Why Soldiers Brought These Weird Items To War 

There’s another reasonable reason to avoid new boots before a combat. New boots shall always been worn in first, I can imagine soldiers just didn’t want to suffer blisters in the middle of the battle.

My grandmother’s father was in the US Navy during World War II. He said that his ship’s mascot was a monkey and one day a sailor was woken up by the monkey. Irritated, he threw it out at sea. As if being stranded at in the middle of the ocean wasn’t cruel enough, the fact that Monkeys can’t swim only confirms the poor thing drowned.

I had 1 superstition. At the time, I was authorized 2 different combat patches. I decided to wear the most current patch. Over the next week, i lost 2 friends and another seriously injured. I put the old patch on, didn't lose anyone else the final 8 months of that deployment.

My dad was a WW2 and Korea vet. and he always believed in carrying a acorn on him was good luck.

About the new footwear: another reasons soldiers may have declined new boots was because of the fact that they could’ve come from a dead soldier. **All Quiet on the Western Front intensifies**

Aw you missed out Unsinkable Sam a cat that lived on the Bismarck before it sank and went on to survive 3 more sinkings which gave him the name "Unsinkable Sam."

Weird rituals can calm the nerves and instill confidence which are always great for survivability.

6:12 The epitome of the feline maxim "If I fits, I sits".

Soldiers are probably the most aware of how random everything is, and how minimal is their own will in the grand scheme of things, a bullet or a shell can drop on you any moment, even if you're doing everything as you should. So it seems normal to boost yourself with the thought that something takes care of you in a way. So that you can carry on in this dangerous environment, doing what you have to do, without bothering yourself too much with the primal fear of death. "random thing can happen to me anytime, but i'm good, i can continue, i have that thing boosting my luck, random is in my favour."

There was one that’s particularly interesting There was a WWl battlecruiser by the name of HMS New Zealand, which was given a Maori piupiu skirt and a heitiki pendant to be worn by the captain during battle. HMS New Zealand only suffered minor damage from the Battle of Jutland.

In iraq we told our guys not to heat up their MREs for good luck because someone said that heating up mres pisses off the locals and they might put an ied on your path

I like how the Itals sprinkled the dirt of their birthplace on them before battle. I haven't been to the state I was born in since I was 4

That trench foot, looks like my feet after I take a shower💀

I Kept a $2 bill on me for good luck. I also continued to wear my old boots but it was because they were worn in and comfortable, not because they were lucky.

nahhh, piggy was just emergency food XD

Praying sometimes works because it calm your nerves like “Please Lord, give me the strength to survive another day”

Avoiding new boots is also a good survival strategy: if you had newer boots than the rest of your squad, the enemy might assume you were an officer.

2:00 "3 on a match and you'll wind up in the booby-hatch."

It isn't just footwear. You only take equipment you know and trust into battle.

It always makes me smile when looking back to when I was a member of a rifle shooting team. We had a lovely old lady in our midst, she kept us in order 😂. But she had a "lucky bear" toy clipped to her rifle jacket. Didn't make a blind bit of difference to her shooting. But it didn't harm anyone. So despite our misgivings, I hope she still wears that lil bear 🐻

I had to have a chicken foot on the end of my gun tube of my tank and we always scored high on gunnery tables

Faith and good luck comes in many forms and ways.

The fire department also has some wild superstitions. One (that always got me) is that you never wash your bunker gear before or during your shift. If you do wash your gear, expect to get a call to a nasty structure fire & to get broiled (like a lobster) in your damp, half-dried gear. I can confirm this one with 100% accuracy.

You should talk about "the dai hong dan incident". Where in 2007, a north Korean cargo ship got hijacked by Somalian pirates. And a US warship came to the rescue after hearing their distress call. Fortunately, the NK sailors took the ship back after killing 2 of the baddies, and capturing 5 more. 3 of the sailors needed medical treatment, where US Navy medical personnel helped them. When the news spread around NK, they made a VERY RARE statement, PRAISING the US navy for answering the distress call for the their sailors. Worth talking about it. I'mma keep posting this comment until I get Simple History's attention! 😅

I also like lighting 3 candles

I heard the story of "never lighting three cigs with a single match at night" from Italian WW1 and some WW2 veterans...their reasoning was "When you light the first the enemy wakes up, when you light the second he grabs the rifle and takes aim, and by the tird cigarette he's lined up the shot".

don't eat the mre charms. it will rain

Can we please have a brief summary of the spanish/philipine-american war

Thank God I am a Catholic. The Rosary and the Sign of the Cross will save faithful

