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I had to pass under a portrait of the Admiral hanging above the Navy Museum office door while receiving visitors while I was on summer duty wayyy back in August 1974 ("smoking gun" note: When I arrived, Nixon was President; when I left, Ford was President).
@@jakovb371 yeah, I just never even thought of it being on the radar yet at all. Stalingrad is such an immense loss, it is always followed by a "chapter break" as it were, and mentally you make a division after the chapter break whether one is really there or not, like bars on sheet music. You mentally put a break there even though you know in reality there isn't one
@@spikespa5208 It's one thing to know the dates. The difference is being able to relate the dates to how that feels in real life. To say, oh the invasion of France starts here, but then Dunkirk is here, and damn that really feels different than what I imagined
In 1941 the Germans attacked North, south, and East across the entire Soviet Union. In 1942 the Germans attacked across the Southern front of the USSR. In 1943 the Germans attacked... A relatively small salient of the Southern front.
@@astrobullivant5908 Aye. Thing is with the Germans is that they lacked a large strategic army sized reserve on the Eastern Front. All fronts basically. As a result they became obsessed with cutting off salients, as that would free up troops that could finally be used to create that large strategic reserve. The Kursk operation was only made possible by withdrawing from the Rhzev salient, which allowed 9th army to be redeployed there. Cutting off the Kursk salient would probably free up 2nd Army, which held the most western part of the Kursk sector, or allow it to take over the front sector from one of the Panzer armies, creating that mobile reserve.
Just the timescale between The Great War and the World War is insane. It's week 190, which during the Great War was during the Kaiserschlacht in March 1918. Now, it's week 190 and it's only April 1943. Another 124 weeks to go.
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that this is going to be one of the most anticipated events in this series. Can't wait for the next few months!
I’m reading a book right now on one historian’s deep dive into the preparations for the battle of Kursk and it’s what first got me into this channel. I’ve been trying to get filled in on the rest of the Russian campaign and I’m really looking forward to seeing them cover Kursk
On 13 April 1943, the GC3 "Normandie" Free French squadron suffered its first losses on the battlefield. While in course of a free chase, three aircraft were engaged by four Fw 190s. Three pilots of the Normandie squadron were shot down, as well as three Fw 190.
@@Valdagast From what I could find on google, it seems they were flying yak-1's and yak-7's given to them by the soviets as this particular group was on the eastern front.
@@Valdagast For training, they used Yakovlev UT-2 and Polikarpov Po-2 between 1 and 18 December 1942. Then Yak-7V for operational training between December 1942 and 25 January 1943. Then they used Yak-1b between 19 January and 22 March 1943 for advanced and dogfight training, later used as fighter aircraft. Since June 1943 Yak-1bs were used for training of new pilots and remained in Normandie-Niemen till the end of that year. Later Yak-9D were used for training in Tula between early June 1944 and late July 1944. They also received some examples of Yak-9T, tactical ground support variant, in the same period. Finally, Yak-3s became the main fighters aircraft of Normandie-Niemen from the end of July 1944 till the end of the war in May 1945. 37 Yak-3s were handed over to French Air Force and were used between June 1945 and April 1947.
@@robertkras5162 Americans have developed some very large ears recently, and had lied about the desalinization plant on Wake Island previously. The breaking of Enigma and the Japanese naval code - remarkable.
I just wanna say, the production value of this videos just keeps getting better and better. The lighting this episode was particularly good. The thumbnails as well are becoming cool pieces of art in their own merit.
German Soldier: Sir, we found a bunch of bodies in the woods! German Officer: Oh don’t worry that’s normal German Soldier: Sir, they’ve been there since before we got here! German Officer: Mein Gott! That’s awful!
It so happens that I lived in Krymskaya (Krymsk now) as a teen. Any plowed field you went to was full of rusted shrapnel, spent casings and bullets, and every forest around town had old trenches with rusted helmets, ammo, bits of weapons, uniforms, decorations, and bones all over. Unexploded ordinance was everywhere - we’d build fires, dump it in and hide in trenches until it went off. All that - remnants of the “Blue line”, 40+ years after the war.
“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them” - Winston Churchill (I thought someone would have posted this quote already.)
I can't believe how entertaining you make all of this material. Even though I know about a lot of it (far from all of it) I look forward to your videos.
Hearing that Stalin is actually listening to the whole conversation this time is good news! Surely the Soviet Union can only go from strength to strength if Stalin keeps doing this
@@ErikHare He has basically established himself as the leading Soviet general at this point, trusting him will be crucial to Soviet, and indeed Allied victory
The turning point at the battle of Stalingrad was really what sold it for me that by 1943 there was no chance for the Axis. Their logistical failures coupled with their unrealistic leadership and inability to assess their circumstances rationally and squarely in the face is what did them in as far as I am concerned. While they faced most of their earlier campaigns with the same overconfidence and zeal, I think there was a far more rational approach to the campaigns, more thinking outside of the box and improvising on the move that led them to well earned victories. As time goes on, we see Hitler's grip on the OKH/OKW tightening and less and less freedom to decide how battles should be fought being left to their respective commanders. I think the failure of Barbarossa and Halders/Guderians manipulation of the battle plans are the reason for this. What should have been the final striking blow to the Soviet state instead turned into a nearly two year long struggle that shows no obvious end in sight for the Germans. You can tell a lot by how the high command reacts and how the battlefield positions contract and move. Germany had no chance at winning this war by 1943. Their fate was sealed. And honestly, by fall of 1942 I don't think their chances were very high either. They're completely exhausted for resources, their best troops are mostly gone by now, dead from the Barbarossa invasion. North Africa is lost. Why spread themselves so thin on multiple fronts? Its just an embarrassing display of overextension and overconfidence. Abandoning invading England and subduing their western flank in Europe was an unfinished job that came back to haunt them. An all around unmitigated disaster and quest for power that left millions dead and a loss of life on a scale never before seen. It wasn't worth it imo. The folly of mad men.
I'd argue their fate was sealed by the fall of 1941. They had one shot at overwhelming the USSR before they were able to recover and strike back. As expensive as it was for them, the Red Army's willingness to fight and delay the Wehrmacht during Barbarossa wore them down to the point where they had no hope of reaching Moscow - ever. Once the Germans shot their bolt, mathematics took over and their defeat was inevitable.
There was just no way in hell that Germany could have mounted a successful invasion of the UK. They could not defeat the RAF and the Royal Navy could trounce over whatever pitiful invasion force the Germans would send over the channel. They were planning to use Rhine barges! As a result they could do little to the UK other then use u-boats to starve them out, which might take years. And they knew that as long as the UK had hope that the US or USSR would join in the war the UK would not seek for peace. And Hitler coveted the resources of the USSR and there was just a limited window to successfully invade the USSR. The Red Army was in shambles, as the Polish campaign and Finnish Winterwar proved. But they also knew that Stalin was doing his best to remedy the Red Army's failures, expand it and re-equip it. 1941 really was Germany's last chance to invade the USSR. By 1942 the geo-strategic situation might have radically changed. Also, the war with the UK served as a useful distraction to lull Stalin into a false sense of security, thinking that as long as Germany was at war with the UK he would never invade the USSR. And it worked!
Italy is the ultimate proof that its soldiers can be brave, but if their logistics are bad. If your technology lags behind your enemies. If your leaders do not know how to recognize your limitations in the war effort: your nation will be an eternal joke in military historiography.
I agree. The Italian soldier, when led properly, did well and showed courage. Logistics is one area, but tactics as well. I'm amazed that Germany kept it's professional officer corps, but most of Italy's were political appointments. Be very wary of the political general. Kissing butts does not win wars.
@@g.mantua1195 the interwar german army was designed as a skeletton : putting as much officers as possible within the Versailles 100k limit, so that there are enough officers when the army gets expanded.
One of my fellow soldiers in the US Army when we were both permanent cadre at Ft Knox, I an E4 and he an E5 in 1971, well he received a draft notice, a report for induction order, from West Germany. So he had to call his parents about what was up with that. Turned out his father was one of those Polish Officers who was captured by the Soviets. While they were being marched to some destination he became very apprehensive and begged his fellow officers to escape with him while they still could. They did not, he did. He worked as a laborer throughout the war, somehow being conscripted into the Wermacht, ended in the allied zones of Occupied Germany married to a German woman. They were both considered displaced persons and applied for refugee relocation to the USA and while waiting my acquaintance was born. They dug out his birth certificate, yes he had been born in Germany and so considered a citizen of West Germany. Well, oops, in the hectic years of getting settled into a new life in America his parents had neglected to have him naturalized. The First Sergeant kept offering him re enlistment packages to keep him in the US Army. But actually, because my acquaintance was a combat veteran returned from Vietnam, the First Sergeant called in a lot of favors with his fellow senior NCOs and had him attend a mandatory ceremony where to his surprise, he was naturalized as an American citizen. Ripples...
I remember being in formation one day in one of my units and something similar happened. Out of nowhere they called out one of the NCOs in another platoon and had him take his oath of citizenship right there. It wasn't a surprise to him because he'd been working on getting naturalized for a while, but nobody else in the unit knew because he'd never told anyone he wasn't a US citizen. Just the fact that non-citizens could serve in the military was a huge surprise to a lot of us.
I think it was the Chieftain was asked once, "how would have America fought the battle of Kursk?" He replied , "they wouldn't." I love that answer. Edited: If they were the Germans.
It's true. American forces only attack when they have first built up overwhelming superiority. An exception might have been the Guadalcanal Campaign, which was a much closer-run affair than Americans prefer. But the strategic importance of Guadalcanal was too much to allow Japan to build a strong base there, from which Japanese ships and bombers could have threatened the supply route to Australia. But if Americans had been somehow required to fight the battle of Kursk in place of the Germans, the American style would probably have been to mount an operation Cobra-style carpet bombing campaign against the Soviet defenses first. The USAAF can drop more bomb tonnage than the Luftwaffe at this point in the war, since the Germans never emphasized heavy bomber development.
