The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1181

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for Friday the 6th of June 2025. I'm your

00:00:05.960 host Luca joined today by Bo and we are going to bring you today a special D-Day special aren't we

00:00:13.380 for the 81st anniversary of D-Day so this is really going to be you just cooking in the kitchen

00:00:19.520 and I'm going to be you know listening intensely and providing commentary where it matters. Okay

00:00:25.760 cool yeah well last year we did this so there's no segments today it's just one long thing

00:00:30.900 commemorating June 6th and last year if you see I did the same thing last year with

00:00:38.380 retired squadron leader Tim Davis RAF and I didn't get through most of the things I wanted to get

00:00:45.300 through I mean an hour and a half isn't really all that long or an hour and 20 more realistically

00:00:49.820 there's so much that can be said I mean there's dozens hundreds of books written about it could

00:00:55.280 do hours and hours and hours and hours of content on it if you wanted to so anyway last time I

00:01:00.100 talked about as much as I could and so this time I'll talk about all different things last time if

00:01:04.880 anyone wants to go back what was it episode 900 and something I talked a lot about the Germans last

00:01:11.560 time talked a lot about Rommel and von Rundstedt and Hitler Jodel Keitel a lot about the Atlantic

00:01:20.760 wall talked a fair bit about Eich Eisenhower and his circus wagon yeah the fact that the Germans were

00:01:29.660 really set on the idea that the invasion was going to happen at Calais they were convinced yes yeah they

00:01:35.440 were convinced um yeah so um so this time and I didn't get to talk much really about the fighting or

00:01:42.320 about the the paratroops and all sorts of things so this time I'm going to hope there might be a little

00:01:48.080 bit of crossover but I'll talk about all different things this time maybe I'll make it a yearly an

00:01:52.840 annual thing and over a few years I'll build up uh I'll be able to talk about all sorts of stuff maybe

00:01:59.140 next year I'll be really specific and drill down into one thing and talk about just that but this

00:02:03.540 one's again a bit of an overview um so I feel like even though a lot has happened in the last 24 hours

00:02:08.800 with uh yes reform and Trump we'll deal with that all next week because we had this slated in for a

00:02:14.960 while now um we considered abandoning this but no no this is more important I think in the scheme of

00:02:23.000 things all right so let's just jump straight in let's just start talking about things one of the

00:02:27.440 things I wanted to mention straight off the bat which didn't talk about last time was um quite

00:02:31.340 well known ill-fated exercise that happened earlier in the year I think it was back in May

00:02:38.180 uh operation tiger or exercise tiger uh where they realized they needed to sort of practice

00:02:44.840 beach landings um because all the first thing to say is that all amphibious assaults are difficult

00:02:52.520 fraught with danger unless you're completely unopposed I think I think the I think the Americans in

00:02:58.200 Da Nang in Vietnam were completely unopposed so if if you're completely unopposed okay but if there's

00:03:04.000 any sort of resistance if there's a stiff defense it's tough regardless of anything really I mean

00:03:10.020 I'm thinking of Salerno or Anzio earlier in the war um it's tough and the Germans are good right

00:03:19.300 they're professional fighters and they've been presumably because they conquered France didn't

00:03:23.800 they in 1940 so they've had four years to prepare for this invasion yeah that's right I mean that's

00:03:30.840 another thing to say is that for for years and years and years ever since 1940 really Hitler had

00:03:35.520 said the only thing that matters or since 1941 anyway the only thing that matters is our struggle

00:03:41.840 with the Russians with the Soviets the Bolshevik menace that's the only thing that matters uh but

00:03:48.900 by the time of spring 1944 he had realized that no he's got he's got to despite despite losing at

00:03:58.200 Stalingrad and at Kursk in 42 and 43 he realized he had to divert a bunch of stuff a bunch of resources

00:04:05.140 and men over to the western front because if the allies do just break in to fortress Europe then

00:04:12.000 he's definitely lost anyway so uh one account I was reading was saying that if her the allies had

00:04:20.020 landed in say April or May in southern France they would have been more or less uncontested but by

00:04:27.500 June uh up in northern France I see it was yeah yeah so last time last year I talked a bit about

00:04:34.540 the the concept of fortress Europe and that it's not really a fortress not a continuous line the

00:04:39.340 Atlantic wall isn't anything like a continuous line and I won't go into any detail this time so I did

00:04:43.940 last year all about Rommel and von Rundstedt uh issues with that but nonetheless we could have invaded

00:04:51.160 anywhere from sort of northern Norway all the way down to the French Pyrenees that whole Atlantic

00:04:57.360 seaboard we could have invaded anywhere along there um everyone thought particularly on the actual

00:05:04.420 German high command Hitler and OKW and Jodel Keitel and Rommel himself thought that assumed it would be at

00:05:12.800 Calais because we did lots and lots of uh diversionary tactics to make them think that and kept pounding the

00:05:19.360 Pas de Calais as if we were pep was if we were softening it up um but it was all diversionary

00:05:24.560 tactics really and we go at Normandy so but to practice it earlier in the year um there was this

00:05:33.900 exercise tiger in fact there were two different ones but uh or a few different places on the Isle of

00:05:40.220 Wyatt and anyway there was one in Dorset um and so it's a full-scale practice making it as realistic

00:05:48.560 as possible and it just so happened there were like nine German subs e-boats there and they sunk

00:05:54.280 a couple of big landing ships and like 750 odd guys died god it was just they were just practicing

00:06:00.000 I don't know why it's probably a bad choice to choose the south coast to practice on yes I mean

00:06:06.200 it's a good choice for some reasons because it's similar to the Normandy coast but it was too close to

00:06:11.580 German naval assets or sub marine assets but they're only across the channel aren't they well in the

00:06:17.760 channel literally in the channel yeah so that's something that often I didn't mention it last

00:06:23.680 time often doesn't get mentioned so I thought I'd just you know quickly quickly mention it um

00:06:28.140 okay so I think we'll start off with talking a bit about um the the airborne invasion because that's a

00:06:37.900 big part of it again last year only really touched on it so I thought we could spend a bit of time

00:06:41.800 this time talking about in a bit more detail um so the idea is that when the allied troops actually

00:06:49.000 hit the beaches lots of lots and lots of stuff has happened before then you've had mine sweepers

00:06:54.440 because the um the Germans had mined the sea massively so it was like a the biggest ever

00:07:03.380 mine sweeping operation ever to clear two lanes through the sea for the invasion forces these like a

00:07:09.800 couple of two 250 odd mine sweeper ships um and then there were frogmen to come in and the defenses

00:07:18.420 underwater defenses right at the beaches all sorts of baffles and mines all sorts of things had to be

00:07:25.160 kind of swept away there's even a couple of allied midget subs um so a lot of as well as actual naval

00:07:32.740 bombardment of the beaches themselves before anyone actually lands um and so on top of all of that as

00:07:41.000 well as air cover and lots and lots of bombing raids um there was this this uh airborne invasion

00:07:46.280 obviously behind enemy lines of course um and there was the british uh sixth airborne division

00:07:53.080 uh the red devils uh the 82nd the veteran 82nd they'd seen action um in the mediterranean already

00:08:02.460 and the famous 101st airborne uh the screaming eagles who actually hadn't seen any combat yet this was

00:08:09.460 their first combat stuff um and it was you know a massive airborne effort um like 24 odd thousand guys

00:08:17.520 about 8 000 men a piece of those three divisions um so it's a massive thing and it's got to be said

00:08:25.080 that um parachute technology was still completely in its infancy like you know today now um uh at least

00:08:35.220 expert um parachutists they when they land sometimes they can come in at an angle and they just run along

00:08:40.600 a bit yes and there's no hard landing whatsoever yeah well 1940 era parachutes were not like that right you

00:08:47.500 had very little steering and you came down hard and if you were laden down with lots and lots of

00:08:53.840 gear as they nearly all were you could come down really hard and uh if you're unlucky or actually

00:08:59.300 if you're a bit older if you're in your 40s if you're more of an officer or a senior officer and

00:09:03.760 you're in your 40s or maybe even 50s uh you could easily snap your ankle or something easily and even

00:09:09.540 if you're not even if you're a bit unlucky even if you're a 19 year old and fighting fit

00:09:13.240 you could still break a leg or just hit something on the way down and break your hip or all sorts

00:09:19.260 loads of guys were injured before as soon as they hit the ground as soon as they hit the ground they're

00:09:23.420 badly injured and then you're injured behind enemy lines as well just basically yeah with look at the

00:09:28.640 drawer and whether or not they come across you it's sort of worse than useless you're then a burden

00:09:33.180 both in um on d-day and in operation market garden there's a senior officer who gets his men to

00:09:41.200 wheel him around in a in a barrow for the next few days or weeks because he's not prepared to

00:09:47.240 to like not continue yeah but he just cannot walk there's lots of accounts of um french civilians and

00:09:55.360 things finding paratroopers and like their backs broken or something you know yeah i remember um

00:10:02.740 you talking to tim in the last episode as well about um just trees trees full of dead paratroopers

00:10:09.900 yeah yeah just ghastly yeah or sometimes whole fields just filled with dead paratroopers who were

00:10:14.820 shot out of the sky because there was two delivery mechanisms one is to parachute out of an airplane

00:10:19.880 the other was gliders gliders come in and land stroke crash land um but if you came in by a

00:10:26.080 parachute even though they dropped you dropped you very low only a few hundred feet you're only in the

