The defense of the Phillipines and Corregidor was largely undertaken by the US Army 31st Infantry Regiment, the Polar Bears. Who you did not even mention.
I think the Japanese marines defending Manilla and the terrible destruction of that once beautiful city,and the civilians who suffered death and injury, deserves merit
Well done ! My Australian Grandfather was seriously Wounded in the vital Tobruk Battle in Easter 1941. Where if the Nazis had broken through they would have probably Won the War ! And you know why ?
The Italian 10th army should've been mentioned, out of a force of 150,000 men it suffered 148,798 casualties. It was absolutely annihilated in Libya during Operation Compass.
The Danube river really was fully frozen, my grandmother walked across it some 200km downriver from Budapest on January 2nd 1945. holding my baby aunt and accompanied by my 9 year old father... I don't know why the Germans couldn't supply over ice, the Russians did it for 2 years into Leningrad...
@@j3lny425 well they did tried a lot both with the boats I the summer and with trucks and carts during the water on the known road of life The fact was that lenningrad was the second city by population and was also a hub for refugees from the Baltic and city's like novgorod so most estimates pull the refugees alone at 1/2 to 1 million and any evacuation attempts were far and few between
@@j3lny425 the death toll was horrendous, but it was LOWER in the winter months when Ladoga was frozen due to them being able to transport as much as they could over ice. The worst were the springs of 42 and 43, no ice and no food
i had a friend in highschool whose dad was ex Hungarian special forces / mercenary. he had lots of african artifacts in his house he would refuse to talk about. when he was drunk he would talk about killing Russians, Germans, Soviets, then doing things in Africa and how he lost all this teeth in "an unfortunate rifle butt incident".
I once worked in a music store with a dude that was in the Hungarian Special Forces. I tend to believe what he said. He didn't volunteer the info. I had to grind him for weeks before he admitted to it. The guys who claim they were special forces with the second sentence after you meet them are probably full of shit. How this guy could handle my Sykes Fairbairn fighting knife would drop your jaw. It'd be pointing up, he'd swing up so fast you could barely see it and when he stopped, it was pointing downwards. Then he'd swing down and it'd end up pointing upwards. He could hold it pointing down, swing down, let go of it and then grab it again thrusting. Idea being, if you tried to block the downward swing, he'd let go, regrip and thrust under your blocking arm. He said he had to go into a mental hospital, for lack of better words, after he came back from Afghanistan. Apparently he once had to kill a couple, meaning mother and child, noncombatants. They were freeing a Russian pilot that was been held in a different country. Not unlike the VC or NVA taking downed American pilots to another country thinking the pilot wouldn't be rescued there. He ended up in some village in the middle of the night and was seen by this woman and child. His only option was kill them or letting his own team being compromised and killed. I could go on but just want to add. He was a smaller man and had a black belt in Okinawa karate. They told him if he joined the special opps, served one year, then the rest of his enlistment he could play trumpet in the band, not that he enlisted, he was drafted. Two years later he was still humping his ruck in the Afghani mountains. To keep it short, he defected. He was a great little dude to work with. He liked me right from the start. He was introduced to me, then I looked at his name and pronounced it with a ya instead of ja, like shouldn't it be yan....? He gave me a huge smile and a yes. Being of Dutch berth, I don't anglocise names. Yan stays Yan, not Jan or John, as just one example. Sorry for being so long winded, so to speak/type or is that enter?
@@robertdeen8741 There were no WARPAC troops in Afghanistan and missions like the one described, which did happen in Pakistan from time to time handled GRU. This story sounds dodgy as hell.
@@CirKhan yeah it both sounds legit as many of those lengthy, poorly punctuated run on paragraphs are actually real stories from less educated folks, and simultaneously dubious as it's got all the Steven Segal points with the Okinawa karate and ability to move a knife like he's from YuYu Hakusho 😂
So from that, I'm thinking this guy fought tail end of WW2 in resistance, or perhaps even on the German side for a while, then post-war he was in the Hungarian Warsaw pact forces, that during the 1960's and even 1970's, Russia loved to send over to help their Marxist pals in places like Mozambique or Angola!
After the Charlemagne division had been pummeled by the 1st Belorussian Front in Poland the survivors were refitted for battle and fell back to Berlin but at that time it was little more than a regiment. Everyone was given a choice: Either wait out the end of the war as a construction labourer or going into Berlin. About 300 decided to make one last stand in the capital. You need big big balls of steel to make that decision knowing fully well that chances of survival were minimal....My grandfather did 2 tours on the Eastern front as part of the Langemarck SS division. First at the siege of Leningrad (he spoke Spanish so was frequently used as a dispatch and interpreter for Franco's guys: the Blue division). Got shipped out after taking a shot in the lung by a sniper. Went back a year later as a member of a machinegun crew at the battle of Narva and was wounded again receiving schrapnel fragments in his leg. WW2 stories have always captivated me ever since I was a child...
I had a great uncle that went AWOL enroute to the Siege of Budapest. He surrendered to American forces in Austria in April 1945. I did not know that until after his death in 2017.
@@pappysshoes6563You would be correct - AWOL status is given for an average of 30 days before being upgraded to desertion But also technically - the uncle may have been AWOL at the time he surrendered
18:03 Correction. Wainwright was an Army General in charge of all forces in the Philippines. The 4th Marines were commanded by General Samuel Howard. The interesting thing about the 4th Marine Regiment, however, was that a lot of the men that made up the unit on Corregidor weren't even Marines themselves, but were Soldiers, Sailors, and Philippine Scouts from various other units that retreated from Luzon. I believe they still held the honor of being members of the 4th Marines nonetheless.
After Henri Fenet was captured a French General yelled at him "Why are you wearing a German uniform" Fenet snapped back at the general, "Why are you wearing an American uniform"
@@BernardSolomon Henri Fenet, who was awarded the Knight’s Cross, was sentenced to 20 years in prison at hard labour. The others faced Allied French General Philip Leclerc, who asked them, ‘Why do you wear German uniforms?’ The brave men responded, ‘General, why do you wear an American uniform?’ (Allied French troops wore American uniforms with French insignia) But, after all, they had withstood and suffered in that last year; every man was then executed without trial or appeal.
@@robertwarner5963 Yeah, some armies literally annihilated entire civilations, in some ancient and not so ancient battles genocide was pretty common. But the second world war was on another level numbers wise in terms of soldiers. Over 10 million soldiers were marching towards Berlin at some point, that is just insane.
easy: Anzio espeiclaly and Itally overall was a total shit show and for no real purpose. the entire Italian campaign was basically a refight of ww1 with the germans firmly entrenched in the high ground and some of the WORST Allied officers and unideriable units down below. and by Unidirable i mean for whatever reasoin Politically Ideologically etc. thye also had some REALLY top notch units like the Red Devils bu that was the exception.
The man is recalling to one particular battle, and in that matter he is completely right. The battle of Stalingrad is THE most bloody battle in the history.
Especially that one unit that was eaten alive by giant crocs in the Philippines. Out of all the storys of slaughter, wading through miles of swamp on the run from Americans and godzillaz has to be the most terrifying
@@therealkakariot2104 That was in Ramree Island in Burma, not the Philippines. The story was proven to be a made up hoax though. A Japanese unit was surrounded, they retreated to the swamps and refused to surrender to the British. Hundreds died from battle wounds and many drowned crossing the deep swamp. The survivors were later captured by the British who reported seeing crocodiles feasting on the dead bodies. There were no mention of crocodile attacks from either the British or Japanese official reports of the battle. A real worse and most tragic story was the hundred of US Navy sailors attacked and eaten by sharks while trying to survive in the water after a Japanese submarine sank USS Indianapolis in 1945.
The 21st and 15th German Panzerdivisions were mentioned so many times in the official reports from the frontlines that they became literally legendary. Fun fact: Fenet and Miller looked like close relatives.
My thinking is that the SS units with non-Germans fought the hardest towards the end of the war because they knew they would be viewed as traitors when the war was over.
