Mark Your Calendars! The Korean War by Indy Neidell is just two months away: www.youtube.com/@KoreanWarbyIndyNeidell

My grandfather used to say, if a kamikaze hit a us carrier it was "firemen man your hoses!", if a British carrier was hit, it was "sweepers man your brooms". He was aboard a fletcher class destroyer so he had ring side seats so to speak.

Once all this is over, I’d love to see a round table with the whole crew where you talk about the things in the war that interested you the most. Battles, equipment, tactics that were developed, anything really.

My favorite (weird term for such a thing actually) Waffen SS trooper was Lauri Törni. Started as a trooper in the finnish army, went on to be a waffen SS man, get incarcerated as a war criminal by the finns for his SS service, escape prison. Ends up as a Green Beret in the US war in Vietnam..

The last servicing crew member of the Arizona was laid to rest today. It makes remembering those who have gone before even more important. Good work Indy and crew.

I had a great uncle who fought in Italy. His opinion was that the S.S. units were the most fanatical, but not necessarily the best fighters. He said that the toughest soldiers he faced were from fallschirmjager and gebirgsjager divisions.

Being a German Historian for the IFZ in Munich and German Bundeswehr Veteran of the 23rd Gebirgsjägerbrigade with 2 Tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Kosovo and in general being from a German Family where everyone was a Soldier in Combat i can also share that during WW2 both my paternal and maternal Grandfathers including some Uncles from both Sides were Waffen-SS Soldiers reaching from the 1st Div LAH to the 6th Div "Nord" fighting alongside the Finns against their Soviet Aggressors. Now i didn't watch the Video yet, but i decided to post my Opinion on this before seeing the Video as to not be influenced. I met and interviewed at least over 100 Waffen-SS Veterans, even Croatian, French, Italian, Norwegian and any other inbetween. None of them ever even saw themselves as being "Elite" or "better than others" but instead mostly pointed out that a lot of the Waffen-SS was considered to be "elite" after the War because of the few Divisions who had an insane Combat Experience on the Eastern Front, who then ended up on the Western Front fighting the Western Allies, which in their Opinion lead to so many Western Historians and War Vets describing the Waffen-SS as this Elite Force, when in Reality they just had some of the most Experience Also that said, my Paternal Grandfather turns 105 years old this September and was a Waffen-SS Soldier since the Invasion of France (was with the 1st LAH, 6th Nord) and after the War he became very good Friends with a ton of his former Enemies and even lectured at US War Colleges in the 1960s and later. He's still doing pretty good, he spends most of his Days taking care of his huge Garden in the Backyard and whenever he falls over, he has one of those "Buttons" you click as an old Person, which then contacts me and i go over and pick him up haha. Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps

Ascalon - The name given to the Lance used by St George to kill the Dragon. - What's not cool about that?

It should be remembered that the Royal Navy carrier HMS Victorious served with the US Pacific Fleet from March until August 1943, a time when the US Pacific Fleet was down to one single Fleet Carrier (the Saratoga). It carried its own squadrons of FAA-crewed aircraft, albeit flying American Avengers and Wildcats. The carrier took part in covering the landings on Munda. It was during this deployment that joint operating procedures between British and American carriers were agreed. The British learned a lot from the Americans about handling large, heavy aircraft like the Avenger, while the Americans were impressed by the Royal Navy's methods for controlling fighters guarding the fleet guided by radar - lessons painfully learnt in the Mediterranean. To hide to the Germans that HMS Victorious was in the Pacific a merchant ship was fitted with a mocked-up flight deck and anchored in a Scottish loch while radio traffic to duplicate that generated by an aircraft carrier was transmitted from a hut onshore nearby.

“Whoever is ethnic German depends on how many men we need.”

Now that we are in the subject this channel should analyze other countries'"elite units" and depate were they truly the best. Note: I did not mean comparing the elite units of armies to each others. I meant how well they performerd in their missions in comparison to their reputation.

I had a pretty incredible opportunity about a decade ago to speak with a local American WWII veteran who parachuted into France on D-Day (he still had a large chunk of his canopy as a souvenir.) Knowing their reputation, I asked him what his opinion of Waffen SS and Fallschirmjäger soldiers were. He responded along the lines that they were tough and his comrades had a certain respect for them, but they weren't scared of them. I'll never forget that he said that the only soldiers that he said that they *were* scared of was the Georgians who volunteered to fight with the Germans. I thought that was a very interesting answer that I didn't expect. I wish i had more opportunities to talk with him. Rest peacefully Chet.

