- 4 days ago
American soldiers voted from foxholes in the Hürtgen Forest while German prisoners watched a democracy they could not quite understand. This WWII history story follows the 1944 U.S. election, the blank war ballots sent overseas, and the strange logistics of getting votes from muddy front lines back home in time to count.
Through infantry reliefs under shellfire, prisoner-of-war camps in Pomerania, and ballots marked in France, the narration shows how Americans in uniform tried to keep an election on schedule while fighting in Europe. It also explores the political fight over soldier voting, the War Ballot Commission, and the way German observers misread the whole system as a sign of weakness.
The result is a gripping military history documentary about World War II, absentee voting, presidential politics, and the quiet rituals that held the American home front and the battlefield together. It is part battlefield story, part election history, and part reflection on what democracy looked like under fire.
Created for listeners searching for WW2 stories, military history, World War 2 documentary style narration, historical election stories, and wartime democracy. Ideal for fans of American history, front-line war stories, political history, and long-form historical storytelling with strong search relevance for WWII stories, history narration, and military documentary listening.
Through infantry reliefs under shellfire, prisoner-of-war camps in Pomerania, and ballots marked in France, the narration shows how Americans in uniform tried to keep an election on schedule while fighting in Europe. It also explores the political fight over soldier voting, the War Ballot Commission, and the way German observers misread the whole system as a sign of weakness.
The result is a gripping military history documentary about World War II, absentee voting, presidential politics, and the quiet rituals that held the American home front and the battlefield together. It is part battlefield story, part election history, and part reflection on what democracy looked like under fire.
Created for listeners searching for WW2 stories, military history, World War 2 documentary style narration, historical election stories, and wartime democracy. Ideal for fans of American history, front-line war stories, political history, and long-form historical storytelling with strong search relevance for WWII stories, history narration, and military documentary listening.
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LearningTranscript
00:00November 7th, 1944. The Hürtgen Forest, on the German border. A thousand meters west of a village called Hürtgen.
00:09At ten minutes to one that afternoon, the last companies of the 12th Infantry Regiment finished walking into the line.
00:16They had been walking most of the night. The order had come down verbally while the regiment was already moving
00:21on the road.
00:23Relieve the 109th Infantry. Tonight. No reconnaissance. No rehearsal. No time.
00:30There was radio silence, so the word went along the column by runner, man to man in the dark, mouth
00:36to ear.
00:38Trucks slid off the muddy roads into the ditches. Around two in the morning, the column reached a de-trucking
00:44point behind the front,
00:45and from there the men went forward on foot, unit for unit, feeling their way into holes that other Americans
00:51were climbing out of.
00:54Understand what that took.
00:56In the dark, in the rain, in a forest where artillery shells burst in the treetops and came down as
01:02falling steel,
01:04two regiments traded places, hole by hole, without firing a shot that would have given them away.
01:11By ten minutes to one in the afternoon, it was done. The 12th held the line.
01:17And the date on that report matters more than the men holding it could possibly have known.
01:22Because November 7th, 1944, was Election Day.
01:264,000 miles west, people were already standing in the dark outside polling places, waiting for them to open.
01:33More than 100,000 voted in Brooklyn in the first two hours.
01:37By half past nine in the morning, a quarter of the ballots in New York City had been cast.
01:43In Pennsylvania, whose 35 electoral votes might decide the whole thing,
01:48voters were moving through the booths at a rate of one a minute.
01:52Two miles from where the 12th Infantry was digging in, in a village called Vossenack,
01:57Americans and Germans were fighting each other, hand to hand, inside a church.
02:03In the Hurtgen Forest, the men who had just inherited those foxholes were making an arrangement of their own.
02:09The ones who wanted to know who their next commander-in-chief would be had worked out how to find
02:14out.
02:15They were going to listen to the returns that night on captured German radio sets.
02:21Hold that picture in your mind, because we are going to come back to it.
02:25American infantrymen, on German ground, in German holes, gathered around a German radio,
02:31waiting to hear who had won an American election.
02:36Nobody ordered them to do that.
02:38If these stories are worth your time, a like and a subscribe help this channel reach the people who still
02:44remember these men.
02:46Now let me show you what was really happening.
02:49Here is the thing about that election that almost nobody says out loud anymore.
02:54It should not have happened.
02:56There was no law of nature requiring it.
02:59There was no clause that said a nation with 11 million people in uniform,
03:03fighting on two sides of the planet,
03:06had to stop in the middle of the worst month of the campaign and count itself.
03:10Britain had not held a general election since 1935.
03:14It would not hold one until the war in Europe was over.
03:18The Soviet Union was not holding elections at all.
03:21And Germany, which had once had them,
03:23had not held anything resembling one in 11 years.
03:27The United States held one anyway,
03:29on schedule,
03:31to the day.
03:33Now, I want you to pay close attention to the next number,
03:36because it explains why this was not a symbolic gesture.
03:40Two days before the vote,
03:42George Gallup reported that the soldier vote
03:44might be the deciding factor in many states.
03:47The Associated Press went further.
03:50Officials in at least 11 states believed the men overseas
03:53could decide the outcome in their state,
03:56and those 11 states carried 206 electoral votes between them.
04:01You needed 266 to win the presidency.
04:05So the ballots sitting in mail sacks,
04:08in ships,
04:09in canvas bags on the backs of trucks
04:11grinding toward the Hurtgen and toward Metz and toward Leyte
04:14were not a gesture.
04:16They were a meaningful fraction of the machinery
04:19that would choose the man running the war.
04:22Which means somebody had to physically deliver democracy to a foxhole,
04:26and then get it back.
04:28Think about what that actually requires.
04:31You have to find a man,
04:33not a unit,
04:34a man,
04:35with a name and a home county
04:37in a specific one of 48 states,
04:40each of which had its own laws
04:42about who could vote and how and by when.
04:45You have to get a piece of paper into his hands
04:48while he is being shelled.
04:49You have to get him somewhere he can mark it
04:52without another human being seeing it.
04:54And then you have to carry that paper back across an ocean
04:58and put it in the Wright County courthouse before the deadline,
05:01at a moment when your entire transport system
05:03is already screaming for fuel and ammunition
05:06and winter boots that never arrived.
05:09The men in that forest did not know it,
05:12but a decision made in Washington seven months earlier
05:15had already put a piece of paper in some of their hands.
05:18A ballot with no candidates printed on it.
05:22Not one name anywhere on the page.
