History Of The Devil's Brigade From WWII - Devil's Brigade 103 - History Lesson

[Music] in summer of 1942 a squad of soldiers learned how to parachute jump the hard way you know in the forties hardly anybody had flown the plane they said of get in the truck and we're gonna take you over the airport and give you a shoot we'll give you a ride so we got up and this damn c-47 on me guy said stand up hook up stand in the door now we went nobody had ever been in an airplane before but people did volunteer because they wanted to go for a ride and if you lived you were qualified this was how the men of the devil's Brigade earned their jump wings you've done your first jump within a week you know you don't have time to think about 60 years later another group of soldiers will do what those legendary fighters once did put aside their fear and roll the dice I'm sorry to get the butterflies a little bit you know it's the first time jumping of course like the rest of the guys but sure we're all gonna be scared these men will do their very first parachute jump from 11,000 feet not by static line but freefall why because that's what it took to be part of The Devil's Brigade [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Anzio January 22nd 1944 the US fifth Army invades the Italian coast south of Rome if you're gonna fight a war let's fight it on somebody else's land not on ours we were going to take the war to the enemy by the end of the first day 36,000 men had come ashore at the cost of just 13 lives as the soldiers took control of the port they discovered to their amazement they had caught the Germans off guard I thought it was great I said last time I'm really gonna do something here you know the men believed they'd be in Rome within the week they were wrong [Music] Germans were the best soldiers in the world they're at best trained to had a wonderful experience and they had you know that fanatical faith what are all those things coming in they said those are Cheryl's from the Germans oh I volunteered for this the Allies are stalled at Anzio what patrol clashes are frequent here is a German outpost by the time the first Special Service Force came ashore on day 11 the invasion had ground to a halt [Music] the German commander field marshal Albert Kesselring brought the 70,000 veteran troops he had in reserve to the battle and surrounded the landing force [Music] the battlefield was flat as there wasn't a hill over there to hide behind or anything else you're sitting on a static line the Germans evidently didn't want to wipe out the beachhead not after right after the got in there when the devil's Brigade went into action news of their arrival rippled across the front lines even the enemy heard the men had joined the battle he saying other powerful words they snuck up on our advance posts and the guards didn't even notice someone was approaching to Duvall terrific they were quite agile like leopards sneaking up and before the guard even noticed he had his throat cut as Dakshina [Music] the first Special Service Force was just a few hundred men in the midst of thousands but they left an indelible mark we own no man's land that was ours with the force was facing the Hermann Goering division which has 18,000 men approximately with armor and everything else and by aggressively patrolling no man's land capturing people killing him letting him know that we own no man's land they thought we were a much larger force they thought we were a division of size they had no idea that there were so few of us this is where the first Special Service Force learned their killing skills Helena Montana and these soldiers are fighting The Devil's Brigade way with no mercy grab like so this is [ __ ] grab like just see the expression on the LT face here's nothing that's good you do a right or die got it many of these men are combat veterans some are Canadians who fought in Afghanistan others Americans who've recently returned from Iraq they've come to the original Devil's Brigade training camp to spend a month in 1942 learning how those legendary soldiers trained this hand here you want to frame the weapon don't feel up like this please please please get it down here pin you back at Sears right start shaking from movement they can't detect movement the competitive systems we've been learning are very violent very aggressive there are many things that are very applicable especially in today's on modern battlefield we need to develop a sense of aggression and you develop a confidence in your ability to close with and destroy the enemy it's totally different when you've been trained with a with something like a bayonet where you'd actually look at a person and insert the bayonet into the soft parts of the person's body and kill the person that way it's a totally different mindset of totally different frame of view and it's a frame of view that we need on the modern battlefield when you're working a block give you a wider angle some block white walls where's the knife trapped all right this is not gonna be a bill Wolfe teaches hand-to-hand combat to the Canadian Army he's the type of instructor the brigade would have liked love the balls Wolfe specializes in knife fighting and even though many of these soldiers have seen combat killing with knives the trademark of the brigade is not something they're used to blocking like if he's coming at you from something try not to expose this because you're all okay your armpits when you're coming and do your blood wedge it off to here that traps up the arm here okay I'm blocking try to keep your elbows inside your body not up hand Han trained with sergeant Wolfe is outstanding it's intense it's good to teaches you some interesting skills some of the things that he does we've never really addressed before in training it's almost like learning the like the darker arts of learning how to kill in combat with with hands knife bayonet whatever the devil's Brigade was