Chaotic WWII Anti-Hero Was UNREAL (The Fat Electrician)

[00:00:00]Okay, so today is the day. One of my most requested videos ever. The fat electrician Jake Mcnasty video.

[00:00:10]>> YOU CAN DO IT.

[00:00:11]>> According to what I've been told, this is one of the most badass stories that you could imagine. Also, as I brought my other vest because I'm larger than the average bear.

[00:00:21]>> It's funny because he's fat.

[00:00:23]>> We got a new one delivered.

[00:00:26]This is a little bit too fancy for me.

[00:00:28]Even though it was like what, $5?

[00:00:30]>> It comes from China.

[00:00:32]>> But we're going to give it a try anyway.

[00:00:34]If I don't like it, I'm going to take it off. In the meantime, before we start this video, there's one thing I would like to address. Whenever we do something military related, I use subtitles for whenever I speak. Not for whenever someone else speaks, for whenever I speak. The reason I do that is because if you go back through my videos, there was a veteran commented in my chat. He said he watches from TV. He made an account specifically to do his first ever comment on YouTube and it was to ask me to please keep the subtitles on because it really helps him and he enjoys the videos. So every time we do anything military related, I got subtitles on and if it holds my channel back a little bit, then so be it because that man was respectful to me and I got massive respect for him. Hope you enjoy the video, good sir. Now here we go. I don't know what to expect, but according to what everyone said, this is going to be a badass story.

[00:01:32]>> This is hands down going to be the longest video I've ever made. I should probably pee first. Hold on.

[00:01:37]>> Wait, what? Did he change rooms?

[00:01:41]>> Quack.

[00:01:42]>> Today, we're talking about America's airborne anti-hero. Ladies and gentlemen, James Elbert Mcnise, aka Jake Mcnasty, the leader of one of the most notorious military groups of all time, the Filthy 13.

[00:01:54]Is that actually them?

[00:01:58]>> And just to clarify, in case you don't know, being an anti-hero is not a bad thing, despite how it may sound. You see, the textbook definition of an anti-hero is a hero that does not display typical heroic qualities, which honestly is pretty ambiguous, but it's one of those things where you know it when you see it. So, for example, a regular hero would be somebody like Superman. He's invincible. He shoots lasers from his eyes, and he always does the right thing 100% of the time. He never roughs up the bad guy. He always takes him straight to jail because the justice system never messes up anything.

[00:02:27]He only has sex in the missionary position. He always changes the batteries in his smoke detectors on time. It's boring, unrelatable, and completely inhuman behavior.

[00:02:38]I think that's a really good definition because most real heroes aren't polished movie style heroes. They would usually be classed as flawed people. They might swear, drink, make mistakes a lot, get into trouble, but when something really matters to them, they're the ones that run towards the danger instead of away from it. If you're in the middle of a fight, do you want a friend standing behind you saying, "Come on, guys. We should calm down." Or do you want to look over your shoulder and see your mate Dave who's already knocked out three people and he's got a big cheesy grin on his face.

[00:03:06]Anyways, and then you have the anti-heroes, the fan favorites, the characters with human faults that they not only overcome, but turn into their advantage. Characters like Wolverine with his bad attitude. Deadpool with his morbid sense of humor. Hell, even Batman is an anti-hero because at the end of the day, it's more relatable to do karate in your garage, dress up like a bat, and then run around town beating up clowns and dudes on steroids than it is to be perfect.

[00:03:28]>> Yep.

[00:03:29]>> So, I guess what it means to be an anti-hero is that you always do the right thing, but you don't always do it the right way. And if you were to ask me for a real life example of an anti-hero, I can't give you a better one than Jake McNiss. All right, here's the deal. Jake was born in Oklahoma in 1919. He grew up during the Great Depression as one of 10 siblings. This guy had to learn how to hunt, fish, and trap just to help put food on his family's table so they could survive. He had his first full-time job when he was 10 years old and continued to work full-time all the way through high school. After graduating, he became a full-time firefighter. Shortly after that, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened. America entered World War II.

[00:04:05]Jake, however, was exempt from the draft because he was a firefighter. But that's not what Jake wanted. Jake wanted to volunteer and he didn't just want to volunteer for anything. Jake wanted to be a paratrooper and a demolition man.

[00:04:16]>> That says a lot about him straight away.

[00:04:18]He had a way out. He wasn't forced into it. He came from nothing. He achieved something. He already had an important job, but he still chose to go. That's the bit that I always find very powerful in these stories. It's not about someone that did something just because they ended up somewhere. It's about what was in someone's heart, the decisions they made within themsel. Jake wanted to jump out of a perfectly good plane behind enemy lines with a couple of buddies, be completely surrounded, and have nothing more than a gun and some explosives, and just go out there and deprive the enemy of nice things. Got a bridge? Guess what? Now you don't. Nice power lines.

[00:04:51]It'd be a shame if somebody blew those up. That's what Jake wanted to do, and that's what he was going to do. My granddad was in the Paris. Being a paratrooper in World War II was already terrifying. But volunteering for demolition behind enemy lines is a whole different level. You're not just being sent into danger. You're being sent into confusion, isolation, chaos. Your job is to land where the enemy controls the ground, survive the jump, find your people, and break the enemy's infrastructure. That takes a very special kind of courage, or madness, or probably both.

[00:05:20]>> So, at the age of 22, Jake set off for training. Upon arriving at training, Jake pretty much immediately establishes himself at being incredible at any task the army can throw at him, but also a humongous pain in the ass to his entire chain of command. During his very first week in the army, Jake got in a fist fight with the staff sergeant in charge of the chow hall because a staff sergeant wouldn't give him butter with his bread. At which point, the entire chain of command is like, on one hand, we have to get rid of this guy. He's a loose cannon. You absolutely cannot be attacking staff sergeants as a private.

[00:05:48]He's got to go. But on the other hand, >> this is exactly the type of behavior we're looking for for somebody that we want to drop behind enemy lines and expect to [ __ ] up everything. So, they just kind of let it slide.

