How Montana Became the Training Grounds for Nazi Occupied Italy | Witness | WWII Documentary

[Music] in the summer of 1942 a squad of soldiers learned how to parachute jump the hard way you know in the' 40s uh hardly anybody had flown the plane they said get in the truck and we'll take you over to the airport and give you shoots and we'll give you a ride so we got up in this damn c47 and the guy said stand up hook up stand in the door I we went nobody had ever been in an airplane before but people did volunteer because they wanted to go for a ride you see and if you lived you were qualified this was how the men of the devil's Brigade earned their Jump Wings you done your first jump within a week you you didn't have time to think about it 60 years later another group of soldiers will do what those legendary Fighters once did put us deide Their Fear and roll the dice I'm starting to get the butterflies a little bit you know uh it's the first time jumping of course like the rest of the guys but I'm sure we're all going to be scared these men will do their very first parachute jump from 11,000 ft not by Static line but freef fall why because that's what it took to be part of the devil's Brigade [Music] me [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] anzio January 22nd 1944 the US Fifth Army invades the Italian coast south of Rome if you're going to 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 at last I'm I'm really going to do something here you know the men believed they'd be in Rome within the week they were [Music] wrong Germans were the best soldiers in the world they were best trained they had wonderful experience and they had uh you know that fanatical Faith what are all those things coming in they said those are shells from the Germans oo I volunteered for this the Allies are stalled at anzio but Patrol clashes are frequent here's a German Outpost by the time the first special service Force came ashore on day 11 The Invasion had ground to a [Music] halt the German Commander Field Marshal Albert kesslering brought the 70,000 veteran troops he had in reserve to the battle and surrounded The Landing Force the battlefield was flat as you know there wasn't a hill over over there to hide behind or anything else you're sitting on a static line uh the Germans evidently didn't want to wipe out the beach head not right after they 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 the Sayan adarus they snuck up on our Advanced posts and the guards didn't even notice someone was was approaching they were quite agile like leopards sneaking up and before the guard even noticed he' had his throat cut 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 uh we uh the force was facing the Herman Goran division which had 18,000 men approximately with the armor and everything else and uh by aggressively patrolling No Man's Land capturing people killing them letting them know that we own No Man's Land uh they thought we were a much larger Force they thought we were a division in size they had no idea that there were so few of us this is where the first special service Force learned their killing skills it out everybody Hela Montana and these soldiers are fighting the devil's Brigade way with no mercy grab like so this is [ __ ] grab like this see the expression on the lt's face here's nothing that's either do it right or die got it many of these men are combat veterans some are Canadians who fought in Afghanistan others Americans who 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 be up like this please please please get it down here turn your back at Sears right start shaking from movement they can't detect movements underneath right the finger the combative systems we've been learning are very violent very aggressive there are many things that are very applicable especially in today's modern Battlefield you develop a sense of aggression and you develop a confidence in your ability to close with and destroy the enemy you know 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 uh kill the person that way it's a totally different mindset a totally different frame of view and it's a frame of view that we need on the modern Battlefield when you're working your block you need a wider angle block wide balls okay there's the knife trapped okay take it off them all right this is not going to be Bill wolf teaches hand-to-hand combat to the Canadian Army he's the type of instructor the Brigade would have liked you're ready I love the balls Mo wolf specialized is 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 when you're block him Mike if he's coming at you from the side try not to expose this because okay your arm pit so when you're coming in do your block wedge it off to here that traps out the arm here okay I'm blocking try to keep your elbows inside your body not out I'll do that attack again he's Tau that's better hand to hand train of Sergeant wolf is standing it's intense it's good it teaches you some interesting skills some of the things that he does we've never really addressed before in uh training it's almost like learning the uh kind like the darker Arts of of learning how to 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 their killing knife the [Music] v42 I thought it was pretty neat was a dagger really sharp and uh we used that for everything and we was always taking a thing and we'd sharpen it on the side of our jump boot on the leather boot we'd keep it nice and sharp with a skull cracker on the end of the handle the 7 and 1/2 in 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 task 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 um basically this is an area that we've worked in before so everybody's familiar with it and it's uh it's the uh machine gun range area the jungle Lane uh this is a trailer or a shed of some sort our Intel tells us that there's two centuries posted sit outside there and our Target is the general who is residing [Music] inside at night we'd get ourselves ready and we go out to patrol Norman's land just to see what we could scare up paint our faces and uh our hands with grease