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Castle Itter: When Germans and Americans Joined Forces in World War II · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you for tuning in.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: If you were ever a fan of video games, you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: were probably aware at some point of the video game
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: franchise Wolfenstein three D first person shooter wherein your your
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: obliterating Nazis. It's a lot of fun. It scared me
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: as a kid. Hi, I'm Ben, Hi, I'm know, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: so Ben, did you you played? You played the Wolfenstein
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: three D? Yeah, I can't remember it was three D,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but it was on a it was on a PC,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and it was sort of the in my childhood mind,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: it was like the lighter version of another similar game
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: called Doom. What's the it's the Predecessor. I think it's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the Predecessor, that's correct, and that's our super producer, Casey Pegrum. Yeah,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Wolfenstein was like pseudo three D. It's really just two D.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: It's just moving a bunch of two D sprites around
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to make it feel like three D. Doom was kind
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: of like what is this? Nerd talk? What is this?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Sprite was a little more two and a half D,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: and then Quake is where they made the big jump
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to full three actual three D casey on the case.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I am also pleasantly surprised that you you have some
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: thoughts on this matter. Huh. I was a die hard
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: gamer in the nineties. Yeah, I have not cared about
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it in a long time. Sprites are just kind of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the building blocks of these games, like the characters. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: they're like the they're like the elements you move around rely,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: but like they're they're even textures and stuff, right, isn't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a sprite. This is where
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: my knowledge runs out. But I think, you know, like
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: nowadays is about textures because you have like the services
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and you're applying to textures to them. The sprite was
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: kind of like all in one, like it was the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: character but also the texture because it was like a drawing.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: That's cool. This uh, this is strange because like many
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  Speaker 1: people in the West who grew up in a post
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: World War two environment, uh we, whenever there was like
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: an evil army, easily, I'm just gonna make up the statistic.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Easily eight point six two times out of ten, that
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  Speaker 1: evil army would be represented by the Nazis or something
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  Speaker 1: like the Nazi Party, which is which is strange when
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you look back. But it was very common to have
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: games wherein a person is fighting against Nazi forces, just
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the way that some modern fighting games have people fighting
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  Speaker 1: against North Korean forces or somewhere in the Middle East.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Today's story is about Nazis, and it's got a lot
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  Speaker 1: of cool stuff in here. We've got we've got a
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  Speaker 1: spooky castle, right, Hence the Wolfenstein reference, because I believe Wolfenstein,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in the parlance of the game, was this giant fortress
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  Speaker 1: that you're traversing, like all the different floors. Yes, thank you.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I totally forgot that is what we're talking about, Wolfan stay.
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  Speaker 1: I was, we're also talking about killing Nazis. Yes, someone's
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: got to do it. So we can't go ahead and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: set the stage for World War two very very quickly.
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  Speaker 1: It's the global conflict that lasted from ninety and it
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: involved access powers and allied powers. Often, at least in
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  Speaker 1: the US, it is painted as a war with a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: few prime actors. You know, they'll say, yes, Japan and
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the US fought. Yes, Uh, Europeans helped out That's how
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: they'll put it. There'll it'll be like Europeans helped out
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  Speaker 1: American forces. But really it was America versus Germany. That's
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a vast oversimplification, it really is. That's what we do
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: here on ridiculous history, vast over simplifications. That is, that's
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: our bread and butter. My man, well, it is painted.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of countries do that. If you
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  Speaker 1: read a textbook somewhere else. They're going to have their
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: own countries take on World War Two, and the American
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  Speaker 1: take is you know, pretty America centric, right. Absolutely. What
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: we have in today's episode, though, is a very rare
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  Speaker 1: case of cooperation between these parties, right, and an unprecedented
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  Speaker 1: move to kind of like when everything hit the fan, right,
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  Speaker 1: you know, so the war is coming to an end.
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  Speaker 1: Hitler has eaten a suicide pill and shot himself in
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  Speaker 1: the face. That's the thing I remember most about Wolfing Stay.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: By the way, you have to fight Hitler in the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: end spoiler alert for a game that's like thirty. He's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: in a Giant Max suit and at the end when
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: you kill him, he says they have a al veder Zane,
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  Speaker 1: referring to his wife a le braun Um. Right, So,
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  Speaker 1: so Mac Hitler has been annihilated at this point in
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  Speaker 1: the uh, you know, alternate history version of World War Two,
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  Speaker 1: and uh, this castle becomes the site of an unusual union. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: this is castle. It's ur and today we're exploring the
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  Speaker 1: story of the only time that Americans and Germans fought
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  Speaker 1: as allies during World War Two. So itter Castle is
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  Speaker 1: a nineteenth century castle in a village called Ittter in Austria.
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  Speaker 1: And it looks spooky. It looks like something out of
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, it looks like the kind of castle
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  Speaker 1: hell Boy runs into in the Mike Mignola stories. Absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: I mean it definitely haunted as hell seeming. And just
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  Speaker 1: for fun, let's see what four of us says about
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  Speaker 1: the pronunciation of this castle. I got it it. I
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  Speaker 1: love the I love the German intensity. And we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: get into some fun German words in this episode. But
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  Speaker 1: it's true. It looks like something out of like a
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  Speaker 1: fractured haunted grim Grim Grimm fairy tale. It's top with
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  Speaker 1: those cool little you know, crenelations where that are the
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  Speaker 1: separated little turrets in between, um, the walls where you
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  Speaker 1: can shoot you know, yeah, arrows or whatever. The pattern
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  Speaker 1: that looks like one side of a zipper. That's exactly right. Um,
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  Speaker 1: And it has a very very rich history. At first
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  Speaker 1: shows up in around twelve forty four in German Land records,
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  Speaker 1: and then it's been passed through several different different owners,
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  Speaker 1: different hands. Um In nineteen thirty eight, when Germany annexed Austria,
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  Speaker 1: the castle became a very uh sought after site for
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  Speaker 1: all the secret weird stuff that Nazis were getting into.
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  Speaker 1: It's true the Reich government officially leased the castle in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty from its owner at the time, one Franz Gruner,
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  Speaker 1: and the castle went through some some weird things because
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  Speaker 1: after they had leasted or requisitioned it for their very
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  Speaker 1: vaguely phrased official use, it went through a couple of iterations.
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  Speaker 1: It was for a while it was the swank offices
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  Speaker 1: of an organization called the German Association for Combating the
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  Speaker 1: Dangers of tabat Echo because say which will about Nazis,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: they understood that tobacco was dangerous. They were sticklers for health.
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  Speaker 1: Although it doesn't take away from the image of the
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  Speaker 1: you know, imperially slim s s officer with a cigarette
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  Speaker 1: holder and an eye patch, you know, but I could
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  Speaker 1: still be harkening back to our our video game and
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  Speaker 1: then like think about this though. How amazing is that
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  Speaker 1: to have your office be a castle. It didn't last.
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  Speaker 1: On February seven, the entire structure and all the accompanying
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  Speaker 1: buildings were requisitioned by s S Lieutenant General Oswald Pole
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  Speaker 1: under the orders of Heinrich Himler, and then it was
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  Speaker 1: transformed into a prison, but not just any prison, No,
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  Speaker 1: not just any prison, and it was associated with probably
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  Speaker 1: the most notorious UH site in all of like Nazi
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  Speaker 1: involvement in World War Two, which would be the Dachau
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  Speaker 1: Concentration Camp UM, which operated the facility, which they referred
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to as Oh boy, I'm gonna do my best on
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  Speaker 1: this one evacuee Rungschlager, which means a an evacuation camp.
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  Speaker 1: I love how the etymology is so interesting, like evacuee
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  Speaker 1: is spelled E V A k U I E and
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  Speaker 1: then the American words, you know, evacuation, evacuate UM. So
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  Speaker 1: the castle was already you know, an impenetrable fortress I
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  Speaker 1: mean with these high walls and those turrets we talked
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  Speaker 1: about UM. But they transformed it even further UM, adding
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  Speaker 1: onto features that already existed like this, these huge walls.
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  Speaker 1: They had a moat had this gatehouse that was very,
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  Speaker 1: very difficult to penetrate, and they added, um, these tangles
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  Speaker 1: of multi layers of barbed wire or that they called
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  Speaker 1: concertina wire, which I guess is the really really skinny
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  Speaker 1: like razor wire that will slice right through you. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And then they refitted it with these very complex locks
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  Speaker 1: and essentially rendered the facility absolutely impregnable, uh to either
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  Speaker 1: get into or get out of. Twenty of the existing
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  Speaker 1: guest rooms in the central housing structure were converted into
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  Speaker 1: secure but pretty pretty roomy cells. Others were turned into
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  Speaker 1: guard rooms and offices. These were not cells for your
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  Speaker 1: typical uh, political protester or petty criminal. This became a
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  Speaker 1: home for v I P. French prisoners of war. Yeah, folks,
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  Speaker 1: like the two former prime ministers of France. There was
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  Speaker 1: Paul Renault Casey on the case. And then we have
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  Speaker 1: edu r uh dallader d A l A d I
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  Speaker 1: E r Huh Dad got it? Uh? And I know
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  Speaker 1: this one, General Charles de gaull Ya see Charles, I
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  Speaker 1: love this is my favorite part of the show, in
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: case he gets to correct our pronunciations. The older sister
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: in fact of General Charles de gal not a hardass
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  Speaker 1: on the end is to Charley, and her name was
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  Speaker 1: Marie Agnes Kalelu Marian, probably Casey on the case multipart.