led by an aggressive young American leftenant Colonel Robert Frederick who personally designed they're killing knife the v40 - I thought that was pretty neat dagger and is really sharp and we use that for everything and we was always taking a thing and we'd shorten it on the side of her jump moved on the leather boots would keep it nice and sharp with a skull cracker on the end of the handle the seven and a half inch blade was carefully shaped to allow easy insertion between the ribs Frederick had created the devil's very own knife midnight the soldiers are going on a mission to test their stalking skills their tasks infiltrate an enemy camp dispose of the sentries kidnap an officer The Devil's Brigade called these butcher and bolt missions earlier I had a couple Scouts go out to scout out the situation they came up with a nice sketch here and we threw together a plan basically this is an area that we've worked in before so everybody's familiar with it and it's it's the machine gun range area the jungle lane this is a trailer or shed of some sort our Intel tells us that there's two sentries posted outside there and our target is the general who is residing inside [Music] at night we'd get ourselves ready and we go out to Patrol no-man's land just to see what we could scare up paint our faces and our hands with grease paint different colors green black we just wore a wool cap our ammunition belts and our weapons that's all we had dog tags were taped together it was quiet you have nothing that makes noise nothing makes noise since every year foot touches anything you stop does that stick if it cracks can give away your position but it could be a mind you as I say you use all your senses and so you're very mentally alert and ready every second you're like the animal poised ready [Music] for us to do these patrols constantly constantly they thought we were a big full regiment which we weren't such a small unit small though it was could tie up literally tens of thousands of German troops getting in there and causing such a ruckus steal stuff from the Germans their eggs their chickens they did anything that they could get their bloody hands on especially their booze [Music] [Music] this one German prisoner of war said she never hear them coming we never hear them coming all of a sudden they're there they call us the black devils because they said they'd never heard us coming [Music] as Anzio became a stalemate and the regular units dug in the first Special Service Force stocked no-man's land clearing buildings taking prisoners ambushing patrols one night six of us went out and we heard his there was a German patrol out there and sure enough after about three hours I think it was I know I was getting cold we heard him coming down this one ditch and the sergeant he waited to that lead guy in that German patrol got within I'd say arm's length of him and he hollered Achtung to him to try to get him give up and the German made a mistake of turning around with his burp gun and the sergeant opened up then we all opened up when we've got all six [Music] on the bodies of their victims the men left a chilling calling card stickers which read in German the worst is yet to come Frederick's got the idea as I understand it and not everybody thought the opportunity to use them but it was very effective and it was a one situation where and and this guy he was going on but when he said to the Patrol well we won't kill him tonight we just have fun and put a sticker on them let him know we were there they'd go out and stick the darn things anyplace even though they didn't find any Germans they just took the sticker open I think that put the fear into the enemy quite a bit the fact that we were calling around them crawling around their area they didn't know or didn't see and yet in the morning these stickers were there and the enemy was terrified legend has it a dying German officer scrawled in his diary they are everywhere around us these black devils that was strange I was in that German officers diary we can't cope with these he's devils with their painted faces and their baggy pants and then the media picked it up nicknamed us the devils ba [Music] finally after more than three months the allies broke out of the Anzio beachhead the first Special Service Force led the way our battalion was one of the lead battalions breaking out of Anzio it was quite an experience that was a tough fight first day we were thrown back we didn't get out at all the second day we finally made it the only time I was ever close to being bloodthirsty was when we broke out of Anzio and they killed my colonel right beside me I was all I could do they keep from shooting these guys coming out with their hands out after after killing my Colonel a couple rough battles on the way home one space there I thought my god we'll be lucky we'll get through here because we were going through it I think was a wheat field there was nothing to protect us and the Germans are set up with machine guns and everything in but we made it we took machine guns out then we moved on into Rome and going into Rome was a real charge we had driven the Germans out of the city the people were wild they had all sorts of fruit and wine and stuff to give us and I tried to give it to us but soon as a shot fired they were they disappeared and like to remember going up the streets in Rome that morning the darn machine of them bullets coming from the dermis hitting the walls all around you know ricocheting around scaring pants right off of me but we got up there and it was my company had the job of securing six or seven of the ridges across the Tiber they didn't want the Germans to blow the bridges up otherwise we couldn't get across some of them were charged ready to go though we got them before they blew them and the next day we had Rome being one of the first units into Rome had its benefits The Devil's Brigade enjoyed a party more than most when we