The Grave of Desmond Doss (and More!!!) | History Traveler Episode 69

[Music] well as you can see i am on top of a rather large hill in the middle of a cemetery this is the chattanooga national cemetery in chattanooga tennessee this is also the approximate spot where general ulysses s grant was standing whenever he was commanding the battle of chattanooga which involved the union troops storming of lookout mountain right here and also missionary ridge here behind me now after the battle of chattanooga this area right here was selected as a burial spot for the union soldiers and then over the years became a national cemetery which resulted in of course more of our deceased servicemen being buried here we're going to be taking a look around at the chattanooga national cemetery today i am quite excited because there are a lot of interesting historical things here [Music] so in 1862 during the civil war uh the the union forces in the east were not doing so well but in the west it was a different story under the leadership of grant uh union forces had made incursions into the south and tennessee like at fort henry fort donelson down into shiloh and whenever that happened the confederate forces ended up kind of withdrawing pretty much out of tennessee all the way down here to the city of chattanooga which if you look has a lot of terrain that makes it easier to defend so chattanooga for all intents and purposes became the gateway to the deep south now i came across a story not too long ago that i didn't know that is extremely fascinating about a group called andrews raiders this was kind of like a a small special ops group of the civil war what they were doing in an effort to try and disrupt communication and the supply line from atlanta to chattanooga this group of like 20 to 22 people went 200 miles behind enemy lines hijacked a confederate train and then started bringing it back up towards chattanooga destroying rail lines destroying telegraph lines doing anything they could to try and disrupt the flow of supplies and communication from atlanta to chattanooga now they ended up being captured and some of them were hung some of them were traded for other confederate prisoners but here at the chattanooga national cemetery they have a monument to andrews raiders [Music] now this memorial does have some special meaning you can see that there's a train on top the name of the train that they hijacked was called the general so that's the general up on top and then you can see the names of the men who were executed including james andrews who was of course the leader of the raid wasn't in the military he was a civilian and then over here they list those that escaped and then over here on the other side those who were exchanged [Music] now here is what's really cool about the andrews raid if you look right here some of these individuals that were a part of the raid are the first ones to have been awarded the medal of honor no medal of honor had given out before these guys so here's john scott and then this is another one of the raiders who did not receive the medal of honor william campbell here's another medal of honor recipient marion ross george wilson you can see where a lot of people have visited these graves another medal of honor recipient samuel robertson [Music] samuel slavins and then we get over here to andrews himself now andrews was not eligible for the medal of honor because he wasn't in the military as a matter of fact he kind of gets the honor of being buried here even though he was a civilian but was very key in planning and executing that raid very very cool that some of the very first recipients of the medal of honor are all buried right here together [Music] foreign now anywhere i go i'm always trying to find something that's a little bit different or out of the ordinary now for me this section of the cemetery here at chattanooga definitely fits that description this area right here is a plot filled with german soldiers from world war one now there are i think over 70 german pows from world war one buried right here now they were all held as pows at fort oglethorpe men like carl schmidt and peter moultson you might be asking what in the world happened where so many of these pows died in one place and the answer is the spanish flu spanish flu hit and killed all of these guys along with millions of other people worldwide here's something else that's interesting if you look up here this is a monument that was set up by the people of germany to to honor these men that served and were held as pows here in the united states this was put up in 1935 which would have been right after adolf hitler took power now there's no swastikas on it and there's nothing and there's nothing you know hateful it's just the names of all of the soldiers so no need to you know deface this monument or anything like that just happens to be when it was put up very interesting though [Music] [Music] in my very first history traveler video i was at jefferson barracks and pointed out a few german and italian pows from world war ii that are buried there and i thought i'd really found something but here at chattanooga holy smokes there are a lot of axis pows that are buried right here now probably one of the most interesting ones is this one right here so this is carl well i'm going to butcher this last name bulowis is how i'm going to say it this is the highest ranking german officer that is buried here at chattanooga he was a lieutenant general and the german army served directly under the desert fox erwin rommel and uh he was captured in north africa and he ended up committing suicide in the pow camp that he was in uh hung himself march 27 1945 and he's buried right here [Music] i was looking for another grave marker here in the cemetery and walked over to the opposite side now this is going to be a re-internment and i'm going to have to look up the information on it because this is james gamble and he was in the war of 1812. so i'm kind of curious how he ended up reinterred here in a cemetery that was established during the civil war interesting well right or wrong there is one particular grave here that i wanted to visit more than any other and we've had a little bit of difficulty finding it but i think that we finally located it and it doesn't look to have been neglected this right here is the final resting place of medal of honor recipient desmond doss [Music] so desmond t doss if you've seen the movie hacksaw ridge then you are already well acquainted with his story i was a conscientious objector because of his faith i didn't believe in killing people so he served as a combat medic in the 77th infantry division served all the way through to the battle of okinawa was at the maida escarpment on what was nicknamed hacksaw ridge was awarded the medal of honor for his actions where the citation says he saved 75 people he says it was less his uh his men that served with him said it was more but they compromised it at 75. regardless he he did a good work up there said that while he was serving there he kept saying lord help me save one more as you can see he was also awarded a bronze star medal and purple heart with two oak leaf clusters gosh so glad that i could come here and visit this grave well that was chattanooga national cemetery quite the place so glad that i happened to be traveling through here and could stop visit some of these graves pay my respects and uh actually learn a few new things uh it wasn't until i started doing a little bit of research that i learned that the first recipients of the medal of honor we're right here so if you ever happen to be going through chattanooga definitely make this place a stop it is certainly worth it [Music] foreign [Music] you

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 124,761

Rating: 4.9602804 out of 5

Keywords: history, history traveler, travel, tennessee, chattanooga, national cemetery, cemetery, grave, graveyard, medal of honor, civil war, lookout mountain, grant, desmond doss, hacksaw ridge, pow, german, andrews raiders, confederacy, confederate, union

Id: ETFPbx4aoDo

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020