply grateful for this overview. My dad's best friend was a Rat of Tobruk, I my dad had the deepest admiration for him.
I remember the returned service men from my childhood, and one of my best memories is, the barbecues on a Saturday night, when our families would get together, and of course a keg of beer was cracked, and rum on hand, and at some point in the night a fight would break out between two of the men.
We all watched as the punched the sh.t out of each other, until one couldn't stand any more, due to too much alcohol, and the fight would stop, and the opponent would grab the guy he had been punching and say: Hey mate, you okeay? And then would tend to the injured man's needs (even though he had blood pouring down his own face), and all the men would help out.
These diggers were exceptional men, so different from other people, they genuinely cared about each other.
When I travel, I tell people overseas that it is the landscape and climate that cultivated these people. You had to take care of each other, and you had to be innovative to survive. It is a harsh world that creates physical, psychological and emotional strength in its people.
Djollo's Australia, I'm very glad that you loved this video! I very much enjoyed making it. For your story, you get a heart! Thanks for watching and commenting!
Those generations of Australian men who built Australian society and fought for freedom around the world are gone. The Australian male today is of weak character and timidly compliant in speech and opinion with political correctness, is scared of offending feminists and leftists, he does whatever women tell he to do, he is always apologizing, even brush past him in a shopping centre and he says "sorry", which seems to be his favorite word, he never whistles happily or winks reassuringly, he does not stand upright and walk confidently, and he is generally depressed. Even Australian women complain there are no good men in Australia and call for more immigration.
@@JBplumbing12 This is what happens when you ban conscription completely.
love your post.........giggles
The Anzacs had a great deal of repect for Monty. As a lad Monty went to school in Tasmania. His father was Minister and teacher at the private school and because of his slender stature and speech impediment made him a target for bullies. He seemed to take it in his stride and eventually won the respect of his fellow students.
My father was a gunner in Matilda tanks and fought right through the middle east before finishing up in New Guinea.
He used to say that the only thing he really feared was the German 88. Out of his company of 52 tanks only 8 survived. His being one of them.
For the life on me I can't remember his name, but a friend told me that there was a German general that had to surrender, and he told the British officer "I hope in the next war, the Italians are YOUR allies". That always cracked me up. Would anyone know the general's name?
R.S., well, I read somewhere that Rommel said something similar, but not exactly. Sorry I can't help you on that one. Thanks for your comment!
My great uncle fought in Tobruk. He was killed 1941 coming home when an Italian aircraft hit his ship. This made my grandfather join the ADF in 1941 when he was 17 years old. Knowing about his older brother was killed he wanted revenge but didn't end up fighting the Germans he ended up in the 7th division fighting against Japanese. At the end of the war my grandfather was court-martial as he shot up Japanese wounded in a hospital camp that ADF had giving medical to. He hated the Japanese. I guess he had his reasons for it.
The Japanese were very cruel. An old friend of mine told me when he fought the Japanese they came by this Japanese encampment base. One of the the Australian soldiers found this sack with some contents in it. When they emptied the sack out fell the heads of the Japanese enemies. My friend never forgot that moment. It haunted him through out his life. He said he struggled to forgive the Japanese people. He was always suspicious of them even the generations that had nothing to do with the war. One time when he assisted a car load of Japanese young people after they broke down he considered it a test from God.
@@andrewh6367 interesting, my grandfather was in a Japanese concentration camp from the age of 14. He was living in Shanghai China when the Japanese came. The Steven Spielberg movie empire of the sun is based on the camp he was in. He also hated the Japanese for a long time. After getting to England after the war he had joined the RAF as a physical instructor and later special forces. I was told he wanted to kill Japanese, nearly deployed to Korea but my grandmother talked him out of it. He always had a bad temper, suffered nightmares. Undiagnosed PTSD we were told later. They moved to Australia and he later studied the Bible and it helped him become a much calmer person and inadvertently have dealings and friendships with Japanese.
Must only be the ones on the losing side that get executed then....
My dad fought here in the 2/24th, first defeat the Germans had suffered, then went off to PNG and inflicted the first defeat the Japanese had suffered. Makes me incredibly proud to think he survived that and you would never even have known he was a veteran by his demeanour. He marched, but apart from that you'd not know he'd fought and survived history-defining battles.
byronstjames, that was a good comment. Yes, my dad was also a Vietnam veteran and he didn't like to talk about the war too much. Thank you for your comment and watching!
@@EmersusTech keep up the great work. I love these videos.
You wouldn't know these days but that's right it was Australians who first stopped the Japanese in the Pacific, not the Yanks although they were there. My Dad did his bit in New Guinea too, never talked about it,, a nice quiet bloke.
As a child I was often in company of my dad and his mates at the regular barbeques they held.
It was only in later years, as my understanding of history grew, that I really appreciated that I was sitting in the middle of some of the most awe-inspiring men to have lived, jovial, polite, and able to end you in a heart-beat if necessary.
