Which Generals from Each Major Fighting Nation Turned the Tide of WW2 Theatres?

They say 'the times make the man,' so it's no surprise that the Second World War made a lot of admirals and generals. In this video, we shed light on a cross section on some of the war's top commanders.

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🎬Video Credits:
Narrator - Cam
Editor - Steven DiLeo
Writer - Brad Dare
Researcher - Daniel

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Chapters

0:00 Introduction
0:51 Georgy Zhukov
2:21 Isoroku Yamamoto
3:32 Erwin Rommel
4:53 William Slim
6:11 George Patton
7:37 Bonus: Grigory Kulik
9:04 Conclusion

[lordMartiya]

It's clear why Stalin feared Kulik: someone so stupid should have been already dead, yet he was still alive. Something was seriously wrong there...

[MH-trkn]

Kulik: worst Soviet general or most underrated axis spy?

[kellywright]

Patton was my Dad's commander in WWII. He fought in the 4th Armored Division, 66th Armored Field Artillery Battalion as a scout. He said the movie Patton was as close to the real thing as you will get. And yes, he hated him and loved him at the same time...

[sandtraven]

I'm glad to see Slim getting some recognition. The Burma campaign was one of the wildest of the war. The 14th Army is known as the Forgotten Army for a reason; don't feel bad if you're only now learning who General Slim was. Props to you for educating yourself, whoever you are.

[ToTaLePiCpEaNuT]

I think the best quote about General slim was from the man himself (I’ll write it at the end)
My own great grandfather served in his forgotten army and thanks to that army and general William slim my other great grandfather was liberated from his POW camp (he was captured at Singapore)
When General Slim was brought into Burma in 1942 the British army was getting battered, the Japanese were in the process of trying to outflank and surround them before they could retreat from Burma.
Of the 25, 000 men in the retreating British army (British, Indian, Burmese and Gurkha) only 12, 000 would escape burma with their lives in what became the British army’s longest ever retreat.
The British who escaped were skinny, poorly trained in jungle warfare, demoralised, poorly led, scared stiff of the Japanese and disease ridden… by the time Slim was finished with them in late 1945 they were highly trained, motivated, aggressive jungle fighting force that had annihilated the Japanese (they were about as diverse as an army could get as well) and due to Slim they largely contained disease in the ranks through stringent medical protocols and good leadership from officers and most importantly they were no longer scared of the Japanese, quite the opposite they were aggressive in their pursuit of destroying them.
William Slim single handedly in 1942 prevented becoming surrounded against the coast like at Dunkirk or Singapore (no chance of escaping like the brits from Dunkirk on the Burmese coast) his fighting retreat that was brutal but perfectly orchestrated (the Gurkhas at one stage held a tiny bridgehead and were almost slaughtered to give the rest of the army chance to escape) and when they had reached the safety of India General William slim was driving through a makeshift barracks, the barracks was lined with the wounded and yet when he drove past the whole camp cheered him because they knew until he arrived all hope was lost and he had saved them. General William slim said of that moment (I’m paraphrasing) “It’s a great honour for a general to be cheered after a great victory, but to be cheered by his men after a great defeat is the greatest honour a general could hope for”
He saw it as a defeat, but in reality like at Dunkirk it was a victory of survival in the jaws of annihilation.
I don’t think I need to speak of his great victories late in the war (the bloodiest Japanese defeat in their history) his actions in 1942 were enough.

[ktheterkuceder]

Slim. One of the best ww2 generals I had never heard of.
Kulik. One of the worst ww2 generals I had never heard off.

[derin]

Some of the ‘Best Generals’ were also some of the ‘Best Self-Publicists’.

[itsjohndell]

The actor who plays Zhukov the hilarious The Death of Stalin is exceptional.

[revelloify]

Thank you for remembering General Slim, an often forgotten leader. I knew an old soldier from the Burma campaign who held him in the highest regard.

[chaz]

I’ve become more familiar and fascinated by slim. Apparently, when he saw that troops suffered greatly from jungle diseases because officers were too lenient about whether troops took the necessary medical provisions, often times because soldiers disliked the taste of them. So slim sacked the incompetent officers, a warning to other officers who then made vaccines and antibiotics for soldiers mandatory. Singlehandedly and greatly improving the odds of soldiers fighting or just surviving the jungle.

[philipqvist]

General Bill Slim - turned a rabble of an Army into one that would destroy the JIA with a string of spectacular victories in India and Burma.
And he would do this when his 14th Army was at the bottom of the Logistics food chain.

[razakfr]

I think some generals are too under represented. Generals like Walther Model, Albert Kesselring, Semion Timoshenko, Vassili Chuikov, Hugh Dowding or Omar Bradley also greatly affected WW2, they should have more fame.

[colinmartin]

Slim was the son of an ironmonger, and so was not imbued with the rigid methods and traditions of the British upper classes, allowing him to use unorthodox methods and to think outside of the box, a brilliant commander who must have been exceptional for him to rise from working-class to Field Marshall.

[sercravenmohead]

Giovanni Messe is underrated, yes he’s an Italian general but he’s one of the good ones. The only general to score a cavalry victory in the whole war and it was against the Soviets! He was the most innovative Italian general that favored unconventional mobile tactics, his feats earned high remarks from Rommel who quotes “The German soldier impressed the world, Italian Bersaglieri impressed the German soldier.” I must say for a country that had no business trying to take over the world they did better than what other minor countries did at the time.

[boomboone]

Idea: Kulik wasn't incompetent, he was just trying to make the Soviet Union lose.

[brianrunyon]

Hadn't heard of Slim before. I'd read Kulik was stuck in the past, as the saying goes when it came to military tactics.

[zacamakapaka]

General slim in burma is one of my favourite generals. Battle of the admin box was insane

[brokenbridge]

Fun Fact: Kulik's name became so infamous that two decades later it would cause a lot of Red Army Men to curse his name. He was by far the worse military leader of WWII and for good reason.

[Liendoelcm]

I read Slim's biography. He was very much forgotten out in Burma and received only what could be spared, the fight against Germany taking the bulk of the supply of troops and equipment. He fought against Japanese troops, strangling them into a standstill by cutting off all their supply roots for everything from food to medicines. The Japanese Forces in Burma just wasted away. My favourite soldier seems not to have complained but fought with what he had. Brilliant man.

[Boodoosh]

Decent list :) A little surprised there is no talk of Erich von Manstein, he did some incredible feats on Eastern front in spite of his own High Command, he also created the plan for the invasion of France in 1940.