I am just surprised you don't have more subscribers. This channels history content is by far the best world war type of information you can find online. I've watched every episode on this channel multiple times.
Adis Thank you for watching! We're always trying to grow the channel to get our episodes to more people. Any support you can give helps, including watching, liking, sharing, subscribing, and telling your friends to join the TimeGhost Army! bit.ly/WW2_190_CO
Regarding purposefully inflated results by the Japanese, in the book, "Japanese Destroyer Captain," Captain Hara Tameichi goes pretty deep into this several times. First and foremost there will be honest mistakes in reconnaissance and battle reports. Even in early 1942 for the Battle of the Coral Sea, Hara pointed out that even with the veteran aircrews the IJN had at the time, they spotted an American oiler ship and identified that as a Carrier, which promptly caused the Shokaku & Zuikaku to aggressively send mass air attacks against. If veteran, well trained, experienced aircrews made that mistake, imagine how bad the spotting was by the Japanese when their less trained, less experienced replacements did the same job later in 1942 and especially 1943? Next there's the expectations by the Japanese to do everything you can despite the huge prospect of failure. Third is that when these false, inflated reports are sent up the chain, a number of the officers between know the info is bogus but still let it to proceed. Hara says that often they did not want to disparage the fighting men's efforts because of how bad things really were out there. So, you had a strange thing going that the officers at the intermediate levels know all these reports are inflated and wrong, let the bull pass up to higher echelons, and then the guy at the time is making big command decisions based off of bad reports. In the book, Hara had experiences where this affected formations that his Destroyer was a part of. In one battle in 1943 they were a bunch of IJN Destroyers trying to escort some troop transports. However, the rear admiral in command received a spotting report by long range aircraft that found American "Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers." The officer took the reports at face value and changed his plans accordingly, but the American force was really only a bunch of Destroyers. How do you confuse a Destroyer for a Battleship? The fog and friction of war clouds everything. The officer in charge commanded the subsequent battle with the impression that Battleships and Cruisers would eventually come to overwhelm his small force of Destroyers.
It's also called the curse of autocracy. Anti-democratic governments maintain their grip on power by crushing dissent. Thus whenever bad news arrives, the autocratic culture of lying kicks in to suppress it. Autocrats, unlike small-d democrats, view all criticism of themselves as a threat, rather than as an opportunity to improve. During wartime, democratic governments must occasionally resort to lying as well, and this poses a grave risk to democracy itself. For democracies to work, leaders must be willing to accept that they lost elections by not doing their jobs well enough, which requires admitting to failure.
truthfulness in japanese military reporting was probably greatly complicated by how politically active (mostly in control of the empire) the japanese military was. and of course having the army and the navy be political rivals doesn't help either.
Very nice of you to add this background to the discussion, and I especially appreciate the book recommendation. I wish more people put up recommendations, and would love to see a Time Ghost page where viewers could recommend books or give book reviews.
Add to that the intentional withholding of valuable information due to the ongoing tension between the IJN and IJA, and you have a recipe for disaster. The IJN never told the IJA about the loss of the 4 carriers at Midway because of the embarrassment they would have to endure. So the IJA continued to make plans as if they had those 4 carriers for support operations. You literally cannot make this stuff up. It was so juvenile that it made the carping and complaining by Patton look mature in comparison.
Germany in 1940: this maginot line is impenetrable, so let's devise a plan so we can actually avoiding the trap France place for us if we take a predictable route though Belgium Germany in 1943: *seeing layers of fortified lines and bunkers LEEEEEEROY JENKIIIIIIIIINS
Just happened to see this channel and have been engrossed ever since. I have been binge watching these episodes for 2 months and have finally caught up. Has been a great presentation..can definitely see all the hard work everyone has put into this. Many thanks to all involved.
About Tunisia Mussolini saids to Hitler "if Tunisia falls , Italy is the next", The nazis gather a quarter million troops in the first "Festplatz" or Festung. The logistics of the nazis becames impossible.
Mussolini's crystal ball reads correctly. Although he could have done without the "if" - the fall of Axis forces in Tunisia is inevitable at this point. The Allies have all the advantages of manpower, weapons, and logistics, increasing by the week, and the Axis forces in Tunisia are being increasingly choked from their supplies as the Allies continue bringing more ships and aircraft to bear on the surrounding waters. It's interesting to note the Allied build-up. The Americans landed with around 100,000 troops in Operation Torch, now they have well over 400,000. The Allied spear pointing at Italy just gets bigger and bigger. The Axis nations have no capacity to further grow their forces. They'll be lucky just to keep up with their losses.
Is there any reason the NKVD didn't change the clothes of the Poles before killing them? They were found in uniform, and some even had personal documents still on them. That made it pretty easy to identify the culprit. Or were the Soviets just that confident no one would ever find them so they didn't think it mattered?
The Soviets had been killing millions of people for decades by this point. For the NKVD this was just another 'operation' that had become routine for them.
He's a very punctual man. I'm sure that by the time the Americans have deciphered any messages, he'll have made it there, and his reliability and punctuality certainly won't be his downfall!
The US 34th ID - The Red Bulls (Red Devils named by the Germans) would become specialist at attacking defended hills and heights through the was in Tunisia and Italy. The 34th had a very distinguished service record. They were to deploy to Europe in January 1942 and the 100th "Nisei" Infantry Battalion spent much of the Italian campaign attached to the 34th Division. The division as a whole was highly decorated and drew the tough assignments.
i love these videos - so superior than anything the vast wasteland of cable TV has to offer. It's such a treat for us World war obsessives to have Sparitcuss and Indy elucidate these weekly updates. It's as if u were there. Smart and witty stuff here
Some things seem to be historical consistencies. One big one is, in totalitarian societies people always lie to their bosses and it always undermines long term goals. I guess that's a good thing.
Soon after the planning phase of operation Citadel there was a decent chance that the Germans could have inflicted both heavy losses and a tough strategic defeat to the Soviet forces in and around the Kursk area But the very long delays in putting that initiative together allowed the Russians to create multiple lines of defense. Attacking after they were well dug in and positioned meant that the best they could pull out of it was a draw. But a draw when you need a victory is just a defeat. From that point onwards there would be no real victories for the Germans. Only delays and or small setbacks would be the best that the Wermacht could deliver from then on out. That dog won't hunt.
A sidenote this week on April 13 1943 is that the *Jefferson Memorial* in Washington D.C. is completed, with United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicating it on the bicentennial of the birth of the third American president, Thomas Jefferson. However, the bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson itself would not be completed until 1947 due to material shortages during the war, so a plaster cast version was used as a placeholder during this period.
@@WorldWarTwo Dickson Phua gives consistently makes the best comments from the us Patreon donners every week. Every week he makes a post like me but his posts always give me information that I was not aware of or knew very little about. If you guys were every looking for someone to hire out of the YT commenters I would recommend him over anyone (not that I know he is even looking for a job). I just think he is the best.
@@PhillyPhanVinny Thank you for your kind comments as always, Vinny Siracusa. Normally I don't reply much to comments, but I am just doing it this as a small side hobby or interest as I do have a full time job myself. Sometimes I may get some details or facts wrong due to conflicting or inconsistent sources, but I do try my very best to get these sidenotes as accurate as I possibly can. I feel that it is up to the reader to do their own due diligence checks on their part if they want to know more, as I prefer to give a brief summary rather than a full length article to make it easier and faster to digest.
@@gunman47 Yeah I tend to have the issue of making my posts to long causing people to skip over them. But I always feel like I should get one more detail in to avoid having to reply to someone who replies to my comment lol.
Always impressive when you describe one side's actual attack plan and then give the other side's expected attack plan as pretty close to identical immediately thereafter. The Soviets are so damned lucky that Zhukov never got caught up in any of the big pre-war purges. (He's not the only competent Soviet commander by any means, but he's pretty obviously the star of the show.)
In this way Zhukov was also deployed to Soviet Far East Theater in 1939 and on that regard just in time of purgers he was lucky too) There were many talanted Soviet generals and fieldf marshalls as good and experienced as him like Konev , Rokossovsky and Malinovsky and Vatutin.
14:47 With all that foreshadowing, it might be a good time this week and next week to watch the 2011 Japanese movie, *Isoroku* , the long movie name being Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto: Truth of the Pacific War 70 Years Ago (聯合艦隊司令長官 山本五十六 -太平洋戦争70年目の真実). It basically depicts Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto’s life during the conflict, and we will get to see soon what sort of welcome reception he might receive from the Japanese (and maybe Americans too) when he lands at Balalae Airfield at Bougainville in the Solomon Islands next week.
It is a pretty good movie. Some inaccuracies like most biopics, but it does a good job representing Yamamoto during the war. It may be some months before I begin this, but I have a G4M1 Betty and a P-38 model, with figures, to recreate Yamamoto's final flight.
It's always worth remembering that Stalin made deals with everyone, as it suited his goals - Germany, Japan, US, UK etc. The only deal he did not himself break was the deal with Nazi Germany, as Hitler beat him to the punch, as they say.
He actually tried to make an anti German alliance before with the western allies , but they did not respond to him, to him it was just a pragmatic deal to secure soviet position until the reformation of soviet army succeed Beside, if we point finger to stalin for making deals with Hitler, then we should point finger at britain and france too, their deals and appeasement to hitler is actually far more destructive since it actually strengthen Nazi Germany and giving Hitler confidence to act more, and from moral standpoint, giving an entire country to a foreign power in a conference without even involving that said country's government? Yeah, not really a good moral therr eh? Besides, it's always easy to judge a situation if you already know how it would impact in the future, but if you are in their position what would you do? Starting a war, base on some foreign land your population barely heard about? Risking a defeat or pyrrhic victory like the last great you fought, how would yoi justify the war for general population in the first place?