You could sense their potential when they gathered to do some volunteer work. They organized, they were focused, and when one finished their assigned task, they went to look for someone else to help out.
The stuff of legend.
In this comment "he marched" means that he would take part in the massive marches held in Australia on Anzac Day - a public holiday and the national day of commemoration of all who actively served in the armed forces. Australians take war very seriously.
Interesting video. My grandfather ( QF4084 ) became a cipher operator due to blowing his knee in basic, and got to see and hear all the top level intel and orders. Never would have survived the whole war otherwise he reckons. His war diaries whilst at Tobruk are quite revealing, and he had a lot of respect for Rommel in return, who as an example, agreed to cease fires so the wounded could be collected. I think the battle in Africa especially, although brutal and unimaginable to those of us never having seen war, was a place where two strong armies held a pretty high regard for each other. He had endless stories of Aussie shenanigans, and some of the night raid things they did well into German lines in Africa is stuff of legend. He was captured and escaped at the Benghazi handicap with his precious code books, which the Germans were after, one of very few to do so apparently.
Greg Roles, yes, I believe that FM Rommel fought honorably -- allowing the temporary truces to collect the dead, etc. If you have any stories about Aussie shenanigans and night raids, I'd like to read about them! Thanks for your comment and watching!
I would love to read your grandfathers diaries. Have you ever considered making them available - either to a professonal historian/author or self publishing?
I suspect you could essentially just photograph them with a phone and put them into a PDF and self publish that on Amazon or some other ebook publisher.
You could leave out any parts that are private to your family.
Sources like this - i.e. people who had first hand access to the high level signals as well as people who had what it sounds like pretty adventurous experiences are not all that common - especially people who aren't septics or poms.
My Grandfather, Claude Reid was a Sergeant with 6th Div transport and told us many stories of his experencies in North Africa and the Middle East. As kids we would pore through his photographs of his adventures in Cairo, Tripoli, Palestine , Damascus and other Middle East locations. He even had one of him and some mates on top of one of the pyramids.
When in convoys, air attack was always a threat, even from their own aircraft because using salvaged enemy trucks made it difficulr to distinguish who they were. When aircraft were spotted the sop was to go as far off the road as possible, abandon the truck and find some kind of cover.
His pet peeves were the .303 and bayonet which was always in the way. As for the rifle, he said "I humped that bloody thing over two thirds of creation and never fired a shot in anger". He made it through, returned home and died at age 98 in Brisbane. He was always a true gentleman.
Peter Reid, thank you for telling us about your grandfather. That must've been fascinating to pour over those old photos. To tell you a personal story, my grandpa once was in his attic in the 1980s and he said to me, "Well, look at that!" and he handed me a pristine telephone book from early in the 20th Century -- probably the 20s or 30s. I can't remember. There were only a few numbers, like "8833", "8832", etc., because so few people had phones. And this phone book looked like it was printed only a few years before and had survived many home moves. As a teenager, I was always fascinated by old buildings. Thank you for watching and commenting!
Peter, also, you get a heart!
One of the reasons we have such a huge Italian community in Australia is that many Italian POWs from Africa were sent to Australia to work on farms. After the war many stayed in Oz rather than head back to Italy which had been destroyed by battle. More than one Italian POW ended up fathering children of Australian women out of wedlock, whilst their husbands/boyfriends were overseas fighting. So whilst the military history is important in terms of the western desert campaign, the social history aspect back in Australia is frequently overlooked.
Also you should include the Maori Battalion aka the 28th Battalion from New Zealand as they made significant contributions to the western desert campaign.
Regarding the so many Italian's in Australia, guy's you have it wrong. I learnt this in primary school, I'm a first generation Australian with parents coming from Italy with there parents. In the 50s more so mid 50s the Australian government put out posters advertising immigration to Australia to boost the population on the promise of plenty work, food and opportunity. My Grandparents remembered going to seminars where the Australian officials would talk and give spin how great Australia is. Also question and answer time. They went to more than one. Europe was devastated by WW2 and was still in ruins 15 years later with bombed out building everywhere, there was little work, little food and life was far from good. My Grandparents from both sides made the sort of easy decision to come to Australia like alot of other Europeans. They decided they wanted give there children the best chance at having a better life, they all came by boat which took 3 months with there suitcases. What also happened was a flow on effect friends would ask by letter whats it like, if they were on the fence about it then the letters would convince them. They all prospered and i 54 year old with a family of my own is forever grateful to my grandparents for coming to the best country on the planet 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺.
Italy was not destroyed in WW2. There was no fighting in Rome and other major cities and Allied bombing was minimal.
