The 103rd infantry, the Cactus Division, suffered 4,558 battle casualties and 834 battle deaths from the time it landed in Marseille, France until the war ended. My brother Stuart Harris returned to Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Oklahoma as a pharmacist and owned and operated the Orchard Hills Pharmacy in Garland, Texas for the next 50 years.
My older brother Stuart Harris drove a jeep with a heavy machine gun with the 103rd Infantry, the Cactus Division, who landed in Marseille, France in October 1944 and entered Germany in December 1944. Each infantry company had two heavy machine guns. The 103rd infantry crossed the Rhine Rivey near Speyer, Germany. Stuart was in Austria when the war ended.
This footage, in color, absolutely makes it come alive and so real. The footage almost transports you back to those times and places. Amazing! The greatest generation with no doubt.
The city with the destroyed bridge and the vertical rocky bars is Sisteron in the Alpes de Haute Provence (formerly department of the Basses Alpes ) on the road to Grenoble, I come from this depatement . Great work ! Paul Reybaud
Thank you for identifying this town, I enjoy finding them on Google Earth and seeing there reconstruction.they did a great job and I was able to locate the same areas as show in the film.
Gruesome destruction - a real mess. Exhausted, but relieved, freed and grateful people. The rebuilding of destroyed towns, roads, etc. must have taken at least decades! I wish there could be no more wars anywhere on this planet.
In 14:32 on the right side, we can see a little bit of a church "Jacquin Jean-Luc" in the village of Matafelon, and 15:04 shows a house located next to D18 road in center of Matafelon. 15:36 shows the entrance to Matafelon from the west, church wall is visible on the left, and the house on the right is still there today. In 15:44 we see the ruins of restaurant de la grotte, apparently later rebuilt as "hotel de la grotte"? ,near the intersection of D18 and D936 roads, east of the bridge in Thoirette-Coisia. 16:00 is the Edf usine hydroélectriques de cize bolozon, visible from D91 road.
Marvellous footage! Kind thanks for the upload. And also, thanks to everyone who contributed in the comments. That's the way it should be with RUclips comments. Greetings from Alaska!
The names on the memorials to the men who fell liberating the French town of Sospel (in the Maritime Alps near the Itallian border) are almost all Japanese. The town was liberated by the 442nd Combat Team of the US Army who were Japanese American soldiers. They had already fought their way up through Italy.
Its Crazy man American or French no nothing about the No No Boy ! The American Japanese soldier had to be hardcore considering what they were up against back home! Really insightful book -{ No No Boy} ! I pray never to see such a war in my life time!
My grandfather John M.Shoemaker,Pfc. arrived in Marseille ca. Dec.11, 1944 with the 253rd regiment of the 63rd Division attached to the 44th Division for Operation Norwind. He served in combat for 4 months with 2nd platoon, G co.,2nd battalion,253rd regiment,63rd Division, U.S. 7th Army, ETO. He earned CIB,Bronze star for valor, purple heart, bronze star for service and presidential unit citation ribbon among other medals. J.R.S.,Jr.,Esq.
In all of these places I cannot imagine how the debris was ever cleared, how bridges and other infrastructure was replaced or repaired. Even in 2022 whenever things need to be fixed after a disaster, call in the army!
South of Frace was the scene of one of Eisenhower's epic blunders. Lt. Genl. Devers, 7th Army Commander and corps commander Alex Patch, had assembled an attack across the undefended Rhine River. Devers sent many patrols across to scout enemy positions and they came back reporting no enemy. That's because they were pulled by Hitler to reinforce his troops for the upcoming Battle of the Bulge. Eisenhower and Bradley arrived and killed the plan for no good reason. Both couldn't supply a logical explanation for their decision after the war. Had they not interfered Devers army would have crossed, turned north and headed for Berlin after destroying the Kolmar pocket. Hitler would have had no choice but to cancel the Ardennes offensive to deal with an American army with French divisions attached, racing into the heart of Germany. Historians say the war could have been over in early March saving thousands of allied lives.
Hey thank you very much again for bringing history to the present especially this type of history that should not be repeated! You guys are cute 😍 for working on these videos to let people especially the new generations of people to understand the mistakes of our forefathers!
15:50 Hydroelectric power station of Cize-Bolozon, close to Nantua.... It was commissioned in 1931. A link in French (Wikipedia) "Barrage" means "Dam" fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_de_Cize-Bolozon
It's not to devalue the US troops engagement in the liberation from the South of France, but this operation was more a US support from a french operation (take with US equipment), then this force was at 2/3 constitued from french troops (260 000 french, under command from general De Lattre de Tassigny+ 110 000 US and British troops under command from general Patch...Only close to the region Alsace, they need a strong reinforcement because hard fights against elite german troops, specialy around the pocket of Colmar...
et ouais bien dit , enfin quelqu un qui ne se contente pas de ce qu on lui dit mais qui connait bien , ca fait plaisir, donc ne pas oublier les soldats francais !
The french did respect their Savior. American and British flag everywhere. The French were very nice to the Allied troops. A sign of gratitude. Insulting a country that went through so much he's not very nice.
@@neinnein9306 Mais non des millions..........................des centaines de millions....................tu as l'air de connaitre le sujet , spécialiste.vas jouer au ballon.
@@zouzoudeparis1354 That's right. But on the other hand raping black soldiers were more persecuted and punished than whites. Of course the judging soldiers were also white. Same happened in Germany, but in a smaller number.
Our lesson must be: never again fascism, never again war, protection of our democracy against all Hitlers on this earth with respect and remembrance of the many innocent People
@ 5:30 railcars that were loaded with torpedoes. The wood of the cars completely burned away but the torpedoes did not cook off. Amazing that such destructive weapons could be engineered to resist exploding in a fire.
