An Uncomfortable Truth: Youngsters on the Frontline
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
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Special thanks to author James Mace who researched and co-wrote this episode. His books are brilliant and can be found here - amzn.to/3S9cCpn
You are gonna enjoy this film - its packed with random trivia - you’ll definitely be able to impress your mates down the pub after watching.
Since the dawn of professional armies, it has been young men, and these days women, scarcely out of their youth who’ve taken up the sword.
In this film, we look at the reality of soldiers ages through the ages and explore how Hollywood has painted a false picture of war.
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Here's a couple. My dad was a 23 year old staff sergeant when he jumped at Normandy. My 5xgreat grandfather died of wounds recieved at Bunker Hill - he was 64.
I had a history teacher many years ago who posed, "Do you know why they send 18 year old kids to storm Omaha Beach? Because they will go."
The most successful unit in US military history, "The Old Bastards" was a US Army unit in WW2 that fought in the Pacific and was comprised of men that had to be 30 years or older.
Their killed to captured ratio against the enemy is actually kind of embarrassing, they simply wiped out the enemy everywhere they went without mercy.
"Beware of an old man in something that young men regularly die in".
@@dukecraig2402Noobs vs Vets. I suspect that combat is "easy" (tactically) so long as you can live through enough of it to know what mistakes the less experiences combatants are going to make.
@@ryanpmcguire
Something I should have pointed out is that the unit wasn't made up of soldiers who'd already been in the Army for 10+ years, there wouldn't have been any privates, it was an experiment and it's members were the same basic demographic as any other US military unit of WW2 when it comes to the fact that the majority were men who had no previous military experience and were civilians shortly before the unit was formed just like any other unit, they just wanted to see what would happen with a unit comprised of men who were more "wise to the ways of the world" than your average 18 to 20 year old was.
As for why the military didn't pursue having units like that after WW2 considering their successes I can't speak to that, maybe they were spending a fortune on arthritis medication for them, but whatever the reasons I just don't know.
Post script;
The unit was the 77th Infantry Div and is who the famous civilian war correspondent Ernie Pyle was embedded with when he was killed.
It was also Desmond Doss' unit when he earned the Medal Of Honor, Doss was of course made famous in the movie Hacksaw Ridge.
@@dukecraig2402 That is actually really interesting. I wonder what the results would be for other kinds of demographics, like people who all play football, tennis, or are great at paintball or airsoft.
@@ryanpmcguire
Hard to say, read my last post again, I just updated the end with a post script.
When I joined the US Army, some called me old at 21. Everyone around me was 18. Some were 17.
I was 19 when I joined the Army. I was second oldest in my recruit platoon.
I was just shy of 23 when I was drafted for compulsory military service, had I crossed that line I would have been spared. Being one of the oldest guys in the whole company apart from the officers and some senior NCOs gives you a very interesting perspective on basic.
I joined the Army when I was 22. The drill sergeants called me “Pap”.😂
I had just turned eighteen when I joined, so I was pretty typical. Our platoon guide was either twenty-one or twenty-two and had an associates degree. He seemed "mature" to us kids, which is laughable now. On the opposite end, I have a friend who joined during the Iraq War, when the Army was so desperate, they raised the age cap to forty-two, which she was. She was at least ten years older than her drill sergeants, with most of her fellow recruits the same age or younger than her youngest son. She was also a PT machine and could smoke most recruits (both men and women) on the run.
For a while, it was getting very common to see 30 yr olds enlist. My wife was 28 when she enlisted. Lol. She was a CPA that had lost her job during the 2008 financial crisis (that we are suppse to pretend ended), and she pulled it off.
One of the weirdest moments I had as a young kid was being 17 and talking with WW2 veterans. I was 17 at the time and about to head off to college. I talked with this one vet and he said “How old are you son”, I said, “17”, he said “17, oh at 17 I was at Guadalcanal putting bodies on stretchers”. I remember questioning my life after that.
Ukraine already murdered all of its population in their 20s and 30s!
Where did you meet,
Or was that dude just going to colleges to mock n00bs
A ligelk
He was happy for you believe me
@@missourimongoose8858 You hope. There are plenty of psycho WW2 vet interviews that reveled in the violence.
A defence analyst I knew once pondered this fact and asked his military friend the question as to why militaries are full of young men?
The friend replied bluntly "Who else could you order to attack an entrenched machinegun position on a steep hill and have them do it gladly?!".
Exactly. The young think they’re immortal. Reality only starts to hit at about age 28.
@@sirrathersplendid4825 Yea no. Most people in their early 20s aren't eager to go into dangerous situations. And even teens know running into a machine gun is pretty bad. The main difference between teens and 20s are that the former have worse decision making that may lead to them being in such a position (ie. joining the military as a infantrymen).
Real reason is that the military targets the youth. Not that the youth flock to the military. Nothing more. For one, people graduate from secondary education at 18. They aren't contributing to the economy(yet). That's the perfect time to recruit because if you wait too long, they might have found a job or going to higher education which will lead them to better prospects than enlisting. They also become more valuable to the nation than a unemployed confused 18 year old with no work experience. It's also easier to incentivize them by offering free college after joining (where as 30+ yr olds already went to college). Secondly, peak physique(all things being equal) is at roughly 20 which is what you want in your military. 18 is pretty close, and usually will reach peak physique before their service term ends. And that physique can last until 35 which is fine since if they decide to make this their career, they are physically able to for at least a decade. So the military can make use of career soldiers when they are most fit maximizing training cost.
Fathers want to go back home to his kids and wife. Young men meanwhile have nothing to lose and everything to prove
@@FFFFFFF-FFFFFFFUUUUCCCCjust because they don’t have a wife and kids doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to lose, they still have parents siblings pets friends girlfriends ect, and you know the most obvious one being their own life that we are hardwired by biology to not want to lose lol.
@@MonkeyLiggaScrumptiousNan Okay, I stepped out of line when I said young men have absolutely ""nothing to lose." However, the bond and responsibility between your wife and kids is easily a step or two higher than a bond with your parents, siblings or pets. Men are biologically wired to push away your parents and siblings and start your own family. Having a wife and kids is the end goal of biology, thus the most chemical rewards in your brain (e.g. oxytocin, dopamine production, etc). In addition, your parents and siblings may do fine without you, while your wife and kids will suffer immensely without you. The responsibility to live is much, much higher. Much more to lose. Anyway you're not wrong and I stand corrected on some parts.
Part of the problem is Hollywood wants to use veteran actors, with lots of star power to sell the film to both audiences and investors. That's what happened with "Fury," for example.
Spot on.
Yeah but they also used young Tom Cruise in Taps and then All the Right Moves the Top gun and then Top Gun Maverick. My grandfather had two kids when he landed in Italy in 1943 but he had been in the sun as a farmer since he was born and smoked 2 packs a day. If they cast a modern 23 year old as my grandpa Mac it would not match the pics we have of him. At 23 he looked more like John Berenthal then he did Timothy Chalaemet
@@thebeebyboys1751 Top Gun Maverick has an old Tom Cruise. Note also that Top Gun has pilots who are usually older. But all your old war movies, had established actors who happened to be older. I also suspect that audiences wouldn't take kids seriously, they wanted 30-50 year old guys.