@@maxrpm2215 Yes there was a lot that just migrated from a government program during the 50s and 60s like you stated. But there was many was POW amongst them too. And brought over their families from Italy some married Australian women. Many Italian from Mildura Victoria and surrounding areas from the farming sectors was actually POWs soldiers captured in Tobruk campaign during ww2
The many POW camps in Aus were in the Goulburn valley of Victoria. Mildura,TC, but massively evident is the Italian orchard owners in Cobram. I lived there as a teenager and was blown away how many of one people can make up such a huge portion of a town of 3500. 40 min from the old POW camps that still have some buildings standing. And 3 hours from a major city. Might be coincidence, but in 2002 my atlas at school still had a very large country titled USSR……
I have met an ex POW Italian about 20 years ago. He was drafted out to a farmer near Penrith in Sydney as a labourer . The farmer treated him well and he became like a son to him. As the farmer was childless he left his estate to the Italian . The Italian bloke increased the business and started breeding a particular type of short legged cattle named "Square Metres". I took the Minister of Agriculture from China to the farm as the Chinese love these little cattle and they got thoroughly pissed on Cognac.
Congratulations on a very well-presented video. Some things mentioned within it were known to me but other aspects were previously unknown, I found it both enjoyable and educational to watch as well as it gave me a sense of pride to be Australian and that I have family that fought in both World Wars. Thank You very much and keep the videos coming I've also given it a thumbs up. 10/10
Richard Coulson, thank you very much! I worked very hard on this video and did a lot of research. I will keep the videos coming! Thank you for watching and commenting! You get a heart!
@@EmersusTech If you are interested in this part of the war look into the LRP Long Range Patrol which expanded to become the LRDG Long Range Desert Group which was exclusively manned by men from the New Zealand Division and Officered by the British started by Major Ralph Bagnold the first allied Special Force of WW2
When I was a soldier for the Australian army in the 90s we were told a story of a German soldier who said that during a night engagement he had been bayoneted by an Australian soldier and later that night the Aussies returned and he thought that they were there to finish him off but to his surprise the Aussies provided first aid and took them prisoner. I have no idea if this is a true story or not, just wanted to share a story I was told.
This story comes from a German soldiers letter in Diggers: The Legend of the Australian Soldier by John Laffin
Mark Moncrieff, thank you for the information!
A B, that wouldn't surprise if it were true, the Australian generosity and all.
@@EmersusTech Not disagreeing with you, but a part of the Australian psyche was to help out others.
Floods, Bushfires, Droughts....eventually YOU might end up needing a hand, even if your helping a neighbour out today.
Hard country makes for hard people, not cruel.
Not going to say that the incident recorded in Laffin's book is the norm. But if you look carefully, Germans and Australian's ended up becoming probably the most cordial relationships between a former Axis power and an Allied one.
Two World Wars fought and their respect for each other deepened!
(There's a lot of mutual respect along the lines of 'finally, a worthy opponent').
@@EmersusTech Your welcome, check out the book it's a good read
I was USN & served aboard the carrier Midway during Vietnam. My father was US Army in WWII & was at Kassarine Pass, then was attached to Patton's army. He met Australians & like them. (You know, us beingTexicans & them being Aussies, we have a lot in common.)
So, we tie up in Kokasuka & there are R&R flights. I had choices. I chose Australia.
You people are some of the nicest people I've met in my life. I showed up with 2 pairs of boots (one pair custom made in Monterrey Mexico of elk skin & a pair of Tony Lamas made in El Paso) & three pairs of Levi's straight legs & a nice Shantung straw hat. I left with none of that. You people traded me out of my clothes!
What do I say to a guy, & his wife when he's my size, I'm in his country, he's bought me two beers, & a really good sandwich & he's wearing really nice Wellingtons, & he wants to trade clothes? Peter & Julia, if you're still out there, I love you both.
To all the other people I met there. You gave five of the best memories of my life. I love you & your countryside.
Jaime, thanks for your heartfelt story that you shared! I read it with interest! I love stories like this, because they show the human touch! For this, you get a heart!
Mate, thanks for putting this video together! The last flick of them playing cricket on the beach is an absolute ripper and something we still love doing as an activity during summer.
Johnnysabboy, yeah, I was trying to convey the laid back attitude that Aussies have like -- "no worries". Thanks for your comment and for watching! You might this other video:
Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel
ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
I have always been of the opinion that Rommel was an excellent tactician and a worthy foe. It’s truly sad that the Gestapo forced him to commit suicide on Hitlers orders.
Yep much respect for Rommel , he should have left Germany and gone to the west where he would be be respected
He knew what was going on in Russia and what they were doing to the Jews in the camps. Turning a blind eye to it is no excuse he was as guilty as the rest of the murderers. And of course slaughtering our boys on the beaches so his cronies could stay in power to do there vile work in Europe. Rommel was as bad as the rest of them pretending to be on the side of right.
@@lena19191 Just like Mr. Heisenberg.
@@lena19191 His strong principles as a man, his honor and loyalty as a military, his love for the family and country didn't let him to do that. Nowadays way to few people are guided by this healthy way of thinking.