0:03 I know that not everything is a video game reference but I have a feeling that this has gotta be a reference to Swift's death in Black Ops 1

you should make a history video about the three Brazilian Heroes Arlindo Lúcio da Silva, Geraldo Baeta da Cruz, and Geraldo Rodrigues de Souza, Pinned by Sabaton In 1945 in Montese, Italy, a bloody battle ensued between Brazilian troops and the Germans they bravely fought until they ran out of ammunition and engaged in close combat with their bayonets. They were immediately shot dead and the Germans buried them and placed a cross with the inscription “Drei Brasilianischen Helden” (Three Brazilian Heroes) on their grave

The swastika was also a good luck talisman of the native americans, It is a Navajo symbol for good luck, also translated to "whirling log".

Yes my daily dose of Simple History as prescribed lol right on time😂😂🎉🎉 Perfect upload!

The first one made me "PUT THOSE GRIPPERS AWAY"

I have heard the 3 smokes with 1 match.

I bet Hitler saw the swastika being worn by Indian or British soldiers when he was fighting in WW1, and used that as the inspiration for the flag.

Excellent as usual!

Don’t eat the Charms…

Glanced and thought title said "Super Soldier Syrums that'll save your life" and got excited for a second

While it surely was only in the movie and the book it was based on, it's commonly assumed that right before Battle of Grunwald in 1410, both sides claimed that God would help His loyal subjects, with both King Jagiełło and Grandmaster von Jungingen saying exactly the same words. Nowadays this is mostly used in memes and jokes, with God replying to them that he doesn't want to be involved in it.

Poland had a military bear called Wojtek in WW2. To pay for his food he was enlisted as a soldier.

Great video!

One friend told that her grandfather, who was a “Poilu” (French WWI soldier), survived an assault during the Verdun Battle, as his Virgin Mary Medal stopped the bullet that certainly should have killed him.

I hoped for mentioning Wojtek the bear

Love the BF1 themes in the background.

I'm interested on the apricots, seems so out of left field

German soldier used "Signal" magazines for luck.

8:01 To add to that one. If you ever put apricots on a tank the crew will kill you. When my dad was in basic training someone put apricots on the generals tank. That general made the entire tank unit do push ups for 6 hours straight. When you passed out you got an IV drip or water and went back to doing push-ups.

Phone thing about keeping good luck charms makes a lot of sense and if my grandfather watch this well he probably would have been telling you the story about how the first time when you fixed the vehicle when he was in the service he kept one of the nuts in that vehicle and that not is still in my family's possession

Used to refuse "third light" while hanging around 'smoker's corner' at school.

“I cut my teeth in the trenches of the Somme, you larped your Santa Claus butt through Vietnam!” JRR Tolkien Stevie Wonder: Very Superstitious, wash your face and hands.

5:18 Out of all the symbols they could’ve used, they chose the one that aged poorly 20 years later.

Simpson and his Donkey want a word about their lack of involvement in this topic 😅😅😅

Thanks as always Simple History. This was an interesting video about superstitions of luck, kudos.

Best animal mascot was that bear that served with the polish artillery.

Simple History can you do a video on the War of 1812.

0:05 swift. . .

I thought it was a negligent absence to not include rosaries in the protective talismans section, but was then pleasantly surprised and intrigued to see that Catholic/Christian superstitions actually got their own mini-section!

"Superstition is born of ignorance and fear, and thrives the most when reason is asleep." - Zarathushtra

They had the power of plot armor and God on their side.

0:41 during my time at the auxiliaries, our sergeant scolded us for wearing new boots and to be honest I myself found it hard to patrol or move in difficult terrains using new boots

The bit about a pair of dice blessed by a priest had me chuckling like mad

2:48 as an orthodox, I can confirm

I hate how much detail you went in on the one shoot of the foot 😂

Hey can you make a video of the gun truck of vietnam war please and thank you

6:40 🙈🙈🙈🙈 I wonder what Jacko's duties involved 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Avoiding brand new boots. I have heard of similar superstitious ritual among some pro-baseball pitchers. Some does not wash their hands after winning the game; they thought it serves not to lose their luck.

I see you Captain Nixon lol

not all boots required the same break in. the summer boots always need weeks of breakin while the winter boots are ready to wear outside the box and are much more comfortable. life saving tips and tricks are not superstitions

Don't eat the Charms candy. It will rain.....too much

United We Stand

My great grandfather fought in two wars, World War One and the Libyan war. I never met him, even if we share a name, but i do have some pictures and personal objects of his from that time, including a signed mortar shell with the date of start and finish year of ww1. I wonder if he consider it his lucky charm.

do a video about weapons we think are new but are decades old

Years of watching movies have convinced me that pictures of loved ones are the exact opposite of a protective charm, it's a death magnet.

