(WW2) Audio of fighting in the Netherlands 1944 

Clips/Sources: 0:00 (GERMAN ARTILLERY, MORTAR AND SPANDAU MG 42 MACHINE GUNFIRE AND BRITISH BREN GUNFIRE NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS) 7547 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 7:40 (GERMAN SHELLL AND MORTAR FIRE AND SPANDAU MG 42 MACHINE GUN FIRE, NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS, 1410) 7550 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 11:10 (GERMAN NEBELWERFER MORTAR FIRE NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS,) 7555 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 12:43 (BRITISH AND GERMAN MACHINE GUN FIRE NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS) 7546 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 15:28 (GERMAN NEBELWERFER MULTI-BARRELLLED MORTAR FIRING NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS, 14101944) 7548 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 15:58 (GERMAN NEBELWERFER MORTAR FIRE NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS, 14101944) 7565 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 17:24 (GERMAN ARTILLERY FIRE NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS, 14101944) 7557 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 18:52 (GERMAN SHELLING AND BRITISH CHURCHILL TANKS FIRING NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS, 14101944) 7556 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 20:32 (BRITISH CHURCHILL TANKS FIRING NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS, 14101944) 7562 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 21:17 (BRITISH ARTILLERY BARRAGE AND GERMAN MORTAR FIRE NEAR OVERLOON, NETHERLANDS) 7558 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it... 24:09 SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS MARCHING WITH PIPER PLAYING, HEESCH, NETHERLANDS, 1/11/1944 7624 Source: www.iwm.org.uk/collections/it...

The person who risked everything to make these recordings would have never imagined that one day, their recordings would become available for anybody to hear any place and at any time. A harrowing reminder of the sacrifices they all made.

The fact that these recordings exist and have survived for this long is remarkable.

It’s even more horrible knowing that you hear the final moments of many men that lost their lives during this battle

Wow. Had no idea such recordings existed

This is pretty intense. Hearing the whine or whistle of shell passing just prior to exploding. On top of that are the machine guns! I can't even imagine what it would've been like in person. Then again i wasn't in the Service so the little i know is from books,audio & video. Thank you to all Veterans especially all Combat veterans.

ive literally fallen into everything about WWII and haven't gotten out of it. It was such a different world/ reality. To face any of this today would seem unbearable yet it all happened. So, watching all the footage and let alone finding audio which seems very rare for film just pulls you into this chaotic part of human history. How could you not want to know about all of this?

I kind of feel as if the sounds of WW2 are more haunting than the sights, as someone looking back from the 21st century that is.

That mg42 sounds bone chillingly terrifying

The amount of constant fire is crazy insane. I couldn’t imagine living through that - the sight, sound, smells. Incredible.

Highland Bagpipes in a combat zone. Is this a first to capture on audio? As a piper, let me explain. The piper here was initially getting his instrument "ready", striking up, probably fine tuning the drones, settling his fingers on the chanter, looking around to see how the soldiers were assembling before setting off, pipe-bag tight, full of air, watching, waiting for the order to move. They then set off, the tune played "Cock 'O The North", a 6/8 march. Considering the challenges of playing and maintaining this instrument in field conditions, this piper is properly trained and experienced. He performed remarkably well. In WW1 many pipers were killed, some even having their fingers shot off, so that eventually many were withdrawn from the front line, the attrition proportionately too high given the training. They remain forever an inspiration, let's show our thanks here.

The last one blows me away, just hearing them marching and talking, it’s amazing hearing WW2 veterans talking, during WW2!

I found the end with the bagpipes slowly fading into the background and the sound of countless men marching past and into history the saddest part of the recordings.

Path of my great uncle's Royal Regina Rifle Regiment on D-Day: Southampton, Portsmouth, Courseulles, Caen, Versainville, Brionne, Tourville, Londinieres, St. Vallery sur Somme, Montreau, Hauteville (Leopold Canal), Ghent, Antwerp, Xanten, Emmerich, Sansbeen, Zutphen, Zwolle, Meppel, Sreenwijk, Leer, Aurogh... WW2 Battle Honours: Normandy Landing-Flers Bretteville-Falaise The Orne-L'Orguilleuse Moyland Woods-Leopold Canal The Regiment in WW1: France & Flanders 1915-1918 Arras 1917-1918 Vimy 1917 Amiens Ypres Passchendaele Cambrai 1918 Pursuit to Mons Mount Sorrel They were the Johns 56. God Bless them all.