@@lena19191 my thoughts exactly!
My dad was in the Pacific for 39 months and thought the world of " those Aussies" they were damn good jungle fighters he said! He loved them.
He was a Company Commander in the 158th Regimental Combat Team.
Highly trained and several islands invaded. He specifically talked about New Guinea and the Philippines but he didn't talk about it much, mostly anecdotes.
I miss him. Had him until he was 96...thanks
Stan Logan, yes, my dad told me the Aussies were "...big guys. You know they were descendants of prisoners!" Thank you for your comment and watching!
Thanks for sharing. I was at a trade show in the USA in 2007. A gentleman introduced himself as an ex military commander (I can't remember his rank but sounded impressive) - when he heard my accent he said "I've been to Australia - we were sent to Townsville to "train" the Australians - we ended up gettin trained"!
There's a new video out that you may want to see:
Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel
ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
Being Australian and a decendant of a ww2 vet, l both thank you for this video and feel proud of what our boys did.❤
thebrokestbassist1048, well, I appreciate what y'all did over there too! Thank you very much! You probably will like this other video:
LG Sir Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel
ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
My Grandfather , Sir L.F. Smith, was a huge part of this entire event. I loved his stories. He was the RSM of 8th/12th Field Regiment.
In 75 I had a holiday in Germany. Beautiful country and very hospitable people. I was 15 and had a conversation with a bloke who had served in the German Army. When he realised I was an Aussie as he thought I might be British or American he really opened up about his thoughts. He told me that the ANZAC soldiers were a dangerous enemy he respected. Remember that in 1975 Germany is divided into east and west and the locals weren't impressed by all the British and American bases and were often treated poorly by them. Many old soldiers are loath to talk about their war time experiences.
Re your last sentence... that's why until after his death in 1969, I never knew that my grandfather was at Gallipoli before being invalided back to NZ on the "Maheno".... a man who kept very much to himself.
As an infantry combat veteran (Vietnam Era) with a fascination for military history that began with the European campaigns of WWII this is a great presentation
Wilfried Matusch, thank you very much for the compliment! I worked hard on it! Thanks for watching and commenting!
My grandfather was a sapper for Australia in this campaign. He hated the Nazis, but respected and admired 'the Desert Fox' his whole life.
Noel Page, you might like these two other videos:
Rommel's Death -- The Interesting Details
ruclips.net/video/iYTzjh3rmtc/видео.html
Rundstedt vs. Rommel Normandy Debate -- Who Was Right?
ruclips.net/video/882CEHFvNJY/видео.html
Thanks for commenting and watching!
@@EmersusTech Thanks mate!
Australian & Kiwi forces have played major roles in many theatres & are often sent in as initial reconnaissance teams in modern wars, while receiving little recognition for their efforts. Thank you for sharing Rommel's respect for our boys.
AnoJanJan, yes, I totally agree that Aussies and Kiwis haven't gotten the recognition they deserve for their outsized contributions to the past two world wars and since then. Thanks for your comment!
I should add to my previous comment the although I have lived in Australia most of my life ,I was born in the UK. If anybody asks me about my nationality I just tell them "I am an Englishman by birth, I am an Australian by choice", and a proud one at that.
Richard Carolan, thank you for watching and for taking the time to comment!
Great video mate, thank you. I'm very proud to be an Aussie with ancestors that served in both world wars. I'll never get tired of learning about these horrific events that shaped our world. Peace to all and let's try and do whatever we can to prevent these things happening again.
Anthony Young, thanks mate! Yes, we study war that we may live in peace! :) Thanks for the comment!
@@EmersusTechI suspect more Germans had an understanding of Aussie soldiers from battles in France in WW1 then from stories from Gallipoli.
John Monash, the first commander of the Australian Corps (first 5 AIF divisions), planned what became the text book Battle of Le Hamel. US General Pershing ordered his troops to not participate but many US soldiers who were training with AIF units donned Aussie fatigues so they could fight with their new mates.
Other Allied units studied this battle and its replication meant the war ended in 1918 - most planners believed it would continue into 1919.
My Grandfather was in the 2/8th in El Elemein. I'll never forget him. His father was a Light Horseman in WW1. My wife's Grandfather was a Rat of Tobruk, he died when she was very young though. God bless them, forgive them, and we thank them for the life they won for us.
Scovid Cafe, yes, it was good that there were people willing to fight for freedom halfway around the world. Thanks!
I had two uncles in the AIF in Egypt and my mother lost a cousin at El-Alamein. I also had an uncle on the Kokoada Trail and at the battle of Milne Bay and my dad was a POW after the fall of Singapore. I had one brother who served in the Australian Army in Malaya and myself and an older brother both served until retirement in the Royal Canadian Navy.
your blood is worth bottling mate
Thanks for making this tribute. many of my family fought in both wars and I'm a proud Australian.
onlyactingup, thank you for watching and for your nice comment!
You get a heart!