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  Speaker 1: So we have a firsthand account about the conversion of
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  Speaker 1: the castle into a prison by Hans Fuchs. Hans saw
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  Speaker 1: every he was growing up in the area. Hans says,
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  Speaker 1: we saw everything from our school window, the double barbed
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  Speaker 1: wire fence, the floodlights so that the whole night was
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  Speaker 1: lit up like the day. But again, Loss Itter or
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  Speaker 1: the Castle Itter was a subunit of the Dochau concentration camps,
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  Speaker 1: and they wanted the people who were imprisoned in this
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  Speaker 1: castle to be relatively well cared for so that they
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  Speaker 1: could be used as bargaining chips. We will give you
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  Speaker 1: one of the former prime ministers if you give us
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  Speaker 1: this other stuff. But the problem here for Castle Itter
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  Speaker 1: was that they were existing in the last days of
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  Speaker 1: the war. Like May, it's pretty clear how things are
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  Speaker 1: gonna shake out. The German guards at the prison run away,
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  Speaker 1: but the French prisoners are trapped and the woods around
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  Speaker 1: the castle are full of roaming desperate units of SS
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  Speaker 1: and Gestapo, not necessarily in max suits. But we weren't
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: there Max suits are amazing. I'm just gonna say. I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: know that they've been used for evil purposes in fiction,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: but they're they're just they're like one of my favorite things.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You've got some figures on your desk, don't you. Models, Yeah,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: from oh from Pacific Rim and those are those are
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: huge mix But you know I'm a sucker for it.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Tell me your favorite mix ridiculous set. I heart radio. Yeah,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: we should just have an email box just for favorite
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Max at I heeart radio, dot nom um. The newer iterations.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I know we keep harping on this, but the newer
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: iterations of the Wolfenstein games are super cool and involved
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a lot more of this like future attack that we're
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: talking about, like the big the big robot suits and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: they have like robot ss dogs and all this stuff,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and they get really intense. The last few were quite difficult.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I haven't played it in years and years
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  Speaker 1: and years. To me, this, uh, this story feels like
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  Speaker 1: something very inglorious Bastards esque, you know. It's it feels
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  Speaker 1: like there's some Tarantino inspiration here. Because the French prisoners
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  Speaker 1: know that if they try to escape, they will be discovered.
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  Speaker 1: So through some internal mechanism. Perhaps they're drawing straws, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe some brave souls volunteered. The French prisoners send out
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  Speaker 1: to prisoners on bicycles to try to find help. According
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to Stephen Harding, author of a book called The Last Battle,
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  Speaker 1: one of these French prisoners found a German major, Joseph
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  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna spell the last name g A N
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  Speaker 1: G L gongle like. He was a highly decorated Rmacht
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: officer and he had become opposed to the Nazis and
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  Speaker 1: was collaborating with the local resistance in Austria. That is
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  Speaker 1: so interesting is there can we discuss a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of the difference between the Nazis and the Verrmacht Republic.
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  Speaker 1: Oh good question, Yeah, because there is a difference, and
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  Speaker 1: it gives us a little insight into the motivation of
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  Speaker 1: this major. It does, and again a little bit of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: a surfacy discussion of this. But the Nazi party, you know,
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  Speaker 1: essentially took over a pre existing Germany with the under
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  Speaker 1: the attempt to make it a one party system. But
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  Speaker 1: the very marked soldiers were already you know, in place
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  Speaker 1: before the Nazis took over. The Nazis like including like
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  Speaker 1: the s S and the Gestapo UH and the Nazi
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  Speaker 1: soldiers were required to really have this ethnic cleansing kind
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  Speaker 1: of ideology, um, you know, in a very fanatical way,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: whereas the Vermacht should soldiers. Some of them might have
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  Speaker 1: been hole hog into the Nazi way of thinking. Some
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  Speaker 1: of them might have been you know a little more
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  Speaker 1: old school or like the way they like things before
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  Speaker 1: the Nazis came in. Um. So that totally makes sense
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  Speaker 1: that this guy would have been one of the ones
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  Speaker 1: who maybe wasn't as fanatical at all and was into
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  Speaker 1: helping the resistance. Absolutely picture him saying, the German army
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  Speaker 1: used to stand for something noble. Long story short, this
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  Speaker 1: was the perfect guy for these French prison scouts to meet.