@@jeflha What sickened me the most about the Munich appeasement was the willingness to negotiate away the soverignty of a nation that was itself excluded from the negotiations.
It’s probably just hindsight talking but it seems that if the Kursk salient was the obvious place to attack and it was known that the Soviets were massively reinforcing that position because they knew it was the obvious place to attack then it should have been obvious that any attack should have taken place somewhere else if an offensive was going to happen.
Great Piece. Although I might want to add that in the face of all the seeming disunity and "wheels within wheels" amongst the various allied powers, there was one small, sneaky, and yet rather inspiring show of trust and cooperation between two of the Allies this week. For this week HMS Victorious arrived at Pearl Harbor. To Take on a new Clandestine Name. A Partial New American Crew and Flight Group. And to for a little while, fly the flag of an ally. She would sail out of Pearl Harbor as the mysterious USS Robin. Having been loaned to the Americans, who were down to just the USS Saratoga as the sole operational Carrier in the Pacific, while Enterprise was being repaired from Damage taken in the Solomons. As luck would have it the Japanese were down to one Operational main Carrier as well with others also badly damaged and back home for repairs. So the tag team of Saratoga and Robin didn't see much noteworthy combat, mostly anti sub patrols. . As both Navy's having exhausted themselves off Guadalcanal were in a quiet period of repair and rearming.
On 6th and 7th April, 30th Corps launched a full-scale attack on the Wadi Akarit position, and after some hard fighting, particularly by the 51st Highland and 4th Indian Divisions, they smashed their way through. It was now the turn of my mobile 10th Corps to burst out of the bottleneck and sweep forward over the fertile coastal plain of Tunisia towards Tunis. The hills across the Gabes Gap were like a gateway opening on to an enchanted garden. In front of us was an open plain with small, white villages, olive groves and cultivation. It seemed all wrong that war should descend on this pleasant land. Up to now, with the exception of Tripoli, most of the fighting had taken place in the arid desert, populated by a few scraggy Bedouin, who appeared from nowhere to stand beside some desert track offering for barter the smallest hen's eggs I have ever seen in my life. Otherwise there was no one, and we soldiers could wage our beastly war without interfering with anyone. From now on it would be different; we were entering a country inhabited by French colonists. Sfax and Sousse were pleasant little seaside towns, and as each was liberated the authorities staged a suitable and very French welcome. , At Sousse I found myself standing immediately behind Monty while the French mayor read a long speech of welcome. Around us were crowds of inhabitants, flags, guards ofhonour, in fact, all the trappings of a liberation ceremony. After the speeches, as was usual on these occasions, a very charming young French girl moved on to the stage and presented Monty with a beribboned bouquet. So far all had gone according to plan. But suddenly, as Monty shook her by the hand and said, " Thank you, mademoiselle," we all heard a shrill French accented girlish voice saying, "Plees kees me." This certainly was far from normal procedure. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at my commander, wondering how he would react. I need not have worried. After a brief pause Monty bent down most gallantly and kissed her on the cheek. "We heard after- wards that the young lady refused to allow her fiance to kiss her for twenty-four hours, and wouldn't even wash her face as she did not wish to remove the touch of "Le Liberateur" I had my suspicions that this charming ceremony was not entirely unpremeditated, and, sure enough, we discovered that Monty's A.D.C., John Poston, who was killed almost at the end of the war, had organised thewhole incident, and had spent the previous afternoon happily rehearsing the young lady. It was during our advance towards Sousse that we made our first physical contact with the U.S. forces, who were operating alongside ist British Army in North Africa. An excited British voice came up on the air from one of the 12th Lancers armoured car patrols : "We have made contact with friends on our left! " The voice of a suspicious senior officer was then heard to say:" What do you mean, friends. What friends? " " Friends to whom Smokey went," came the answer. Smokey referred to a 12th Lancer officer called Smokey Douglas who had been flown over to act as liaison officer with American forces under General Patton with whom we were likely to make first contact, as the two armies were converging rapidly. Then came a fresh voice with a Southern drawl, and there was no doubt to what nationality it belonged: "Sure, we're Smokey's friends." So the big link-up had taken place, and the remainder of the Axis forces were now encircled in the north-west corner of Africa. A few days later I drove over in my armoured car keeping my fingers crossed in case we should hit a mine, as this particular road had not been cleared to contact our ist Army, which had occupied the old, historic town of Kairouan, and here I met Charles Keightley, the commander of the 6th British Armoured Division (afterwards General Sir Charles Keightley who commanded the forces at Suez). A Full Life , Memoirs of General Brian Horrocks , 10th Corps commander , Eighth Army
The character arc of the red army is one of the best I've seen. Now they are predicting the enemy's attacks and planning counter strategies against those movements. They've come a long way since the begining of Operation Barbarosa, when troops weren't even aware that they were being attacked.
The Tunisian campaign show the greatness of Messe, battle after battle, the allies they were not able to defeat or to trap the axis forces, despite they cracked their intelligence code, they win the campaign only for numerical advantages. It is sad Messe could not play a major role in the ww2.
They very much defeated Messe in 1) Medeine , 2) Tebega Gap-Mareth Line , 3) Wadi Akarit 4) Chasing all the way to Enfidaville and inflicting heavy casaulties meanwhile (in mid March-April 1943 , 19.000+ Axis prisoners were captured from First Italian Army) despite Italian First Army had almost equal number of manpower facing Eighth Army. Messe was most talented Italian general of war but what he achieved in Tunisia had been only temporarily avoiding encirclement and destruction of his army till it was not possible to run anymore. At he did that at cost of abandoning a series of extensively deep defensive lines on mountain terrain of Southern Tunisia in short time faster than expected (in less than three weeks) that were very much suitable for extended resistance. Trading space for time when that time was wasted (no evacuation or fortifying Tunisia nor any entrenchiment or reinforcement of Sicily or Sardinia or Pantelleiria) is not a victory
@@merdiolu the allied had higher numbers and could cut off the axis supplies lines, the surrender was unavoidable. How long they could still maintain Tunisia if instead of give up they adopted a strategy like they did in Stalingrad and in Guadalcanal?
@@federicoactite678 Axis should never maintained Tunisia at all. After Panzer Army Afrika fragments retreated behind Mareth Line , they should have immediately started evacuation of Tunisia in mid January 1943. Instead they reinforced Tunisia , a place doomed to be blockaded , suffered defeat after defeat in Southern Tunisia (Messe himself admitted that Mareth Line and Wadi Akarit "were not good battles for us" ) and multiplied the numbers to be pursued , cornered and captured in Tunisia. They adopted a strategy like Stalingrad and Guadalcanal (Axis strategy) and just like both they lost in Tunisia too. Retreating from fronts and sectors that were impossible to hold , before an overwhelming defeat , is a logical rational military sense. Neither Hltler/Mussolini duo , nor Kesselring/Messe duo could see this. Uptil end of April , Kesselring continued to send reinforcements to doomed Tunisian brisgehead only to be captured in days while Messe and Von Arnim could not even feed the existing troops.
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Kursk is the mother of all battles. 2000 tanks facing off along a battlefield the size of the state of New York. We tend to think that the nazis lost at Stalingrad but this was the battle that broke the Wehrmacht's back for good. It was awesome in the actual sense of the word.
The idea that Kursk is the largest tank battle has been debunked by modern Historians. Dubno had more tanks fighting and certainly Stalingrad had more troops and lasted much longer.
@@caryblack5985 According to wiki ( not the best source but still) Battle of Dubno/Brody : German 750 tanks Sov: 3500 Battle of Kursk : Ger: 2900 tanks, Sov : 5100 tanks
It never fails to amaze me how with our benifit of hindsight, we see all this unfolding knowing what we do, how these decisions are leading to Gemany and Japan's "Twilight of the Gods".
The largest battle in human history is about to take place. An entire army will fall, and the world will be changed forever. The true allied victory is upon us. A battle I will always wanna make a movie about.
In the opening you're talking about last week's events in Tunisia, but the map circles area around Crimea instead. Just adding this info for anyone new and not too well familiar with geography :p
About Kursk is the first time what the russian resserves are near to battlefield, protected by by 3 defensives lines at the end of the salient. Not only the Steppe Front, there are a million troops from the soviet reserve (STAVKA) waiting behind the lines, is the first time what soviets put the reserves at 200 kms of distance and not thousands kms like before. Stalin never accepts deffensive operations instead the plans was to attack Donbass, Oriel salient, and Jarkov Zone.
As churchill said if hell took up arms against the nazis he would be fine with making a pact with the devil. You should cover how the allies were tipped of on the date of citadel. A good subject for Spartacus would be the Bengal famine which I learned about from someone who responded to my comments.
As always great video, never really commented before but love your work and they work of the History more specifically the Military History community. Also gotta love Indie been a fan since start of The Great War series
Watching this live. And hearing Battle of Kursk will happen soon. We really are two years away from the end. Are we getting any tours, specials, biographies?
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Not evacuating Tunesia seems rather stupid in hinesight. They had 250,000 man there and they were going to lose no matter what. They might still had been able to get some sort of Dunkerque out of the situation but then they had to give the order to evacuate.
It would have taken them months and they'd have to run a massive gauntlet of allied air and sea power in order to get them back to Italy. Wasn't like Dunkirk where the British fleet had a relatively short and clear route to evacuate through.
Axis did not have any sealift tonnage , merchant cargo shipping capacity to pull a "Dunkirk" in Mediterranean , not anymore in 1943. Most of the Italian asnd German cargo and merchant shipping was sunk in Mediterranean or isolated out of Mediterranean and picked off one by one by Royal Navy and RAF since 1940 , the rest along with Italian Navy were imprisoned in their ports at Italy due to lack of fuel and Allied naval and air blockade in Central Mediterranean and Sicilian Narrows were too strong to be passed by now.
