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0:01
Linda told you a little bit about my background, teacher and school principal. And I've been teaching Microsoft Word for a number of years. In fact, I taught Microsoft Word here at Utah State. And then I went on the honor flight. Do any of what the honor flight is? Yeah, all right, tell us.
0:27
World War II veterans that are taken to Washington D.C. and shown in the town and everything is furnished. Yes. Actually, for those of you who don't know, they take the World War II veterans on a flight from whatever state they're in to Washington D.C. They put you up in the Hilton Hotel, breakfast, lunch, dinner, beautiful room. Everything first class. And every morning, we would get on buses and go and visit various war memorials. And we'd see parts of Congress and so forth.
1:06
And it was very interesting. They treated us royally really. And so with this one day, we got on the buses after breakfast. And as we were in the Hilton, we became acquainted with some of the men and women there. In fact, on the flight from Phoenix, there were about 75 men on the plane and about 15 women, all World War II veterans. Many of them had purple hearts. So anyway, we got on the bus this one morning and were waiting to take off. And so there was one woman there, Mary.
1:48
And I saw her, I walked up the aisle, and Mary was in a wheelchair. And I stood alongside the wheelchair. And Mary was 91 years old. And she was confined to the wheelchair. So I tapped her on the shoulder and I said, hey, Mary, are you going to knock on my hotel room door tonight? She whirled around and said, what's your room number? So that gives you an idea of the attitude that they had. OK, I think we're ready to get going here. Yeah, as I said, I used to teach a Microsoft Word for so
2:31
many years, and even here. And then when I went on that honor flight, they encouraged us to tell the story of World War II. So the next time I came back to the University, I told Linda, I said, I'm going to teach Word anymore. I'm going to teach World War II. So I was trying to fulfill my obligation to some of the veterans who were still back there. By the way, I'll tell you something else too that might help us.
3:05
I was with Patton all through the war. And then 51 years after D-day, Donna and I went to Europe, went to France. The first thing we did, went up to the beaches and paid our respects to the dead. [INAUDIBLE] had a lot of graves there. And we paid our respects there. And then I followed the route of the 90th Division all the way from Normandy, all the way across France, the Bulge, across Germany. And so we really learned a lot about the 90th Infantry Division.
3:44
And then we got to know some of the people in France and in Germany. And I think I'll be sharing that with you. Now my real-- I don't know what your objectives are, but my objective today and throughout the week, I want you to understand what it was like to be on the front lines, really in combat, and understand what the circumstances were while you were in combat. I've read numerous books about World War II. I've read Osborn, and Atkinson, and Patton, and Eisenhower. And I've read them all.
4:27
And believe me, they know a lot about the great troop movements. They know a lot about victories and defeats. But they know nothing about the front line. Absolutely, they have no idea what's happening on the front line. I'll give you an example. In Eisenhower's book, Crusade in Europe, he writes in the book, in the Battle of the Bulge, the reason why so many men got trench feet was because they didn't change their socks at night. If you were on the front lines, you'll just laugh at that.
5:04
Because number one, we didn't have another pair of socks to put it on. Number two, we didn't take our shoes off, because sometimes we were only 100 yards away from the Germans. And we didn't know if they were going to attack us. So we always had to be ready. So we never took our shoes off. We really took anything off. Well, OK, so let's see. OK, I'm going to go back. I'm going to go back. Since we're going to go into a World War II, we want to know about the siege that preceded World War II
5:40
and started World War II. So I have to go back to World War I. And World War I, it was England, France, the United States, Italy, and Russia opposing Germany, Austria, and so forth. And the war started in 1914 and it ended in 1918. And in 1918, Germany surrendered unconditionally. And they went to a little town and France called Compagnie and into a railroad card. And they signed the surrender papers in that car. Donna and I, when we went to Europe 51 years later, went into that same car.
6:23
It was a very pretty car, red carpeting down there. Very, very pretty. And so I'll tell you a little bit more. Later on I'm here to tell you more about Compagnie. Right now, we'll continue to move on. All right, so three of our slides. Good. All right. This is the Treaty of Versailles that Germany signed at the end of the War. Remember this is unconditional surrender. And because Germany was restricted from building submarines, building tanks, building airplanes, all these restrictions
7:00
were placed upon them. Plus the penalties they had to pay for their defeat in the War. And of course, they resented that. Well, I think we're ready now to introduce Adolf. OK, Don has some pictures of Adolf. All right, here here's the man who's responsible for the death of 80 million people. Sometimes they say 50 million, but whatever it is. Even 50 million is a staggering number of people to be killed during World War II. And that's all people from all in all different parts
7:39
of the world, soldiers, civilians, and so forth. All right. A little bit about Hitler. Hitler was born in Austria, a little town in Austria. And he was the illegitimate son of Maria Schicklgruber. And he had that name while he was young. And then later on when he got became involved in politics, he didn't like that name. And Maria Schicklgruber married Alloy Hitler. That was his name. So then Hitler assumed his name. Because politically, Schicklgruber was too big a name for politics.
8:23
So he changed it to Hitler. And at an early age, he became interested in politics and became involved in politics. And as much as you may hate Hitler, he was certainly a dynamic speaker. He could arouse the Germans. So he was moving up the ladder politically. And then he and some of his hoods attempted to take over an election. And they failed, of course. And they were sentenced and jailed. Hitler was sent to jail and he was given a five year sentence in jail.
