Holdouts: The 36 WWII Pockets That Kept Fighting

Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CALUM at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/calum A few months ago... I had a thought: how long was it, truly, before the Second World War in Europe actually came to its end? The question led me down a rabbit hole to find every last holdout in Europe. What I found was were stories of islands still at war, forgotten soldiers stranded on tiny reefs and in the high arctic. U-boats escaping across the Atlantic and vast, disintegrating army groups desperately fleeing the Soviets. This documentary covers around 36 cases that I found: The Courland pocket, Heligoland, the Channel Islands, Crete, the Dodecanese, U-234, Texel, Bornholm, and lots more. Twitter......................►  / calumraasay   Instagram................►  / calumraasay   Discord.....................►  / discord   Website....................►http://calumgillies.com Sources: Books: Antony Beevor — Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (1991) Antony Beevor — The Fall of Berlin 1945 (2003) Antony Beevor — The Second World War (2012) Charles Cruickshank — The German Occupation of the Channel Islands (1975) Saul David — Sky Warriors: British Airborne Forces in the Second World War (2024) Wilhelm Dege — War North of 80 (2004) Michael A. Eggleston — Operation Hannibal (2018) Max Hastings — Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944–1945 (2004) Jens Chr. Hauge — The Liberation of Norway (1950/1995) Rolf Hinze — To The Bitter End (2006) Vincent Hunt — Blood in the Forest (2017) Ian Kershaw — The End: Germany 1944–1945 (2011) Eric Lee — Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge (2020) Keith Lowe — Savage Continent (2012) Roy McLoughlin — Living with the Enemy (2011) Anthony Rogers — Churchill's Folly: Leros and the Aegean (2003) David Stafford — Endgame 1945 (2007) Geoffrey J. Thomas & Barry Ketley — Luftwaffe KG 200 (2015) Charles Whiting — The End of the War: Europe, April 15–May 23, 1945 (1973) Other Sources/Articles: RIA Novosti / Soviet Information Bureau daily communiqués: 5 May, 6 May, 7 May, 8 May, 9 May, 10 May, 11 May, 12 May, 13 May, 14 May 1945 (eng.9may.ru, Wayback Machine archives) No. 38 Group RAF Report on Operation "Doomsday" — Appendix D: Route Diagram (departure airfields and flight routes to Norway) Otway, Terence B.H. Airborne Forces of the Second World War 1939–45 (War Office, 1951; facsimile Uckfield, 2019) — cited via Airborne Assault Museum West Point Atlas of War — "The War in Western Europe: Final Operations (19 April – 7 May 1945)" Battlefront Atlas — situation maps 1 May 1945 and 15 May 1945 Rogers, Anthony — maps from Churchill's Folly: South-Eastern Aegean; Kos (Operation Eisbär); Levitha 1943; Leros (Operation Taifun); Leros: Clidi area; Leros: Central Region Soviet military map: "Battles with the encircled enemy forces in Kurzeme, October 1944 to 8 May 1945" (Kurzemes Katls Karte) Articles: Stephen Ashley Hart — "General Sir Andrew Thorne and the Liberation of Norway, 1945" Caroline Kennedy-Pipe & Chris Bellamy — "Bornholm: Stalin's Danish Mystery" (History Today, 2020) Jan Hyrman — "The Czechoslovaks at Dunkirk 1944–45" (nasenoviny.com) 00:00 - Europe on the 7th of May 1945 02:53 - Norway 04:10 - Thank you Incogni! 06:15 - The Dodecanese 08:47 - Crete 09:43 - La Rochelle 10:39 - Saint Nazaire 11:28 - The Channel Islands 13:32 - Dunkirk 14:42 - Bornholm 15:35 - The Courland & Danzig Pockets 18:30 - Lorient 19:22 - Army Group Centre 21:00 - Heligoland 21:50 - U-234 23:11 - Poljana 24:37 - Alderney 25:41 - Texel 29:30 - Flensburg's End 29:53 - The Minquiers 30:45 - Terschelling, Vlieland, Ameland & Schiermonnikoog 31:58 - U-530 & U-977 34:10 - Haudegen