00:10:31.560 air for 30 40 seconds maybe that whole time you're a complete sitting duck so sometimes if you're unlucky

00:10:38.600 to drop over you know a machine gun position uh for the germans shooting fish in a barrel you're a giant

00:10:44.680 target even in at night they can see your parachute and apparently the parachutes were all

00:10:49.840 different colors as well you think they're always white yeah but they're not they're all the

00:10:54.060 accounts say they're all different colors is there a reason for that not that i know of i guess it's

00:10:59.160 just um it's just a case of the material yeah i suppose using as any parachute they can get their

00:11:05.820 hands on right so uh yeah there are accounts of fields just filled with dead paratroopers who were

00:11:12.320 dead before they hit the ground oh yeah trees a guy would get hung up in a tree and once again for

00:11:17.660 the germans the easiest thing in the world just to shoot you there and that's where you hang

00:11:21.540 until that bit of ground is formally liberated and you can be cut down um yeah loads of accounts of

00:11:28.060 that um so okay a quick uh a quick a quick super high level rundown of the war by 1944 i said last time

00:11:36.780 that on the eastern front things had there was a late thaw the soviet's already in poland

00:11:41.700 and um the the the summer offensive um they hadn't launched it yet because of a late thaw there's

00:11:49.260 more a little bit more to it than that in fact stalin was deliberately waiting as was everyone really

00:11:56.160 right everyone was waiting to see what happened here because the allies churchill and roosevelt

00:12:02.360 had been saying we're going to create a a western front for you joe um they've been saying that since

00:12:09.900 1942 yes um and stalin's just waiting and waiting and waiting and by this point by june

00:12:15.860 may june 44 stalin's like well i'm i'm just gonna wait waiting for you to this and even the japanese

00:12:24.380 are watching on tentatively right because if the allies were pushed back at normandy and it was a

00:12:31.060 failure it was sort of a diep style failure yes um then the whole war would have gone a different way

00:12:36.180 because the the allied policy was europe first so everything in the pacific would have been

00:12:44.500 all the timings of everything in the pacific would have had to have changed because we couldn't do

00:12:49.080 another one straight away of course we would have needed months again to build up um so basically

00:12:54.620 everyone's holding their breath for this in this this amphibious invasion um and of course the germans

00:13:01.420 are and uh went into it last year all about how they got it wrong the senior commanders on the

00:13:07.040 german side got it wrong they thought the weather was too bad um because the allies would always

00:13:12.700 launch this sort of thing in the mediterranean for example north africa when the skies were clear

00:13:17.200 um and this wasn't the case so particularly rommel had convinced himself it'll probably be probably be

00:13:23.520 in calais anyway and it certainly won't be on the 5th or the 6th of june because the weather's the

00:13:28.840 weather's too crap um so he wasn't even in the country he was back in germany visiting home on

00:13:34.400 some leave um and lots and lots of senior commanders on the german side weren't there for

00:13:40.040 whatever reason i i find it so um you know interesting about just the question of the weather

00:13:45.840 that you know even you know when you think back to like the norman conquest or something and you go

00:13:51.640 back to godwinson and you know the fact that the conqueror was delayed because simply the weather

00:13:57.240 the winds were in the wrong direction and it's uh even uh not over nine nearly 900 years later

00:14:03.140 even though technology is so much more advanced even though everything's just so much more efficient

00:14:07.920 now the weapons are more destructive those simple things those simple eternal problem questions of war

00:14:14.900 such as just what's the weather like still are massively important in the larger calculus is it a high

00:14:22.780 tide is it a full moon yeah all that sort of thing yeah i mean it's interesting actually that normandy

00:14:26.980 this isn't normandy's first rodeo having war passed through it you'd have to go back a few

00:14:33.920 hundred years but during the medieval period or even the dark ages or the ancient world

00:14:38.600 the normandy picardy northern northwestern france region seen loads of war yeah over the centuries loads

00:14:45.160 um so yeah okay so going on talking specifically then a bit more about um um the airborne stuff so

00:14:54.240 they had lots and lots of different objectives lots and lots of different things they had to achieve

00:15:00.320 because they were dropped in the the night before and the wee hours starting from sort of midnight

00:15:06.180 really onwards and they've got until dawn well until half six seven half seven to achieve lots and lots

00:15:14.180 of different things before the actual landings happen um all sorts of targets they want to destroy or take

00:15:22.360 out but broadly speaking the broadest thing the most important thing was to take out gun emplacements

00:15:28.120 particularly big heavy gun emplacements that could rain shells down on the beaches themselves and also

00:15:33.980 to break up supply lines or roads and bridges to stop german reinforcements because the allies need

00:15:42.760 absolutely crucial need a few hours to establish some sort of foothold yes um and if the germans

00:15:51.120 counter-attack sort of immediately then the whole thing you caught flat-footed and back into the sea

00:15:56.020 and and we knew everyone knew that the the seventh army was defending the normandy region but a much

00:16:03.880 bigger more powerful 15th army was defending the calais region the part of calais area and they can

00:16:10.780 quite easily within a few hours basically the same day could sweep down if the germans were quick enough

00:16:16.860 to the normandy area and that couldn't happen we could not allow that to happen of course so on the

00:16:24.360 eastern side of the area was uh the british and canadian side and more west more towards cherbourg is

00:16:32.540 the american side so arguably one of the most important things was for the paratroopers during the

00:16:39.340 night or the wee hours of the sixth to cause havoc and destruction uh on all the roads and bridges

00:16:46.740 that lead from the east from the paris calais area into normandy that was just of key importance

00:16:53.400 um so one of the big things was that there was this big gun battery at merville

00:17:00.440 um and this is quite it's very well documented um so that's why i'm you know i'm only picking and

00:17:07.680 choosing some of the most famous things here sure um that there's a an image of it uh afterwards

00:17:14.040 you can see how peppered it was all those shells yeah um and the idea was that something in the

00:17:21.260 order of 700 odd paratroopers were meant to attack it all at once from four directions well if anyone

00:17:29.020 has ever watched band of brothers or anything about normandy knows that when you drop when they drop

00:17:34.820 loads of guys in there they were just all scattered and mixed up together and the idea that you all drop

00:17:40.240 and you all team up and it's just it doesn't work like that it's just so chaotic so in the end the

00:17:47.220 guy had something in the order of 150 160 odd guys instead of 700 odd so that's in the quarter of what

00:17:55.160 you'd anticipated having yeah yeah to attack this very heavily defended bat gun battery um which with

00:18:04.400 which had heavy guns on it turns out in the end the guns weren't quite as heavy as we thought they were

00:18:08.360 going to be but they were still heavy enough with range in the order of eight miles plenty to hit

00:18:13.700 the beaches still um so we had to take out the merville battery otherwise loads more men would

00:18:20.920 have died on the beaches loads more um i mean there's a picture of it these days and even now you

00:18:26.780 can see i mean if you can imagine the whole area around it was mined heavily mined loads of barbed wire

00:18:32.280 machine gun nests all sorts of things uh there's something like 200 odd german defenders but when

00:18:40.660 you're dug in even 700 versus 200 is close oh so 150 60 odd versus 200 um it seemed it was a tough

00:18:53.800 it was a it was a it was a hairy prospect um there it is sort of at the time and um again the plan had

00:19:03.240 been that they'd have some guys that had um those bangalores and had wire cutting special wire cutting

00:19:09.600 and mine mine clearing troops with the equipment they didn't have hardly any of it right so because

00:19:15.320 so many of those people that they'd anticipated having didn't make it scattered yeah the equipment

00:19:20.200 didn't turn up either scattered over a vast distance scattered all over the place you know

00:19:26.320 some landing 20 miles back some landing in the sea it was happy it was haphazard to say the least

00:19:34.460 um so they had to do that thing where you crawl forward inch by inch with a knife and prod the ground

00:19:40.720 to find mines and like hand cut the wire and um yeah it was it was far from ideal and and the

00:19:49.980 idea was that um also during the night another three gliders would come in and drop like during

00:19:57.920 the attack and drop inside the battery land inside the battery to help out but they could only do that

00:20:07.380 if a particular flare was shot up uh the commander didn't have the flare so so that wasn't coming yeah

00:20:16.440 that's not happening then and then at a certain point in the morning uh once the sun had come up

00:20:21.320 if another signal hadn't been sent then uh the big guns from the battleships were going to open up on

00:20:28.340 it they would assume that they'd failed yes and because we simply couldn't have the guns at

00:20:34.420 merville firing on the beaches if a certain signal wasn't sent they were going to try and

00:20:38.820 wipe it off the map just with the big naval guns because most uh casualties in war certainly in world

00:20:45.540 were from artillery weren't they it was and so yeah if those guns aren't taken out then

00:20:51.200 it's yeah makes everything dramatically harder well they would have been able to rain down

00:20:56.480 uh ceaselessly yes if it wasn't taken out it's just it just had to be taken out so

00:21:02.840 so they decide to attack with uh only 150 odd guys um through the night which is what they did

00:21:12.000 and and they took it remarkably i mean it's a real that's incredible true act of heroism they lost

00:21:18.320 sort of half their guys doing it nearly all the germans were killed i think they took 20 23 odd

00:21:23.040 prisoners by the end of it um the germans put up a stiff defense um actually a couple of times

00:21:28.980 they forgot to shut and lock the doors in their bunkers really come straight in uh but no there was

00:21:35.620 heavy fighting at merville and um yeah gallant actions were made um and um so yeah that's one