[00:05:58]>> This is hilarious. But there's something interesting here. In normal life, that kind of behavior will get you in trouble. In a standard military unit, that's going to get you a disciplinary.

[00:06:07]But for the kind of job they want him to do, dropping behind enemy lines and causing absolute chaos. That same stubbornness becomes an asset. It's like the thing that makes him hard to control also makes him very dangerous to the enemy. Also, I just want to point out an American having a fight just over butter after everything I've learned. Yeah, I can believe that. Fast forward a couple of weeks, Jake is doing a demolition course and he ends up setting the course record. He is the fastest person to ever complete this course. At which point, his leadership walks up and is like, "Hey, soldier, congratulations. You broke the record." Jake looks the guy in the eye and goes, "Yeah, if you think that's impressive, you should see what I can do when I have some butter once in a while." And that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of Jake's training. He absolutely crushes any task they give him. But also, Jake does not give a single [ __ ] about the dog and pony show that is the US military. He's not going to call an officer sir or ma'am. He's going to call them by their nickname.

[00:06:59]He's not going to salute them unless they salute him first. He's not going to stand outside and salute the flag during retreat. And he absolutely is not going to show up to formation on time. And he's definitely not going to be sober all the time because that's just how Jake is. And because of this, Jake would be the only new recruit to not get promoted to PFC, which is a way bigger deal than it sounds like because at this point in time in the 101st Airborne and the 82nd Airborne, every single new recruit after 31 days of training got promoted to private first class. The reasoning behind that was they wanted to give these guys a promotion so they can make more money and ideally send that money back home to their families because, well, they've got a very dangerous job coming up and nobody knows what's going to happen. So absolutely everybody is getting promoted to PFC after 31 days except for Jake. But here's the thing. Jake didn't really care. Jake wasn't there for the money.

[00:07:46]He was there for one thing and one thing only.

[00:07:48]>> We're going to be doing one thing and one thing only. Killing them.

[00:07:52]>> So Jake is now the lowest ranking person in his entire company. And leadership was hoping that Jake would take this as a sign that he should start cooperating and get it together. That doesn't really happen though. and leadership now has no idea what to do with Jake because on one hand he's way too valuable to lose. But on the other hand, they don't want him mingling with all the other soldiers rubbing off on them in a bad way. So they take Jake, they stick him in his very own platoon all by himself and make him his own acting platoon sergeant. And then as time passes, whenever they get another soldier just like Jake, they would send him over to join Jake's platoon. And he would eventually get four members in his platoon, counting him for a total of five. And they would become known as the Dirty Five. That's exactly what leadership's supposed to do. Find the right purpose for the right person. Sometimes leadership isn't about turning everyone into the same soldier.

[00:08:38]It's about understanding someone and then putting them in a place where their energy can be useful. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, you will think it's stupid. But if you judge that same fish by its ability to swim, all of a sudden that fish is a genius.

[00:08:54]And from there, things would obviously get really out of hand. Fast forward, Jake and his men finish the first phase of their training and they are given a pass to go out on the town one last time before they have to go to Fort Benning for airborne school. So Jake and his men, you know, his men that all outrank him because he's still technically a private, but he's also somehow their platoon sergeant. They all go out, they go to the bar, they get drunk. They end up running into some MPs. One of his men starts lipping off to the MPs. The MP goes to beat him with a nightstick. Jake interferes and says, "Hey, he's really drunk. Let it slide." In Jake's own words, and I quote, "He's so drunk he couldn't hit the floor with his hat in 30 throws." Okay, so just let it slide.

[00:09:32]He's going to get his men back to the barracks. It's going to be fine. The military police, the MP, then tells Jake, "Mind his own business as he turns around to hit Jake's guy with a nightstick. At which point, Jake proceeds to beat the [ __ ] out of two MPs, taking their Colt 451 1911s, firing all the ammunition into a nearby street sign before handing them back their empty guns and saying, "Okay, now you can take me to jail." Just had to pause the video to say that that was some Jack Reacher stuff there. Straight out of the books into the movies. Like, yeah, that was badass. The next morning, Jake's commanding officer shows up to the stockade to talk to Jake and he's like, "Look, not surprised you're here. Don't really care what happened. Here's the deal. The Japanese have the world record for the longest ruck march, and I want to break that record by having a group of guys march from here all the way to Fort Benning, 136 miles. And I think you and your men are some of the guys that are going to be able to pull it off. Are you in?" At which point McNiss is like 136 miles isn't a problem at all. I won't change my socks and I won't even get a blister. Which if you've never been in the military and you've never ruck marched, saying that you're not going to change your socks or get a blister on a 136 mile [ __ ] ruck march is an unprecedented amount of talking.

[00:10:41]It's like a NASCAR driver saying that he's going to win the Daytona 500 without having his tires changed a single time. It's like going out drinking, ending up at Taco Bell at two in the morning, eating a bunch of steak quesadillas, waking up the next day, taking a [ __ ] and not wiping. Okay, it's just it's not possible. Okay, so I can't relate to the Taco Bell thing because I'm English, but basically what he's saying is this guy was tough. But like he already said, this guy grew up hunting for food during his childhood.

[00:11:06]He's worked from a very young age and he survived the Great Depression. That kind of thing can clearly build some sort of character that maybe training can it.

[00:11:13]>> So then the commanding officer is like, "Great, cool. I'll see you at the rock march. we're going to go ahead and leave you in the stockade for the next 10 days. Until then though, Jake's like, "Cool, no problem. I'll hang out." 10 days later shows up. Jake is in a prison uniform with a giant pee on the front.

[00:11:26]And three MPs show up with 12 gauge shotguns loaded and they escort Jake to the starting line of this [ __ ] ruck march like he's Hannibal Lecter. There he changes into a normal uniform and takes off on a 136 mile ruck march to Fort Benning so he can go to airborne school. And sure enough, true to his word, Jake is one of only 75 men to finish this ruck march. And he did not change his socks and he did not get a single blister, which I cannot stress to you enough is a superhuman feat. So Jake and his men go on to do airborne training. Absolutely no problem. Nothing really of note happens here except for the fact that Jake is still a private and has still not been promoted in any way. After completing airborne training, Jake and his men are going to go to Camp McCall, North Carolina, where they are to receive expert sabotur training.