05:25And the reason that ballot was blank
05:27tells you more about how the American war machine
05:30actually thought than any tank ever will.
05:33The ballot was blank because of arithmetic.
05:36A federal war ballot printed in Washington
05:38had to reach a rifleman in the Marianas
05:41or a tanker outside Metz
05:43or a sailor somewhere in the Philippine Sea
05:45and then travel all the way home again.
05:48That round trip took weeks.
05:50Sometimes it took months.
05:52And the two political parties
05:54would not choose their candidates
05:55until the conventions in the summer.
05:57So the government did the only thing
05:59the mathematics allowed.
06:00It printed the ballots first
06:02and left the names off.
06:04A blank line
06:05and the instruction to write in whoever you wanted.
06:09Print now, decide later
06:11because the ocean does not care
06:13about your convention schedule.
06:15That is the practical answer.
06:17It is also the least interesting one.
06:20Here is what was really going on
06:22and I want you to remember this
06:24because it comes back
06:25at the very end of this story
06:27in a way you will not expect.
06:29Two years earlier, in 1942,
06:33Congress had already tried this.
06:35It passed a Soldier Voting Act,
06:37sent it out into the world,
06:39and waited.
06:40When the votes came back and were counted,
06:43the number was 28,000.
06:4428,000 ballots
06:47out of nearly 4 million Americans
06:49then in uniform.
06:51Less than one man in a hundred.
06:53The machinery had not failed at the edges.
06:56It had failed completely.
06:59So in 1944,
07:00they had to build it again,
07:01from scratch,
07:03in the middle of a war.
07:05In the moment they started,
07:07the fight began.
07:08Because everyone in Washington
07:10could count.
07:11There were roughly 9 million Americans
07:14of voting age in the armed forces.
07:16Roosevelt had won in 1940
07:18by about 5 million votes
07:20out of nearly 50 million.
07:22Do that subtraction.
07:24The men overseas
07:25were not a constituency.
07:27They were, on paper,
07:29larger than the margin
07:30of the last presidential election.
07:32In the polls suggested
07:33those men leaned toward the president.
07:35Which meant that making it easier
07:37for them to vote
07:37was not a neutral act of housekeeping.
07:41It was a political weapon,
07:42and both sides knew exactly
07:44which direction it pointed.
07:46Senator Robert Taft of Ohio
07:48led the opposition,
07:49and his objection sounded technical.
07:52He insisted the ballots
07:54carry the printed names
07:55of the candidates.
07:56That sounds like a small thing.
07:58It was not.
08:00Taft and the men with him
08:01understood
08:02that if you hand a young soldier
08:04a blank piece of paper
08:05and ask him to write a name,
08:07a great many of them
08:09will write the only president
08:10they have ever known
08:11as adults.
08:13Franklin Roosevelt
08:14had been in office
08:15since 1933.
08:17A 22-year-old in a foxhole
08:19had been 11
08:20when Roosevelt took the oath.
08:23So the argument dragged
08:24through the spring of 1944
08:26in public
08:27at full volume
08:29while men were dying in Italy
08:31and loading landing craft
08:32in England.
08:33And when the compromise
08:35finally staggered
08:36out of Congress,
08:37Roosevelt would not
08:38put his name on it.
08:40On the 1st of April, 1944,
08:43he let it become law
08:44without his signature.
08:46That law created something
08:47worth pausing on.
08:49A body called
08:50the War Ballot Commission.
08:52And look at who sat on it.
08:54The Secretary of War,
08:56the Secretary of the Navy,
08:57and the head
08:59of the War Shipping Administration.
09:01In other words,
09:02the three men
09:03responsible for moving
09:04every bullet,
09:05every ration,
09:07and every soldier on Earth
09:08were also handed the job
09:10of moving the paper.
09:12Now let me put a face on it,
09:14because this is the part
09:15the documents rarely show you.
09:1811th of June, 1944.
09:21The Mariana Islands.
09:23Five days after
09:24the Normandy landings,
09:25on the other side of the world,
09:27a staff sergeant
09:28named Dale Blakeslee
09:30from Carson City, Michigan,
09:31found himself
09:32with a spare minute.
09:34He sat down on the ground,
09:36propped his war ballot
09:37against the wheel of his Jeep,
09:39and began filling in
09:40the personal information
09:41at the top.
09:43Look closely
09:44at what that man was doing.
09:45The candidates
09:46did not exist yet.
09:48The Republicans
09:49would not choose
09:50Thomas Dewey
09:51for another two weeks.
09:53The Democrats
09:53would not meet
09:54until July,
09:55and the man
09:56who would end up
09:57as Vice President,
09:58Harry Truman,
09:59was not even
10:00in the conversation.
10:02Blakeslee was filling out
10:03paperwork for a decision
10:04that had not been made
10:06in a war
10:07that had not been won
10:08on an island
10:09that had been Japanese
10:11a few months earlier.
10:12He was not casting a vote.
10:15He was getting in line.
10:17From 4,000 miles
10:19past the edge of the map.
10:21Multiply him.
10:23Eleven and a half
10:24million Americans
10:25served overseas
10:26in that war,
10:27and in the summer
10:28of 1944,
10:29a very large number
10:31of them were doing
10:31some version
10:32of what Blakeslee did
10:33against that Jeep wheel.
10:35Filling in a form.
10:37Signing an affidavit.
10:39Sending it into the mail.
10:41And hoping.
10:42And every part
10:44of that argument,
10:45the accusations
10:46in Congress,
10:47the maneuvering
10:48over a blank line
10:49on a piece of paper,
10:50the open suggestion
10:51that one American party
10:53wanted its own soldiers
10:55not to vote,
10:56was printed in newspapers
10:57that anybody could read.
11:00Including in Berlin.
11:02The United States
11:03conducted the entire fight
11:05in the open,
11:05where its enemies
11:06could watch.
11:07They did watch.
11:09And that autumn,
11:10there were 334,000
11:13enemy prisoners of war
11:14living inside
11:15the United States.
11:17281,000 of them German.
11:20They were about to see
11:22an American election
11:23from the inside.
11:24And what they reported
11:25back about it,
11:26years later,
11:27is one of the strangest
11:29pieces of testimony
11:30to come out
11:31of the entire war.
11:32Start with what
11:33those Germans actually saw,
11:35because it was not a parade.
11:36They were spread
11:37across nearly 400 camps
11:39from Texas to Rhode Island,
11:41and a great many
11:42of them worked.