In band of brothers they showed the polish SS surrending with little resistance. They didn't want to be slaughtered for something they were likely goaded into
@@oldkingcrow777 Ehm, did you watch the whole scene? The americans said there are no poles in the SS, which was the truth. The SS-soldier in the scene obviously tried to get lenient treatment.
It never gets acknowleged that people can fight incredibly bravely for a terrible cause. Words like cowardly, brutal, merciless are always used to describe the 'bad ' side.
@@haeuptlingaberja4927 And only a fool would ignore context and the premise of my comment that people can be brave in pusuit of a terrible cause or is it too complicated for you to understand the word 'terrible'.
@@andrewbrennan2891 No, it's far more a matter of what "brave" means. If an Einsatzgruppe and their Wehrmacht escorts (the SS did not have their own transport and extermination logistics) came under fire from an unexpected concentration camp revolt, you can't very well describe their attempts to crush that uprising as "heroic," motherfcker.
My Grandfather was in the Royal Field Artillery and served in North Africa. His unit was in support of the 18th Indian Infantry brigade, that fought the 21st Panzer Division in the 1st battle of El Alamein. They held their position for the best part of a day. But by dusk the Germans had over ran them and my Grandfather's brigade was completely lost. My Grandfather was captured but was later killed when SS Scillin was torpedoed and sank by the Royal Navy, along with 800 other POW's. My mother was only 2 years old when he was killed.
@@dylan7cich My Grandfather survived the battle on the 1 July 42, but as a POW. On the 13th of November he was put aboard an Italian merchant ship the SS SCILLIN, moored in Tripoli harbour. That evening SS SCILLIN put out to sea. At about 1950 hrs on the 14th of November, SS SCILLIN was torpedoed and sank by a Royal Navy submarine. My Grandfather and about 800 other POW's went down with her. SS SCILLIN was the last of a number of Italian merchant vessels which were transporting POW's, that were sunk by the Royal Navy. If you want to known more about the SS SCILLIN incident and the following investigation, do a simple Google search. It's quite eye opening to find out why 2800 POW's in total, had to be sacrificed... My mother was born in 1940. She was only 2 years old when her father was killed. In her possession are the only remaining photographs of him. They both measure about 1 inch squire and have a brief hand written note on the back. In each photo is the image of her father and a friend, both drinking tea, sat upon a sand dune.
Ukraine and Russia proved ground warfare is still as brutal as it was 70+ years ago because no one dares to use nukes. I dread to even think what would happen if more countries put their entire economies into the current war effort.
@@H0mework Yes, that much is clear. What I'm saying is, if Ukraine was the frontline for hundreds of thousands, or even millions of soldiers from multiple countries, like it was back in WW2, the level of destruction and death would've been unimaginable.
Being a member of the 4th Marine division I already knew the history. I have retired and now reside in the Philippines if anyone ever gets a chance I a history lover really think that the tour of Corrigador and the Bataan death march and museum is a must. Also Intermuros in Manila another great site of historical value. My grandfather fought to liberate the Philippines and always spoke fondly of it’s people and I now see why.
I often think of the first waves of Germans who dropped into the beginning of the battle of Crete when thinking heavy axis casualties. Those boys took an absolute unit of punishment by the natives and entrenched commonwealth forces.
"natives" .. Cretans did indeed fight the invaders . the Luftwaffe paratroopers were hardened nazis.. they used pows as human shields in the fighting around Maleme. if the NZ commander had reacted more strongly at the airfields - instead of still thinking main assault would come from the sea, the British & Commonwealth troops could have wiped them out and saved Crete .. even if only for a while longer.
@@coling3957 Germany needed to capture Crete to deny it to the WALLIES who wanted to use it as a base to launch heavy bombers (B-24 Liberators) to bomb Romanian oilfields around Ploesti.
Canaris was a damn traitor, some say he told the german high command crete had only a few thousand badly equipped defenders, there were 5 times more soldiers than what Canaris had "figured out". These Fallschirmjäger got thrown into a meatgrinder. A lot of them died before being able to do anything.
The action of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem 17th - 26th September 1944. Some units of the division suffered nearly 100% casualties. The 4th Parachute Brigade was disbanded as they had suffered so many casualties, the survivors being sent to other parachute battalions. For a nautical slant what about. HMS Hood only 3 crew survived the engagement with the KMS Bismark out of a crew of 1,418. The Bismark crew themselves only 114 out of a crew of 2,200 men survived.
Monty was directly responsible for the fate of the 1'st Airborne, despite the Heroic drivel people launch about Montgomery, he was an Egotistical Punk. What was done to the 1st Airborne to inflate his Ego, and carry out his flawed shitty plan, was near Criminal, he should have been relieved, permanently. And his North Africa success against Rommel was overblown, Rommell was crippled by severed supply lines in the Med and garbage Italian troops, had he gotten those supplies he would have handed Monty his ass, Monty was a rank Ametuer compared to Rommel in any even scenario. No, I am not a Rommel fan, just the facts.
@@pappysshoes6563 The 1st Allied Airborne Army under Brereton who reported directly to Eisenhower was responsible for the airborne planning for Operation Market Garden not Montgomery. Brereton and the other air force officers Williams and Hollinghurst were the one who decided to fly one lift per day. The battle was lost at Nijmegen when Gavin failed to secure the bridge at Nijmegen on the first day thus allowing the Germans to reinforce the garrison and meaning when Guards Armoured Division arrived they had to fight through the centre of Nijmegen to capture the bridge with the troops from 82nd Airborne. The only part of Market Garden Montgomery had any influence over was 2nd Army under Dempsey. The ground operation was the only part of the operation that actually worked. When XXX Corps arrived in Nijmegen they were still on schedule, despite the delay breaking out of Neerpelt and replacing the bridge at Son. Read RG Poulussen books Lost at Nijmegen and Little Sense of Urgency for an unbiased examination of what went actually wrong with Operation Market Garden and his findings are different from Hollywood and some historians taken on it.
In the first combat I was ever in an enemy BMP drove at high speed into our position and stopped I shot one round from an M-72 LAW rocket and knocked it out. EVEN though they were the "Bad Guys" it still haunts me to this day thinking it could JUST EASILY have been us...
Almost of all Units that were send to defend Budapeste "Operation Spring Awakening" were from the Waffen SS. Even that in the end of the war,the Commander of the 1st SS Panzer Division LSAH Sepp Dietrich,Said the Defeat at Budapeste was an SS Defeat,because of the Number of Waffen SS divisions involved and the terrible number of casualties sustained. From all the 7 Waffen SS Panzer Divisions,6 were put into "Operation Spring Awakening". Only the 10th Waffen SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" did not participate the operation. They were lucky because the casualties suffered by the other SS divisions were Horrendous,in many cases almost 90 %. It was the biggest Defeat of the Waffen SS during all the war.
Whole Japanese units were torpedoes on transport ships. Google most casualties sink ship and you will see a bunch of Japanese transports on that list. They lost like 5000 guys at a time to US subs sinking Japanese transports.
Precisely. The Japanese lost thousands, including an entire airborne regiment twice, in 1942 and 1945 when their transport bound for the Philippines was sunk by US subs. Imagine regiments of 82nd and 101st airborne lost and sunk in the Atlantic by U-Boats and never made it to Europe- what a waste of elite troops. Perhaps troops lost at sea could be in separate categories as both Allies and Axis forces lost considerable huge number of casualties in ship to ship and air battles at sea.
@@joshuasill1141 A lot of Australians a British were lost on those ships and the ones lucky another to survive for days adrift were nearly executed in the water by the yanks once they finally returned to the area
Look at the Black Watch infantry regiment from Montreal. Between D-Day (6 June 1944) and the end of the war, the regiment suffered 350 percent casualties. Mind you they got a steady stream of replacements, but even so were sadly depleted when the war ended in May 1945. The Conscription Crisis back home created much political angst back home in Canada, but few replacements for Canadian regiments fighting in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.
The Canadian assault on Verrières Ridge, code-named Operation Spring, is one of the most controversial operations in Canadian military history. On July 25, 1944 the Black Watch, an English-speaking battalion from Montreal, suffered over three hundred casualties in a single day
"350% casualties" So, is this the new math I keep hearing about? How does that work, exactly? A guy gets killed, springs back to life, and then gets killed 2 more times?