paint uh different colors GRE green black um we just wore a Wool Cap uh our ammunition belts and our weapons that's all we had uh dog tabs were taped together it was quiet you have nothing that makes noise nothing makes noise since every your foot touches anything you stuck cuz that stick if it cracks can give away your position but it could be a mine you 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 [Music] ready wait for us to get in position okay what's time you think it'll take you guys you'll see us 10 to 15 minutes see you guys you guys go ahead I'm going to brief other 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 anything that they could get their bloody hands on especially their booze get down [Music] your room clear [Music] [Music] this one German prisoner of war said she we never hear them coming we never hear them coming all of a sudden they're there they called us the black Devils because they said they never heard us coming [Music] as anzio became a stalemate and the regular units dug in the first special service Force stalked no man's land clearing buildings taking prisoners ambushing Patrols [Music] one night uh six of us went out and we heard that there was a German Patrol out there and sure enough after about three yards I think it was I know I was getting cold we heard him coming down this one ditch and the sergeant he waited till that lead guy in that German Patrol got within I'd say arms length of him and he hollered octune to him to try to get him give up and the German made a mistake of turned around with his Burke gun and the sergeant opened up then we all opened up we got all six of [Music] them on the bodies of their victims the men left a chilling calling card stickers which read in German the worst is yet to come FIS got the idea as I understand it and U not everybody got the opportunity to use them but it was very effective and it was the one situation where apparently this guy was going out on patrol and he said to the patrol well we won't kill him tonight we'll just have fun and put a sticker on them let them know we were there they'd go out and stick the darn things any place even if they didn't find any Germans they just stick the sticker out and I think that put the fear into the enemy quite a bit the fact that we were crawling around they 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 scrolled in his diary they are everywhere around us these black Devils that was strange that was in that German officer's diary we can't cope with these uh these Devils with their painted faces and their baggy pants and then the media picked it end up and nicknamed us the devil's [Music] prade finally after more than 3 months the Allies broke out of the anzio beach head the first special service Force led the way our Battalion was one of the lead battalions breaking out of anel that was quite an experience that was a tough fight first day we were thrown back uh 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 I it was all I could do to keep from shooting these guys coming out with their hands up after after killing my Colonel we had a couple rough battles on the way room one place there I thought my God we'd be lucky if we get through here because we were going through a I think it was a wheat field there was nothing to protect us and the Germans were set up with machine guns and everything and but we made it we took the machine guns out and then we moved on into Rome and going into Rome was a real charge uh we had driven the Germans out through the city the people were wild uh they had all sorts of fruit and wine and stuff to give us and they tried to give it to us but soon as a shot fired they were they disappeared and uh I remember remember going up the streets in Rome that morning the darn shine G bullets coming from the Germans are hitting the walls all around you know make hang around scaring pants right off of me but we got up there and uh it was my company had the job of securing six or seven of the bridges across the Tiber they didn't want the uh Germans to blow the bridges up otherwise we couldn't get across some of them were charged ready to blow but we got before they br them and uh 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 [Music] most when we would go through any Town Italy or France you know the dog faces as they call us they got a hang out of a rifle goddamn thing I had enough of this war you and then the Germans had left then these girls would come out girls would come out with wine and some stuff you know 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 and everybody was drunk I mean they were drunk and they were kissing the girls and everything the women was that was it that's what we were in a war for for women but you never got you never got involved other than just getting getting [Music] [Applause] some as the veil of fascism lifted the citizens of Rome celebrated but for the devil's Brigade the war was far from over Hitler ordered kessle ring 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 cuz if you give them time to set up they got time to do a lot of damage like setting booby traps or setting up good defenses the German Army had an extensive catalog of Mines which they used to slow the Allied Advance the teller m 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 a dresser or something something's wrong what's that doing sitting there you [Music] know the town's people were warned against enemy mines and booby traps which were in the process of being [Music] cleared tens of thousands of booby traps were also left behind and as they do today they killed at [Music] random they don't call them booby traps anymore but rather IEDs improvised explosive devices so once the square pin's pulled all you got to do is pull your main safety in Afghanistan and Iraq they're taking a terrible toll on men like these to pull pry so here's our trip wire and I I made it incredibly loose we just go ahead and pull on that I'll try to hold this see if we get a little bigger this it sound a little better didn't it okay then the same chain of Eng Angelo gdula is a sergeant in the