That's not really it, Stanley Kubrick famously tried to cast nothing but age correct actors for Full Metal Jacket including Anthony Michael Hall of Vacation fame, he couldn't cast the movie because of problems you'd just never think of trying to cast an entire movie of 18 to 20 year old's, then there's also the matter of efficiency when you have an entire cast that has so little experience.
@@dukecraig2402 Well said. On the subject of what's practical, Military History Visualized did a breakdown of the US war film, FURY, and found it to be lacking in terms of the realistic representation of the combat scenes. One of the problems was the grouping of the tanks. And it was explained that the formations used in actual WW2 tank warfare were wider and would be difficult to film or would make for a not very impressive battle. Unfortunately in entertainment certain compromises have to be made in terms of casting and cinematography or the way scenes are played out to look good on film in various camera shots, and play up to audience expectations. By default films are not realistic anyway, as much is omitted, after all 2 hours have to account for months of combat, rest, travel, sleep, washing, eating, use of ablution facilities, etc.
The casting of Harry Styles in Dunkirk and the criticism that it attracted reminded me of the Longest Day where the casting of teenage pop stars (Fabien, etc.) as US Army Rangers attracted criticism at the time. A Ranger who took part in the battle responded with the classic phrase "And how old do you think WE were?"
Exactly. Fabien, et al were pretty much the only actors in The Longest Day who were age appropriate. The casting of John Wayne as Ben Vandervoort was always baffling. The film came out eighteen years after D-Day, by which time Vandervoort was still a decade younger than the actor portraying him. If they wanted Wayne in the film, they should have cast him as Ike!
@@legionarybooks13 John Wayne was actually offered the role of Eisenhower but he turned it down because he would have had to remove his toupe! Wayne actually regretted not taking the role as he felt that his career would have taken a different, possibly more serious path had he been able to get rid of his rug. Eisenhower was played, badly, by a set painter who had no acting experience but looked like Ike.
@@deanstuart8012 wow, I did not know that! 😆 Never seen what John Wayne looked like without a toupee. Heck, he was already forty-two when they made "Sands of Iwo Jima." Although to be fair, it's mentioned in the film his character had been a Sergeant Major, whose alcoholism led him to getting reduced four ranks all the way down to Sergeant. I was shocked to learn that Forrest Tucker was only two years older than John Agar. Dude looked sixty when he was thirty.
@@legionarybooks13 He was a running joke with Vietnam personnel when the Green berets came out. I joined at 16, was on ops at 18, spent my 19th and 20th birthdays on operation, burnt out with PTSD by 22!
@@Devonshireoldfart one film critic wrote that the only thing the "Hawks" and "Doves" agreed on during Vietnam was that movie was beyond awful.
In the German war cemetery at Besch, Saarland, near my home, there are graves of German soldiers who died in battle in January 1945 aged 14.
@@graemer3657
Never had a chance.
Sad. But there are graves of children and babies killed in the German war of aggression of 1939 in countries like Poland. Many others were burned in camps.
There are indeed. Doesn't make it less tragic. @@peterc4082
Ofc there had to be someone like you. Both are sad. Why do you have to be a dick?@@peterc4082
@@peterc4082you have zero evidence, just parrot the victors narrative. Read a few books before you mouth off about thjngs you know literally nothing about. 🤡
Master and Commander, the 2003 film with Russell Crowe, also got it right. Showing young boys, some just 10 and 11, in the middle of the battle on board ship. Even some of the officer cadets were only about 13 - one is shown losing an arm because of shrapnel.
Some officers' servants in the Royal Navy were as young as 5 years old. The usual fiddle was to get them signed on as young as possible so they could accrue sea time.
Rear Admiral William Bligh started out as a ship's boy at age 7. The cadets were in the rank of Midshipman. They were mostly blue blood 2nd sons. One of them became known as the Sailor King, or a similar title.
@@leondillon8723 wasn’t that William IV, Queen Victoria’s uncle? I think he also change the way the officers gave the royal toast.They are allowed to remain seated as apposed to standing. He did this because the ceilings in the ships were very low and he hated the fact he kept hitting his head on them.
@@annwilliams2075 Yes. I could not remember the name. He was the 3rd son of George III. He pulled a dirty trick on his widowed sister - in - law, also named Victoria. He learned that her boyfriend and she intended to be the power behind the throne. He had her on the carpet. He said cancel the plans. He intended to live until his niece was old enough not to have any "Regents" whispering from the shadows. He did.
@@leondillon8723 that would be Sir John Conroy, a nasty piece of work if the history books are correct. I, being Welsh myself, am sad to say he was a Welshman born of Irish parents. 😔😔😔😔😔
My father went on and on about two things in war movies. "All these men are TOO OLD" and "they never show the KICK a gun makes when it fires"
Ukraine already murdered all of its population in their 20s and 30s!
What was 'the kick?' Just surprise from inexperience or lack of physical build to prevent recoil?
@@jamiearan Dad served 30 years in the Marines, rose from private, went to OCS, and retired a Lieutenant Colonel. So no to both your silly options. Physics doesn't care how buff or experienced you are: a rifle is going to visibly push back and go up when fired.
@@IrishCarney sorry mate, was a dumb question from an assumption the kick came from inexperienced conscripts. But what was the kick
@@jamiearan The kick is the recoil. It's the gun slamming back at you with the same force that it exerts on the bullet being fired out the front end. Because of Newton's Laws of motion. That's why at rifle practice, if you don't have padding, you're going to have a shoulder covered in bruises by the end of the day. That's why a gun barrel "wants" to move up when fired, and therefore why it takes so much effort to keep it level when it's on automatic fire. So much so that many militaries require that the default be set at either semi-auto (one bullet per trigger pull) or at most a three-round burst.
If I were to make a parody war movie, I would cast all of the soldiers on the front as old men and all of the politicians that start the war as 17 year olds.
Wars would never happen
Send them in
Good idea, not for a film but, for real life. Get rid of the oldies as cannon fodder or bullet stoppers. Keep the young ones back to rebuild society.
Yep, Commissioned at 21, switched to active duty at 26, made Lieutenant Commander at 32, resigned at 38.
Saw the world, saw stuff in that world, had kids.....and that was it for me.
Absolutely the same experience myself
I’m an American. I served as a military police staff sergeant and retired as a lieutenant colonel. Thanks for your service.
I can make a modest comparison to myself here. I turned 23 a week after completing US Navy Officer Candidate School, slated for Supply Corps. Just over a year later my ship was about to depart for 6 months' deployment, and I went to the bank to pick up just over 2,000,000 cash. Once underway I turned over most of it to my Marine Corps counterpart (we were the flagship of a Marine amphibious group).
Not quite the same as life and death decisions during combat, but still quite a lot for a guy in his early 20s. Our Captain, the greatest leader I have ever known, was only 43.