@@haeuptlingaberja4927 it’s done in a stack calculation where let say 600 soldiers man 100% the regiment and through the campaign casualties get replaced and end up having more casualties
You should defo do a part two because there was also the British 1st airbourne division got destroyed in operation market garden and there was colonel frost battalion I think it was that held on in Arnhem itself. Also when the M24 chaffee light tanks came into service there was a squadron of 18 tanks reduced to just one. I think it's worth looking into more there are many
Polish resistance definitely deserves a mention. In the 1944 Warsaw uprising, 85% of Warsaw was destroyed and the Polish home army had nothing left at the end of the uprising. Many who survived were sent to concentration camps or executed on sight by the Germans.
Not being petty here, but it was a fitting karma for them. More than a year before, the polish Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose up in desperation of being sent to the concentration camps but got no help from the home army, who gleefully watched the Nazis systematically destroy the Warsaw ghetto. But God saw it fit to let the Russian army just sit nearby and watch gleefully as the Germans systematically destroy Warsaw. You reap what you sow.
And the ghetto uprising too. The Jews fought the Nazis and the Polish Home Army didn't lift a finger to help their fellow citizens getting slaughtered and gassed, the Poles were the opposite of brave, they were cowardly fucks who only fought when they thought they could win, not when they were needed.
4th Marines are still around but cannot be a whole unit anymore since we lost our colors , the 3 battalions are scattered throughout the Marine Corps . I was in 2nd battalion 4th Marines and my battalion was attached to the 5th Marines first Marine Division.
@@coling3957 yeah Marines don’t surrender they wanted to keep fighting but the Army general who the Marines were attached to forced them to. And because of that we lost our colors .
The 4th Regiment did it right though. They burned their colors rather than to allow them to be captured. They probably would've fought on had they had the foresight of the Bataan Death March and life in captivity at the hands of the Japanese.
Thank you for mentioning the battles that the Hungarians fought. Many people completely overlook their participation in the war and rarely even mention the battle for Hungary, despite how long it was and the scale of the fighting.
Don't fall into the trap that is war thunder. It's not free to play in fact your gonna spend hundreds just keeping your tanks repaired when you get into higher teer. That game is a Moscow Cash grab
My great uncle did that march, he was liberated after the war in Japan, drank himself to death by the time I was 7. Was shipped to Japan on a Maru, he never talked about any of it with anyone but my Old Man, who did D-Day Omaha to Berlin.
Hi all, I would have counted the full crew of The Maginot Line fort "La Ferté". All its 106 crew members were killed on 19 of May 1940. A way to remind that the French fought during these fatal weeks of 1940.
My grandfather wouldn’t talk about the war. He became an alcoholic and had flashbacks all the time. All I know is he was in New Guinea and shot a lot of Japanese soldiers. He was a Tech 4 in the infantry.
This is a solid video. I personally found the placement of the War Thunder ad a bit distasteful considering the subject matter, but that's neither here nor there. I would like to make you aware of some bad source material you might be using though. You got the name of the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division CO wrong. It's Richard Schimpf, not Shrimpf. The German language almost exclusively uses sch for sh-sounds and if your source gets basic things like names wrong, there might be other, more serious, errors. Also, this is more of an aesthetic thing, but I wouldn't suggest shortening division names like "Panzer division" to just "Panzer" because it literally just means 'tank' and makes the sentence sound a bit clumsy but you of course have the final say on how you want to phrase it. Please keep in mind that I'm not trying to hate, I just wanted to give you some genuine feedback because I feel you did a great job on narration, visuals and research apart from these small things and want to help you improve.
Entire Sentais were obliterated during the Philippine Campaign. The 8th Hakkou-Tai is one such example. They had a bomb with wings painted on the tail. This unit was based at Nielsen Field and was wiped out on December 10, 1944.
We must mention the Australian division that was defending Singapore, who fought until almost the last men, and the very few last standing who have surrendered, did that because they completely run out of ammunition. Though by that time they pissed of the Japanese so much, by keeping on fighting for so long, that none of those brave men was spared.
Like General Alexander said in Cassino why the objective was taking so long to take and with huge allied casualties,he said " Simple,because we are fighting against the Best soldiers in the world" ( referring to the German Paratroopers,the Fallschirmjager). The Green Devils,as the Americans call them.
I think with the casualties debate both sides are right, I think stategicly (the unit itself or in a campaign like Africa or Italy or Normandy) if a unit suffers casualties and surrenders or had to be disbanded because of losses then it's annihilated. However tactically (in a battle or operation such battle for arnhem or battle of bastogne) casualties of injured/death and captured should be separate. Hope what I'm saying makes sense at least that's how I try to understand it. The differance is strategic is mainly loss in manpower vs tactical being loss in actual fighting.
I would have thought the soviet frontier armies in 41 took a hell of a beating, the 57th army at Stalingrad. The German highest rate of casualties was in the summer of 44 not in normandy but bagration when army group centre was completely routed. The Japanese frequently fought to the last man, kill or be killed surrender was not an option , once the allies saw what the Japanese did a lot of units took no prisoners. indeed a lot took no prisoners from day 1 after pearl harbour. same for the SS, frequently the western forces didn't take prisoners let alone the soviets. but after what the japanese did in china and to prisoners in general ditto the germans in the east I doubt if I would have taken SS or Japanese prisoners either. Budapest was as badly damaged as warsaw kiev stalingrad dresden kharkov hamburg etc. WW2 did not go quietly. The bravest of the brave though in WW2 was the poles, the best squadron in the battle of britain, the bravest troops at monte cassino led by Anders ( Churchill quote) . The home army never gave in, as for the germans in the warsaw uprising, what those savages did there was a bad as the Japanese in manila. The germans and Japanese got off lightly for their crimes.
Nope they didn't suffered the faith of death march as the death march was already done before the surrender of Corregidor. This was a common misconception. The death march happened after the fall of the Bataan in April while Corregidor surrendered a month later in May 5. Though the POWs of Corregidor didn't experience the death march they were paraded in the streets after being transported out from Corregidor inorder for the Japs to bragged to the Filipinos that they have defeated the Americans.
Battle on the Bakri Parit Sulong Road Malaya January 1942 Where the 2/29th Battalion and 2/19th Battalion AIF together with remnants of the 45th Indian Brigade held the Imperial Guards Division Without their efforts and sacrifice the Japanese would've arrived at the causeway at Singapore a week earlier Lest we forget
A wonderful historical coverage of selected battles during WW2...that hard wars circumstances were more crucial, atrocities than Popularly known ( Stalingrad)....brutality of Berlin invaded was more
The siege of Breslau comes to mind, Kholm on a much smaller scale, Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Centre, the Courland pocket, Vlasov's Army in 1942, dunno, you could spend hours detailing the destruction of Armies and Divisions in WW2.
The 1st special service force 'devils brigade' or 'black devils' suffered 77% casualties in one battalion or one regiment of the 3 during one battle in the Italian campaign and apparently suffered an attrition rate of 600% and were eventually disbanded unfortunately. I'm not sure if the attrition rate is the total from battles and that soldiers who recovered from fatigue or exhaustion did return into the unit.
I grew up in Hamilton Ontario. My grandfather (WW1 soldier) Guarded the Armouries during ww2. There were still many survivors alive when I was a kid. Some were survivors of ill fated raid on Dieppe France. They understood there was a bigger purpose to the attack. (The enigma machine) and Stalin was complaining about the Allies ill action. But what a price.
You talk about divisions and regiments. Meanwhile forget about the Hungarian 2nd Army? 84% casaulties during the soviet counter attack in the Battle of Stalingrad (Operation Uranus), in the bend of the River Don. The original strength of the army was around 200000 soldiers. Around 64000 had recovered (most of them reached the german lines on foot, typically walking 2-300 km), only 17000 of them had any kind of a weapon, less than 10000 in any sort of battle ready shape. The rest were wounded, frostbitten, etc. At least 100-120000 soldiers died in the few days of the battle. The army as a fighting unit practically destroyed. The few remains were reorganized (aka organized a practically new unit with the same operation order number), fought in the Battle of Debrecen, and again annihilated in the Siege of Budapest.