11:43They picked cotton.
11:45They cut timber.
11:46They harvested sugar beets
11:47in Michigan,
11:48and canned vegetables
11:49in Wisconsin.
11:50And they rode out
11:51to those fields
11:52in trucks,
11:53past American towns,
11:55through an American autumn.
11:57So in the first week
11:58of November 1944,
12:00they watched a country
12:01hold an election
12:02at close range.
12:03Shop windows,
12:04with signs announcing
12:05that Election Day
12:06was a legal holiday.
12:08Bars posting notices
12:09that they would be closed
12:10while the polls were open,
12:11and would reopen
12:12at 9 that night.
12:14Party workers
12:15arguing on street corners.
12:17A truck towing a trailer,
12:19plastered with one
12:19candidate's name,
12:21rolling past a truck
12:22plastered with the others.
12:24And now I want you to notice
12:25what those prisoners
12:26did not see,
12:27because this is the whole thing
12:29in one sentence.
12:30No soldiers in the streets.
12:33No cordons around
12:34the polling places.
12:36No arrests.
12:37In New York,
12:38the police called out
12:39special forces
12:40to keep order at the polls,
12:41and the men
12:42had almost nothing to do.
12:44The largest turnout
12:46in the history of the country,
12:47in the middle of the largest war
12:49in the history of the world.
12:51And it was calm.
12:54One of those prisoners
12:55spent years afterward
12:56trying to explain that
12:57to people back in Germany,
12:58and he could not
13:00make them believe him.
13:01I am going to give you
13:02his exact words later,
13:04because you will not
13:05fully understand them
13:06until you have seen
13:07what happened
13:08on the other side
13:08of the ocean.
13:10So let us go there.
13:12Because a ballot
13:13on a courthouse desk
13:14in Wisconsin
13:15is nothing.
13:16The question is
13:17how it got there.
13:18Meet Wilbur Burgett.
13:20He was a farmer
13:22from Gratiot, Wisconsin,
13:23and by the autumn
13:24of 1944,
13:25he was in France
13:26with the 12th Armored Division.
13:29His ballot found him.
13:31He filled it in,
13:32he sent it straight back,
13:34and then he wrote home
13:35to his parents about it.
13:36And the line he wrote
13:38is the reason
13:39I am telling you
13:40about him
13:40instead of about the law.
13:43He told them
13:44he had mailed it
13:44on the 30th of September.
13:47And he said
13:48he did not know
13:49whether it would
13:49get back in time.
13:51Sit with that
13:52for a second.
13:53A farmer
13:54from a town
13:55of a few hundred people
13:56in a tank division
13:58in France
13:58mailing a piece of paper
14:00across an ocean
14:01five weeks
14:02before an election
14:03with no way
14:05on earth
14:05to find out
14:06whether it arrived.
14:07No confirmation,
14:09no receipt,
14:10nobody to ask.
14:12He put it in the bag,
14:14and then he went
14:15back to the war
14:15and never learned
14:17the answer.
14:18That state,
14:19Wisconsin,
14:21received just over
14:2280,000 war ballots
14:23for that election.
14:2580,000 versions
14:26of Wilbur Burgett,
14:28each one
14:28a separate,
14:29small act of faith
14:30in a mail system.
14:32And here is where
14:33I have to be honest
14:34with you
14:35about the machine.
14:36Because the version
14:37where American efficiency
14:38simply solves the problem
14:40is not the true version.
14:42And the true version
14:43is better.
14:45The system leaked.
14:47Badly.
14:48There were 48 states
14:50and 48 sets of rules,
14:52and they did not agree
14:53with one another.
14:54A soldier could apply
14:56on a federal postcard,
14:57or a war ballot
14:59commission form,
15:00or by writing a letter
15:01to his own
15:02Secretary of State,
15:04or on a leftover form
15:05from the 1942 election.
15:08And depending on
15:09which state he came from,
15:10some of those worked,
15:12and some of them did not.
15:14Ballots were thrown out
15:15because a man mailed his
15:17to the state he was stationed in,
15:18rather than the state
15:19he lived in.
15:21Others were thrown out
15:22because a federal ballot
15:23arrived without the specific
15:25federal envelope
15:25it was supposed to travel in.
15:28Men of the Merchant Marine
15:29who were dying
15:30at a higher rate
15:31than most of the armed services
15:32had their ballots rejected
15:34in at least 19 states
15:36because those states
15:37would not recognize
15:38the officer status
15:39of a merchant sailor.
15:41And in at least one case,
15:42a whole army
15:43gave up waiting
15:44for Washington.
15:46The Eighth Army
15:47printed its own
15:48absentee registration forms.
15:50Read that again
15:51because it tells you
15:52something about
15:52how this country
15:53actually fights.
15:54An American field army
15:57in the middle
15:57of the Pacific War
15:59ran off its own
16:00election paperwork
16:01rather than let its men
16:03lose the vote
16:03to a shipping delay.
16:05Nobody in Berlin
16:06would have believed it,
16:07and I am not sure
16:08anybody in Washington
16:09authorized it.
16:11That is what this
16:12looked like from the inside.
16:13Not a clean machine.
16:16Forty-eight legal systems
16:17arguing with each other
16:18across an ocean.
16:20A postal service
16:21under strain.
16:22Thousands of ballots
16:23dying quietly of paperwork.
16:25And underneath all of it,
16:27several million
16:28individual men
16:29deciding,
16:30one at a time,
16:31to bother.
16:32Now hold on
16:33to Wilbur Burgett's
16:34uncertainty,
16:35because we are about
16:36to see the paper
16:36reach somewhere
16:37it had no business reaching.
16:40Not a rear headquarters.
16:41Not an island airfield.
16:43Behind German barbed wire
16:45in Pomerania.
16:46Inside a prison camp
16:48holding 8,000 Americans.
16:51One American state government
16:52mailed ballots
16:53to its own citizens
16:54in there.
16:55And what those men
16:56did with them
16:57on the 7th of November
16:58is the single
16:59strangest election story
17:01of the war.
17:017th of November, 1944.
17:04Gross Tuchel,
17:06in Pomerania,
17:07about 100 miles
17:08northeast of Berlin.
17:10A camp called
17:11Stalag Luft 4.
17:13Roughly 8,000 Americans
17:15were held there
17:15at its peak.
17:17Almost all of them
17:18were airmen,
17:18which means
17:19almost all of them
17:20had arrived by parachute.