will go through any town Italy or France you know that dog faces as they call us they guys are hanging out of the rifle and goddamn thing I had enough of this war yeah and then the Germans had left then these girls would come out the girls would come out with wine and some stuff you know that they had nothing to eat but they gave us this wine and stuff by the time this regiment or whatever company got to the other side here everybody was drunk I mean they were drunk and they were kissing the girls and everything and women was that was it that's what we were in the war for for women but you never got you never got involved other than just getting getting some [Music] [Applause] as the veil of fascism lifted the citizens of Rome's celebrated but for the devil's Brigade the war was far from over Hitler ordered Kesselring to fight a war of attrition to delay the Allied advance for as long as possible The Devil's Brigade and all the other men they fought beside paid a terrible price for every inch of Italy [Music] one of our things that we were taught is when you're moving ahead and taking ground and you got them on the move try to keep them on the move because if you give them time to set up they got time to do a lot of damage like setting booby traps are setting up good defenses the German army had an extensive catalogue of mines which they used to slow the Allied advance the teller mind the shrapnel mine the wooden Holtz mine a lot of times a booby-trap if something don't look natural don't touch it I mean it if you'd see a deserted house there with something real nice sitting up on top of the dresser or something something's wrong what's that doing sitting there you know [Music] the townspeople were warned against enemy mines and booby traps which were in the process of being cleared [Music] tens of thousands of booby traps were also left behind and as they do today they killed at random [Music] they don't call them booby traps anymore but rather IEDs improvised explosive devices what's the square fins pulled all you gotta do is pull your main safety in Afghanistan and Iraq they're taking a terrible toll on men like things so here's a trip and I guy made it incredibly loose I'll just go ahead and pull on that I'll try to hold this see if we get little bigger okay Angelo gaedola is a sergeant in the National Guard who recently lost a family member to an ie D in Iraq my brother-in-law Paul was killed back in December December 21st 2004 and it has a profound effect on everyone a loss is expected you know soldiers are there to fight for freedom and to fight for their family's welfare and for their country you know whether it's insurgents or Nazis or terrorists of any kind you know any kind of terroristic regime or whatever you want to call it but soldiers are there to protect their people and that's what I do the instructors have given the squad a simple task cross this field but hidden in the grass our trip wires and booby traps the sort of IEDs the devil's Brigade faced we was going out with a throw one night and the first guy in the line stepped on a foot mine and Louie's foot off now sometime they snuck in there and put that mine they're on a path that we knew we was pretty sure that we use you know let's face it they wasn't dumb either and almost anything they booby-trapped if they had time to do it and they they done a lot of it especially when they'd retreat [Music] [Music] Albert Boucher is a master Warrant Officer in the Canadian Forces who served in Afghanistan [Music] despite the technology today's special forces use to find IEDs the modern battlefield is as deadly as ever and the rules of survival are the same as they were in the Second World War trust your training hope you're lucky companies Albert Boucher a 40-year old father of seven put his life on the line to go to Afghanistan people often question me about you know what were my thoughts on the point overseas and should we be there and it's not my decision to be there but what I will tell you is that as a soldier as a person I can see the changes that have occurred there's hope there's a sense of development and as a person as a soldier as a citizen of the free world I think that's a good thing and I think we should be there as early as the 16th century in Italy Leonardo da Vinci was sketching and designing parachutes but it's only about ten years since the Russians began to take the parachute seriously as a weapon of attack vigorous training hazardous duty for those who want to get into the war quickly this was how the Devil's Brigade sold itself when it went looking for recruits and there's no faster way to get into a war than jumping in feet-first twenty-eight men can get out of an aircraft as fast as 18 seconds there's waves and waves coming over in other words there's people gentlemen right over top of you and you can steal each other's air and you can plummet right in like a tent peg so everything is mental alertness and you don't have time to daydream period [Music] the parachute training the brigade received was rudimentary at best non-existent at worst okay there's a few things you want to cover this afternoon we'll do some flight trainer we'll talk about the equipment then we'll talk about how to collapse our chute because it didn't have canopy release on the equipment itself and then we'll move all the way down there where the mock-up is and do some aircraft drill in 1942 the US Army jump school lasted about a month in The Devil's Brigade it lasted a few days you jump twice and if you could walk away you were qualified feet apart nice and relaxed and one you don't be careful there jump straight out and wiggle go basically you didn't have time they just had a little mock-up towers and they told you how to put a chute on how to collapse a chute about what height should be you jump out of these mock-up towers to get on the ground and then they put you on the back of a truck and put the gate down and