00:21:44.020 of the highlights from sort of the airborne yeah that's remarkable side of things to already be

00:21:48.820 against the odds and to already have the pango that far awry and still managed to pull victory back from

00:21:54.040 that is yeah as you say truly heroic and with 15 minutes to go before the big guns out of sea were

00:22:00.120 going to open up on it he was able to shoot up the signal yes which was seen wow yeah yeah um so yeah

00:22:07.920 that's a bit of a win for us on that day luckily uh another sort of quite famous things there's a

00:22:13.480 couple of bridges over um well there was there's a river and a canal again in that same area to just

00:22:22.860 to the east of of where all the landings would be the d river and a man built canal running parallel

00:22:28.720 with it uh we had to take out those bridges the pegasus bridge and what we called it the pegasus

00:22:34.120 bridge and uh and um the horser bridge uh ranville and bonoville but we called them pegasus there's a

00:22:41.780 film isn't there about pegasus bridge uh if there is i'm not familiar with it but i'll take your word

00:22:47.460 that went really quite well the gliders uh happened to land without completely annihilating themselves or

00:22:55.600 most of them um really close one its nose sort of touched the barbed wire of the german defences so

00:23:01.600 it couldn't have been any closer sort of thing wow and we stormed it um successfully a few casualties

00:23:06.680 a few casualties but we essentially stormed those two bridges really successfully basically before the

00:23:13.080 germans knew what was happening um so again perhaps lucky i was about to say lucky perhaps lucky isn't

00:23:20.980 the word um but um it was a great success because yeah panzer divisions could have just rolled straight

00:23:28.380 across those bridges and we couldn't have that and so again a tire a touch of a touch of luck all these

00:23:35.040 little little victories growing into the larger victory yeah i mean some have said just a general

00:23:41.880 point about the the airborne side of the invasion looking back on it some historians say it's uh

00:23:49.500 the whole thing was the whole thing was a complete shambles uh an embarrassment and should never have

00:23:55.140 been done others have said uh considering they did brilliantly considering yes everything um you

00:24:03.580 couldn't have asked for a great deal more um i think overall well well the invasion was a success

00:24:10.120 in the end those beaches didn't become actual shambles wasn't an actual slaughter no um across all the

00:24:18.500 beaches the germans didn't counter-attack with armor and kill and push us back into the sea so by that

00:24:24.200 metric um the artillery at merville did stop firing the tanks did not come across the pegasus bridge

00:24:31.560 well actually yeah well for a while oh right to mention at uh merville within 48 hours the germans

00:24:37.880 had recaptured it oh god okay and uh because after we'd taken them out all the paratroopers moved on to

00:24:43.960 other targets there was like a a radio thing they wanted to take out right they moved on to other

00:24:48.920 objectives anyway actually within 48 hours the germans had retaken it and were firing from it again but

00:24:54.060 anyway anyway for those crucial few hours on the morning of the 6th the merville gun battery was silent

00:25:01.980 uh there's an aerial view of the of the the pegasus and horse bridge um again sort of the stuff of

00:25:10.140 legend um almost um so yeah i think so about um the pathfinders so before the actual paratroopers came down

00:25:19.820 there we dropped or landed um what were called pathfinders and they're you know airborne troops

00:25:28.700 but their job was to not fight necessarily although they did um in the first instance their job was to

00:25:35.900 be sneaky quite often if they came across any germans they'd run away or if they're fired upon by the

00:25:40.620 germans they wouldn't fire back they'd disappear into the night because their job was to light the way

00:25:45.660 for the next lot yes okay and um and also other other things like make uh make contact with some

00:25:53.260 of the french civilians and various things uh their job wasn't to just shoot the first nazi you can find

00:26:00.060 and uh they're all blacked up actual blackface all right yeah um not like a little bit of camo on

00:26:05.660 the cheekbones no the full black yeah um and and to be sneaky bastards not to not to just start killing

00:26:13.340 anything and everything not just demolish the first thing you find um but they were all volunteers

00:26:18.700 remarkable uh you know so it's almost like a suicidal thing isn't it you can expect it to be

00:26:23.900 a one-way ticket deep behind enemy lines and all that sort of thing um so the pathfinders got to

00:26:31.260 got to give a shout out to them very brave young men yeah that's remarkable very very brave do you know

00:26:35.980 how many uh oh of how many pathfinders were i haven't got an exact number for you but it was in

00:26:40.380 the hundreds yes it would be in the low hundreds um and also from the french point of view they this

00:26:47.420 is like the first for a lot of people that aren't in the um uh that aren't in the know that aren't

00:26:54.860 actually in the french resistance uh this is the first inclination they've got that anything's happening

00:27:00.300 at like midnight or 1am yeah some big american or to them some big american burly 20 year old

00:27:07.740 falls out of the sky into their pea patch or into a tree in their garden or something and he's like

00:27:14.220 covered in grenades and ammo in blackface yeah yeah oh mohawk a lot of them shave their head in mohawk

00:27:19.740 fashion right black-faced uh covered in knives grenades bullets um uh and they're physically big

00:27:27.580 a lot of the accounts are and sort of a terrifying prospect um they very quickly you know within seconds

00:27:34.140 or at least minutes you realize that they're they're an ameri an american or a brit and that

00:27:40.060 they're there to help they're there to it's part of the landings or the french would call it the the

00:27:44.940 debarquement and that's what the french always called it but it's happening again they've been

00:27:50.300 waiting for it since 1940. yeah they'd hoped that it was coming ages ago a year ago or more

00:27:57.420 um and some a lot of the french accounts that they couldn't believe it's happening it's actually

00:28:02.300 happening um yeah must have been a remarkable moment of hope yeah yeah and also another thing

00:28:09.420 from the french point of view you would have thought that if you lived quite close to the sea

00:28:14.140 you lived within the region where paratroops were dropping you think oh we're going to be liberated

00:28:19.980 within hours or a day or two at most not always the case at all no it might be if you're like if

00:28:27.180 you live five ten miles back from the beaches no that's where some of the heaviest fighting will

00:28:31.900 be you might not be liberated for a few weeks your village might change hands a dozen times

00:28:39.260 so you think oh the americans are here the brits are here we're safe it's all over not

00:28:44.060 necessarily at all in fact you're probably in for some of the worst fighting in front or among the

00:28:49.180 worst fighting in france maybe i mean um okay so no talk about uh saint maire eglise or as the

00:28:58.460 french would call it just saint maire a lot of the time they just call it saint maire uh loads of

00:29:03.340 fighting went on there it's sort of famous it's famous to the point of cliche almost the fighting that

00:29:09.260 went on in and around semi because again it's just one of the more well documented things a lot

00:29:13.900 of the people that survived it wrote memoirs and things so it just happens to be among the more

00:29:19.180 documented uh flashpoints so let's talk about uh saint maire for a bit um so that night uh we've got

00:29:28.300 accounts from particularly a quite famous account from a 60 odd year old female school teacher who

00:29:33.900 wrote a memoir afterwards but lots of soldiers survived as well and um um she says she's laying

00:29:40.220 in bed and she notices that like outside out the window like it's been lit up by all different colors

00:29:47.420 though they're used to bombing raids sure but there's all different colors of flares and tracer going

00:29:54.300 up and she's like even for even for 1944 era northern france this is a bit odd and then exactly that

00:30:02.140 happened to her um uh an american paratroop falls in her garden um and anyway one of the houses around

00:30:12.860 the set the square the central square uh uh saint maire glise there was a big fire broke out one of the

00:30:18.620 big um sort of townhouses was completely ablaze um and so loads of the townsfolk had asked for because

00:30:27.660 there was a a curfew not allowed out at night they had formally asked the germans the small

00:30:32.540 relatively small garrison of germans in the village i think it's only in the order of 30 or 40 or 50

00:30:37.740 germans they'd ask them can we break the curfew and put the fire out we need every hand in the village

00:30:44.380 you know almost passing buckets hand hand stuff stuff to put this out and so they do so loads of

00:30:48.780 the townsfolk village folk are um congregated in the square and most of the german garrison are there

00:30:56.300 as well just basically watching them probably having a cigarette smoke if you got them just to make

00:31:01.980 sure just to make sure they're they they're not going to do anything other than put this fire out sure

00:31:06.460 yes and then suddenly loads of marines uh not marines paratroopers um are falling out of the sky all around

00:31:15.820 and um and the germans weren't supposed to sort of be there ready with their guns but they were

00:31:23.420 so loads of loads of them were shot out of the sky um and one guy actually fell directly on the church

00:31:33.340 oh uh his name was john steel and uh he was shot through the foot he was shot through the foot as he

00:31:41.740 was falling as he was falling uh and then his his parachute got caught up uh that's obviously

00:31:49.740 a mock-up yes it's not a real human dare uh a cruel practical joke he looks a bit like an action man

00:31:57.020 figure it might be a bit before your time but 1970s era action man figure complete with parachute um

00:32:04.060 and he just played dead because he couldn't get himself down um and he played dead there for hours

00:32:09.020 years until eventually the germans cut him down he was taken prisoner but he lived

00:32:13.980 um but loads of different people both french civilians germans and other americans said they

00:32:20.860 all remember a dead body hanging from the church at san mariglis in fact he wasn't actually dead yeah

00:32:28.380 and um yeah so there was fighting all throughout the next day over the various days over in and around

00:32:33.340 san mariglis so again it's sort of a something to mention do you know if it did he survive the war