By the way, have you seen this video? You may really like it:
Monash's Masterpiece: The Battle of Hamel
ruclips.net/video/93mVu2vgErs/видео.html
I'm an Aussie, my great grandfather marched to Beersheba through the desert. When asked what being in the war was like by my father he simply said "Hot".
Brad, thanks for your great-grandfather's recollection!
My father was RAF Bomber Command Far East WW2 - he described the situation and climate as "a bit sticky". He escaped Singapore, Java, Sumatra and fortunately boarded the Kote Gede which heading towards Darwin changed direction to Ceylon. The other ships heading to Australia didn't make it.
Makes me proud to be an Aussie 🙂👍🏼🇦🇺
Awesome video. Very interesting.
Julz Hunt, thank you and your country for its awesome contributions in both WWI and WWII! I enjoyed researching for this video and finding the information that I did. I just love some of your Aussie slang. My favorite Aussie expression is "No worries, mate!" Thanks for your comment and watching!
@@EmersusTech no worries mate. 😄 it was a very well researched and presented video. Very respectful. Have you had a look at Gallipolli?
@@julzhunt7790 Julz Hunt, I watched the video (VHS!) a few times with a very young Mel Gibson. Great movie! I've read some on it, but I'll need to do much more research before I make a video about it. I will put it on a my list of videos that I want to do and see if I can get to it! Thanks!
@@EmersusTech awesome work.
@@EmersusTech you should try danger close, the Lighthorseman and Kakoda if you like aussie war films.
Both of my grandfathers fought in New Guinea. My mothers father moved back there with his brother in law as they felt a great debt was owed to the people there for everything they'd done to help them and their mates.
Unfortunately my fathers father didnt live long after his return. His health never really recovered and he suffered terrible nightmares and much torment in his life. He could never let go of his hatred for the japanese and was unable to see humanity in any Asian people. I can only imagine what he must have witnessed.
William Irwin and Bruce Jeffery. May god keep thier resting souls in peace.
sloth_e, thanks to your grandfathers' service against the Japanese! I'd rather not know what the Japanese did, because I've read what other Australians have written...about the Japanese POW planes returning empty after a short flight, etc. Thank you for your comment! You get a heart!
Mate thank you for putting out a pod cast about Aussies that all Aussies but very few other know...we are a race of peace lovers that understand to keep our country as free as it is we often have to take the battle and fight fiercely overseas to have an undamaged and free homeland to come back to. What many may not also know, Australia has sent troops to every major war since the bore war in South Africa to WW1, WW2, THE KOREAN WAR, the Malayan war, Vietnam, Timor, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan not to mention various peacekeeping role.
Will Hawney, yes, I've gotten a lotta love from Aussies about this video! I really enjoyed making it and I'm happy that you enjoyed it too! Yes, Aussies have supported most/many of the wars that have been fought. Y'all are generous and have a reputation for sturdy fighters. Even my dad was impressed with y'all and he was a Vietnam vet. Thanks for watching and commenting!
yes indeed, every war America has been in for 100 years we have stood alongside her. Boy, don`t the Left get pissed off about that.
The fact remains that the first loss the Germans experienced in WW2 was in fact at El Alamein at the hands of the Australians with British and New Zealand contingencies not too far away. The Germans didn't know what hit them with the sheer size and commitment of the Aussies. Brilliant video EmersusTech. Thank you.
smeary10, you're totally right -- the Aussies gave them the first land loss and stopped them cold. I appreciate your compliment!
You also get a heart!
As an New Zealand born Australian who had grandfathers and great uncles in both wars including the Middle East I would venture to say that Australian and New Zealand soldiers stuck together and had a generally shared distrust of British officers, I've heard the same from veteran South African soldiers in the middle east.
The ANZAC capture of many thousands of Italians is somewhat nuanced, a friends father, an Australian NCO told me that many of the Italians were not Fascist's who supported Mussollini, many were not fond of the Germans and infact the Germans were not very pleased with the Italian soldiers feeling they were disappointing soldiers and very very forward in telling them so.
He also remembered speaking with two captured Italian soldiers ( in broken English) who had friends and relatives successfully and happily living in Australia and expressed an interest in emigrating !?
Many Italians fought under suffrance and their heart was just not in it, although fascist companies fought very hard.
I understand many Italians were put under overall German command and it wasn't an easy association much of the time!
The comments further back about most Australian soldiers were from cities and larger towns compared to the bush and outback is correct, however by the standards of today the cities were not that large and even so they were not like well established European cities, with a sedate genteel civility, Australia was only 140 something years old in European settlement ( although has the oldest continuing Indigenous history in the world of between 65,000 to 75,000 years) and was still in a pioneering stage and as with my 2nd generation Scottish origin grandfather from a southern NZ city, they were often competant horsemen, riflemen, wagonmen and drivers due to early adoption of motor transport in both Australia and New Zealand, many were very capable at improvisation and often worked and travelled seasonally in rural areas that were quite undeveloped just outside some of the larger towns, especially during the great depression that hit Australia hard when many men travelled the country seeking work or just food and a bed.