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  Speaker 1: And the major thinks, well, I can't protect these prisoners.
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  Speaker 1: I only have twenty soldiers that I that I can
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  Speaker 1: count on. So he takes a huge white flag, which is,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the universal symbol for coming in peace, and
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  Speaker 1: he finds the closest American unit, the twenty third Tank
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  Speaker 1: Battalion of the U S twelve Armored Division, led by
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  Speaker 1: a guy named Captain Jack Lee. Jack Well, led by
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a guy named Jack Lee who was a captain. His
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: first name was not Captain Jack Lee, though that would
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: be really cool. I still will refer to him a
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  Speaker 1: hand worth as Captain jack Um. And Lee was down
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: he wont he was like, okay, let's do this, and
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  Speaker 1: he offered to lead a rescue mission, very daring um
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  Speaker 1: rescue mission to the impenetrable castle. Yeah, so this is
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  Speaker 1: strange the Americans, as you said, No, they go with
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  Speaker 1: this Vermont major and they park their tank close to
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  Speaker 1: the castle entrance. On May five in the morning, that
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  Speaker 1: SS finally attacks. They blow up the tank, but they're
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  Speaker 1: unable to storm the castle. And this is about five
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  Speaker 1: days after Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April. So things
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  Speaker 1: are already very very desperate on the German side. You
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: know what, before we go too too far, we should
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: examine those two people they sent out for help and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about them. Because I had
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: said earlier that two of the French prisoners went out
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  Speaker 1: on bicycle, right, that's not entirely true. One of the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: guys was their Yugoslavian handyman, and he actually he's the
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  Speaker 1: first guy who went out. He found some US troops
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  Speaker 1: in Innsbruck. But because the castle was outside of their jurisdiction.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't all go. Major John T. Kramer's had a
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: crisis of conscience and sent a small rescue group, but
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  Speaker 1: the French v I P folks in it had not
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: heard back from him. So the person they sent who
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: actually found Gongole and Captain Jack Cee Lee, uh, that
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: was their cook. So they were they were sending out
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  Speaker 1: the help. Yeah, exatly because let's not forget these were,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: um let's call them high value prisoners, right, folks that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: could leverage. They wanted to keep alive, and they wanted
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: them to live and at least relatively comfortable environments, almost
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: like uh Juliana sang in the embassy kind of situation,
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  Speaker 1: free to move around the facilities at quit you know,
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  Speaker 1: comfortable quarters and food and all of that. But at
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  Speaker 1: this point, um, these folks were very much in fear
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: of their lives and they could either be executed summarily
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: just just to get rid of any witnesses or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: you know. I at this point it was like a
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  Speaker 1: scorched earth kind of situation for the for the Germans
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: right there, trying to like get rid of any evidences
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: at point being is you would not have felt very
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: safe with all of these Nazis in full freak out mode,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: right agreed, And the battle that takes place is in
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: some ways astonishing because the defenders were vastly outnumbered. They
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: were fighting about a hundred to a hundred and fifty
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: s S troops. Eventually, the attackers shoot and kill the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: rmach major Gongol as they mentioned, they destroyed the tank,
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  Speaker 1: they damaged the castle walls. Even the prisoners are joining
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: in with small arms they found after the guards ran away. Originally,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the battle lasts for about six hours and things are
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: looking increasingly dire. The allied forces that would be the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: German forces and the UH and the prisoners and the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: US forces are running out of ammunition. And then the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: last moment, the way that all great battles go in
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  Speaker 1: works of fiction and so on, just as they were
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: getting down to their last bullets, a column of tanks
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  Speaker 1: that small rescue party organized by John Kramer's arrives in
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  Speaker 1: the afternoon and scatters the SS forces. And this Hans
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  Speaker 1: Fuchs kid, who's fourteen at the time, was watching it
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: all from his family's farm. He's seeing clouds of dust
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and smoke and machine gun fire, that goes on and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: on for hours. That's that's the battle. They Oh they
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: take prisoners, Well, you gotta take some prisoners. They got
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a castle at their disposal. I mean, they might as
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: well make good use of it, right, I know, right,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it's like you have to have a moot. They called
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: it a dry moat, though, Ben, what does that mean.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: It doesn't sound as scary as a wet mode full
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: of like alligators, right, Yeah, I guess a dry moat
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: is just the circular ditch. Yeah, but I guess it would.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: It would certainly make it. You know, you couldn't like
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: cross it with a tank or something like that. Right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: It limits your path into and out of the field.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Line is probably so steep, so wide that you can