00:32:40.460 yeah yeah yeah wow yeah um so well i want to play this little clip because um the germans were quite

00:32:53.420 ruthless i mean both sides were ruthless it's war it's war but um it's a very famous opening to

00:32:59.100 the uh the world at war the 70s world at war documentary um which mentioned so i want to

00:33:06.140 talk a bit now a little bit about the french experience um and that the germans did sometimes

00:33:11.580 often uh well maybe not often but sometimes on their retreat as a type of revenge would pass through

00:33:19.900 places and sort of kill everyone there there's a bitter animosity yeah between the germans and the

00:33:25.260 frank well right yeah you know going back to time immemorial yeah but you know certainly but also

00:33:31.100 just within living memory of you know those people world war one was french revenge for the franco

00:33:36.620 prussian war and then in turn you know world war ii was revenge from germany for world war one

00:33:43.820 yeah i mean well you can go all the way back to the ancient well yes of course you can but yeah but

00:33:48.060 within living memory people would have you know their grandfather would have talked about the franco

00:33:52.780 prussian war or whatever it had been and yeah that that feeling would have been very strong i was

00:33:58.300 reading just recently a little aside about um charlemagne massacring saxons oh yes tens of

00:34:04.460 thousands of saxons executed in one day and stuff so yeah the fantastic uh sir christopher lee

00:34:10.700 heavy metal song about that oh is there oh yes i don't know i'll send it to you okay uh but no

00:34:16.140 yeah the animosity between uh the french and the germans um so let me play this it's uh laurence

00:34:21.580 Olivier

00:34:51.580 this is overdue sur glane in france the day the soldiers came the people were gathered together

00:35:06.300 the men were taken to garages and barns the women and children

00:35:21.580 as their men were shot then they were killed too a few weeks later many of those who had done the

00:35:33.180 killing were themselves dead in battle they never rebuilt our door its ruins are a memorial

00:35:46.140 its martyrdom stands for thousand upon thousand of other martyrdoms in poland in russia in burma

00:35:57.740 china in a world at war

00:36:01.180 classic world at war documentary yeah so um compared to the eastern front of some other places in world

00:36:14.180 war ii it's uh it's not as brutal the numbers of casualties are much smaller you know like the

00:36:22.100 battle of the bulge one of the biggest battles on the western front in world war ii is dwarfed by

00:36:28.340 some battles that happened on the eastern front that no one's ever really heard of right but

00:36:32.340 nonetheless still heart-rending yeah and bloody and if you live through it horrific and you can

00:36:40.020 understand why uh the french wouldn't want to rebuild after that you know the place is just

00:36:45.220 marred forever by the psychic horror of what happened there you know you'd feel it in the air it clinging

00:36:52.180 to the air the memory of it would have been yeah so horrible well like a lot of big wars like this

00:36:58.260 big total wars um the people that suffer the most arguably are civilians yes so a few more minutes

00:37:04.980 about the french side of it um not only did the germans sort of brutalize them on the way out but

00:37:10.740 they were brutalized by the allies uh and there's nothing we could do about it really in a way because

00:37:15.940 it was just the way war was done at that point the collateral damage we call it now yeah right um so

00:37:22.500 for example in the few weeks it took to sweep through normandy and picardy something in the order

00:37:27.860 of 18 20 000 french civilians were killed by by allied mostly by allied air forces like we realize

00:37:35.540 we would say something like the the commanders the planners would be like we need to make sure that

00:37:41.220 khan is destroyed we can't have the germans uh regrouping in khan or anything it needs to be destroyed

00:37:49.620 yeah it's full of civilians though it's like yeah we'll send in light bombers at like a thousand

00:37:58.820 feet to try and do some sort of precision bombing but the heavy bombers at like 16 000 feet it's

00:38:03.700 basically indiscriminate yes of course basically indiscriminate i mean so yeah there was quite a few

00:38:08.660 what they called martyred towns or martyred cities like khan was three quarters of it was flattened

00:38:15.860 most of the people left homeless thousands of thousands of them killed you know women and

00:38:22.820 children stuff um the half was annihilated essentially and loads of places just loads of

00:38:30.980 loads of places the the the top brass would see it on the map and say like this needs to be

00:38:37.540 completely swept out of any sort of german military assets go destroy it it's like yeah for the larger

00:38:45.380 cause of french liberation yeah it's interesting that the french largely by and large uh accepted

00:38:54.580 it there wasn't like a giant movement of you're committing war crimes against us they were like no

00:39:01.780 yeah we get it this needs to be done we've had enough of german occupation if this is what it takes

00:39:06.900 then so be it it's like quite um yeah sang for quite a noble way to very stoic take it very strong take

00:39:14.500 it on the chin yeah big time big time remarkable really um you know like british or american planes

00:39:20.900 just killed all your family but you survived and you're like well it's better that than being ruled by

00:39:28.180 mr hitler in berlin forever yeah yeah um i mean it's funny funny interesting not funny haha funny

00:39:36.660 interesting the odd things that bombs ballistics do uh uh sometimes it's stranger than fiction things

00:39:43.780 right there's one account i was reading just the other day where this house got blown up um and like the

00:39:50.580 remnants of the house it's like where where the house once was and in the basement they found a

00:39:56.740 load of like nine civilians huddling there and they hadn't been blown apart but they were all dead from

00:40:01.220 the concussion but in what was left of the kitchen there was a basket full of eggs and none of the eggs

00:40:07.940 were broken that's bizarre yeah yeah yeah another account there was a guy in his attic looking out the

00:40:14.900 window a bomb comes in you can only imagine at an oblique angle not straight through the top

00:40:20.820 blows the house up entirely um the entire house is gone apart from sort of the the roof right the

00:40:28.420 attic that he's in and he just finds himself at ground level and he's okay well he's got he's got

00:40:34.180 uh scratches yeah he's essentially essentially fine astonishing and the house under him is annihilated

00:40:41.460 and the room he's in is still intact it's just uh ground it's just a few meters yeah yeah it's odd

00:40:46.660 isn't it it's really it's funny what things do i mean even bullets can do weird things

00:40:51.060 like they enter someone's hip and come out their ear and stuff yeah it's just yeah horrible horrible

00:40:57.220 stuff but um interesting i suppose nonetheless um i want to say a quick word about uh hitler and the

00:41:06.900 german response because um cornelius ryan says that the german response was quite slow really

00:41:13.380 i mean thank god it was quite slow i think i can't remember the exact wording but he said something

00:41:17.380 like uh it was as if a patient coming around from a general anesthetic sort of slowly groggily coming

00:41:23.780 around to the realization that this is the real invasion because there'd been quite a few uh full

00:41:30.420 storms before and everyone thought it'd be at calais and loads of people loads of the german high

00:41:35.620 command thought this was a diversion it was still coming to calais this is just a diversion

00:41:39.620 people that are actually on the beaches looking out to sea seeing the armada knew it wasn't yes but

00:41:44.100 their their words didn't get to the right people quickly enough uh i talked about last time hitler

00:41:50.180 didn't get up until midday almost well no one woke him yeah yeah well let me read this uh quick paragraph

00:41:56.980 um and it is from cornelius ryan's uh the longest day says at hitler's headquarters in bertz's garden

00:42:03.860 in the balmy unrealistic climate of southern bavaria the message was delivered to the office

00:42:08.740 of colonel general alfred yodel chief of operations yodel was asleep and so this is still in the middle

00:42:14.340 of the night this would have been yodel was asleep and his staff uh believed that the situation had not

00:42:19.620 developed sufficiently enough yet for his sleep to be disturbed the message could wait until later

00:42:24.980 um not more than three miles away at hitler's mountain retreat the führer and his mistress ava brown

00:42:30.180 were also asleep hitler had retired as usual at 4 a.m and his personal physician dr morrell had given

00:42:36.580 him a sleeping draft as he was unable to sleep now without it at about 5 a.m hitler's naval aide

00:42:43.700 admiral karl von puttkama was awakened by a call from yodel's headquarters puttkama recalled he could not

00:42:50.740 now recall who it was said that there had been some sort of landings in france nothing precise was known

00:42:56.980 as yet in fact puttkama was told that the first messages were extremely vague did puttkama think

00:43:02.180 that the führer should be informed both men hashed it over then decided not to wake hitler puttkama

00:43:08.500 remembered that there wasn't much to tell him anyway and we both feared that if i woke him at this time

00:43:13.700 he might start one of his endless nervous scenes which often led to the wildest decisions puttkama

00:43:19.540 decided that the morning would be time enough to give hit the news he switched off the light and went

00:43:24.420 back to sleep don't know how he went back to sleep after hearing that yeah yeah oh it's probably just

00:43:31.780 a diversion anyway no no yeah it's weird yeah yeah kind of odd um it's remarkable how long uh was it

00:43:42.340 after the initial land invasion that the german side actually you know realized that well now you've

00:43:50.100 got stalin in the east you've got the allies landed and obviously you said as well they'd taken rome

00:43:55.780 by that point as well rome fell the day before yeah so at what point was it the case of realizing that

00:44:03.300 this was not looking like victory you know like they couldn't possibly win it now ah well

00:44:10.820 i mean it depends who you would ask some some many thought that uh it the war was on on the german side

00:44:17.380 some thought the war was unwinnable by february 1943 others thought we even when the even when

00:44:24.820 the allies were deep into france they thought we could still right win it even some after operation

00:44:29.140 market guard so it's not over yet it's still good right um so it depends who you are i see okay um