What's strange: why were they even IN southern France? Torpedoes are very, very, very expensive -- then and now. Weird to see such improvised stowage. Those in the video would appear to be aerial delivery torpedoes as they are strangely short.
@@davidhimmelsbach557 you're right. What were a load of torpedoes doing in Southern France? Here's a mystery during war storyline: a high-enough ranking traitor / allied agent intentionally juggles the shipment paperwork to send torpedoes where they cannot be used.
I wonder if the destroyed rail bridge shown at 8:11 was the sole rail line to Nice from the rest of France that was destroyed by RAF Bombing in order to reduce food supplies. My wife to be lived in Nice at that time and experienced the effects since the region did not itself produce much food.
Sobering footage , 5 minutes in , Torpedoes supplies bombed. done, mission accomplished . The rest , huge carnage on German convoys and collateral civilian homes. On Memorial Day 2020 we remember those in WWII , Liberators, Civilians and Germans killed, all because of a tyrant made and supported by ordinary people led astray by horrible politics. God bless the Allies .
Didn't Audie Murphy participate in the Cote d'Azur landings. There is a nice park site in St. Raphael one of the areas of activity. An old LSM craft is preserved in the open. Memorial also.
6th Army Group was supplied out of the Med -- meaning that it had Ford trucks not GMC trucks. At about 9:50 such trucks roll by the camera. Bradley screwed-up after the Cobra breakout -- and told Lee (and the supply system) that ammo deliveries should be scaled back. This ended up as a crisis when Market-Garden extended the war by six-months. ( Still a forbidden topic in military history circles. ) So Bradley (12th Army Group) had to obtain ammo from Devers and his 6th Army Group on a panic basis. This entailed having 6th AG Ford trucks driving up to southern 12th AG dumps; then GMC trucks would re-load the ammo for distribution to 1st, 3rd and 9th Armies. Naturally, this fiasco has been almost totally buried -- particularly at the behest of five-star Bradley. He loathed Devers, BTW. So did Ike. This is why 6th AG was so small and had so few American divisions... even though its performance was perfect. [ Devers had flatly refused Ike's request for B-17s during Ike's North African daze. Arnold and Marshall backed Devers up. They were the ones stopping it. ]
This is actually mostly french troops, they all have french flags and french insignias on their uniforms like at 6:52 or 18:24 for example. The south of France was liberated mostly by free french forces so it is quite logical.
Nikolaas P What French troops? All of France was captured by the Nazis in 1940. The small French resistances did not have the manpower or coordination to carry out operations like these. They did do helpful things like blowing up supply routes, sometimes killing German army leaders, or confusing the German forces. The main fighting was done by the British, United States, and Canada. Listen to Lindybeige’s video on the French Resistance.
Charles De Gualle and several hundred thousand Free French troops took part in the Normandy invasion. The french forces were made up of French troops who fled to Britain with De Gaulle after the Nazi Blitzkrieg and troops loyal to the Free French government from the French colonies around the world.
lu lm I never said they weren’t insignificant. They were nearly instrumental to the Allied invasion of France. All I said is that they couldn’t organise themselves into an army. They didn’t have one. The Free French (also known as the French resistance) helped a lot in paving the way for the main Allied armies which came in later.
@@nicrap01 No, Free France and Resistance were two different things. Resistance were people fighting in occupied France, Free French were soldiers fighting with allies under the lead of De Gaulle. And in Southern France, mostly troops were former Vichy troops ("1st Army") who joined Free France after American landing in North Africa in 1943, but they were not "true Free French".
The documentary is a good one, and shows that French forces were also involved in the liberation of their country, alongside our American friends. See, for instance, the tank crew at 6.52.
Unfortunately Today's French are taking the Americans out of equation. Every other year I go to the St. Tropez area for Summer holidays and more and more plaques are being replaced with "Freed by French Forces" in cities and villages. At the port of St. Tropez by the sea wall, the US/French plaque was changed to a large plaque for the French and a separate very small plaque underneath to the American forces.
@@prontsc Pas moi .J'ai de la reconnaissance pour les Alliés , en commençant par Sir WILSON CHURCHILL, et les Américains . Sans oublier la résistance Française . Merci encore de nous avoir libéré .Gratitude éternelle et Respect , Jamais oublier ... 🇫🇷 🤗 😍🇬🇧🕊 🇺🇸🕊
18:19 This are Free French soldiers and resistance fighters arresting Wehrmacht soldiers and a french suspect. The scene with the french suspect at 18:55 is to link to two other scenes in a video posted previously by chronohistory «French Résistance in 1944 (in color and HD)» at (2:13-3:12) and (3:55-6:35).
16:31 where is this? According to the editing chronology, it should be Dole or Dijon, but it isn't either of those. I will be on the lookout for a cathedral like this. I don't think it is Auxonne, either.
How many have noticed the dead horses in these news reels ? Yes the German infantry moved with horses. Falaise was covered with them. Wehrmacht was not as mechanized as US Army.
As a side note: the original plan did not anticipate the existence of the French 1st Army -- at all. The French, like most European powers, organized their draft and reserve divisions around specific regions. (Provinces) As the US 7th Army moved up the Rhone river valley, French reserve troops that had never participated in the 1940 fiasco started reporting to the colors -- just as they had in 1940 -- until the Vichy government sent them home. The American provisions for equipment losses -- which were, in fact, not being lost, the campaign was a roll over -- were then directed at these Frenchmen. Since the 81mm mortar and 155mm howitzer were French in origin, it took all of five-minutes for the French to train on them. Heh. The 105mm howitzer was a German design -- so it took 15-minutes for the French to dope it out. In the blink of an eye, out of nowhere, the French added a full sized army to the Allied order of battle. Leclerc's 2nd Tank Division was shifted over from 12th Army Group into the French 1st -- shortly after it went on holiday in Paris -- for 72-hours. The French 1st Army did spend the bulk of its energies fighting Frenchmen -- however. It's an ugly tale, suppressed by those in the know. It, naturally, reported to de Gaulle, and he had other priorities than Eisenhower. His obsession: traitors, collaborators... and fleeing Nazis. (The reservists soon out-numbered the Free French troops that had participated in Operation Dragoon.)