@@wodenviking If you really want to know, the 2nd hungarian army was the last to leave their positions in the Don. They were the ones to cover the back of the runniong away german forces. Yes, germens were fleeing in really disordered manner. There were no german withdrawal from the don. That was a stampede, running away in fear.
picture at 6:44 is the Dirlewanger brigade, A German SS unit that operated with the Einsatzgruppen under Oskar Dirlewanger "the butcher of Warsaw" There was no nazi group worse than them. Google them or watch the movie come and see. By theway those are not french vichy german fighters.
Im glad you spotted that to, im sure The OP has drastically gone down in many a french mans eyes!! , thats sick to even have them in the same context, and he didnt even mention the break out from hells gate with leon degralle...no wonder the younger gen are thick as shit, and believe everything...with half arsed content like this shown..
Such is the logical sum in the equation of brutality minus brutality, the Eastern Front of WW2. 'Course, this is some notable competition. Edit: In my opinion, though, a true annihilated military unit would be one with *zero* survivors, with the reserves, auxiliaries, and other secondary groups included in the losses.
At El Alamein the attention should have been on the FIVE Italian divisions that covered Rommel'scescape, not on the one German division that joined them.
I've been to Budapest hundreds of times and I've visited several times the scenes of unbelievable horror that was brought upon German units there. I had for many years a complete "Sahariana"uniform of an SS Unterscharführer in the Maria Theresia Division that by pure luck escaped the City. We Historians call the battle of Budapest "Stalingrad an der Donau". Every 3rd Russian soldier that set foot in Hungary died there. The losses were so severe that after the battle, the 2 Russian City commanders allowed the Red Army 4 hours per day "Frei mord/Frei Raub"...they were allowed 4 hours a day to rob, murder, rape at will as "compensation ". Most insiders consider the battle of Budapest to have been more brutal than the fighting in Berlin.
I’d love to see more of these types of videos. Learning about the stories from these beleaguered units and the brave men who fought in them. I’m hoping more of these men’s story gets the chance to be told like the ones in this video. Great job on the vid guys, I send applause from Kentucky USA 🇺🇸.
Soviet 44. division in Raate and 39. armoured prigade in Lemetti or 52. division in Somme and and and.... Soviet against finns was a garnage from start to finnish, Last vipe out soviet divison were in Ilomantsi when they tryed come thru woods. And one little detail no finnish unit surredered during that conflict. We finns knew and know how russians handle their captives so we rather die than surrender.
Up to that point, the Rangers had been unstoppable. Sucks when it’s light infantry (Rangers) vs the “Herman Goring SS Panzer Division.” They were also dug in too. It was an impossible mission.
Many of these documentaries are keeping avoiding the elephant in the room. Upon seeing the efforts of defending the Philippines futile, mama's boy Douglas McCoward left all his reins to Jonathan Wainwright to escape to Australia.
Charlemagne were actually outside Berlin when the commander was summoned to the city. he took with him as many men as he could carry in the few trucks he had. only when he arrived did he find he and his men would be part of the defence of the govt district.. Hitler was still alive when they arrived.. remember Hitler committed suicide on 30th April .. at which time many sought to flee the city.. His successor, as Chancellor, Josef Goebbels, would only survive another 24 hours before joining Hitler in death and the city surrendered .
What are you talking about? Battle for Budapest was far more brutal for the civilians than Leningrad and Stalingrad? On monthly basis there was aprox 100.000 to 130.000 civilians dead in Leningrad.
Nothing on this Earth was worse that the Death,Pain and Misery in such scale as Stalingrad. It was the Epitome of human resilience to live under the worst conditions Ever in any Battlefield in history. It was real Hell on Earth,for everyone involved in that mass slaughter of life.
Play War Thunder now with my link, and get a massive, free bonus pack including vehicles, boosters and more: playwt.link/thefront2023
😉
The defense of the Phillipines and Corregidor was largely undertaken by the US Army 31st Infantry Regiment, the Polar Bears. Who you did not even mention.
Don't give a rats ass about games. That's not reality or even history.
I think the Japanese marines defending Manilla and the terrible destruction of that once beautiful city,and the civilians who suffered death and injury, deserves merit
Well done ! My Australian Grandfather was seriously Wounded in the vital Tobruk Battle in Easter 1941. Where if the Nazis had broken through they would have probably Won the War ! And you know why ?
The Italian 10th army should've been mentioned, out of a force of 150,000 men it suffered 148,798 casualties. It was absolutely annihilated in Libya during Operation Compass.
Was it mostly because they were killed or wounded, or mostly because they surrendered?
Did the Germans do that after Italian troops changed teams? That's an unheard of k/d ratio for any allied force
@@therealkakariot2104 That also includes 400 tanks lost, 1,292 artillery guns and 500 air craft destroyed.
@@therealkakariot2104 And no it was the British Eighth army lead by Richard O Connor that did that.
@@taysondynastyemperor5124 Yes 133,298 were captured and 15,500 were killed/wounded.
The Danube river really was fully frozen, my grandmother walked across it some 200km downriver from Budapest on January 2nd 1945. holding my baby aunt and accompanied by my 9 year old father... I don't know why the Germans couldn't supply over ice, the Russians did it for 2 years into Leningrad...
By that time the Russians had superiority on Land and air
Probably due to a lack of horse pulled wagons and scarcity of both trucks and fuel 😊
The Soviets really didn't. Check out the death toll due to starvation in the city.
@@j3lny425 well they did tried a lot both with the boats I the summer and with trucks and carts during the water on the known road of life
The fact was that lenningrad was the second city by population and was also a hub for refugees from the Baltic and city's like novgorod so most estimates pull the refugees alone at 1/2 to 1 million and any evacuation attempts were far and few between
@@j3lny425 the death toll was horrendous, but it was LOWER in the winter months when Ladoga was frozen due to them being able to transport as much as they could over ice. The worst were the springs of 42 and 43, no ice and no food
i had a friend in highschool whose dad was ex Hungarian special forces / mercenary. he had lots of african artifacts in his house he would refuse to talk about. when he was drunk he would talk about killing Russians, Germans, Soviets, then doing things in Africa and how he lost all this teeth in "an unfortunate rifle butt incident".
Which war was this?
I once worked in a music store with a dude that was in the Hungarian Special Forces.
I tend to believe what he said. He didn't volunteer the info. I had to grind him for weeks before he admitted to it.
The guys who claim they were special forces with the second sentence after you meet them are probably full of shit.
How this guy could handle my Sykes Fairbairn fighting knife would drop your jaw. It'd be pointing up, he'd swing up so fast you could barely see it and when he stopped, it was pointing downwards. Then he'd swing down and it'd end up pointing upwards. He could hold it pointing down, swing down, let go of it and then grab it again thrusting. Idea being, if you tried to block the downward swing, he'd let go, regrip and thrust under your blocking arm.
He said he had to go into a mental hospital, for lack of better words, after he came back from Afghanistan. Apparently he once had to kill a couple, meaning mother and child, noncombatants. They were freeing a Russian pilot that was been held in a different country. Not unlike the VC or NVA taking downed American pilots to another country thinking the pilot wouldn't be rescued there.
He ended up in some village in the middle of the night and was seen by this woman and child. His only option was kill them or letting his own team being compromised and killed.
I could go on but just want to add. He was a smaller man and had a black belt in Okinawa karate. They told him if he joined the special opps, served one year, then the rest of his enlistment he could play trumpet in the band, not that he enlisted, he was drafted. Two years later he was still humping his ruck in the Afghani mountains. To keep it short, he defected.
He was a great little dude to work with. He liked me right from the start. He was introduced to me, then I looked at his name and pronounced it with a ya instead of ja, like shouldn't it be yan....? He gave me a huge smile and a yes.
Being of Dutch berth, I don't anglocise names. Yan stays Yan, not Jan or John, as just one example.
Sorry for being so long winded, so to speak/type or is that enter?