00:44:36.180 right yeah i mean that is that is the answer um all right so this uh giant giant armada the biggest

00:44:44.260 uh naval armada ever put together something in the order of 5 000 ships and 700 of which are big

00:44:52.820 ships of war cruisers destroyers even some big battleships the nevada was there um but all in all

00:44:59.700 something in the order of 5 000 craft sort of filling the sea all the way from the english south coast must

00:45:07.620 have been the most astonishing site yeah yeah it would yeah it would have been yeah absolutely and

00:45:12.980 the air cover and everything going on um i did describe a paragraph or two of the armada last

00:45:21.540 time but i've got another paragraph here which i think is good again from ryan he says quote never

00:45:26.500 had there been a dawn like this in the murky gray light in majestic fearful grandeur the great allied

00:45:32.740 fleet lay off normandy's five invasion beaches the sea teamed with ships battle ensigns snapped in the

00:45:39.220 wind all the way to the horizon from the edge of the utah area on the cherbourg peninsula to sword beach

00:45:45.940 near the mouth of the orn outlined against the sky were the big battle wagons uh the menacing cruisers

00:45:53.540 the whip it like destroyers behind them were the squat command ships sprouting their forests of antennae

00:45:59.700 and behind them came the convoys of troop field transports and landing ships lying low and sluggish

00:46:05.060 in the water circling the lead transports waiting for the signal to head for the beaches were swarms

00:46:10.580 of bobbing landing craft jam-packed with men who would land in the first waves the great spreading

00:46:16.100 mass of ships seethed with noise and activity engines throbbed and wind as patrol boats as patrol boats

00:46:23.620 uh dashed back and forth through the milling assault craft so yeah again just what a sight it would

00:46:29.380 have been um and the defense is again it depends of what historian you would read or what your view

00:46:38.420 of it is whether the defenses were sort of woefully lacking like the the atlantic wall was nowhere near

00:46:45.620 what it should have been or whether actually they were massively formidable and the real answer is it's

00:46:52.020 sort of both in places right patchy yes in places they really were formidable defenses in other places

00:46:58.980 not very much at all so i mean cornelius ryan talks about particularly on the british beaches

00:47:05.940 golden sword juno was the canadian one although there were marine british marines there as well

00:47:10.580 particularly on the the uh british beaches he called it spotty

00:47:14.180 so in some places there was heavy fighting and in other places hardly any like in the on the american

00:47:23.300 beaches utah and omaha were very different prospects not that utah was a pushover but

00:47:29.540 omaha so i'll talk about that at the end the last thing mainly i'll talk about is omaha beach where

00:47:34.180 the vast majority of casualties on the beach anyway were taken at omaha bloody omaha because it was one of

00:47:40.660 the most impenetrable yeah parts yeah something like 2400 odd guys were killed there and on the

00:47:48.980 other beaches it was in the hundreds usually so um all right so uh rommel's defense is not just

00:47:56.900 sort of on the land where there's gun emplacements and machine gun nests but also out to sea lots and

00:48:02.020 lots of baffles um lots and lots of mines sea mines an unbelievable amount um yeah the

00:48:10.420 germans hadn't neglected normandy that uh it was much more heavily defended around the par de calais

00:48:17.300 but they're far from neglected uh the norman area uh so there's a there's sort of a classic little

00:48:25.300 map high level map of of what's going on so sword juno gold and how you say because what we really needed

00:48:34.340 after you've actually got the toehold the beachhead we need a deep water harbor

00:48:40.740 um now cherbourg's got a deep water harbor dieppe is one you know calais is one um but until we

00:48:48.500 actually liberated those uh we had to sort of build our own the the so-called mulberry

00:48:54.660 uh what they called um well just a man-made harbor yes um constructed a little way out to sea a few

00:49:04.660 hundred jars off the coast so we can get the big ships to disembark all the material further men

00:49:10.740 and material we need everything we need to invade hitler's europe um until that she took cherbourg or

00:49:18.100 somewhere like that or df or something um so again a wonder of engineering the mulberry uh the mulberry

00:49:25.460 thing there's another you can find any number of these sort of high level maps um there you go

00:49:33.060 um here's a map of sort of zoomed in a bit more on the uh the british and canadian ones and uh so you

00:49:42.340 can see why khan got peppered big time why it was wiped off the map almost uh because it well there

00:49:49.780 were germans there and later they could could bring up uh reserves from paris or from calais

00:49:56.740 divisions of tanks and we're talking tens of thousands more guys they would come through

00:50:00.980 khan so we have to destroy it what um forgive me if i'm getting a bit ahead of myself but what did

00:50:07.460 happen with the case of the the calais garrison did they move down oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

00:50:13.380 the allies didn't stop them from advancing oh uh well well no they came down and joined battle

00:50:19.940 yeah they came down and joined battle right yeah so it took a while so like hitler didn't really get

00:50:24.980 the news until about midday um and even then it was a few hours before the couple of heavy panzer

00:50:34.260 divisions were dispatched from the paris and calais region and then they didn't get there to either

00:50:40.500 the evening of the sixth or the next day and that was all the time we need it was just about the time

00:50:47.540 the allies needed to get the toehold on the beaches and push it just you know a mile or two inland

00:50:54.180 um so that uh we weren't ever rolled into the sea um so the germans effectively dropped the ball there

00:51:03.460 their strategy had been rommel had decided that we would they would try and meet us on the beaches

00:51:08.900 wherever possible they failed to do it he'd said i want every single tank in the whole of france dug in

00:51:15.860 into sort of redoubts overlooking the beaches if i had my way that's what i'd be doing he didn't get

00:51:21.940 his way and then when it finally came on the sixth they weren't quick enough to react

00:51:30.740 so there you go there's a bit more of a and all these places you can see they're all fought over

00:51:37.140 right uh all the names all the names you can see there uh they all have they've all got their own

00:51:43.380 story of various things that went down i mean like i say i'm not exaggerating that we could do an

00:51:49.300 hour an hour and a half on on uh one one village any one of those one town yeah again some of them

00:51:55.700 changed hands half a dozen times a dozen times two dozen times so again it's sort of like like in a

00:52:04.420 lot of wars it's kind of just potluck whether the war comes to you or not yes one village over barely

00:52:10.420 sees any action but your village gets annihilated gets annihilated yeah and there's sort of no way to

00:52:16.340 survive it almost okay so quick rundown of the various beaches bloody hell we've already been

00:52:22.020 going for 50 minutes okay so first of all then sword beach um british british beach uh one of the one

00:52:31.220 of the the biggest uh amount of oh no sorry actually gold was probably bigger anyway we we suffered

00:52:38.020 something in the order of six to seven hundred odd casualties on sword beach so again nothing like

00:52:43.940 omaha but if you were there it's not nothing i think that quite often still hell yeah yeah i think

00:52:52.340 particularly because a lot of the narrative is dominated by the united states um and by like

00:52:58.740 saving private ryan or whatever so it's like omaha was the main thing that happened and everything else

00:53:03.540 is a sideshow i mean that's just not what it was that's not how it was um sword beach uh would have

00:53:09.860 been for a while anyway i mean not too long only a few hours only two or three hours once again it's

00:53:16.100 it's a it's a long front like from the easternmost end of sword beach to the westernmost end of utah

00:53:23.060 it's like 50 miles right omaha beach alone is best part of four miles so it's miles along it's not like a

00:53:31.140 little cove of a beach it's really a big quite a big area um so uh there there were there were

00:53:40.740 it wasn't just the british actually it sold there was the french free french polish contingents

00:53:46.020 norwegian contingents even uh went ashore at sold um and there's another bit more in-depth uh map and

00:53:56.740 all the different sectors are given given their names and things uh there's some great stories of

00:54:02.660 beach masters once you get on the beach it would be some sort of sergeant major's job right to just

00:54:07.780 make sure that no one dallies on the beach no dallying on the beach yeah yeah um

00:54:15.540 yeah no slacking um and even senior officers would want to do something send a message back or have

00:54:22.420 something they wanted to do or say and uh um the beach master comes up and just like get off the

00:54:27.140 beach there's one famous story a lot of people remembered of a guy had somehow had an alsatian

00:54:32.580 with him and he just wouldn't take any crap from anyone it was his job to get people off the beach

00:54:37.940 and inland off the dunes and keep going and just wouldn't take any crap from anyone under any

00:54:43.940 circumstances and even like colonels and generals like okay i get it i get it okay i'll do as i'm told

00:54:50.340 fine is it was am i right in thinking it was uh d-day with that story of that man i can't remember if

00:54:56.980 it was american or british who had a longbow there was one guy who had a longbow on the beach i don't

00:55:04.020 know i don't know there was john churchill i i there's various there's various accounts of people

00:55:10.980 doing weird all sorts of yes all sorts of there's one guy um like he had a golf club or a cricket bat with

00:55:19.380 him and there's all sorts of stories right eccentric people there's um the bagpipers on the beach

00:55:27.540 there's a an anecdote of a bagpiper standing up playing the pipes and people all around him like

00:55:32.500 while the fighting's going on yeah with their heads down hoping for dear life not to catch a bullet

00:55:36.900 they can't believe there's this highlander there playing the pipes yes loads of stories like that

00:55:41.860 again sort of almost stranger than fiction sort of unbelievable yeah quite literally unbelievable but it

00:55:46.740 it happened quite often um there'll be like some senior officer walking along under fire just

00:55:52.740 slowly walking along with with his pipe in his mouth uh all sorts of all sorts of crazy things