"The French 1st Army did spend the bulk of its energies fighting Frenchmen -- however. It's an ugly tale, suppressed by those in the know. It, naturally, reported to de Gaulle, and he had other priorities than Eisenhower. His obsession: traitors, collaborators... and fleeing Nazis." You have touched on the truth and it is something the French don't want to admit. Lots of collaborators among them, some even helped round up the Jews to be sent to the death camps.
The average men in those days were 5 '4 so the rifles were almost as tall as them and on top of that all the eguipment, I used to collect WW2 rifles and the recoil from the 06 and the German 08 are very heavy so those guys had a lot of cohones.
My wife was born in Montpellier, France about 10 mile from the Mediterranean. When she was about 7 years old, one morning all the Germans disappeared. That afternoon Americans arrived and a bunch of jeeps pulled up at the town square. One American driver took her on his knee and gave her a ball. He did his best to explain to her that it was something to eat. He pealed it for her, and she ate the orange - something she had never seen before. She said it was delicious.
Poor horses and mules always getting thrown into human conflict to suffer. While the bald eagle gets all the accolades and placed on currency for doing absolutely nothing for anyone or anything…..horses and mules get no glory at all for serving man.
I think "Tassenieres" is incorrect. I live about 40km from there and the images do not appear to be from there. There are no rocky outcroppings near the village. I have no doubt that the film crew followed this route, but I don't think the images are from there.
Tassenières (zip code 39120) est à une vingtaine de kilomètres au nord de La Charme sur la D475 dans le département du Jura. Un beau coin de France. Je vous invite à y faire un tour. Le Jura, une région de France où on dort et où on mange Très Bien Avis aux amateurs !
@@alexandre210613 de 11.54 a 14.29 c est bien filme dans le Jura Broissia au sud de St Julien sur Suran , puis la Charme et Tassenieres sur la D 175 au nord de Sellieres. Le Port , Mataflon, Cize Bolozon dans l Ain au porte du Jura
16:37 Soldiers in turbans. Perhaps Indian soldiers, or French colonial soldiers? 19:11 An Australian or New Zealand soldier escorting German prisoners.
All these soldiers are french colonial troops, even those with Brodie helmet. This is in Marseille which was liberated by the free french, and the free french were equipped with British and US equipment.
@@allangibson2408 I saw the short pants and jumped to the wrong conclusion apparently. Anton 1860 says in his post in response to mine that they are likely French colonial troops equipped with British helmets.
When I see American soldiers walking through a liberated French town, there are lots of American flags being waved, I always wonder where these came from. Were there secret underground factories making American/British flags so they would be ready for the Liberation, or did PR troops travel just behind the front line troops with thousands of flags to hand out to the residents so they could wave them for the passing troops? Also this looks like it must be from 1945, all the rubble has been cleared from the roads and streets and it looks like the iron wreckage has had quite bit of time to build up a good degree of rust.
These flags could have been self made flags. Some time ago I watched a film which action was taking place in Southern France during ww2 just after the landings. At some point in the film you can see a little girl who is making an american flag. People were able to do a lot of things with their hands at the time. They also made shirts, dresses and all kind of clothes with parachute silk.
Actually, the British had been dropping French, American and British flags to resistance groups, Maquis, all along. This was intensified in the weeks ahead of any Allied landings. Dropping them all over creation drove the Nazis nuts, as they were surely discovered by random patrols. The only conclusion the enemy could reach was that this or that area was destined to be invaded. But, the Allies were dropping such indicators all over creation. The Maquis were operating all over France. The Allies managed to get the 2nd SS Panzer Division diverted to southwest France using such psychological feints. After D-Day, coming back north, the 2nd SS murdered an entire French town. (The village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne.) Yes, it was a full week late to the Battle of Normandy.
0:43 This is the Pont Battant destroyed by the Germans in Besançon. 16:35 The crowd near the church Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Marseille on 29 august 1944 for the parade of the french troops who liberated the city.
@@aorum3589 Ah merci, merci... Ils ont mélangé des images tout azimuts... et ils ne tiennent pas compte des commentaires. Je m'étais désabonné de cette chaine.
This damage from 1:15 minutes is the work of the Allied attack aircraft. Without its own air defense, the Germans did not stand a chance. Heaps of ash and sheet metal remained from the trucks. It must have been hell there at the time of the raid 💥💥💥
Most of this archive movie was shot in west central France. Tassenieres for example is fairly close to Switzerland, so is La Charme. Marseille is the south of France but most of this movie is way north of that region. It's like calling Illinois the deep south.
What stuns me is how just about every building seemed to be destroyed. Not even the little countryside villages were spared. It makes me wonder how and why...
It’s unfortunate but you have to remember that the Americans were trying to get the Germans and all of their equipment out or destroyed. And bombers back then literally just opened the Bombay doors and the bombs dropped out. There was no laser guided anything.
Some of the shot up German conveys look like they have been sitting for a month or more when filmed, a little rusty and plants are starting to grow up around them;
Nous pouvons vous aider à changer le titre. Le sud de la France a été principalement libéré par l'armée française, même si elle n'aurait pas pu le faire sans les forces de débarquement alliées.