[00:12:10]They'll be receiving extra training and demolitions. They'll be receiving training in how to drive tanks, how to drive bulldozers, how to drive excavators, how to drive trains. Pretty much anything and everything they could teach these guys to be able to wreak havoc on enemy infrastructure is what they're learning in Camp McCall, North Carolina. Jake and his men continue to do what they do. They wreck every task that they're given. It goes perfect.

[00:12:30]Jake and his men are now about to go to England, at which point they are given one last pass to go out on the town one last time before they show up.

[00:12:37]>> Given one last pass, you can already tell that's not going to go well. So Jake and his go out drinking. Somehow or another they end up at this little tiny diner neighboring a train yard at which point one of the trains pulls up, stops, walks across all the other tracks and the conductors go in and they start eating at this diner. Jake is super drunk and he's like, I don't want to walk back to the base. I'm stealing that train. And that's exactly what he does because the army just taught him how to drive trains. So Jake proceeds to steal a train and drive it all the way back just outside of Camp McCall where he abandons the train, goes in and goes to bed.

[00:13:13]>> This guy is like my spirit animal. Like if I never had kids, I would be wreaking havoc within my own government. Take from that what you will.

[00:13:21]>> But everybody knows Jake did it.

[00:13:23]Nobody's turning him in. So Jake gets away with it again. And now Jake and his men are off to England. So Jake and his men arrive in England. At this point, Jake has 13 men in his platoon, including himself, and they all come to the same exact conclusion. English food [ __ ] sucks, which is every opinion of it I've ever heard. Weird to me because it's a country that took over most of the known world for the sake of trading spices. And apparently, nobody came to the conclusion that, hey, maybe you should put some on the food. But whatever.

[00:13:52]>> I feel personally attacked right now.

[00:13:54]Like, if you're going to judge England by their wartime food, then it's always going to be bad. But to be honest, since I started looking into all this American stuff, um, I kind of understand it. If we going to be fighting, I'm taking this off fair. This is too much. I didn't even like that thing. Anyway, look, we have some flavor here now, okay? But all of our traditional dishes just simply don't, so I can't really argue with that, can I? Okay, fair play. Because the food sucks, Jake decides, hey, I'm a master at hunting and fishing and all this other stuff. I'm just going to kill enough animals to feed my entire platoon by myself. And that's exactly what he does. The only difference is he has militaryrade equipment to do it. Jake is going out in the woods at night with a spotlight and an M1 Grand and as soon as a set of eyes looks at him, it's getting blown to smitherreens. Jake has his men going out fishing with explosives. Okay, they are eating everything. Couple of problems with that one, there's strict water rationing going on. The soldiers are only allowed to have one shower a week is how little water they have to spare. So all 13 of his men come together and they decide, hey, we're just not going to take showers and we're going to use all of our water rations to clean and cook all of this game that we're killing. And because now they started stinking, they would all become known as the filthy 13. The other problem with that was apparently all of the game was technically the property of the king. And the only people that were allowed to hunt it were the lords and ladies of the land, which definitely was not Jake Mcnes and the filthy 13. So, the rich and powerful lord and ladies wouldn't let the people of the kingdom actually prosper from the kingdom. You should really put those kind of people on a list or put them on an island somewhere. Oh, wait. They did that themselves.

[00:15:31]So, Sir Ernest Wells ends up figuring out what Jake's been doing. He gets super pissed, ends up suing the government for like $10,000 for all the animals that Jake and the Filthy 13 ate.

[00:15:40]The entire unit gets in a bunch of trouble, and Jake's kind of just like, me, I mean, what what are you going to do? I I was hungry, so I ate some food.

[00:15:47]What do you want from me? If I'm in trouble, go ahead and punish me. What are you going to do? Stick me in an airplane? Make me jump out into enemy held territory where a bunch of Germans are going to try to kill me? Jokes on you. I'm into that [ __ ] And the entire military is just kind of like, we have we literally have no way to punish him.

[00:16:01]So, he gets away with it yet again. Fast forward June 5th, 1944. The day before D-Day, Jake and the Filthy 13 are given a separate and extremely dangerous mission of going out, capturing, and occupying an enemy held bridge that's supposed to be able to help Allied tanks penetrate further inland. After a day, they'll be reinforced from troops landing on Utah Beach. And if Jake can't capture and occupy the bridge, he is to blow it up so that the enemy can't use it for reinforcements. This mission is deemed extremely dangerous and borderline impossible, but leadership figures if anybody can pull it off, it's going to be Jake and the Filthy 13.

[00:16:33]Because let's face it, the entire command structure at this point in time is basically looking at Jake's platoon like a fragmentation grenade of [ __ ] and bad attitude that they finally get to ye at the enemy.

[00:16:42]>> I guess this is where the story turns serious because up till now he's been funny, reckless, and impossible to manage. But now those qualities are being pointed at one of the most dangerous missions imaginable. D-Day wasn't just men landing on beaches. It was also these paratroopers beforehand getting dropped behind enemy lines in the dark, often scattered, not knowing where each other are, and they had to somehow cause such a disruption to the Germans that it made the actual D-Day beach landings possible. Yeah, it's easy to laugh at some of the stories we've just heard, but these people went in knowing that most of them are probably not coming back. So, after receiving their mission, Jake and his men go out to start boarding the C-47s to take off at midnight to jump into Normandy. At which point Jake decides that he's going to whip out his straight razor and shave himself a mohawk. He tells everybody that he's part Chalkaw Native American and he wants to honor that heritage.

[00:17:30]However, in reality, while he was part Chalkaw, he had heard that Germany had a lice epidemic and wanted to go there with as little hair as possible.