Thank god for our brave British army.

This is quite simply the most amazing recording I've heard in a long time. The bagpipes at the end with the sound of battle is visceral in the extreme....

I live in Venray, a town only a couple KM away from Overloon so this is as good as it gets!!! Battle is also called ' The battle of Overloon and Venray ' as it took place in both towns and between the towns. Thanks for this!

this is the good stuff on the internet

The fighting for Overloon really was one bloody battle. Operation Constellation began on the 13th October-18th October (12th October Kampfgruppe Walther changed to Kampfgruppe 344.). Most of the footage is from the 14th the black day for VII Corps 3rd Infantry Division, it was 3rd IDs bloodiest day.. In the whole battle between 3rd ID, the german 180. ID and KG 344. The casualties were around the same for both Germans and the British mainly due to the substantial amount of artillery. Finally on the 18th Venray fell but the Operation failed as resources were reforming for later operations elsewhere.

My late Dad was with the Irish Guards in Holland 1944 God bless

Wow, incredible. Thanks for posting this. The sounds of the Nebelwerfer's... I've always wondered what they sounded like as the troops called them Moaning Minnies. Was not what I expected, but I can see why it was so nerve-wracking.

My late father, who came from Yorkshire, was conscripted into the army in 1944 and somehow ended up in the Seaforth Highlanders. During infantry training at Fort George, Inverness the fact that in his civilian life he built locomotives came to the attention of the powers that be and they came to the conclusion he would be more use to the war effort in the Royal Engineers. Whilst the Seaforths were marching out of line behind their piper as heard in the video my dad was also in Holland but in his case building bridges across canals and rivers. I can't help thinking he got a lucky break back in Fort George.

I'll never understand how something can sound so terrifying and yet so relaxing at the same time, thanks for the upload, respect 👍

Another dimension of presenting history , pretty unusual and yet creepy somehow . Thanks for uploading.

This battle was part of the series of operations that followed Operation Market Garden. After the failure of Market Garden and the withdrawal of 1st Airborne (three weeks before these recordings were taken) the Allies were left with a long, narrow corridor stretching through Eindhoven and Nijmegen, which was exposed and still vulnerable to German attacks from their remaining bridgehead west of the Maas. This operation was an attempt to clear the bridgehead. It made ground despite heavy casualties, but ultimately failed to reach the Maas. The Germans weren't completely cleared from the area west of the Maas until December. Listening to the weight of German artillery, mortar and MG fire you can certainly understand why.

Immersing oneself with headphones on with this is incredible... can hear during clip 9 birds tweeting amongst the din , mad

Adds a whole new dimension to a conflict seen as mostly silent from our perspective. Amazing.

75 million people were killed in ww2 ... This war was living hell

this is incredible!

Wtf. The shells landing from 11:10 sound at least 50 or 100 yards nearby 😐 Whatever cover they have where this is being recorded, you can hear the house/cover they're in shake. That's insane man. To think the likelihood of those mg sounds and arty/mortar explosions caused casualties and death to those unfortunate to have been in or within it's lethal radius 😔 that's sad man. 15:58 - 17:24 the multiple mortar rounds hitting in such sequence and frequency, horrific man 😔 24:09 the ending of the soldiers marching and the bagpipes playing, braah 😔

Great stuff. Wow, just WOW!

0:00 the picture showing here is really special. The sign says warmuseum. The museum was build shortly after the war, Overloon was a full wreck. So the people decided to build a warmuseum where. Today it is one of the biggest warmuseum in Europe. I’m guessing this picture was taken shortly after the war aswell

this is more haunting/depressing than a movie depiction

Jesus, some of those arty rounds are landing bloody close, I’m surprised they got this recording at all...😳 utterly mind blowing.

Those bagpipes!, just near the end the bagpipes are further away and sound sooo crisp, the boots of the soldiers louder and then the mumbled voices. Stunning.

Peace is priceless. Warmongering people should listen this audio before its too late.

The bagpipes at the end are very very moving.

That last one my god how chilling and they don’t miss a note

This is surprisingly good audio.

Nothing but chills.

