The Art of Manliness - #361： The Untold Story of WWII's 45th Infantry Division

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast now when many

00:00:19.020 people think of the american involvement of world war ii it likely brings to mind the 101st airborne

00:00:23.980 division and their heroics at normandy but there was another american infantry division that

00:00:28.040 invaded sicily and then fought a year in europe before the 101st even showed up all in all these

00:00:32.820 soldiers saw over 500 days of combat they were the thunderbirds of the 45th infantry division and my

00:00:37.900 guest today has written a captivating history of these oft forgotten warriors his name is alex

00:00:42.040 kershaw and he's written several books on world war ii the book we discussed today is called the

00:00:46.000 liberator alex begins by sharing what made the 45th different from other infantry divisions and

00:00:50.220 discusses why they're often overlooked by people he then talks about a colonel from arizona named

00:00:54.360 felix sparks who always led from the front and fought side by side with his men over two years

00:00:58.680 we get into some of the major battles the 45th encounter and their liberation of the dachau

00:01:01.940 concentration camp alex ends our conversation with a call to all of us to reach out to a world

00:01:06.620 war ii vet before they disappear from our ranks forever after the show's over check out the show

00:01:10.460 notes at aom.is liberator alex kershaw welcome to the show great to be with you so you've made a

00:01:20.240 career for yourself writing books about world war ii curious when did that get started and what led

00:01:26.740 you to that particular topic uh well i've been a journalist really um all my since my early 20s and

00:01:33.860 i have to say i'm a 51 now so it's been quite a while 30 years almost in my early 20s i did an

00:01:40.140 investigative story quite a long story took several months about the channel islands in the english

00:01:45.840 channel they were the only part of britain that was occupied by the nazis and i realized when i

00:01:51.360 was doing the story that number one it was very very enjoyable um i loved being a journalist

00:01:55.840 especially an investigative journalist but also i loved writing about world war ii and this is back

00:02:01.420 in the 90s where there were when there were a lot of people obviously a lot of the people that had

00:02:06.360 fought in world war ii or lived through it were still in their 70s and so i i really got a buzz out of

00:02:11.820 it i really loved writing the story and i i i realized that i'd always been fascinated by world

00:02:16.820 war ii both my grandfathers were in world war ii it's the best story of our time there's no greater

00:02:22.740 story i believe if you're certainly if you're an american and uh i was like why would i want to write

00:02:28.700 about anything else these uh these warriors are still amongst us these giants among pygmies are still

00:02:33.360 amongst us and while they're still alive why not interview them why not tell stories about this

00:02:37.740 wonderful period why not um it just everything else didn't seem to come close in terms of drama and

00:02:44.040 and emotional interest for me i am so i i uh i had the opportunity when i was in my early 30s to write

00:02:51.740 a biography of world war ii's greatest combat photographer that's robert capper and absolute

00:02:58.060 legend and while i was researching and writing that book i uh i came across the story of the bedford boys

00:03:05.140 which is the story of 19 young men who were killed on d-day in the first wave the movie saving

00:03:10.860 public ryan is is based on a few elements of my narrative or whether i should say that

00:03:15.340 saving public ryan recreates what happened on omaha beach where my guys died so anyway that was in my

00:03:21.920 early third my early 30s and i've been extremely fortunate touch wood i'm actually touching my forehead

00:03:28.120 right now you know i've been i've been very very very lucky indeed to be able to spend the last couple

00:03:33.020 of decades writing about amazing people and writing about a period that is just something that i have

00:03:39.280 always been fascinated by and i've i mean i it's it's been wonderful that's that's fantastic well

00:03:45.620 the book i'd like to talk about in particular today is one called the liberator and right it's about the

00:03:50.700 45th infantry division in world war ii and it's a division yeah as we'll see played a huge role in

00:03:56.480 world war ii but doesn't get a lot of attention or credit i would say no but to start off like what

00:04:01.940 made the 45th different from other divisions in the army um i think there's only one uh one major

00:04:10.960 difference and it's an important one because it really goes to the heart of what that division was

00:04:17.100 about and that's that the 45th infantry division nicknamed the thunderbird division because they

00:04:23.660 had a shoulder patch of a beautiful soft soft felt thunderbird patch on their shoulders uh that division