Spoilers about Sikorski: Sikorski will not live till the end of the war. He died in a plane crash in July 4th (1943) over Giblartar while traveling to the Middle East to inspect Polish troops. His death has spured many conspiracy theories in Poland.
I bet as many as that crash in 2010 that saw the death of polish president and whole slew of senior leadership of Poland. That crash is also somewhat related to this video, they where on their way to the 70th memorial of the Katyn Massacre and among the victims of the crash where relatives of the executed polish officers.
I was under the impression from other sources that the British/US Ultra intercept assessments, not the intercepts themselves, were provided to the USSR. (We did not tell the USSR about Ultra, but their spies had let them know about it anyway.) I believe they had more details than presented here and new exactly how to let the Wehrmacht expend itself to no effect.
@@Dustz92 Yes, they had to make up stories multiple times to cover Ultra. The key here is that Stalin's spies knew where the real dirt came from, although they could not directly access it and had to wait for western powers to inform them. Give the Red Army due credit, they laid a good trap and wrung the Wehrmacht's neck.
It was obvious both from the geography on the Easter Front and the position of the German troops that they would look to attack at Kursk. Any information from Allied intelligence just confirmed it.
@@caryblack5985 Specifically, it gave time tables which allowed STAVKA to know just how much time it had to prepare. It also said exactly which units would do what. Really it helped with the details which allowed the response to be very fine tuned.
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It's my perception that, in 1941, the Wehrmacht achieved tactical surprise over the Red Army in '41 and '42. Now in 1943, the Wehrmacht will attack where the Soviets expect achieving no tactical surprise. The Red Army has been battle hardened over the course of two bloody years and is a more capable foe than in 1941 and 'fresh', if you will, from their victory at Stalingrad. It will be interesting to see how the coming battle plays out. In thinking about the tactical surprises, I am minded of the espionage 'game' that may have played an important role in how this conflict went. The indicators were there in 1941 and, although the Germans achieved tactical surprise anyway, Stavka moved or was moving six armies west to bolster the defenses which suggests they did act on the spy info they received. In 1942, the Soviets captured part of the plans for Case Blau, but remained convinced that Moscow was the German objective. Now in '43, Kursk appears the obvious target but the Germans don't always go with the obvious. Has intel finally become a viable aid to the Red Army by this point in time?
Not so much the availablity of intel, but Stavka's willingness to listen to it and adjust their plans accordingly instead of coming to a conclusion and sticking blindly to it no matter what. Letting the Wehrmacht beat their heads against the Kursk salient was the smartest thing the Soviets did during the war. Instead of planning yet more pointless and wasteful offensives they built up their defenses and reserves and let the Germans grind themselves down before striking back.
The Axis should have cut out the middleman and just shipped them straight to POW camps. They wouldn't even have to arm them, then, and it would save on logistics.
It's strange that this is the first time I've thought of this because I'm a very regular viewer but you guys were pretty lucky or pretty quick to get the world war II moniker for your platform. Time Ghost was a pretty good grab as well but that's nowhere close to being as popular a phrase as world war II. Way to jump on it.
Will be there more information about Manstein and Guderian's opposition to Citadela in the coming weeks? I wonder how long will battle of Tunisia last. Even if Allied forces manage to capture Tunisia, the whole of Europe is under the Axis power's spell. What can go wrong?
Wasn’t Hitler also against citadel, pretty sure there’s a quote by him saying something like: “Every time I think about operation citadel my stomach turns over”.
Not exactly, Hitler wanted to go forward with it and he thought it was necessary to regain the initiative against the Soviets, however it did make him very nervous, and when Hitler said this, I believe it was Halder who said in response, "Exactly, so why do it? Leave it alone." Hitler ordered the operation anyways. The rest is history.
@@ostrichhe4d You can honestly just look up Hitlers views on Kursk and Citadel and Wikipedia will probably tell you faster than I can. He did approve it in the end but he may have been hesitant at one point. I think the allies invade Sicily soon so this forced him and OKH to recall several divisions for the defense of Italy. It's really over for them at this point. Kind of sad to watch the military that steamrolled most of Europe for three years slowly bleed to death in a struggle over some homeless guys whacked out ideology. Lol
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Well, lets hope that yamamoto has a safe & secure trip to the Solomons and that nothing unfortunate happens to him
P-38’s were excellent long range fighters.
Apparently, he's a highly precise and punctual man. He'll get there right on time, exactly as scheduled, before the enemy's got their boots on!
Godspeed, Yamomoto!
I had to pass under a portrait of the Admiral hanging above the Navy Museum office door while receiving visitors while I was on summer duty wayyy back in August 1974 ("smoking gun" note: When I arrived, Nixon was President; when I left, Ford was President).
Fortunately for Yamamoto, the odds of getting struck by lightning are usually low.
I never think of Kursk being this close in time to Stalingrad. This is another example of how illuminating covering the war in real time can be
Thanks for watching, we share your fascination with those juxtapositions in history.
You say this close in time to Stalingrad, but I believe the actual battle occurs after at least a month or two of preparation
It's also illuminating to try, while reading a history book, to think about the dates.
@@jakovb371 yeah, I just never even thought of it being on the radar yet at all. Stalingrad is such an immense loss, it is always followed by a "chapter break" as it were, and mentally you make a division after the chapter break whether one is really there or not, like bars on sheet music. You mentally put a break there even though you know in reality there isn't one
@@spikespa5208 It's one thing to know the dates. The difference is being able to relate the dates to how that feels in real life. To say, oh the invasion of France starts here, but then Dunkirk is here, and damn that really feels different than what I imagined
In 1941 the Germans attacked North, south, and East across the entire Soviet Union.
In 1942 the Germans attacked across the Southern front of the USSR.
In 1943 the Germans attacked... A relatively small salient of the Southern front.
That reflects a lot about state of forces and particularly logistics of the Wehrmacht
Remove the East and it’s the German Eastern front in a nutshell
Halder wanted to go North while Hitler wanted to go South
The salient was far more significant than its geographic size would suggest.
@@astrobullivant5908 Aye. Thing is with the Germans is that they lacked a large strategic army sized reserve on the Eastern Front. All fronts basically. As a result they became obsessed with cutting off salients, as that would free up troops that could finally be used to create that large strategic reserve. The Kursk operation was only made possible by withdrawing from the Rhzev salient, which allowed 9th army to be redeployed there. Cutting off the Kursk salient would probably free up 2nd Army, which held the most western part of the Kursk sector, or allow it to take over the front sector from one of the Panzer armies, creating that mobile reserve.
Just the timescale between The Great War and the World War is insane. It's week 190, which during the Great War was during the Kaiserschlacht in March 1918. Now, it's week 190 and it's only April 1943. Another 124 weeks to go.
Thanks for watching along with us
Longer war
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that this is going to be one of the most anticipated events in this series. Can't wait for the next few months!
Thank you for watching. The TimeGhost Army's enthusiasm and support makes it possible!
@@WorldWarTwo I'm looking forward to next Summer in the east...
I’m reading a book right now on one historian’s deep dive into the preparations for the battle of Kursk and it’s what first got me into this channel. I’ve been trying to get filled in on the rest of the Russian campaign and I’m really looking forward to seeing them cover Kursk
I'm waiting for the encirclement and destructionation of Heeres Gruppe Mitte
The Greatest Tank battle in history draws near!
The last bit there had me thinking " . . .oh right, there's a China front too". Haven't seen much movement there for the past few months.
On 13 April 1943, the GC3 "Normandie" Free French squadron suffered its first losses on the
battlefield. While in course of a free chase, three aircraft were engaged by four Fw 190s. Three
pilots of the Normandie squadron were shot down, as well as three Fw 190.
What were the Free French equipped with?
@@Valdagast From what I could find on google, it seems they were flying yak-1's and yak-7's given to them by the soviets as this particular group was on the eastern front.
@@Valdagast For training, they used Yakovlev UT-2 and Polikarpov Po-2 between 1 and 18 December 1942. Then Yak-7V for operational training between December 1942 and 25 January 1943.
Then they used Yak-1b between 19 January and 22 March 1943 for advanced and dogfight training, later used as fighter aircraft. Since June 1943 Yak-1bs were used for training of new pilots and remained in Normandie-Niemen till the end of that year.
Later Yak-9D were used for training in Tula between early June 1944 and late July 1944. They also received some examples of Yak-9T, tactical ground support variant, in the same period.
Finally, Yak-3s became the main fighters aircraft of Normandie-Niemen from the end of July 1944 till the end of the war in May 1945. 37 Yak-3s were handed over to French Air Force and were used between June 1945 and April 1947.
Thank you for informing us about the Normandie squadron. I followed your suggestion and searched for it in youtube to find more information. Carry on!
I wish Yamamoto a good flight, hopefully he doesn’t run into any Lightning on the way.
Har har.
Now would be a good time this week and next week to watch the 2011 Japanese movie, *Isoroku* ...
is he flying in an f-35?
@@pnutz_2 1) it's a P-38 and 2) no, he's in a Betty.
I was just about to look up Yamamoto on Wikipedia to try to remember when he died. Thank you dude
Would be a shame if anything were to happen to Yamamoto during his trip...
he's got like 4 transport planes as a decoy, what are the chances anyone goes after his plane first?
Yep...foreshadowing. Gotta love those P-38s.
Naw... He'll be fine... How would anyone know where Yamamoto was going to be?...
@@robertkras5162 Americans have developed some very large ears recently, and had lied about the desalinization plant on Wake Island previously.
The breaking of Enigma and the Japanese naval code - remarkable.