@@robertdeen8741 There were no WARPAC troops in Afghanistan and missions like the one described, which did happen in Pakistan from time to time handled GRU. This story sounds dodgy as hell.
@@CirKhan yeah it both sounds legit as many of those lengthy, poorly punctuated run on paragraphs are actually real stories from less educated folks, and simultaneously dubious as it's got all the Steven Segal points with the Okinawa karate and ability to move a knife like he's from YuYu Hakusho 😂
So from that, I'm thinking this guy fought tail end of WW2 in resistance, or perhaps even on the German side for a while, then post-war he was in the Hungarian Warsaw pact forces, that during the 1960's and even 1970's, Russia loved to send over to help their Marxist pals in places like Mozambique or Angola!
After the Charlemagne division had been pummeled by the 1st Belorussian Front in Poland the survivors were refitted for battle and fell back to Berlin but at that time it was little more than a regiment. Everyone was given a choice: Either wait out the end of the war as a construction labourer or going into Berlin. About 300 decided to make one last stand in the capital. You need big big balls of steel to make that decision knowing fully well that chances of survival were minimal....My grandfather did 2 tours on the Eastern front as part of the Langemarck SS division. First at the siege of Leningrad (he spoke Spanish so was frequently used as a dispatch and interpreter for Franco's guys: the Blue division). Got shipped out after taking a shot in the lung by a sniper. Went back a year later as a member of a machinegun crew at the battle of Narva and was wounded again receiving schrapnel fragments in his leg. WW2 stories have always captivated me ever since I was a child...
Yes not many ever mention the losses the Spanish Blue division took facining 7 times their number against the Russians and still held
Sad that the sniper didn’t took him out completely
@@SvensonMalik I guess so because he was able to return and smoke even more commies haha
It's better to take your chances in Berlin. Because going back to France is garunteed death by execution for treason
Your Grandpa's SS? Charlemagne Division was an SS unit.
I had a great uncle that went AWOL enroute to the Siege of Budapest. He surrendered to American forces in Austria in April 1945. I did not know that until after his death in 2017.
Interesting
Smart man
One does not go AWOL in war, they Desert, not my Opinion, Military Doctrine.
@@pappysshoes6563You would be correct - AWOL status is given for an average of 30 days before being upgraded to desertion
But also technically - the uncle may have been AWOL at the time he surrendered
18:03 Correction. Wainwright was an Army General in charge of all forces in the Philippines. The 4th Marines were commanded by General Samuel Howard.
The interesting thing about the 4th Marine Regiment, however, was that a lot of the men that made up the unit on Corregidor weren't even Marines themselves, but were Soldiers, Sailors, and Philippine Scouts from various other units that retreated from Luzon. I believe they still held the honor of being members of the 4th Marines nonetheless.
one of several errors in video ..
After Henri Fenet was captured a French General yelled at him "Why are you wearing a German uniform" Fenet snapped back at the general, "Why are you wearing an American uniform"
Really? And then he was handed to the Soviets? Your anecdote seems fake. Provide a reference if not.
@@BernardSolomon Henri Fenet, who was awarded the Knight’s Cross, was sentenced to 20 years in prison at hard labour. The others faced Allied French General Philip Leclerc, who asked them, ‘Why do you wear German uniforms?’
The brave men responded, ‘General, why do you wear an American uniform?’ (Allied French troops wore American uniforms with French insignia) But, after all, they had withstood and suffered in that last year; every man was then executed without trial or appeal.
9:21 You know you are damned when being handed as POW to the Soviets is considered "lucky"
Given Stalingrad sports the highest death toll of any battle in history, it's difficult to envision any other battle being worse.
Look up buna ,Gona , Sandakan and other battles on the north of newguinea
There were some ancient battles where the entire defending tribe were slaughtered. Go read the Old Testament part of the Bible.
@@robertwarner5963 Yeah, some armies literally annihilated entire civilations, in some ancient and not so ancient battles genocide was pretty common. But the second world war was on another level numbers wise in terms of soldiers. Over 10 million soldiers were marching towards Berlin at some point, that is just insane.
easy: Anzio espeiclaly and Itally overall was a total shit show and for no real purpose. the entire Italian campaign was basically a refight of ww1 with the germans firmly entrenched in the high ground and some of the WORST Allied officers and unideriable units down below. and by Unidirable i mean for whatever reasoin Politically Ideologically etc. thye also had some REALLY top notch units like the Red Devils bu that was the exception.
The man is recalling to one particular battle, and in that matter he is completely right. The battle of Stalingrad is THE most bloody battle in the history.
Just about every Japanese unit the U.S. faced after 1942.
🙋🏻♂️
especially after Guadalcanal.
Japanese and Italian units for sure, and most German units after the failed Ardennes offensive.
Especially that one unit that was eaten alive by giant crocs in the Philippines. Out of all the storys of slaughter, wading through miles of swamp on the run from Americans and godzillaz has to be the most terrifying
@@therealkakariot2104 That was in Ramree Island in Burma, not the Philippines. The story was proven to be a made up hoax though.
A Japanese unit was surrounded, they retreated to the swamps and refused to surrender to the British.
Hundreds died from battle wounds and many drowned crossing the deep swamp. The survivors were later captured by the British who reported seeing crocodiles feasting on the dead bodies.
There were no mention of crocodile attacks from either the British or Japanese official reports of the battle.
A real worse and most tragic story was the hundred of US Navy sailors attacked and eaten by sharks while trying to survive in the water after a Japanese submarine sank USS Indianapolis in 1945.
The 21st and 15th German Panzerdivisions were mentioned so many times in the official reports from the frontlines that they became literally legendary.
Fun fact: Fenet and Miller looked like close relatives.
My thinking is that the SS units with non-Germans fought the hardest towards the end of the war because they knew they would be viewed as traitors when the war was over.
They just picked the wrong side, likely early. Life was pretty bad for years after the war, so - they weren't wrong for a bit.
In band of brothers they showed the polish SS surrending with little resistance. They didn't want to be slaughtered for something they were likely goaded into
@@oldkingcrow777 There was no polish SS
@@oldkingcrow777 But was that scene historically accurate?
@@oldkingcrow777 Ehm, did you watch the whole scene? The americans said there are no poles in the SS, which was the truth. The SS-soldier in the scene obviously tried to get lenient treatment.
It never gets acknowleged that people can fight incredibly bravely for a terrible cause. Words like cowardly, brutal, merciless are always used to describe the 'bad ' side.
When the battles are raging, nobody thinks they're on the wrong side.
So, the Nazis weren't brutal? They weren't the bad guys? Only a Nazi or an idiot would make such an asinine false equivalency.
@@haeuptlingaberja4927 And only a fool would ignore context and the premise of my comment that people can be brave in pusuit of a terrible cause or is it too complicated for you to understand the word 'terrible'.
@@andrewbrennan2891
No, it's far more a matter of what "brave" means. If an Einsatzgruppe and their Wehrmacht escorts (the SS did not have their own transport and extermination logistics) came under fire from an unexpected concentration camp revolt, you can't very well describe their attempts to crush that uprising as "heroic," motherfcker.
@@haeuptlingaberja4927 bruh what the hell did you even read to come away with that
My Grandfather was in the Royal Field Artillery and served in North Africa. His unit was in support of the 18th Indian Infantry brigade, that fought the 21st Panzer Division in the 1st battle of El Alamein. They held their position for the best part of a day. But by dusk the Germans had over ran them and my Grandfather's brigade was completely lost.
My Grandfather was captured but was later killed when SS Scillin was torpedoed and sank by the Royal Navy, along with 800 other POW's.
My mother was only 2 years old when he was killed.
If you don't mind me asking, how'd he make it out?
@@dylan7cich My Grandfather survived the battle on the 1 July 42, but as a POW.
On the 13th of November he was put aboard an Italian merchant ship the SS SCILLIN, moored in Tripoli harbour.
That evening SS SCILLIN put out to sea.
At about 1950 hrs on the 14th of November, SS SCILLIN was torpedoed and sank by a Royal Navy submarine. My Grandfather and about 800 other POW's went down with her.