00:55:57.460 but some men are fearless or at least affect fearlessness when it matters yes right um i'm not

00:56:04.340 sure i would be one i wouldn't be one of those no i wouldn't be one of those people i know it

00:56:07.860 yeah yeah i'd like to think i would yeah in daydreams but in reality i'll be if i'm being

00:56:14.660 peppered by machine gun fire um i probably wouldn't smoke a pipe yeah i don't think i could do that

00:56:20.260 an m42 hitler's buzzsaw is uh barking at me from relatively close range yeah i'm going to hit the

00:56:24.980 deck yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm not standing up playing the bagpipes for love nor money these men

00:56:29.860 were remarkable so i wanted to show people some pictures of you know what it was really like this is

00:56:34.580 sword beach and this is obviously a little bit later in the morning um and you can see and there's

00:56:39.780 loads of sand banks as well often you think there's just the sea and then a sandy beach and that's it

00:56:45.860 but no it was because it's like quite an open flat you actually have and the tide was half in half out

00:56:52.420 um you had sort of sand banks and then trenches where there's a bit more sea and so on um

00:56:58.900 um so uh yeah there's another this again is sword so how long did it take to storm sword a few hours

00:57:10.420 they're off the beach within a few hours two two or three hours i think something in that ballpark

00:57:15.300 um so relatively quickly we were lucky if the germans had more time and men and material

00:57:23.540 and hadn't been a bit unlucky from their point of view in a few different ways it could have been

00:57:30.580 a hell of a lot worse it could have been a hell of a lot worse and if rommel would have his tanks

00:57:35.300 yeah he wanted i mentioned solerno and anzio um earlier i mean those were much more fiercely

00:57:43.860 fought over landings i mean even in ancient times even like marathon it's difficult to fight up a beach

00:57:50.820 when the defenders don't want you to it's very difficult um anyway that's what sword looks like

00:57:56.100 these days um there's still those casements from the from the um uh mulberry um what was supposed to

00:58:06.500 be temporary harbors but the remnants of them still there um you can see how this sea is peppered with

00:58:14.020 rommel's defenses a lot of those baffles were also mined um yeah because men would naturally

00:58:21.620 be inclined to go towards them to get cover and so you mine them too or if your landing craft

00:58:27.300 accidentally nudges one it blows up yeah um there was an aerial view oh yes okay gold beach

00:58:38.500 uh at gold beach there was about 350 killed about 1100 casualties and 350 odd killed so once again it

00:58:49.300 seems like small potatoes when you look at like the siege of kiev or something you think that's sort of

00:58:55.540 nothing but once again if you were there on that day it wouldn't i'm sure it wouldn't it wouldn't

00:59:01.140 have seemed like nothing yeah i don't think that will comfort you yeah right yeah that's no that's no

00:59:05.380 comfort all right um and there was a 30 corps when you're sure there the famous 30 corps of market

00:59:12.660 garden fame and with the backbone of which was the uh 8th armored 8th armored division also the 50th

00:59:19.780 infantry and the 56th infantry brigade uh so a purely british beach there i want 47 commander as well

00:59:26.900 royal marines um and again all those places you can see on the map all sites of fighting

00:59:35.380 going down there's a bit more of a better um more detailed map of it anyway um there's some

00:59:42.500 pictures some actual pictures you see bigger and smaller types of landing craft um a guy blacked up

00:59:50.980 there for camo because these guys of course getting off the beach is only the first it's only the it's

00:59:55.540 only the first few hours of their weeks or months long fight oh god yeah they're expecting to fight all

01:00:01.220 the way to berlin potentially yes all right so it's this is only the the very very uh the opening

01:00:07.620 gambit of their of their torment like guys they've got bicycles it's funny all the different things

01:00:12.900 they would bring ashore not just men and uh eventually armor but like bulldozers oh just everything

01:00:20.100 anything and everything you think you might need um yeah a bunch of bicycles you've got there

01:00:24.420 um that's what it looks like today um against very open yeah phenomenally if you were gonna if you

01:00:33.220 want it was your job to sweep that with a machine gun perfect in a diabolical way yes perfect it's uh

01:00:41.700 horrible really horrible um there again um the remnants of what was once there um

01:00:50.820 um okay juno juno beach it was canadian and british but mainly canadian um incidentally just

01:00:58.340 to mention uh at one point during the planning phase was considering whether there'll be three

01:01:02.980 entirely separate operations a british a canadian and a us thing they'd all do it on the same day

01:01:08.740 but essentially completely three different things that was actually in the offing at one point and they

01:01:13.300 decided no we need an overall combined joined up operation yes um so anyway the canadians

01:01:20.820 the canadians go ashore at juno the third infantry third canadian infantry in the second armored

01:01:26.340 second canadian armored brigade and uh 48 commander as well obviously british marines um

01:01:34.260 and um what was they they had about a thousand casualties about 340 odd killed so similar ish to gold

01:01:41.300 beach um once again not to labor the point when they push inland each one of these places has got its own

01:01:50.820 little story of heroism and tragedy um okay there you can see i mean all this stuff is documented to

01:01:59.140 a remarkable degree yes yeah gosh so when i say i'm only ever giving a high overview

01:02:05.060 uh in these in in these yeah big time because i'm barely scratching the surface barely scratching the

01:02:12.340 surface um that's what it looked like at the time um wading through um sometimes people were just way

01:02:22.980 down if they came in a bit too deep could just drown um or you come in on a sandbar i think you'll find

01:02:29.300 but there's actually another deeper bit of sea in front of you and you wade into it and drown oh all

01:02:33.540 sorts of all sorts of horrible things um there you go i mean remarkable remarkable remarkable photos

01:02:42.580 um yeah some iconic images of people from the perspective of the landing craft um yeah because

01:02:50.740 you said there was uh today some journalists in the landing crafts as well didn't you in the first wave

01:02:56.820 or whatever there was something in the order of 200 odd journalists embedded some in gliders some in

01:03:03.060 airplanes some on on the actual in the armadas some on landing craft yeah uh going on onto the beach

01:03:11.300 wild yeah yeah really wild they're they're very very brave men oh again all volunteers yes and the

01:03:18.740 accounts are like they were dying to there's way more volunteers than they than ike let go so again

01:03:25.540 i'm admitting to being a bit of a coward but i wouldn't have volunteered i'm a correspondent for

01:03:29.140 the bbc do you want to go in the first wave on sword beach uh no pass actually pass i'll do the weather

01:03:36.420 report how about that i'll go in the next day yeah and talk and describe the horror but actually in the

01:03:42.500 first landing craft no i'd rather not if that's all right but sir i don't want to leave me darling i

01:03:51.140 know i know don't slouch darling and that's what juno looks like today um yeah samson our producer is

01:04:01.700 there at the moment he is isn't he goes every year showed us some photos didn't he sent them through this

01:04:06.180 morning i would really like to go there i'd like to go there not in early june i'd like to go there in an

01:04:11.300 off peak time and and see it sort of when it's not crowded and things i would like to do that too

01:04:16.900 yeah definitely um okay again that's uh juno oh yeah there's a picture of the the one section one of

01:04:25.700 the casements of the the mulberry you they just we built loads of these back in britain loads and

01:04:30.660 loads and loads of them um again sort of an engineering feat just essentially a concrete block really

01:04:36.740 um get a tug to take it out to where it needs to be just off the normandy coast sink it fill it with

01:04:43.380 concrete do that over and over again and you've built a harbor remarkable and that harbor became

01:04:48.980 for a while the busiest harbor in the world until we captured dieppe or shawberg or something yes um

01:04:55.780 yeah quite quite incredible there you go there's a bit yeah there's a picture of it that's astonishing

01:05:00.260 mm with all the turrets on the top and yeah all sorts of things yeah incredible yeah and uh

01:05:07.940 there's again remnants of them still i mean giant concrete blocks like that don't just disappear

01:05:12.100 really no uh it's more hassle than it's worth to actually remove them so a lot of them or the

01:05:18.500 remnants of them are still there um becomes part of the history doesn't it yeah uh so something else

01:05:24.660 before i move on to talk about um i'm actually probably not going to talk about utah all that

01:05:28.900 much but i'll talk about omaha point de hoc um so between the two beaches there's this point

01:05:35.940 um where you can see here where it's a promontory that sticks out and the germans had a big battery

01:05:43.620 on the top there it's at the top of cliffs nine story high cliffs and um they would have heavy guns

01:05:50.580 uh which would just it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel they just looked down almost on the

01:05:55.380 beaches so again it sort of had to be taken um the americans it was in the american sector

01:06:02.340 uh it's between utah and omaha beach and um they sent a bunch of rangers

01:06:09.140 um because even back then rangers were among the most gung-ho badass sort of dudes so they were sent

01:06:16.500 there to the the foot of um they their landing craft went into the foot of point de hoc and they

01:06:21.940 were charged with just scaling these cliffs and taking the german positions at the top and they

01:06:26.820 lost like half their guys doing it um or more anyway heavy heavy casualties um they got up there and

01:06:36.180 there were no german guns the germans hadn't put the guns there oh yeah whoa classic war story of sort

01:06:43.380 of the futility yes of the the pointless pointlessness of certain things my god yeah right

01:06:51.300 yeah that's the that's the correct response good god can imagine them going up there and it's like oh

01:06:57.380 that was that was that was pointless but there's where they'd scale it um i think i've got some other

01:07:04.500 pictures yeah there were there were heavy um sort of concrete reinforced position there that we knew