It's not like any codes are broken or the Americans know where he's going...right?
I just wanna say, the production value of this videos just keeps getting better and better. The lighting this episode was particularly good. The thumbnails as well are becoming cool pieces of art in their own merit.
Thank you! We do as best we can.
German Soldier: Sir, we found a bunch of bodies in the woods!
German Officer: Oh don’t worry that’s normal
German Soldier: Sir, they’ve been there since before we got here!
German Officer: Mein Gott! That’s awful!
That is awful. They murdered officers that didnt lead to genocide in USSR too.
"We're shocked! Shocked!"
Funny enough, last week the Russians were threatening to destroy the Katyn memorial, during their present reenactment of past Russian war atrocities.
Man, I always love these ending monologs.
Thanks Thanos!
@@WorldWarTwo hang on indy I thought you were thanos, you said so at the end of b2w
@@pnutz_2 No! I am Thanos!
It so happens that I lived in Krymskaya (Krymsk now) as a teen. Any plowed field you went to was full of rusted shrapnel, spent casings and bullets, and every forest around town had old trenches with rusted helmets, ammo, bits of weapons, uniforms, decorations, and bones all over. Unexploded ordinance was everywhere - we’d build fires, dump it in and hide in trenches until it went off.
All that - remnants of the “Blue line”, 40+ years after the war.
We’re already at Kursk and week 190, feels like just last week was the British Invasion into Italian Somalia
Didn't the Japanese just take Singapore a couple weeks ago too? Wonder how those lads are getting on....
Gotta really wait till July though before it kicks off.
Thanks!
Thanks for watching, Geoff
“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them”
- Winston Churchill
(I thought someone would have posted this quote already.)
I can't believe how entertaining you make all of this material. Even though I know about a lot of it (far from all of it) I look forward to your videos.
Thank you for watching, oldesertguy
Hearing that Stalin is actually listening to the whole conversation this time is good news!
Surely the Soviet Union can only go from strength to strength if Stalin keeps doing this
I hope he trusts Zhukov
@@ErikHare He has basically established himself as the leading Soviet general at this point, trusting him will be crucial to Soviet, and indeed Allied victory
They would have done a lot better, and lost a lot fewer troops and civilians, if Stalin had just sat down and shut up, and let Zukov handle it.
@@lordgarion514 What? We're in 1943? How do you know all of this?
@@PuncakeLena he must be a time traveller
The turning point at the battle of Stalingrad was really what sold it for me that by 1943 there was no chance for the Axis. Their logistical failures coupled with their unrealistic leadership and inability to assess their circumstances rationally and squarely in the face is what did them in as far as I am concerned. While they faced most of their earlier campaigns with the same overconfidence and zeal, I think there was a far more rational approach to the campaigns, more thinking outside of the box and improvising on the move that led them to well earned victories. As time goes on, we see Hitler's grip on the OKH/OKW tightening and less and less freedom to decide how battles should be fought being left to their respective commanders. I think the failure of Barbarossa and Halders/Guderians manipulation of the battle plans are the reason for this. What should have been the final striking blow to the Soviet state instead turned into a nearly two year long struggle that shows no obvious end in sight for the Germans. You can tell a lot by how the high command reacts and how the battlefield positions contract and move. Germany had no chance at winning this war by 1943. Their fate was sealed. And honestly, by fall of 1942 I don't think their chances were very high either. They're completely exhausted for resources, their best troops are mostly gone by now, dead from the Barbarossa invasion. North Africa is lost. Why spread themselves so thin on multiple fronts? Its just an embarrassing display of overextension and overconfidence.
Abandoning invading England and subduing their western flank in Europe was an unfinished job that came back to haunt them. An all around unmitigated disaster and quest for power that left millions dead and a loss of life on a scale never before seen. It wasn't worth it imo. The folly of mad men.
Very well said, and yet war machines around the world continue to grow day by day. Man is truly wolf to man 😔
Good thing nothing like this ever happened again.
Invasion Britain was not on table for germans.
I'd argue their fate was sealed by the fall of 1941. They had one shot at overwhelming the USSR before they were able to recover and strike back. As expensive as it was for them, the Red Army's willingness to fight and delay the Wehrmacht during Barbarossa wore them down to the point where they had no hope of reaching Moscow - ever. Once the Germans shot their bolt, mathematics took over and their defeat was inevitable.
There was just no way in hell that Germany could have mounted a successful invasion of the UK. They could not defeat the RAF and the Royal Navy could trounce over whatever pitiful invasion force the Germans would send over the channel. They were planning to use Rhine barges! As a result they could do little to the UK other then use u-boats to starve them out, which might take years. And they knew that as long as the UK had hope that the US or USSR would join in the war the UK would not seek for peace. And Hitler coveted the resources of the USSR and there was just a limited window to successfully invade the USSR. The Red Army was in shambles, as the Polish campaign and Finnish Winterwar proved. But they also knew that Stalin was doing his best to remedy the Red Army's failures, expand it and re-equip it. 1941 really was Germany's last chance to invade the USSR. By 1942 the geo-strategic situation might have radically changed. Also, the war with the UK served as a useful distraction to lull Stalin into a false sense of security, thinking that as long as Germany was at war with the UK he would never invade the USSR. And it worked!
Italy is the ultimate proof that its soldiers can be brave, but if their logistics are bad. If your technology lags behind your enemies. If your leaders do not know how to recognize your limitations in the war effort: your nation will be an eternal joke in military historiography.
I agree. The Italian soldier, when led properly, did well and showed courage. Logistics is one area, but tactics as well. I'm amazed that Germany kept it's professional officer corps, but most of Italy's were political appointments. Be very wary of the political general. Kissing butts does not win wars.
@@g.mantua1195 the interwar german army was designed as a skeletton : putting as much officers as possible within the Versailles 100k limit, so that there are enough officers when the army gets expanded.
One of my fellow soldiers in the US Army when we were both permanent cadre at Ft Knox, I an E4 and he an E5 in 1971, well he received a draft notice, a report for induction order, from West Germany.
So he had to call his parents about what was up with that.
Turned out his father was one of those Polish Officers who was captured by the Soviets. While they were being marched to some destination he became very apprehensive and begged his fellow officers to escape with him while they still could. They did not, he did.
He worked as a laborer throughout the war, somehow being conscripted into the Wermacht, ended in the allied zones of Occupied Germany married to a German woman.
They were both considered displaced persons and applied for refugee relocation to the USA and while waiting my acquaintance was born.
They dug out his birth certificate, yes he had been born in Germany and so considered a citizen of West Germany.
Well, oops, in the hectic years of getting settled into a new life in America his parents had neglected to have him naturalized.
The First Sergeant kept offering him re enlistment packages to keep him in the US Army.
But actually, because my acquaintance was a combat veteran returned from Vietnam, the First Sergeant called in a lot of favors with his fellow senior NCOs and had him attend a mandatory ceremony where to his surprise, he was naturalized as an American citizen.
Ripples...
I remember being in formation one day in one of my units and something similar happened. Out of nowhere they called out one of the NCOs in another platoon and had him take his oath of citizenship right there. It wasn't a surprise to him because he'd been working on getting naturalized for a while, but nobody else in the unit knew because he'd never told anyone he wasn't a US citizen. Just the fact that non-citizens could serve in the military was a huge surprise to a lot of us.
Lynn, Thank you for sharing his story here. That is quite a fascinating piece of history.
Another interesting tidbit, Hitler's nephew joined the US Navy after Peal Harbor. I believe it took some convincing for them to take him.
I think it was the Chieftain was asked once, "how would have America fought the battle of Kursk?" He replied , "they wouldn't." I love that answer. Edited: If they were the Germans.
It's true. American forces only attack when they have first built up overwhelming superiority. An exception might have been the Guadalcanal Campaign, which was a much closer-run affair than Americans prefer. But the strategic importance of Guadalcanal was too much to allow Japan to build a strong base there, from which Japanese ships and bombers could have threatened the supply route to Australia. But if Americans had been somehow required to fight the battle of Kursk in place of the Germans, the American style would probably have been to mount an operation Cobra-style carpet bombing campaign against the Soviet defenses first. The USAAF can drop more bomb tonnage than the Luftwaffe at this point in the war, since the Germans never emphasized heavy bomber development.
@@danielmocsny5066 It's a pretty good tactic, tbh. Only attack when we'll probably win.
I am just surprised you don't have more subscribers. This channels history content is by far the best world war type of information you can find online. I've watched every episode on this channel multiple times.
Adis Thank you for watching! We're always trying to grow the channel to get our episodes to more people. Any support you can give helps, including watching, liking, sharing, subscribing, and telling your friends to join the TimeGhost Army! bit.ly/WW2_190_CO
Regarding purposefully inflated results by the Japanese, in the book, "Japanese Destroyer Captain," Captain Hara Tameichi goes pretty deep into this several times.
First and foremost there will be honest mistakes in reconnaissance and battle reports. Even in early 1942 for the Battle of the Coral Sea, Hara pointed out that even with the veteran aircrews the IJN had at the time, they spotted an American oiler ship and identified that as a Carrier, which promptly caused the Shokaku & Zuikaku to aggressively send mass air attacks against. If veteran, well trained, experienced aircrews made that mistake, imagine how bad the spotting was by the Japanese when their less trained, less experienced replacements did the same job later in 1942 and especially 1943?
Next there's the expectations by the Japanese to do everything you can despite the huge prospect of failure.
Third is that when these false, inflated reports are sent up the chain, a number of the officers between know the info is bogus but still let it to proceed. Hara says that often they did not want to disparage the fighting men's efforts because of how bad things really were out there. So, you had a strange thing going that the officers at the intermediate levels know all these reports are inflated and wrong, let the bull pass up to higher echelons, and then the guy at the time is making big command decisions based off of bad reports.
