Why The 1st Airborne Division Was The Most Daring Unit Of WW2 | Battle Honours | War Stories

this channel is part of the history hit Network 1940 in Britain's Darkest Hour a new force of crack troops was founded there's nothing so very great vehicle but they were the best [Music] trained for combat Behind Enemy Lines they descended from the skies to take part in some of the most daring rays of the war [Music] from the deadly deserts of North Africa to a heroic stand at Arnold without the Army appear tomorrow Tomorrow never came [Music] they established themselves as one of the most elite units in the British army they are the Red Devils [Music] an extraordinary War demanding extraordinary soldiers while we were good we were very good the best there was forged into Elite bands of Brothers you were fighting for your buddy you didn't want to let them down by facing the trials of War together they attacked us up through the vapor trails and butchered us up pretty good these are the stories of the second world War's most famous fighting formations and their journey through tragedy and Triumph the German Commander said I've never seen any people as Brave as yours to earn their battle honors the 27th of February 1942 in the Skies over the English Channel 12 RAF bombers are about to execute one of the most daring raids of the second World War on board 120 men from the second parachute Battalion first Airborne Division their mission to capture a German radar this is the first raid of the newly formed parachute regiment the first sortie into enemy territory and as the moment to jump approaches none of these men knows what to expect [Music] foreign 1940 the Nazis were in the ascendancy Norway and France had both Fallen to the Germans and the British had been forced into a humiliating Retreat dominating in the evacuation of 300 000 soldiers at Dunkirk part of the Nazi's success resulted from the daring exploits of the fulsham yoga paratroopers Winston Churchill was impressed by the falsha makers as they performed commando-style raids Landing Behind Enemy Lines by glider or parachute citing development of warfare where vertical envelopment in land operations all of a sudden seemed possible and it was the Germans who became the model German falsham Jaeger were inculcated with this High self-confidence High physical skill and the plunging Golden Eagle was a symbol which was highly regarded they became an elite and were used so by German propaganda Churchill was Keen to establish Britain's own Elite parachute regiment and on the 22nd of June 1940 he sent a letter to his chief military assistant general Hastings Ismail we ought to have a call of at least 5 000 parachute troops I hear something is being done to form such a core but only on a very small scale Advantage must be taken of the summer to train three forces who can play their part as shock troops in home defenses Churchill's call was answered and a parachute training school was established at Raf ringway just outside Manchester [Music] there was a strong desire to hit back at the Nazis and the new units recruits included many men who had recently returned from Dunkirk among them was Tony Hibbert I had started parachuting as soon as I got back from nankirk because I had been a gunner I've been a children's so I volunteered for a thing called number two parachute Commander and I joined them in July 1940. history hit is a streaming platform that is just for history fans with fantastic documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world from the Battle of Trafalgar and the revolutionary era right through to the second world war if you are looking for your next military history fix then this is the service for you we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and War Stories fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code War Stories at checkout number two Commando was soon renamed the 11th SAS battalion in early 1941 their first mission attacked axis forces in Italy the parachute assault had limited Military value which showed Britain was ready to strike back in September this fledgling unit became the first parachute battalion soon three other battalions were raised and the first parachute Brigade was born what had started out as a small unit was now training thousands to jump Behind Enemy Lines physical fitness intelligence initiative character there was both a physical selection and a mental selection leading to tough soldiers who would keep going in adversity everyone must be imbued with a warrior Spirit the determination to succeed and with leadership which inspires tactical Excellence both at the officer level and the senior NCO level if you think your second best you are there's never a lack of self-confidence in Airborne forces Jim Knox joined the Paris in 1942 the training soon made an impression on the 18 year old Londoner real Power Trip roses you never stopped training you didn't have Leisure Time not the young and Scot nail it was trying trying and from rivali to sundown you weren't allowed to walk you out the run everywhere everything I'd be at the Double yeah if it's a real tough unit the guy who ran it was sold at my distraction from the number two Commandos and uh I think his ambition was to kill us he done a pretty good job parachuters must be able to operate his parachute in the air he must be able to check its direction prevented swinging in a Gusty wind for the first week we were in a hangar practicing drops for the second week we did two drums from a static balloon then five jumps from a Whitley bomber of course the biggest part of the training was actually jumping and that really was a challenge in that moment of truth do you actually jump into the fresh air [Music] they send you through ringway Manchester to do your seven parachute jumps two from the bloom and five from a plane and we used the Whitley where you jumped from the hole in the floor the Whitley was one of Britain's biggest bombers at the outbreak of War but it was slow and vulnerable so they were handed over to the newly formed Airborne forces with a range of 2400 kilometers they could carry 10 Paris who would jump through a hole cut in the floor for the inexperienced this often proved as hazardous as the mission itself the problem they had is to throw yourself off the edge with your feet dangling into space is that you tend to throw yourself forward and if you did more often than not your face would smash into the hinged door on the other side and that was known as ringing the bell men would land with broken noses black eyes broken teeth split lips and so on even before they'd come anywhere near a German among the recruits to this new parachute Brigade was John Frost an experienced army officer with a decade of military service Caroline Frost is John Frost's daughter foreign he was born in India because my grandfather was in the Army in India and he was sent back to school at the age of five so his childhood was mainly spent in England dad started off as a cameronian which is a lowland Scottish regiment and then he was seconded to the parachute regiment when it Formed so he was one of the first people to join up John Frost was at the classic volunteer for the Airborne forces was not happy sitting back waiting for the Germans to come to him he wanted to get to grips with them so he volunteered and became the commanding officer of second Battalion the parachute regiment and and really became one of those totemic figures um you know within the pantheon of Airborne soldiers in early 1942 Admiral Lord mountbatten proposed a raid against the radar station at Bruno Mars the objective was to capture and hold the station dismantle the radar set and take it back to England Frost commanded the recently formed second parachute Battalion or two para selected for the mission The Raid had been scheduled to take place on the 23rd of February but bad weather delayed the plans four days later the skies cleared and 120 men from two power set off for France [Music] as they approached the French Coast the British planes came under heavy anti-aircraft fire [Music] but none were hit and the troops made their exit we dropped last it was fairly clear conditions it was a very good exit and Landing the men surrounded The Villa where the radar was situated and opened fire the main party moved up to attack the radar station which they achieved virtually without opposition my group was in the rear mopping up pockets of German resistance which entailed some pretty heavy skirmishes while the fighting continued the radar equipment was dismantled but as the power is withdrew to the beach they took casualties one of the men in my party was killed and we also had a few wounded unfortunately some men got left behind and were captured they had succeeded in their objective of taking the radar and clearing out the Villa but the danger wasn't over yet because of radio communication problems we had no contact with the Navy although we had dealt with the local troops there was the possibility of reinforcements arriving despite the confusion Frost managed to get most of his troops on the boats that had come to take them home when the head count was made six paratroopers had been wounded six captured and two killed foreign raid became the parachute regiment's first battle honor its success increased Britain's morale when the war was going badly the printable raid is a psychological boost for the Brits but always seemed that anything the Brits did was a losing proposition so this was the first winning proposition executed to Perfection and allowed us to at least think of the idea that we could go on to offensive operations in the future and importantly it reaffirmed Churchill's belief in the future of Airborne forces the powers were already proving their worth on the 1st of August 1942 the first Airborne Division and parachute battalions were renamed the parachute regiment they had already come under the command of first world war veteran Major General Frederick boy Browning felt the new Elite regiment needed a distinctive look so happened that boy Browning's racing silk colors prior to the second world war were maroon and Cambridge blue so the Pegasus Flash in Cambridge blue and maroon becomes the emblem of Airborne forces pegasus with bellerophon on its back the Slayer of enemies [Music] here's a stable belt designed by Boy Browning there is the iconic symbol of the parachute regiment on the front and the maroon light the paraberry it's the color that's synonymous with the regiment the color everything that boy Browning originally envisaged they do take on great significance in the minds of everyone who serves in the regiment it's almost like a suit of armor they're talismans they meant a huge amount to him they were labels better than labels because they were earned they weren't bought he was inordinately proud of being a member of the parachute regiment it meant the world to him he was enmeshed with the regiment and thought the world of his men and that's the only way to be if you're going to go into battle you need to know that everyone's got everyone else's back it's an identifier which tells you something about the person who's earned it it's an identifier which says this man is someone I can trust this man is someone I can go to war with with their new colors came other equipment from 1942 the iconic camouflaged denim Smock the Denison was worn over their battle dress and the original Flash Gordon rubber training helmet named after the 1930s sci-fi serial was replaced with a brimless combat helmet modeled on the German version by late 1942 Germany with its Italian and Vichy French allies still controlled most of North Africa but a plan was underway to force them out Operation Torch on the 8th of November American and British forces began amphibious Landings along the coasts of Morocco and Algeria [Music] opposing them with a vigi French troops from the puppet regime installed after Francis surrender three battalions from the first parachute Brigade jumped from a new aircraft the c-47 Dakota this was the first time the British had launched a mass Airborne assault the first Airborne were tasked to attack tactically important sites in particular the Vichy French for artillery batteries that could potentially hit the landing craft and Fleet and to take airfields attack major installations on the 12th of November the third parachute Battalion was sent to seize a vital Airfield between Algiers and Tunis German paratroopers rushed to defend it but three para got there first and the foshimaeger withdrew one power now set out to capture another Airfield plus Key Road and Railway Junctions they dropped among Vichy French who decided not to fight but then engaged determined German and Italian troops [Music] a few days later it was the turn of John Frost and to Para their mission was to take an abandoned Airfield then move on to a second one and wait for ground forces a successful Landing was followed by a long hike but then the Germans struck with armor and air power 's fought tenaciously but their relief Force never arrived Frost refused to demand to surrender it was something which would become a habit of his as was using his hunting horn to Rally his men [Music] he now led them on a fighting retreat suffering terrible casualties before the survivors made it back to Allied lines Frost's Battalion and the other powers had suffered badly hurt by poor intelligence and the failure of ground forces to link up with the lightly armed paratroopers but they had acquitted themselves superbly in battle the German soldiers they were facing realized they were coming up against extremely well trained very aggressive soldiers that were a struggle for them to contain and those soldiers were wearing red berries and so the Germans instinctively nicknamed them the rotent TOEFL the Red Devils the red beret was now worn with great pride by all other British airborne troops including supporting units and glider Infantry throughout the North African campaign the first Airborne Brigade took part in more battles than any other British formation they captured three and a half thousand prisoners and inflicted 5 000 casualties at a cost of Seventeen hundred to themselves writing home John Frost recalled his pride in a job well done I discovered a few of Dad's letters to his parents written during the war and there were some telling moments that he wrote in them they're a little personal bits in the letters and then there are a few bits about the war but obviously it's been passed by the census so he had to be careful about what he said so this is when he's in Africa and he's writing to his mother basically trying to put on a good front for her so as not to worry her and so he writes your letters arrived in the middle of a battle and it cheered me up no end especially as I just been wounded by a piece of shrapnel I feel quite a veteran now having fought several battles the Germans are good Fighters and very brave it's nice to know though that we are so much better they call us the Red Devils on account of the red berries we wear and they don't like meeting us one little bit our soldiers are marvelous always cheerful even when living underwater for days I must say I hope this is my first and last war though I feel a much older and wiser man we really have had a doing so I think Justified Pride because in those days this is what they lived for they were fighting for king and country it just became part of his blood really and the men so close you have to be they were everything to him I mean because they held each other's lives in their hands every day all day so the bond you form is lifelong and intense no question many veterans I talked to about North Africa and those who fought it on and would say that North Africa was far worse than onam which seems incredible to the modern mind there was a particular soldier called Sandy Carmichael who would say to me Arnhem piece of cake North Africa hell on Earth so it was really where the hard fighting Spirit and the hard yards the final hundred yards of those who are in the parachute battalions came to the fore and of course included some of the first battle honors by mid-may 1943 the Allies had driven the axis armies out of North Africa it was a victory that would open the door to the liberation of Italy and the red Devil's next chance for battle honors the invasion of Sicily it was essential to confuse the axis armies and capture key Bridges and ports the parachute regiments Airborne assault was critical to success they were really looking to take and hold so that then the main troops landing on the beaches and the ports would be able to advance over those bridges into the interior of Sicily and conquer the Islanders as quickly as possible their objective was to seize the crucial premisole bridge and hold it until relieved evening over a hundred aircraft and gliders carried more than 1800 men towards their target [Music] they came under intense fire [Music] and only a quarter of the force were dropped accurately [Music] heavy flat destroyed two of the aircraft in our formation situation became rather hair-raising after that they quickly discovered that German Folsom Jaeger were Landing in the same drop zone as they came under heavy machine gun fire scores of men were taken prisoner almost as soon as they hit the ground only a few dozen men from one para managed to launch their assault on the bridge collect five of my stick we came under machine gun fire so I decided to move off