9:08
Now while he was in jail, he wrote his book, Mein Kampf, which means my struggle. And in that book, he just vilified the Jews. He blamed the Jews for the depression. He blamed the Jews for losing World War I. He blamed anything that was bad in Germany or Europe, he blamed the Jews. So as he kept going up after he wrote that book-- by the way, he wrote a second book, a sequel to it. It sold 5 million copies. So you see the popularity was there in Europe as particularly in Germany.
9:54
So then he was moving up the ladder until he finally ran for Chancellor of Germany. Chancellor is like the president. So he ran for Chancellor and he ran against Von Hindenburg. Von Hindenburg was a World War I hero. And they had the election and Hitler lost. Von Hindenburg became Chancellor. But unfortunately, shortly after he became Chancellor, he died. I don't know how he died. I'm a little suspicious. But anyway, Hitler then automatically became the Chancellor.
10:36
He was only Chancellor a short while and he declared himself Fuhrer. Fuhrer is leader. And he was going to be-- no more democracy in Germany. It was just a dictatorship. And he was in complete control. And the first thing he did was he wanted to get rid of all the Jews one way or another. Either put them in a concentration camp or he was trying to evict them. One good thing happened while he was doing this, evicting the Jews. He evicted Albert Einstein. So Albert Einstein went to England.
11:18
From England, he came to America. From America, he came right up to Chicago. And when he was in Chicago, he worked on building the atomic bomb. Now the other good thing too why Einstein came here is the fact that he realized and he knew that humans were working on the atomic bomb. And he and Oppenheimer and Fermi, Enrico Fermi also-- Enrico was the one who was the first one to split the atom. When he split the atom, all the scientists throughout the world
11:59
knew that it was possible to create an atomic bomb. So Enrico Fermi, and Albert Einstein, and Oppenheimer, and Grove went to see Franklin D. Roosevelt-- this is long before we became involved in the War-- and said, told him, he said, Germans are working on an atomic bomb. And Roosevelt was smart enough, after he realized what might happen, he was smart enough to allot a huge sum of money toward the Manhattan Project. And the Manhattan Project was building the atomic bomb.
12:39
And most of the work was done up in Chicago. And then later on, it was done in Los Alamos, New Mexico. So that was one of the good things. Hitler built his first concentration camp in the first year that as Chancellor. And of course, he built many. I think he had about 1,000 different camps. Now some of the camps that he built were concentration camps. Other camps were extermination camps. If they were in a concentration camp, they were sent there to work as slaves.
13:21
And if they were sent to the other camp, it was an extermination camp and they were exterminated-- they were killed, or burned, or gassed. But six million of them perished. All right, I think we'll get ready to-- there's a picture now of Hitler when he was Chancellor and parading shortly after Hitler took control as Chancellor. And this is what Germany looked like before Hitler took over. And after he took over, and he completely ignored the Versailles Treaty. And we'll see how.
14:05
He took over the lands that he wasn't supposed to take that he looked after the War. And then you see this Saar region. He wasn't allowed to go into the Saar region here. But he did. He just ignored it. And he marched. I want you to take a look at the map here too. See you right along? here's? France and here's Germany. And this is the border right here. And later on we're going to refer to this border again, because along this border was the Maginot Line.
14:37
France build that Maginot Line because they were afraid that Hitler or that Germany would, again, start a war and invade France. So they built this big Maginot Line here.
14:51
Now Hitler then one of his takeovers was Austria. He didn't fire one bullet. He just drove his car in like a parade and took over Austria. Just as easy as that. And next, in the meantime, the British, and the French, and the rest of the world just stood by and let this occur. Then he wanted-- see this area in here of Czechoslovakia? It's called a Sudetenland. Now ordinarily, let's come down here and, say, let's say that Spain and France were enemies. Well, if they were enemies, Spain
15:36
would build all fortifications along here. And France would build all fortifications along this border. Well, the Czechs built all this-- they had all their fortifications along the border here. So Hitler wanted the Sudetenland. And the Czechs wouldn't give it. They didn't want to. They were ready to go to war. But England, France, and the rest of the countries really were-- they were trying to avoid war. So they sent the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to Germany
16:14
to discuss this with Germany with Hitler and attempt to avoid the war. And Hitler said, if you give me the Sudetenland, there'll be no war. And that's the last of my acquisitions that I want. So you know how truthful he was. So then shortly after he took over the Sudetenland, he took over all of Czechoslovakia. Now there's a little town in Czechoslovakia called Le dice I'm not going to tell you about Lidice. I'm going to tell you about Lidice when we get to D-day.
16:55
And then I'll tell you the story of Lidice. And then-- all right, so now he took over all of Czechoslovakia. Now here's what happened too. Shortly after this, he knew he was going to attack Poland next. And if he did attack Poland, the Russians were concerned about it. And Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with Russia and saying that we would not go to war with Russia. And Russia said they wouldn't go to war with Germany. So when Germany invaded Poland, they stopped and the Russians came in.