In the book, Hara had experiences where this affected formations that his Destroyer was a part of. In one battle in 1943 they were a bunch of IJN Destroyers trying to escort some troop transports. However, the rear admiral in command received a spotting report by long range aircraft that found American "Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers." The officer took the reports at face value and changed his plans accordingly, but the American force was really only a bunch of Destroyers. How do you confuse a Destroyer for a Battleship? The fog and friction of war clouds everything. The officer in charge commanded the subsequent battle with the impression that Battleships and Cruisers would eventually come to overwhelm his small force of Destroyers.
Thank you for giving that background context.
It's also called the curse of autocracy. Anti-democratic governments maintain their grip on power by crushing dissent. Thus whenever bad news arrives, the autocratic culture of lying kicks in to suppress it. Autocrats, unlike small-d democrats, view all criticism of themselves as a threat, rather than as an opportunity to improve. During wartime, democratic governments must occasionally resort to lying as well, and this poses a grave risk to democracy itself. For democracies to work, leaders must be willing to accept that they lost elections by not doing their jobs well enough, which requires admitting to failure.
truthfulness in japanese military reporting was probably greatly complicated by how politically active (mostly in control of the empire) the japanese military was. and of course having the army and the navy be political rivals doesn't help either.
Very nice of you to add this background to the discussion, and I especially appreciate the book recommendation. I wish more people put up recommendations, and would love to see a Time Ghost page where viewers could recommend books or give book reviews.
Add to that the intentional withholding of valuable information due to the ongoing tension between the IJN and IJA, and you have a recipe for disaster. The IJN never told the IJA about the loss of the 4 carriers at Midway because of the embarrassment they would have to endure. So the IJA continued to make plans as if they had those 4 carriers for support operations. You literally cannot make this stuff up. It was so juvenile that it made the carping and complaining by Patton look mature in comparison.
Crazy how not-far away kursk and stalingrad are! I always think of them being way more separated
Germany in 1940: this maginot line is impenetrable, so let's devise a plan so we can actually avoiding the trap France place for us if we take a predictable route though Belgium
Germany in 1943: *seeing layers of fortified lines and bunkers LEEEEEEROY JENKIIIIIIIIINS
Just happened to see this channel and have been engrossed ever since. I have been binge watching these episodes for 2 months and have finally caught up. Has been a great presentation..can definitely see all the hard work everyone has put into this. Many thanks to all involved.
We're very glad you found our channel, and happy you're all caught up! Please stay tuned for much more
Good to see a bit on the Chinese theater. It's one of the ones I know least well, and I've been missing that from earlier in the war.
Oh gosh yes. This tie tells a story in itself. And I want to know about it. Wonderful stuff. 4/5
Thanks Gianni
Heinz Guderian back in command as Inspector General of Armoured Troops since his dismissal in 1941 after retreating from Tula and Kashira.
About Tunisia Mussolini saids to Hitler "if Tunisia falls , Italy is the next", The nazis gather a quarter million troops in the first "Festplatz" or Festung. The logistics of the nazis becames impossible.
Mussolini's crystal ball reads correctly. Although he could have done without the "if" - the fall of Axis forces in Tunisia is inevitable at this point. The Allies have all the advantages of manpower, weapons, and logistics, increasing by the week, and the Axis forces in Tunisia are being increasingly choked from their supplies as the Allies continue bringing more ships and aircraft to bear on the surrounding waters.
It's interesting to note the Allied build-up. The Americans landed with around 100,000 troops in Operation Torch, now they have well over 400,000. The Allied spear pointing at Italy just gets bigger and bigger. The Axis nations have no capacity to further grow their forces. They'll be lucky just to keep up with their losses.
I bet Yamamoto will really enjoy his trip to the Solomons.
Another German general against Op. Citadel is up and coming General Walter Model. One of the best defensive generals Germany had at the time.
Is there any reason the NKVD didn't change the clothes of the Poles before killing them? They were found in uniform, and some even had personal documents still on them. That made it pretty easy to identify the culprit. Or were the Soviets just that confident no one would ever find them so they didn't think it mattered?
I believe the Soviets were confident that the bodies would never be found.
The Soviets had been killing millions of people for decades by this point. For the NKVD this was just another 'operation' that had become routine for them.
Confident they would not be found (until perhaps generations later), plus probably received orders to do it, like "NOW! IMMEDIATELY!".
@@chedelirio6984 Yeah by the scum Beria.
Great coverage Indy. Absolutely love the phone call intro. Sets the tone for a great video. Well done.
I love the term "to frustrate" when talking about axis offensive. Sounds absolutely cinematic.
Such wonderful euphemisms make my day.
Thanks L C, glad you enjoyed that turn of phrase. The writers/hosts love seeing feedback on here like yours. Stay tuned
@@WorldWarTwo I love their work and yours. I wish you the best.
Yamamoto is coming to the Solomons? He better hope the American codebreakers don't get word of this.
He's a very punctual man. I'm sure that by the time the Americans have deciphered any messages, he'll have made it there, and his reliability and punctuality certainly won't be his downfall!
The US 34th ID - The Red Bulls (Red Devils named by the Germans) would become specialist at attacking defended hills and heights through the was in Tunisia and Italy. The 34th had a very distinguished service record. They were to deploy to Europe in January 1942 and the 100th "Nisei" Infantry Battalion spent much of the Italian campaign attached to the 34th Division. The division as a whole was highly decorated and drew the tough assignments.
They still exist as a National Guard division here in Minnesota too!
Thanks for sharing that, David
Would you cover the air battle over the Kuban River? It was the largest air battle of the eastern front.
We will cover it
An allied victory in North Africa has one downside. I will no longer have an excuse to blast Sandstorm after every allied triumph.
i love these videos - so superior than anything the vast wasteland of cable TV has to offer. It's such a treat for us World war obsessives to have Sparitcuss and Indy elucidate these weekly updates. It's as if u were there. Smart and witty stuff here
Some things seem to be historical consistencies. One big one is, in totalitarian societies people always lie to their bosses and it always undermines long term goals. I guess that's a good thing.
Yep happening right now.
An exhausted and depleted army preparing to assault a fortified bulge in Ukraine/South Russia? Reminds me of something...
Soon after the planning phase of operation Citadel there was a decent chance that the Germans could have inflicted both heavy losses and a tough strategic defeat to the Soviet forces in and around the Kursk area But the very long delays in putting that initiative together allowed the Russians to create multiple lines of defense. Attacking after they were well dug in and positioned meant that the best they could pull out of it was a draw. But a draw when you need a victory is just a defeat. From that point onwards there would be no real victories for the Germans. Only delays and or small setbacks would be the best that the Wermacht could deliver from then on out. That dog won't hunt.
A sidenote this week on April 13 1943 is that the *Jefferson Memorial* in Washington D.C. is completed, with United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially dedicating it on the bicentennial of the birth of the third American president, Thomas Jefferson. However, the bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson itself would not be completed until 1947 due to material shortages during the war, so a plaster cast version was used as a placeholder during this period.
Great background info, thank you.
@@WorldWarTwo Dickson Phua gives consistently makes the best comments from the us Patreon donners every week. Every week he makes a post like me but his posts always give me information that I was not aware of or knew very little about. If you guys were every looking for someone to hire out of the YT commenters I would recommend him over anyone (not that I know he is even looking for a job). I just think he is the best.
@@PhillyPhanVinny Thank you for your kind comments as always, Vinny Siracusa. Normally I don't reply much to comments, but I am just doing it this as a small side hobby or interest as I do have a full time job myself. Sometimes I may get some details or facts wrong due to conflicting or inconsistent sources, but I do try my very best to get these sidenotes as accurate as I possibly can. I feel that it is up to the reader to do their own due diligence checks on their part if they want to know more, as I prefer to give a brief summary rather than a full length article to make it easier and faster to digest.
@@gunman47 Yeah I tend to have the issue of making my posts to long causing people to skip over them. But I always feel like I should get one more detail in to avoid having to reply to someone who replies to my comment lol.
@@PhillyPhanVinny Isn't Dickson in Singapore? He's mentioned it a bunch of times IIRC. Not that it matters, he's one of the best contributors here.
Thanks so much for the “real history lessons” on WWII.
Thanks for watching, Marty
Thank you again for the in-depth research and presenting it in such an interesting and amazing way. I look forward to Saturday mornings.
Thank you for joining us on your Saturdays, Joe!
Always impressive when you describe one side's actual attack plan and then give the other side's expected attack plan as pretty close to identical immediately thereafter. The Soviets are so damned lucky that Zhukov never got caught up in any of the big pre-war purges. (He's not the only competent Soviet commander by any means, but he's pretty obviously the star of the show.)
In this way Zhukov was also deployed to Soviet Far East Theater in 1939 and on that regard just in time of purgers he was lucky too) There were many talanted Soviet generals and fieldf marshalls as good and experienced as him like Konev , Rokossovsky and Malinovsky and Vatutin.
14:47 With all that foreshadowing, it might be a good time this week and next week to watch the 2011 Japanese movie, *Isoroku* , the long movie name being Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto: Truth of the Pacific War 70 Years Ago (聯合艦隊司令長官 山本五十六 -太平洋戦争70年目の真実). It basically depicts Combined Fleet Commander Isoroku Yamamoto’s life during the conflict, and we will get to see soon what sort of welcome reception he might receive from the Japanese (and maybe Americans too) when he lands at Balalae Airfield at Bougainville in the Solomon Islands next week.
It is a pretty good movie. Some inaccuracies like most biopics, but it does a good job representing Yamamoto during the war.