The two nations were largely rural farming exporters with a comparatively underdeveloped manufacturing industry as yet.
Comparing an English city dweller to colonial settlers across the world living in a larger settlement is not complimentary IMO.
Jus sayin'
That famous photo with those two soldiers with fixed bayonets storming a German tank, and the tank commanders lifts his hands to surrender were from the Greek Brigade--the bravest among the brave.
Abraham Levi, wow, I did not know that! Sometimes you learn something new every day! For that, you get a heart!
Thank you for this amazing video as I'm Australian with Italian heritage. You really can see the hard work. Keep it up new subscriber.
My Dad was in the siege of Tobruk, he said to me once while we were watching some war movie on tv "you'd put a sheet of newspaper on your head when those stukas came in"
John Smith, that's interesting! Perhaps to hide from the pilot? Very no-tech, but if it works, it works! Thanks for your comment!
@@EmersusTech It was a figure of speech referring to the noise and no doubt terror of being bombed by stukas.
I really liked that, as an Australian with a family heritage of ADF service, it made me feel very proud to call myself an Australian. Thank you for sharing this with us.
16Bit SPY, thank you for your service for freedom!
I didn't realise Crocodile Dundee fought at El Alamein (10.57). No wonder we won!
mrmockatoo, yeah, mate, he was a good help! I'm glad someone noticed and commented on it -- others probably noticed and smirked. :) Thanks for watching and commenting!
And they all had girlfriends as pretty as Olivia-Newton John. Haha
Yeah, and he only had a knife!
Thank you for this. My dad , an Australian, fought in Northern Africa, but said nothing about it. Now I have a better understanding of that campaign from an Australian perspective
Marylou Myles, thank you for watching and for taking the time to comment!
Rommel and his Officers were well aware of the Australians exploits during WW1, not necessarily at Gallipoli but in France, most notably their involvement against the German's Operation Michael in 1918, when they were stopped.
Andrew Hart, yes, Rommel probably knew about the Australians' actions during WWI, and that would influence his thinking later. Even so, he saw first-hand how this new generation of Aussies did so well in the desert. Thank you for your comment!
@@EmersusTech Sure, however not so much a 'New Generation', but rather an inherited Tradition of 'ANZAC' and a way of fighting to win against all odds.Some even viewed this Conflict as unfinished business from WW1. Including Veterans from the former. Cheers.
My grandpa fought in the African campaign in the 2/23rd Australian Battalion. The battalion was raised in Albury NSW, though he was from Melbourne. He wrote a book about his experiences which was documented with the sketches he made during his time. Before he left to go to war he thought about becoming a pastor but when he returned he was an atheist. He fought in the 2nd battle of El Alamein and lost many friends there. He was in signals and ended up a Captain by the end of the war. The war was the most central thing in his life. I wished I had talked to him about it more.
Noonday Axeman, thank you for retelling your grandpa's story. We need more people to tell while they still remember!
I have heard that quote by Rommel many years ago but instead of hell it was " the world ". Can't remember the source but am sure it was a BBC documentary about the Africa campaign. Excellent video and well done on finding those quotes.
Taken from German officers diary. "Our opponents are Englishmen and Australians. Not trained attacking troops but with nerves and toughness tireless taking punishment with obstinacy ,wonderful in defence. Ah well the Greeks spent ten years in Troy From .. PM Churchill l to Australian General Morshead after El alamein The whole empire is watching your steadfast and spirited defence of this important outpost of Egypt with gratitude and admiration
Pat Russell, that's a good comment! Thanks for watching!
We cant have the English being put on a par with Australians. That would ruin the myth!
@@EmersusTech I had relatives there for full siege wearing smae clothes for about three months
Us Aussies do have a reputation that follows us everywhere....and im damn proud of that!!
Craig Mckinlay, yes, you have a great reputation! Thank you for watching and for your comment!
My grandfather was 2nd1st casualty clearing in that part of the war he also completed Egypt Syria and new guinea as he always said it was a long war against a strong enemy but never hold it against the soldiers they were only doing what they were told god bless our soldiers then and now great report mate good to see
Mr ozboss, thanks for retelling what your grandfather told you. We shouldn't forget our history, notwithstanding all this rubbish/crap from the liberal media! Thank you for commenting and watching!
My Grandfather was in the 6th Division.
He told a story about when they were up against the Italians.
'Smithy' was found to be AWOL again
and was going to be in Deep Trouble when he got back to his unit.
After a few hours, a dust cloud could be seen approaching HQ.
The dust cloud got bigger and bigger ... WTF?
It turned out that over 600 Italians had surrendered to 'Smithy'
Smithy was 'Drunk as a Lord' and being carried by his prisoners!