En effet, les 2 /3 des troupes étaient françaises, mais avec le matériel et l'aide des Américains et des Britanniques...Et si la progression vers le Nord Est a été relativement rapide, malgré quelques sérieux combats, la reconquête de l'Alsace a été un gros morceau qui a nécessité de gros renforts tant Américains que Français (la 2°DB du Général Leclerc notamment) la région étant occupée par des troupes allemandes très aguerries et des blindés et ça s'est déroulé en plein hiver 44-45 qui a été particulièrement rigoureux...la fameuse poche de Colmar a nécessité d'âpres combats pour être réduite...
50s Lover I suppose you didn't know that the human body begins to decompose and if left in the hot sun of June & July the process goes faster then you get a pestilence problem to add to the misery that war brings.The ancient Romans built funeral pyres and burned the fallen as quickly as they were able.
C'est le bourg de Sisteron..dans les Alpes de Haute Provenceil y eut plus d'une centaine de tués suite à une erreur de bombardement, et encore plus de blessés. Ma grand-mère avait perdu plusieurs membres de sa famille, au cours de ce bombardement. Pensée à tous ceux qui ont perdu leur vie , ce jour là.
Wasn't Vichy France pretty much outside the main part of the war. Germany maybe dictated policy in Vichy but didn't fully occupy the area. Is liberation the right word?
There was no need for "liberation" in the south and not even in the rest of France. It is a fact that the Germans in France behaved friendly and civilized. Another aspect of course is the French collaboration policy against the jews.
A lot of fascists in France. The French couldn't fight their way out of wet paper bag. Plus the French Navy fired on the British Navy, just shows you how buddy buddy they were with the Nazis.
Strange title. US troops did not on their own liberate France. Allied troops landed at Normady and liberated France. Its offensive to the allies who were involved and fought. French troops also fought to liberate their homeland assisted by civilians who had resisted
The 103rd infantry, the Cactus Division, suffered 4,558 battle casualties and 834 battle deaths from the time it landed in Marseille, France until the war ended. My brother Stuart Harris returned to Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Oklahoma as a pharmacist and owned and operated the Orchard Hills Pharmacy in Garland, Texas for the next 50 years.
A BIG G.B. TO UR BROTHER AN ALSO TO ALLLL THE JAPANESE/AMERICAN SOLDIERS WHO DIED FOR FRANCE G.B. ALL OF EM. NEVER FORGOTTEN.
My Dad also part of the Cactus Division. Landed in Marseilles & ended up in Southern Germany after fighting through France Austria & Bavaria.
A shame he fought for nothing. Fascism is here in the US now, disguised as 'Progress' and 'Tolerance'. At least he gave us 70 years of freedom though.
It would be wonderful to have subtitles.
If this interests you, you might like the Brad Pitt movie Fury.
My older brother Stuart Harris drove a jeep with a heavy machine gun with the 103rd Infantry, the Cactus Division, who landed in Marseille, France in October 1944 and entered Germany in December 1944. Each infantry company had two heavy machine guns. The 103rd infantry crossed the Rhine Rivey near Speyer, Germany. Stuart was in Austria when the war ended.
This footage, in color, absolutely makes it come alive and so real. The footage almost transports you back to those times and places. Amazing! The greatest generation with no doubt.
The city with the destroyed bridge and the vertical rocky bars is Sisteron in the Alpes de Haute Provence (formerly department of the Basses Alpes ) on the road to Grenoble, I come from this depatement . Great work ! Paul Reybaud
Thank you for identifying this town, I enjoy finding them on Google Earth and seeing there reconstruction.they did a great job and I was able to locate the same areas as show in the film.
@@martingambichler2377 me too
Gruesome destruction - a real mess. Exhausted, but relieved, freed and grateful people. The rebuilding of destroyed towns, roads, etc. must have taken at least decades! I wish there could be no more wars anywhere on this planet.
The town shown from 7:01 is called "Sisteron". The bridge crosses the river "Durance"
It's amazing how brave they where. These men saved the world from evil.
this video makes ww2 pretty different in real life compared to video games
In 14:32 on the right side, we can see a little bit of a church "Jacquin Jean-Luc" in the village of Matafelon, and 15:04 shows a house located next to D18 road in center of Matafelon. 15:36 shows the entrance to Matafelon from the west, church wall is visible on the left, and the house on the right is still there today. In 15:44 we see the ruins of restaurant de la grotte, apparently later rebuilt as "hotel de la grotte"? ,near the intersection of D18 and D936 roads, east of the bridge in Thoirette-Coisia. 16:00 is the Edf usine hydroélectriques de cize bolozon, visible from D91 road.
incredible footage , thank you for sharing
que buenos ¡que son los americanos !
@@elinovias9884 Esa era la idea
Marvellous footage! Kind thanks for the upload. And also, thanks to everyone who contributed in the comments. That's the way it should be with RUclips comments. Greetings from Alaska!
The names on the memorials to the men who fell liberating the French town of Sospel (in the Maritime Alps near the Itallian border) are almost all Japanese.
The town was liberated by the 442nd Combat Team of the US Army who were Japanese American soldiers. They had already fought their way up through Italy.
We remember the 442. Go for broke!
Its Crazy man American or French no nothing about the No No Boy ! The American Japanese soldier had to be hardcore considering what they were up against back home!
Really insightful book -{ No No Boy} ! I pray never to see such a war in my life time!
wasn't one of them senator Inouye?
I've heard that there were Japanese soldiers in the US military during World War II, but maybe only in the European battlefield
My grandfather John M.Shoemaker,Pfc. arrived in Marseille ca. Dec.11, 1944 with the 253rd regiment of the 63rd Division attached to the 44th Division for Operation Norwind. He served in combat for 4 months with 2nd platoon, G co.,2nd battalion,253rd regiment,63rd Division, U.S. 7th Army, ETO. He earned CIB,Bronze star for valor, purple heart, bronze star for service and presidential unit citation ribbon among other medals. J.R.S.,Jr.,Esq.