It really is an amazing symphony! Its Incredible to me to hear this

The piper leads the Highlanders into battle , just incredible how brave they must have been , in ww1 there were Pipers who won the VC for jumping out of the trench under heavy fire as a result of which the soldiers followed and took the German positions, Piper Laidlaw I think that soldiers name was

Fascinating!! 👍

I think my dad was with the Seaforths. Served in Italy and in the Netherlands, where he was wounded. Never talked about it all, even though he remained in the reserves until the mid-1960s. Have to find out how to get to his service records. He’s been gone since 1988.

Seaforth highlanders marching out with bagpipes playing, completely mad but fantastic at the same time

Very frightening...ive really never heard all out war..terrifying...

This is chilling stuff; the sounds of battle echo almost unchanged, for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. It sounds just like when I saw battle myself, even in these old recordings.

This is quite haunting to me...

No matter what war. The sounds of combat are the same. This brings back memories of Somalia and Iraq for me.

Those damn bagpipes holy shit.

Fantastic, great. Please MORE,MORE MORE. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. 🙋‍♂️🐈✌🙂

hearing those sheep broke my heart those poor things must of being absolutely shitting themselves the poor things

The one thing that sticks out in all of these recordings is the constant roar of distant combat in the quietest moments. The modern din.

The artillery barrage is the sound of the canons firing in distance, then comes the whistle and explosion. As I can hear, the shells are flying above the point of recording. SCARY!

Those bagpipes are awesome

I don't know if i heard sheeps in track 1 but the bagpipes scared my cat.

4:32 Terrified sheep

Am I hallucinating or is that a goat or goats bleeting ? I am listening to this while watching football with the sound off…very surreal experience and scary 😧

Respect from Turkey. You can hear the barking sounds of cats and dogs that are afraid of artillery fire. Can you imagine how scared they were? I'm really crying.

I think we are so used to a commentary from a journalist or editor. We are allowed to try to imagine the fright and the intensity of the battle or re-igniting memories in people who have experienced this themselves.

'Chilling' is the only word I can think of. What was happening during this....real people with loved ones back home...

Chilling

After listening to these recordings, I needed to learn as much as I could about the fighting around Overloon. That town, along with Venray and Blerick, were all that remained of the German military presence on the west bank of the Meuse River. Allied command believed that Germany's armed forces were on the brink of collapse, and that the enemy assigned to this area were heavily undermanned and of poor quality. Montgomery believed that his forces in the Netherlands would be able to easily eliminate the German bridgehead west of the Meuse and then subsequently capture the town of Venlo, part of a slender strip of Dutch territory which abutted Germany on the eastern side of the river. Venlo would be subsequently used as a staging area for an invasion of Germany from the East, enabling the Allies to avoid the Sigfried Line's heavily fortified defenses. Unbeknownst to the Allies, the Germans had been able to stabilize their military situation, and envisioned spearheading their own offensive via the Overloon bridgehead. In September, Field Marshall Model heavily reinforced the defenders of the bridgehead, including elite paratrooper battalions and a panzer brigade of mechanized infantry. Contrary to the Allies' overconfident assessment of approximately 2,000 Volksgrenadier defenders, the German salient east of the Meuse now contained around 15,000 high quality, well-supplied veteran troops. These soldiers were still highly motivated believers in the German propaganda's promise of wonder weapons. They were aware that the bridges over the Meuse had been blown, and dutifully accepted the reality that the only way out of the bridgehead would either be by capture, injury, or death. They feverishly began preparing a highly organized network of defenses, saturating the roads with landmines, while strategically placing MG-42 nests and panzerfaust ambush points in the buildings which ran alongside them. The British had to fight tooth-and-nail for every building, which the Germans would immediately counterattack. Eventually the British had to resort to a creeping barrage (the idea is that your artillery hits defended positions within the immediate vicinity of your attacking forces, and slowly advances as your units do). Beginning on October 12, the British were dropping between 40-100,000 artillery shells A DAY on the German positions within this fairly small town. One last thing which I found really fascinating about this audio ....in the first clip you can hear the buzz of bombers. The German defenses were so stout, and the defenders themselves so fanatical, that the Brits were calling in airstrikes of white phosphorus, basically forced to incinerate resistance. The recordings which you've so generously released paint a picture as grim as it is terrifying. I cannot imagine sustained exposure to such unrelenting carnage. That any of these veterans were able to raise families and hold jobs after experiencing combat of this intensity is truly remarkable.