00:04:29.680 had more native americans among its ranks so i think you know a full combat division is around about 14

00:04:37.560 15 000 guys around about seven eight thousand will actually see a combat but in that division when it

00:04:45.100 left the u.s to go to europe in world war ii there were over 1500 native americans and those native

00:04:52.220 americans were drawn from predominantly the west oklahoma colorado new mexico those areas and so i think

00:05:00.400 that you know at the heart of that division you had this i mean you can't get much more quintessentially

00:05:05.680 american than than 1500 braves and i would definitely call them braves uh going over and to europe and

00:05:14.000 fighting um and being very proud of their their heritage and their and their status as uh as the

00:05:20.960 original americans and you know part of that native american heritage i thought there's an interesting

00:05:24.960 story too sort of interesting tidbit so their insignia was the thunderbird so it's like a native

00:05:30.060 american thunderbird but before that it was something completely different can you tell us a little

00:05:35.120 about that and and what happened oh yeah no it's uh it's actually quite it's actually quite an amazing

00:05:40.480 story because up until i think it was 1938 whenever uh you know memorial day or whenever these guys

00:05:47.100 paraded from the 45th division in any small town in america if you can imagine this they had a swastika

00:05:53.440 as their shoulder patch so you'd be this is 1938 and so you'd have these americans marching in uniform

00:06:00.040 proudly with a swastika on their shoulder so what happened was that people realized that this might

00:06:05.560 not be a very good thing in combat and actually it was in the late 30s anyway that they decided to

00:06:10.520 change it uh change the swastika and and put a thunderbird patch on the shoulder now the thunderbird

00:06:16.760 is a symbol that's not just special to some native americans it's also throughout history being

00:06:22.120 very symbolic and going back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years but it's a the um two important

00:06:29.720 things to say about that that thunderbird image the thunderbird represents a kind of a very potent force

00:06:35.400 it's a force for good if it's harnessed in the right way if directed in the right way and it can be an

00:06:41.520 avenging force it can be a very very powerful and destructive force also when applied against

00:06:48.200 the appropriate enemy so i was always very taken by this idea that we had these this uh these native

00:06:55.160 americans fighting alongside recent generations of immigrants in america against the ultimate evil of

00:07:01.800 the 20th century which was nazism i mean some people might say stalinism was just as bad and communism

00:07:08.120 under mayo but as a european i'm a european you can tell from my accent i don't think there was a

00:07:13.000 a greater evil than than nazism and it was very important to me as a storyteller and i think it's

00:07:21.880 very important for those who appreciate the sacrifice of ordinary working class americans in world war ii

00:07:28.760 to think that those guys and some of them were were native americans those guys liberated dachau the

00:07:36.360 the nazis first concentration camp in april 1945 so you have this these guys with this very potent

00:07:42.920 symbol on their shoulder these avengers these citizen soldiers for america entering liberating and

00:07:49.720 actually saving thousands of victims of of nazism right at the end of the war so this interesting um

00:07:56.760 contrast so you have this division where there's a lot of native americans fighting nazis who look down

00:08:04.600 upon native americans as less than how did that idea that the nazis were fighting native americans and other

00:08:12.760 you know i'm sure there's uh hispanic americans in theirs as well how did that color the nazis

00:08:18.200 perceptions of the thunderbird they think like oh yeah these guys are just going to be a cakewalk to

00:08:22.280 beat because we're the superior race what what was you have any insight from there yeah actually i came across

00:08:27.880 a um a quote from a a german german general uh i think it was um in uh when the thunderbirds fought in

00:08:35.960 italy they fought from the 10th of july 1943 right to the end of the war so they um every day that

00:08:42.600 americans fought and died to liberate europe the thunderbirds were were there um i think it's 511 days

00:08:49.560 in combat um overall if you contrast that with the famous band of brothers the 101st airborne i think

00:08:56.200 the 101st airborne were on the line able to get shot up about for about 117 days that just shows you just

00:09:02.120 how how uh you know the 101st airborne did not one win world war ii band of brothers those guys

00:09:07.160 could not win the world war ii certainly from the american point of view as much as anything else

00:09:11.320 but anyway the germans were the victims uh of enormous propaganda i mean goebbels the propaganda

00:09:17.800 supremo um was a very very sophisticated actually very very intelligent man and did everything