100th like
Oh no when did you die?
I remember a film critic writing that Matthew Broderick was too young to play Colonel Shaw in Glory. But the real Shaw was 27, exactly Broderick's age when the film came out.
Morgan Freeman narrated a fantastic documentary on the history of the 54th. At one point he mentioned his own character, Sergeant Major Rawlins, was completely fictional. He states that at fifty-two he was thirty years older than his historical counterpart, Sergeant Major Lewis Douglass (son of Frederick Douglass), who was just twenty-two.
Shaw died at age 25.
In Ukraine, the older guys still remember living under Soviet rule,,,they are willing to fight to prevent that happening again. The younger crowd have no context so less willing to fight as they don’t understand what’s at stake.
@@dirtdevil70 The way that they are defending their country suggests that they learned a few things from veterans of the Waffen Schutz Staffel 14th Grenadiers (Infantry) Division. The Galzische Nr 1.
Hiw old was he when he play a high school kid in Ferris Bueller?
My favourite Mel Brooks moment: after he made "The Producers" a WW2 veteran called him out over the "Springtime for Hitler" number. Mel retorted "I was in WW2. I didn't see you there!"
What is the point of this? I don’t understand
I sometimes reply to similar statements: “What Unit were you in?”
@@pyropulseIXXIbecause you were not there
@@Conn30Mtenor In November 1944, Brooks arrived in France and then Belgium, serving as a forward artillery observer with the 78th Infantry Division. A short time later, he was transferred to the 1104th Engineer Combat Group, participating in the Battle of the Bulge. He was sent to the forward edge of the battle areas, helping to clear German land mines so Allied forces could advance. On five occasions, Brooks' unit had to fight as infantry and suffered casualties doing so.
@@pyropulseIXXI The point is that if 20 people see a car crash, you will have 20 versions of the story. Most vets understand this, but a few somehow believe that their story is the Canon story. It is narcissistic. Brooks was coping and spreading truth. What was the butt hurt fellow vet doing? Pissing and moaning, that's all. Brooks' response is far more classy than I would have been able to muster.
I was in the back of Bradley in full MOPP gear on my way to Baghdad…. One day after my 19th birthday. Oldest guy in my unit was our First Sergeant who had invaded Iraq in 1991 during desert storm. He was 31 years old. We thought he was a freaking old man.
I was in the Reserve during Desert Storm and my BN had a CW4 who had enlisted in 1948!
@@OldMusicFan83 for non-military people: What is a BN or a CW4?
@@andreaweber8059 Battalion and Chief Warrant Officer 4. It’s a senior officers technical grade. Very experienced. We just called him “Chief” or Sir. Super great guy with 40+ years in uniform. Very respected guy.
@OldMusicFan83 Damn... so he was in his 60s fighting in Iraq? And he could have served in Korea, Vietnam, Granada and Panama too? What a legend!
@@andreaweber8059BN = battalion; CW4 = chief warrant officer 4, the most senior warrant at the time (there’s now a CW5). Warrant officers are in between sergeants and officers, senior technicians, aviators, or green berets.
I'll never forgot Henry Blake on a Mash episode. " there are two things they taught us a command school. Rule number one. Young men die. Rule number two. Doctors can't change Rule number one."
The strange thing about that line was the actor who portrayed the 'young' soldier they were talking about was definitely on the wrong side of forty.
@brianew yeah the episode was called sometimes you do hear the bullet. Or something like that. I believe it was Ron Howard who played the character that Hawkeye was going to save. I'm old along with a lot of booze and drugs. So I could be mistaken. 😆
@@thayerjohnson5654 Yes, Ron Howard played a kid who lied about his age to join the Marines, to impress a girl back home. At first Hawkeye, promised to keep his secret, but after his 'young' friend dies, he outs the kid to his command.
I was 17 when I had to register for the draft in 1970. My father was almost 21 when WWII broke out. He told me he felt like an old man in basic training.
My Dad was a Captain in The Irish Regiment of Canada in WW2. When the war ended, he was 26. He was considered really old by his men. The Colonel of the Regiment was ancient..he was 35...
And I'm old enough to almost be their grandfather.
My Dad was in the Irish. He was 23 and a Sergeant when they were in Italy.
As the “old sergeant” at 23, I always had to chuckle at Lee Marvin, with grey stubble, playing my role in an infantry platoon.
To be fair he was a WWI vet. Yeah, he should have been a Staff or First Sergeant by then and not a buck Sergeant. Obviously, it's not uncommon to be a career NCO. I got the impression he may have been busted down once or twice in between the wars and had to regain his stripes.
@@CaptHiltzit is highly uncommon to be a career NCO in the United States military
I've seen younger looking guys in their seventies.
@@CaptHiltzIf I am not mistaken Lee Marvin's character in the Big Red One may have been based on a real vet who fought in both World Wars. After WW1 he left the Army as a young man but years later when America entered WW2 he went back into the Army
When he was in he early 40's. He chose to remaine a Buck Sergeant throught WW2 because he wanted to stay on the front lines with his squad rather then be sent to the rear echelon. Like the un named Sergeant in the Big Red One he saw combat in North Africa and Europe. One June 6, 1944 at the age of 45 he was the oldest NCO who stormed the beaches of Normandy.
True, but he had been a Dogface and knew what it was like, unlike those like tom hanks who lives in fantasyland.
I joined the USMC at 17 when my mom signed a permission slip. Five years and two deployments later I got out as a sergeant with absolutely no idea how civilian life worked.
Still think it's wild that I was old enough to get shot but not old enough to drink them for half my enlistment
When I was that age, the motto was: "Old enough to die for your country, not old enough to vote", we at least got that changed.
I started work in a factory in 1964, most of the grumpy older men I worked with had fought in the war, I didn't understand what they'd been through until much later because they didn't want to talk about it. I wish I could go back now and show my appreciation. Excellent video.
J. R. R. Tolkien was born in 1892. When he served in The Battle of Somme in 1916 he would have been a 24 year old Lieutenant. He dealt with his traumas by writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The Dead Marshes in Lord of the Rings is hauntingly familiar to the muddy hell of the Somme. He even portrays Shell Shock in the books by a mysterious illness the soldiers face when they encounter the Ring Wraiths.
@@ColoradoStreaming Great post. Tolkien really speaks to us about the terrible cost of war on the human spirit.
@@ChuckJansenII Your comment made me think of Rod Serling. Would be an interesting video to compare Tolkien's use of fantasy and Serling's use of science fiction in relation to war, especially since LOR/Twighlight Zone came out within 5 years of each other. I believe TZ's first episode was the Purple Testament, where an officer in the Pacific theater could see who would be the next to die.
@@Martin-vq3fj It would be a fair comparison between Tolkien and Serling. I know the episode The Purple Testament well. S1 EP 19. My father had a 16mm print of it. Co-starred one of the Darrins. Serling served in the Philippines campaign.