SS SCILLIN was the last of a number of Italian merchant vessels which were transporting POW's, that were sunk by the Royal Navy.
If you want to known more about the SS SCILLIN incident and the following investigation, do a simple Google search.
It's quite eye opening to find out why 2800 POW's in total, had to be sacrificed...
My mother was born in 1940. She was only 2 years old when her father was killed. In her possession are the only remaining photographs of him. They both measure about 1 inch squire and have a brief hand written note on the back. In each photo is the image of her father and a friend, both drinking tea, sat upon a sand dune.
@@dylan7cichhis mother was 2 years old, so its congruent his grandfather died by then
Ukraine and Russia proved ground warfare is still as brutal as it was 70+ years ago because no one dares to use nukes. I dread to even think what would happen if more countries put their entire economies into the current war effort.
It would be much worse than anything we've ever seen I think
Ukraine would have capitulated rapidly if it wasn't for the generous support of other countries giving them loaned equipment.
@@H0mework yeah russia would've stomped
@@H0mework Yes, that much is clear. What I'm saying is, if Ukraine was the frontline for hundreds of thousands, or even millions of soldiers from multiple countries, like it was back in WW2, the level of destruction and death would've been unimaginable.
Being a member of the 4th Marine division I already knew the history. I have retired and now reside in the Philippines if anyone ever gets a chance I a history lover really think that the tour of Corrigador and the Bataan death march and museum is a must. Also Intermuros in Manila another great site of historical value. My grandfather fought to liberate the Philippines and always spoke fondly of it’s people and I now see why.
I often think of the first waves of Germans who dropped into the beginning of the battle of Crete when thinking heavy axis casualties. Those boys took an absolute unit of punishment by the natives and entrenched commonwealth forces.
"natives" .. Cretans did indeed fight the invaders . the Luftwaffe paratroopers were hardened nazis.. they used pows as human shields in the fighting around Maleme. if the NZ commander had reacted more strongly at the airfields - instead of still thinking main assault would come from the sea, the British & Commonwealth troops could have wiped them out and saved Crete .. even if only for a while longer.
@@coling3957 Germany needed to capture Crete to deny it to the WALLIES who wanted to use it as a base to launch heavy bombers (B-24 Liberators) to bomb Romanian oilfields around Ploesti.
Hitler’s losses at Crete were so heavy he never used airborne troops to attack a position again
Canaris was a damn traitor, some say he told the german high command crete had only a few thousand badly equipped defenders, there were 5 times more soldiers than what Canaris had "figured out". These Fallschirmjäger got thrown into a meatgrinder. A lot of them died before being able to do anything.
The action of the British 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem 17th - 26th September 1944. Some units of the division suffered nearly 100% casualties. The 4th Parachute Brigade was disbanded as they had suffered so many casualties, the survivors being sent to other parachute battalions.
For a nautical slant what about.
HMS Hood only 3 crew survived the engagement with the KMS Bismark out of a crew of 1,418. The Bismark crew themselves only 114 out of a crew of 2,200 men survived.
Monty was directly responsible for the fate of the 1'st Airborne, despite the Heroic drivel people launch about Montgomery, he was an Egotistical Punk.
What was done to the 1st Airborne to inflate his Ego, and carry out his flawed shitty plan, was near Criminal, he should have been relieved, permanently.
And his North Africa success against Rommel was overblown, Rommell was crippled by severed supply lines in the Med and garbage Italian troops, had he gotten those supplies he would have handed Monty his ass, Monty was a rank Ametuer compared to Rommel in any even scenario.
No, I am not a Rommel fan, just the facts.
@@pappysshoes6563 The 1st Allied Airborne Army under Brereton who reported directly to Eisenhower was responsible for the airborne planning for Operation Market Garden not Montgomery. Brereton and the other air force officers Williams and Hollinghurst were the one who decided to fly one lift per day. The battle was lost at Nijmegen when Gavin failed to secure the bridge at Nijmegen on the first day thus allowing the Germans to reinforce the garrison and meaning when Guards Armoured Division arrived they had to fight through the centre of Nijmegen to capture the bridge with the troops from 82nd Airborne.
The only part of Market Garden Montgomery had any influence over was 2nd Army under Dempsey. The ground operation was the only part of the operation that actually worked. When XXX Corps arrived in Nijmegen they were still on schedule, despite the delay breaking out of Neerpelt and replacing the bridge at Son.
Read RG Poulussen books Lost at Nijmegen and Little Sense of Urgency for an unbiased examination of what went actually wrong with Operation Market Garden and his findings are different from Hollywood and some historians taken on it.
Allied units which fought in Malaya and Singapore deserve a place too. Most were wiped out before the final surrender in Singapore.
Shit
Jap was almost ammo
If Britain held on one and two more days
A jap would have a ammo
Canadian battalions wiped out at Dieppe Aug 1942.
Ill advised landing assault practice run?
In the first combat I was ever in an enemy BMP drove at high speed into our position and stopped I shot one round from an M-72 LAW rocket and knocked it out. EVEN though they were the "Bad Guys" it still haunts me to this day thinking it could JUST EASILY have been us...
In the end we are only human been in a few rough spots myself and honestly find the same issue
@@hohooooooooify 100%
Almost of all Units that were send to defend Budapeste "Operation Spring Awakening" were from the Waffen SS.
Even that in the end of the war,the Commander of the 1st SS Panzer Division LSAH Sepp Dietrich,Said the Defeat at Budapeste was an SS Defeat,because of the Number of Waffen SS divisions involved and the terrible number of casualties sustained.
From all the 7 Waffen SS Panzer Divisions,6 were put into "Operation Spring Awakening". Only the 10th Waffen SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg" did not participate the operation.
They were lucky because the casualties suffered by the other SS divisions were Horrendous,in many cases almost 90 %.
It was the biggest Defeat of the Waffen SS during all the war.
Whole Japanese units were torpedoes on transport ships. Google most casualties sink ship and you will see a bunch of Japanese transports on that list. They lost like 5000 guys at a time to US subs sinking Japanese transports.
Precisely. The Japanese lost thousands, including an entire airborne regiment twice, in 1942 and 1945 when their transport bound for the Philippines was sunk by US subs.
Imagine regiments of 82nd and 101st airborne lost and sunk in the Atlantic by U-Boats and never made it to Europe- what a waste of elite troops.
Perhaps troops lost at sea could be in separate categories as both Allies and Axis forces lost considerable huge number of casualties in ship to ship and air battles at sea.
Here is the list of maritime disasters of WWII. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters_in_World_War_II
A lot of US POWs were lost on those transports too.
@@joshuasill1141"patriotism"
@@joshuasill1141
A lot of Australians a British were lost on those ships and the ones lucky another to survive for days adrift were nearly executed in the water by the yanks once they finally returned to the area
You may also wish to consider the US Marine detachment & civilian workforce on Wake Island (December 1941).
I think the survivors were executed after being rounded up due to the IJN and IJA being outraged over their losses inflicted by that small garrison.
@@billwilson-es5yn Better to be executed than live under their brutality as a POW.
Most of the pictures in the Fourth Marines segment are from later in the war when U.S. forces were on the offensive.
In the section on the French SS unit, one of the photos is misidentified and is actually of the Dirlewanger Brigade.…/
And they deserved annihilation.
I honestly forgot how many times I seen that specific Dirlewanger brigade picture.
They seem like Nobel dudes
Not dirlewanger, sum of worst.
A stock photo, often chucked in, but the Dirlewanger was thankfully destroyed.
Look at the Black Watch infantry regiment from Montreal. Between D-Day (6 June 1944) and the end of the war, the regiment suffered 350 percent casualties. Mind you they got a steady stream of replacements, but even so were sadly depleted when the war ended in May 1945. The Conscription Crisis back home created much political angst back home in Canada, but few replacements for Canadian regiments fighting in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.
The Canadian assault on Verrières Ridge, code-named Operation Spring, is one of the most controversial operations in Canadian military history. On July 25, 1944 the Black Watch, an English-speaking battalion from Montreal, suffered over three hundred casualties in a single day
"350% casualties"
So, is this the new math I keep hearing about? How does that work, exactly? A guy gets killed, springs back to life, and then gets killed 2 more times?
