Flamethrower! - Medal of Honor actions on Iwo Jima
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Part of Iwo Jima week on WW2TV - sponsored by www.battlemaps...
On the 76th anniversary of the first day of the battle for the hellishly hot and sulfurous, volcanic island of Iwo Jima, Bryan Mark Rigg joins us to talk about Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams. bryanmarkrigg....
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A few days into the bloody battle, the US Marines were taking a hammering from Japanese soldiers in pillboxes and bunkers who knew that the greatest danger they faced was from a flamethrower - if the Marines could get close enough to use them!
Imagine strapping on a highly flammable 70-pound weapon and moving on such a position under fire. Woody Williams did just that against dire odds. He, along with numerous comrades, did it again and again, taking out hundreds of fortifications which had stalled their regiment’s advance to secure the islands airfields.
Bryan will tell Williams’ story objectively, placing it in the context of the broader Pacific theater of WWII. Rigg explores the numerous problems with the conventional narrative to make sense of one of the most extraordinary and controversial Medal of Honor decorations of the war.
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Seems like many of these heroes even if they didn't get the MOH, should've been awarded the Navy Cross.
Incredibly important presentation.
My uncle Bertil was kia Iwo Jima Feb 20 ,1945 COK, 3DBN, 25MARINES, 4THMARDIV
“This will be the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history. We’ll catch seven kinds of hell on the beaches, and that will be just the beginning. The fighting will be fierce, and the casualties will be awful, but my Marines will take the damned island.”
- Lt. Gen. Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, Commander, V Amphibious Corps
Excellent presentation. I appreciate the description of the factors at play during the decisions to award medals. Following the documentary evidence to show the discrepancies in the medals awarded only enhanced my awareness that medals don’t make the hero.
As complimentary as I am of your presentations this one truly stood out. Truth is invaluable. I believe in specialty troops and it has been pointed out that unless America invades Canada or South everything else needs trained landing force capability. Thank you so much for all you do
Thank you for the nice words
Tremendous detail. A great historical program! Fitting on the 75th anniversary of Iwo Jima. And a program that beautifully honors the Battle and the sacrifice, and the many U.S. Marines that we would not otherwise know anything about. Enjoyed the amphibious warfare insights, too. Thank you!
Thank you for your kind words Pam.
@@bryanrigg6 My pleasure and honor; a meaningful expression of my gratitude is the very least I can do.
Paul another excellent program, as I have come to expect! Bryan is a skilled presenter, and very easy to listen to. Semper Fi Marine. Thanks for an excellent program. Thx Paul!!!!
They were definitely the greatest generation but they were boneheaded about stuff though.... my friend Gary's father was in the 82nd airborne, jumped I to Normandy.... he was a violent alcoholic. Many of those guys damaged after that war, nobody talks about it!
The SNLF ....were among the most brutal enemies we ever faced.... my grandmother hated them til the day she died.... she really did, hated them.
Outstanding presentation, thank you Dr. Rigg and Woody.
"Much harder to get a Victoria Cross than the Medal of Honor to judge by numbers handed out." -- @Todd Suave -- from the chat.
Interesting comment.
Is this statement based on the absolute number of VCs/MOHs awarded in WW2? Adjusted for the total number of men under arms for each respective nation? Did the relatively small number of Commonwealth servicemen fighting in the Pacific theater impact VC awards? The fact that more American servicemen were KIA/wounded (in 3.5 years) than UK servicemen (in 6 years) may have influenced the number of combat opportunities and awards, particularly in the Pacific. The differences between the combat tactics of the Japanese enemy and the German/Italian enemy might have also played a role. I think that few would argue with the fact that the Pacific Theater was the more difficult of the two in which to fight for a host of reasons.
It's a kicker that they finally proved who the real flag raisers were....(not doc Bradley)
Well... the SS fought to death all thru the war in Europe..... tadamichi Kuribayashi may have been the greatest enemies Commanders we ever faced in our entire history! He was simply a brilliant man and deserves our admiration!
Bunker busting known as the blowtorch & corkscrew method using flame throwers & explosives
The Forgotten Weapons yt channel did a couple of episodes about flame throwers for technical details.
I meant to say "Forgotten weapons" channel.
@@lynndonharnell422 Thanks! After your first comment, I had forgotten.
I'd like to hear more about the debate of which cause was more effective to Garner the Japanese surrender.....the a bombs or the Russians coming into the war.....