00:09:23.640 within his power to try and convince uh all germans german soldiers german civilians that this was a

00:09:29.560 just war and that they should fight to the very very bitter end to the last man in in many cases and

00:09:35.240 uh he was um very adept at convincing ordinary germans that the enemy were half breeds that they were

00:09:42.920 made up of gangsters and uh and half breeds um that the american fighting forces were were weaker

00:09:50.120 because they were they were not pure arians they were not they were not pure teutonic warriors like the

00:09:55.560 german forces um in fact you could argue that the very strength of the american forces was their

00:10:02.600 diversity i mean i would argue that the greatest strength of american society is is diversity and

00:10:08.520 always has been it's a it's the ultimate immigrant culture and it should always be that that way but

00:10:13.400 anyway um they were they were very condescending and and had a lot of hubris when they went into

00:10:18.120 combat i think the perfect example of this is the battle of the bulge where the germans were

00:10:22.280 were convinced that they were fighting an inferior enemy and um in december 1944 they were given a

00:10:30.040 very profound psychological shock when they realized that they were not fighting an inferior enemy that

00:10:35.480 actually these half-breeds would stand and hold and and fight or in some cases to the last bullets

00:10:41.320 they were very very fierce warriors indeed in some cases and it's a big big profound effect in

00:10:47.400 january of 1945 on the ordinary german soldier they've been told that they were up against an

00:10:52.280 inferior enemy and to discover that that enemy was not inferior but in some cases awesomely uh fierce and

00:10:59.800 and and and and stubborn that had a a big effect on the ordinary german in in in the wehrmacht in

00:11:05.640 early 1945 when there was a they lost heart in many cases so you mentioned earlier that the 45th spent over 500

00:11:14.200 days fighting the 101st a little over 100 days yet as we talked about earlier the 45th doesn't really

00:11:22.520 get a lot of recognition yeah no i think the broader point is that most people who know a little bit

00:11:28.840 about world war ii know a lot about d-day june the 6th back in 44 they know something about the pacific

00:11:34.840 pearl harbor the dropping of the atomic bombs etc but i think what a lot of people don't realize is that

00:11:40.200 americans started to fight and die in the european theater in november of 1942 so we're we're actually

00:11:46.680 about 75 years almost to the day from the moment when americans started to lay down their lives to

00:11:52.280 restore democracy and human rights in europe operation torch november 1942 the invasion of

00:11:58.440 sicily which is actually the greatest amphibious invasion of the war in terms of american men sent

00:12:04.440 into enemy territory over 200 000 allied soldiers in the invasion of sicily in july 1943 salerno

00:12:11.720 that's mainland italy that's september 1943 a very very very difficult battle indeed we almost had our

00:12:18.120 backsides handed to us and were thrown back into the mediterranean then you have anzio january 1944

00:12:24.440 um again a very very very very difficult bloody affair uh and that's anzio is january 1944 and then

00:12:32.680 you have june 1944 which is the one and only d-day the what the the invasion that everybody remembers so

00:12:39.320 the americans were involved in several amphibious invasions before d-day before the 101st airborne went

00:12:45.480 into went into action let's not forget that june the 6th 1944 the day of days was the first time that

00:12:51.240 the 101st airborne saw action in world war ii so from july 1943 right until june of 19 sorry july

00:12:58.120 of yeah july 1943 right through to june of 1944 that's an awful long time that's almost a a year

00:13:05.240 of combat when americans were engaged in sicily in italy in very very difficult fighting very very very

00:13:11.720 hard battles very hard fighting and it's been forgotten about um the uh i was in the uh anzio latino

00:13:18.280 graveyard um just just a few weeks ago seven and a half thousand americans buried there and i was

00:13:23.880 there on a beautiful fall day and i think there were only three other people in the graveyard now

00:13:29.240 about a week later i went to the graveyard above omaha beach uh colville sumer and there were hundreds

00:13:34.920 of people in the graveyard so the italian campaign sicily the italian campaign has been rightly called

00:13:40.200 the forgotten war and yet it was probably the the hardest fighting that that americans were involved

00:13:44.840 in in europe in world war ii so um we'll get into some of these specific battles especially on anzio

00:13:50.360 because that was you know that's one of my favorite sections just that the writing was fantastic but uh

00:13:54.600 one character you followed throughout this campaign of the 45th all the way from sicily