I remember a quote by Patton, something like "They were special SOBs until they ran out of special SOBs."

I would say in addition to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd SS Panzer Divisions there were a few other very capable Waffen-SS divisions. Specifically, the 5th SS Panzer Division 'Wiking', the 9th SS Panzer Division 'Hohenstaufen', the 10th SS Panzer Division 'Frundsberg', and the 11th SS Panzergrenadier Division 'Nordland'. The 6th SS Gebirgs Division 'Nord' also gained quite a reputation amongst U.S. troops during Operation Nordwind for their effective small unit tactics, most notably in the battle for Herrlisheim.

Elite fighters? Perhaps not uniformly, but their animal training program seems to have produced real results. Note the dog driving the equipment at 10:25 while seemingly mentally prepared and composed enough to inspect the camera and bystanders at its leisure.

So much content this month! Thanks for all the Amazing work you all do

There is a story that during one of the long flights that Churchill took. It was very cold and the flight chief lit the special kerosene heater, Churchill's blanket almost caught fire, so the chief had to turn it off and Churchill was made to endure the low temperatures for the duration of that flight.

Wow, You folks have been very busy !! Thank You for all the extra episodes !! I am glad to be a Time Ghost member...

Otto Skorzeny looks like Fearless Leader in Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Great video. Always wondered about the logistics of the big conferences.

Do you know why I love this channel? Not only because of the information and education I get, but that terrific back and forth between Indy, Spartacus, and sometimes others. That whole Otto Skorzeny bit is a prime example.

On the Royal Navy in the Pacific threatre after the Battle of Santa's Cruz, the USA only had one serviceable fleet carrier, and therefore HMS Victorious was renamed USS Robin and transferred with her royal navy crew over to the USA. Also there is the huge what if scenario I believe it was late 1942 that if Admiral Summerville had not turned at the point he did, he would have met the Japanese fleet at night with 4 battleships and well would have destroyed mutiple Japanese carriers in a similar way to The Battle of Cape Matapan. The British fleet in the Indian ocean was large, it just had a much more important job of convoy duty, Japan only tried one attack in 1942 with 5 fleet carriers and did minor damage.

We all know what we want after the WWII series come to end: The 100 years war - week by week!

Very interesting stuff. It’s always cool to get more information and shatter some misconceptions.

Just found You and subscribed imideately. Now I prepare myself for a binge watching weekend.

Nice introduction video about answering these questions...thanks for sharing

My father served on HMS Newfoundland, a cruiser which was part of the British Pacific Fleet. Although they were somewhat welcomed, they were not allowed to have anything to do with sinking the last remnants of the Japanese fleet left in Japan. It was reserved for the U.S. Navy - understandable I guess considering Pearl Harbor. However they did use a Japanese cruiser for target practice after the war and sank that.😁

Another great episode! Thanks!

The armored decks were great if not seriously damaged, but, if seriously holed they were difficult to repair... the wood decks could be easily re-planked and back in service quickly.... also of concern was weight, a carrier could become top heavy with deck armor, American carriers had an "armored" hanger deck...lower "level" of weight...

Nicely done video

George Lepre wrote an excellent book about the Handschar division twenty years ago.

I read somewhere that the SS prewar was so picky they would reject a candidate for a cavity in a tooth. But by the end of the war if you had a pulse you could fight.

I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up

1943, before Manstein's counteroffensive an SS Corps was formed from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd SS divions which had been equipped as panzergrenadier divisions, but with a two battalion tank regiment and assaultgun battalion (panzergrenadier divisions normally had one tank or assaultgun equipped tank battalion and no added assaultgun battalion, but did have six panzergrenadier battalion instead of the four in a panzer division. One panzergrenadier battalion had half-tracks for transport, the other battalions being carried in trucks). This was the same organization as the army (Heer) "Greater Germany" (Gross Deutschland) panzergrenadier division (GD Pzgr division). Of interest each of these divisions tank regiments included a 14 (on paper) Tiger I company. They all kept that Tiger company until withdrawn from Russia in roughly August-September 1943. 1st SS was reformed in 1944 in France as Ist SS Tank Corps with 12 SS Panzer Division. 1st SS Division, now a tank division but also still with six infantry battalions, lost its Tigers to form the I SS Panzer Corps SS 501st heavy tank battallion. 2nd SS lost its Tigers to the SS 502 heavy tank battalion under the II SS Panzer Corps of 9th SS and 10th SS tank divisions. 3rd SS kept its Tiger company for the rest of the war. GD division lost its Tiger company in its tank regiment but gained a full Tiger battalion with 45 Tiger I tanks. Also formed were 4th SS infantry division (1941), 5th SS Wiking tank division, 9 SS and 10SS armored divisions. 17SS panzergrenadier division, 12 SS panzer division. These were the best of the SS divisions. The Heer had many more.