@@haeuptlingaberja4927 it’s done in a stack calculation where let say 600 soldiers man 100% the regiment and through the campaign casualties get replaced and end up having more casualties
@@ferociousfil5747
Okay, and I get that, but it's still statistical manipulation.
@@haeuptlingaberja4927 Not that hard to wrap your brain around.
You should defo do a part two because there was also the British 1st airbourne division got destroyed in operation market garden and there was colonel frost battalion I think it was that held on in Arnhem itself. Also when the M24 chaffee light tanks came into service there was a squadron of 18 tanks reduced to just one. I think it's worth looking into more there are many
Polish resistance definitely deserves a mention. In the 1944 Warsaw uprising, 85% of Warsaw was destroyed and the Polish home army had nothing left at the end of the uprising. Many who survived were sent to concentration camps or executed on sight by the Germans.
Not being petty here, but it was a fitting karma for them.
More than a year before, the polish Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose up in desperation of being sent to the concentration camps but got no help from the home army, who gleefully watched the Nazis systematically destroy the Warsaw ghetto.
But God saw it fit to let the Russian army just sit nearby and watch gleefully as the Germans systematically destroy Warsaw.
You reap what you sow.
And the ghetto uprising too. The Jews fought the Nazis and the Polish Home Army didn't lift a finger to help their fellow citizens getting slaughtered and gassed, the Poles were the opposite of brave, they were cowardly fucks who only fought when they thought they could win, not when they were needed.
Polish were warriors who resisted the Axis and assisted the Allies.
At 20:46 , see that giant standing there?!? Good god 😂
This was an absolutely fantastic video great work dude
4th Marines are still around but cannot be a whole unit anymore since we lost our colors , the 3 battalions are scattered throughout the Marine Corps . I was in 2nd battalion 4th Marines and my battalion was attached to the 5th Marines first Marine Division.
you prob picked up the mistake in video - Wainwright was a US Army general - not a USMC one.. :P
@@coling3957 yeah Marines don’t surrender they wanted to keep fighting but the Army general who the Marines were attached to forced them to. And because of that we lost our colors .
The 4th Regiment did it right though. They burned their colors rather than to allow them to be captured. They probably would've fought on had they had the foresight of the Bataan Death March and life in captivity at the hands of the Japanese.
Reform 4th Marine Regiment! They never surrendered of their own free will!
Thank you for mentioning the battles that the Hungarians fought. Many people completely overlook their participation in the war and rarely even mention the battle for Hungary, despite how long it was and the scale of the fighting.
The picture used at 6:49 is of SS Dirlewanger brigade, not the SS Charlemagne
Don't fall into the trap that is war thunder. It's not free to play in fact your gonna spend hundreds just keeping your tanks repaired when you get into higher teer. That game is a Moscow Cash grab
Johnathan Wainwright was a US ARMY general. Not a marine. Most the troops on Corregidor were ARMY. The survivors went on the Death March.
My great uncle did that march, he was liberated after the war in Japan, drank himself to death by the time I was 7.
Was shipped to Japan on a Maru, he never talked about any of it with anyone but my Old Man, who did D-Day Omaha to Berlin.
It was still the 4th marines who were overrun
German 6th army had the dubious honor of getting destroyed 3 times
Wonderful documentary. Thank you for you’re hard work.😊
5:00 supply chain breakdown = P-47 Thunderbolt strafing
5:14 punishing arial assaults
Hi all, I would have counted the full crew of The Maginot Line fort "La Ferté". All its 106 crew members were killed on 19 of May 1940. A way to remind that the French fought during these fatal weeks of 1940.
My grandfather wouldn’t talk about the war. He became an alcoholic and had flashbacks all the time. All I know is he was in New Guinea and shot a lot of Japanese soldiers. He was a Tech 4 in the infantry.
This is a solid video.
I personally found the placement of the War Thunder ad a bit distasteful considering the subject matter, but that's neither here nor there.
I would like to make you aware of some bad source material you might be using though. You got the name of the 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division CO wrong. It's Richard Schimpf, not Shrimpf. The German language almost exclusively uses sch for sh-sounds and if your source gets basic things like names wrong, there might be other, more serious, errors.
Also, this is more of an aesthetic thing, but I wouldn't suggest shortening division names like "Panzer division" to just "Panzer" because it literally just means 'tank' and makes the sentence sound a bit clumsy but you of course have the final say on how you want to phrase it.
Please keep in mind that I'm not trying to hate, I just wanted to give you some genuine feedback because I feel you did a great job on narration, visuals and research apart from these small things and want to help you improve.
Any Japanese Regiment after 1943, especially in the Pacific and India / Burma would make this list.
4:42 his name is Richard Schimpf.
Entire Sentais were obliterated during the Philippine Campaign. The 8th Hakkou-Tai is one such example. They had a bomb with wings painted on the tail. This unit was based at Nielsen Field and was wiped out on December 10, 1944.
Thank you so much for this. I’ve always wanted to see videos on Germany’s losses by division on eastern front in 1941-1945.
The two Canadian units sent to Hong Kong.
The Royal rifles' of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers
Another great video Geetsly’s
We must mention the Australian division that was defending Singapore, who fought until almost the last men, and the very few last standing who have surrendered, did that because they completely run out of ammunition. Though by that time they pissed of the Japanese so much, by keeping on fighting for so long, that none of those brave men was spared.
Reminds me of the World War Two movie town of Chillingbourne. 🎥🎥🎥
Gen.Jonathan Wainwright was not a Marine, he was an Army General
Like General Alexander said in Cassino why the objective was taking so long to take and with huge allied casualties,he said " Simple,because we are fighting against the Best soldiers in the world" ( referring to the German Paratroopers,the Fallschirmjager).
The Green Devils,as the Americans call them.
“Dan-nube rhivah”
Try a pronunciation guide. Lots of issues.
I think with the casualties debate both sides are right, I think stategicly (the unit itself or in a campaign like Africa or Italy or Normandy) if a unit suffers casualties and surrenders or had to be disbanded because of losses then it's annihilated. However tactically (in a battle or operation such battle for arnhem or battle of bastogne) casualties of injured/death and captured should be separate. Hope what I'm saying makes sense at least that's how I try to understand it. The differance is strategic is mainly loss in manpower vs tactical being loss in actual fighting.
1st batallian, 105th infantry regiment, 27th division nearly wiped out on the last day of the battle if saipan. My father was one of 41 survivors
Watching this video really does make one think the scope of the bloodshed.
great! So glad you covered this. This was worse than Berlin though it is one of the least remembered horrors. Thanks!
I would have thought the soviet frontier armies in 41 took a hell of a beating, the 57th army at Stalingrad. The German highest rate of casualties was in the summer of 44 not in normandy but bagration when army group centre was completely routed. The Japanese frequently fought to the last man, kill or be killed surrender was not an option , once the allies saw what the Japanese did a lot of units took no prisoners. indeed a lot took no prisoners from day 1 after pearl harbour. same for the SS, frequently the western forces didn't take prisoners let alone the soviets. but after what the japanese did in china and to prisoners in general ditto the germans in the east I doubt if I would have taken SS or Japanese prisoners either. Budapest was as badly damaged as warsaw kiev stalingrad dresden kharkov hamburg etc. WW2 did not go quietly. The bravest of the brave though in WW2 was the poles, the best squadron in the battle of britain, the bravest troops at monte cassino led by Anders ( Churchill quote) . The home army never gave in, as for the germans in the warsaw uprising, what those savages did there was a bad as the Japanese in manila. The germans and Japanese got off lightly for their crimes.
The defenders of corrigadore ended up in the bataan death march. Many more died in japanese prison camps from hunger, disease, torture and beatings.
Nope they didn't suffered the faith of death march as the death march was already done before the surrender of Corregidor. This was a common misconception. The death march happened after the fall of the Bataan in April while Corregidor surrendered a month later in May 5. Though the POWs of Corregidor didn't experience the death march they were paraded in the streets after being transported out from Corregidor inorder for the Japs to bragged to the Filipinos that they have defeated the Americans.