00:14:00.600 to germany is a guy named felix sparks what's his story and you know what was his role as a commander or

00:14:08.600 a leader in the 45th well yeah he started off with um uh a uh a captain he was uh became a company

00:14:17.880 he became a company commander at the end of the sicilian campaign he landed on the 10th of july 1943 he

00:14:23.880 was in the executive office of that company company e of the 157th infantry regiment of the 45th

00:14:30.920 infantry division his job to keep records to make sure that people got the right medal recommendations

00:14:36.280 as well it was a it was a desk role and he hated it um and he actually demanded that he be given

00:14:44.600 a leadership role that he wanted to lead men in combat and he got his wish so from the september of

00:14:50.280 1943 with the invasion of salona he was a company commander he remained a company commander right through

00:14:56.520 until the summer uh actually the uh early summer of 1944 became a battalion commander and and was a

00:15:04.520 a perfect example of the kind of meritocracy that you get in in the u.s military and certainly during

00:15:10.360 combat that if you're good enough and you can stay alive you'll be promoted if you get the job done and

00:15:15.240 he he was really really very good at getting the job done he would he would be given very difficult

00:15:20.200 tasks and would would carry them out he was he loved being a company commander most of all because

00:15:24.680 that's about 200 guys now with 200 guys if you command 200 guys you can get to know each one you can

00:15:31.560 get to know their family who their families are you can you can form a personal bond uh with each of

00:15:37.080 the men that you lead in combat and he loved that he said he said to me when i interviewed him for the

00:15:42.680 book that that was the the greatest job he ever had was to be a company commander a captain of a company

00:15:48.440 in combat so he he he fought all the way through through port through sicily italy southern france

00:15:54.680 all the way up the rhone valley into germany and then was the commanding officer the american commanding

00:15:59.800 officer of the first americans to enter and liberate dachau concentration camp in april of 1945

00:16:06.840 so in terms of an epic odyssey i mean a really long journey um almost 2 000 miles um 1500 over 1500

00:16:15.480 guys under direct command that took orders from him in the battlefield were killed during this time

00:16:20.440 in combat he was on the line in europe for over 500 days of fighting just an amazing story i mean he said

00:16:27.240 it was a miracle that he survived that he often i say that i would use the word often not lightly

00:16:32.360 there were many times when he thought that he wouldn't make it that um he was he would almost

00:16:36.280 certainly be killed um an extraordinary story of a of a working class american that grew up in the

00:16:42.040 depression that was given nothing but had to earn everything he got in life through hard work and

00:16:47.160 risk-taking that led men very very superlatively well in in combat and i i couldn't find when i was

00:16:53.720 researching the story in the 20 years that i've been writing about americans in combat in europe i

00:16:59.160 couldn't find a better example of someone that that was more respected and uh and and tougher and and

00:17:04.840 more admirable in terms of the entity of anybody that i've interviewed and i've interviewed a lot of

00:17:09.720 really extraordinary uh combat leaders so let's get into some of the specific battles that the 45th

00:17:16.280 encounter the thunderbirds encountered and we talked about anzio this was in italy correct yeah

00:17:22.120 it's just about it's about uh 60 miles south of south of rome on the coast the idea for anzio was

00:17:28.600 that the allies had been blocked by the germans the germans were absolutely really really fantastic

00:17:33.960 at defensive warfare and if you look at a map of italy you'll notice that it's just basically uh two

00:17:39.000 thirds of the country from the from uh the tip the mediterranean tip uh all the way up the the boot

00:17:44.360 of italy is one mountain range after another so what the germans did was they just they they set

00:17:49.720 up a defensive line the americans would always be on the attack uh they'd kill a lot of americans

00:17:54.200 then they'd retreat to the next mountain range set up the defensive line the americans would attack

00:17:58.200 and so on so it was a very very bloody and very difficult campaign for the allies and um to to try

00:18:05.400 and end this campaign quickly and seize rome the um the allies came up with an idea that they would

00:18:12.040 to launch an amphibious invasion hop around uh do an end run around most of the the mountain ranges

00:18:19.000 in italy and come in and attacking uh toward rome and land american forces at the closest point they

00:18:26.120 could get to rome which was anzio matuno the two actually today they're rather pretty coastal you