17:34
And I'm going to show you-- now we're going to talk a little bit about the kind of warfare that was new. And it was called blitzkrieg. Yeah, this is the word the German used, blitzkrieg, which means lightning war. And this was a new kind of warfare. See, previously, like during World War I, the French would line up here. And the Germans would have a line here. And then the French would try to push the Germans back or the Germans would try to push the French back
18:13
and defeat them in that manner all along a front like this. See, that's the old fashioned war. Now lightning war is completely different.
18:25
Yeah, lightning war is different. Now this is Poland. Here's Germany. This is the German line and this is the Polish line here. Now here they are lined up along the border. Now instead of the entire line, as they did in World War I, were pushing this way and the Poles trying to push this way, the blitzkrieg started. And blitzkrieg means lightning war. And this is what a German general by the name of Guderian was the one who invented the lightning war. And this is the way it worked.
19:06
They would pick one particular spot. Instead of fighting along a front like this, they would just fight one spot right there. And they would hit that one spot. And the first thing that would happen would be the Stuka bombers, the bombers that came down in and dropped up their road bombs like a-- the plane was used like an artillery gun, a cannon. And it would shoot to the bombs right into this area. And they would blast this area. And then immediately after that, the tanks would run in.
19:42
Run in here like this followed by infantry. And they plug a hole right in here. And see, once they were out here, there were no more soldiers out here. They were in open territory. And then they would swing around like this and they would entrap all the Poles that were in this area. Now sometimes, they would make a burst in here like this and they come around like this. And then they have another burst in the line, a second burst. And they would come around like this.
20:20
And they would meet and now all the Poles will be stuck in this area. In the meantime, the Russians were coming in from this direction. And the Poles were defeated in four weeks. They had a big army. We thought-- we assumed that the War would last a long time. But it only lasted for weeks, because of the type of warfare, lighting warfare. It subdued them in no time. Then Italy became involved in the War with Germany. And the first thing they did was they took Albania.
20:54
And then here you see the blitzkrieg. DID you notice that? Those arrows? You see that? That's the blitzkrieg. They came around, they meet, and they trampled the Poles inside that pocket. And they just destroyed them. They kept gaining and pushing the Poles back and destroying many of their towns. And they were also killing many of the young men in Poland who were opposed to communism. And the Russians stayed back, even though they signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.
21:37
They stayed back and didn't enter Poland until very late. They were waiting for the Germans to kill many of the Poles who were opposed to communism. And they waited and they did succeed. Because many of the Poles who were opposed to communism were killed or imprisoned. And then the Russians just moved right in. And they really permitted the slaughter of many Poles. All right, so he then took over half of Poland. And then the Russians came in and took over the other half.
22:20
OK, then, of course, they moved on. They took Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and so forth. Look at here. See, this is the Maginot Line. It's all along the French border here. So the French felt very secure, because they had as their primary defense the Maginot Line. And they indicated that it was impregnable. They didn't have to worry about the Germans, because they could never get through. And it was a tremendous fortification. So the Germans were a little smarter,
22:55
and they weren't going to invade France through there. So here's something too that was interesting. When this War was going on, Germany was receiving from Sweden all their iron ore. And the Germans needed it because they were building thousands and thousands of tanks, planes submarines. So they needed the iron ore to keep building their more war materials. So they were worried that if England made some negotiations with Poland, maybe the Norwegians would give them permission to come in here.
23:41
And then once they were in here, and they could threaten Sweden, say, stop sending ore to Germany. So Hitler realized that he had to protect it. So he said, well, we'll attack Norway. Well, it just so happened that Denmark was in the way. But that didn't stop Hitler. He just move right in, took over Denmark. And then the next thing you know, the planes went over and paratroopers were dropped in Norway. And Norway fell in no time at all. And so now England had no way of getting to Sweden at all.
24:22
And now we come on here. So now here are the Germans now. They didn't want to go to that Maginot Line. So instead, they conquered the Netherlands and then they conquered Belgium.
24:39
And here's what happened here. When they were coming through here, the British and the French lined up their armies all along here, because they were coming through Holland and Belgium. Now in Belgium, there is this forest called the Ardennes. Well, the allies didn't realize that tanks could go through the Ardennes, so they had a very weak line of defense in front of that Ardennes forest. Well, the tanks were able to go right through the Ardennes and they drove right into it.
25:18
This is a good-- by the way, it was Guderian who's leading this charge here with his tanks. He went through and he went almost to the coast here. So now the British and the French that were here realized they had to retreat. So they retreated here. And they were up in this area trying to save themselves. See? And then the Germans took all of France. But in the meantime, right in this area here-- let me go back one. Yeah, right in this area here is Dunkirk. Thank you.
25:54
Yeah, is the town of Dunkirk. And the British, and the French, and Poles, and whoever was in that army, were stuck there in Dunkirk. They were completely surrounded. And the planes, Stuka planes, were coming, bombing them. And they were in desperate straits. So they appealed to the British people, the civilians, to get boats, civilian boats, just recreational boats. They sent all the boats down to Dunkirk to pick up the English, and French, and Polish troops.
26:31
Put them on boats and drove took them back to England, saved them really. And so Hitler was more interested in taking-- he couldn't wait to take all of France. So he moved ahead and took all of France. In the meantime, Montgomery who was in charge of the fighting here also escaped with his men to England.