Wonderful footage! That’s a beautiful villa around 21:00.
In all of these places I cannot imagine how the debris was ever cleared, how bridges and other infrastructure was replaced or repaired. Even in 2022 whenever things need to be fixed after a disaster, call in the army!
South of Frace was the scene of one of Eisenhower's epic blunders. Lt. Genl. Devers, 7th Army Commander and corps commander Alex Patch, had assembled an attack across the undefended Rhine River. Devers sent many patrols across to scout enemy positions and they came back reporting no enemy. That's because they were pulled by Hitler to reinforce his troops for the upcoming Battle of the Bulge. Eisenhower and Bradley arrived and killed the plan for no good reason. Both couldn't supply a logical explanation for their decision after the war. Had they not interfered Devers army would have crossed, turned north and headed for Berlin after destroying the Kolmar pocket. Hitler would have had no choice but to cancel the Ardennes offensive to deal with an American army with French divisions attached, racing into the heart of Germany. Historians say the war could have been over in early March saving thousands of allied lives.
Bradley replaced Patton in the chain of command and by comparison, he was timid and moronic to a fault but a yes man to Eisenhower.
Thanks for uploading this amazing color film and piece of history!!
Une Guerre dévastatrice et ses paysages de désolation ...
Un reportage extraordinaire , Merci ♥ à la chaîne !
Look at 20:39 in the video that is Jean Paul Belmondo in WW2.
0:50 - 13, Rue Rivotte, Besançon, France
2:58 - 92, Rue des Granges, Besançon, France
A 7' 01" il s'agit du village de Sisteron (Alpes de Haute Provence, sud-est de la France) .
Tout a été reconstruit, y compris le pont.
Hey thank you very much again for bringing history to the present especially this type of history that should not be repeated! You guys are cute 😍 for working on these videos to let people especially the new generations of people to understand the mistakes of our forefathers!
а вы так и помните: тут помню\тут не помню. флюгеры. в очередной раз Русские только и спасают МИР от коричневой чумы. на небе БОГ, на земле Россия🚑
15:50 Hydroelectric power station of Cize-Bolozon, close to Nantua....
It was commissioned in 1931.
A link in French (Wikipedia) "Barrage" means "Dam"
fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_de_Cize-Bolozon
7:01 appears to be Sisteron, on the Durance River.
Por las fotos que he visto en varios sitios, debe ser Sisteron.
It's not to devalue the US troops engagement in the liberation from the South of France, but this operation was more a US support from a french operation (take with US equipment), then this force was at 2/3 constitued from french troops (260 000 french, under command from general De Lattre de Tassigny+ 110 000 US and British troops under command from general Patch...Only close to the region Alsace, they need a strong reinforcement because hard fights against elite german troops, specialy around the pocket of Colmar...
et ouais bien dit , enfin quelqu un qui ne se contente pas de ce qu on lui dit mais qui connait bien , ca fait plaisir,
donc ne pas oublier les soldats francais !
@@pilotee8379 Mon Oncle Louis était courier pour la résistance en Maroc. 🇫🇷🇺🇸
At 7:00 is the Town of Sisteron/ La Baume, Beautiful Place :)
yes , beautifull.
The french did respect their Savior. American and British flag everywhere. The French were very nice to the Allied troops. A sign of gratitude. Insulting a country that went through so much he's not very nice.
Not all. Some thousand French women got raped by their liberators.
@@neinnein9306 Mais non des millions..........................des centaines de millions....................tu as l'air de connaitre le sujet , spécialiste.vas jouer au ballon.
nein nein they were black soldiers in 80 % of the cases and Black American were not in the fighting forces but stewardship.
@@zouzoudeparis1354 That's right. But on the other hand raping black soldiers were more persecuted and punished than whites. Of course the judging soldiers were also white. Same happened in Germany, but in a smaller number.
@@michelringlet4902 Je vous demande pardon?
- à 7.14 c'est le quartier de La Baume sur l'autre rive de la Durance face à la ville de Sisteron. Je reconnais le pont.
Our lesson must be: never again fascism, never again war, protection of our democracy against all Hitlers on this earth with respect and remembrance of the many innocent People
If history teaches us anything it is that one ideology replaces another, ad infinitum.
@ 5:30 railcars that were loaded with torpedoes. The wood of the cars completely burned away but the torpedoes did not cook off. Amazing that such destructive weapons could be engineered to resist exploding in a fire.
What's strange: why were they even IN southern France?
Torpedoes are very, very, very expensive -- then and now. Weird to see such improvised stowage.
Those in the video would appear to be aerial delivery torpedoes as they are strangely short.
@@davidhimmelsbach557 you're right. What were a load of torpedoes doing in Southern France? Here's a mystery during war storyline: a high-enough ranking traitor / allied agent intentionally juggles the shipment paperwork to send torpedoes where they cannot be used.
I wonder if the destroyed rail bridge shown at 8:11 was the sole rail line to Nice from the rest of France that was destroyed by RAF Bombing in order to reduce food supplies. My wife to be lived in Nice at that time and experienced the effects since the region did not itself produce much food.
Sobering footage , 5 minutes in , Torpedoes supplies bombed. done, mission accomplished . The rest , huge carnage on German convoys and collateral civilian homes. On Memorial Day 2020 we remember those in WWII , Liberators, Civilians and Germans killed, all because of a tyrant made and supported by ordinary people led astray by horrible politics. God bless the Allies .
0:00 the bridge in the Lyon area... On May 31st, 1856= historic flood of the Rhone river in Lyon and its region.
This is the « Pont du Robinet » in Donzère, it was destroyed during the american bombings of the 16, 17 and 18th august 1944.
@@aorum3589 Ah merci merci... effectivement on est loin de Lyon.