He was awarded a medal instead of being put on a charge!
Shane Giles, that's a funny story! For that, you get a heart!
Growing up in Melbourne, I had the honour of meeting a number of the men who served in the 2nd AIF and the 39th Battalion of the Militia, including some of the Rats of Tobruk. One still had his great coat with with special T unit markings they were permitted to wear after the Siege of Tobruk.
I can confirm that the taking of prisoners was not a high priority for these men. They had enlisted and trained for War, and water, food, and medicine was in very short supply in the Western Desert and New Guinea. They were not inclined, after suffering such great privations, to share what little provisions they had with captured Axis forces. In return they also expected no quarter and so could be relied upon to fight to the death.
Roulandus-le-Fartere, thank you for commenting!
Australia was so young at both world wars. We live on hard land and survived with the help of our first nations. The country was still very raw at the turn of the 20th century.
Im so glad our military stories are being told, we have so many men to be proud of who lost their lives just getting their mates to the next trench. Those who survived do so because they have been surviving Australia long before the war started.
I spent only 3 years in the Army during the early 80's and trained by some amazing viet vets. War will never be like that again.
Cquinn Lady, it's nice to hear from a true lady! Yes, there are a few of us on RUclips who want to tell the stories the way they really were and some that were never told! Thank you for watching EmersusTech and commenting!
The BS "First nations" inclusion ? BTW I'm a retired Army Veteran with 37 years service. Cut the Woke / Politically correct crap, it was never a part of our military ethos or culture.
My uncle was a rat of Tobruk 2/48 Marched into Africa saw alot of his Friends die. He said the Germans showed Imense Chivalry towards wounded soldiers on both sides. They gave the Germans there first defeat of WW2. After Tobruk he marched out of Africa and Marched into New Guinea to fight the Japanese.
The situation was so dire in New Guinea that they were sent almost straight there and relieved the Emaciated remnants of the 39th Batallion.
They still had there summer african desert uniforms on. The Japenese soldier at the time showed no chivalry to captured or wounded soldiers.
His two collar lugs off his old uniform are in a tin and they have something written on them in Latin. I looked it up and it says translated to English.
NEVER DEFEATED And they werent. The 2/48 were a highly decorated brigade and were disbanded in 1946.
When he joined up in 1939 at woodside Adelaide he and another soldier were given the job of Guarding the Murray Bridge road Bridge with one at each end.
They each carried a 303 rifle and wore ww1 Uniform. Great Video ansd subscribed.
Your uncle was in the 9th division? My grandfather was in the 7th division. But I had an great uncle that was in the 9th division that fought in Tobruk except he was killed coming back home when an Italian aircraft bomb his ship.
My late grandfather served with the 9th Division 2/43rd
In Tobruk also from Murray bridge. Tough buggers those desert rats.
My dad was with the 10th Militia Battalion at Woodside, Dad was from the Wall Flat area near Murray Bridge and I have a photo of him with 2 other soldiers on the approach to the Murray Bridge railway bridge, dressed in WW1 uniforms and 303 rifles, they were horsing around with my dad standing over another soldier with his 303 and bayonet. Dad later joined the navy and was in Darwin when it was first bombed and later on convoy duty.
Nice story Ginger Megs.
Hope you make one on the New Zealand troops. I often feel that the word ANZAC is not fully understood by those outside of Australia and NZ and that many think it just means "Australia" Probably most of the German troops at the time had the same misunderstanding. It's interesting to me to see so much about the Australians in the Western desert because I have to admit I didn't realise they played such a major part compared to the New Zealanders. I had thought they were taken away from Europe/Africa early on to confront Japanese incursions in New Guinea. I don't think they were in Tunisia or Italy with the Kiwis (maybe I'm wrong about that too)
Keith Tonkin, I'm actually working on something now about NZ. There's a lot of research to do for each video, more than may be obvious. Some things I find I can't use, but I can use later, etc. Thanks for the comment!
The Commonwealth troops were excellent, all round. Don't let the movies twist history. The Kiwis and Brits had to change over with the Aussies at Tobruk. At Gallipoli; Kitchener's plan was a debacle but Brits, Kiwis and Aussies fought together. The movie Gallipoli in which the producers lied showing British commanders shoving Aussies into the mouths of guns is utterly false. Churchill as Lord of the Admiralty took full responsibility for the terrible loss of life and went into the trenches as a major.
Typical Kiwi it's always about them.
The 6th division was in action against Italian German and Japanese there cavalry units were sent to fight Vichy French.
nth Africa and Syria
Greece and crete
New Guinea
The silent 7th division fought all the kings enemies Italian, Vichy French,German and Japanese.
Libya, tobruk,Syria,new Guinea, Borneo
The broken 8th division engaged Japanese in Malaya , Dutch East Indies
The 9th division in action against German Italian and Japanese.
North Africa and pacific theatre
@@EmersusTech LRDG was mostly Kiwi's and gave Rommel and the Italian's Hell.....