00:18:31.560 know seaside towns in italy so they landed um they didn't land enough men it was a botched operation

00:18:37.640 from the start didn't have enough landing craft everything was done on the shoestring the invasions

00:18:42.600 the landing forces stalled they didn't take certain objectives in time certainly they didn't take uh

00:18:48.680 heights overlooking the plane of anzio and they were stalled there in a deadly stalemate for about

00:18:54.440 three months um actually it was the bloodiest campaign for the allies in europe over 70 000 allied

00:19:00.680 casualties the british and americans suffered terribly the germans counter-attack several times tried to force the

00:19:06.600 allies back into the into the mediterranean that came very close in february of 1944 to actually

00:19:12.680 destroying the allied bridgehead and in fact it was sparks his uh division in particular his regiment

00:19:18.600 and his company which which stopped the fiercest german uh counter-attack and in that battle which became

00:19:25.400 known as the battle of the caves and sparks his unit was surrounded for about 10 days and as a company

00:19:31.320 commander he fought that battle very fiercely and tragically he was the only guy from his company

00:19:37.320 so here you have a 25 year old company commander the only guy that uh that survived the battle

00:19:43.720 he managed to get back to his own minds but every other guy in his unit in his company e-company were

00:19:49.160 either captured wounded or killed which was a devastating blow to him as a as a guy that loved

00:19:54.360 every guy that he led in that in that unit and how did he move on i mean because he had to move on

00:19:59.480 like they had to keep going so what yeah i think i mean i think that one of the the the things that i

00:20:04.040 found that i i i couldn't understand i think that none of us can really understand this when you

00:20:09.560 is number one how you can last that long in that kind of combat um i've never been in combat thank god

00:20:15.080 and number two how how you can then move on when you've felt so responsible for young men's lives and

00:20:22.200 when you lose those men and when you lose all of your men that you're in command of i i i i know that

00:20:29.320 it it didn't it didn't break him entirely but i know that for the rest of his life he felt enormous

00:20:34.840 survivor's guilt um i think that he was his heart was definitely broken we know that we can many of

00:20:41.560 us can come back from a broken heart it takes a long time but the scars are always there we all know

00:20:46.360 that but when you lose people you love you in many cases you can carry on but you don't really ever

00:20:51.640 get over it and i i don't think sparks ever got over that i don't think that he was the same person

00:20:56.040 ever again i think that was something with a deep deep wound in him that lasted until his last days

00:21:01.720 i mean i think that he when i when i interviewed him he was it was six months before he died he was

00:21:07.400 89 years old and uh he still felt those wounds very very very much so he felt an anger and a heartbreak

00:21:14.280 and a and a deep deep grief and loss you know over you know 70 years later you can't lose 200 young

00:21:22.040 men that fought for you that would die for you and not feel anything but heartbreak and you know the

00:21:28.120 amazing thing about sparks what impressed me like he led from the front yeah that was displayed um you

00:21:33.480 know when they went to france there was a battle uh ripesweiler white yeah right yeah yeah where he

00:21:40.520 you know displayed some heroics and she's leading from the front and even impressed an ss soldier yeah

00:21:47.880 can you walk us a bit through that yeah he it was in right as well it was the end of january 19 uh

00:21:54.520 1945 just on the german border and the germans counterattacked they counterattacked at the battle

00:21:59.320 of the bulge in in the mid-december then they had an operation called north wind which hardly anybody

00:22:05.160 knows about which was yet another attempt to push the germ the americans back at their borders what you

00:22:11.480 have to remember is that you know when we invaded italy when we invaded france on d-day this is not

00:22:18.120 german soil it's just not the the hind there it's not the homeland and uh you know as i think everybody

00:22:23.720 listening would recognize that you know if americans are fighting in mexico they're not going to fight

00:22:28.600 quite as hard as they would in los angeles or kentucky or or new york state you know when it's your own

00:22:35.480 country that you it doesn't matter who to some extent it doesn't matter who your leaders are it's

00:22:41.800 it's it's your territory it's your soil it's your family that are on the line here now so point being

00:22:46.680 is that when we got to germany and when sparse got to germany the germans and in his case unfortunately

00:22:52.440 the ss who were who he respected enormously um they fought back viciously and uh but his battalion

00:22:59.720 he was a battalion commander they were surrounded by the the ss uh being picked off methodically