Another comparison can be made with Mel Brooks served in World War II during the Battle of the Bulge. He was deeply affected by what he saw and experienced. When he came home, his tonic became comedy. Brooks said something to the effect that without comedy he wouldn't have been able to handle those experiences.
Director George Stevens was in the US Army Signal Corps shooting film in Europe. He was known as a comic director prior to World War II. He had been a camera operator for Laurel and Hardy at the laugh factory that was Hal Roach Studios. He directed the rollicking adventure film Gunga Din starring Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Victor McLaglen and Sam Jaffe. After the war, George Stevens felt like he could never laugh again because of what he saw.
War affects all who fight wounded or not.
@@ColoradoStreaming Yes, recently re-reading Lord of the Rings it struck me. . . a shrieking sound out of the sky that fills you with terror.
As that wise Canadian chap Red Green said "If you can't stay young, you can at least stay immature. Keep your sticks on the ice!"
I never knew there were so many uses for duct tape until Red Green came along!
If the girls don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
I started looking at old films that the internet made available of Canadian Troops in Sicily, Italy and Holland, on the really off chance I might spot my father who served with the 1st RCR throughout. One day I realized I was looking for my father-- when I should be looking for some kid who looked like my father.
Too funny!
Basically someone who has your face :P
My grandpa was ppcli in Sicily. He was 17
Did you find him?
@@Baldwin-iv445 A few fleeting glimpses that MAY have been him, but I wouldn't say I was 100% on that.
It ran both ends of the spectrum. My grandfather was 18 when he entered combat in Sept 44 in Holland with the US Army. His uncle was a 38 year old Cpl when he arrived in France in August. Both were in combat and both were wounded Gramps in April 45 and uncle Gus in Dec 44.
The older men were the exception in real life. In the movies they are the majority. I can understand older big stars in the lead roles, but the filmmakers even use men in their 30s and 40s as extras and minor roles.
@patrickmiano7901 There were plenty of men 30+ in US rifle squads during that war. Yes they say that war is a "young man's business" but you'd be shocked how many old dudes get in the scrap as well.
"1916", by Motorhead, drove this point home.
The protagonist was 16 when he died, as was his friend (and probably 5,000 other troops on the British side, who died in the Battle of the Somme).
There were 19 000 British soldiers killed on the opening day.
The film A Bridge Too Far was criticised for casting Ryan O'Neil as Brigadier General James Gavin as it was felt he was too young for the role.
Yet Gavin was only about 37 at the time of the battle and the youngest man of that rank in the US Army in WW2. While O'Neil, who was about 36 when the film was made, was probably the only actor close to his characters real age.
Curtis Lemay was 38 by the end of the war.
It was reckoned that the ideal age for infantry in WW2 was 20 to 22, as they were less likely to have wives/serious girlfriends and most unlikely to have accrued any nice things in life thus far. I went in 1986 at 16 and was in battalion by 17, and this was nothing out of the ordinary. The average age of a Rifleman was probably 20, L/Cpls around 22, Corporals around 24 and Serjeants around 28. Infantry is all about suffering, and that's best left to the young glory hounds :D
Also kids this age are far more likely to by swayed by "patriotic" tribal rhetorics, army fulfilling their teenage need to belong, similarly to a cult. Frontal cortex, responsible for critical thinking and reasoning doesn't develop fully until mid 20's.
Infant ry.
Did you ever consider where the word "infantry" comes from in the fist place? Yeah right, that's the word "infant" in there.
@@JerehmiaBoazI wouldn't consider these kids anything but men
Excellent video, my Grandfather joined the T.A. in the mid 1930's and became a regular at the outbreak. He served in North Africa till 1943, and then landed on D-day at the age of around 33 as a sergeant, he said must of his men where just kids relying on his experience to get them through. A tough responsibilty.
I think in Max Hastings book “Retribution,” about the last year of the war in the Pacific during WWII, he mentions in passing that a B-29 Wing or Group commander was a 28 or 29 year old colonel.
It just struck me as an incredible amount of responsibility to thrust upon a young person.
COL Paul Tibbets, 28, led the A-Bomb squadron and flew B-29 Enola Gay, named for his mom, which dropped Fat Man on Hiroshima.
That is a great book, as is Armageddon, his history of the last year of the war in Europe.
@@blastulae IIRC the B-29 outfit that Colonel Paul Tibbets commanded that ultimately delivered A-Bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the 509th Composite Group, so my recollection and your post seem to jibe.
Additionally, I think Guy Gibson was all of 24 or 25 or so when he lead the RAF's No. 617 Squadron in their missions against the Ruhr River dams during WWII. I also seem to recall that at least for the US as the war in the Pacific dragged on USN submarine commanders got younger and younger. By the end of the war I don't think it was uncommon to see Sub CO's that were in their late 20s.
My uncle Joseph ran away from home to enlist in WWI. He was 15. His mother went to the recruitment center and dragged him back home. So he jumped a train to a few towns over and enlisted again. His mother again went to the recruitment center, where the commander told her that he seemed determined to go, and maybe she should just accept it. He spent the war as a motorcycle messenger.
I wonder if that's being noble or just the conditions at home being so bad that he'd rather run away and join the army.
so your uncle's last name was Jones, but everybody called him 'Indy' ?
@@detdet3871 he just didn't know the reality of things and sought out the glory of victory. I hope that nowdays we're smarter than that.
With respect to movie casting, I fully agree with you, Chris. But, it should be mentioned that there were lots of exceptions in real life as well. My great uncle was 31 when he volunteered in 1915. His older brother, my grandfather, a married man with 2 daughters, went in the next year at age 34. I have a couple of pictures of him, standing proudly tall, all 5' 6" of him, in his 48th Highlanders of Canada kit with the jacket hanging below his bum and the kilt below his kneecaps. They both "survived" the trenches, but not unscathed.
@@TTKDMS My grandfather may have been. He was at Passchendaele and went right through the Last Hundred Days and was part of the occupation army in Germany for a few months after the end of the fighting. But my great uncle went into the trenches in early August 1916 and the next record is from an army hospital back in England in September, 1916. He spent several months there and then served in the Quartermaster Corps as "medically unfit for front-line duty" for the rest of the war. I knew him for a few years in the early 1950s before he died. He was still tweezing the odd sliver of shrapnel out of his foot even then. I never knew my grandfather. He died in 1932, age 50, of gas damage to his lungs and heart.
is there stats that a bit older men survive better from war? it may be illusion from movies and stories. men with some life experience and common sense seem tad bit better chances to be cautious than 19yos with godmode complex.
My great x2 grandfather was 40 when he enlisted in 1916, and had 6 kids. He served in the 124th Pioneers at Vimy Ridge, but got sick in 1918 and sent home.
I watched a program on PBS on soldiers or war in general and the narrator summed it up best; you can train anyone to be a soldier, but you can make an 18 year old think he likes it.
In the movie “Glory”, Matthew Broderick played Col. Robert Gould Shaw. At the time the movie was showing in theaters, there was criticism that Broderick was too young for the part. Broderick was 27 when he made the movie, but Col. Shaw was only 25 when he died during the Civil War, so he was actually older that the person he was portraying.