01:07:12.100 about and could see and we assumed well they did have some guns not very far away right one mile

01:07:17.220 away they had their heavy guns just on that day they hadn't moved them into place or they're about

01:07:22.020 to move them into place but hadn't for whatever reason they weren't there they weren't there on the

01:07:25.780 right on that but we didn't know that no but there were german soldiers at the top of those cliffs

01:07:30.340 who shot down at the americans and um dropped grenades down on them but yeah the heavy that that position

01:07:37.700 didn't need to be taken or well it didn't need to be taken as at the loss that it was put it that way

01:07:46.820 it's sort of a modern recreation it doesn't look that big but it is nine stories tall yeah no i i believe

01:07:52.580 it i believe yeah i mean if you fell off the top you die you know um and uh yeah there's loads of

01:07:59.700 stories of guys you know getting halfway up and then getting shot off the cliff and um yeah rangers

01:08:08.260 oh yeah and there we you know we we peppered it from the sea from the air and from naval guns i mean

01:08:14.100 that that tells a story doesn't it right there it does it tells you everything you need to know about

01:08:17.860 how much the allied commander planners feared point de hoc that they did that to it and sent a bunch of

01:08:26.980 rangers to take it and um anyway anyway yeah i'd like to visit there i'd like to go there and see

01:08:34.020 that with my own with my own two eyes um again the the sort of acts of heroism the dash shown in the

01:08:42.980 in the face of the enemy by those rangers yeah unbelievable unbelievable remarkable what is that

01:08:49.060 up there is that a museum on top of it these days or i don't know yeah it's some sort of well i think it's

01:08:54.020 the um part of what was the original german nazi right emplacement um but now yeah it looks like

01:09:02.900 something sort of a visitor center or something building around it i don't actually know for sure

01:09:06.740 i've not been there i've not been there i'd say i'd like to visit it yes um but there you go

01:09:13.780 okay i would like to let a veteran like if we could hear the actual words of a veteran a couple

01:09:20.180 minutes worth um because there's one thing to read lots of books about it and watch some of the

01:09:26.180 original footage but there's the from a historian's point of view good solid primary evidence that

01:09:32.260 eyewitness account is is uh there's no substitute for that no definitely not and um i thought maybe we

01:09:40.420 could hear a few words uh from this chap who's actually there in fact he was one of the first ashore

01:09:46.500 uh on omaha beach he was one of the guys whose job it was to clear the uh barbed wire so he actually

01:09:55.380 went in even before he's literally first even went in before the the the the quote unquote first wave

01:10:02.580 of regular infantrymen because his job was to clear wire so it's like the the first dudes okay let's hear

01:10:10.500 from him landing craft first turn this up a little bit please because i was in the wire cutting section

01:10:17.540 i was the leader of the wire cutters and uh that's the reason that i don't know what to cross there

01:10:26.500 cross the beach first i got off of the boat first with five men behind me

01:10:32.980 we was all turned carrying what they call the bangalore torpedoes and when i went across the beach

01:10:42.660 carrying it i was loaded had it my pack my rifle enough rations for three days and when i got to the

01:10:54.340 sand going across the beach there was a machine gun hitting the ground right in front of me

01:11:02.980 kicking up dirt right about three foot in front of me and i couldn't go back i had to go forward

01:11:11.860 there wasn't no place else to go but he never did raise it high enough to hit me and uh when we got

01:11:21.060 across the sand then why there wasn't anything to get behind except where the water had washed

01:11:32.660 up against the shore and left about a foot and we kind of got down behind that

01:11:39.540 and the pill boxes was shooting at us

01:11:42.020 uh and we had nothing to come out with all we had was an m1 rifle a few hand grenades and we

01:11:53.540 throwed the hand grenades trying to throw them into the pill boxes but little old holes you had to throw

01:12:00.740 through we didn't get many of them in there so anyway why we were pretty well hung up we fought the

01:12:10.260 germans on the bank and we had them whipped but we couldn't go on account of the pill boxes the boat

01:12:19.220 that i landed on the landing craft there was me and five men got off of it and a shell hit it and killed

01:12:29.780 the rest of them we were the only five that got off of it a lot of us didn't land where we were supposed

01:12:37.780 to and like we were one of them but anyway why there wasn't anything to get behind but where

01:12:47.460 this water had lapped up against it had about a foot and we were down behind that laying on our bellies in

01:12:55.540 water shooting at these soldiers on the bank and uh that's just the way it happened we we come

01:13:03.940 we what we didn't kill we run off and i'm not going to tell you i killed any because

01:13:14.100 i don't talk about that but i will tell you this i was a good soldier and i could hit what i shot at

01:13:25.380 and i shot a boy stub full of ammunition

01:13:33.060 well there you go uh these accounts are um unbelievable really it's like it reminds me of

01:13:40.260 grandpa simpson in a way that guy but you know a true uh a a real veteran who was actually there

01:13:46.100 yes i mean um from just purely from the historian's point of view um it's remarkable and i'm glad that

01:13:53.780 there's not many of these guys left now um it's great that we've got a lot of their a lot of their

01:14:00.500 accounts um so he said later that when they took the position behind the dunes he went into the

01:14:08.180 position or the pill box wherever it was of the machine gun that was shooting just in front of him

01:14:12.340 and he said that on the wall was marked out ranges and he said that whoever was shooting at the german

01:14:19.860 that was shooting at him was just shooting by numbers he wasn't even aiming at him if he wanted

01:14:26.100 to aim at him and shoot him he could have but he was just he was just following the numbers of the

01:14:29.700 range for the elevation that was the only thing that saved him and he said in luck i couldn't go back i

01:14:34.980 could only go forwards says it all doesn't it yeah you cannot you can't go back so you've got to go into

01:14:40.980 a machine gun fire or mortar fire or whatever it is i mean it's so so brave yeah it is um okay

01:14:49.460 cornelius ryan said about omar beach there were eight concrete bunkers with guns of 75 millimeter or

01:14:54.740 larger caliber 35 pill boxes with artillery pieces of various sizes and automatic weapons four batteries

01:15:01.460 of artillery 18 anti-tank guns six mortar pits 35 rocket launching sites each with four 38 millimeter

01:15:08.580 rocket tubes and no less than 85 machine gun nests nearly all of which hadn't been knocked out by

01:15:17.060 naval bombardment or nearly all of it was still there ready to rock and roll when the guys

01:15:21.700 rocked up so no wonder there were 90 the bodies 100 casualties of some of the waves no wonder best

01:15:28.980 part of two and a half thousand men died there horrible it really yeah uh horrible terrible stuff uh so

01:15:37.060 there's a a picture some of the worst stuff took place at dog green dog white but nowhere was easy

01:15:42.500 on omaha i mean easy red was it was terrible um but dog green i mean dog green is where tom hanks goes

01:15:52.740 ashore on private private ryan right some of the worst stuff was at dog green but none of it was easy on

01:15:59.380 omaha um uh so realize because i was going to play a bit of uh saving private ryan uh but i don't think

01:16:07.940 we've really got time anyone because i think a good drama a good movie or tv if it's done right if it's

01:16:15.700 done well and it's authentically done can really give you a feel for what it's really like a lot of

01:16:21.140 veterans that lived long enough to see saving private ryan say said this was the most realistic thing i've ever

01:16:26.500 seen i've heard that too yeah um so anyone who hasn't seen it i do advise if you're interested

01:16:32.980 watch saving private ryan particularly the opening of the movie uh where they sort of they do depict

01:16:38.660 uh omaha on the morning of the 6th of june 44. it's just certain things

01:16:45.540 i was just gonna say there's certain things about um the the opening to this film that you know just

01:16:50.580 really stick in my head one was where um there's a there's a shot from a turret and it grazes a guy's

01:16:56.020 helmet and you're like oh god you know lucky son of a and then it just goes straight through his

01:17:00.260 head and then another bullet gets him yeah it's like just that level of yeah see you guys puking

01:17:06.980 there uh not just from fear there's loads and loads of accounts uh because the sea was rough really

01:17:13.060 rough uh the roughest for that part of the year in 20 years loads of guys were seasick and obviously

01:17:20.180 not even to mention being scared out of your wits because they were told you can expect massive

01:17:26.260 casualties uh the planners did think well there were some in the navy picking the british navy thought

01:17:34.660 that we might it might be a failure the whole operation yeah yeah there's a couple of guys that

01:17:39.300 thought this is just not a good idea yet this isn't the right time the right moment all sorts of things

01:17:44.660 but um um yeah um i mean yeah loads of guys just getting as soon as the uh as soon as the the front

01:17:56.180 of the landing craft comes down the mg42s light them up and it's uh uh well yeah shooting fish in a

01:18:05.380 barrel that's brutal yeah terrible stuff terrible terrible stuff um all right i won't play that uh don't

01:18:13.060 want to get copy uh get a copyright strike anyway um so we need a few minutes at the end for comments

01:18:20.100 and things so um i'll start to wrap it up there but a few things to mention about omaha beach is that

01:18:25.860 a few of the waves stalled and you can't blame them i said this last last year as well not blaming

01:18:32.340 anyone because the first wave comes gets 90 100 casualties second wave comes in not much better

01:18:38.340 third wave comes in you come into a charnel house um and you're under fire still and you just

01:18:44.420 get out of the sea onto the beach behind some sort of tiny little bit of cover and you're just under

01:18:50.660 such sustained fire that it's that you freeze um and it just takes it just takes a few kind of crazy