Great footage but I wish the subtitles weren't hidden next to the volume bar.
This is Gold!
Didn't Audie Murphy participate in the Cote d'Azur landings. There is a nice park site in St. Raphael one of the areas of activity. An old LSM craft is preserved in the open. Memorial also.
This pictures got a better quality than footage from the 90s
The French helped us during the American Revolution (regardless of their political motives), so the least we could do is this.
🇺🇸🇫🇷
It took you long enough!!
The South of France was pro German anti usa
The french women shot Americans.
But the usa refused to pay for the help so bankrupted france causing the french revolution. Maybe pay them now
@@somethingelse4878 See, never trust the USA, they will always stab you in the back. Their moto is money is god.
People who were 16 years old in 1944 are 93 years old in 2021. Those who survived are gone for eternity.
4:42 - 442 Av. de la République, Toulon, France
Église Saint François de Paule
09:08 according to the lining it looks like it was a truck Austin K4
09:09 remains MAN ML4500A
6th Army Group was supplied out of the Med -- meaning that it had Ford trucks not GMC trucks. At about 9:50 such trucks roll by the camera.
Bradley screwed-up after the Cobra breakout -- and told Lee (and the supply system) that ammo deliveries should be scaled back.
This ended up as a crisis when Market-Garden extended the war by six-months. ( Still a forbidden topic in military history circles. )
So Bradley (12th Army Group) had to obtain ammo from Devers and his 6th Army Group on a panic basis.
This entailed having 6th AG Ford trucks driving up to southern 12th AG dumps;
then GMC trucks would re-load the ammo for distribution to 1st, 3rd and 9th Armies.
Naturally, this fiasco has been almost totally buried -- particularly at the behest of five-star Bradley.
He loathed Devers, BTW. So did Ike. This is why 6th AG was so small and had so few American divisions... even though its performance was perfect.
[ Devers had flatly refused Ike's request for B-17s during Ike's North African daze. Arnold and Marshall backed Devers up. They were the ones stopping it. ]
seeing the destruction in color really shows what it looked like at ground level is shocking.
This is actually mostly french troops, they all have french flags and french insignias on their uniforms like at 6:52 or 18:24 for example. The south of France was liberated mostly by free french forces so it is quite logical.
Nikolaas P What French troops? All of France was captured by the Nazis in 1940. The small French resistances did not have the manpower or coordination to carry out operations like these. They did do helpful things like blowing up supply routes, sometimes killing German army leaders, or confusing the German forces. The main fighting was done by the British, United States, and Canada. Listen to Lindybeige’s video on the French Resistance.
Most of the troops that landed in southern France were American.
Charles De Gualle and several hundred thousand Free French troops took part in the Normandy invasion. The french forces were made up of French troops who fled to Britain with De Gaulle after the Nazi Blitzkrieg and troops loyal to the Free French government from the French colonies around the world.
lu lm I never said they weren’t insignificant. They were nearly instrumental to the Allied invasion of France. All I said is that they couldn’t organise themselves into an army. They didn’t have one. The Free French (also known as the French resistance) helped a lot in paving the way for the main Allied armies which came in later.
@@nicrap01 No, Free France and Resistance were two different things. Resistance were people fighting in occupied France, Free French were soldiers fighting with allies under the lead of De Gaulle. And in Southern France, mostly troops were former Vichy troops ("1st Army") who joined Free France after American landing in North Africa in 1943, but they were not "true Free French".
The documentary is a good one, and shows that French forces were also involved in the liberation of their country, alongside our American friends. See, for instance, the tank crew at 6.52.
50 000 American soldiers, 260 000 french ones... So yes, french army was "also involved"... :)
Yes, true. 👍
Unfortunately Today's French are taking the Americans out of equation. Every other year I go to the St. Tropez area for Summer holidays and more and more plaques are being replaced with "Freed by French Forces" in cities and villages. At the port of St. Tropez by the sea wall, the US/French plaque was changed to a large plaque for the French and a separate very small plaque underneath to the American forces.
@@prontsc Pas moi .J'ai de la reconnaissance pour les Alliés , en commençant par Sir WILSON CHURCHILL, et les Américains . Sans oublier la résistance Française . Merci encore de nous avoir libéré .Gratitude éternelle et Respect , Jamais oublier ... 🇫🇷 🤗 😍🇬🇧🕊 🇺🇸🕊
19:48 Ford V3000 on the left in the column in the background
20:07/21:12 - Château De Pont-Rilly. Não fica no sul da França.
At 6:13 is that the station at Lambrusco?
Thanks for sharing this incredible footage! Does anyone know what is happening from 18:20 and onwards? Some of these locals dont look too happy.
18:19 This are Free French soldiers and resistance fighters arresting Wehrmacht soldiers and a french suspect.
The scene with the french suspect at 18:55 is to link to two other scenes in a video posted previously by chronohistory «French Résistance in 1944 (in color and HD)» at (2:13-3:12) and (3:55-6:35).
16:31 where is this? According to the editing chronology, it should be Dole or Dijon, but it isn't either of those. I will be on the lookout for a cathedral like this. I don't think it is Auxonne, either.
The chronology is wrong ... it's church Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Marseille :-)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89glise_Saint-Vincent-de-Paul
16:31 This is the church Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Marseille on 29 august 1944 for the parade of the french troops who liberated the city.
How many have noticed the dead horses in these news reels ? Yes the German infantry moved with horses. Falaise was covered with them. Wehrmacht was not as mechanized as US Army.
The Free French armies liberated Southern France as well. Not to mention British and other paratroopers participated as well.
Vrai ... 🕊
As a side note: the original plan did not anticipate the existence of the French 1st Army -- at all. The French, like most European powers, organized their draft and reserve divisions around specific regions. (Provinces) As the US 7th Army moved up the Rhone river valley, French reserve troops that had never participated in the 1940 fiasco started reporting to the colors -- just as they had in 1940 -- until the Vichy government sent them home.