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: only cross over a bridge. That's it. That makes perfect sense.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: So about a hundred s s troops are taken prisoner,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that's according to a report from the BBC, And the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: only fatality on the Allied side there was Major Gongle,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: who later was buried in a nearby town and had
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a street named after him. Did we talk about the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: commander who killed himself? We did not, So this is
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: backtracking is a little bit. But I just think It's
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: interesting because this is you know, a very dramatic end, right.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So I mean once it was very clear that things
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: were not going their way, um, they were losing round,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you know. By by the second uh, the actual commander
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of Dakao turned tail uh and ran to Castle eater
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Um as it was being liberated by the troops, and
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: then he killed himself on May the second, and that's
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: when the castle's own commandant and the guards took off,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and that was what left the prisoners in charge of
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: their own destiny kind of right, So then they were
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: able to you know, but they were still locked inside, right, yes.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: So later after they start picking up the pieces of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the conflict, caring for the wounded, getting rid of the dead,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the French v I p s are driven off. They're
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: on their way back to Innsbruck and then they're going
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to be met by senior Allied officers and then they
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: would return to France to resume their careers. But for
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: the U. S forces, this was a little bit um,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: not not a letdown, an anti climactic ending. Uh. The
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: seven Americans and their surviving soldiers of the Vermont, because
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: remember Gongole commanded twenty soldiers. They all piled in the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: back of a truck and they took a ride back
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to a place called Kufstein and once there the Germans
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: are marched off to a pow camp. Uh. The soldiers
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: rejoined their unit, and you should mention these are African
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: American soldiers and Lee, Harry Bass and the other tankers
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: just like called it a day. They did eventually get
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: recognized for their leadership. Captain Jack Lee received the Distinguished
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Service Cross and Harry Bass received the Silver Star, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: it did turn some heads over in the States. On
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: July there was a piece that ran in the Saturday
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: evening Posts and there's a lovely quote that summed up
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the whole thing, I think remarkably well. Um it was
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: from Lee himself, the the the Akan tank commander, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: he referred to it as being quote, just the damnedest thing.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Oh shucks. And that is where we will leave the story.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I think that Lee summed it up best. We want
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: to hear your strange stories about wartime, you know, because
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: it war is a terrible, terrible thing, but they're also
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: inspiring and sometimes beautiful moments that happened in the midst
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of all that chaos, like the time the times that
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: opposing forces stop fighting each other and go hang out
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: for Christmas. Right, that's actually happened before. So let us
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: know what sort of moving or strange or just downright
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: ridiculous stories you have encountered in your own reading or
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: in your own experience. Uh and let us know. On Instagram, Facebook,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and Twitter. You can find us as a show. You
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: can find us individually. I am at Ben Bullen on Instagram,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I'm at how Now Noel Brown on Instagram as and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: if you want to check out our Facebook community, you
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: can do so at the Ridiculous Historians where we have
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: to do his name me Ben or Casey on the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: case or make us laugh big big thanks as always too,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram research associates Gabe Lusia and Ryan Barrish.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Huge thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme are pal.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Christopher Haciota is here always in spirit. Damn you the quister,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Damn your eyes. And we hope to see again back
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: on the show very soon, because I really enjoyed the secondments.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Despite putting up a tough front, We're overdue. I'd love
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to I'd love to have him back on the show. Absolutely. Uh.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And you know who else I'd love to have back
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: on the show, Ben, who's you? Because you're the co
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: host of the show and you do a great job
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and I really appreciate you. Wait, who's not gonna get
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: on the show? What? What are you firing? People? Can't
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: fire people to fire anybody. I'm just saying, I want
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I look forward to the next time we do this.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: That was around about what I'm saying, okay, um, And
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I look forward to you folks. You find folks out
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: there in podcast land joining us. Yeah, it's no smoke
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: when we say reach out. We would We would love
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts. You are our favorite part of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the show. So thank you for tuning in. See you
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: next time. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
• 24:16
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• 24:19
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.