My father was 21 when he commanded a B-26 Marauder in NW Europe 1944-45. My brother was 19 when he was crew chief of a Huey gunship in Vietnam.
I would also like to mention the film Master and Commander in this regard. It does a fantastic job of portraying the entire world and material culture in the Napoleonic Wars, including the correct age ranges on a ship back then. It was difficult to watch a 12 year old lose his arm and have to deal with that disability in the film. However, that was just life in the 18th century. Another reason I think older actors are commonly used is that when a big filmmaker like Steven Spielberg makes a big film like Saving Private Ryan, they want big name actors like Tom Hanks to make the film more appealing to general audiences. There just aren't enough A-list actors between 16 and 25 to choose from.
Tom Hacks
The Pacific showed the marines as quite young.
Sledge ect were definitely kids as was his skewed view of the war, his father knew what was coming for his boy but was powerless to intervene.
Great, horrible show.
@@matthewmckever2312
Eugene Sledge had a skewed view of the war?
Like a lot of kids he was desperate to join up and be with his mates. In the show he had romanticized the war, getting there was a rude awakening.
On the beach his mate couldn't even explain what it was like.
He just had to experience it for himself.
So yea, he had a skewed view, till he got there.
@@matthewmckever2312
Matt, you need to read the book. If you're gleaning your opinions from a tv show it won't be a helpful source.
Canadas' top ace in WWII was a pilot at age 16 and had a flying job when the war kicked off. He was a year too young to enlist in the RCAF, so he went to the UK where he was immediately accepted into the RAF. He lived through the hell of the Battle of Malta until he had to be relieved for fatigue and the Maltese Cholera.
Apocalypse Now! used a sixteen year old in a major role, and an older experienced soldier comments on their immaturity.
George "Buzz" Beurling!
As a 20 year old recruit I was surrounded by kids of 18 and even a few 17 year olds with one 16 year old thrown in for good measure, but as we were on a Junior Leadership course, there were grizzled ancients in their mid-20's that had attended university before being called up.
There were young 18 and 19 year old corporals, veterans of the Border War, ordering us around.
South Africa, 1989.
I was 19, when I was deployed to Afghanistan. I was an 15Y (AH64 avionics tech) in the U.S. Army.
Wish you mentioned that Sir Michael Caine was himself a veteran, called up at 18, served in Korea at 19 and discharged at 20. He was playing at war a decade plus after doing it for real
I was 22 on my first deployment to Iraq in 2003 and 24 when I went back the second time. I was called SGT Babyface, but chronologically older than a lot of the guys in my infantry platoon. ~JR Handley
Thank you so much, Chris, for allowing me the chance to collaborate with you on this! It was an honour, and I'm already looking forward to our next project. 😀
EDIT: Something brought to our attention regarding Jack Cornwell, VC, is that is actually his younger brother, George, in the photograph. As a friend and fellow historian explained, his family was so poor, they couldn't afford to have pictures taken while he was alive. Another brother, Ernest, posed for a photograph and painting, depicting Jack at his gun station. George and Ernest look like they could be twins, so I assume they bore a reasonable likeness to Jack. I cannot imagine how it was for those lads, posing as their dead brother.
Thanks so much - we make a great team.
What project are you doing next
@@ethanlewis1459 a history of the Forlorn Hope. I've started compiling research data and pictures. Chris has a few videos in the pipeline, so not sure when we'll do this one.
That's the problem with reenactors. Most of them are 50++ playing young soldiers running up the hill. I saw one exception in Madrid, in memory of the Napoleonic Wars, where the Poles were cadets from Poland who could do this as part of their training to become officers in the Polish army.
That was my main problem with the 1993 film, Gettysburg. They used thousands of reenactors, who had all the right kit and knew how to march, drill, etc. And while I respect their passion for the history, they were all way too old, with many seriously overweight. I remember the closeups of soldiers just prior to Pickett's Charge. While an emotional buildup, looking back it comes across as a bunch of old men cosplaying. In reality, the average rebel killed during Pickett's Charge was twenty. And with most suffering from malnutrition, I doubt you saw many beer guts.
Hats off to whoever organised the event you spoke of in Madrid. A true honouring of the history. 😊
@@legionarybooks13
Next weekend the Battle of Vimeiro 1808 where most will be 'old' and well fed.
@@legionarybooks13what you saw was the lesser known charge which was Pickett's McDonald's Quarter pounder with Extra fries charge
I always PMSL at re-enactors 😂
@@HO-bndk, eh, I can respect their dedication to the history and hobby. The ones I can't stand are the gate-keepers. I got into a debate with a couple of Roman re-enactors who were upset because another group allowed women to be legionaries. They kept screaming, "That's not historically accurate!" To which I replied, ""And your fifty-year-old fat a$$ who can't run a mile is?"
The average age of soldiers has changed and fluctuated over the course of time, having less to do with war and more to do with the populations of the countries at war. Sec. Rumsfeld once said "You fight wars with the army you have and not the one you'd like to have" and it's an absolute truth. The American Civil War was fought by soldiers who averaged 23-24 years of age. The Hundred Years War was fought by soldiers who averaged 25-26 years of age. The average Roman Legionnaire was maybe 19 years of age. What actually determines the average age of soldiers is the average age of the available population. The average age of soldiers in Vietnam was 19, due to the fact the US used the draft which selected men between the ages of 19 to 25. When you examine how the system works it makes sense that the largest proportion comes from 19-20 year olds. Professional armies are older and "draft" armies are younger.
roman legionaries enlisted for 20 years, the average age would depend on how recently and how often that cohort got new recruits.
I certainly had more energy when I was younger. At 20 I could sleep outdoors, run up mountains, dig ditches all day, didn’t bother me. I’m 61 now and if I don’t get my afternoon nap I cease to function.
My grandfather had enlisted in the Territorials in the mid 1930s and subsequently was called up and sent to France prior to war being declared. When he was evacuated at Dunkirk he was 37 years old and a father of 4. He was demobbed after serving in Africa, Italy and Greece by which time he was 42. Clearly one of the oldest in his regiment.
“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.”
This was a video that needed to be made. I was 22 when I joined the Army and 23 when I deployed to Afghanistan. The other privates all considered me to be an old man. It appeared to me that the vast majority of people who enlist are still in their teens
When I was in high school during the 1970s, I had a few teachers who were WW2 and Korea vets. My grade 10 geography teacher never spoke about the war until a few days before Remembrance Day. He got that 1,000 yard stare looking out the window and described what it was like as a 19 year old in a landing craft, heading for Gold Beach. Another joined up at 15, lying about his age. He was caught after arriving in England, put in “The Boys Brigade” where they were removed from combat roles and taught trades. My teacher was trained to drive heavy earth moving equipment, and was on Juno Beach on D Day+1 clearing away obstacles, broken equipment and dead bodies. A third teacher was in the Black Watch (Canadian) and landed on Juno on the second wave at the ripe old age of 18. He told us that the movies like The Longest Day made it look like they were a bunch of brave 30 year olds, but in reality they were a bunch of scared teenagers.