you jump off the back of the truck doing about 80 mile an hour and that's about how you'll get it when you get down and you didn't have time within a week it done your jump you're done your first jump within a week you know you didn't have time to think about I don't think I was scared I think maybe I was more curious but standing in the line I think I was more concerned to the fact that I was checking the guy had just see his equipped was okay guy behind was checking my equipment and I check my hook on the cable and then when a time came time to go it was bang bang bang we're gone I had no idea what was going on frankly you don't know what's gonna happen next you know kind of got your fingers crossed that all of a sudden poof your parachute opens and you say to yourself Jesus it's pretty nice and float down all these soldiers have their parachute wings some have jumped into combat but there are other men in the squad who've never jumped before today they'll get their chance so you get the butterflies a little bit you know first time jumping of course like the rest of the guys but sure we're all gonna be scared by them when I get go to jump out of the plane that's gonna really when it's gonna hit me in the stomach I get two I get two major butterflies before any big event the key is with any of these canopy issues is number one altitude awareness okay so as soon as you get open check your altitude je bud the Green Beret has done almost 100 jumps many of them what Special Forces call halo jumps high altitude low opening okay the key is Jay has brought the men to a parachute school to do their first jump if things go wrong in freefall you just have to remember to arch sometimes on on their first jump something when people jump then they try to dr chal ittle bit and when you happen the d arch then your problems become worse and that's when you could possibly tumble and tumble and all that so basically if things go wrong up there just you just have to arch it out and that should stabilize you a little bit more legs there you go perfect okay exit when the brigade jumped they didn't have time to arch it out the men left the aircraft at a thousand feet without a reserve if the main chute failed they were dead the danger to these men is less but the challenge the same do they have the guts to jump Albert Boucher is certain that he does 9,000 feet check left check right okay right thumbs up heading 7,000 feet i bungy jump before and and scuba dives I just and lead climb there a couple days ago so I just want to do it I'm feeling pretty good yeah I'd like to just jump I don't want to wait around to line just want ride really great old soldiers have a saying courage is a mystery which comes and goes in moments of action accidents of choice on this day these young soldiers have all chosen to be courageous they volunteered to do their very first jump not on a static line but freefall from 11,000 feet Chris Byrd the sniper is first to go he barely pauses and ruh-roh the 19 year old from Nova Scotia shows why the squad calls him the fighting fetus [Music] angelo gaedola says a quick prayer and trusts that somebody is actually listening and finally it's Albert O'Shea's turn Albert has traveled a long way in his military career from his regiment in Saskatoon to the mountains of Afghanistan to the skies over Montana life he says is one big adventure three ball is that just awesome and I wish it would last longer cuz you know you could concentrating on your drills and it just seems to go go quick you can feel like also the air got warm you don't you say okay that's I want to be getting closed on it is about 7,000 and then six lock on and then pull [Music] it was pretty cool at a good time and then when I I want to mess around with the shoot there cuz it was a pretty good feeling when you're under the canopy spinning around with his first jump behind him Albert is ready for more he's the type of soldier who'd have been at home in the brigade smart and brave with just a touch of crazy for almost a month these men have trained as hard as they ever have before they've run and climbed fought and bled all of it to prepare for the mission which made the devil's Brigade a legend okay guys 21 days of training has finally come to an end you've been going through all kinds of training day and night we obviously lost a couple people that's part of the training now it's time to move on to the next phase you all know that there was something that you were not told and this is what we're about to reveal throughout the corner this was the area where the devil's Brigade became so famous and this is what you've been training for your mission will obviously be to do exactly what they did way back then in 43 [Music] The Devil's Brigade assault on Mount defends ax was one of the most daring strategic victories of the Second World War the Germans held the peaks the Allies wanted them and wave after wave of infantry died trying to take the mountain the first Special Service Force tope difensa in just a few hours [Music] Joe glass from Sarnia was one of the first men to reach the top Lauren whaling Joe's best friend was close behind and mark Radcliffe a young left tenant from Texas helped plan the assault these three men survived what was thought to be a suicide mission they are the human face of courage I was with third Regiment and we're in a gully down below here we were sitting in there waiting till we might be needed and all sudden right up above me a mortar round goes off I yelled a command to get down and hit the dirt well just as I'm doing that around hit right almost in front not too far away and I got a piece of shrapnel right between the eyes sticking out about that big and I didn't know I had it it was numb and they tucked me down to the aid station down below and the doctor locked up he feels around on it his hands are going like this nice is what are you shaking for I says I'm the patient cases