26:58
Then the Battle of Britain started. Now we were sending-- by the way, all during this War, Churchill and Stalin were pleading with the United States to come and help them, to get involved in the War. But we were reluctant. The American people were still reluctant. They were saying, well, that war is 3,000 miles away. What does that have to do with us? So we were-- the people were reluctant to get into that War. But Roosevelt knew we had to get into the War.
27:34
But he had no way of convincing Congress to get into the War. So all we could do was send supplies. And in 1929 when we had to crash, we had so many people out of work during the early '30s. Well, then when this War started, we became the arsenal for democracy. And we built factories and more factories. And we start-- Ford no longer built cars. They built airplanes. And General Motors no longer built cars, they built tanks. So they were building tanks, and airplanes,
28:11
and all kinds of defense plants opened up the United States. And we were secure, because nobody-- we were so far away that Hitler's planes couldn't bomb us. So we were safe and we could build these big factories without problem. Now in England, they had difficulty, because the big German bombers would come over and bombed them. And they were wreaking havoc in England. And the only thing that helped them were the little Spitfires, the English Spitfires. They were marvelous.
28:49
They knocked down so many German airplanes. Now the German heavy airplanes could fly from Europe into England, because they were huge and they could carry-- they had big tanks of gasoline. They could go far. But the little fighters that they had could only go a short distance. So they couldn't accompany the bombers when they went into England. But in England, they had the Spitfires. And they would go up and knock down plane, after plane, after the plane. They knocked down so many planes,
29:21
that Germany had to stop bombing. And that's when Churchill, who was Prime Minister then, said, never have so many owed so much to so few. And he was talking about the pilots who piloted the little Spitfires. Because they really knocked out so many bombers that Hitler stopped bombing. In the meantime, we kept sending more and more materials to England. We were sending tanks, and artillery pieces, and planes, and trucks, and medical supplies, and all kinds of things. This was our base.
30:06
Now after Hitler took over all of France, there was a possibility that they were going to invade England. In fact, England start changing signs. They used to have signs, like this way to London and this way to Cambridge. They changed the signs around. Because if the Germans landed paratroopers in there, they'd be confused by the signs. That's how anxious they were and how afraid they were that the Germans were going to send paratroopers, as they did in Norway, and invade Britain.
30:44
Now the Germans did have plans to invade England. And their plans were to go from this part here. Where the arrow is now this is known as the Pas-de-Calais. You see how close it is to England? It's only about 21 miles from here to here. So this is where the Germans were going to invade England. The plans were that. But the United States kept sending more and more war materials. And soldiers, we had two million American soldiers here in England. And we had boats, and Higgins boats,
31:28
and many other kinds of vessels in here. And the Germans knew that we were preparing for an invasion of Europe. We're going to come from-- but the only thing they didn't know, they didn't know when it was going to happen. And they didn't know where it was going to happen. So they had many spies in England trying to find out when the invasion would take place and where it would take place. Now Hitler thought that they would invade here. Now prior to this, and the war in Africa-- let's see.
32:08
Now about this time, Russia was looking at Germany. And they saw Germany's coming up like this, taking over here. And there's no-- the Russians said, soon they're going to take over Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. And then they'll take over Finland. Now if the Germans took over Finland, look right here. Here's Leningrad, so close to Finland. So the Russians were worried about the Germans invading Finland. So they declared war on Finland, because they wanted to take Finland to defend that part so
32:45
that the Germans wouldn't have easy access to northern Russia and Leningrad. So when they went to war with Finland, Finland put up a tremendous resistance. And the Russians couldn't overcome them. They attacked and attacked. And the Finns on this particular Lake Ladoga in Finland they would-- the Russians would attempt to cross Lake Ladoga. And they had in mind that they bombed it. And the lake would go-- the ice would go down into the lake.
33:17
And all the Russians, the tanks, and troops that were on there, would go into the lake. So the Russians couldn't-- they gave up and they called a truce with Finland. Well, Hitler saw that. And he said, well, we can easily overcome. If they couldn't defeat the defense, how could they defeat us? So he then decided that he would attack Russia. Now he went in and attacked Russia. And he took all this land here. This guy, again, with his blitzkrieg and his tanks,
33:53
he was moving along very rapidly into Russia. And they were very close to Moscow before they were halted. And they were very close-- you can see how close they were to Leningrad. They were so close to Leningrad, they could almost hear them. And they were close enough to Moscow where the German troops here could see the gold domes of Moscow. That's how close they were. And then winter came and the Russians then started their own offensive. About this time, this is the winter of 1941.
34:31
And December 7th, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. And while we used to send oil and iron ore to Japan. And then we realized how aggressive they were, we stopped. We set up an embargo. And we would no longer send. The whole of the Japanese resented that, because they wanted the oil and they wanted the iron ore to continue taking over or all of Asia. So the Japanese ambassadors were in Washington D.C. talking about peace, peace, peace. They were just-- that's all they talked about.
35:17
In fact, they were talking about peace when they knew that the Japanese fleet was on its way to Pearl Harbor. And they were still talking about peace. And the ships carrying the planes that were going to bomb Pearl Harbor were on on their way already. So they did attack on December 7th of 1941. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. And the ships were lying in the harbor of Pearl Harbor. And they just bombed them and they sank numerous battleships, the US Arizona, Destroyers.