That's why I'm thankful for the Australian army today. My brother deployed to Afghan. He was 28 and nearly everyone with him was above 23. They had enough people in the battalion that they could turn down most of the young blokes... especially the ones who were still too young in the head.
I honestly think if conscription happens again, it should start in the 40s. I'm 37. I should be forced to war well before someone who still has his toys in his shelf.
Lee Marvin was a real veteran of WWII, he was wounded in the Pacific theater when he was 20. Then he went on playing WWII soldiers until he was in this sixties. Ridiculous.
It always gets pointed out that Lee Ermey, who was legendary as GySgt Hartman in Full Metal Jacket was a real drill instructor during Vietnam. People then forget he was a DI at just twenty-one.
I've been watching War and Remembrance; Robert Mitchum was 71 playing a navy captain. His book counterpart was supposed to be in his early fifties.
@@behindthescenesphotos5133 He still preformed it well. Mitchum was always good. He was the young company commander in: The Story of G.I. Joe with Burgess Merideth as Ernie Pyle.
@@CarlEvans-t6h Agreed, I like him and can suspend disbelief. I do think it's a little funny he was fighting the same war onscreen for 45 years. Glenn Ford (Marines and Naval Reserve veteran) fought WWII onscreen from 1943-1989.
My Grandfather was 15 when he went overseas in the first war with his father and older brothers. He went for Canada from Prince Edward Island, then at the mentioned young age. Then again he enlisted a second time in the second war in his forties. I once asked him what was the worst thing he had gone through, he said, his words, "blowing the last post over me friends", as he was a bugler. He left me his first war bugle, and the one from the second war. The first war one is pretty beat up as my aunt dropped it from a car, not sure when thinking some time before the second war. The second war one is still in pretty good condition. Both are precious to me though.
I knew a WWII vet growing up. His nickname in the Army was “Pops” and “Grandpa.” He was 32 years old at the time.
If you look at the ages on headstones of the soldiers it will show you how old the average soldier was. But if you look at photos of soldiers from the time, they tend to look much older than what they actually were. I think that’s where the confusion comes from.
You're absolutely correct. Look at pictures of tommies at Dunkirk, Normandy etc. They look middle aged compared to how we look now. Much harder lives. You can clearly see it in "They Shall Not Grow Old" too
Well, war ages people. WW1 in my opinion is probably the deadliest war in history, in terms of military casualties only. Any 18-20 year old who survived that, and lived in filthy trenches for a few years probably looked like they were 30 by the time they came back home. They probably had the body of a 50 year old with all the wear and tear of military life and combat.
@@jaypenha5352 but even if you look at photos of men at that time, even if they haven’t served in the military, they still look 10-15 years older than what they actually are by today’s standards
Especially the before and after photos. The fresh-faced, keen and proud young men having their passing out parade photos compared to, say, a year later in the trenches is startling. The stress of combat really does age them.
A movie like The Charge of the Light Brigade is an interesting counter, since it was accurate in portraying how extremely old and antiquated much of the commanding officer caste was that fought there, at least the upper sections of it, the war was famous for its dusty and inept old veterans of the Napoleonic Wars who had kept their positions in the military, like Raglan, Cardigan, Lucan. Whereas those climbing the ranks in the Indian Army, who had actual recent combat experience, like Nolan, was much younger but did not have such senior positions yet, and then ofc all the privates and lower-ranking ppl being young too
Back in 2018, I was a Cpl in the Marine Corps, and I remember when our unit got a drop of new-joins fresh outta the training pipeline. I saw one of them and I said to my buddies: "Jesus, are we recruiting out of middle school now?" Because he looked so young. Turns out, he just had a baby face. Dude was actually 27, which made him older than any of NCOs in the unit. I think he was even older than some of our SSGTs. We called him the grand old Lance Corporal of the Marine Corps. Now I'm 27, and I got out of that gun club 4 years ago. I can't imagine what it would be like re-enlist at my age.
I was 16 when I went into the Royal Navy, I trained to be a stoker, turned to a reasonable one, served in 3 ships, ( down below) went around the world 3 times ,so I was told.😂😂😂😂
I'm a 43 year old lieutenant in the US Army. Most of the people in the office are my age are majors and lieutenant colonels. I get to work with a lot of really sharp young enlisted guys though, I don't know if they are as tough as we used to be but some of them are a lot smarter.
I became a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Army at age 31 after ten years as an enlisted guy, and I thought that I was old! Surely the Army does not commission people in their 40s now?
@@TTKDMS I knew of a woman who took a commission and joined the Army in 1988. She was given the rank of Captain, because she was an engineer graduate from Texas A&I University in Kingsville, Texas in 1986. She was in her 40's. Linda Hoy.
@@majorronaldmandell7835 Probably not in combat units but majority of people in the modern armed forces are not in front line units and lot of highly skilled technical and medical posts which can be done my people in their 40's come with commissions. All military dentists for instance are majors.
@@stuartbailey9287: I’m retired from the Army now as a mustang Major with 38 years of service. Myself and my family us the Navy Hospital near use for all of our medical needs complete with meds, wheel chair, catheters, +, +, +. Some of the doctors are 03s (called Lieutenants in the Navy), thus I’m surprised that dentists would enter the service as 04 Majors.
I was a Drill Sergeant at 26 in the U.S. Army with with over years in at the time. Most of my recruits were 17-18 years old, especially during the summers, like I was when I joined(at 17). My grandfather was a week shy of 20 when he was drafted during WWII as a private. Two years later he was a Technical Sergeant in rank(modern equivalent would be Sergeant First Class) and a platoon sergeant in position, all at the old age of 22. Came home and became a Drill Sergeant himself
BRAVO! GREAT VIDEO! And as a matter of fact, I was one of those “boy soldiers” initially. I signed up for the US Army three days after I turned 17, six months later I was a trained infantryman, and three weeks before I turned 18, a qualified paratrooper. I served twenty six years for Uncle Sam and during that time during my combat tours i had the privilege of serving with the Brits and As a former American soldier who had that rare honor of serving alongside the British in the recent Global War on Terror, I can honestly say it was one of the greatest privileges of my life. The camaraderie, professionalism, and shared sense of purpose I experienced working with our British allies were unparalleled. We fought together, bled together, and stood shoulder to shoulder in the face of immense challenges. The bonds we forged on the battlefield transcended borders and politics, rooted deeply in mutual respect and trust. I’ll carry those memories and friendships with me for the rest of my life, and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to serve with such extraordinary men and women. No better friends than the British. How ironic though how such a friendship got started due to us damned yanks having a temper tantrum. lol. Great work man! Keep it up!
Many thanks, Sir. A lovely message - much appreciated and reciprocated.
My grandfather was 26 when he joined up in 1915. My father was 28 when he joined in 1940, his older brother wa 30, his younger brothers were both in their mid twenties.