Battle on the Bakri Parit Sulong Road Malaya January 1942
Where the 2/29th Battalion and 2/19th Battalion AIF together with remnants of the 45th Indian Brigade held the Imperial Guards Division
Without their efforts and sacrifice the Japanese would've arrived at the causeway at Singapore a week earlier
Lest we forget
The troops at Dein bien phu can make the list. Sometimes referred to as the last SS battle
A wonderful historical coverage of selected battles during WW2...that hard wars circumstances were more crucial, atrocities than Popularly known ( Stalingrad)....brutality of Berlin invaded was more
Great Video! I learnt a lot. Thanks for sharing!
The siege of Breslau comes to mind, Kholm on a much smaller scale, Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Centre, the Courland pocket, Vlasov's Army in 1942, dunno, you could spend hours detailing the destruction of Armies and Divisions in WW2.
The 1st special service force 'devils brigade' or 'black devils' suffered 77% casualties in one battalion or one regiment of the 3 during one battle in the Italian campaign and apparently suffered an attrition rate of 600% and were eventually disbanded unfortunately. I'm not sure if the attrition rate is the total from battles and that soldiers who recovered from fatigue or exhaustion did return into the unit.
I grew up in Hamilton Ontario. My grandfather (WW1 soldier) Guarded the Armouries during ww2. There were still many survivors alive when I was a kid. Some were survivors of ill fated raid on Dieppe France. They understood there was a bigger purpose to the attack. (The enigma machine) and Stalin was complaining about the Allies ill action. But what a price.
That was an incredible video
Why does the SS soldier at 9:22 have a gebirgsjager cap? I thought the 33rd Division was an infantry division?
You talk about divisions and regiments. Meanwhile forget about the Hungarian 2nd Army? 84% casaulties during the soviet counter attack in the Battle of Stalingrad (Operation Uranus), in the bend of the River Don. The original strength of the army was around 200000 soldiers. Around 64000 had recovered (most of them reached the german lines on foot, typically walking 2-300 km), only 17000 of them had any kind of a weapon, less than 10000 in any sort of battle ready shape. The rest were wounded, frostbitten, etc. At least 100-120000 soldiers died in the few days of the battle. The army as a fighting unit practically destroyed.
The few remains were reorganized (aka organized a practically new unit with the same operation order number), fought in the Battle of Debrecen, and again annihilated in the Siege of Budapest.
Hungarians ? LMAO !
@@wodenviking If you really want to know, the 2nd hungarian army was the last to leave their positions in the Don. They were the ones to cover the back of the runniong away german forces. Yes, germens were fleeing in really disordered manner. There were no german withdrawal from the don. That was a stampede, running away in fear.
The 106th division US was never rebuilt after the Battle of the Bulge.
This is the only guy i can’t get mad at for throwing in commercials. All his content is too good.
picture at 6:44 is the Dirlewanger brigade, A German SS unit that operated with the Einsatzgruppen under Oskar Dirlewanger "the butcher of Warsaw" There was no nazi group worse than them. Google them or watch the movie come and see. By theway those are not french vichy german fighters.
Sad to say, you may not be correct. There is the Kaminski Brigade to consider.
Im glad you spotted that to, im sure The OP has drastically gone down in many a french mans eyes!! , thats sick to even have them in the same context, and he didnt even mention the break out from hells gate with leon degralle...no wonder the younger gen are thick as shit, and believe everything...with half arsed content like this shown..
@@carlmcdaniels1675thats dirlenwanger he showed, ive read the book...
It shows how bad the Dirlewanger Brigade was when senior Waffen SS officers complained about their excess and atrocities.
The SS Charlemagne had no options, "death in combat by the Soviets" or "death by firing squads as Traitors" at the hands of their own Countrymen!
Such is the logical sum in the equation of brutality minus brutality, the Eastern Front of WW2. 'Course, this is some notable competition.
Edit: In my opinion, though, a true annihilated military unit would be one with *zero* survivors, with the reserves, auxiliaries, and other secondary groups included in the losses.
Entire elite Chinese army whipped out during first stage of Japanese invasion. Then then went on massacre in Nianjing
what about the U.S. 110th infantry regiment destroyed at the BULGE
Underrated. It was only because of them that the defense at Bastogne was possible.
At El Alamein the attention should have been on the FIVE Italian divisions that covered Rommel'scescape, not on the one German division that joined them.
US 28th Div in the Hurtgen forest.
4:47 Look like the scene from The Longest Day.
Outstanding content, can you cover the hurtgen forest campaign as this is often overlooked.?
Read ,battle of hurtgen forest by Charles Whiting it will break your heart
What about the many Japanese units in the Pacific that fought to the last in banzai charges.
"A cornered fox is more dangerous than a jackal "-Grey Fox Metal Gear Solid
I've been to Budapest hundreds of times and I've visited several times the scenes of unbelievable horror that was brought upon German units there. I had for many years a complete "Sahariana"uniform of an SS Unterscharführer in the Maria Theresia Division that by pure luck escaped the City. We Historians call the battle of Budapest "Stalingrad an der Donau". Every 3rd Russian soldier that set foot in Hungary died there. The losses were so severe that after the battle, the 2 Russian City commanders allowed the Red Army 4 hours per day "Frei mord/Frei Raub"...they were allowed 4 hours a day to rob, murder, rape at will as "compensation ". Most insiders consider the battle of Budapest to have been more brutal than the fighting in Berlin.
Wow, great knowledge, I never knew that
I’d love to see more of these types of videos.
Learning about the stories from these beleaguered units and the brave men who fought in them.
I’m hoping more of these men’s story gets the chance to be told like the ones in this video.
Great job on the vid guys, I send applause from Kentucky USA 🇺🇸.
Excellent video!
6:47 aren’t those the “shall not be named” soldiers?
I would say ss divisions in normady suffered also the two American divisions that were destroyed in the Bulge.Great video.
You ozzys are smashing the military coverage. Consider me subbed.
🇬🇧💚
Story of a squadron being scrambled in the Battle of Britain….one hurricane took off.
This really is a pretty cruddily put together piece.
i dont see any soldiers wearing flip flops
Soviet 44. division in Raate and 39. armoured prigade in Lemetti or 52. division in Somme and and and.... Soviet against finns was a garnage from start to finnish, Last vipe out soviet divison were in Ilomantsi when they tryed come thru woods. And one little detail no finnish unit surredered during that conflict. We finns knew and know how russians handle their captives so we rather die than surrender.
Up to that point, the Rangers had been unstoppable. Sucks when it’s light infantry (Rangers) vs the “Herman Goring SS Panzer Division.” They were also dug in too. It was an impossible mission.
Herman Goring was a luftwaffe division (hence named after Herman Goring). They were not SS.
They were just the better unit on the day.
6.48 This is a photo taken in Warsaw during the ghetto uprising and is of the SS Dirlewanger Brigade. It is not 33rd GD Charlemagne
Many of these documentaries are keeping avoiding the elephant in the room. Upon seeing the efforts of defending the Philippines futile, mama's boy Douglas McCoward left all his reins to Jonathan Wainwright to escape to Australia.
No mention of the artillery battery at Sidi Nasir, for shame
Charlemagne were actually outside Berlin when the commander was summoned to the city. he took with him as many men as he could carry in the few trucks he had. only when he arrived did he find he and his men would be part of the defence of the govt district.. Hitler was still alive when they arrived.. remember Hitler committed suicide on 30th April .. at which time many sought to flee the city.. His successor, as Chancellor, Josef Goebbels, would only survive another 24 hours before joining Hitler in death and the city surrendered .
What are you talking about? Battle for Budapest was far more brutal for the civilians than Leningrad and Stalingrad? On monthly basis there was aprox 100.000 to 130.000 civilians dead in Leningrad.
Nothing on this Earth was worse that the Death,Pain and Misery in such scale as Stalingrad.
It was the Epitome of human resilience to live under the worst conditions Ever in any Battlefield in history.
It was real Hell on Earth,for everyone involved in that mass slaughter of life.
Holy fuck that ad transition was not the one 💀💀💀💀💀