but you're my first that's how I started the war that's the first time I had to find a shot the next day we had to go all the way up here right up in here where they put the ropes up from the cliffs and we went up the bowl seems to be small there but we come up right here and we attacked and took us two hours to take that out we took all these guys loved we lost a few men quite a few men in fact we've done a good job real good job up here how can you explain combat if you've never been in combat you know you can't explain it so we had a just had a good fight got it over in two hours I lost my company commander and a few good friends and a guy hit me in the face and the hand it hit my little finger right there with a bullet and then I hit the rock and it splatter rock on my face and I couldn't see out of my right eye so I moved over got behind this rock about this high and this one guy the last guy he never give up and my company commander come up one side of me and said yeah off on the other and he said how's things going Joe I said ok I said but whatever you do don't stick your head above this rock till we get that guy I was planning on getting some grenades and getting them out the easy way because you couldn't he was real good marksman he hit several guys but they both raised their hit at the same time he got both of them through the brains the brain splattered out on the ground so I moved over and talked to Dan McDonald McKenna and he was there and he said Jesus Joe I'm scared I said well we're all scared have a cigarette I want the cigarette back so I lit up two cigarettes I bought two grenades and there was only 25 feet away from us so you know how close we were it was easy to get a grenade in there but I didn't have any but I got two of them I think from I think Sid gaffer Rothen who were both dead and then we tried to get him out I don't know who got him but it didn't matter he was the last guy but he had already killed my commanding officer and one of my best friends [Music] in defense a shadow by the men who died on that brave a terrible morning Americans and Canadians men like Joe's friend Sid Gath a farm boy from Manitoba [Music] after the war Joe Lauren and Mark came back to Montana where they each settled down and lived in peace being a soldier you're willing to lay your life down for what you believe in especially defending your country or freedom and soldiers are always in a brotherhood so with that in mind I mean we have those common qualities or common interest just to be here to you know represent them and honor them so I think there's a pretty damn strong bond between us it's incredible to see you know we met three of the more members of The Devil's Brigade and that was kind of amazing you meeting these old men you know and they've lived their lives out in there having trouble walking and but then you see it in their eyes you know I told some of the guys I feel like you walk up to them and you shake their hand they still a firm grip and I mean the one gentleman I can't remember his name offhand but his hand was huge and his fingers extended up my wrist and I was like wow you know I'm glad I wasn't on the receiving end of this guy went well you know what war ii was going on but you see it in their eyes that they're they're proud that they were part of it and they're even more proud that somebody's willing to represent them here [Music] where she's boxing as any soldier will tell you the real work of army life begins when the training ends get my frags and for this squad there's plenty of work to do before they leave for Italy as far as getting ready for our mission in Italy on defends ax I think we've come a long way and I think that the training we did here in the mountains is really gonna help us to accomplish our mission overseas we're really starting to mesh I think and all these guys have what it takes to do real missions I mean I wouldn't hesitate going on a real mission with any of these guys and defends ax will be a mission to test them because the men will face an actual opponent would want at the fluent evil dictor Luke Norden even with wound a unit of veteran German soldiers has made camp on the summit and if the men are to do what the devil's Brigade did to defeat the Germans they'll have to climb defences cliffs something which has Brian Haines worried the climbing we've been training on is really making it at home about the client we have ahead of us at difensa we've done all of four days of training and climbing and while including myself with my fear of heights were all doing pretty good as far as getting up the rock face but we still have we don't have the kind of experience I think is probably necessary for a climbs big as I'm hearing my defense is Brian's instincts may be right the assault on difensa will be like nothing the men have ever done to reach the Germans the squad must climb to the top of this 3,000 foot high mountain crossing bridges and boulder fields as they do but the real test will come on defends as cliffs if they're to live up to the legend of The Devil's Brigade Brian and the rest of the men must climb these cliffs night [Music] next on Devil's Brigade contact I was scared and I think the only way I got over it was action I did something different men have different reactions my reaction was I had a kind of coppery taste in my mouth the first Special Service Force takes the mountain but at a terrible cost I shall captain Rockland go down to accept the surrender and the Germans shot him instantly the word went out we don't need any prisoner and the squad finds climbing the cliffs harder than they ever could have imagined this is not safe you know that's next on Devil's Brigade [Music] [Music]

Channel: TOP BOX TV

Views: 80,552

Keywords: Syndicado, Films, TV, History, Canadian History, World War Two, WWII, Veterans

Id: gOLLzp_MOSY

Length: 47min 27sec (2847 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019