That's coming up soon - I will be listing soon. With Paul Ham
In a weird, roundabout sort of way, could we say that the suicidal self-sacrifice of Japanese soldiers did end up saving their country? I know that things got a lot worse in the short term, especially with the firebombing and nuclear weapons, but in the longer term these acts arguably caused the Japanese surrender and thus millions more soldiers and civilians were not called upon to make that sacrifice. I suppose the other way of looking at it would be to say that the Soviet storm in Manchuria was the true Kamikaze.
I might be way off with this though: as a Soviet-Axis Front guy I'm always left a bit off-balance by the Pacific war.
Well if they haven't shaped their culture to such a fanatic one they might not be involved in WW2 at the first place. It's an awful culture which allowed inhuman treatment to others and pretty much caused massacres and rapes. You don't have to justify everything, sometimes things are just awful.
Hmm ,not sure on agreeing with him on how the American marines developed amphibious warfare Paul, UK is an island as your well aware we British have had to develop our own amphibious warfare , long before America entered the war.
And the VC is much harder to earn...
The USA did well in WW2
But the Russians also did amphibous operations in Crimea in WW2 both landing and evacuating and at night.
Kerach Penninsula? Russian landings seemed disasterous. Lost 353,000 men. Bad logistics.
Dont forget if you surrendered your family wouldnt get a pension
I have come across this guy before. He seems to be hell bent on smearing the name of Woody Williams. Possible to gain popularity for his book. I had to remove him from a group we were a part of together.
Did you watch the show in full, because that's not what he said
@@WW2TV He was a member of a Marine group. I have heard his banter before. He also says we too much when referring to those Marines who were in the battle. He was never there and questioning any man who served not only on Iwo Jima ,but the battle of Guam also is not someone worth listening to.
@@JimDMarines So you haven't watched? I understand his views are not in line with others, but the fact is that all historians must and should question everything said about battles, including by those that were there. That's the basic principle of historical analysis
@@WW2TV You shouldn't make assumptions. I told you I am very familiar with this guy and what he is promoting. I watched nearly the entire podcast, but when he inevitably injected racism I realised we had been down this road before and I didnt need to hear his crap all over again. That is why I tossed him from my group.
@@JimDMarines Racism? Where was there a racist comment please?
Riggs needs to temper the adjectives like the use of weird when speaking of Japanese beliefs. Can't we use the same term about some Western beliefs?
The Japanese committed mass suicide at the end of all the Pacific island battles rather than be shamed by surrendering. They thought death was better than surrender. I'd call that a weird/disgusting belief system. Do you have a problem with that?
Don't get me started on how Japan treated POWs and civilians. They were sick bastards.
Japan today is great. WW2 Japan was evil and disgusting.
Yes, Japan did have many more aircraft and pilots to throw at the Allies, but where were they going to get all the fuel with which to run them? Japan had no large domestic sources of crude or synthetic oil (certainly not any that couldn't be easily knocked out by enemy bombing), and by VE Day had been essentially fully blockaded by Allied naval and air power (i.e. the country was being starved into submission), not that any oil was going to get through anyway as nearly all the foreign sources of its petroleum were by then in Allied hands and the lion's share of its merchant fleet lay firmly anchored at the bottom of the ocean. For these reasons, among others, I am not at all convinced that invading Japan would have been any more deadly to your average Allied infantrymen than invading Germany was, though it could easily have become a much messier and morally more questionable affair than the latter as killing civilians might have become par for the course.
Yes. I agree. I think the invasion of Japan would have killed more civilians because the Japanese citizens were almost all willing to fight and die for the Emperor, unlike what we saw in Germany. All the points you raise are excellent.
You don't need fuel or even food to kill marines. Just look at the resistance in the islands that were cut off. A kamikaze pilot doesn't need much fuel and some fuel was always getting through.
Paul, please lose the hat indoors. It's an unnecessary distraction. I'm bald myself and occasionally wear one outside as my head gets cold. But inside.... No.
No I always wear a hat - Sorry but it's a style choice. It's 2022, I will do as I please. If it annoys you, don't watch. If it distracts you, then that's your issue not mine
It's his signature.
You talk too damn much get right an appointment get off the screen
Sorry you feel this way. Just had alot of information I wanted to share. Thanks for watching anyway.
Stop being a DOPE
@@bryanrigg6 I'm not a big fan in regard of your story on Woody Williams. However, the response by Manuel Bermudez to you was ignorant.
@@jimaiwo6938 THanks for your honesty and for your support.
@@bryanrigg6 Thank you for your service sir