17:21And a great many of them
17:23had been beaten
17:24or marched
17:25or both
17:25on the way in.
17:27The average American
17:29in German hands
17:29was about 25 years old
17:31when he was captured.
17:33Franklin Roosevelt
17:34had been president
17:34since these men
17:35were schoolboys.
17:37They had no rifles.
17:39They had no radios
17:40they were supposed to have.
17:41They had no ability
17:43whatsoever
17:43to influence
17:44anything happening
17:45anywhere
17:46on the surface
17:47of the earth.
17:48And on the 7th of November,
17:50they held an election.
17:52Not a symbolic show of hands.
17:54They organized it.
17:56They set up their own
17:57absentee voting system
17:58inside the wire,
18:00ran the whole thing themselves,
18:01and counted it.
18:03Now, the obvious question
18:05is the one that makes
18:05this story work.
18:07How did men
18:08behind German barbed wire
18:10know who was even running?
18:12Because a state government
18:14mailed it to them.
18:16Pennsylvania forwarded ballots
18:17to its own citizens
18:18inside German prison camps.
18:21Think about the sheer
18:22chain of institutions
18:23that has to hold
18:24for that to happen.
18:26A county clerk
18:27in Pennsylvania
18:28puts an envelope
18:29in the mail.
18:29It crosses the Atlantic,
18:31enters the German
18:32postal system,
18:34passes through the machinery
18:35of the Veramachs
18:36prisoner administration,
18:37gets inspected
18:39by German censors,
18:40and is handed
18:41to an American
18:42prisoner of war
18:43in a compound
18:44in Pomerania.
18:45And the enemy
18:46passes it along,
18:48because the Geneva Convention
18:49says prisoners
18:50get their mail,
18:51and Germany was still
18:52going through the motions
18:53of the convention
18:54with Western prisoners
18:55in the autumn of 1944.
18:57So the names arrived.
18:59The men inside
19:00got the information
19:01from the Pennsylvania ballots,
19:03and word went
19:04around the compounds.
19:06Here comes the count,
19:07and I want you to hold
19:08on to these numbers
19:09because they matter
19:10later.
19:12Roosevelt and Truman
19:13took 1,810 votes.
19:16Dewey and Bricker
19:17took 277.
19:2062 men,
19:21with a sense of humor
19:22that survived captivity
19:24better than most things did,
19:26voted for the
19:26Prohibition ticket.
19:28That is more than
19:292,000 ballots
19:30cast inside
19:31a German prison camp
19:32on American Election Day.
19:35And notice the shape of it.
19:36The prisoners went
19:38for Roosevelt
19:38by a far wider margin
19:40than the country
19:40back home did.
19:42The men with the least
19:43to gain,
19:44in the worst circumstances,
19:46voted hardest
19:47for continuity.
19:48One of them wrote it up
19:50in his diary afterward,
19:51and the way he described
19:52what they had done
19:53tells you how seriously
19:54they took it.
19:55He thought their opinions
19:57were probably a fair
19:58cross-section
19:58of American sentiment,
19:59and he expected
20:01their count to forecast
20:02the real result
20:03once news finally
20:04reached them from home.
20:06Prisoners of war,
20:07in Pomerania,
20:08in November,
20:09running a poll
20:10and grading themselves
20:11against the nation.
20:13But I am not going
20:14to pretend
20:14the whole thing
20:15was uplifting,
20:16because it was not,
20:17and the ugly part matters.
20:19Not every camp
20:21got that far.
20:22In Stalag Luft III,
20:24one prisoner wrote home
20:26asking for an absentee ballot,
20:27and got it flatly refused.
20:30That refusal landed hard.
20:32These were men
20:33already sliding
20:34toward a bad winter,
20:35and being told from home
20:36that their vote
20:37was too much trouble
20:38did real damage
20:39to the way they felt
20:40about the country
20:41they were sitting
20:41in a camp for.
20:43So no,
20:44the system did not
20:45reach everyone.
20:47It reached some men
20:48and failed others.
20:49And the men it failed
20:51noticed.
20:53And now here is the moment
20:54I have been waiting
20:55to give you.
20:56The first time
20:57in this story
20:58that a German
20:58looks straight at the thing
21:00and cannot place it.
21:02A young American
21:03named Bill Livingstone
21:05was shot down
21:06on the 8th of November,
21:07the day after the election.
21:09He came down
21:10in German hands,
21:11and in the course
21:12of being processed,
21:13he ended up in front
21:14of a German interrogator,
21:15the way every
21:16captured airman did.
21:18And somewhere
21:18in that conversation,
21:20Livingstone asked
21:20his interrogator
21:21the question
21:22everyone in the sky
21:23over Europe
21:24was asking that week.
21:25Who won?
21:27The German told him.
21:29Roosevelt.
21:31And then the interrogator
21:32asked Livingstone
21:33something of his own.
21:35Four words.
21:36Is that good?
21:39Stop and listen
21:40to that question,
21:41because it is not a taunt
21:43and it is not propaganda.
21:45It is a genuine request
21:47for information.
21:48That German officer
21:50had just told
21:50an enemy prisoner
21:51the result of a free election,
21:53and he had no framework
21:55for what the result meant.
21:57Was it good?
21:58Good for whom?
22:00Was there supposed
22:01to be a difference?
22:03He was an intelligent man,
22:05doing a professional job
22:06in a system
22:07that had not held
22:07a contested national election
22:09in 11 years.
22:11To him,
22:12a change of leadership
22:13was a coup,
22:14a purge,
22:15or a death.
22:17The idea that
22:1850 million people
22:19could decide
22:20such a thing
22:20on a Tuesday,
22:21and that the answer
22:22might simply be
22:23better or worse,
22:25rather than survival
22:26or destruction,
22:28was not a thought
22:29his world had a place for.
22:31That is a small conversation
22:33in a bare room in Germany.
22:35It is also,
22:36in miniature,
22:37the exact misreading
22:38that would cost Germany
22:40more than any of them understood.
22:42But the prisoners
22:43are the easy part
22:44of this story.
22:46They had time.
22:47They had nothing
22:48but time.
22:49The men who mattered
22:51on the 7th of November
22:52were the ones
22:53still in the field.
22:54And when American reporters
22:55walked out to the front
22:57that day
22:57to ask them about the election,
22:59what came back
23:00nearly demolishes
23:01everything
23:02I have just told you.
23:03They did not care.