35:55
They destroyed so much of our fleet. Luckily, we didn't have our aircraft carriers in Pearl Harbor at the time. They were at sea in maneuvers. So they were unable to hit the aircraft carriers. But they did for men this damage to the Pearl Harbor and all our fleet that we had there. So then after that happened, then we were ready to declare war. We have some pictures of Pearl Harbor.
36:34
OK. Not yet.
36:37
And here you see some of it here. And destroying ships and all kinds of facilities here. And after Pearl Harbor, the Navy was probably asleep. And they should have been awake and aware of that. But they weren't. Roosevelt then sent Admiral Nimitz to Pearl Harbor to take over the US forces in the Pacific. Now when he got to Pearl Harbor, we expected news of how horrible it was. And we did. But Admiral Nimitz said, the Japanese, when they attacked Pearl Harbor, made three mistakes.
37:24
Mistake number one, they attacked early in the morning and were doing the bombing. If they had waited till later in the day-- see, when they were bombing, there were no men on the ships. But if they attacked later, like noon time, the ships would have men on. When the ships went down, all the men would go down with them. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two, the US had gasoline tanks that were on the surface, not buried in the ground, but right on the surface.
37:55
All they had to do was just drop a couple of bombs and all the gasoline that we had in Hawaii would have been gone. That was mistake number two. And there's one more mistake. One more, come on. Think George. Come on. Oh yes. Yes. I'll draw this for you so you'll understand.
38:21
Let's say this is Pearl Harbor and all the ships are here like this. And the Japanese were bombing these ships and sinking them. And the gasoline was here. And they didn't destroy the gasoline. But here's the other mistake they made. Along this side, there were wharves. And if any ships were damaged, they would take them right here and they would repair them, because they had the big repair units. If the Japanese had bombed these wharves, we wouldn't have that.
38:59
So if we wanted to repair the ships, we'd have to send them all the way back from Hawaii all the way back to the United States. You see how long that would take and how laborious that would be? And then send them back again. So that were the three mistakes that the Japanese made. And we're delighted for that. It was Roosevelt who went to the Congress and to tell them to do-- of course, Congress was the only party that can declare war. So he went to them to ask them to declare war.
39:32
And we'll listen to Franklin D. Roosevelt when he approached the Congress. I didn't want to go in the army. I wanted to go in the Navy. I really wanted to be a sailor. That appealed to me. I went to the Naval officers and I signed up. And I took the test. And every time I took the test, I failed. My eyes, I wore eyeglasses and I had to take my eyeglasses off. And I couldn't pass the test. So I was so determined to become a sailor, I went to the library
40:06
and I got books on how to improve your eyesight. Really. And I had a chart. I had a chart and I do eye exercises with the chart to try to improve my eyes. I ate carrots by the bushel. And I went back and I pleaded with them to take me. They wouldn't take the. And finally, the last day, we went to the armory. And the Marines were there, the army was there, and the Navy was there. This is my last resort. I made my last plea to the Navy and they turned me down. So I ended up in the army.
40:41
All right, we'll listen to Franklin D. Roosevelt now.
40:52
1941, a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by Naval and air forces of the empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation. And at the solicitation of Japan was still in conversation with its government and its emperor. Looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.
41:40
Indeed, one hour after, Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing the American island of Oahu. The Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a final reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of law or bombed attacks. It will be reported that the distance of Hawaii from Japan
42:37
makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
43:07
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American Naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. We would go into the army. And we'd spend six months in basic training and then another six months in intensive training. And then we were ready to go overseas. So I remember we got on-- we left Kentucky.
43:56
I was stationed in Kentucky, Fort Campbell. And I was trained in armored infantry. They trained us-- we learned how to drive tanks, how to fire the cannon, how to lead a tank brigade. And so it was armored infantry. So when I got to Europe and I got into the War, they put me in the full infantry. So I said to them, I said, well, [INAUDIBLE] infantry? I said, well, I'm from armored infantry. They said, you're foot infantry right now. That was the end of that argument.
44:38
So what happened was we would go from home. We'd hop on a train. And we didn't know where we were going. We just got on the train and they took off. We had no idea of whether we were going to Iowa, or California, or Mexico. We had no idea. We're on the train. And we're going to show you what happens with the troops when they get on the train.
45:17
Not far from here, just east a number of miles, is the town of North Platte, Nebraska. Anybody know North Platte, Nebraska? You've been there? North Platte's out there. You got to want to go to North Platte.
45:37
In 1941, it was a town of 12,000 people. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 12,000 people of this Union Pacific Railroad hub called North Platte. 10 days later, there was a train coming through with National Guard troops. The word went out it was Nebraskan National Guard troops. And so some folks baked cookies and stuff and went down to the train. And they went down to give them some cookies. But they looked in the windows and it wasn't Nebraska guys.
46:05
They couldn't find any of their own. Train had to be Kansas. But they stood there with the cookies and the cakes and stuff. And finally, one young woman by the name of Ray Wilson a drugstore clerk, said, well, I'm not keeping my cookies. I'm not taking my cookies home. She stepped up and gave them to one of the young men. And then everybody gave her stuff. Immediately after that when they started moving army troops through and sailors and stuff, Ray Wilson organized some women.
