one of the things that is never shown in movies about D-Day is how most of the troops defending the beaches were the dregs of the army, I remember reading Beevor's book about D-Day and he talked about how it was predominantly conscripted 15 year old and 60 year old guys in those pillboxes. I should dig up the quotes
anyway in the movies like Saving Private Ryan it's always a hulking Teutonic guy in his twenties with blue eyes, not guys who look like this
The western allies were quite literally fighting against conscripted reservists that wouldn't be normally fit for service or broken units from the eastern front that were sent to garrison the western occupied zones to replenish their ranks and train for redeployment eastward. A lot of cinema really don't portray the fact that that our soldiers were fighting and struggling against the occupation forces.
one of the things that is never shown in movies about D-Day is how most of the troops defending the beaches were the dregs of the army, I remember reading Beevor's book about D-Day and he talked about how it was predominantly conscripted 15 year old and 60 year old guys in those pillboxes. I should dig up the quotes
anyway in the movies like Saving Private Ryan it's always a hulking Teutonic guy in his twenties with blue eyes, not guys who look like this
The western allies were quite literally fighting against conscripted reservists that wouldn't be normally fit for service or broken units from the eastern front that were sent to garrison the western occupied zones to replenish their ranks and train for redeployment eastward. A lot of cinema really don't portray the fact that that our soldiers were fighting and struggling against the occupation forces.