It may be some months before I begin this, but I have a G4M1 Betty and a P-38 model, with figures, to recreate Yamamoto's final flight.
ruclips.net/video/_aevBLinEvY/видео.html this is a link to that movie scene
"The very thought of it makes my stomach turn over."-Adolf Hitler on Operation Zitadelle. Oh boy that exudes confidence doesn't it?!
Thanks for the shout out. Semper Fi....
Thank you Frank
Loving the real time coverage. I usually listen to them when building lego armies and studying for college
SpaceMonkeyBoi Thanks for letting us accompany you with your hobbies, and good luck in college! Study well
Great stuff Indy. That was a busy day. Thank you
Thanks for watching as always
It's always worth remembering that Stalin made deals with everyone, as it suited his goals - Germany, Japan, US, UK etc. The only deal he did not himself break was the deal with Nazi Germany, as Hitler beat him to the punch, as they say.
He actually tried to make an anti German alliance before with the western allies , but they did not respond to him, to him it was just a pragmatic deal to secure soviet position until the reformation of soviet army succeed
Beside, if we point finger to stalin for making deals with Hitler, then we should point finger at britain and france too, their deals and appeasement to hitler is actually far more destructive since it actually strengthen Nazi Germany and giving Hitler confidence to act more, and from moral standpoint, giving an entire country to a foreign power in a conference without even involving that said country's government? Yeah, not really a good moral therr eh?
Besides, it's always easy to judge a situation if you already know how it would impact in the future, but if you are in their position what would you do? Starting a war, base on some foreign land your population barely heard about? Risking a defeat or pyrrhic victory like the last great you fought, how would yoi justify the war for general population in the first place?
Ah, like how the British and French gave Hitler the Sudetenland? Deals like that?
@@jeflha And denied stalin's offer to fight germany with them over Czechloslovakia, yeah those deals.
@@briantarigan7685 Proof is that countries make (or break) deals to suit their interests and that those interests change. Thanks for your interest.
@@jeflha What sickened me the most about the Munich appeasement was the willingness to negotiate away the soverignty of a nation that was itself excluded from the negotiations.
8:30 something tells me moustachio's going to get *exactly* what he wished for
5:50 What happened on the Kerkennah Islands? Was there any fighting there?
It’s probably just hindsight talking but it seems that if the Kursk salient was the obvious place to attack and it was known that the Soviets were massively reinforcing that position because they knew it was the obvious place to attack then it should have been obvious that any attack should have taken place somewhere else if an offensive was going to happen.
Great Piece. Although I might want to add that in the face of all the seeming disunity and "wheels within wheels" amongst the various allied powers, there was one small, sneaky, and yet rather inspiring show of trust and cooperation between two of the Allies this week. For this week HMS Victorious arrived at Pearl Harbor. To Take on a new Clandestine Name. A Partial New American Crew and Flight Group. And to for a little while, fly the flag of an ally. She would sail out of Pearl Harbor as the mysterious USS Robin. Having been loaned to the Americans, who were down to just the USS Saratoga as the sole operational Carrier in the Pacific, while Enterprise was being repaired from Damage taken in the Solomons. As luck would have it the Japanese were down to one Operational main Carrier as well with others also badly damaged and back home for repairs. So the tag team of Saratoga and Robin didn't see much noteworthy combat, mostly anti sub patrols. . As both Navy's having exhausted themselves off Guadalcanal were in a quiet period of repair and rearming.
Thanks for that perspective, Andrew.
On 6th and 7th April, 30th Corps launched a full-scale attack on the Wadi Akarit position, and after some hard fighting, particularly by the 51st Highland and 4th Indian Divisions, they smashed their way through. It was now the turn of my mobile 10th Corps to burst out of the bottleneck and sweep forward over the fertile coastal plain of Tunisia towards Tunis.
The hills across the Gabes Gap were like a gateway opening on to an enchanted garden. In front of us was an open plain with small, white villages, olive groves and cultivation. It seemed all wrong that war should descend on this pleasant land. Up to now, with the exception of Tripoli, most of the fighting had taken place in the arid desert, populated by a few scraggy Bedouin, who appeared from nowhere to stand beside some desert track offering for barter the smallest hen's eggs I have ever seen in my life. Otherwise there was no one, and we soldiers could wage our beastly war without interfering with anyone. From now on it would be different; we were entering a country inhabited by French colonists. Sfax and Sousse were pleasant little seaside towns, and as each was liberated the authorities staged a suitable and very French welcome. ,
At Sousse I found myself standing immediately behind Monty while the French mayor read a long speech of welcome. Around us were crowds of inhabitants, flags, guards ofhonour, in fact, all the trappings of a liberation ceremony. After the speeches, as was usual on these occasions, a very charming young French girl moved on to the stage and presented Monty with a beribboned bouquet. So far all had gone according to plan. But suddenly, as Monty shook her by the hand and said, " Thank you, mademoiselle," we all heard a shrill French accented girlish voice saying,
"Plees kees me."
This certainly was far from normal procedure. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at my commander, wondering how he would react. I need not have worried. After a brief pause Monty bent down most gallantly and kissed her on the cheek. "We heard after- wards that the young lady refused to allow her fiance to kiss her for twenty-four hours, and wouldn't even wash her face as she did not wish to remove the touch of "Le Liberateur"
I had my suspicions that this charming ceremony was not entirely unpremeditated, and, sure enough, we discovered that Monty's A.D.C., John Poston, who was killed almost at the end of the war, had organised thewhole incident, and had spent the previous afternoon happily rehearsing the young lady.
It was during our advance towards Sousse that we made our first physical contact with the U.S. forces, who were operating alongside ist British Army in North Africa. An excited British voice came up on the air from one of the 12th Lancers armoured car patrols :
"We have made contact with friends on our left! "
The voice of a suspicious senior officer was then heard to say:" What do you mean, friends. What friends? "
" Friends to whom Smokey went," came the answer. Smokey referred to a 12th Lancer officer called Smokey Douglas who had been flown over to act as liaison officer with American forces under General Patton with whom we were likely to make first contact, as the two armies were converging rapidly. Then came a fresh voice with a Southern drawl, and there was no doubt to what nationality it belonged:
"Sure, we're Smokey's friends."
So the big link-up had taken place, and the remainder of the Axis forces were now encircled in the north-west corner of Africa. A few days later I drove over in my armoured car keeping my fingers crossed in case we should hit a mine, as this particular road had not been cleared to contact our ist Army, which had occupied the old, historic town of Kairouan, and here I met Charles Keightley, the commander of the 6th British Armoured Division (afterwards General Sir Charles Keightley who commanded the forces at Suez).
A Full Life , Memoirs of General Brian Horrocks , 10th Corps commander , Eighth Army
The Battle of Kursk is easily one of the most important battles of the 20th Century.
The character arc of the red army is one of the best I've seen. Now they are predicting the enemy's attacks and planning counter strategies against those movements.
They've come a long way since the begining of Operation Barbarosa, when troops weren't even aware that they were being attacked.
As always...... Most interesting/looking foward RUclips show in my weekend
Thank you for joining us! Glad we have so many amazing audience members who spend your weekend with us.
The Tunisian campaign show the greatness of Messe, battle after battle, the allies they were not able to defeat or to trap the axis forces, despite they cracked their intelligence code, they win the campaign only for numerical advantages.
It is sad Messe could not play a major role in the ww2.
They very much defeated Messe in 1) Medeine , 2) Tebega Gap-Mareth Line , 3) Wadi Akarit 4) Chasing all the way to Enfidaville and inflicting heavy casaulties meanwhile (in mid March-April 1943 , 19.000+ Axis prisoners were captured from First Italian Army) despite Italian First Army had almost equal number of manpower facing Eighth Army. Messe was most talented Italian general of war but what he achieved in Tunisia had been only temporarily avoiding encirclement and destruction of his army till it was not possible to run anymore. At he did that at cost of abandoning a series of extensively deep defensive lines on mountain terrain of Southern Tunisia in short time faster than expected (in less than three weeks) that were very much suitable for extended resistance. Trading space for time when that time was wasted (no evacuation or fortifying Tunisia nor any entrenchiment or reinforcement of Sicily or Sardinia or Pantelleiria) is not a victory
@@merdiolu the allied had higher numbers and could cut off the axis supplies lines, the surrender was unavoidable.
How long they could still maintain Tunisia if instead of give up they adopted a strategy like they did in Stalingrad and in Guadalcanal?
@@federicoactite678 Axis should never maintained Tunisia at all. After Panzer Army Afrika fragments retreated behind Mareth Line , they should have immediately started evacuation of Tunisia in mid January 1943. Instead they reinforced Tunisia , a place doomed to be blockaded , suffered defeat after defeat in Southern Tunisia (Messe himself admitted that Mareth Line and Wadi Akarit "were not good battles for us" ) and multiplied the numbers to be pursued , cornered and captured in Tunisia. They adopted a strategy like Stalingrad and Guadalcanal (Axis strategy) and just like both they lost in Tunisia too. Retreating from fronts and sectors that were impossible to hold , before an overwhelming defeat , is a logical rational military sense. Neither Hltler/Mussolini duo , nor Kesselring/Messe duo could see this. Uptil end of April , Kesselring continued to send reinforcements to doomed Tunisian brisgehead only to be captured in days while Messe and Von Arnim could not even feed the existing troops.
I do look forward to this weekly history lesson.
Thanks for joining us every week! If you haven't, please consider joining the TimeGhost Army to help our production of these episodes bit.ly/WW2_190_CO
Kursk is the mother of all battles.
2000 tanks facing off along a battlefield the size of the state of New York.
We tend to think that the nazis lost at Stalingrad but this was the battle that broke the Wehrmacht's back for good.
It was awesome in the actual sense of the word.
The idea that Kursk is the largest tank battle has been debunked by modern Historians. Dubno had more tanks fighting and certainly Stalingrad had more troops and lasted much longer.