01:19:02.980 guys say no stand up move forward and there are accounts at omaha beach if you sometimes some really

01:19:08.820 seen there's one there's a general was on the beach i was on the beach yes saying like standing up

01:19:14.500 screaming to the men that are cowering down behind him going you're ever going to die here or you're

01:19:18.180 going to die up there don't die here let's go let's do it there was one there was um uh well anyway

01:19:26.180 the story is going on perhaps next time i can spend a full hour and 20 talking about just

01:19:31.140 omaha yeah um because enough men did survive and talk about it to um that we know minute by minute

01:19:38.660 exactly what happened sure and um there was a good video i had i thought i'd had teed up but we don't

01:19:44.100 have it where it shows today what it looks like and there's bluffs or cliffs overlooking the beach

01:19:51.540 um and you just immediately see at a glance that anyone on top of those bluffs

01:19:55.540 with a machine gun or a mortar or whatever um it's just perfect for defending that it would just

01:20:03.460 be the easiest thing just to sweep around and kill everything in front of you um a terrible place to

01:20:10.260 have to attack and there's a few inlets or drawers uh sort of natural breaks in the cliffs five of them

01:20:17.140 on omaha beach um and it's obvious kind of obvious that that's where you've got if you're

01:20:23.140 going to go inland get off the beach and go inland that's the exit but the germans know that as well

01:20:28.340 and so they're probably one gun at the top of that or more than one gun yeah you put something heavy

01:20:32.100 at the top of that anyone trying to storm up here filter through get shredded yeah yeah it's like you

01:20:37.380 funnel yourself into their guns oh terrible i want to give the last word to another veteran

01:20:44.820 who makes a really important point i think one of the most important points

01:20:51.700 about it um i'll let him speak back on that yeah you know a lot of people don't realize

01:20:58.740 d-day they wrote a lot of books and a lot of movies about it the whole d-day was only 18 hours

01:21:04.020 we dropped the boats at four o'clock in the morning and 10 o'clock at night the beach was ours it was

01:21:11.380 only 18 hours the whole thing people make a big speck at the valley you know d-day d-day it was 18 hours

01:21:19.140 that's all it was but we did lose 2 000 men on the beach i said men i shouldn't say men 2 000 kids

01:21:30.180 we were all kids we were all kids we were too young to drink we were too young to vote we weren't too

01:21:41.140 young to die 18 years old 19 20 years old they were kids someone didn't even shave never shaved

01:21:51.140 yeah um god that makes you emotional yeah yeah uh a terrible and somehow simultaneously glorious

01:22:07.620 glorious thing i mean a crazy crazy thing yeah heroism and sorrow just all mixed in there together

01:22:15.620 our generations are not used to this sort of uh this sort of thing um no um all right well

01:22:23.940 we'll have to leave it there um but hopefully i've filled out a few more details for people

01:22:28.660 who might not know anything about what happened on d-day and i'll do it again next year if we're

01:22:32.740 all still here yes thank you all right um shall i go yes okay i'll go through some comments some

01:22:39.300 super chats first oh sorry yes uh so um dragon lady chris says excellent presentation gentlemen uh on

01:22:46.180 behalf of the history nerds in the chat thank you uh that's a random name says some of the french

01:22:52.340 villages were so thoroughly obliterated that you'd think the yanks had dropped yeah uh juno was a

01:23:01.700 majority canadian beach because the a uh allies needed more more war crimes there i'm not sure

01:23:07.620 what um and flavius magnus says uh jack mcnasty mcnee was one of the more famous american

01:23:16.500 pathfinders and paratroopers on d-day check out the fat electrician video on him okay i definitely

01:23:23.460 will thank you um uh to the comments you've got uh az desert rat says uh did you guys know that d-day

01:23:31.220 was almost cancelled because crossword puzzles made by kids attended elementary school near a military

01:23:38.980 base the kids were using words spoken by military officers that they heard on the public bus going

01:23:45.380 to and from the school after investigate investigation it was determined that the operation had not been

01:23:51.300 compromised well that's interesting okay i didn't know that it was anything to do with school kids

01:23:58.340 but again in cornelius ryan's the the longest day he talks about how there was i think it was

01:24:04.900 it was either the telegraph or the times the crossword puzzle it was compiled by two old school

01:24:10.420 teachers they weren't school kids they were old men and they'd been doing compiling the crossword for

01:24:15.380 years years and years and he had a cult following back in the day thousands and thousands of people

01:24:21.140 every single day were addicted to the crossword yes and over the last few weeks he'd used words like

01:24:27.620 omaha and uh overlord and neptune and load like quite a few words that were secret uh words yes and they

01:24:38.100 they had appeared in the crossword in i think it was the telegraph might be in the times and um yeah

01:24:43.380 uh uh at the time of the actual beach landings once the trigger had been pulled and it was all

01:24:48.980 happening uh mi5 visited him and said can you explain yourself like why have you what how is

01:24:56.660 this this is really sus and he said i've got no explanation it's pure chance i don't know what

01:25:03.860 else to tell you and he wasn't aspiring no no it was just some sort of crazy coincidence that is crazy

01:25:09.940 um i mean something like a word like neptune isn't like that obscure but still you know

01:25:15.300 so i didn't i didn't so i knew that but i didn't know the school kid angle of it that's interesting

01:25:20.020 if true uh yeah uh zesty king says i was lucky enough to go on a trip last april to each beach stormed

01:25:27.140 on d-day as well as pegasus bridge uh uh san marie uh eglise and various museums i would highly recommend

01:25:35.460 going there's nothing like seeing it all in person it's a lot easier to understand why omaha was

01:25:41.380 particularly bloody after seeing the terrain the americans faced which goes back to what you were

01:25:46.100 saying didn't it about the uh about the way they filtered them in yeah up the hills yeah i should

01:25:52.260 go there i need to visit it there yeah i should too yeah uh bleach demon says uh i cannot express enough

01:25:59.700 how fascinating it is to visit normandy not only humbling but the interesting little museums make

01:26:05.860 it worth a meander through the countryside and there's other things in normandy i'd want to visit

01:26:12.180 as well anyway right i'd like to visit rouen i was going to say yeah yeah or bayou yeah i think the

01:26:19.300 bayou tapestry is still in bayou i'd like i really want to see that with my own two eyes yeah um there's

01:26:24.580 loads of castles there's loads of like normandy era castles and things i really want to visit so

01:26:30.020 is the uh the castle where richard the lionheart was shot in normandy um i thought it was it was

01:26:36.260 north france i'm not it's in the region i don't know if it's actually in normandy it might be

01:26:41.060 um uh federal agent uh they expected one third of parachutists to become casualties on the drop

01:26:48.180 yeah right yeah yeah some people some of the planners thought we might basically lose all the

01:26:52.980 paratroopers or like 90 percent might get killed here because it happened in the past that when

01:26:59.620 the germans dropped loads of paratroopers on crete they nearly all got killed or a massive majority of

01:27:04.900 them anyway when the germans dropped loads of paratroopers into holland loads of them got killed

01:27:10.660 um we we dropped paratroopers in sicily and italy didn't go well so yeah yeah dangerous yes well he says

01:27:21.060 as well he goes on to say paratroopers were 19 years old on average often young yeah the officers are

01:27:27.220 obviously older but often yeah you have to be absolutely peak fitness and that's when you're

01:27:32.580 like 19 20 under 25 usually it goes back to what that gentleman there was saying about them being

01:27:39.780 boys and kids and because that sort of thing didn't never when i was 20 when i was 25 that sort of

01:27:46.100 testimony didn't hit me as hard as it does now now i'm in my knocking my mid 40s early to mid 40s

01:27:54.100 that hits harder than it used to yeah um anyway uh don don no near uh woodsman says i came here for

01:28:04.260 the normal news however the podcast today is fantastic thank you gents well very glad no you've been doing

01:28:10.420 the heavy lifting with this and it's been wonderful to listen to you talk about it thank you yeah no

01:28:15.380 worries no no thank you i hope uh i say this often when i do an epoch especially one that's a bit more

01:28:21.700 a pertinent or a bit closer to our times uh i hope i've done it some justice um once or twice i've done

01:28:28.420 stuff where people have gone i once did a bit of content about the falklands and some people thought

01:28:33.300 i was being a bit glib i didn't mean to be i wasn't trying certainly wasn't trying to be right

01:28:38.100 um so i hope i've done it some justice and i hope um again an hour and 20 isn't really enough

01:28:46.180 um only gonna scratch the surface but um yeah no thank you guys for listening um letting me drone on

01:28:52.900 about it well um russian garbage human says uh you did this last year too i love it i know there's been

01:29:01.380 so much happening last night in both america and britain but this is important uh we can look at

01:29:06.500 the chaos on monday we will do which is very true on monday we'll come back with all that news

01:29:11.940 yeah those explosions of news that happened uh just the other day we thought we'd actually it might

01:29:17.700 even be worth letting things play out for a bit yeah let the smoke clear these things and then we can

01:29:23.700 we'll talk about it on monday with uh greater information behind us so we're uh at uh half past two now so

01:29:30.100 i suppose that's all there is for today thank you so much to everyone for listening you can join us

01:29:34.980 in half an hour if you'd like for lads hour where we're going to be playing um a game called jackbox

01:29:40.900 which i've never heard of but it sounds like it'll be a laugh and if not then have a very pleasant

01:29:47.300 weekend thank you for joining

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 06, 2025

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1181

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript