In our first video on the worst jobs of World War II, we discussed seven examples, but remember,
this was war, and there were many, many terrible jobs you could be assigned or -- as some of our
viewers pointed out in the comments of that last video -- volunteer for. In this video,
we're going to discuss four more jobs that would have sucked in World War II.
Let's dive right into this with human torpedoes. Now,
a human torpedo wasn't a literal human being launched into an enemy hull, and there were,
in fact, many types of naval vessels which fell under the broad, if a little inexact,
category of "human torpedoes," with some being more dangerous than others. Some of these
vessels -- such as the Italian frogmen's "Maiale" or the British frogmen's "Chariot" -- were more
so diver propulsion vehicles or swimmer delivery vehicles, and some -- such as the Kriegsmarine's
"Marder" and "Biber" -- had more in kind with submarines, but there were some which had
much more in kind with unmanned torpedoes; these were the more dangerous by far, if not suicidal.
The Kriegsmarine's "Neger" -- upon which their later model the "Marder" -- was based,
was dangerous indeed. It was comprised of not one but two torpedoes -- one in which the pilot
sat and one which was the actual warhead, slung beneath the former like an under-over shotgun.
Unable to dive, the pilot steered the Neger over the surface of the water and then released the
bottom torpedo when he was on target. Sometimes, the pilot would get caught in the explosion;
sometimes, the bottom torpedo would fail to detach, propelling the pilot into death's maw; and
sometimes, his craft would straight-up capsized when it first hit the water. Some 200 Negers were
produced in 1944, and while they were used to some effect against the Allies in the Normandy
Landings, very few returned from deployment, and between 60 and 80% of all Neger pilots perished.
The Imperial Japanese Navy's "Kaiten," on the other hand, was the Kamikaze craft of
the sea. Kaitens were based off Type 92 and Type 93 torpedoes, and while some early designs allowed
for their pilots to bail out at the last second, this feature was phased out, and pilots literally
drove these vessels to their doom, albeit to not so great an effect as the torpedoes on which the
Kaitens were based. While Kaitens managed to down some US Navy vessels -- such as the USS
Mississinewa and Underhill -- claiming a total of some 200 Allied lives, more than IJN 100 pilots
steered them to their death, and a further fifteen perished in Kaiten-related training
accidents. As Kaitens could only dive so deep, the submarines carrying them were limited too,
and this made the submarines easy targets, resulting in many more Kaiten-related deaths.
In an interview, Japanese veteran Toshiharu Konada described how he felt training as a Kaiten pilot:
"After arriving at the Kaiten base, I was thinking about my death for 2-3 days but
gradually I became calm and finally I could decide [to volunteer for a suicide mission]. What made me
decided was the thought that Japan would not be protected without changing myself into a bullet."
Keeping to a maritime theme, sailing in a merchant navy was another of World War II's
more dangerous jobs. Merchant navies are merchant fleets registered to specific countries, and the
crewmen of merchant fleets such as the US Merchant Marines are, to this day, considered civilians in
times of peace and military personnel in times of war. While the US Merchant Marines, Canadian
Merchant Navy, New Zealand Merchant Navy, and other merchant navies served in World War II, the
British Merchant Navy was the largest, with some 185,000 seamen in its collective hull. Of these,
up to 37,000 were killed in enemy attacks, while a further 10,000 were wounded or taken as POWs. The
death rate of Merchant Navy crewmen was between 25 and 27%, higher than any other branch of the
British armed forces, and this can be attributed to the cargo which the fleet was carrying. Without
merchant navies, belligerents like Britain would've fallen short of raw materials, fuel,
weapons and ammunition, food, and other essential wartime resources, and these fleets were often
poorly defended, lacking both the firepower and shielding to repel and absorb enemy attacks;
this combination made them juicy targets, especially for German U-Boats and aircraft.
US merchant mariner Spud Campbell described the sinking of the Liberty ship SS Henry
Bacon after it was hit by a torpedo launched by a German aircraft on the 23rd of February 1945:
"The ship was [...] mortally wounded [...] and the captain realized that. He started giving orders
about launching lifeboats." Spud was then put onto one of the few undamaged lifeboats with some
Norweigan refuges -- old men, women, children even babies -- and he described what happened next:
"[...] We saw the ship as it slid into the water, the captain still aboard. Twenty-six
of our crew [...] who had to go down into the water were drowned and frozen." And Spud said
"had to go down" because these brave mariners gave up their places on the lifeboats for the
refugees. Eventually, three British destroyers came to the rescue, and while all the Norwegian
civilians survived, sixteen Merchant Marine crewmen lost their lives to the sea.
We covered body recovery and disposal in the last video, but stretcher-bearing was worse in many
ways, as the wounded men carried on stretchers were often in agony, and the medical personnel
bearing them had to do so through the thick of battle, shielded by little more than the
clothes on their back, and their prayers. Also, the distances for which stretcher-bearers had to
carry the wounded were often great and over less than desirable terrain, and during this gruelling
transit, many of the wounded in their charge would die, making the entire effort in vain.
A stretcher-bearer in a unit of Britain's Royal Army Medical Corps Field Ambulance,
wrote, "We evacuated men shot in the lungs, feet, abdomen,
men shocked and one crazed with nerves, starting and crying at every sound."
Conversely, a young British officer of the 17th Field Regiment described being rescued
by stretcher-bearers: "I [...] noticed [...] two bullet holes in my wrist. [It] was bleeding freely
and [...] the [...] bullets had cut through a vein [...]. I found out later that this
bullet had entered the back of my leg [...] The stretcher-bearer said that I would have
to go back to a Main Dressing Station... I had seen stretcher-bearers in action in
Tunisia and had always admired the way they had conducted their difficult and dangerous
duties. Having had both wounds bandaged, I was then helped on to a stretcher... We
started to descend the very steep slope of the ravine. Trying to carry a wounded
man in a stretcher down a slope steeper than 45 degrees was an almost impossible job and,
after being moved about five yards, I said 'Stop. Let me get off and I'll try walking.'"
The officer managed to walk the rest of the way to the dressing station, but he finished by writing,
"How I would have managed without those two stretcher-bearers I have no idea."
Stretcher-bearers were knee-deep in the dying and dead, but at least they were together,
and this brings us to our next less than ideal job of World War II -- sniping. The
reason why snipers make the cut is that infantry feared and hated them, and due to this alone,
they weren't treated so well when captured by the enemy. But it goes beyond that. See, roaming
the land (often deep behind enemy lines) and perching for days or weeks in wait of a target,
snipers gathered vital intel on enemy positions and tactics, and they also held in their heads
vital intel which could prove useful to the enemy, and the best way to get all of this
intel out was through torture -- torture which more often than not continued until death.
Soviet sniper Tatyana Baramzina suffered such a fate after parachuting in behind German
lines near the village of Pekalin in Belorussia. After shooting holes in twenty German soldiers,
Baramzina was reassigned to caring for the wounded, performing this duty in a trench
that was soon assaulted by the Germans. Baramzina was wounded in this fight,
but she wasn't killed, and the enemy seized her. Simply to find out what unit Baramzina
was from and how many troops were in that unit, the Germans gouged our her eyes,
after which they shot her point-blank with an anti-tank rifle. It's unclear what else they
did to Baramzina, but her body was found mutilated almost beyond identification.
So those were another four of the worst jobs of World War II, and while there were plenty more,
we're eager to extend our "worst jobs" videos beyond the World War II,
possibly back to the Great War or forward to the American War in Vietnam. Also,
as one of our viewers suggested, we might even flip this whole thing on its head and
make a video on the best jobs of World War II. But we're interested in what you guys
think. Are there any jobs you think deserved a place in this video? Would you like to see
a video on the worst jobs of World War I or the Vietnam War? Would you like to see a video about
the best jobs of the Second World War? Please share your thoughts in the comments.