23:05That is the honest answer.
23:07And if you want
23:07the true story
23:08instead of the comfortable one,
23:09you have to take it straight.
23:12American correspondents
23:13went out along
23:14the First Army Front
23:15in the Hurtkin Forest
23:16on Election Day
23:17and asked the infantry
23:18about the election.
23:19And what they got back
23:21was mostly
23:21nothing.
23:23Bearded men
23:24trudging through the mire.
23:26Men standing at the roadside
23:27beating their hands together
23:28to keep the blood moving.
23:30Polite,
23:31uninterested answers.
23:33Some had already
23:34mailed a ballot
23:34weeks before
23:35and had stopped
23:35thinking about it.
23:37Others had not
23:38voted at all.
23:39And the reason they gave
23:40was not politics.
23:41It was paperwork.
23:43Too much red tape
23:45in the forms.
23:46Down in Third Army Country
23:48in France,
23:49a Chicago Tribune reporter
23:50found the same thing.
23:52The election felt remote
23:53from the mud
23:54and the rain
23:55and the low gray sky.
23:57He found men
23:58who had voted.
23:59He found more
24:00who had not.
24:02One lieutenant said
24:03he had not voted
24:03because from that distance
24:05he did not feel
24:06he knew enough to judge.
24:08A corporal who did vote
24:10admitted he was not
24:11much interested
24:12in the result
24:13because he did not think
24:14it had anything to do
24:15with the outcome
24:16of the war.
24:17In Italy,
24:19on the Fifth Army Front,
24:20a New York Times man
24:21reported that the curiosity
24:23went about as far
24:24as who won
24:25and stopped there.
24:27The consequences
24:28of the election
24:28were barely a subject
24:30of conversation
24:30among soldiers.
24:32So there it is.
24:34The great civic drama
24:36of the war
24:36and the men
24:37actually in the holes
24:39shrugged.
24:40Now before you decide
24:42what that means,
24:43look at where the enthusiasm
24:44actually was
24:45because the pattern
24:46is the point.
24:48In an African-American
24:49artillery unit,
24:51a reporter for the
24:52Chicago Defender
24:52found something
24:53close to fever.
24:55Big voting placards
24:56hung up near the mess tent
24:58and men crowding
24:59around them
25:00looking for their own
25:01state's requirements.
25:03These were soldiers
25:04who,
25:04in much of the country
25:05they were fighting for,
25:07would have faced
25:07a poll tax,
25:08a registration clerk,
25:10or worse,
25:10if they had tried
25:12to vote at home.
25:14Overseas,
25:14in uniform,
25:16with a placard
25:16by the mess tent,
25:17they crowded in.
25:19In London,
25:20400 miles from the shooting,
25:22American officers
25:23and enlisted men
25:24filled the West End
25:25on election night,
25:26and in the blacked-out streets,
25:27you could hear them
25:28shouting the two names
25:30back and forth
25:30at each other
25:31in the dark.
25:32And near the Dutch Front,
25:34a photographer caught
25:35three men
25:35of a troop carrier unit
25:37doing the most
25:37ordinary thing
25:38in the world
25:39under the least
25:40ordinary circumstances.
25:42An officer
25:43and two enlisted men
25:44standing at a wrecked glider
25:46checking the polling
25:48requirements
25:48that somebody
25:49had pasted
25:49onto the fuselage.
25:51The caption
25:52the stars and stripes
25:53ran underneath it
25:54was dry as sand.
25:56There were no challengers here.
25:58Nobody was watching them.
26:00Nobody was checking.
26:01There was not
26:02a party official
26:03within a thousand miles.
26:05So which is the real picture?
26:07The bored riflemen
26:09in the Hurtgen
26:09or the men
26:10crowding the placards?
26:12Both.
26:14And the way they fit together
26:15is the thing
26:16I have been building toward
26:17for four parts.
26:19Because there is a document
26:20from that autumn
26:21that cuts right through it.
26:23312 men
26:24of the 134th Infantry,
26:27the Nebraska National Guard Regiment,
26:29signed a petition
26:30in the field in France
26:31not long after they had
26:32fought their way
26:33into Saint-Lau
26:34and been commended
26:35by Eisenhower himself for it.
26:37The paper came home
26:38soiled and grimed
26:40from the battlefield
26:40and it was published
26:41in a Nebraska newspaper.
26:43What were they writing about?
26:45Prohibition.
26:46Nebraska was voting
26:47on a constitutional amendment
26:49to go dry
26:50and these men
26:51wanted their state
26:52to vote it down.
26:53Read what they actually said
26:55and it stops being funny.
26:57They said they were dismayed
26:58to learn that the survivors
27:00among them
27:00might come home
27:01to the same Nebraska
27:03their fathers came home to
27:04in 1919.
27:06They said they felt
27:07they were being disfranchised
27:09and they wrote,
27:11plainly,
27:12that their minds
27:13were fully occupied
27:14with two things,
27:15killing as many Germans
27:17as possible
27:17so they could get home quickly
27:19and staying alive long enough
27:21to get home at all.
27:24312 men
27:24in the field
27:25in a war
27:26taking the trouble
27:27to sign a petition
27:28about the beer laws
27:30of a state
27:30most of them
27:31would not see
27:32for another year.
27:34That is not apathy.
27:36That is not idealism either
27:38and I think that is
27:39what confused everyone
27:40who tried to read
27:41these men
27:42from the outside.
27:44They were not voting
27:45for democracy.
27:46They were voting
27:47about the price of a beer
27:48and the job at the plant
27:50and the county road
27:51and what kind of home
27:53a man walks back into.
27:55The presidential race
27:57felt distant
27:57because it was distant.
27:59The rest of it
28:00never stopped being theirs.
28:02And here is the thing
28:04about that.
28:05Enthusiasm can be crushed.
28:07A habit
28:08that boring cannot.
28:11Now stay with me
28:12because the morning
28:14after that election
28:15is where this whole story turns.
28:17At three in the morning
28:19on the 8th of November
28:20in a farmhouse in France
28:22it was raining so hard
28:24that the commander
28:24of the American 3rd Army
28:26could not sleep.
28:27He got up in the dark
28:29and reached for a book
28:30written by a German general.
28:32What he did a few hours later
28:34is the real measure
28:35of what the election
28:36had cost the United States Army.
28:39The Germans measured it too
28:41and they came to precisely
28:43the wrong conclusion.
28:458th of November 1944
28:493rd Army headquarters
28:50in eastern France.
28:53George Patton woke up
28:54to the sound of rain
28:55hammering down
28:56and could not get back to sleep.
28:58Everything he had spent
28:59weeks preparing
29:00was about to be launched
29:01into that weather.
29:03The Moselle was rising.
29:05The ground his tanks needed
29:06was turning to soup.
29:08So he got up in the dark
29:10and picked up a book.
29:11It was Rommel's book,
29:12Infantry Attacks
29:14written by the German general
29:16who had beaten him
29:16in the desert
29:17before Patton beat him back.
29:19Patton turned to a chapter
29:21about a fight in the rain
29:22in September 1914
29:24and he took real comfort from it
29:26because his reasoning
29:27was blunt and human.
29:29If the Germans could fight
29:31in weather like this
29:32so could he.
29:34A few hours later
29:35in streaming rain
29:37the 3rd Army attacked.
29:3912th Corps went forward
29:40toward Nancy
29:41and the country beyond.
29:43In the days that followed
29:44the northern jaw
29:45came around the fortress
29:46city of Metz
29:47and men of the 90th division
29:49crossed a Moselle
29:50so swollen
29:51that the current
29:52tore boats away
29:52from the crossing sites
29:53and then walked uphill
29:55into forts
29:56built to hold armies.
29:58Now put those two calendar days
30:00side by side
30:01because this is the heart of it.
30:03On the 7th of November
30:04the United States
30:05chose its commander-in-chief.
30:07On the 8th of November
30:09at half past five
30:10in the morning
30:10that country's
30:12most aggressive field army
30:13launched a major offensive
30:14into the flooded Lorraine Plain.
30:17Nobody moved the attack.
30:19Nobody delayed the zero hour
30:21by a day
30:21so the generals
30:22could see the result first.
30:24There is no message
30:25in the records
30:26saying wait until we know
30:27who is president.
30:29The election happened
30:30in one part
30:31of the American system
30:32and the offensive
30:33happened in another
30:33and the two never touched.
30:36Look at what
30:37the supreme commander
30:38did with his election day.
30:40Eisenhower left headquarters
30:42and went up
30:42to visit the men in the line.
30:44A reporter watching him
30:46thought he seemed
30:46almost casual
30:47about the whole business
30:49and judged it unlikely
30:50that he would sit up
30:52all night
30:52for the early returns.
30:54Think about that man's
30:55position for a moment.
30:57His employer
30:58was on the ballot.
30:59The person with the authority
31:01to fire him,
31:02to reshape
31:03the entire theater,
31:04to change the strategy
31:06in Europe,
31:07was being voted on
31:08that day
31:09by 50 million people.
31:12And Eisenhower
31:13went to see his soldiers
31:14and then,
31:15in all likelihood,
31:17went to bed.
31:18I want you to compare that
31:20to what a change
31:21of national leadership
31:22meant everywhere else
31:23in that war.
31:24In Germany,
31:26it meant a bomb
31:27under a table in July
31:28and hundreds of executions
31:30afterward,
31:31some of them filmed.
31:33In the Soviet Union,
31:34it meant nothing
31:35because it did not happen.
31:38In Japan,
31:39a government could fall.
31:40And when Tojo fell
31:41in the summer of 1944,
31:43it was arranged
31:44among a handful of men
31:45and no one asked
31:47the soldiers on Leyte
31:48anything at all.
31:50In the American case,
31:5211 million people
31:53in uniform
31:53were handed a piece of paper
31:55and asked.
31:57And then the army
31:58attacked on schedule anyway.
32:00Here is where
32:01the Germans enter,
32:02and they enter
32:03without understanding
32:04what they are looking at.
32:06On the 8th of November,
32:08a correspondent
32:08named Gunther Weber,
32:10reporting for the
32:11German news agency
32:12from the German headquarters
32:13on the Western Front,
32:15filed a dispatch.
32:17The Allies' great offensive
32:19against Germany
32:19had begun,
32:20he said.
32:21Patton's 3rd Army
32:22had attacked that morning
32:24in streaming rain.
32:26That report is accurate.
32:28It is also,
32:29in a way that no one
32:30on the German side noticed,
32:32incomplete.
32:33Because the German command
32:35filed those two events
32:36in two different drawers.
32:38In one drawer,
32:40military intelligence.
32:41Enemy offensive,
32:43Lorraine.
32:448th November,
32:45weather bad.
32:46In the other drawer,
32:48political news
32:48from an enemy country.
32:50American election,
32:51Roosevelt,
32:52fourth term,
32:53of no immediate
32:54operational consequence.
32:56They never connected them.
32:57And the connection
32:58was the most important
33:00intelligence available
33:01to them that entire month.
33:03Because what those
33:04two days proved,
33:05together,
33:06was that the American
33:07war machine
33:07and the American
33:08political system
33:09were not load-bearing
33:11on each other.
33:11You could remove
33:13the president
33:13in the middle of the campaign
33:14and nothing in Lorraine
33:16would stop.
33:17You could hand
33:18every soldier a ballot
33:19and let him argue
33:20about the beer laws
33:21of Nebraska
33:21and the 90th Division
33:23would still cross
33:24a flooded river
33:25and climb into a fortress.
33:27That is not a slogan.
33:29That is a structural fact
33:31about how the enemy
33:32was built.
33:32And it was sitting there
33:34in plain sight
33:35in the German press agency's
33:36own dispatch.
33:38They did not read it.
33:39And I can tell you
33:40exactly why.
33:42They were working
33:43from a different theory.
33:45A theory their own leader
33:46had stated out loud,
33:48more than once,
33:49to the men
33:50who ran his armies.
33:52Five weeks
33:53and one day
33:54after the Americans voted,
33:56that theory
33:57was turned
33:57into an operation.
34:00250,000 men,
34:031,000 armored vehicles,
34:04and the last
34:05fuel reserve
34:06in Germany,
34:07all committed
34:08in the Ardennes.
34:10The soldiers going in
34:11were told
34:12they were breaking
34:13through to Antwerp.
34:14That was not
34:15what the plan
34:16was really for.
34:17What Hitler
34:18was actually attacking
34:19was the thing
34:21those ballots
34:21came out of.
34:23And once you know
34:24what he thought
34:24he was hitting,
34:25everything in this story
34:27rearranges itself.
34:29Here is the theory
34:30in Hitler's own framing.