I stood in the American cemetery above the Normandy beaches and looked at a small row of 5 New Jersey men all were between 19 and 21 years old and buried in France …..
In the 16th Century it was common for 15 year olds to lead an army. The average age of the population was 25
@@hmq9052and back then it was common for men who were nearly 60 to be in combat roles in those armies. Infact in napoleon’s time there were soldiers who were already serving who remembered a time prior to the American independence
@@hmq9052 I believe Napoleon was 23 when he was an army corp commander in Italy.
@@langhamp8912 and many of his soldiers had already known fredrick the great when they first started their careers.
I'm fairly sure when I visited Anzac Cove I saw a grave of a 14 year old.
When I joined the Navy I was 18... I can't believe how much of an idiot I was at that and now that I've gotten a couple decades between then and now. I probably shouldn't have been allowed in public but myself much less a gunner 😂
Same here. I was barely 17 and entrusted with things I wouldn't even consider messing with today. Or would I? One thing is certain, I'm glad I had the opportunity to serve. To be my own Man the moment I enlisted. If the Army would bring back the 2 or 3 year enlistments I'm sure more would do it. 4,6 or 8 years seems like a long time to a teenager, that's why many won't even consider it. Peace Sailor.
Same. I often want to go back in time and smack the crap out of my eighteen-year-old self! I'm just glad I lived long enough to be able to laugh at my youthful idiocy! 😂
@@larryspiller6633 totally agree with you there. It's hard to know what to say when your sons are chomping at the bit to join up. Ya know it'll likely do them a world of good but there's some downsides too...
I knew a guy that took out a Groundhog with a lawes(?) rocket.
@@stephenolan5539 That turned out to be a friendly fire incident! The Groundhog was promoted and then promptly medically discharged with a non disclosure agreement. Remember?
My relative also died at Loos. He was in the region of 40, and his family was diddled out of financial support as well 😮
Memphis Bell got it right. The "Old Man", the flight commander, looked about 27 and all the air crew on their early 20s. I'm sure this movie predates Blackhawk Down.
The German film *The Bridge* which centers around a HJ squad pressed into a last ditch defence in 1945 also uses young teens to play the soldoers.
A takeway I remember having with the 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front is how the character Paul is shown eagerly enlisting into the army along with his buddies who are also young. But like not even half way through the film his original squadmates are dead and Paul's closest friend is Kat who is noticeably older. Showing the wartime friendship between a 19 year looking Paul and a 35 year old looking Kat made it feel more real
When i was in the Marines i felt old at 21/22 compared to my boots who were 18-19 😭
Chris video as usual. I joined at 16 and served 24 years in the Brit Army. Saw first action at 17 1/2. During the 1980’s wasn’t a year went by I wasn’t somewhere. With names I couldn’t spell.
Years later I was a drill pig who brought in kids at 16 and sent out young men at 17. Many of which I’m still in contact with and had a distinguished career.
Even now at 66 I still train 3 times a day including training (tabbing) with Bergen on.
They only pretended to be your friends... They may have respected you; but deep down, they hated you :D
@@BertPreast respect is earned, you obviously never had any.
@@jimhicksuk 'tis true that I never achieved more than lance-jack. Possibly because I had a sense of humour?
War is a racket
You sound like General Smedley Butler, he said the same thing. Here's a quote 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism.'
My Great Great Grandfather was a 41 year old Irish immigrant with a wife and young daughters at home when he enlisted in the 84th Pennsylvania Infantry in 1861. The made him Color Sergeant and he was wounded carrying the flag in Virginia in 1862. Survived the war dying in 1897.
Brilliant video; excellent analysis. I was commissioned at 21 out of West Point, and after training got to my tank platoon in Germany well before my 22nd birthday. Went to Desert Storm with my dad in ‘91 at 25 as a salty 1st Lieutenant. He and our regimental commander were the only Vietnam vets we had in about eight thousand in our battle group.
24 is an old grizzled veteran, I led Marines as a young Corporal at 22 and I was close to the oldest of them all, a veteran of two wars and another deployment besides.
In a profession where men die Young beware the OLD Veteran soldier!!!!
In the 1955 movie "Mr. Roberts" Henry Fonda, at the age of 50, played lieutenant 'junior grade' Doug Roberts. Love the movie but at times have to think to myself "It's only a movie, it's only a movie..." Nice video, thanks!
Thank you!!!! Finally, someone shows a bit of truth, age 19 Desert Storm, we called anyone over 22 a lifer!!! Semper Fi !
Yeap, joined when I was 20, second oldest guy in my basic training platoon. the oldest was 27 and he had it rough. Went back to school on a scholarship. Got my commision at 23. Deployed at 29 as a captain (US Army Field Artillery). By then I had a wife (also an officer) and a kid on the way (he is now a Major in the AF). I was the third oldest man in my battery. My first serageant and one other NCO were older by a couple of years. The rest of my gun-bunnies were just babies, most under 20.
During casting for the Guns of Navarone, (LtCol) David Niven was not enthused. 1 of the reasons was, " we are all too damn old." The Green Berets had a 50+ John Wayne, where he's a Colonel but about 15 years too old and deploying with an SF team....
"The Big Red One", 1980, features a squad of baby faced infantrymen, reflecting writer/director Samuel Fuller's own experience of WW2 -- although Fuller himself was already 30 when he landed in North Africa in 1942.
Late singer Tony Bennett was an 19 year old Private sent to Europe and spent the first 6 months in Graves Registration because of the high casualty rate in the Battle of the Bulge.
No wonder he didn’t talk about it.
The actors in Saving Private Ryan were about 10 years older than the average Ranger.
Guy Gibson who led the Dambusters raid was only about 24 but was portrayed by 30’s something Richard Todd.
Nice show.
At twenty-four, Giovanni Ribisi was the youngest of the main cast in Saving Private Ryan. At that age, he'd likely be the platoon sergeant. The real Sergeant First Class Donald Malarkey from Band of Brothers was just twenty-four when the war ended.
I completely agree with you, amigo. I was 20 and turned 21 in the first Gulf War learned that wars are fought by young men and filled with the bodies of young men. 😢
The Gulf War not that intense.
@@MbisonBalrog Like all wars how intense the Gulf war was depends on where you were stationed and what you were doing. Probably felt really instense if you were in a Iraqi trench under air strikes and then armoured attack. For my mate who spent the whole 1st Gulf war guarding a UAE harbour against attacks which never came from the sun terrace of the one of the finest hotels in the whole Gulf and being looked after really well by its staff and management it was not so intense.
Battle of Britain 1969 Sir Michael Caine initially thought he was too young to play a squadron leader. Veterans of the battle told him he was actually too old. When I went into the Canadian army, I was just three weeks past my 17th birthday and I had already been a cadet for two years. However oddly, though the youngest, I seemed to be more mature than most of my peers.
Christopher Plumber said he wouldve been too old for a fighter pilot
My dad was 17 when he joined the USAAF and was sent to the PTO. One time he told me that he was the radio operator, but when (not if) the tail gunner got shot he had to go back there , pull the guy's body out of the turret and take over. That must have been sheer horror.