[00:17:38]Regardless, his men followed suit and all shaved mohawks. They then began dawning black face paint, at which point Jake is like, "This is cool, but we can make it cooler." So he goes over to the C-47 that had a fresh white stripe painted down the side of it to identify friend from fo and the paint was still wet. So he runs his fingers through the paint and goes around painting all of his men's faces paint as well.

[00:18:00]Unbeknownst to Jake and the Filthy 13, there were camera crews there taking pictures and recording them and they would actually end up going viral and the entire would be captivated by the unique and dangerous look of these men as they prepare to jump into enemy held territory.

[00:18:12]>> Oh, so this is actual footage. Yo, that is really badass. Like, that is so cool.

[00:18:20]Yeah, you see people coming towards you looking like that. You're going to think twice.

[00:18:24]>> So much so that it would actually inspire a movie to be made known as The Dirty Dozen. And Jake and his men got to watch that any of it until after World War II. June 6th, 1944, Jake, the Filthy 13, and 18,000 other paratroopers take off in C-47s as they prepare to jump behind enemy lines before the amphibious invasion at D-Day. About 20 miles from the targeted drop zone, Jake's plane gets hit with enemy flack fire and is losing altitude and they have to bail out early. Moments after Mcnise jumps out of the plane, the entire plane explodes, killing some of the filthy 13 and scattering the rest miles apart. So Jake lands, he's completely unharmed and he has all of his equipment. The only problem is he doesn't have any other Americans anywhere near him. So he just kind of takes off. He gets in a couple of long-range firefights with the Germans. Takes a couple of them out in close quarters combat. And he's just going around trying to find any other paratroopers to group up with. And it's going on for hours and hours and he can't find anybody. And he's starting to think maybe the whole thing was a catastrophe. Maybe it got called off.

[00:19:21]Maybe I'm the only guy out here right now. What am I going to do? And he finally comes across one other American paratrooper. And it's a machine gunner that lost track of his machine gun during the jump. And this guy is running around Normandy with nothing but a belt of machine gun ammunition and no gun.

[00:19:37]And Jake is like, "Jesus." Okay. Well, you're with me now, I guess. Here's my grenades. You take those. I'm going to keep my M1 Grand. Follow me. So, now Jake and grenade guys set off to find more paratroopers. So, they keep looking, looking. They find some more.

[00:19:49]They find a squad of mortar guys. They find some guys over here, some guys over here. Slowly, Jake amasses an entire platoon of about 35 paratroopers, and they're all going to help Jake in his mission to take out this bridge. So Jake and his new companions start making their way to go blow up this bridge. At which point they would eventually come up on an entire American unit being led by this colonel. And the colonel is like, "Hey, you're working for me now. I don't care about that bridge. I need you to go pull security over on this part over here." MC tried arguing with the colonel, but the colonel wasn't having it. He gave a direct order. And MC is like, "Okay, fine. Whatever. I'll take my 35 guys, and we'll go guard this for you." So they take off headed there.

[00:20:26]They get to the point they're supposed to guard. And McNise just keeps walking because it was the same direction as the bridge. All of his men are like, "Hey, we're supposed to stop here." MC is like, "You do what you want. I have to go take care of this bridge. You can come with me. I'd appreciate it. If not, stay here and guard it. I really don't care."

[00:20:40]>> So, this is complicated because like military needs order. Uh you can't just have everyone doing whatever they want.

[00:20:47]But at the same time, he'd been given a mission that mattered and he understood the purpose of it. It seems sometimes battlefield reality becomes messy and people have to make decisions with incomplete information. That is what makes men like this so fascinating. He's not easy to praise in the normal way, but you can totally understand why people followed him. He had a mission and there was not a man in the world going to stop him from doing it. I respect that. All of the men go with Jake and proceed to make their way to this bridge. So Jake and his men show up to the bridge. They capture it. They build up some fortified fighting positions because they now have to hold it for a day until reinforcements from Utah Beach can arrive.

[00:21:25]>> Give me food.

[00:21:28]>> I am not the British establishment.

[00:21:33]>> Look, it makes sense with the video that I'm seeing. Okay. Right. Just just stop laughing at me. It makes sense. Right.

[00:21:38]Look, you can take any food from my land that you wish. Okay.

[00:21:41]>> Okay.

[00:21:42]>> What I mean is you can go in the kitchen and see if there's anything you want. If there's nothing there that you want, come and tell me. I'll make you something. Okay.

[00:21:48]>> Okay.

[00:21:50]>> Love you.

[00:21:50]>> Love you.

[00:21:51]>> Love you.

[00:21:51]>> So, the Germans start showing up. They fight the Germans back every time. One day passes, no reinforcements. Day two, they keep fighting the Germans back, holding the bridge, holding the bridge.

[00:22:01]No reinforcements show up. Day three, the Germans are now on the other end of the bridge with Jake and his men over here. And it is just no man's land in between on the actual bridge when suddenly an entire squadron of P-51 Mustangs comes up and blows up the entire bridge because apparently the American leadership determined there's no way Jake was going to be successful in his mission. So, they blew up the bridge anyways. Thankfully, Jake and his men would make it out. Okay, none of them were harmed in the blast from the P-51. Now, at this point, Jake decides, "Hey, we're gonna continue to hold our position here because if anybody is going to try to cross this ravine, they're going to do it right here where the bridge used to be." And sure enough, an entire German infantry battalion shows up on the other side of where this bridge was. At this point, the German officers make their way through the ravine and up to Jake under a white flag where they're like, "Hey, go ahead and surrender. We've got 700 men. You've got 35. It's going to be a blood bath. Just call it a day." Jake, being Jake, is like, "No, no, but you're welcome to surrender to me." The German officer, thoroughly annoyed, is like, "What are you doing in that mohawk head of yours?

