Saddam's Spider Hole & the 4th Infantry | History Traveler Episode 13

[Music] [Music] all right so I am at Fort Carson Colorado just south of Colorado Springs this is the home to the 4th Infantry Division and today we're going to be going into the 4th Infantry Division Museum now I'm particularly excited about this one because the 4th Infantry Division was the division that led the assault on Utah Beach on d-day so I'm hoping that they they have some cool World War 2 stuff here on display what they've been involved in a number of other conflicts as well also one of my favorite historical figures from World War two Teddy Roosevelt jr. was a part of the 4th Infantry Division also won a Medal of Honor so we're gonna go inside and see what we can learn [Music] so here's the thing talking about the birth of the 4th Infantry Division and December of 1917 for service in World War one and then a few World War one personal items here kind of interesting and of course there's the iconic World War one army gas mask and of course we have a rule that whenever we see a gun we have to film it's there's the old German Luger and model 1917 revolver and the good old Springfield oh three and of course here's the typical Doughboy uniform here yeah dog tags were a little bit different in World War one if I can get focused here so World War one saw a lot of different changes and one of the big changes that you saw in World War one was in headgear so this is a World War one German pickle haba and that's not made of metal that's that's made of pressed leather but they switched to this form of combat helmet in the middle of the war just out of necessity and of course here's a German gas mask too so as I already mentioned the 4th Infantry Division was involved in the d-day landings on a Utah Beach and probably the most famous of the 4th Infantry Division is this guy right here Teddy Roosevelt jr. he showed up on the beach and was was quite the character like his dad carried a cane which they have depicted here and on this sign says the war starts here will the story behind that is that the 4th Infantry Division landed like way off of their mark I missed it by a couple thousand yards I believe and Roosevelt got on the beach looked around and said well we'll start the war here very cool guy so there's the good old ba R stands for browning automatic rifle and as much as we like to focus on the weapons and the guns and everything like that some of the personal items are just as interesting so they have a few of those here so here's old shaving cream to Barbasol the most popular cigarette that soldiers smoked at the time was Lucky Strike and then they got a few K rations back here boxes which I can't think those would have tasted very good so so it's always interesting to see some of the some of the personal smaller items that they used and carried with them at the time so they've also included a display of German stuff from World War Two as well how could we pass up the mp40 which was a submachine gun shot nine millimeter rounds they also got the k98 here and probably one of the most fearsome weapons the mg42 oh and of course the Luger and of course we've seen this before multiple times in other videos the gun that one world war 2 for the Americans that is the m1 garand of course they got the old model 1911 back here as well outstanding hand gun from World War 2 ok so we're moving out of the World War two section into the 4th Infantry Division's service in Vietnam and we go from the m1 garand to the m16 so this is kind of the iconic American weaponry for the Vietnam War helmet design pretty much stayed the same not a whole lot of change matter of fact they still used a lot of world war ii liners and shells the covering was a little bit different though and you can see some of the rations i'm really glad that they've included some of these personal items in here kind of adds a little bit to the display ok look at here it's nice to be nice ok and again just like they had in the World War 2 section where they showed some of the German weaponry and some of the German gear they got a thing for the Vietcong here - so here's the iconic outfit worn by the Vietcong guerrillas that were referred to as the pajamas and some of these sandals the Vietcong would use that were often made out of rubber tires that had been discarded and here's some barbed stakes bamboo called a punji stick that would be lined with either poison or human feces to cause infection pretty nasty very interesting okay and so everything kind of wraps looking at the global war on terrorism and it's really interesting the first piece that they have displayed here is a chunk from the World Trade Center in New York City okay so we've looked at different infantry weapons from world war one world war two in Vietnam then we get to the m4 carbine this one is a little extra interesting this is the one that was carried by Clinton romesha who earned the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan very cool [Music] okay now this is really cool so the 4th Infantry Division was the division that conducted something called Operation Red Dawn which sealed off to Crete for the capture of Saddam Hussein and they've got a few cool little items in here so here is a metal box that was captured with Saddam Hussein in December 2003 I've had about 750 thousand dollars in it in US currency here's some counterfeit gold bars that they found and also this gold-plated how kadesha rifle they also have this mirror and teapot that was in some Hussein's makeshift hideout whenever he was captured very interesting [Music] okay so here's the mannequin Saddam Hussein but what's really cool this right here is the foam plug that was used to conceal the spider hole that he was hiding in very very interesting [Music] alright well that was the 4th Infantry Division museum really quite cool the museum's not very big but it was nice to be honest I was a little bit surprised I honestly was going in there expecting to kind of get some more out of the 4th Infantry Division's landing at Utah Beach but the the Operation Iraqi Freedom display with all of the stuff with Saddam Hussein was was probably my favorite so very cool museum again it's free right here just south of Colorado Springs very cool [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 24,995

Rating: 4.9647799 out of 5

Keywords: museum, ft carson, history, history traveler, history underground, colorado, travel, 4th infantry, 4th infantry division, wwi, wwii, vietnam, global war on terror, clinton romesha, medal of honor, saddam hussein, spider hole, terrorism, colorado springs, jd huitt, teddy roosevelt

Id: JtW2DjMv_fo

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 06 2019