Proud to say my grandfather Wally Drewett was one of those 6 th division fellas that first took Bardia and Tobruk. I have a photo of him standing next to two Italian prisoners. However soon after he was fighting an ss panzer division in Greece who also had good air support. So that was a whole new ball game.
I remember him saying loved the Greek people.
My father was with the 6th, I have a number of photos taken at the time by a corporal Harle. Your grandfather may be in one of them.
You sure the 6th division. Because it was the 9th division was the ones that guard the captured Italians and Germans in the African campaign at Tobruk
There wasn't any German SS panzer division in the Greek campaign. There was 1 SS motorised infantry regiment as part of XL Corps - the LSSAH - and it was, as a fighting force, regarded as trash at that stage of the war. Enthusiastic, but militarily, trash. It never came near the Australian 6th Division in Greece.
@@Nathan-ry3yu no the 9th came later after they had moved the 6 th to Greece.
The 6 th were part of the forces that repelled the Italian invasion of Egypt when Italy entered the war.
@@iatsd actually they did fight the waffen SS.
From wiki . ( The Waffen-SS did not probe the British Empire's front until the afternoon of 11 April. This included an encounter with Australian artillery positions on the main road; )
You might think they were considered trash from the safety of your computer screen but I'm sure you would have other ideas when they attack you in force with full air support.
Go and trash the memory of your ancestors. Just don't try do it with mine.
It's so strange that the Germans had respect for the Aussies seeing that we were on opposite sides. At the end of the day we are all brothers who fought a war for the rich men on this planet. I have so much respect for Germans and have met many and they are wonderful people. God bless Germany, may you all live peaceful lives.
From an Aussie brother.
Person of Earth, yes, there were gentlemen on both sides -- even on the German side. There was real honor -- I wonder if we still have that today? Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@EmersusTech Cheers my friend.
Known a few WW11 ex diggers. One was awarded for Bravery fighting in Libya and was wounded still had shrapnel in him. Another was captured fighting in Crete and was sent to Poland to work in a mine . Another who fought in the pacific theatre and just said he would never forgive the Japanese. Another who lived next to my grandmother just spent all day working in his shed in the back yard, he repaired a fishing rod for me. I will never forget them
Krupt Wilson, yes, there were a few US WWII/Korea vets around me when I grew up, but I mostly didn't realize what an opportunity it was to interview them (because of my age) and then it was too late. Thanks for your comment and watching!
The germans had been well aware of australians from WW1.
They had a rule of thumb that if the guys in the trench opposite you where Australians or Canadians it was trouble.
If you ever found out that the trench opposite you was manned by Australians and Canadians, then a big attack was coming.
I don't think this is entirely true but I get your drift
Good to see Rommel differentiated Australians from the British and didnt assume we were one and the same. We are not. Out of all the men in my family who served, the ones that saw action never returned.
Rommel said of the British at EL Alamein............. "The British Guards Brigade was almost the living embodiment of the virtues and faults of the British soldier - tremendous courage and tenacity combined with a rigid lack of mobility. At one battle this division had mauled our German units".
So I am not sure he felt that there was much difference except the tactics. You can find comments by German commanders about British soldiers at Arnhem saying they were the toughest soldiers they had ever faced.................and you can probably find the same about any nation if you search.
That is most generous of you and I thank you, kindly, Emerus Tech. I'll be sure to give them a look.
hey mate you might want to check out Gen Sir John Monash from WW1 and see what Monty had to say about him and what he got up to. As a quick tid bit he planned the first use of combined arms warfare and was the first foreign General to command American soldiers in battle in 1918
chrisrabbitt, yes, I may look him up. Thanks for the tip!
Le Hamel
Monash had, Australian, British, New Zealanders, Canadians and American's under his command at Le Hamel. They took Le Hamel in 90 minutes.
Ah yes the creeping Artillery maneuver lol
Ive read alot about Monash , he was the one that devised the idea of moving the infantry just behind the Artillery shell explosions , because it was the norm for solders to bunker down when the artillery came , and he had it timed that as the bombardment crept over the position , his men were jumping in the enemy Trenches , and then the Tanks would roll through and do damage behind. Sounds simple , but he was the first to think "hmm lets try something different than full frontal suicide charges" He also used smoke to cover thier movement, his planning was meticulous, and the only time he made a mistake , was because he was rushed, and couldnt plan it to the 9th degree. Refreshing to find a General that didnt use his men as canon fodder.
I really wish Australians would stop with this shite about Monash being the inventor of combined arms warfare. It simply isn't fvcking true. It was a well known concept taught at Staff Colleges all over the world since the 1890's and the British wars in North Africa. The Russians were the first to put into practice in the modern sense on the Eastern Front in 1915-1916, just as they also developed the idea and tactics of what the Germans came to call "Storm troopers" to be used for breaking trench lines.