[00:22:59]I have 700 men. You need to surrender or I'm going to kill all of you." At which point, I'm paraphrasing here, but I would assume Jake said something along the lines of, "Yeah, yeah, you've got 700 men, but you're going that way and the battlefield is that way, which tells me that all my buddies showed up on Utah Beach and they've been kicking your ass so bad that now you're trying to run away from them." So, the way I figure it, you've got about three options.

[00:23:20]Option A, you surrender to me right here, right now, and you all live happily ever after. Option B, you go back to your men, you hold your position right where you're at, and all my buddies show up in a little bit with a bunch of Sherman tanks and proceed to ungerman engineer all of you [ __ ] And option C, you guys try to fight your way through this ravine with me guarding it, which to be honest, I would recommend the least. I have the high ground. I have fortified machine gun positions, and you've got to make your way through a ravine first, meaning that I basically also have a moat. So, I will effectively be going medieval on your ass if you choose option C. Just the picture of this in my head is such a cinematic moment. 35 men against 700. And he basically just said, "Hey, give up while you still can." He knows they're trying to move away from the Allied advance. He knows he has a better position. And he knows the confidence matters. That isn't just bravado. That is psychological warfare.

[00:24:12]Very impressive. I can see why Americans really love these kind of stories because of that refusal to bow even when the odds are ridiculously not in your favor. I find that genuinely inspiring.

[00:24:24]Now, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, but if I was you, I would pick option A because if you pick option B or option C, I can pretty much guarantee that the next piece of officer correspondence that you're going to get is going to be from a [ __ ] Ouija board. At this point, the German officer storms off with his hair on fire. He's absolutely pissed. Jake then goes over to his men and he's like, "Hey, uh, get ready for a fight. I'm pretty sure I just We'll see what happens." Sure enough, like an hour later, 700 German infantry men proceed to take off and attempt to bumrush Jake and his men in their fortified fighting positions. Now, I don't know what you know about military tactics, but generally speaking, it is a terrible idea to run face first into machine gun fire. It's also a terrible idea to try to fight the enemy when they have the high ground. If you don't believe me, ask Anakin.

[00:25:11]but running face first into a fortified machine gun position through a moat while they have the high ground. And the men running the machine guns are under the command of some American with a mohawk Native American face paint who everybody calls Jake Mcnasty is literally a lifetime supply worth of shitty ideas. Jake and his men would hold their fire till the majority of the Germans made their way into the water, at which point they would open fire with four heavy cruerved machine guns, two mortar tubes, and a bunch of small arms, effectively mowing down and decimating the entire German battalion. On that day, Jake and his ragtag group of paratroopers were credited with removing 700 enemy combatants from the field.

[00:25:50]>> 700 is an absolutely staggering number, and it showed why these small units matter so much. We often talk about World War II in like huge numbers, divisions, armies, countries, fronts, but sometimes a tiny group of the right men in the right place can make a massive difference and legitimately change the outcome of an entire war. 35 men holding a position like that is absolutely extraordinary. And just think about the pressure on them. If any of them decide to like panic or run or break, then that changes everything. But they held. I don't know what kind of medal you get for that, but you need something.

[00:26:28]>> Shortly after that, the reinforcements from Utah Beach show up. Jake goes over to a small town. They get put in a holding position for a little while.

[00:26:34]Then Jake's small group of ragtag paratroopers all get evaced where they get broken up and sent back to their original units where they get regrouped and refitted to return to war. Jake Mcnes would find himself getting evaced all the way back to France where he would be reunited with the five surviving members of the Filthy 13, as well as receiving a bunch of new recruits for his platoon. At this point, they had a couple weeks off where they could drink, relax, do whatever. Jake's going out. He's getting drunk. He's having a good time. Then he would receive word that his platoon is going to be partaking in a new airborne operation referred to as Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne operation in human history with 38,000 paratroopers jumping into Nazi occupied Holland.

[00:27:11]>> Jumping into Holland, Jake figured that he was going to be engaging in a lot of close quarters combat. So, he opted to turn in his M1 Grand and get a Thompson, which is exactly what he did. He then received word that his platoon, being the bridge experts that they are, were going to have to go out, capture a bunch of bridges, defend them, and or get rid of them until they heard word otherwise.

[00:27:32]>> Hey, look, I made a bridge. It only took me like what, 10 seconds.

[00:27:36]>> And pretty much everything goes according to plan there. They jump in, they get to the bridge, they take the bridge over, they hold it for a couple of weeks, then they receive word that they are to go help another unit take over this town known as Einhovven. So Jake and his men make their way over to Einhovven and they begin helping to clear out this town room by room, building by building, close quarters combat, them versus the Germans. In his book, Jake described this close quarter combat as very different from what you see today. It wasn't four troops stacked up outside a door kicking it in and all running in together. It was one guy, one room. An American would kick open the door, throw in a frag grenade. As soon as the frag grenade blew up, the American would then crawl in on his hands and knees with a Thompson submachine gun and shoot anybody that survived. The reason they crawled in on their hands and knees is because, according to Jake, the grenade would kick up so much dust and soot and debris in these old buildings that you couldn't see standing at normal level. So, you had to drop down like you were in a fire trying to avoid carbon monoxide to be able to see what you were doing. And this is how they cleared the entire village. Now, I've got no experience with this, so I can only talk from imagination. But clearing rooms must be an extraordinarily difficult type of combat because I don't think there's any clean version of it. It's not like a movie where everything's choreographed.

[00:28:46]It's dust, smoke, noise, and splitsecond decisions. That's the big one.

[00:28:54]Split-second decisions. Hearing how they used to crawl in low after the grenade just makes it so very grim and very real. Like I I can't imagine what it must have been like.

[00:29:05]>> Making their way all the way through it, about halfway through, Jake would be clearing a building where somebody clearly used to make furniture. At which point, Jake would find a chicken. Now, this chicken had six eggs. Finding eggs in the middle of a war zone in World War II was a big deal. Nobody had eggs. And Jake [ __ ] loves eggs. Okay, this is amazing. Only problem, he's got to figure out how to get these six eggs all over his village without breaking them.

