I know I will most certainly never be able to go there and experience it for myself first hand, so thank you for taking me with you instead. I enjoyed it. Much appreciated!
We are taking the Beyond Band of Brothers 75th D-day tour! so we will be on Omaha June 6th 2019 at dawn! 7 days in Normandy, 3 in Belgium/Bastogne and 3 in Munich/Eagles nest! We will not see the Crossroads so your tour is very much appreciated!
Thank you very much for doing this, fantastic job, so much better to see what it actually looks like other than the 'Hollywood' cinemascope version, so kudos to you!
The 'weird, noisy lawnmower sounding cars' you comment on at the 0:35 are actually 4-wheeled mopeds with 50cc two-stroke engines and aren't allowed to exceed 45kph. They are usually used by the elderly and physically impaired to maintain mobility despite being unfit, unwilling or not able to afford a car. If you look carefully you can see a round white sticker with a red rim on the back of the thing, with '45' in the middle, warning others of it's lower speed than actual cars. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorised_quadricycle)
I'm curious... Are you referencing the book "Band of Brothers", when speaking of the actual events (not how it was portrayed in the mini-series). I'm looking to purchase the best books on the actual events. Great video....thanks for sharing.
Very good video mate! I live nearby this place and visited it a couple of times. Have you visited Schoonderlogt as well? It's just a few miles from Crossroads, check it out! :)
I tend to think the second German company/rest of the battallion was on the other side of the dike already, and thought a major flanking manouvre was taking place, which would leave them in a kinda same sort of position as Winters' troop. Also not very handy to use the winter dyke as a cover because that would mean being fully exposed to the US main force at Opheusden.
According to anything I have read about the Brecourt Manor action is it took several hours to complete (there were more stages to the event after that seen in the TV series for example) For example, Winters returned to Grand Chemin during the action because his team were running out of ammo. As I noticed on a return to Brecourt, a memorial sculpture showed one of the guns in the wrong place even though Winters had been involved in the design. Memories fade.
+devin white The two books I used to help me in the WWII related tour I took to Holland were "From Toccoa too the Eagle's Nest: Discoveries in the Bootsteps of the Band of Brothers" by Dalton Einhorn (obviously very specific to the Band of Brothers and the Crossroads incident) and "Major and Mrs.Holt's Battlefield Guide Operation Market Garden" by Tonie Holt, Valmai Holt, the best guide book if you are interested touring locations linked to Operation Market Garden.
@@robbreeding9937 From what I understand, Winters though the kid thought Winters was a joke his friends were playing on him. I still wonder what it takes to get humans to just kill someone.
@@TimothyOBrien1958 Hmmm I’ve never heard that. He doesn’t say it that way in this interview. He just says he was startled by him being right there over the hill and that the German soldier smiled. Probably just a nervous reaction. Apparently that image haunted him for a while. Here are his words ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hnF6z9yyGo4.html
Those weird , noisy , lawnmower cars are actually called moped cars.. you can drive them without a car drivers license they run on diesel and suck because they can not go beyond 45 km/h ... the elderly use them mostly and spoiled kids .. lol
Encore un endroits ou a eu lieu un combat , il y en a eu des milliers , mais evidement , vous occulter tout les autres .....................................!!
I won't bore you with reading the memorial - no problem I'll just get on a jet and fly over the pond and spend a bunch of money and read it myself no need for you to take 5 min to read it screw that would be cheaper to maybe view it on a better computer maybe I could read it.
here you go Sir: "Crossroads" Around half past five on the morning of October 5, 1944, American soldiers of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and soldiers of two German companies crossed each other’s paths at this very spot. The German soldiers had crossed the Lower-Rhine river probably to reinforce an attack in the vicinity of Opheusden. A patrol of five Americans were exploring the area when they were caught in the line of fire of the enemy. Although one soldier was seriously wounded, they managed to withdraw to the command post where they reported the incident. A second patrol set off immediately, to fight back the enemy. The second patrol snuck up on the machine gun which had attacked the first patrol, fired some successful rounds and then returned to their fallback position. Firing from both sides broke loose. Later, the American commander discovered that the enemy was hiding behind a raised dike while his men were in a shallow ditch without any possibility of safe retreat. The best and only option was to attack. At dawn the orders were given to fix bayonets and to wait for the signal to charge. The attack started when 35 American soldiers ran toward the dike, not realizing that some 150 Germans were waiting behind the embankment. The German company, however, was completely taken by surprise and panicked even though they were attacked by only a relatively small group of Americans. Meanwhile, a second German company crossed the dike toward this unexpected confrontation. Despite this reinforcement, the few Americans managed to hold out. The Americans won the battle in spite of bitter German resistance. Fifty German soldiers and one American soldier were killed. The American soldier was hit by a shell fragment that pierced his heart. This soldier was William Heiter Dukeman Jr (2-09-1921 - 5-10-1944). May this symbol remind us of all the soldiers who fought in this battle.