46:30
And they decided they were going to meet the trains that came through North Platte, Nebraska. Bob Greene, a journalist from Chicago Tribune has written about this in a book called Once Upon a Time. And they started to meet the trains. And over the next four and 1/2 years, they organized mostly women, 55,000 women. And they met every train that came in, sometimes up to 32 trains a day. The Union Pacific Railway gave the restaurant to them and they dubbed it the North Platte Canteen.
46:59
And they got 10 minutes to get off the train. These guys would jump off the train, run in there. And there would be wall to wall tables with sandwiches, and cakes, and pies. One woman said, my job during the war was to make 10 angel food cakes from scratch with turkey eggs every week in the back of that train station. Everything was rationed. People had to give it out of their own goods. Only $5 came from the government. And it was a cheque from Franklin Roosevelt. Said,
47:26
I heard you doing some good things out there. And he sent $5.
47:31
The people of these towns like yours all over that area came there during the course of the war. These guys would jump out of the train, run in there, and there'd be hot coffee, there'd be donuts, there'd be pheasant sandwiches in season. And I said this at the Nebraska Governor's Prayer Breakfast and the Senator came to me afterwards. I said, sometimes pheasant sandwiches out of season.
47:54
They'd get back on the train and they'd go off. Many never to return. During the course of the war, six million United States servicemen and women came through North Platte, Nebraska. And every single train was met. And the story would go something like this. A guy would say I graduated from Brooklyn High School. Never been out of New York City. Went down and signed up on Monday. They put me on a train going west. I wrote for three days and nights sitting up, eating K rations, and not taking
48:24
a / and somebody in the middle of the night said, North Platte, Nebraska, next stop. Never heard of North Platte, Nebraska. Jumped off the train, ran into a place. And I saw girls who looked like my sisters and my cousins and women who looked like my aunts and my mom. And they had all this food. And they just-- they gave it to us. And when we left, they hugged us. And they said, sailor, we're praying for you. God bless you. And we get back on the train, scared out of our minds,
48:49
not knowing where we were going, not knowing if we'd ever come back. But when we went into that place, for 10 minutes, something went away. We got back on the train and we went on. And in the middle of the night in France with mortars coming down when there was a lull on the fighting, a voice would come out of the darkness saying, wouldn't it be great to be back in North Platte for five minutes? Because love chases away fear. And when Bob Greene interviewed these guys, he'd start crying.
49:17
85-year-old guys start crying. He'd say, what are you crying for? He said because here I was, an 18-year-old kid, scared to death. And I went into that place. And for five minutes in the middle of the night in a place I'd never been to with people I'd never met going to a place I didn't know, somebody loved me and was kind to me. He told the story in Denver. A couple of years ago at the 60th anniversary of Youth for Christ Campus Life, the young woman came up to me the next morning and said,
49:49
when you were telling that story, I thought about my grandpa. My grandpa was in the Navy and he lived in Pennsylvania. I wondered, did he go through North Platte, Nebraska? She said, my grandpa is 90 years old in a nursing home and he has dementia. He doesn't remember us most the time. But I called him and I said, grandpa, this is Jennifer. And I said, grandpa, does the name North Platte, Nebraska mean anything you? And he said, North Platte, Nebraska. Instantly, he was lucid. You bet it does.
50:16
He said, I went in there and they gave me donuts, and sandwiches, and coffee. And they shined my shoes. You bet I remember North Platte, Nebraska. What is it 60 years after the fact that brings a 90-year-old man out of dementia?
50:35
When you're scared, and you're 18, and you're going off to war, and on the way, somebody loves you and is kind to you.
50:54
All right, now about this time too, we're just getting into the war. The first troops that got into the war were in Africa. And General Patton, Montgomery was fighting in Africa against Rommel. And they would kept fighting back and forth. We kept reading about in the paper. The [? momma ?] would attack and then Montgomery would. And that went back and forth. And then the Americans became involved. And the Americans did very poorly.
51:29
Whenever you go into combat for the first time, especially one with the leadership, you don't do very well. The Russians attacked them and they didn't do very well. The United States went into Africa, didn't do very well, did poorly. In the Kasserine Pass, we lost a lot of men, a lot of equipment, a lot of supplies until we became battle-hardened. And then we were better troops. And then Patton finally drove Rommel all the way across North Africa and drove him right out of Africa.
52:06
And then after that, we decided that we would attempt to attack Italy and we would go through Sicily. And so maybe I can draw this for you.
52:26
I'm not the best artist in the world, but Sicily would look something like this.
52:34
So the British landed here and here is Messina.
52:43
And this is Palermo.
52:50
And Montgomery landed his troops here. And Patton learned that his troops here. Now the objective was to capture Messina, because here's Messina. And then here's the Italian boot like this. And the toe of the boot is right here. You see how close this is, Messina to Calabria? That's part of Italy here, this toe part. So all Montgomery had to do was go up into here and take Messina. Patton was here. He was angry, because he didn't want to take this long route.