34:31The alliance
34:32facing him
34:33was unnatural.
34:34That was the word
34:35he kept using.
34:37Capitalist democracies
34:38in London
34:38and Washington,
34:40tied to Bolshevik Moscow,
34:42held together
34:42only by a shared enemy.
34:44Remove that glue
34:46with a hard enough shock
34:47and the whole thing
34:48would come apart.
34:49And Germany
34:50could make peace
34:51in the West
34:51and turn east
34:53with everything
34:53it had left.
34:55He had a model
34:56for it, too.
34:57Frederick the Great
34:58had survived
34:59the Seven Years' War
35:00not by winning it,
35:01but by outlasting
35:02a coalition
35:03until it fractured.
35:05Hitler talked about
35:06that comparison
35:07for years.
35:08He was not planning
35:09to defeat
35:09the Western allies.
35:11He was planning
35:12to break their will
35:13and let their politics
35:14do the rest.
35:15On the 16th of September,
35:171944,
35:18he told his staff
35:20he intended
35:20to counterattack
35:21out of the Ardennes.
35:22The men in the room
35:24were stunned.
35:25Germany did not
35:26have the strength for it.
35:27That was not the point.
35:29The objective
35:30was Antwerp
35:31on the map,
35:32but the objective
35:33in his mind
35:34was political collapse.
35:37Now,
35:37ask yourself
35:38the question
35:38that makes this whole
35:39story click together.
35:41What evidence
35:42did he have
35:43that the enemy's
35:44politics were brittle?
35:45He had the American election.
35:48All of it.
35:50Out in the open,
35:51printed in newspapers
35:52that reached Lisbon
35:53and Stockholm
35:54and Berlin
35:55within days.
35:57Look at what that
35:58looked like
35:58from a desk in Germany.
36:00A nation at war
36:02with itself
36:02in public.
36:04One party
36:05accusing the other
36:05of trying to stop
36:06its own soldiers
36:07from voting.
36:09Senators fighting
36:10over the wording
36:10of a ballot
36:11while the army
36:12bled in Italy.
36:14A president
36:15refusing to sign
36:15the compromise
36:16his own congress
36:17produced.
36:19Newspapers
36:19openly speculating
36:20that the men
36:21at the front
36:22might decide
36:22the presidency
36:23and openly worrying
36:25about which way
36:26they would break.
36:27To a system
36:28where the last
36:29contested national vote
36:30had been 11 years earlier
36:32and where the answer
36:33to internal disagreement
36:35in July of that same year
36:36had been meat hooks
36:37and piano wire
36:38that American quarrel
36:40could only mean
36:41one thing
36:42weakness.
36:44A crack running
36:45through the enemy's
36:46foundation
36:47and you attack
36:48a crack.
36:49That was the reading
36:51and it was exactly
36:53catastrophically wrong.
36:55Because a crack
36:56and a joint
36:57look identical
36:57from the outside
36:58and the only way
37:00to tell them apart
37:00is to hit them.
37:0316th of December
37:041944
37:06half past five
37:07in the morning
37:09250,000 men
37:10came out of the fog
37:11in the Ardennes
37:12and now I need you
37:13to see who was
37:14standing in front of them
37:15because this is where
37:16the two halves
37:17of this story
37:18finally touch.
37:19The 28th Infantry Division
37:21held a long stretch
37:22of that quiet sector.
37:24The 28th had been fed
37:26into the Hurtgen Forest
37:27six weeks earlier
37:28into the fight
37:29for the village of Schmidt
37:31and it had come out
37:32of those woods
37:33gutted.
37:34It was sent
37:35to the Ardennes
37:35precisely because
37:36that was where
37:37you put a wrecked
37:38division to rest,
37:39take in replacements
37:40and let new men
37:41learn the trade.
37:43These were the same men
37:44from the first part
37:45of this story,
37:46the bearded ones
37:47in the mire,
37:48the ones who had shrugged
37:49at reporters
37:50on election day
37:51or mailed a ballot
37:52in September
37:53and forgotten about it
37:54or skipped the whole thing
37:55because of the red tape
37:56on the forms.
37:58Spread thin
37:58across the Ardennes
38:00with no depth
38:01and no warning,
38:02they were hit
38:03by the main effort
38:04of the last German
38:05offensive of the war.
38:06They did not hold
38:08the line.
38:08Nobody could have
38:09held that line.
38:11What they did instead
38:12was refuse
38:13to break cleanly.
38:14They fought in villages
38:16and crossroads
38:17and stone houses
38:18and every hour
38:19they cost the Germans
38:20was an hour
38:21the German timetable
38:22did not have.
38:24That timetable
38:25was the whole plan.
38:27Antwerp was never reached.
38:29The Meuse
38:30was never crossed.
38:32Afterwards,
38:33the Germans
38:33printed a leaflet
38:34for their own troops
38:35congratulating them
38:36on the offensive
38:36and in it
38:37they claimed
38:38the destruction
38:38of the 28th division
38:39and the 106th.
38:42Read that claim carefully
38:43because it is a confession.
38:46They had to announce
38:47those divisions destroyed
38:48because the actual result
38:50was so much thinner
38:51than what had been promised.
38:53The coalition
38:54did not fracture.
38:55There was no political collapse
38:57in Washington
38:57or London.
38:59The one thing
39:00the operation
39:00was truly designed
39:01to produce
39:02it did not produce at all.
39:05And now,
39:06at last,
39:06I can give you the words
39:07I promised you
39:08in the third part
39:09of this story.
39:11Conrad Sperber
39:12was a German prisoner of war
39:14held in the United States.
39:16He was 39 years old.
39:18After the war
39:19he went home
39:20to the country
39:20near Nuremberg
39:21and he tried to explain
39:23to people there
39:23what he had seen
39:24in America.
39:25He told a reporter
39:27that he could not
39:28make his neighbors
39:28believe one particular thing
39:31that the losing candidate
39:32in an American presidential election
39:34walks over to the winner,
39:36shakes his hand,
39:37and puts himself
39:38at the winner's service
39:40instead of fleeing
39:41into exile
39:42or being locked
39:43in a concentration camp.
39:45That is what the Germans
39:46could not believe.
39:48Not that Americans
39:49voted in the mud.
39:50Anyone can put a mark
39:52on paper.
39:52What they could not believe
39:54was what happened next
39:56which was nothing.
39:58And then
39:59on the 12th of April
40:011945
40:01the President
40:03of the United States
40:04died.