00:23:04.680 uh very very uh savage warfare and sparks wanted to try and rescue some of his men he commanded a

00:23:11.800 chief actually a tank sorry and he was seen by an ss machine gunner a guy called johan voss to jump

00:23:18.520 off this tank and drag several of his wounded men to the tank and then and then reverse down a mountain

00:23:24.120 pass and this is something that was unheard of that you know a battalion commander a lieutenant

00:23:29.160 colonel just didn't do things like this it was it was remarkable and the the ss

00:23:34.600 guys that watched him do it you know they wouldn't hesitate to open fire most of the time

00:23:40.200 but this is so astonishing for them to see an officer risking his life in such a way to drag

00:23:45.320 wounded guys to safety that they didn't open fire that they they couldn't kill him they just it was

00:23:49.800 so it was something that was just a step too far um and so yeah that was an example of uh it's a

00:23:54.920 perfect example it was the main example of sparks you know putting his life on the line risking his life

00:24:00.680 he told me that he he broke he snapped he just couldn't he didn't care anymore the only thing

00:24:05.320 that mattered to him was to save some of his men's lives and you know he'd lost a company at anzio in

00:24:10.840 in february of 1944 this is almost a year later and uh he was haunted by the loss and he said that i

00:24:17.880 didn't care i mean i i i i i wouldn't have cared less i i all that mattered to me was that i would save

00:24:22.840 some of my men i wasn't going to wasn't going to see all those guys who lost again i wasn't going to have

00:24:27.640 that happen to me again without trying to do something about it and uh he um he should have

00:24:32.360 been some people say that he should have been he should have received the medal of honor there was

00:24:36.520 a campaign uh back in the um you know 15 20 years ago to to try and have him recognized and and and

00:24:44.760 receive the medal of honor for what what was an extraordinary act of courage and selflessness

00:24:50.120 and and intrepidity um but he didn't receive it and he didn't didn't even receive the

00:24:55.480 distinguished service costs which he was actually recommended for um so yeah it was he was a it was

00:25:02.120 an astonishing guy and the people that i met that served under him the veterans i met at reunions

00:25:07.960 worshipped him they uh he was a god to them he was someone that was a father singer he was someone that

00:25:14.040 they they knew that one thing that sparks would do every day and that's what and that would be to try

00:25:19.480 and keep as many of them alive as possible you know sparks told me that his job was a terrible

00:25:25.720 a terrible responsibility because every day he gave orders for his men to advance

00:25:30.200 but most days you have to remember that the american army were on the the attack throughout

00:25:34.840 the european campaign they weren't they weren't a defensive army they were they were invading and

00:25:39.880 they were the job the job of americans in world war ii in europe was to land in europe and get to

00:25:44.920 berlin as fast as possible and then go to the pacific and finish off the japanese so it was

00:25:50.600 just like every day it get up attack attack attack attack and um you take a lot of casualties when you

00:25:56.760 do that and if you're an officer you're asking your men to attack german positions over and over and

00:26:03.000 over again and when you attack you lose lives and sparks told me my job was to get people killed every

00:26:09.160 day and it was a good day if i got less guys killed than the day before so you have an idea of the

00:26:16.360 responsibility there and and you know every every loss of a life uh you know affected him um

00:26:23.160 so yeah i mean he but he cared about his men and he cared about keeping as many of them alive as

00:26:28.200 possible and he thought it was his moral responsibility as a human being not just as an officer to actually if

00:26:34.920 he was going to ask guys to get killed and to fight to their country and lay down their lives he

00:26:40.360 should lead them whenever possible into those situations where they could be killed and there

00:26:45.720 were a couple of occasions when you know i um i interviewed i interviewed veterans who said that

00:26:50.760 they were astonished that suddenly down this street or out of nowhere would come walking this

00:26:56.680 lieutenant colonel you know right near the front lines and sometimes actually at the front lines

00:27:01.560 and uh that they they were astonished they didn't see anybody as a captain uh anywhere near the real

00:27:08.520 action for for months on end you know but there was a joke among a lot of gis that you never saw a

00:27:15.320 senior a senior uh field commander anywhere near the real ship sorry excuse my language but uh but but

00:27:22.280 but sparks was there you know he he was there and that makes a massive difference you know if someone's