53:32
He had to go all the way up to Palermo. And while he was-- Montgomery only had the short route to go. So he took Palermo and then he raced across here. He took a gamble right here. See? They were stopped right here, because the Germans stopped them. And Patton said, let's make an amphibious landing behind them like this. And they. Did they made that landing and they destroyed the Germans that were here. And then Patton went on and captured Messina. In the meantime, Montgomery was coming up here.
54:10
And here's Patton sitting in Messina awaiting for Montgomery, because Patton never liked Montgomery. Didn't think much of him as a military leader. I saw the German tanks and I saw the American tanks, the Sherman tanks. While Sherman tanks had a 75 millimeter cannon, the German tanks had an 88 million millimeter cannon. By the way, the 88 millimeter cannon was the best weapon of World War II. There was nothing more destructive than that 88.
54:51
It killed more Americans, more than rifles, machine guns, airplane. The 88 just was a killing machine. And they had tremendous velocity. And the 88 would penetrate the Sherman tank and blow it up. And the 78 would fire at the German tanks. They had too much armor on it. And many times, the one shot wouldn't go through. They'd have to hit several times before they could stop the tank. So it was a big disadvantage. Did we ever do anything to overcome that? Yes, finally, near the end of the war.
55:33
Oh, it was very near the end of the war. We finally developed a 90 millimeter cannon. And that was of a very fine weapon. But it took us a long time before we developed that. And we increased the armor that we had on the tank. But in the meantime, the Germans were building bigger tanks and with more armor. So we really needed the 90 millimeter. That helped us somewhat. So anyway, after this, we kept sending-- we kept building up and building up in England. And we had ships out there.
56:12
We have all kinds of planes. And the Germans who were sending planes over and had spies in England, they knew that, eventually, we were going to invade. They didn't know where we were going to invade or when we were going to invade. But they knew that we were building up for the invasion. Now Eisenhower became the Supreme Commander. But what a tough job that was for him. Because Montgomery wanted to be the Supreme Commander. Patton wanted to be Supreme Commander. De Gaulle wanted to be--
56:49
there are so many people that wanted to be Supreme Commander. While Roosevelt selected Eisenhower. He was bright and he had a lot of respect for him. And he made him the Supreme Commander. He had a really tough job, because Harry was trying to map out plans for the invasion. And Montgomery would say, well, I think we should invade toward Calais, and get into France, and then veer left. Once we got into France-- maybe I can show you better on the board.
57:25
All right, here, let's say this is England right here. And here is France right in here.
57:35
And this is a Pas-de-Calais.
57:44
OK, and here was Normandy, right here. Now it was Montgomery's idea to come in and land here and then go right into the heart of Germany. De Gaulle wanted the troops to land here and go right here and take Paris. Because he wanted to save Paris. Montgomery wanted to go this way. And so there were all-- generals one [INAUDIBLE].. So Eisenhower finally made the right decision. He said, no, we're going to invade in Normandy. So this big buildup came.
58:30
And we were sending millions of troops off to England to get ready. And they saw-- the Germans saw this. And they were just wondering where would the attack takes place. Now the shortest distance from England to France was right here at this Calais. From here to here, it's about 21 miles. From here to here, it's about 40 miles. So what was the plan? They devised the plan. And Patton distinguishing himself so much in Africa, that the Germans feared him more than any general, more
59:17
than Montgomery, Bradley. They feared Patton. So Eisenhower was smart. He put Patton in this area right here. He put Patton right here. He was here. And I was in his-- I was sent to Patton. I was right there with him. I had no idea that it was a fake army. We were in a fake army. Patton was right here. And the Germans, of course, he would ride around in his Jeep and to make sure that he was seen by the spies, and by the planes, or whatever.
1:00:00
He wanted it to be observed that he was in that part of England. So the Germans, Hitler, particularly, said, that's where they're going-- well, wherever Patton goes, that's where the invasion will take place. So he wanted all his troops in this area here. He had tanks and planes, all kinds of war material to here. And Von Rundstedt was one of the great generals. And Rommel too. Rommel was a very brilliant general. And Rommel got the job to build a line, a wall.
1:00:46
And he built a wall all the way from Denmark all the way down through here and all the way down, all the way down to Spain. Now that's a lot of territory to cover to prevent an invasion. So nevertheless, Rommel thought the invasion would take place right somewhere in here. So right in here, he built-- he got railroad tracks. And he built them. And they were like this. Some underneath the water. Some like this. And when the boats came in, they would hit these big underwater things and sink
1:01:26
with all the men aboard. So again, Von Rundstedt's idea was to keep all these tank divisions just North of Paris. And he said, as soon as we know where the landing is going to take place, here or here, then we'll send the tanks to get them. Well, Rommel said, no. He didn't like that idea. He said, if we wait until the invasion, and you get-- you get your tanks. Your tanks are down here. He said, by the time you get halfway here, the American planes will be bombing you
1:02:04
and they'll destroy you before you get to the point that you wish to arrive at. So there was that dispute between Rommel. And finally, Hitler compromised. And he said, well, Von Rundstedt could have his tanks this far up and Rommel would have the support in this Normandy area. But still, most of the German army was really in this part of Calais. And there was Patton up in England. And he had fake barracks, tanks that were made of rubber. He had all kinds of ships.