@@caryblack5985 According to wiki ( not the best source but still)
Battle of Dubno/Brody : German 750 tanks Sov: 3500
Battle of Kursk : Ger: 2900 tanks, Sov : 5100 tanks
@@auguststorm2037 According to Glantz and Zamulin Brody (Dubno) was the largest tank battle.
Man this series has came such a long man way keep up the great work I love the content
Thank you Tdogg! To help our production along even more, please consider joining the TimeGhost Army today bit.ly/WW2_190_CO
It never fails to amaze me how with our benifit of hindsight, we see all this unfolding knowing what we do, how these decisions are leading to Gemany and Japan's "Twilight of the Gods".
Me: I like this channel because it teaches me new things about history!
Indy Neidell: "Eisenhower is American."
Cleaning out my house and boy do I have a lot of books. A LOT of the keepers are by Victor Davis Hanson, and a LOT of them are about WW II.
5 Weeks and Indy might say the Gamer word during the Dambuster raid segment
You know... I'm starting to think the Axis might lose this war.
...he said for the 75th week in a row.....
defeatist
Keep the faith. Only with strong faith can we achieve victory.
@@caelestigladii We are coming for you Caelesti your country is next.
Yamamoto will visit the Solomon Islands? A so high ranking officer, so close to the front?
I have a bad feeling about this visit.
Excellent as always
The largest battle in human history is about to take place. An entire army will fall, and the world will be changed forever. The true allied victory is upon us. A battle I will always wanna make a movie about.
It was not the largest battle in human history and the fighting went on for almost 2 more years.
Need the big map of North Africa at 1:38. Enjoy your site and just subscribed.
In the opening you're talking about last week's events in Tunisia, but the map circles area around Crimea instead. Just adding this info for anyone new and not too well familiar with geography :p
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up for support
Thanks as always
Great video!
Thanks Diego!
About Kursk is the first time what the russian resserves are near to battlefield, protected by by 3 defensives lines at the end of the salient. Not only the Steppe Front, there are a million troops from the soviet reserve (STAVKA) waiting behind the lines, is the first time what soviets put the reserves at 200 kms of distance and not thousands kms like before. Stalin never accepts deffensive operations instead the plans was to attack Donbass, Oriel salient, and Jarkov Zone.
As churchill said if hell took up arms against the nazis he would be fine with making a pact with the devil. You should cover how the allies were tipped of on the date of citadel. A good subject for Spartacus would be the Bengal famine which I learned about from someone who responded to my comments.
As always great video, never really commented before but love your work and they work of the History more specifically the Military History community. Also gotta love Indie been a fan since start of The Great War series
Thank you for watching, Jack!
Watching this live. And hearing Battle of Kursk will happen soon.
We really are two years away from the end. Are we getting any tours, specials, biographies?
Victor Thanks for watching. There are always more specials coming every month, as well as our huge D-Day special which we've been working on for months already. You can help support our production of these specials by joining the TimeGhost Army! bit.ly/WW2_190_CO
Not evacuating Tunesia seems rather stupid in hinesight. They had 250,000 man there and they were going to lose no matter what. They might still had been able to get some sort of Dunkerque out of the situation but then they had to give the order to evacuate.
It would have taken them months and they'd have to run a massive gauntlet of allied air and sea power in order to get them back to Italy. Wasn't like Dunkirk where the British fleet had a relatively short and clear route to evacuate through.
Axis did not have any sealift tonnage , merchant cargo shipping capacity to pull a "Dunkirk" in Mediterranean , not anymore in 1943. Most of the Italian asnd German cargo and merchant shipping was sunk in Mediterranean or isolated out of Mediterranean and picked off one by one by Royal Navy and RAF since 1940 , the rest along with Italian Navy were imprisoned in their ports at Italy due to lack of fuel and Allied naval and air blockade in Central Mediterranean and Sicilian Narrows were too strong to be passed by now.
The lighting seems different in this video, and I think it looks a lot better
Thanks Owen!
Hans has really dropped Rudolph in the Schmidt !
Spoilers about Sikorski:
Sikorski will not live till the end of the war. He died in a plane crash in July 4th (1943) over Giblartar while traveling to the Middle East to inspect Polish troops. His death has spured many conspiracy theories in Poland.
I bet as many as that crash in 2010 that saw the death of polish president and whole slew of senior leadership of Poland. That crash is also somewhat related to this video, they where on their way to the 70th memorial of the Katyn Massacre and among the victims of the crash where relatives of the executed polish officers.
I was under the impression from other sources that the British/US Ultra intercept assessments, not the intercepts themselves, were provided to the USSR. (We did not tell the USSR about Ultra, but their spies had let them know about it anyway.) I believe they had more details than presented here and new exactly how to let the Wehrmacht expend itself to no effect.
A coverup story was created nvolving a ring of spies in switzerland iirc
@John Milton Both British and US, governments and military, were riddled with USSR spies. They knew about Ultra and the Manhattan Project all along.
@@Dustz92 Yes, they had to make up stories multiple times to cover Ultra. The key here is that Stalin's spies knew where the real dirt came from, although they could not directly access it and had to wait for western powers to inform them. Give the Red Army due credit, they laid a good trap and wrung the Wehrmacht's neck.
It was obvious both from the geography on the Easter Front and the position of the German troops that they would look to attack at Kursk. Any information from Allied intelligence just confirmed it.
@@caryblack5985 Specifically, it gave time tables which allowed STAVKA to know just how much time it had to prepare. It also said exactly which units would do what. Really it helped with the details which allowed the response to be very fine tuned.
Will there be a few special episodes on the Germans bud up of tank's and materials? Maybe another episode in the tactics or the soldiers perspective.
Evan, Every episode is a great investment of research, time, and money. We do our best to cover the action of this war every single week and to bring you special episodes regularly, but we can't do it without your support! Join the TimeGhost Army today and help us make more of those specials bit.ly/WW2_190_CO
Nicely informative video
It's my perception that, in 1941, the Wehrmacht achieved tactical surprise over the Red Army in '41 and '42. Now in 1943, the Wehrmacht will attack where the Soviets expect achieving no tactical surprise. The Red Army has been battle hardened over the course of two bloody years and is a more capable foe than in 1941 and 'fresh', if you will, from their victory at Stalingrad. It will be interesting to see how the coming battle plays out.
In thinking about the tactical surprises, I am minded of the espionage 'game' that may have played an important role in how this conflict went. The indicators were there in 1941 and, although the Germans achieved tactical surprise anyway, Stavka moved or was moving six armies west to bolster the defenses which suggests they did act on the spy info they received. In 1942, the Soviets captured part of the plans for Case Blau, but remained convinced that Moscow was the German objective. Now in '43, Kursk appears the obvious target but the Germans don't always go with the obvious. Has intel finally become a viable aid to the Red Army by this point in time?
Not so much the availablity of intel, but Stavka's willingness to listen to it and adjust their plans accordingly instead of coming to a conclusion and sticking blindly to it no matter what. Letting the Wehrmacht beat their heads against the Kursk salient was the smartest thing the Soviets did during the war. Instead of planning yet more pointless and wasteful offensives they built up their defenses and reserves and let the Germans grind themselves down before striking back.
A few weeks ago Germans brought 1000 troops a day to Tunisia. Now allies capture 1000 axis POWs each day in Tunisia. What a coincidence.
The Axis should have cut out the middleman and just shipped them straight to POW camps. They wouldn't even have to arm them, then, and it would save on logistics.
Kursk... if the enemy knows where you are and where you are going and what you're doing, then the enemy has the advantage
"Terror and extermination breeds strange bedfellows" or as Churchill put it "I'd form an alliance with the devil himself if it helped defeat Hitler."
It's strange that this is the first time I've thought of this because I'm a very regular viewer but you guys were pretty lucky or pretty quick to get the world war II moniker for your platform. Time Ghost was a pretty good grab as well but that's nowhere close to being as popular a phrase as world war II. Way to jump on it.
Thanks Boo!
It feels like only a few months ago that pushing out the invader would have been an impossible task
I didn't know this is where Indy went, I'm still getting through 1917 of the ww1 series, kind if a slog. Guess I'll have to watch both of these now
Welcome to the channel, William! Glad to have you with us
Great episode but so confusing and tragic.
Thanks for watching, Eleanor.
Mrs Jagger was expecting a child she may name Mick.
Will be there more information about Manstein and Guderian's opposition to Citadela in the coming weeks? I wonder how long will battle of Tunisia last. Even if Allied forces manage to capture Tunisia, the whole of Europe is under the Axis power's spell. What can go wrong?
The Red Army could run out of shovels to dig defensive postions in Kursk.....
@@Raskolnikov70 Yes. We have also seen that germans are capable of doing a great offensives. It should not be a very different scenario this time...
Wasn’t Hitler also against citadel, pretty sure there’s a quote by him saying something like: “Every time I think about operation citadel my stomach turns over”.
Not exactly, Hitler wanted to go forward with it and he thought it was necessary to regain the initiative against the Soviets, however it did make him very nervous, and when Hitler said this, I believe it was Halder who said in response, "Exactly, so why do it? Leave it alone." Hitler ordered the operation anyways. The rest is history.
@@christophercarlone9945 oh okay, I must have been misinformed then
@@ostrichhe4d You can honestly just look up Hitlers views on Kursk and Citadel and Wikipedia will probably tell you faster than I can. He did approve it in the end but he may have been hesitant at one point. I think the allies invade Sicily soon so this forced him and OKH to recall several divisions for the defense of Italy. It's really over for them at this point. Kind of sad to watch the military that steamrolled most of Europe for three years slowly bleed to death in a struggle over some homeless guys whacked out ideology. Lol
Hitler WILL say that by fall... (in fact a few things are turning his stomach these days...)
@@christophercarlone9945 Sad? That's sad to you?