National Guard who recently lost a family member to an IED in Iraq my brother-in-law Paul was killed uh 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 uh to fight for their fam's welfare and for their country you know whether it's insurgents or Nazis or uh terrorists of any kind you know any kind of uh terroristic regime or whatever you want to call it but uh soldiers are there to protect their people and uh that's what I do let's say uh ex the instructors have given the squad a simple task cross this field but hidden in the grass are trip wires and booby traps the sort of IEDs the devil's Brigade faced we was going out Patrol one night and the first guy in the line stepped on a foot mine and it blew his foot off now sometime they snuck in there and put that mine there on a path that we knew we that they was pretty sure that we used you know let's face it they wasn't dumb either you know and almost anything they'd booby trap if they had time to do it and they they' done a lot of it especially when they [Music] [Music] Retreat Albert bue 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 pressure release go around it Albert bue 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 deploying overseas and and should we be there and well 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 is a sense of development and uh 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 10 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 28 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 jumping right over top of you and you can steal each other's uh air and you can Plum it right in like a tent Peg so everything is mental alertness and um you don't have time to daydream [Music] period the parachute training the Brigade received was rudimentary at best non-existent at worst okay there's a few things we 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 or shoot because it didn't have canopy release on the equipment itself and then we'll move all the way down there where the markup 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 jumped twice and if you could walk away you were qualified the parachut came up to approximately here with the stic line Let It Go static line would go there he would kept on going jump Master would take control of it he would Square himself up feet apart nice and relax and when you jump be careful there jump straight out and where you go [Music] go basically you didn't have time they just had little mockup towers and they told you how to put a shoot on how to collapse a chot the about what height should be you jump out of these mockup towers to uh get on the ground and 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 18 M hour and that's about how you'll get it when you get down and you didn't have time within a week you'd done your jump you done your first jump within a week you didn't you didn't have time to think about it I don't think I was scared I think maybe I was more curious but uh standing in the line I think I was more concerned with the fact that I was checking the guy ahead to see his equipment was okay guy behind was checking my equipment and I checked my hook on the cable and when a Time came time to go it was bang bang bang we're gone I had no idea what was going on frankly uh you don't know what's going to happen next you know kind of got your fingers crossed but all of a sudden poof your parachute opens and you say to yourself jeez this is pretty nice and float down about that Reserve 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 starting to get the butterflies a little bit you know it's first time jumping of course like the rest of the guys but sure we're all going to be scared but um when I get go to jump out of the plane that's going to know really it's going to hit me in the stomach I get to I get to Major butter flies 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 jbd the Green Beret has done almost 100 jumps many of them what special forces call Halo jumps high altitude low opening be distorting the nose a little bit okay the key is with this is to do Jay has brought the men to a parachute school to do their first jump if things go wrong in freef Fall you you just have to remember to Arch sometimes on on their first jump some when people jump um they try to de Arch a little bit and when when you happen to dearch 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 um just you just have to arch it out and that should stabilize you little bit of leg little bit more legs here 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 1,000 ft without a reserve if the main shoot failed they were dead the danger to these men is less but the challenge the same do they have the guts to jump Albert bue is certain that he does 9,000 ft check left check right wait who whoa did you see anything for me no okay thanks check right there we go thumbs up heading 7,000 ft I've bungee jumped before and and scuba dive so I just and Lead climb there a couple days ago so I I just want to do it I'm feeling pretty good yeah I'd like to just jump I don't want to I don't want to wait around too long I just want to try it I don't know I'm feeling great at least there's no mosquitoes up here hey right hey hey I've been rolling with the Canadians too long oh 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 freef fall from 11,000 ft Chris bird the sniper is first to go he barely pauses Andrew Row the 19-year-old from Nova Scotia shows why the squad calls him the fighting [Music] fetus Angelo gadola says a quick prayer and trusts that somebody is actually listening [Music] and finally it's Albert Bush'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 Free Fall is like is awesome and I wish it would last longer cuz you know you're you're concentrating on your drills and it just seems to go go quick you could feel like all sudden the air got warm you know he like okay that's I must be getting close on it was about 7,000 and then and then six lock on and and then pull [Music] it was pretty cool had a good time and then when uh I want to mess around with the shoot there cuz it was a pretty good