The American provisions for equipment losses -- which were, in fact, not being lost, the campaign was a roll over -- were then directed at these Frenchmen. Since the 81mm mortar and 155mm howitzer were French in origin, it took all of five-minutes for the French to train on them. Heh.
The 105mm howitzer was a German design -- so it took 15-minutes for the French to dope it out.
In the blink of an eye, out of nowhere, the French added a full sized army to the Allied order of battle.
Leclerc's 2nd Tank Division was shifted over from 12th Army Group into the French 1st -- shortly after it went on holiday in Paris -- for 72-hours.
The French 1st Army did spend the bulk of its energies fighting Frenchmen -- however. It's an ugly tale, suppressed by those in the know.
It, naturally, reported to de Gaulle, and he had other priorities than Eisenhower. His obsession: traitors, collaborators... and fleeing Nazis.
(The reservists soon out-numbered the Free French troops that had participated in Operation Dragoon.)
"The French 1st Army did spend the bulk of its energies fighting Frenchmen -- however. It's an ugly tale, suppressed by those in the know.
It, naturally, reported to de Gaulle, and he had other priorities than Eisenhower. His obsession: traitors, collaborators... and fleeing Nazis."
You have touched on the truth and it is something the French don't want to admit. Lots of collaborators among them, some even helped round up the Jews to be sent to the death camps.
The average men in those days were 5 '4 so the rifles were almost as tall as them and on top of that all the eguipment, I used to collect WW2 rifles and the recoil from the 06 and the German 08 are very heavy so those guys had a lot of cohones.
i never realized there was so much action in Southern france
MInute 7:30. The Town is called Sistéron. Old Bridge over the River Rhône
Sorry , the Rhone doesn’t pass through Sisteron . The river Durance does .
@@raoulvolfoni1800 yes of course. Sorry! But the name of the town Sistéron is correct
@@michelbronnimann8959 Yes . Sisteron and not sistéron .
17:05 Henschel 33 G/D, behind him it looks like Mercedes L4500A
My wife was born in Montpellier, France about 10 mile from the Mediterranean. When she was about 7 years old, one morning all the Germans disappeared. That afternoon Americans arrived and a bunch of jeeps pulled up at the town square. One American driver took her on his knee and gave her a ball. He did his best to explain to her that it was something to eat. He pealed it for her, and she ate the orange - something she had never seen before. She said it was delicious.
15:55 Google maps 192 Chalourd, 01250 Corveissiat, France. Great video. Thanks for sharing.
Poor horses and mules always getting thrown into human conflict to suffer. While the bald eagle gets all the accolades and placed on currency for doing absolutely nothing for anyone or anything…..horses and mules get no glory at all for serving man.
Reliving history is the beat experience
19:40 ARV М31, following him goes M1 wrecker
I think "Tassenieres" is incorrect. I live about 40km from there and the images do not appear to be from there. There are no rocky outcroppings near the village. I have no doubt that the film crew followed this route, but I don't think the images are from there.
Tassenières (zip code 39120) est à une vingtaine de kilomètres au nord de La Charme sur la D475 dans le département du Jura. Un beau coin de France. Je vous invite à y faire un tour. Le Jura, une région de France où on dort et où on mange Très Bien Avis aux amateurs !
@@alexandre210613 de 11.54 a 14.29 c est bien filme dans le Jura Broissia au sud de St Julien sur Suran , puis la Charme et Tassenieres sur la D 175 au nord de Sellieres. Le Port , Mataflon, Cize Bolozon dans l Ain au porte du Jura
2:11 Maybe a wrecked Renault TRC 36R.
My Dad was in 317th infantry and built a bridge across the Moselle River.
16:37 Soldiers in turbans. Perhaps Indian soldiers, or French colonial soldiers? 19:11 An Australian or New Zealand soldier escorting German prisoners.
All these soldiers are french colonial troops, even those with Brodie helmet. This is in Marseille which was liberated by the free french, and the free french were equipped with British and US equipment.
Australian troops were withdrawn to the Pacific in 1942.
The only Australians left in Europe were RAAF and Navy.
@@allangibson2408 I saw the short pants and jumped to the wrong conclusion apparently. Anton 1860 says in his post in response to mine that they are likely French colonial troops equipped with British helmets.
0:16 Reggiane RE 2002
Aww man, nice catch!
11;55 a 12:35 Boissia 39320 Jura Franche Comte France
The projector noise doesn't work.
When I see American soldiers walking through a liberated French town, there are lots of American flags being waved, I always wonder where these came from. Were there secret underground factories making American/British flags so they would be ready for the Liberation, or did PR troops travel just behind the front line troops with thousands of flags to hand out to the residents so they could wave them for the passing troops? Also this looks like it must be from 1945, all the rubble has been cleared from the roads and streets and it looks like the iron wreckage has had quite bit of time to build up a good degree of rust.
These flags could have been self made flags. Some time ago I watched a film which action was taking place in Southern France during ww2 just after the landings. At some point in the film you can see a little girl who is making an american flag. People were able to do a lot of things with their hands at the time. They also made shirts, dresses and all kind of clothes with parachute silk.
Actually, the British had been dropping French, American and British flags to resistance groups, Maquis, all along.
This was intensified in the weeks ahead of any Allied landings.
Dropping them all over creation drove the Nazis nuts, as they were surely discovered by random patrols.
The only conclusion the enemy could reach was that this or that area was destined to be invaded.
But, the Allies were dropping such indicators all over creation. The Maquis were operating all over France.
The Allies managed to get the 2nd SS Panzer Division diverted to southwest France using such psychological feints.