5:48 nooooo wake island rail

please do a video on these (this is a copy and paste list for a few channels) history of south Russia (just above caucuses) how Mongolia helped Russia in ww2 and cold war, greek life under rome, Mongolia life under china, and later in ww2/cold war and mabey a little on modern units and tactics/evaluation of loadouts of troops (from different jobs (and other branches) like the 82 snd 101 airborne units or infantry tank units, (or when tanks were assigned a infantry unit like i think earlier war Russia then all tanks were formed into there own units wich meant the infantry no longer knew the true strength of there own tanks but alowed tank units to fight more efficiently) the evaluation of tank doctrine of countries evaluation of tanks/armored vehicles of different countries evaluation of aircraft types of different countries, different between navil and army/air force fighters logistics units of the axes and allied powers in ww2 ww1 estern front tactics Russian Civil war tactics and strategies navil ship cross sections (all the rooms and how it all works) evaluation of types of ships or evaluation of navil warfare (or just dedectsded videos on ww1 and ww2 navil doctrine as theres stuff out there on other times of history) air craft carrier strike group formations exsamples (from different countries) ancient persan ships, ancient veneti ships (gauls that fought ceaser) ships used by genoa and the vernesain republic the vernesain republic government all sailing ships, (i know theres many on yt but some contradict each other and i think theres more left out) ancient macenean greek and trojan troops 2b9 vasilyok morter tactics used so far in the Ukraine war, better for squads to be 2 teams of 5 or 3 teams of 3, and probably the easiest, better to keep troops well feed or starved like an animal how dose age effect comsnders eg napoleon got older so took less risks, ancient urban warfare ww2 tactics in Asia, tactics in the Chinese age of warlords, (and Chinese civil war) tactics in the ruso jap war cold war navil tactics, Korean war tactics, strange tactics or unque battles from the American war of independence and America civil how were 17th centry sailing ships build comands given on sailing ships (like ease the sheets and get ready to chine, or slack n beases, basically things you hear movie capitns say) why did the nazis never return (or a video on best occupations) why did the Japanese empire fall, dont just say "America" like things like how there army and navy argued alot alot more on the Polynesians and māori, but please learn pronounceations if you do this

Very good job dudes!! Congratulations 996.6% yo. I also like lighting 3 candles!

0:06 Rest in peace swift

I can get in trouble for leaving a comment but there was a cat named unsinkable sam that was found in the wreck of the Bismarck by a British ship,then that ship sunk and another hence the nickname,unsinkable sam,also he survived all of them may I add

In Hinduism, the symbol of swastika is considerd auspicious

The Germans really said “if we can’t beat their symbol then just take their symbol”

0:03 *Mason on crack looking at Victor Resnovsno with red beating eyes*

The real myth of the third match light : light it ,sight it , shoot it !!!! ....you see the match being lighted , then you sight your target , then you kill your target , henceforth that's why you dont except the third light .

Remember this, Germany wanted the swastika to strengthen their luck

can you make a video about the battle of Mogadishu in 1993?

i got trench foot once. it sucks(no i was not a soldier but the doctor said i had similiar symptoms)

Also the History Ancient Roman Military, reusing a number or a Standard of the Fallen Legion is considered a curse that recruits believed were going to share the same fate like famous 14th Legion

Nice black ops reference 0:04

I believe the cover image is a reference to George Vinall. A British World War I Soldier whose life was saved by the Bible he was carrying.

Missed on the Charms candy in MREs

Don't forget one superstition not necessarily true but convincing from the book 'Starlight' from Vietnam, where the Sargent Leander, wore constantly a NVA helmet with a bullet hole, as he believed lighting doesn't strike twice!

Those damn charms

I hope the crewmen on the dreadnought checked the barrels often

USMC vet here. NEVER and I MEAN NEVER eat the Charms out of an MRE.

I believe in ww2 a polish artillery unit had a pet beat named wojac I think. I haven't regoogled when making this

there also still used in militarys 5:27

I enjoy your videos simple history❤. I'm in ninth grade and I love history class, so much that I'm actually quite superstitious about the number 22. I was born on the 22nd of June and I believe that if I don't get the number 22 correct in an exam, I'm gonna fail it

nice, time to absorve Superstitions i never had before into things i'll never experience

0:03 anyone remember swift from call of duty black ops?

Before my father's 2nd deployment to Iraq, a Vietnam War veteran gave him a Saint Christopher pendant he wore in Vietnam, and he came home safe.