My father’s oldest brother died in the April slaughter of the 600+/- soldiers that were in full gear and drowned without any life preservers. My uncle was a sailor on one of the two LSTs that night and a great part of the tragedy for the Allied troops was that a British Destroyer was assigned for protection (as usual that night) and could have given much more protection for the convoy with it’s larger guns and trained gun crews that could handle multiple targets, however the captain of the destroyer put into port for repairs and failed to report that to command for a replacement which left the largest and most potent weapon out of the plane and those men paid the price for stupidity and arrogance in the cold water of the English Channel. To say that Eisenhower was pissed when he heard about this fiasco is an understatement. But beyond the huge death toll from a training session 6 weeks before D Day, he was outraged by the loss of the LSTs which had been difficult to get because of their cost of $250,000 each which was an amazing amount of money to get congress to approve for only less than a dozen specifically for this invasion. I researched the total number of LSTs, but could never get an answer. However, Navy records indicate that 26 were sunk by the end of September 1944. And out of the total, one was kept afloat in the Navy, although LST 715 was listed as lost in June of 1944, it also shows up in Vietnam in and was back in the US and decommissioned in 1973. In one of two flukes, I happened to meet a veteran and we talked about my father’s service as the gunner and copilot on an SBD DOUGLAS DIVE BOMBER and it got around to my uncle’s death in the slaughter that was the result of the British captain’s dereliction of duty (who also never had any action taken against him because the entire event was covered up and everyone who died in it was buried in mass graves and it was not until the mid 1980’s when another uncle saw an article in the paper from a freedom of information act telling the truth about his oldest brothers death. My grandparents were told by the military that he had died during D Day and we decided that there was no reason to tell them the truth as they were in their 80s and the stress might have killed them), the second fluke of an event was that my wife and I went to England in 1991 for almost 3 weeks and after the obligatory tourist experience in London for two days we headed north and ended up in the town of Hexam in a B&B in the home of a lovely family who were so nice that we stayed 3 days touring the area of Hadrian’s Wall and the Moors during the days and enjoying their company at the pub and home in the evening. During one evening, I told the story about my uncle’s death and the wife became very quiet for a moment and then began telling me that she had been a nurse down on the SE Coast back then when she was just more than a girl. She said that they were called into an auditorium early that morning and told that they were about to see things that was extremely top secret and that should anyone be caught talking to outsiders, they would face the death penalty. When they left, they had to begin processing the bodies of the soldiers and sailors (over 150 sailors per LST) for burial in mass graves. The recovery of and processing of the dead took several days. I was blown away to have come to England and ended up meeting this lovely woman and her family! I understand that the town where this happened now holds a memorial service each year in April, and I regret that I am too old to attend one of these now, but I am pleased that the men who died in the service of our country are finally receiving the recognition and honor that they deserve! I have to say that I have always questioned the reason to have sent the men so far into the channel just to turn and practice a landing. But, that’s why I was not in command! God bless my uncle and all of his compatriots! The old professor Live free or die!!! Death ☠️ to all tyrants, all tyrants foreign and domestic!!! Pedophiles too!!! No Shit………….
Hello all, and thank you for watching this video! I appreciate y'alls feedback, but please note that this video is now 2+ years old, and does not show my best work, as I was working with older equipment at the time, and had not yet begun working with Tank Encyclopedia. If you want to see more work of mine, visit my channel, or visit Tank Encyclopedia's RU-vid page and look for the video editor named "Mace".
Mention PT boats & the image of a handsome JFK, hair blowing in the breeze comes to mind. PT boats were noisy & flimsy death traps despite the bravery of the crews. They used WWI torpedoes that often got jammed in the tubes. MacArthur fled the Philippines to Australia with two of the four boat flotilla never seen again. Too bad MacArthur didn't go down. He was a great man in WWI but a pompous & inept coward in WWII and desperately wanted to nuke China in the Korean war. As an example try and imagine Rudy Giuliani replacing Omar Bradley, all of Europe would have been speaking German by 43.
What an excellent video I learned a lot ! Just fyi KEEL is how the city is said not kee-el and Boot is said like Boat It now seems so silly that they are remembered as E-Boats and not S-Boots
Now, I could be wrong here, But at the school I went to in Kent in the late 60s we had a chemistry teacher called Chris Harvey, he lived on a converted German MTB at Shoreham on sea. Could this have been the same boat? It would be interesting to find out.
Our city had a WWII destroyer at the docks. A real piece of history that sat there rusting away for years. They kept slobbering on some kind of rubberized coating on the decks and one day in a blizzard it nearly capsized under the weight. Private money finally saved it.
Agree 100% but a very recent vid and interview reveals there is many years of restoration ahead before this happens. Stripped of most of its outer planking with the interior structure needing much attention. It doesn't look like the pictures at all right now.
They attacked british ships "WITHOUT WARNING"?!😂.. How many "warnings" did your IMPERIAL fleet sent to the u-boots destroyed? Hotlw about german marine murdered when they escaped and swim to save themselves, instead to take on board? How about "warnings" sent by british EMPIRE INVADERS when tgey took over that huge amount of colonies? How about mass murders in asia and africa?
Donitz was totally correct ! Instead of spending zillions in cruisers and battleships, the nazis should have invested in U-boats and in these small and very fast atack-ships. Arguably if a much larger U-boat Armada were available from the very outset, the Battle of the Atlantic might have been won before the idiotic Invasion of the Soviet Union. Which was impossible to succeed, at any rate.
4:50 An interesting term: “taken as a war trophy.” That probably means … “it’s ours and no changings” … it probably goes back centuries to old Admiralty Law. No title transfer needed. Any THOUGHTS? Lawyers? Enlighten me, please.
…that’s a super common term Rob. Referring to any materials (arms, or material seized by a conquering army). It’s not like buying a car or a boat and ‘transferring ownership’. Cheers! ✌🏼🇬🇧
@deaterk War trophies were a real thing but applied to sword, gun & knives etc. Like the German jets this would have ended up being studied by engineers in a secure facility. On a more grim note check out LIFE magazine’s “Picture of the Week,” May 22, 1944. A Marine's girlfriend pondering what to write him for his "gift" of a Japanese soldiers skull. If memory serves me the soldier had been burned alive in a tank. If nothing else at least Germans were Christian but the Japanese were slant eyed savages. Those aren't my thoughts, look at the posters from WWII.
update about the s130 search on youtube Exercise Tiger 1944 Memorial Channel CeeVisK HD Schnellboot S130. This is the story of S-130, the last surviving German E-Boat from WWII…