After D-Day, coming back north, the 2nd SS murdered an entire French town. (The village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne.)
Yes, it was a full week late to the Battle of Normandy.
"I've been working on the railroad_... With my P-47...
pas de son !
a lot of different footage from different areas. your very learned commentors below should be congratulated
0:43 It looks like Lyon
16:35 Église (church) Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Marseille
0:43 This is the Pont Battant destroyed by the Germans in Besançon.
16:35 The crowd near the church Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in Marseille on 29 august 1944 for the parade of the french troops who liberated the city.
@@aorum3589 Ah merci, merci... Ils ont mélangé des images tout azimuts... et ils ne tiennent pas compte des commentaires. Je m'étais désabonné de cette chaine.
This damage from 1:15 minutes is the work of the Allied attack aircraft. Without its own air defense, the Germans did not stand a chance. Heaps of ash and sheet metal remained from the trucks. It must have been hell there at the time of the raid
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Most of this archive movie was shot in west central France. Tassenieres for example is fairly close to Switzerland, so is La Charme. Marseille is the south of France but most of this movie is way north of that region. It's like calling Illinois the deep south.
@Jean-Philippe R Merci, c'est bien juste...je voulait dire est mais j'ai dit l'oueste par erreur. Merci pour la correction.👍
My Grandfather was in Southern France. He was a member of The First Special Service Force.
Not really the SoF, Broissa is in the Jura, North of Geneve.
City ar 8:05 is Cisteron
Il s'agit du barrage hydroélectrique de Cize Bolozon sur la rivière d'Ain.
DAANNGG at about 5:20 those look like bombs . Talk about unexploded ordinance
Such needless destruction. Such a waste of resources.
Seeing various liberations videos one thing I'm curious about is is where did the French people get all the American and British flags.
China.
some took theirs out after they removed their swastika flags.
@@richardrybinski2320 flag sales are brisk in France....
@@The1badgolfer 😅😅😅😂
What stuns me is how just about every building seemed to be destroyed. Not even the little countryside villages were spared. It makes me wonder how and why...
My impression as well. It seems the US wasn't all that careful when liberating France.
It’s unfortunate but you have to remember that the Americans were trying to get the Germans and all of their equipment out or destroyed. And bombers back then literally just opened the Bombay doors and the bombs dropped out. There was no laser guided anything.
@@latsnojokelee6434 True. In the end, more people were killed and buildings destroyed by that than by the Germans, How ironic.
At 17.37 not a tank,more likely a wooden boat ,the bow is visible
US troops were not alone !
Some of the shot up German conveys look like they have been sitting for a month or more when filmed, a little rusty and plants are starting to grow up around them;
15h 55 Barrage de Cize Bolozon 01450 Ain Rhone Alpes France , non loin de Matafon
Nous pouvons vous aider à changer le titre. Le sud de la France a été principalement libéré par l'armée française, même si elle n'aurait pas pu le faire sans les forces de débarquement alliées.
En effet, les 2 /3 des troupes étaient françaises, mais avec le matériel et l'aide des Américains et des Britanniques...Et si la progression vers le Nord Est a été relativement rapide, malgré quelques sérieux combats, la reconquête de l'Alsace a été un gros morceau qui a nécessité de gros renforts tant Américains que Français (la 2°DB du Général Leclerc notamment) la région étant occupée par des troupes allemandes très aguerries et des blindés et ça s'est déroulé en plein hiver 44-45 qui a été particulièrement rigoureux...la fameuse poche de Colmar a nécessité d'âpres combats pour être réduite...
This was rough and tough going but made later berlin end war great film.
Why did they not film the dead bodies ? Was this film used for movie house news reals ?
50s Lover I suppose you didn't know that the human body begins to decompose and if left in the hot sun of June & July the process goes faster then you get a pestilence problem to add to the misery that war brings.The ancient Romans built funeral pyres and burned the fallen as quickly as they were able.
11:47 Renault AHN
Winners are liberators. Losers are war criminals.
I wonder at what point during the war did german soldiers start realizing they lucked out if they surrendered to the Americans.
at 7.01 is Sisteron
et de quels endroits voyons-nous? Pres d'Avignon? Arles . . dommage, surtout le peitit village qui n'a plus de pont!
C'est le bourg de Sisteron..dans les Alpes de Haute Provenceil y eut plus d'une centaine de tués suite à une erreur de bombardement, et encore plus de blessés. Ma grand-mère avait perdu plusieurs membres de sa famille, au cours de ce bombardement. Pensée à tous ceux qui ont perdu leur vie , ce jour là.
(07:20) This is Sisteron
Wasn't Vichy France pretty much outside the main part of the war. Germany maybe dictated policy in Vichy but didn't fully occupy the area. Is liberation the right word?
There was no need for "liberation" in the south and not even in the rest of France. It is a fact that the Germans in France behaved friendly and civilized. Another aspect of course is the French collaboration policy against the jews.
Non!
La zone libre a été envahie par les Allemands (et les Italiens) en novembre 1942, après le débarquement des Alliés en Afrique du Nord.
@@renatovonschumacher3511 Being occupied is friendly. And by the way, the occupation of the Ruhr by France (and Belgium) should have been for ever.
A lot of fascists in France. The French couldn't fight their way out of wet paper bag. Plus the French Navy fired on the British Navy, just shows you how buddy buddy they were with the Nazis.
Thanks to american forces to have helped the great Free France army to free the south of its country.
Strange title. US troops did not on their own liberate France. Allied troops landed at Normady and liberated France. Its offensive to the allies who were involved and fought. French troops also fought to liberate their homeland assisted by civilians who had resisted
Great footage....could do without the sound of the projector
Just turn volume down and stop the whining!
@@UniversalControl It is just added noise that is unnecessary.
It sounds like pure nostalgia, love it!