🇺🇸 Americans React to Subscribers' Incredible Blitz Stories | Courage, Loss & Survival During WWII

[00:00:00]Marry tea bag if I lie.

[00:00:03]We didn't run [music] away.

[00:00:05]We were at war.

[00:00:06]Thousands volunteered, then went through conscription.

[00:00:10]>> [music] >> Children were evacuated, women joined the forces, worked in the fields and munition factories.

[00:00:17]>> [music] >> Everything was saved and recycled.

[00:00:20]We built air raid shelters in our gardens. We didn't run away to another country. People too old to fight became air raid [music] wardens, policemen, home guards, firemen, etc. Women drove the ambulances and provided tea and sandwiches. [music] They trained to be nurses and left home for the first time.

[00:00:39]We dug up our gardens and parks to [music] grow food.

[00:00:42]We had our food rationed. We didn't run away. We fought for our country.

[00:00:47]>> [music] >> We learned how to keep pigs and chickens, deliver milk to towns. We lived in blackout for years, went to work in the dark. We were bombed relentlessly week after [music] week.

[00:00:59]Many worked deep in the mines and in the fields, but we didn't run away. Our men were slaughtered.

[00:01:05]>> [music] >> Our women and children were slaughtered.

[00:01:07]Our ships were sunk. Our cities decimated. Our airplanes shot down. In every town [music] and village, there was someone who died.

[00:01:17]We did this for 6 years and we still [music] didn't run away.

[00:01:22]>> Wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are of course [music] a part of Hitler's invasion plan.

[00:01:32]He hopes by killing large numbers of civilians and women and children that he will terrorize and cow the people of this mighty imperial city and make them a burden and anxiety to the government and thus distract our attention unduly from the ferocious onslaught he is preparing.

[00:01:54]Little does he know the spirit of the British nation or the tough fiber [music] of the Londoner whose forefathers played a leading part in the establishment of parliamentary institutions and who have been bred to value freedom far above their lives.

[00:02:13]>> There's a difference between hearing a story and we know that today you hear a story.

[00:02:19]But then when it's brought to your face I would say when we first did the British blitz reaction video it was just cuz it seemed like a good video to do at the time. But the comments underneath it and then once you start getting into British culture, you realize how much of this impacted.

[00:02:41]But not it's it's to the point now that even me making the statement that says how much it impacted just seems ridiculous.

[00:02:52]It seems so ridiculous to make that statement because it's so weird to go to a place and you hear a story and you hear the story about the blitz and I guess you in my head I wanted to re- relate it to you know, King Henry the VIII.

[00:03:09]>> Yeah.

[00:03:10]>> It's something we talk about, something that's interesting.

[00:03:13]But something changed in that comment section.

[00:03:17]Something changed when I was watching British TV that it kept circling back.

[00:03:25]It didn't matter if you was watching Doctor Who.

[00:03:30]>> With a very loud noise.

[00:03:31]>> Quickly as you can, down to the shelter.

[00:03:36]>> Only Fools and Horses.

[00:03:37]>> Now good people during the blitz some of the men painted a sign on the roof of a warehouse so that the Luftwaffe pilots could see it.

[00:03:48]It said "Dear Adolf, you can break our windows, but not our hearts.

[00:04:00]>> This was engraved in the culture of the UK. This was a scar or a testament to UK citizens, to the British people, to the British blood.

[00:04:13]And when we started reading these comments and started seeing people telling us their stories, we was mind-blown.

[00:04:23]Of just just countless stories of heroism and bravery.

[00:04:30]Stuff that would put King Arthur to shame.

[00:04:32]>> Yeah.

[00:04:33]>> And when we got these videos we when we got this I was just like, I got to make it some type of video out of this.

[00:04:39]Something.

[00:04:41]You know, these people I got to share this with the world to hear it.

[00:04:45]You know? So, it took a while because I didn't have the confidence or I didn't have the Yeah, I didn't have the confidence.

[00:04:54]>> We didn't know how to go about it.

[00:04:55]>> And I wanted to be honorable.

[00:04:57]So, what we're going to do today is we're going to share some of these stories with you.

[00:05:02]And we're going to talk about them.

[00:05:04]And if you guys got something you want to share, put in the comment section below.

[00:05:08]Like the video. Share the video with your friend.