with what men I had and try and neutralize them [Music] defensive perimeter was set up around the bridge but for three days the Red Devils were pressed hard their first probing attack was weak easily repulsed the second and third more determined Then followed an aerial attack which was decidedly unhealthy a tank livened things up by taking pot shots at the bridge foreign at one point the powers were pushed off the bridge but when reinforcements arrived from the eighth Army it was retaken and finally secured [Applause] a narrow Victory had been won at Great cost over 300 men were dead missing or wounded but the Red Devils had fought well and vital lessons were learned that would benefit them in the fighting to come Eisner believes that the lesson of Sicily is that we should never do large operations Airborne operations like this again people take those criticisms but learn different lessons and the real lesson that comes out of it for the future is that we must have very well trained Pathfinders and very well-trained pilots who can navigate to a greater effect than occurred then in May 1943 the parachute regiment was expanded with a new unit the sixth Airborne Division the natural thing would have been to establish after the first Airborne Division the second Airborne Vision but why do that when in 1943 you can set up the sixth Airborne Division and make the Germans think that you'd already set up the second third fourth and fifth so in effect they picked that number to make the Germans feel that Britain had the same number of Airborne forces that they had this was part of a great tradition in the British armed forces of trying to appear to German intelligence bigger than we actually are the sixth Airborne Division spent their first year training it was a long time to wait for action but they had already been earmarked to spearhead one of the most pivotal events of the war D-Day [Music] on the evening of the 5th of June 1944 7 000 British paratroopers and glider troops prepared to take to the night skies over Normandy this was the moment they had been training for we just sat and talked for a while amongst ourselves then came the Jeep of the RAF crew roaring up and they got out and said all right you chaps don't worry piece of cake we'll get you there was a tremendous exciting light-hearted atmosphere they would deploy ahead of the mass amphibious assault near oyster home the division's first objective was to capture intact the bridges over the coal canal and the river awn it was critical to the success of the Beach Landings to stop German reinforcements reaching the beachhead and driving the Allies back into the sea their second objective was to take out the massive mevil battery to stop it shelling The Landing beaches [Music] the paratroopers would link up with an advanced force of gliderborn troops charged with taking these key objectives [Music] in the early hours of the 6th of June before the first Allied troops hit the beaches of Normandy the soldiers of the sixth Airborne jumped but strong winds dispersed them and upon Landing many battalions could only assemble around half their full strength despite the setbacks the Red Devils achieved their objectives admirably but their job wasn't finished on D-Day small village of Breville was still held by the enemy and became the launch point for a series of furious German counter-attacks we would call the key terrain key terrain is terrain of such importance that if the enemy get up there it will be be able potentially to decisively influence the bridges itself so they had to capture and keep that piece of ground The High Ground fighting was fierce sometimes hand to hand and lasted for several days but the Red Devils clung on I've spoken to German veterans on the other side of the line who constantly went into attack after attack to try and recapture that high ground and were just unsuccessful they were held back by the you know the ferocity of the defense by men who were determined not to give up the ground that they held and deserve their their moniker of the Red Devils Breville was finally captured on the 13th of June Victory had come at an enormous cost with 162 Powers losing their lives now fighting as regular infantry the sixth Airborne Division engaged in ever more brutal combat as the Allies battled to break out of Normandy they were only withdrawn in late August foreign having spent 82 days in Non-Stop action leaving over 500 men dead more than 1600 wounded and at least 700 missing in September 1944 it was the turn of first Airborne Division Veterans of North Africa and Italy to join the Allied offensive in northern Europe they were to become the lead element in Montgomery's audacious plan to outflank the German defenses by crossing the river Rhine in Holland and shortened the war the key to the plan was the biggest Airborne operation in history codename Market Garden the Red Devils joined forces with the U.S 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions Perkins would seize Bridges at Eindhoven and neymagan to allow a British armored column to reach Arnhem and then enter Germany bone plan fighting deep in nazi-held territory and the Red Devils would have to hold their objectives the longest they would then be what can only be described as a mad cap charge by British 30 call which would then set off along a single road all the way over Bridge after bridge to take them into Germany and all of that had to happen um in 48 hours [Music] they've hundreds of lenses planes Towing gliders and planes with their parachutes in there coming over in England people say they were just an armada that didn't really go on but they said Mars like [Music] on the journey the Red Devils focused on their unrivaled combat experience certainly on the flight over no one was threatened and we'd been parachuting four of the Earth [Music] DZ or drop zone for the British was to the west of Anna said the troops could Mass before seizing the road bridge over the river foreign The Landings went to plan but as the Drop Zone was 11 kilometers from the bridge the Germans had time to engage them John Frost landed on the first day again commanding to power up using his hunting horn John Frost managed to gather his troops in and lead them via an unguarded road to seize the Northern end of the bridge John Frost's daughter Caroline Treasures her father's mementos from Arnold had by members of the royal Exodus hunt in 1939 because he was Master of the hounds and very similar to the one he actually used on him that's at the hartenstein Museum in osterbeck he used that to call the troops because the radios were being jammed by the Germans and were also not functioning very well on their own anyway so it was quite a simple method but it had very practical application really this letter is written from Mr L Hall who sends dad an amazing photograph according to Mr Hall's letter he says this must have been one of the first and only photos taken of members of the Battalion on Landing before the Battle of Arnhem on the back as inscribed Sunday afternoon September the 17th 1944 taken by a Mr Shan vachter on the dropping zone at ginkel Heath at osterbeck front right is private Hall front left is Sergeant Jackman behind is private Pope and the rest of the men are Dutch civilians collecting the parachutists they'll just be all trying to get to the right place having left the DZ there'll be from all directions trying to focus in on the bridge it's extraordinary I think the Brits look apprehensive but I'm sure they're delighted to have reached the DZ without breaking any bones or getting stuck in a tree which several of them did so it's probably relief mixed with apprehension because they didn't know what was going to be around the corner or around many corners all of which were disastrous thank God they didn't know really quite poignant [Music] as the Red Devils made for the bridge one group ambushed the Nazi field commander major general cousin leaving him dead in his staff car while most of the powers ran into two SS Panzer divisions and couldn't reach the bridge Frost was lucky he arrived unscathed and his men set up defensive positions at the North End two hours later they were joined by Brigade HQ led by Major Tony Hibbert I actually got to the bridge with my 350 Chaps at nine o'clock in the evening we set up a perimeter on the North End of the bridge about four or five hundred yards long about 40 yards wide and we had been ordered in the Brigade orders that our job was to capture Arnhem bridge and herd it for 48 hours until we were relieved from the south in that time the Germans realized what was happening and they had started to send reinforcements towards us the Red Devils held only one end of the bridge and they didn't have enough men to take the other we got up onto the bridge and they started firing with their heavy machine guns [Music] the German counter-attack was Swift and vicious artillery shells bursting every time they burn they send red lumps of rubble flying through the air or around you Devastation and burnt hell now you put the fire there the powers were lightly armed with mortars and machine guns as their only fire support the favorite weapon for close combat was the sten gun example that the British make doing men wartime ethos the Sten was cheap to make and easy to mass produce specially adaptive for the Paris it fired over 500 rounds per minute but was accurate to only 60 meters by the time the Red Devils dropped at Arnhem the Mark V sten gun had a new foresight bayonet and wooden stock under constant attack two para and Brigade HQ held the Arnon bridge for three days and four nights it was best to have 13 000 men around the bridge in fact only had 650. and we held it for 72 hours it was against the 48 that we'd been ordered but the massively outnumbered Red Devils on the bridge could not hold out forever after a series of major setbacks the planned relief from British tanks was now well over 24 hours behind schedule with no sign of arriving they've virtually been without in their sleep we were without water after the second day we were out food that out of there 650 chaps there were nearly 300 wounded in the cellar of my headquarters Frost was among the casualties wounded by shrapnel unlike North Africa two years before there was no chance of a fighting Retreat to Allied lines they're short of ammunition and it's almost inevitable that without any support they're going to be chewed up and have to surrender on the 21st of September Frost Hibbert and their men were finally overwhelmed they were still laughing and joking I'd they didn't think of themselves very beautiful really they they were the best the German Commander came out and said Can Frost hi salute you said I've never seen people any people is very brave as yours as to do too the Allied armor for desperately hard to rescue the airborne troops we were determined to we were desperate not determined we were desperate to relieve the Airborne and Arnhem the Germans were equally determined that we would not reach them that they would surrender before we had a chance to cross the river Rhine and get them out the Paris said Ireland Bridge had surrendered but the rest of the first Airborne were trapped and fought against overwhelming odds for nine days until ordered to withdraw the way it came through they were going to pull out and we got to the river the gym knew we were getting out so they shelled it that was the worst night of my life and I have met nightmares about that many men you could hear these boats getting the machine gun then you could hear them screaming the ten thousand dropped there two thousand got away operation Market Garden had