feeling when you're under under the canop you spin it around there that was awesome with his first jump behind him Albert is ready for more he's the type of soldier who' have been at home in the Brigade smart and brave with just a touch of crazy for almost 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 to reveal grab 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 defensa 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 took defensa in just a few hours [Music] Joe glass from Sarnia was one of the first men to reach the top Lauren wailing Joe's best friend was close behind and Mark Radcliffe a young leftenant from Texas helped plan the assault the 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 were in a gully down below here we were sitting in there waiting till we might be needed and all of a sudden right up above me a mortar round goes off I yell the command to get down down and hit the dirt well just as I'm doing that the around hit right almost in front not too far away and I got a piece of Shanel Right Between the Eyes sticking out about that big and I didn't know I had it it was numb and they took me down to the Aid Station down below and the doctor walked up and he feels around on it and his hands are going like this and I says what are you shaking for I says I'm the patient he says but you're my first that's that's that's how I started the war that's the first time I I hadn't fired a shot the next day we had to go all the way up here right up in here where they put the ropes up in the cliffs and we went up the bowl seems to be small there but we come up right here and we attacked and uh took us two hours to take that out we took all these guys out we lost a few men quite a few men in fact we done a good job real good job up here how can you explain combat of that you 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 uh the hand it hit my little finger right there with a bullet and then it hit the rock and it splattered 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 Sid gath on the other and he said how's things going Joe and I said okay 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 him out the easy way because you couldn't he was real good Marksman he hit several guys but they both raised their head at the same time and he got both of them through the brains the brains splattered out in the ground and so I moved over and talked to D M Don McKinnon and he was there and he said Jesus Joe I'm scared I said hell we're all scared have a cigarette I wanted a cigarette bad so I lit up two cigarettes and I bored two grenades and it was only 25 ft 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 sidg or Roth and who were both dead and then we tried to get him out and I don't know who got him but it didn't matter he was a last guy but he' already killed my commanding officer and one of my best friends [Music] in defens of Shadow lie the men who died on that brave but terrible morning Americans and Canadians men like Joe's friend Zid 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 uh soldiers are always in a Brotherhood so with that in mind I mean we each have those common qualities or uh common interest just to be here to you know represent them and honor them so I think that's a pretty damn uh strong bond between us it's incredible to see uh you know we met three of them were members of uh the devil's Brigade and that was kind of amazing you're meeting these old men you know and they've lived their lives out and they're having trouble walking and but then you see it in their eyes you know and I I told some of the guys like you walk up to them and you shake their hand and they still have that firm grip and I mean the one gentleman I can't remember his name off hand 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 when when uh you know World War II was going on but you see it in their eyes that they're uh they're proud that they were part part of it and they're even more proud that somebody's willing to represent them [Music] here where's box as any Soldier will tell you the real work of army life begins when the training ends I can't put down anybody to get my frags no not yet and for this squad there's plenty of work to do before they leave for Italy as far as uh getting ready for our mission in Italy on defensa um I think we've come a long way and I think that uh the training we did here in the mountains is really going to help us to uh accomplish our mission overseas we're really uh 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 defend up will be a mission to test them because the men will face an actual opponent 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 defend as Cliffs something which has Brian Haynes worried the climbing that we've been training on is really making it hit home about the uh climb we have ahead of us at defensa we've done all of four days of training and climbing and we're all including myself with my fear of heights we're all doing pretty good as far as getting up the rock face but we still have uh we don't have the kind of experience that I think is probably necessary for a climbs big as I'm here in Mount defens is Brian's instincts may be right the assault on defensa will be like nothing the men have ever done to reach the Germans the squad must climb to the top of this 3,000 ft High Mountain Crossing ridges and Boulder Fields as they do but the real test will come on defensas 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 at [Music] night 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 uh my reaction was I had a got a coppery taste in my mouth the first special service Force takes the mountain but at a terrible cost I saw Captain rothlin go down to accept the surrender and the German shot him instantly the word went out we don't need any prisoners and the squad finds climbing the cliffs harder than they ever could have imagined this is this is not safe someone's going to get killed no more guys are coming up I no this is guys getting bumped off this thing that's next on Devil's Brigade 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