Some interesting Questions Cheers

I guess you could say Churchill was going commando. :)

Otto Skorzeny reminds me of the character Ludwig Von Siegfried on the Get Smart series

Hello Indy!! I Love Your Tie With The Cross!!😊

Thanks for answering my question! 😁👍

Bruce Fraser given command of British Pacific Fleet. BPF was one of the largest assembly of British and Commonwealth warships under a single command in the service's long history. Eventually this formation was working alongside the USN in the Pacific. The array of naval power against Japan at this stage of WWII was mind boggling. Your part on answering the Waffen SS question is spot on, too. It's only very specific regiments / divisions from early on in the war that were elite. Eventually this gets bled out, diffused. 1st SS Panzer Division lost experience with years of combat. In 1944 a portion of its leaders were siphoned off to act as a cadre for 12th SS "Hitlerjugend" to be formed around. That division was mostly formed of very young Hitler Youth members. Totally inexperienced but fanatical. The experienced members taken from 1st SS were needed to shore things up. This division would get mauled in Normandy. Panzer Lehr was a unit formed in 1944 and based in France in preparation for the Allied invasion. This was a fantastic Heer / Army unit as it was made up of panzer school instructors. But as with 12th SS, after about 1.5 months of heavy fighting they were bled out. All that experience was gone and not training the future panzer crews of the army.

John Winton's book, The Forgotten Fleet, does give a detailed account of the actions, trials and tribulations of the British Pacific Fleet. Its history is little covered in British WW2 histories, despite the fact that at war's end it was the biggest British Fleet in combat of the entire conflict.

Another set of 3 great OOTF Q&As

Very interesting video

No episode today?

Great question AND answer on Waffen-SS quality. I learned something new and interesting. Thank you.

I would say the Falschermjäger (paratroopers) were really Germany's elite fighters. If you look for example at the attack on Belgium and The Netherlands the Falmschermjäger were there before the Waffen-SS even arrived.

My dad, who had been a base supply clerk in Esquimalt on civvie street and was also a member of the RCN reserve was activated and sent to Scotland in 1943 where he was a base supply clerk at the convoy resupply base HMCS Niobe on the Firth of Clyde.. After VE Day he spent some time on wrapping up the base before being shipped back to Halifax. He was to be moved to Esquimalt as the RCN redeployed it's ships to the Pacific. While he was on the train headed for Vancouver Japan surrendered and after he was de-mobilized in Vancouver. This included a half day lecture by the padre on how to adapt to civilian life. Dad summarized this as "When you ask your mother to pass the butter, don't describe it."

Great video! Curious as to why you didn’t consider the 5th ss Wiking division to be another of the more consistent divisions?

Interesting information about the British Pacific fleet 🙂

The US Navy’s commander Fleet Admiral King refused Royal Navy participation in the Pacific war. Admiral King was overruled by President Roosevelt. The British Pacific Fleet was huge. But American historians largely ignore it.

Nick Macarious great question: I’ve often wondered how the world leaders got to the Tehran, Yalta , Potsdam conference!!!

HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repluse's loses were not due to not thinking air power was not important, it was that they didn't know the Japanese had a huge number of land based air assets that could attack shipping in the region. They were also technically still under air cover from Australian fighter aircraft stationed on land. But due to mutiple issues they never came in time. The tropical climate also messed up their fire control for the AA guns

My remarks are partly based on the (US) War Department's Handbook on German Military Forces and George Nafziger's German Order of Battle (WWII), Waffen SS and Other Units, and Panzers and Artillery. It seems apparent that there was a political intention to create elite units, e.g., 1st-3rd and 5th Waffen SS divisions, Luftwaffe Herman Göring panzer division, and even the Heer's Grossdeutschland division. These units were supposed to have additional units attached to the standard Heer organization to add firepower, e.g., the principal SS motorized divisions TOE had an assault gun battalion which it's Heer counterpart did not. The SS motorized divisions were upgraded to panzer grenadier divisions several months before the Heer divisions were upgraded to that TOE. So, while they may not have had their pick of the recruits, they seemed to have first pick on newer weapons. This approach seems to be similar to that of the Red Army guards units except that these were created from existing units that had notable battlefield success instead of political expediency. The only Wehrmacht units I've read about that seemed to me to be elite forces were the Luftwaffe's fallschirmjäger units from the earlier part of the war.

Churchill’s trips to conferences did seem to cost the Actor Leslie Howard his life when his plane was shot down. Howard had been mistaken for a close Churchill aide. Maybe a show on this event would be enlightening?

That tie is kick-ass

Thanks TG

i have read a lot of german war diaries. the truth is, ss unita had varying degrees of skill. especially towards the end of the war regular wehrmacht officers hated that the fanatical ss were getting the best weapons

9:52 Bermard from Military History Visulized has a video on this and has a similar conclusion: depends on the date

British Pacific Fleet "When you come to consider the case made by Lord Winster in relation to the Fleet Air Arm you have got to take into account the immense assistance that the Fleet Air Arm got from the American programme." "Then there is the Martlet. As to the output of these firms, they were persuaded to give up some aircraft which were going in other directions in order that we might be supplied 808 with essential aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm." Hansard Fleet Air Arm HL Deb 27 January 1943

1:45 shows HMS Ark Royal, the RN's one bespoke (non-conversion) fast fleet carrier WITHOUT an armoured flight deck.

Good overview! I have read pretty deeply of individual soldier accounts and you have nailed it. SS tended to be unusually well equipped, but training and later war recruit selection quality declined rapidly. Early in the war, the regimental size SS were pretty good. Frequently regular army officers who observed divisions indicated they often had good morale but took excessive casualties to achieve goals and siphoned off gear from existing veteran regular units.

Thanks

I've read some books about Dutch men joining the Waffen-SS just before or during the start of operation Barbarossa and from what i've learned, in the beginning stages the selection was very strict and the training was very, very tough. If i'm not mistaken the soldiers from the Wiking division, which consisted of all kind of westeren Europeans, performed quite well until the Germans lost the battle of Stalingrad.

Ascalon is cool-especially to those familiar with the St. George and the Dragon story, but “Commando” just sounds cooler (because of the British commando raids in the dark days of the war). That large Royal Navy force was Task Force 57. They get overshadowed a lot by the huge American Task Force 58, but as you described, Task Force 57 in and of itself, was vastly more powerful than the Kidobutai ever was at the beginning of the war, and played a significant role in taking the war to the Japanese shores.

Thanks for the great Q and A video! BTW, there is at least one or two war films made in Italy about assassinating the leaders in Tehran or Cairo, fictional but fun!

So as a Division you can literally have the name of the boss and still get not prioritized when it comes to getting new stuff of equipment?

The elite were the Fallschirmjagers. Look at Monte Cassino and Normandy in the defense.

As a fan of the French actor Alain Delon, I watched a Soviet film about the Tehran conference "Téhéran 43, nid d'espions" in which he starred.

Are you suggesting that Churchill went Commando? I'm not sure that I want to think about that. 😃

Thank you.

Dr. Alexander Clarke and Armored Carriers do great deep dives and interviews of Illustrious and Indefatigable Class Carriers

Think the myth of the SS being elite comes about due to fear not of their skills but of their brutality & fanaticism. The various war crimes attributed to them told any soldier facing them that it would be a mistake to underestimate or surrender to them.

nice

IIRC, the Wehrmacht 20th Panzer and 90th Light divisions served Rommel rather well. In France, IIRC, the 11th Armored showed up to plug holes so often and effectively that Patton nicknamed them "Firemen".

Joe Bloggs watches Indy! Fabulous!

The Waffen SS alongside the Luftwaffe's Fallschirmjager did a lot of the toil in 1944-45.

Thank you for the lesson.

How about our update on what happened to Justinian's desk?