00:27:27.960 giving you orders when you see the guy that's giving you the orders right beside you fighting beside you

00:27:34.200 taking the same risks it is a very very effective motivational tool you know so they they advanced

00:27:42.840 from france into germany and as you said they liberated the first concentration camp made in

00:27:47.800 germany dachau yeah yeah what what did the men think like i thought it was interesting how you did talk

00:27:54.120 like they didn't really know what it was when they first saw it but how did they react once they

00:27:59.480 realized what was going on there well it was a combination i mean i think that uh spark said to

00:28:04.440 me that the scenes that they encountered when they first entered the camp where he said to me

00:28:08.600 beyond human comprehension this is nothing that could ever prepare you for this and you know he said

00:28:14.280 that they'd seen everything by then you know i mean they'd seen anything you could possibly imagine

00:28:19.320 that the combat uh combat infantrymen i mean just the the worst of industrial warfare i mean civilians

00:28:27.000 civilians damaged other men terribly damaged i mean you know when most americans in in the gis

00:28:35.400 on the ground in combat in in the european theater were killed by flying hot shards of metal pieces of

00:28:41.880 shrapnel particularly from artillery shells uh mortars were also very effective so yeah

00:28:48.440 you would often not when an artillery barrage occurred it was probably the most lethal thing

00:28:55.240 that could happen to you um and there were cases where you know you're you'd be met beside a really

00:29:00.600 good buddy and it was the buddy beside you that you always fought for not you know obviously people

00:29:05.560 were very patriotic they were fighting for the flag they they had a notion that they were they were

00:29:10.520 fighting for civilization and and uh to defeat barbarism etc but when it really came down to it when you were

00:29:16.360 really really when when when when the shi hit the fan it was really the guy beside you that you fought

00:29:23.000 for and that guy fought for you and your greatest fear was not so much the enemy but it was of letting

00:29:29.240 the guy beside you down of failing that that person that that that buddy when when you're both your lives

00:29:35.880 were on the line so there were cases i came across where you'd be beside that person you were fighting for

00:29:41.800 and then you'd have pieces of that that person splattered across you across the the stock of

00:29:47.960 your m1 rifle and they would be literally obliterated so these are the things that really damaged people

00:29:53.240 and that were almost daily occurrences but even that didn't compare to seeing thousands of of people

00:30:00.280 dead rotting corpses and this is what greeted the thunderbirds when they arrived at daca on the 29th of

00:30:06.120 april 1945 the first thing they saw was what was called the death train and this was a a a train of

00:30:12.520 wagons full of over 2 000 dead corpses these were people that had been put on a train for over two

00:30:18.120 weeks from buchen from buchenwald and uh they'd been starved they haven't been being water haven't

00:30:23.000 hadn't been given water and then when they got to dachau some of them had crawled out miraculously some

00:30:28.280 of them had survived and some of them had crawled out and then ss guards as they crawled out of the

00:30:33.720 train had stomped on their heads and had used the butts of their rifles to break in their break their

00:30:39.000 brains in and um so these these sort of things when you saw this and you had already been through i

00:30:45.320 think for some of these guys it was their 500th day of of combat so they were worn down they were tired

00:30:51.960 they were brutalized they were angry they were on hair triggers anyway ready to ready to explode and

00:30:57.400 when they saw this uh many of them were in just absolutely enraged and sparks told me that he actually

00:31:03.080 lost lost control of his men for a while he couldn't he couldn't control them he himself

00:31:08.040 was was lost for a while he was in the daze and he vomited and he it was it was something that was

00:31:14.920 just really really beyond anything they could ever imagine they were and then you go through various

00:31:19.320 stages of grief of rage of of nausea of being stunned many guys were in tears um and then as they

00:31:27.320 moved on into the camp they were on the outskirts uh when they move on into the camp they were you know

00:31:32.440 there were 32 000 people in that concentration camp dachau when it was liberated um uh first formed in

00:31:40.120 1933 for 12 years of death and being people being worked to death of evil and decay and and monstrosity

00:31:48.120 and believe it or not some people in that camp on the 29th of april 1945 had been there for over a decade

00:31:55.320 they they they'd been in hell for that long and so when um when they got towards the very center of

00:32:03.400 the uh the dachau complex there were 32 000 people there over 50 nationalities catholic priests jehovah's