[00:05:11]If you have a story you want to share, put it below. But we're going to get started and we're going to read some of these stories. And the last story I would have never expected to get.

[00:05:22]>> My mother was in Coventry the night the Luftwaffe flattened it.

[00:05:28]She remembers watching what she at the time called fireworks through a gap between the top of the door >> [music] >> and the roof of the back garden shelter.

[00:05:40]She cried because her parents wouldn't let her go outside to see them properly.

[00:05:44]She She 3 years old.

[00:05:47]Walking around town a couple days later, everything she remembered was just gone.

[00:05:55]She asked my grandma what happened and she said, "This is what the fireworks did."

[00:06:04]When I was a kid, I used to wonder why we went [music] to firework displays.

[00:06:11]It was only my dad who took us.

[00:06:13]She would never come.

[00:06:15]I was in my 20s she told me.

[00:06:18]She would even turn off the TV if it showed anything with fireworks [music] going off.

[00:06:25]Weirdly though, she never had a problem with films or TV that showed actual explosions or real real or fictional. [music] She was quite happy to sit through war films and the like.

[00:06:37]It was just fireworks.

[00:06:39]Somehow that connection in her head never left her.

[00:06:42]She's 87 now and still puts loud music on to drown out fireworks in November or on New Year's.

[00:06:50]>> That's so interesting. You think about that that a young kid and you talk about how would a young kid understand this?

[00:07:01]>> Yeah.

[00:07:02]>> That's what's going on. A 3-year-old. We have a 3-year-old.

[00:07:07]That can never be explained to him.

[00:07:09]>> No.

[00:07:10]>> He would I'm sure you know, as he gets older he'll understand, but I think that's funny about that story about how this is how she made sense of it.

[00:07:22]And that's what remained the scar.

[00:07:24]>> Leaves that that hurt in her.

[00:07:28]>> That's where the PTSD comes in.

[00:07:32]And it makes me wonder because I was we was watching the blitz, you know, and I think when you're in a situation where you are in a complete abnormal situation the mind's desperate to find the mind's desperate to find normalcy.

[00:07:53]>> Yeah.

[00:07:53]>> The mind's desperate and you know, they talked about how these little kids like they would get excited after the bombing runs because they would go pick up the shiny shrapnel.

[00:08:02]>> Mhm.

[00:08:03]>> But here and think that you know, you have a 3-year-old kid and a 3-year-old you know, grows up to be an adult and something so catastrophic happens and Coventry was one of the worst place hit.

[00:08:17]>> Mhm.

[00:08:19]>> And the things that that 3-year-old probably had to see that that little mind was probably working just I don't know.

[00:08:29]>> Awful.

[00:08:30]>> Thank you for sending in that story though.

[00:08:33]Because more than anything this puts things into perspective.

[00:08:44]Okay, this story is from Life's Lemonade. My grandma, a 16-year-old girl, worked in a bomb factory in Birmingham.

[00:08:52]One evening she fell asleep at the cinema [music] and missed work.

[00:08:56]She found out the next day a raid had dropped bombs in the shelter the factory >> [music] >> workers were in was a direct hit and completely entombed all the workers. There's a plaque on the site where they just buried it over as survivors would be zero.

[00:09:12]Is now a massive memorial.

[00:09:15]If my grandma hadn't fallen asleep I wouldn't exist.

[00:09:20]She still got fined for missing work.

[00:09:24]>> Wow.

[00:09:26]>> A couple of things from that. One 16 year >> Yeah.

[00:09:31]>> Like an American 16-year-old girl or any 16-year-old you're supposed to get ready to get your driver's license, go out on a date.

[00:09:45]>> If you have a job, it's probably in a coffee shop.

[00:09:47]>> Yeah.

[00:09:49]You're not, you know, making bombs and bullets for an airplane.

[00:09:55]>> No.

[00:09:57]>> And the idea she fell asleep, what's the chances?

[00:10:04]>> God's protection. [music] >> She wasn't meant for it.

[00:10:11]There's always a plan.

[00:10:14]And I don't think she was meant That wasn't her time.

[00:10:17]But it gives a good It brings up a good point.

[00:10:21]And they say at the end, if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be here.