*I recall coming on in about 2 weeks, a year ago YT was giving this channel major problems for zero reason.* I hope that all has ended by now

That line about Bosnian Muslims reminds me of something I read the other day. I'm reading Albert Speers, Inside the Third Reich for the first time and he mentions an interesting anecdote (among many, fascinating book). Apparently Hitler had never heard of the Battle of Tours and a few Arab Muslim delegates told him about the battle and how if the Muslims had won the whole world would today be Muslim (modern historians are mostly skeptical of the idea but it was a macro historical concept that was very popular for a long time), including Germany. After they had left Hitler started taking about how, of course, the superior genes of the Germanic people would have eventually triumphed over their conquerors and it would have eventually been Islamicized Germans and not Arabs who stood at the head of a Muslim Empire. Hitler concluded this historical speculation by remarking: "You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?" Would have been a waste of a lot of good beer and sausage though...

Depending on the division they could be elite like 1st SS or rubble like the 36th

At the beginning of the war the SS was entirely German by the end it was about 40%.The Waffen SS or the military branch of the SS, the divisions were recruited from all over Europe. This might seem strange to many but in European history such as the Napoleonic Wars the various nationalities fought under own formations but in the French army.

Operation Longjump reminds me of the movie "Where Eagles Dare."

His Holy Smoke tie.

Bruce Frasier was also the victor of the North Cape in 1943.

From what I have read, and maybe it was later in the war, but the SS divisions were often more aggressive or extreme to the point of experiencing heavier losses with less effectiveness.

3:51 Can we just take a momnent to appreciate the chaos common wealth radio would have been with all the different accents and nationalities 😂

I had a book 30 years ago that said that Americans and Japanese did not have armored flight decks because the extra fuel required would have been prohibitive in the vaster expanses of the Pacific. Has anyone else ever heard that?

Chapeau!

A conventional attack on Japan would have included British Commonwealth forces as well as the US, so it makes sense for the Royal Navy to make their way there.

Indy With Blunt Tie

Molotav had the nickname " The Hammer" !

Which Waffen SS? I've researched my father's 30th Division extensively. They fought the 1st and 2nd Waffen SS Panzer Divisions at Mortain in Normandy and the SS fought well, and fought honorably. Those divisions (all the German army in France) were just remnants after escaping through the Falaise Gap. The 30th fought them again at Stavelot in December and now they were fighting replacements without combat experience and without discipline. Mortain was a very, very tough fight where they barely held them back from breaking through to Avranches, but at Stavelot they easily outmaneuvered them, trapped them in a loop of the Ambleve River and beat them to death. It's notable that in Normandy they did not shoot prisoners or civilians (doesn't excuse what they did in the east), but in Belgium in December they shot about 150 civilians and nearly as many prisoners. Compare that to Mortain where they captured a small convoy of wounded, took their own men and allowed the ambulances to pass back into the American lines with the American wounded.

Fallschirmjager were Germanies' most elite soldiers. Not the Waffen SS.

To make it short and simple ; NO In the early days, they stole weapons from the Wehrmacht Once SS took over, they received the top notch weapons but their quality massively decreased because they were crushed on the Eastern front They were just fanatics amon fanatics and during some battles retreated like cowards Exactly like Azov Bn these days..

What is a triangular vs square infantry division? I was reading some war reports and they were talking about the change to American armed forces build up, and they changed from square to triangle infantry division

Is there any episode of OOTF or regular episodes where the spanish blue division is mentioned? I haven't been able to find any, though I have seen it on the map.

We definitely owe the Brits for showing us how to land a Corsair on a carrier. Much love from across the pond!!!

Great vid

I think a great follow on series to World War II would be based on Philip Payson O’Brien‘s book how the war was won. This looks at the war purely from an economic point of view and makes the case that it was the Air-Sea Battle fought over what he describes as a super battlefield which drew the majority of the resources of Britain, America, Germany, and Japan with Russia being the outlier, whereby it spent the majority of its resources on the land Battle. By making the Germans and the Japanese spend between 66 and 80% of their resources fighting the British Americans it left Russian forces facing a much weaker Wehrmacht than would otherwise have been the case : case in point of the 35,000 88mm guns deployed in 1944 only around 10% of them were deployed on the eastern front whereas the overwhelming majority were deployed in air defence roles by the Germans, I think this could make an excellent 10 part miniseries really getting into the underlying economics that underpin the war effort