I think it has less to do with covering up the fact that a lot of soldiers are young, and more to do with getting well known actors to draw viewers. I myself was 48 when I was deployed to Iraq, the third oldest in my unit.
The two biggest reasons for the Ukrainian army's high average age are 1. for most of the conflict, the age at which men became eligible for mobilization was 27. This was recently changed to 25, but not after Zelensky sat on the legislation for over a year. There is a big reluctance in the country's government to send the younger generation to war. Mostly because of 2. the skewed age distribution of their population. Birth rates collapsed in the 90s, as Ukraine and ex-Soviet countries faced crippling economic crises as a result of the extremely poorly thought through transition to capitalism, known as "shock therapy." As a result, there are much fewer Ukrainians between the ages of 25-35 than other age brackets. If the country wants any kind of future after the war, it cannot afford to lose its young people in large numbers.
Add to that nobody wants to die, for that loser.
"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die"
Herbert Hoover, 1944.
I got out of the Army as a Captain at 27 years old.
This is something I've noticed in films for a long time. My father was a USAAF navigator in B-24s in the Pacific. He was 19 when they left the states and headed out towards Hawaii. He said he was scared to death whether he was doing his navigating correctly, but somehow they made it. The pilot of his crew was the "old man" at 21. He had a lot of comical stories of he and his crew being goofy and doing things that were typical of 20 year olds. Thanks for sharing.
Other films that got it right were ' Aces High' (1976) and ' Come and See ' (1985)
Aces High is so underrated. Malcolm McDowell's character is only supposed to be a couple years older than Peter Firth's, yet they deliberately wanted someone much older to show what the war and his accompanying alcoholism did to him. I recall a scene where he's being asked if he should take leave to see his fiance and he says, "Why? So she can see me like this, looking more than a decade older than I am?"
Come and See was a lousy film. Totally over the hill propaganda. If you want to see a good one? Tankova Brigada (Tank Brigade) Another were well known Finnish war movies: Tali Ihantala, The Winter War, (Talvisota) and there's another good one, but can't think of it's name off-hand. Also, in all of them, real period tanks and artillery pieces were used. Come and See was a substandard production. Even the "German" uniforms weren't near accurate.
@@CarlEvans-t6h agreed about "Come and See." I only recently watched it, finally deciding to see what the hype was. Some even said it was better and more brutal than Schindler's List ... yeah, no. It wasn't even close. It completely lacked soul, feeling more like a psychedelic acid trip, with some Soviet propaganda thrown in. By the end, I was left scratching my head, thinking, "Um, okay. That's it?"
@@legionarybooks13Europa, Europa is another great film
As Henry Blake said in an episode of M*A*S*H, "All I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war, and Rule Number One is: Young men die."
The key word there is 'young'.
Same with the WW2 sub movie "Run Silent, Run Deep". Ned Beach , the author of the book, and a WW2 sub veteran, was taken aback at the cast being so "elderly" for a WW2 sub crew.
Yeah, I quite like that film, but it's jarring how old everyone is. Besides the 'rookie' character, they're almost all middle aged. The 'young' XO is in his thirties at least.
Just so that you know: Brain development not becoming mature until 25 is a myth.
Great, but I always ask that commenters share sources as it really helps me to know if I have genuinely made a mistake. Thanks
My father was a WWII soldier and veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. He was 26 years old on VE day. His buddies called him the "old man".
Fascinating! Well done Sir. 🇬🇧🇺🇸🏴
Yes "Dunkirk" I thought was over-rated. For instance the beach did not have anywhere enough soldier's packed on it and Tom Harry's Spitfire had far too much ammo. Did it ever run out? Other stuff as well. Just could have been better.
There are movies made by other than Hollywood. I find Korean (sth) great movie makers. The Russians use to be but have gone all Hollingwood under Putin.
Conscription and war should be considered a crime against humanity, no exception.
I agree with conscription, but there are a few exceptions to war. Being a Filipino American, the Pacific Theater in WW2 was pretty justified after December 6th 1941. Though there were undoubtedly atrocities from both sides
so then the aggressing nation that starts war gets punished. by....what? possibly fighting back? lol
Thats bullshit, Professional armies are cool but they shouldnt BE the Main Army but the core where you build ON your Army, dont forget that in early WW2 britain was the one with the only Professional Army and got crushed and destroyed real fast Sure some escaped from dunkirk but britain Basically stood there with No pants and without conscription they were doomed.
I’m so glad that you NAILED Blackhawk Down dichotomy. I was at Ft Bragg with 7th Special Forces Group when we were tasked with assisting getting some of the Delta actors “up to speed.” Frustratingly, we had the studio seals who kept trying to feel relevant and kept inserting themselves into the training with “this way looks better on film.” Bana and crew did their best to tune them out asking exactly how they were supposed to do things. We soon found that only one seal had a real world gunfight in a deployment! Every SF trainer was a veteran of at least 4 deployments and 2 combat operations! The best part? When we took them out, they refused to let us purchase our own dinner and drinks! It was interesting that while at the training facilities, all the actors used “American accents” but at dinner, they went back to their normal diction. I knew SSG Eversman who commented on how wild it was that all the young Rangers were British. The pilots looked too young tho, however, they past the Delta boys on the Little Birds by using actual Delta soldiers to do the assaults on the outside benches because of US Army safety requirements as they used actual 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be."-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
War is started by old men who know each other who then get young men that don't know each other to fight on their behalf
Don't forget the banks and the fiat system of currency.
or young overly ambitious men who over step where an older more cautious man would not. plenty of wars started that wat too.
@Winaska mmmm, not really. The average age of a combat soldier is historically mid teens to early 20s. The men who start wars are in their late 40s to early 70s
Crazy to think that 23 year olds were leading thousands of bombers in formation over Germany in WW2. When I was 23 I didn't know shit! Truly the greatest generation.
Everyone when they watch Glory: Why'd they get someone as young as Matthew Broderick to play the commanding officer?
Historians: Actually an accurate call.
I think Broderick was perfectly cast for “Glory”. Though I suspect that men, and especially gentlemen, grew up much faster back in the 1860s, and had more self-confidence.
I remember watching that movie in 8th grade
@@rusty7984 I remember watching it the other day. It's a great ass movie.
Amen!
I don’t think movie makers try to fool you into thinking old men fought. They just like bank-able names, so they put an old John Wayne in as they put an old John Wayne into westerns.
My father-in-law graduated high school at 17 in 1942 and immediately went into the US Navy.
My Mother had an older brother who went off to be a cowboy at age 13 at the start of the 20th Century and was known as “the kid” by other cowboys who were slightly older teenagers.
The Wild West era lasted only a few years as did WWII, but they made movies about them for many decades.
Robert van Horn, a WWII veteran I had the privilege of knowing was a 31 year old sergeant who fought the Germans up through Italy. He said the men under him called him Pops because he was so much older than they were.
I can see that. In today's military, someone in their mid-20s is called old. Never mind someone in their 30s.