[00:29:31]So he thinks for himself to a second, maybe I could leave the eggs here and I'll come back for them later. And he's like, no, that's not going to work because one of these other paratroopers is going to find my eggs and these are my eggs. I want them. So he takes all the eggs and sticks them in the cargo pocket of his pants. And then every time he clears a room, rather than crawling in on his arms and legs, he slides in on one side, the side without the eggs, to ensure that he doesn't damage any of his precious eggs, which is the most gangster [ __ ] I've ever heard in my entire life. This dude is going toe-to-toe in close quarters combat against enemies with submachine guns trying to kill him. And his primary concern is not [ __ ] up breakfast.

[00:30:08]This is like a stupid video game achievement for when you want to play it on extra hardcore mode. It's almost like this man knows that he has plot armor.

[00:30:16]It's absolutely incredible. So, he continues to go on, clears out the entire village, doesn't break a single egg. It's absolutely incredible. They get to the other side of the village.

[00:30:26]They're like, "Sweet. We cleared out all the Germans. And then across the field out of the woodline pulls an entire German mechanized unit with 10 tanks. At this point, Jake is like, I just want to eat my [ __ ] eggs. This sucks. So Jake and the Filthy 13 go to work being the demolition men. It's their job to go around to the tanks and disable their tracks so they can no longer move. And then the infantry is going to come in with their flamethrowers and cook the enemy out.

[00:30:51]And that's exactly what happens.

[00:30:53]Everything goes according to plan. They take out all 10 tanks. Not really that big of a deal. Jake reaches into his pocket. Tragedy strikes. He's broken a single egg. It only took 10 German tanks to make this guy fumble enough to break a single egg. And he got to enjoy five eggs for dinner that night.

[00:31:09]>> I can see how eggs would be an absolute treasure to somebody in a war zone like this. But to do all of that and still have five eggs intact, what is it with you Americans in food? I watch the Waffle House video, bro. Like, hey. Hey, you guys are not giving up for food, man. You are not giving up. I am going to taste something good today.

[00:31:32]Otherwise, people going to die.

[00:31:36]Jake and his men would then adopt a holding position where they would chill out for a little bit, hold their position until they got evaced again for yet another huge mission where Jake and his men would find themselves back in France for a second time. So Jake and his men find themselves at an army base right outside of Rees, France.

[00:31:51]Obviously, Jake and his men want to go drink in town, have a good time, see if they can find some women, you know, what have you. The only problem is apparently the 82nd Airborne was there last month, and the 82nd Airborne caused such an issue in town that the military had to bring in a special group of MPs to get the 82nd Airborne under control. And now all paratroopers have been effectively banned from town. I mean, to be fair, that's pretty on brand for the 82nd Airborne. Bunch of rowdy dudes. If you don't know, that's their logo. On paper, AA stands for all-American, but everybody knows that it actually stands for athletic alcoholics. Now, Jake, wanting to drink anyways, comes up with a plan. He's got to hook up with a distillery all the way over in Paris, which is like a two-day trip away. So, Jake gets a 72-hour pass, starts leaving to go to Paris. His commanding officer stops him and is like, "Jake, what are you doing? I'm going to Paris to get some booze for the boys." Jake, Paris is 2 days away. Do you really think that you're going to be able to take two days to travel to Paris, go on a week-l long bender, and then travel two days back all in 72 hours? At which point Jake looks at the officer and says, and I quote, "I don't know. I wouldn't be willing to bet on it, but I'm willing to try." At which point, the officer kind of just rolls his eyes and is like, "Is there anything I can do to stop you, Jake?" Not really. So, the officer just lets him go because he realizes that Jake's going no matter what. It's just a matter of if he wants to get his ass beat over it or not. So Jake makes his way to Paris, goes on a couple day bender, gets a bunch of booze for the boys, heads back to base. He finally gets back. He's been awall for 5 days.

[00:33:18]They immediately throw him in the stockade for abandoning his post. At which point his command comes up to him and is like, "Jake, we've been talking.

[00:33:25]We really want you to volunteer for Pathfinder school." At which point Jake kind of has a little bit of a panic attack and he's like, "They're trying to kill me." Like they're actively trying to kill me. You see, if you don't know what a Pathfinder is, they're basically paratroopers, but they go out hours or a day before the big huge paratrooper operation, and they jump beforehand, and then they figure out the best spots to drop all the other paratroopers and radio it back to base so they know where to put everybody. This job during World War II was incredibly dangerous. On a given airborne operation, it required two Pathfinders and one set of radio equipment to get the mission done. And on every mission, they would drop 10 Pathfinders and two sets of equipment because they knew that on average, eight of them were going to die and one set of equipment was going to be damaged or lost. They had a 80% fatality rate on any one mission at any point during World War II. And that is why Jake thought for sure they're trying to get me killed. 80% fatality rate is almost impossible to imagine. So that means volunteering to be a Pathfinder is almost the same as Yeah, I don't think I'm coming home. And this is where the humor of the story gives way to something much heavier. Whatever else Jake was, rebellious, chaotic, difficult, he kept putting himself in places where he's in danger beyond belief. I think sometimes bravery isn't clean and noble looking. Sometimes it looks like a very deeply flawed man that's willing to say yes when everyone around him is saying no. The only silver lining here is they can't make him do it because Pathfinder is so dangerous that it was strictly a voluntary basis only.

[00:34:58]But Jake wasn't one to act too quick, so he said he'd think about it. And he goes and he thinks about it and he's thinking about the war and he starts to think to himself, you know, Pathfinder school is all the way over in England. By the time they send me there, I start school, I finish school, there's a good chance this war might be over alltogether and I'm not going to have to make another combat jump. It'll be great. So he's like kind of on the fence about it now.

[00:35:19]And then he really starts thinking about it. He's like, "Man, Pathfinder schools at an Air Force base." And even back in World War II, the Air Force had way better food than the army. So now he might not have to do any more combat jumps and he's going to get some good food. And then it dawns on him, the Air Force base where they teach Pathfinder School is 8 miles down the road from Oxford University, and all the young British men are fighting a war right now. Meaning that Oxford is just full of college chicks. And as Jake said himself, and I quote, "This seemed like a mighty fine opportunity to do some post-graduate work."