[00:10:28]And if it wasn't for how many other people, she wouldn't have been there. So, when you look at this war effort, it's like a painting. If you're looking at a Picasso painting, what exact brush stroke, what exact line makes it the painting?

[00:10:44]And you look at the idea of the bullets and say, what exact person made it? So, when you look up and say, 100% if your grandmother wasn't there, [music] you would not exist.

[00:10:58]But I think that's the idea for the UK of how many people had to step up and be that hero.

[00:11:03]>> Yeah.

[00:11:04]>> How many people, because of that group effort, you know, we're all still here. Not just you guys, us.

[00:11:13]>> Mhm.

[00:11:14]>> That war front became the war front that we needed.

[00:11:20]That was a war front that we needed to drive the Germans back.

[00:11:27]So, their bravery, them going in knowing what was happening >> Mhm.

[00:11:35]knowing the risk and just still doing it.

[00:11:41]Is the reason that we're all sitting here because if these people didn't do what they did and the UK became German rule we would have had a different war.

[00:11:53]We would have had a very very different war with a very different ending.

[00:11:57]That's amazing. Thank you for that story.

[00:12:03]>> This story is from Bob. My mom would have been almost 10 years old at the start of the Blitz. She lived in a area called Reddish which was amongst Surrey docks. That first photo of the bomber it was right under that plane.

[00:12:21]One night on a particularly bad night of bombing they decided to evacuate kids to local [music] schools.

[00:12:29]My mom was due to go to a school called Keeton Road School.

[00:12:35]Many of her friends went there but my mom was taken to another school because Keeton Road was full. Keeton Road School took a direct hit. Many among them were my mom's friends.

[00:12:55]>> So you go on to another thing.

[00:13:00]Of either just sheer luck or sheer hand of God.

[00:13:04]>> Yeah.

[00:13:06]>> But what what so like so devastating about that story right?

[00:13:15]This isn't made up. This isn't a joke.

[00:13:18]This is real.

[00:13:19]>> No.

[00:13:20]>> This was her friends but those were parents grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins.

[00:13:30]And those kids was in that school.

[00:13:31]>> Yeah.

[00:13:32]>> And they heard about it.

[00:13:35]>> She was only 10 and heard all of her friends died.

[00:13:38]>> Yeah.

[00:13:39]But >> Knowing that they could have been her.

[00:13:48]>> I think the idea that they just get up and you say, "Okay, these people's going to fight.

[00:13:57]These people's working. These people's pushing."

[00:14:02]And you're like, "Oh, they're fighting adversity."

[00:14:06]That's their adversity.

[00:14:09]You're doing this. Look, the reason that I decided that I thought this was time was I know I mentioned in the last video that my grandmother passed away.

[00:14:22]And a couple of days later after that I had a cousin pass away.

[00:14:30]And then a couple of days over after that I had another cousin pass away.

[00:14:38]But the bills still needed to be paid.

[00:14:40]Things still needed to be done. And I just had to go and that put such a mindset of what It was a such a taste of something that it wasn't a bad week or bad 2 weeks like we had in and then you know, we knew it was this accident or you know, my grandmother was a natural death. The other two was offset accidents. I didn't live with the fear of who's next.

[00:15:08]>> No.

[00:15:10]>> I didn't go out to work thinking, "Okay, that was last night. I hope to tonight's not as bad.

[00:15:19]>> Yeah.

[00:15:19]>> I hope I don't get this news tonight.

[00:15:23]And you see that in in a lot of people we did a a video it wasn't that good on the Blitz, but you're seeing a lot of these people they sent their children out to the countryside.

[00:15:33]You know?

[00:15:34]>> Yeah.

[00:15:35]>> They sent their children out to the countryside, they stayed and worked and these families were separated. They just and you go through that there's there's kids who there was parents who went to collect their kids that wasn't there no more and there was kids who came back to the city to meet their parents and they wasn't there no more and it was just like It's a lot.

[00:16:01]And here we are.

[00:16:03]You know?

[00:16:05]We're watching a video about the Blitz and we're just so amused.

[00:16:09]And then these are these people's real life.

[00:16:12]There's people who walk around the UK.

[00:16:15]There's people who come here to America they're still these are hardscaped in their memories.

[00:16:24]These are not leaving.

[00:16:26]Probably to this day still wakes them up.

[00:16:28]>> Yeah.