00:32:10.440 witnesses gays mostly political prisoners and when they heard the sound of combat when they heard that

00:32:17.800 sparks and his men were there and when they saw uh the green uniform of the american soldier and

00:32:25.160 they saw their helmets and they saw the thunderbird patch etc there was what sparks told me was like

00:32:30.600 a chilling roar 32 000 people roaring with pleasure and relief that finally their ordeal was over and in

00:32:39.720 fact many of the the people that were saved by americans there um they they later on called the 29th

00:32:47.320 april 1945 the day on which americans liberated the the longest standing um center of evil within the

00:32:55.960 third right the longest standing concentration camp they called that day the day of the americans um

00:33:02.040 because it was the americans that had liberated them and um for some of them it was the the day that

00:33:07.560 they were literally born again they had thought that their lives would be over that that they had really

00:33:13.160 gone to hell and then see these americans give them a new chance at life was something that was

00:33:19.240 profoundly profoundly affecting and you know incredibly moving so you know when we talk about cliches such as

00:33:27.080 the greatest generation my son's 19 i think that his generation is awesome too every generation's awesome

00:33:34.120 when you talk about americans working class americans liberating europe in world war ii

00:33:39.160 you're talking about an episode which is really sacrosanct and beautiful and pure it's an astonishing

00:33:46.120 astonishing achievement that europeans will always be grateful for um the liberation of that beautiful

00:33:51.960 beautiful historic place of that continent that gave birth to the enlightenment to the renaissance

00:33:58.040 that produced american waves of immigration that produced america um it it's an amazing thing that you

00:34:05.080 have these young americans going back to the old world and liberating it and and liberating it from

00:34:11.080 enormous evil enormous unimaginable evil and barbarism um it's a great i think it's the greatest

00:34:18.520 achievement in american history i think uh the few of those liberators that are still alive are the

00:34:24.680 greatest americans in american history i i i the longer i spend in europe and i spend a long time in europe

00:34:31.240 taking americans every year through the world war ii museum through tours i do with a museum like i go

00:34:37.000 back several weeks every year and take place take americans to the places where americans died to

00:34:43.480 liberate that great continent i i'm i'm increasingly every day i do it every year that passes uh when i'm in

00:34:50.840 the 50s now i am more and more and more in awe of that sacrifice and that heroism and that courage and

00:34:57.320 and the effects of that and the the beauty of of what was given to europe and what was given to my

00:35:03.160 generation of europeans it's a truly awesome awesome achievement well alex this has been a great

00:35:09.160 conversation where can people go to learn more about your work it is you can go to my website

00:35:15.080 www.alexkurshaw.com i have my books listed there and i'm on twitter and facebook and you name it and

00:35:22.840 i i love interacting with people so uh you know please visit please visit me and and uh hopefully

00:35:28.760 enjoy you know not just my stories but but um but other people's stories too because you know these

00:35:35.160 i i was talking to a guy i'll shut up soon but talking to a guy yesterday who told me that the

00:35:39.480 american the american government has officially declared that that the end of the the practical

00:35:45.880 lives that the lives that we can count on people still being still still having a heartbeat of of

00:35:53.560 world war ii veterans is 2020 so we're really we are now only two years away from the date at which

00:36:01.400 the american government has decided that for all intents and purposes the world war ii generation will

00:36:07.240 be no more so we're right at the end we're very we're at that as the sun comes down that last

00:36:13.880 glimmer of light on the horizon that's where we are in terms of of uh these amazing people and

00:36:20.680 mission and uh i think it's worth thinking about it's worth really thinking about that because when

00:36:26.360 when they're gone um all we'll have is archives and history books alex kershaw thank you so much

00:36:31.720 for your time it's been a pleasure thank you so much my guest is alex kershaw he's the author of

00:36:36.200 several books on world war ii the book we discussed today was the liberator it's available on amazon.com

00:36:40.520 you can find out more information about alex's work by going to his website alexkershaw.com

00:36:45.080 also check out our show notes at aom.is liberator where you find links to resources

00:36:49.400 where you delve deeper into this topic

00:36:59.400 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:37:03.480 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the

00:37:06.840 podcast i've gotten something out of it i'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on

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00:37:17.080 continued support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#361： The Untold Story of WWII's 45th Infantry Division

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