[00:35:52][ __ ] love this guy. Yeah. You know what? Now that I think about it, education is top priority that Yeah. Get get those qualifications, my friend.

[00:36:05]>> So Jake shows up to Pathfinder School and he's immediately called into the commander's office, which is weird because he hasn't even done anything wrong yet. Jake goes in there, the commander's like, "Hi, Jake. I've heard all about you. I want you to be acting first sergeant. At which point Jake is like, I don't know what you heard about me, but you heard wrong. I'm technically not even a private first class yet. I've never been promoted. I am not the leader that you want. I don't care about saluting. I don't care about any of that dog and pony show military stuff. I'm here to fight a war and that's it. At which point the commander's like, "That's exactly why I want you. I don't need you to salute me. I don't need you to call me sir. I need you to get these guys ready for war and I don't think there's anybody better to do it than you. I'll make sure that you end up getting paid as a first sergeant the entire time you're enacting first sergeant. To which Jake replies, I'm not I don't really care about the money.

[00:36:46]Look, I've blown up every safe between here and Normandy. I have plenty of money. Okay, I might be willing to do this job, but if I'm going to do it, there's going to be some terms. Anybody that's fighting for me is going to keep having good Air Force food, and they get permanent leave whenever they want it.

[00:37:00]At that point, the commander agrees.

[00:37:02]Jake is now the acting first sergeant, which, if you don't know, is the polar opposites of the spectrum as far as enlisted rank goes. So, per usual, Jake excels at pretty much everything all through Pathfinder school. They graduate. Jake is still acting first sergeant, and he gets to decide which person is in which platoon. So, naturally, Jake does what anybody would do, and he builds a dream team of the 20 best Pathfinders out of all 400 and puts himself with that platoon. Now, at this point, it's really looking like Jake might never have to go out on a mission as a Pathfinder because the war is really dwindling down at this point.

[00:37:32]Then December 16th, 1944, the Germans would launch a lastditch effort counteroffensive to try to fight Allied forces. This would be known as the Battle of the Bulge, where they would cut off the 101st Airborne, Jake's old division inside the town of Baston, completely surround them, and the 101st Airborne is now stuck in this city. They are running out of ammunition, they're running out of food, and they're running out of gas. And if they end up surrendering, it can turn the entire tide of World War II.

[00:37:59]>> This is massive. The Battle of the Bulge was Germany's last major push in the West. It mattered enormously. If the 101st Airborne collapses, the consequences could have been disastrous.

[00:38:11]So, this just isn't a cool side quest.

[00:38:13]This is one of them moments where logistics, courage, and timing all collide. They didn't need glory. They need ammunition, food, fuel, and coordination. And by the sounds of it, Jake's team is what helped make all of that possible. So all they need is they need somebody to be able to parachute in, get in town, and be able to call in resupply drops to let the 101st Airborne have a fighting chance to be able to hold off the Germans long enough for Patton to show up with his army of 350,000 men. So you've got a crazy mission. Somebody needs to save the day.

[00:38:44]You're calling upon Jake and his dream team. There hasn't been a single radio transmission to come out of the 101st Airborne in over 2 days. Despite that, Jake and his dream team are going to jump in anyways. They have to be able to hit a two-mile diameter landing zone while jumping out of a plane that's traveling 160 mph utilizing parachutes that they can't steer. This mission is seemingly impossible, but here they go.

[00:39:04]They go, they jump out of the planes.

[00:39:06]They hit the landing zone perfectly. One man unfortunately does die, but that is a 5% fatality rate compared to the average of 80. Jake and his men then immediately get to work setting up their equipment in opposite sides of town. And after one guy calls in one resupply, he picks up his stuff, moves to a different location. Then this guy calls in his resupply, picks up, move to a different location, and they bounce the signal back and forth on opposite sides of town all day, sending signals for resupply.

[00:39:31]They do this because they know the Germans can triangulate their radio equipment and don't want them to start utilizing artillery to take them out.

[00:39:37]Within the first 24 hours of Jake and his men landing, they called in 247 C47s for resupply drops. On the second day, they were able to call in 160. On the third day, they were able to call in 140. On the fourth day, they were able to call in 269.

[00:39:53]And on the fifth day, they were able to call in 129. Jake and his men have single-handedly provided the 101st Airborne Division with enough resupply to be able to stave off the Germans to give Patton enough time to show up with his army and penetrate through the German flank, effectively ending World War II in the European theater and potentially saving the entire war as a whole. So Jake has effectively saved the day. It is now time to get out of there, get retoled, refitted. Make another combat jump again because for sure the war is over this time, right? Wrong.

[00:40:24]Apparently, Patton gets in some trouble, needs some hot shot Pathfinders to jump into Primy and supply for him. So, they're going to Jake and his crew yet again. Jake jumps in, saves the day for a fourth time, becoming one of the only men in history to conduct four combat jumps during World War II. At that point, the war is basically over and they adopt a holding position where they pretty much just party in Germany for the rest of the time. Now, as fate would have it, Jake and his men and some of the rest of the 101st Airborne would end up taking refuge in the abandoned castle of Herman Goring, like one of the biggest Nazi leaders during World War II. And oddly enough, a bunch of the spoils from all the countries that Germany has invaded all found their way to his castle. fancy booze, fancy wine, and apparently he was a racehorse fan because every famous racehorse from every country that Germany invaded had made its way back to his castle. So Jake, the filthy 13, a bunch of other 101st guys are sitting there getting drunk on fancy wine, fancy whiskey, and there's like a hund00 million worth of racehorse sitting in the barn, at which point they're like, "Let's throw on a rodeo for all the towns people." Right.

[00:41:27]Right. And that's exactly what they do.

[00:41:29]So you've got a bunch of drunk paratroopers riding around all these fancy raceh horses. It's a great time.