[00:16:30]>> Wow.

[00:16:37]This is from Louie 1889.

[00:16:40]I almost wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my amazing courageous great-grandmother. She was pregnant and close to labor when her home was bombed from the Blitz. She lived in London and she was sadly trapped among the rubble.

[00:16:53]But she was able to get out because she wanted to live.

[00:16:56]But most of all she wanted her baby to see the world. It took her a while to get out with the baby, my granddad managed to be okay and only days later she gave birth.

[00:17:07]It's also great to know she come from two great heroes.

[00:17:11]Her great-granddad who was part of the army, too. Sadly, he lost his life in war.

[00:17:17]but his name will never be forgotten.

[00:17:21]>> Wow.

[00:17:28]>> Guys, these stories We wasn't ready for this.

[00:17:33]>> No, they're horrible.

[00:17:35]>> We wasn't ready for this.

[00:17:37]They're horrible, but they're so brave.

[00:17:40]You're just >> You know what I mean by >> I So, I I tried like I tried because we have AI now and I tried to make a lot of images for these just to give some type of guidance and stuff and AI is like, "No."

[00:17:55]>> Yeah, I don't even want to touch it.

[00:17:56]>> I AI does not want to make these images.

[00:17:59]Just some type of This is No, that goes against That's a terrible thing.

[00:18:04]We're not making a picture of that.

[00:18:08]That's But, it happened.

[00:18:13]It's not something that we made up that in in 1940 there was a woman in rubble in London climbing, clawing her way out with the sure will that her baby was not That was not going to be her baby's grave.

[00:18:34]>> Yeah.

[00:18:34]>> That was not going to be her grave and that was not going to be her baby's grave.

[00:18:40]And after all that still lost.

[00:18:46]Still lost somebody.

[00:18:50]It's a testament to the British people.

[00:18:55]An absolute testament to how strong and how courageous >> Brave and the the sheer will.

[00:19:05]>> Yeah.

[00:19:07]That is so Thank you for sharing that.

[00:19:12]And this has made this YouTube channel so worth it.

[00:19:17]Just to be able for you guys to share your stories. Thank you so much.

[00:19:23]And what we normally do, we kind of got off track.

[00:19:27]Normally what we do is we like to dedicate money to a food bank of some place that we go. We like the UK so much that we try to give part of our money back.

[00:19:38]Uh this is built up through um our Patreons, our members, and you guys watching this video, liking it, and sharing it. We're donating to the Firefighters Charity. This was first set up during World War II.

[00:19:52]This was for the firemen who were going and fighting the fires during the Blitz.

[00:20:01]And this is an act of charity working today that helps the community, helps with firefighters, helps with families, helps people in need, and we dedicated this one to them. We're We'll put a link at the bottom if you want to dedicate if you want to donate, if you want to be a part of it. Um see what they do, see how they do it.

[00:20:18]All this will be down below. It's just a way that we say thank you.

[00:20:22]>> Cuz we really appreciate all that you guys do by being [music] members, being Patreons, and just watching the videos because without it, we would never go to the UK.

[00:20:34]>> Yeah.

[00:20:34]>> And we would not learn and love and get to do all of that.

[00:20:40]>> That's what I always say. Everybody says, "So, are you a reaction channel?"

[00:20:43]We're not a reaction channel, we're a learning channel.

[00:20:46]But it's [music] vice versa. We're the ones actually learning.

[00:20:51]>> Yeah.

[00:20:52]>> We're you're steadily watching us learn.

[00:20:54]And something like this I can't There's so many more stories, guys. I'll put the link down to the original video, and you guys can watch the video, but read the comments.

[00:21:06]If you're an American, read the comments. [music] If you're somebody who might have a story, share it down below.

[00:21:11]I don't know, we might do this again.

[00:21:15]I don't I I just felt like that was too much information >> Mhm.

[00:21:19]>> to not share.

[00:21:21]That was too amazing of a thing to not share with the world.

[00:21:25]And I hope by doing this, your grandparents and your family members, we honor them.

[00:21:33]And I hope you guys take this as an honoring thing for your family.

[00:21:37]I'm Rich Trippen.

[00:21:38]>> I'm Tiffany.

[00:21:40]>> And that was probably the coolest video I've ever made in my life.