40:05In Berlin
40:06in a bunker
40:07they broke out
40:08the good bottles
40:09because they were certain
40:10the miracle
40:11had finally come.
40:12The news reached Germany
40:13fast
40:14and the reaction
40:15was joy.
40:17Goebbels told
40:17the German people
40:18that fate
40:19had removed
40:19the head
40:20of the enemy
40:20conspiracy
40:21that the perverse
40:23coalition
40:23of plutocracy
40:24and Bolshevism
40:25was collapsing
40:26at last.
40:28In the prison camps
40:29German guards
40:30went out of their way
40:31to bring the news
40:32to their American prisoners
40:33personally
40:34and they framed it
40:35the same way.
40:36Your president
40:37is dead.
40:38This is the turn.
40:40This is the beginning
40:41of your defeat.
40:43The men in those camps
40:44took it hard.
40:45Many of them
40:46had never known
40:47another president.
40:48Some of them
40:49had cast ballots
40:50for him
40:50five months earlier
40:51from behind
40:52that wire.
40:53And then
40:54nothing happened.
40:56Harry Truman
40:57took the oath
40:58in the cabinet room
40:59a few hours later.
41:00No unit moved.
41:02No offensive halted.
41:03No general
41:04was replaced.
41:06No strategy reopened.
41:07No terms
41:08softened.
41:10The demand
41:11for unconditional surrender
41:12stood exactly
41:13where it had stood
41:14the day before.
41:15Within three weeks
41:17the Red Army
41:18was in Berlin
41:18Hitler was dead
41:20in a bunker
41:20and the men
41:21who had opened
41:22the good bottles
41:23had run out of miracles
41:24to wait for.
41:26Now go back
41:27and look at that
41:28blank ballot
41:28one more time
41:29because this is the part
41:30that gets me.
41:32When those men
41:33wrote in a name
41:34they were not writing
41:35one name.
41:36They were writing
41:37a ticket.
41:38Roosevelt and Truman.
41:40In a prison camp
41:42in Pomerania.
41:43In a jeep
41:44on a pacific island.
41:45In a farmhouse
41:46in France.
41:48Americans put down
41:49the name
41:49of a senator
41:50from Missouri
41:51that most of them
41:52could not have
41:52picked out of a lineup.
41:54They were choosing
41:55the man
41:55who would end
41:56the war.
41:57They had no idea.
42:00That is what a system
42:01looks like
42:02when it works.
42:03What happened
42:04to the people
42:04in this story
42:05is a mixed accounting
42:06and I am not going
42:08to tidy it up.
42:09The record
42:10does not tell us
42:10whether Wilbur
42:11Burgett's ballot
42:12got home in time.
42:14He mailed it
42:14on the 30th of September
42:15from France
42:16and he never found out
42:18and neither
42:19now will we.
42:21That is the ordinary
42:22ending for most
42:23of these men.
42:24The paper either made it
42:25or it did not.
42:27The Nebraskans
42:28of the 134th Infantry
42:30who signed that
42:31grimy petition
42:32about the beer laws
42:33went into the Ardennes
42:35in December
42:35and fought toward Bastogne.
42:37Over 10 months
42:39in Europe
42:39the regiment took
42:40more than 10,000 casualties
42:42and more than 1,200
42:43of its men
42:44were killed.
42:45The survivors
42:46came home to Omaha
42:47in June of 1945.
42:50Nebraska did not go dry.
42:52They won that one.
42:54Some of them
42:55never knew.
42:56And the 12th Infantry
42:58the regiment
42:59we started with
43:00spent the rest
43:01of that autumn
43:02in the Hurtgen Forest
43:03which took more
43:04American lives
43:05than almost any battle
43:06the United States
43:07has ever fought.
43:09So let me leave you
43:10where we began.
43:127th of November
43:131944
43:1510 minutes to 1
43:16in the afternoon.
43:18A cold rain
43:19in a pine forest
43:21on the German border
43:22and a regiment
43:23of American infantry
43:24finishing a relief
43:25in the line
43:26hole by hole
43:27in silence
43:28because the enemy
43:29was 200 yards away.
43:31That night
43:32some of those men
43:33gathered around
43:34a captured German radio
43:35to hear who had won.
43:37They were not doing it
43:38because they thought
43:39it would change the war.
43:41Most of them
43:42said plainly
43:42that it would not.
43:44They were not doing it
43:45out of some grand
43:46sense of destiny either
43:48and if you had said
43:48the word democracy
43:49to them in that forest
43:51they would probably
43:52have told you
43:52to keep your voice down.
43:54They did it
43:55because it was Tuesday
43:56and back home
43:57Tuesday was election day
43:59and that was simply
44:00what you did.
44:02And that is the answer
44:03to the whole thing.
44:05The Germans kept looking
44:06for the crack
44:07and they were looking
44:08at the wrong material.
44:10They expected to find
44:11belief
44:12which can be shaken
44:13or fear
44:14which can be broken.
44:16What they were actually
44:17up against
44:17was a habit
44:18so deep
44:19it functioned
44:20in mud
44:20in prison camps
44:22and under artillery
44:24and which cost
44:25the men who kept it
44:26almost nothing
44:27to keep.
44:28You cannot bomb that.
44:30You cannot outmaneuver it.
44:32You certainly
44:33cannot copy it
44:34in eleven years.
44:35An ordinary man
44:37in a wet hole
44:38in a foreign forest
44:40filling out a form
44:41he half resented
44:42on a piece of paper
44:44with no names
44:45printed on it
44:45on the assumption
44:46that somebody back home
44:48would count it honestly.
44:50That was the strongest
44:51thing the United States
44:52brought to that war
44:54and it was made
44:55of paper.
44:57Thank you for staying
44:58with me all the way
44:58through this one.
45:00If this story
45:00meant something to you
45:01a like genuinely
45:03helps it reach
45:04the people
45:04who ought to see it.
45:05And these men
45:06have waited
45:07a long time
45:08to be found.
45:10Subscribe and turn
45:11on the bell
45:11if you want more of them
45:12because a great many
45:13stories like this one
45:14never made it
45:15into the standard histories.
45:17And tell me
45:18in the comments
45:18where you are watching from.
45:20If your father
45:21your grandfather
45:22or your uncle
45:23wore an American
45:24or allied uniform
45:25in that war
45:26give me his name
45:27and his outfit.
45:28I read every one of them.
45:30Those names
45:31belong here.
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