1:02:58
And the ships were just fake ships. But they looked like vessels. Many of them were made of wood or rubber. And all in this area here. And they keep amassing that. By the way, American troops kept coming in and landing in Britain. Now the American troops were paid more per month than the English troops. So whenever the English troops or the American troops were free to go to a tavern, get some drinks, and meet some girls, well, the Americans always had the money.
1:03:33
So the English girls used to say about the American troops, American troops, they're overpaid, they're over oversexed, and they're over here.
1:03:52
So then they didn't like that too much. So I'll tell you what, we'll wait until tomorrow. Because tomorrow, we're going to go right into the invasion of D-day. It's very difficult. See, if you're on land and you're fighting against an enemy on land, it's one thing. But if you have to-- see, when you're on land, if they're shooting at you or shelling you, you can always get lie flat on the ground. And you could preserve yourself. You could dig a foxhole and get in the foxhole.
1:04:25
And then your very safe in a foxhole. Once I was in a foxhole, I could fall asleep. They could be bombarding. And I could hear the shrapnel going right over my foxhole. I could fall asleep in it. Because I felt so safe when I was in the foxhole. So you feel safe if you're on land. But however, if you have to cross a river, then you're out in the open. There's no place to hide when you're on the river. You can't dig a hole in a river. And you can't lie flat on the river.
1:04:58
So that's why Hitler was afraid to make that crossing. He thought he could win the war without doing that. And then look at this crossing here, how difficult this would be. So he didn't want to make that decision. Maybe he should have. If he had, maybe the War would have turned out differently. But anyway, we were still using-- if Germany did take Britain, how would we fight the Germans? We couldn't, because we're thousands of miles away from them.
1:05:42
If they took, Britain we'd have no place to land the troops. Because we were landing troops, and planes, and tanks, and all kinds of war materials in that area, and ships that would cross the channel. Well, if we didn't have England, we're in the United States. We're 2,000, 3,000 miles away. And luckily, he never did attack England. I'll tell you what he did have, the submarines. He had the submarines and the submarines. When we were sending all that material too from the United
1:06:18
States to England, well, the German U boats were sinking hundreds and hundreds of ships, destroying thousands, hundreds of thousands of pounds of war materials. They were brutal. And sometimes, they would work in packs. And eventually, we start making convoys, just big, big convoys. And we'd have ships guarding. And even then, the Germans were sinking even battleships. Once, a German submarine actually went into an English harbor and sank the Royal Ark.
1:06:59
The Royal Ark was the second largest ship that Britain had. And the submarine hit the Royal Ark while it was in the harbor. And then escaped through the locks. And then later on, that the Germans had another very strong warship, the Scharnhorst. And the Scharnshort got into a battle with the Hood. That was, again, England's first largest ship. And they sank the Hood. So that's how great they were. Luckily, when the Scharnshorst sank the Hood, well, we went after that Scharnshorst.
1:07:39
Because we wanted to sink it. I'm sorry, Bismarck, it was called the Bismarck. So we said all kinds of ships after it. And they defended themselves very well. Until one plane dropped a bomb and hit the propeller of the head of the Bismarck. And once it hit the propeller, they couldn't steer the ship anymore and they were vulnerable. Then later on, the British planes went over and they blasted the Bismarck. And they sank the Bismarck.
1:08:13
Now when they sank the Bismarck, there were many troops on there that they could have saved. But they didn't. They just let them drown. Because the Germans did the same thing to the Hood. While the ship was going down, there were men in the sea. They didn't make an effort to save them. So Britain did the same thing. They refused to save the Germans that were on the Bismarck. I was going to say, when did you find out that they were having their rubber boats and the wooden boats?
1:08:44
I never found that. I never knew. I mean, I was right there and I had no idea. I had no idea. I knew we were with Patton. And I thought we were going to stay with Patton and invade with Patton. And I thought we were going to invade in that Calais area. But they never told us. That was a big secret. And the Germans never did find out. Because if they had found out that that was a fake army that Patton had, they would have then had all the tanks all along here. And that invasion in Normandy would
1:09:20
have been extremely costly. It was costly enough as it was. And we'll get into that tomorrow. And we'll talk about the invasion. And then we'll also talk about the hedgerows. Because the invasion was brutal, because we lost so many men trying to get onto it-- again, so you're in water. So you're in water and you're heading toward land. There's no place to hide. So they keep shooting machine guns at you, if you get close to land. And even if you're not close, they're
1:09:53
sending artillery shells, if you're far out. And then these Higgins boats that we had where the front of the Higgins boat would come down and the troops would run down the ramp, and run on the beach. Well, when they dropped that down and the Germans had machine guns. And many of the men never got off the ship. Or if they did, they fall right into the English Channel. And that's why when they talk about how many men were killed during the invasion, well, they were KIA, Killed In Action.
1:10:30
And they'd send that home. And then there's MIA, Missing In Action. Well, many of the Americans and British were missing in action, because they were hit while even before as they got off the boat in the water. So they drown in the water or die in the water. And then they were washed out to sea. So they would send letters home to the parents and say, Missing In Action. So it was just a brutal kind of war. We'll talk about that tomorrow.
1:11:02
Thank you.
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