Hi @nm 120, as I can see I'm not the only "Mad" one who has interest in this sort of things, let introduce myself, I'm a Private Collector of all kind of material of War throughout XX century, I have a plenty of audio recordings, photos, and films, of course the World War 1939-1945, and I like very much as you compiled the audio recordings from IWM into a single video, pretty well done. Many thanks for read I'm waiting for your answer. Do you have an email or something to contact you? Thanks in advance and I'm your first subscriber.

This is immensely interesting. To peak back in time, to hear what it was like. Ironically, the sounds of war haven’t changed much. Definitely a lot of activity back and forth. You can hear a lamb in the background “bahh, bahh”.

I'm shell shocked just after listening to this. Christ I couldn't imagine experiencing this in person.

What song is being played on the bagpipes?

Listen to that MG42. Must have been a terrifying weapon to face!

1808 soldiers of Allied forces and 800 German soldiers killed in this battle during September 30 to October 15 1944.

All I can say....UNBELIEVABLE...PLAY THE PIPES LADDY.....PLAY THE PIPES

8 min in and we hear the sound of incoming artillery something you only want your enemy to hear.

2:38

It's interesting yet depressing that if you listen to sounds of modern combat, like in Iraq/Afghanistan, the two time periods for the most part, sound the same. "All wars are different, all wars are the same."

Be sure to check out my newest video of street fighting and artillery in 1944-45: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NotkdH0yQKk.html

OMG !!!!!@ 15:57 !?!!? Is this the receiving end of a screaming mimi nebelwerfer barrage!?. Can anyone tell me what they know..or think?. Ive read many accounts that this situation is indescribable- what i just listened to ....theyre right. God bless any and all who lived(and died) through this unfathomable event

There is audio of the actual battle of kwalajein, and in the auido they talk about a chiken

I believe what you said in the description but I get the feeling it sounds way too good for the time period. Maybe it was restored somehow.

I'm hearing MG42's, Vickers and Bren Guns, mortars and arty. The drone of heavy bombers overhead. The odd Lee Enfield and Mauser shots. A calf calling for its mum. Tanks firing into buildings- you can tell those from the low trajectory "Ka POW" sounds.

25:40 "How far was that?" "Not gonna change up." "Huh?" "Not gonna change." "That's true, ..... *cant guess this*... listen to that"

woah, i never really completely understood how horrific hearing that mg42 roar must have been

24:09 makes 1812 overture sound like child's play

That guy in the tank put some munitions down range .

The noise that sounds like a bird chirping is shells and bullets flying over the recording device.

There are recordings of the fighting in Burma in 1944 and 1945. The battle of Fort Dufferin is one that stands out in my mind. My grandmother's brother was a Yorkshire man but he served in the Royal Scots Fusiliers in Europe in the final few years of the war and I remember his coffin had the Regimental Badge flag. So even though he was an Englishman, he was proud to have been in a Scottish regiment even though most local servicemen were in either the Royal Navy or the Merchant Navy, or local units like the King's own Yorkshire light infantry/the Duke of Yorks East Riding of Yorkshire regt/the Duke of Wellington's West Riding regt/the Prince of Wales own West Yorkshire regt/the Green Howard's North Yorkshire regt or the York and Lancaster regt or one of the various cavalry/armoured units or the yeomanry units like the East Yorkshire dragoons, the Yorkshire hussars, etc. I have often wondered if he remembered the Regimental band, and if they used bagpipes in the regiment.

Track 11, My god that's how you do it!🦁💯

Those mg42 bursts!!!🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

There's planes in track 1 too

wow amazing and scary

First five minutes I can make out the sound of aircraft in the background.

Lol imagine using this video In loop when trying sleep. Instead of rain sounds hahaha

Wow

Is this recording made in Overloon?

Somebody disliked it. Let's track them down and give them a damned good thrashing.

16:10 That was pretty intense there.

My dad was wounded in Holland ,part of the Royal Scotts.

This really shouldn't be relaxing but it is.... How does that work literally the sounds of people killing each other 😢

imagine the sound on the eastern front, total inferno.

You telling me a few Britts with Brens fought these big guns?

Has anyone been able to make out what the voices are saying at the very end?

Sounds like victory.