been a catastrophe it was a grave failure grave disaster one of their their unnecessary disasters in the war had it been successful that had shot in the wall by six months how to be a successful but in the midst of disaster the Red Devils had excelled their Never Say Die Spirit mark them out as Heroes among the Allied Armed Forces but we thought that those boys what they did and we felt proud of them we felt prone because what they had achieved and we thought we got to reach their standards reach their standards also be done the British like nothing more than under a heroic defeat Arnhem in particular was able to do that the extreme sacrifice and courage of the individuals involved in an operation that almost succeeded that could have ended the war early but just fell at the final hurdle definitely fits our national psyche [Applause] in 1978 the road bridge at Arnhem was renamed John Frost blue John Frost bridge in honor of the heroism of frost and to para [Music] on the 16th of December 1944 the Germans launched a massive surprise attack on Allied positions in the Arden in just under a week 30 divisions helped push through kilometers of Allied controlled territory in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge partly in desperation the Red Devils were again deployed to fight as Infantry Mission defensive position but by the stage they get there the offensive is already over and so they are then used on the offensive mode after Savage engagements the Nazis retreated with heavy losses Hitler's final fling in the west had failed at the end of January 1945 the sixth Airborne Division were withdrawn to prepare for the final push into Nazi Germany two months later they teamed up with the U.S 17th Airborne Division to take part in operation varsity their role would be another of Monty's Grand plans involving a massive Airborne Landing [Music] the objective was to seize High Ground overlooking the Rhine allowing the Allied Army to cross the river below the lessons of Arnhem had been learned these heads and lz's were going to be close to the Germans and the Lincoln was going to be affected within 24 hours on the morning of the 24th of March the Red Devils were preparing for their last great mission on the Western Front we got up early in the morning had a good breakfast egg and began and then we lined up and we had four hours trip to the Rhine but before we went we were given a pill I never knew what that pill was they said it was to stop us getting air sick then we left and we formed up I believe over the channel over 500 aircraft and more than 1300 gliders flew directly into German defensive fire [Music] casualties were high [Music] on the ground the airborne troops set about securing their objectives [Music] taken by surprise German opposition varied between demoralized and fanatical as Nazi diehards defended their Fatherland he moved off and we got over to count where our job was to hold the railway no Bridges just the railway we came down and I'll be honest it was hell and a lot of people got killed I relieve myself because I'm scared there was a sniper hitting us from the church which was nearby and so all of a sudden the plane I came over and bombed the church that was the end of the sniper but they kept firing at us after about a couple of hours everything went quiet you know the birds came out and you can hear everything more frightening than Dieter within five and a half hours all the Allied objectives were taken despite tenacious resistance from the first bolsham Jaeger army they linked up with the ground forces crossing the river prisoners at first came in hundreds then in thousands by this stage of the war German resistance is beginning to to lose its cohesion beginning to collapse the German Army really have their eye in the rear view mirror they are looking at what comes after defeat and you are looking towards what's on the Homeland in your family rather than let's all fight for the Fatherland and for the fuhrer in early May the sixth Airborne captured the Baltic Port of bismar and linked up with the advancing Soviet Russian troops as the war came to an end the Red Devils had earned their reputation as one of the British military's most effective units the unit had done an exceptionally good job of establishing themselves particularly in terms of the raiding level be it at Bruno Mars or North Africa or Sicily or at Mass level D-Day Varsity across the Rhine they have been able to persuade senior command both of military and political level that there was an ongoing value to the capacity to carry out an operation from the air operating on their own and fighting tenaciously beyond what they were expected to do in order to be successful in operation the success of what they achieved in the second world war can be gauged by the fact that you know we still have the parachute regiment now and for the men who wore the red beret during the second world war The Pride at being a red devil didn't end on VE Day it doesn't go away after the conflict is finished that bond is there forever it's life-changing stuff your men die in front of you or beside you however much you try to protect each other's backs that's what happens in war the connection was extraordinary they would do anything for each other they were like a Band of Brothers if there's one thing which is true it is absolutely Shakespeare's great lines on leadership we few we happy few we band The Brothers for he today that gives his blood for me shall be my brother and it is why they call it the Airborne Brotherhood thank you [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 42,894

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, Full Documentary, 1st Airborne Division, Red Devils, Paratroopers

Id: cqKfP_YDZVs

Length: 50min 31sec (3031 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023