[00:41:34]>> Now, that is one of the coolest, most American things that you could possibly do while you're still in Germany. By the way, you're still in Germany. Hey, full send. I bet that was a good party. And then my personal favorite part of this entire story. While out at the rodeo, Jake would meet an attractive young lady by the name of Amelia. And Jake and Amelia would immediately hit it off and start doing some post-graduate work, I mean dating. Oh, don't worry, it gets better. As it would turn out, Amelia's father is the leader of the local chapter of Hitler's youth, which is just the absolute cherry on top to this entire story. How's this saying go?

[00:42:11]Screw you and the horse you rode in on?

[00:42:13]Jake's like, "Nah, I'm going to raid your liquor cabinet, steal your horse, ride in on it, and then bang your daughter." This is the best possible ending to this man's epic saga in World War II that anybody could even come up with, and it happened in real life. Just to recap, Jake jumps into D-Day. Rex's house, then jumps into Holland, Rex's house, and then eats some eggs about it.

[00:42:35]Then he pretty much single-handedly turned the tide of the Battle of the Bulge, and then he proceeds to find the closest thing he can to a Nazi princess and show her that inches are in fact better than centimeters.

[00:42:56]All right, let's get on with the video.

[00:43:21]Shortly after that, Jake would get sent back home to America where they would then reroute him to Arkansas so that he could see a plastic surgeon about having his ear repaired because it had gotten mangled during one of his exploits.

[00:43:31]While in Arkansas, he would have a run-in with the military police, get in a fight with them, get thrown in the stockade yet again before being released. The military police commander would inform him after he gets his ears fixed they don't ever want to see him on their post again. At which point Jake being Jake informs the military police commander, "Hey, if you ever see me again, I'm going to be a civilian and you're going to be the one with the [ __ ] problem because I'm going to kick your ass." At which point, the military police commander files charges on Jake. And Jake is immediately chaptered out of the US Army, officially ending his military career after only 3 years, 5 months, and 26 days. Because that's just how it goes for the anti-heroes. They're absolutely necessary in a time of war and not tolerated whatsoever during a time of peace.

[00:44:14]>> That's a really powerful line. Some people are just built for crisis. They become exactly what is needed when the world is on fire. But when peace comes back, society doesn't really know what to do with them. And I think that's quite sad because the same traits that made him valuable. Aggression, fearlessness, refusal to conform. Those same things made it hard for him to fit back into normal life. And we wonder why so many people come back from war carrying a weight that nobody else can understand. This is why people come back and they suffer from things that people just think, "Oh, they're just not getting help or they're doing it to themsel." Like, no. There's legitimate reasons behind the things that's going on in their head. And there should be real help out there for all veterans, not just this guy. All veterans. Jake didn't really mind though. He had accomplished what he set out to do.

[00:45:01]Plus, he had a huge hoorde of cash that he had liberated from all the safes that he ran across in Europe. At that point in time, he goes on to explore his own alcoholism, going from place to place, town to town, job to job, just kind of doing his own thing. He ends up getting in a ton of bar fights, not because Jake instigates them, but because every local tough guy hears Jake's a paratrooper, and they want to prove how tough they are, but ultimately the only thing they proved is that they could fall down.

[00:45:24]Then, after a number of years, Jake would have a near miss with a drunk driving accident where he would almost drive his car into a concrete wall. in his own words, only missing it by a coat of paint. Because of that, Jake would decide that he needs to change his own ways. He would defeat his alcoholism. He would find God. He would start going to church every Sunday. He would find a wife. He would have some kids. And he would live happily ever after, working at the post office in his hometown of Pona City, Oklahoma, selling stamps and slinging packages. And nobody was none the wiser that their friendly neighborhood mailman was one of, if not the greatest anti-hero of all time. So, in conclusion, it's hard to put into words what an anti-hero is, but you know it when you see it. However, the best definition I have ever heard comes from Jake Mcnasty McNiss himself. When asked in an interview later in life how he managed to survive all of his crazy exploits, he said, and I quote, "I think I made it because God didn't have anywhere to put me." At that point in time, he was so busy he was only putting people in one of two places, heaven or hell. And I think he knew that I would have goofed up either one of them. So, here I am. And I think that might be the closest thing to a perfect definition that we're ever going to get when it comes to defining what an anti-hero is.

[00:46:31]So, thank you for watching. The best way to support the channel is to go buy some merch. Fatlectrician.com.

[00:46:35]>> Hey, go buy some merch.

[00:46:37]>> Out.

[00:46:38]>> Well, I stood retreat that evening and then went in town that night. Got on a big drunk. The MPs was mistreating, really mistreating a soldier boy. I stepped in, told them to stop it. And they said, "We'll do it anytime we want to." So I took their nightsticks away from them, beat them to the ground. And then I took their 45s off of them and shot up all the street lights and everything around there. And I wasn't shooting at any people. I just shooting lights. And then we went on in with them to the stalk. And I never did have to stand retreat again.

[00:47:13]That was quite possibly the coolest video that I've seen since starting doing YouTube. that just went on and on from badass moment to badass moment. I thoroughly enjoyed that. That man is an absolute legend, man. Like, he really is. Like, I I understand why you guys are proud of all of these kind of things. I mean, America has been at war for 90% of his existence. And to have that mentality, that never give up, that never bow down to anybody kind of mentality. Uh, it creates stories and legends like this man himself. And I can totally see why you're fascinated by it because it's a beautiful thing what a human can achieve when he genuinely does not have it in his heart to ever give up on anything. Thank you so much for sharing this story with me. It's been an absolute pleasure. It was hilarious, but it was also inspirational.

[00:48:17]Please, please go and support the fat electrician as well because he obviously put a lot of hard work and effort and research into all of this. He deserves all the credit, not me. And Jake, I know you're never going to see this, bro. I don't even know if you're still alive, but you're an absolute legend, sir. God bless you. And thank you so much everyone for being here. Much love and God bless. I hope to see you on the next one. Thank you.