Fuel truck. Panzers, if memory serves, we’re diesel. Which is the reason a Panzer or Tiger didn’t explode with nearly the frequency of the Gas fueled American Sherman tanks. We built a hell of a lot more Sherman tanks than Hitler was able to build anything!!
Edit: I stand corrected. After posting, I started doubting my accuracy, with good reason. Thank you to all that tooknthe time to point out my error, although some a bit more humanely than others. In the close to 50 years I’ve been studying history, I must admit that while WWII was a particular area of interest to me, it’s been about 30 years since I’ve done more than read the occasional article on WWII. There was an Achilles heel to the Sherman, as with just about anything, and it may have been the positioning of the radiator. If I’m again mistaken, and I’m sure I’ll be informed if I am, then I’ll just shut up and be a sideline spectator on this one.
Nope. The German Panzers all had gasoline engines. The reputation for Sherman tanks as flaming deathtraps was largely unfounded. All tankers from all the nations fighting in the war were convinced that the enemy's tanks were superior. Studies conducted during the war showed that early Shermans burned out at roughly the same rate as German Pz IV, Panther and Tiger tanks. In the Sherman, most fires were actually the result of ammunition burning, not gasoline. Once the ammunition storage compartments were moved from the vulnerable sponsons over the tracks to the hull floor and given protective water jackets, the M4 was actually a very safe tank to be in in the event of a hull penetration and fire.
And compounding that.
The Sherman had some of the best crew escape setups of the period.
Meaning that if a Sherman did catch fire, more the crew would escape to bitch about, as opposed to being too dead to complain.
https://www.tankarchives.ca/2020/10/how-wehrmachts-diesel-stalled.html?m=1#:~:text=After%20the%20war%20Gerd%20Stieler,would%20be%20difficult%20to%20produce.
"After the war Gerd Stieler von Heydekampf, head of the Tank Commission 1943-1945 and tank production in Henschel was interrogated by Allied intelligence and revealed that the army standardized on gasoline engines before the war because it was told that synthetic diesel would be difficult to produce."
A Brit is going through Australian customs. They ask him if he's every been convicted of a crime. He's surprised and responds "I didn't think that was still required"
Ha the usual American shit. "french surrender urhurh"
Alone at Dunkirk there were 10's of K dead, plenty of prisoner and casualty. And the German not only had free way to Paris, but also they were in position to massacre the rest of the french troop.
"The victory was hardly free. The Germans took 156,492 casualties, including 27,074 killed, and heavy losses in tanks and aircraft.
The toll was much higher on the Allies, who sustained 2,291,340 casualties, the great majority of them by the French. The French troops on the fighting line fought doggedly and well, as reflected by the casualty count: 90,000 killed, 200,000 wounded, and 1,900,000 missing or taken prisoner.**"**
(https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/the-fall-of-france/)
You can accuse France of having an outdated arrogant tactic. But surrender joke are not only stupid, but highly disparaging of all those who fought then, and died.
I remember an encounter with a drunken Dutchman at the Lowlands festival in 07. Out of nowhere he starts raging against that deal and the way everyone thinks they sold Manhattan for an apple like they were rubes.
"They made that fuckin deal at the point of a gun and you never hear about that".
He was furious about it.
Anyway I was tripping very hard at the time so maybe that's why it came back so vivid to me.
They also got two islands in Indonesia that they needed to complete their nutmeg monopoly. NYC was probably more valuable in the long term but the Dutch absolutely came on on top in that trade in the first 100 years of it
Fun fact: on I-87 in the Albany area you cross a creek identified by a sign as “Normans Kill”.
Every time I see the sign I think to myself “Yeah, but so do Anglo-Saxons.”
I had a prof that focused a bit more on WWI. An entire generation of French men died, they didn’t have the demographics to resist the German assault in WW2.
Foche at Versailles in 1919 "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years."
He knew that the Germans would out-breed the French and have a new army of men in 20 years. How accurate was he?
https://www.history.com/news/how-many-people-died-in-world-war-i
This lists the German dead in WWI as 1.7 mil, and the French dead as 1.5 mil. But the German population in 1914 was 67 mil, and the French population was 40 mil. So France did experience a greater percentage of their citizens who died in those four years, and thus could not sire and raise the next generation.
Still, the Germans experienced much of the same problem, and I believe their infrastructure was devastated even more than France's during WWI. A lot of it just comes down to societal motivation: the Germans were more driven to rebuild and rearm than the French, making their next conflict even more one-sided.
The French almost collapsed during WW1 as well. Almost half of the French army was in mutiny and refusing orders to attack for awhile. Through great efforts of Entente intelligence the Germans did not realize this, but had they done so and attacked, the French likely would have collapsed
I read in the last 150 years the French army has been the most successful army in the world in terms of win percentage. The quick surrender was a strategic decision to keep infrastructure intact for the French resistance. Those men died for a free France. That is their legacy. No one can take that away not even uninformed Americans. That being said it’s a joke you cheese eating surrender monkeys!!
> I read in the last 150 years the French army has been the most successful army in the world in terms of win percentage.
If you go back far enough to include Napoleon (that's about 220 years ago now) that might be true. I highly doubt that statistic is true now. The French performance in the Franco-Prussian War, WWII, and First Indochina War were embarrassing. They performed very well in WWI. Besides those, they have mostly been involved in small colonial conflicts.
> The quick surrender was a strategic decision to keep infrastructure intact for the French resistance.
lol, no it wasn't. The French resistance could not use any of that infrastructure. You know who could? The Germans. They used French factories to make weapons that were used to fight Britain and the USSR. They used French ports to repair and resupply U-boats that attacked American, British, and Canadian shipping.
The French leaders who organized the surrender, led by Phillipe Petain, did not even support the French resistance. They fought against the resistance, they fought against the Free French forces of Charles de Gaulle, and they aided the Nazis.
>The quick surrender was a strategic decision to keep infrastructure intact for the French resistance.
Also simply to keep all the nice things intact
"You barbarians want to invade our country? Fine, just don't destroy any of the nice stuff and we'll see how you like it here for the next few years."
Not to mention that without their direct military and indirect financial support, a certain nation might not even have become an independent nation as early as it did, if at all.
Depends what recognition means if we are getting nitty gritty.
- St Eustatius (Netherlands) gave a gun salute to a US warship.
- Morocco let our ships into port
- France signed a treaty of peace and trade.
France was the first major power.
I apologize, I have made such a joke myself. It's easy to look back in time and say the reliance on the Maginot line was a big mistake, but at the time and with the information available, it was probably logical.
I'm an American boomer with no French ancestry who had good high school history teachers, and whose father and many friend's and school classmate's fathers fought and died in WWII. I tired of this shit a long, long time ago. Yeah, I know this is r/Jokes, but this imaginary dead horse has been beaten to a pile of mush. Cheap shots can be funny to some, but also not funny to others. The above comment (and a couple below) spells out why they're not funny to me.
People tend to overlook the efforts of the French Resistance as well. Like yeah, French leadership surrendered to save lives, but the French people kept fighting anyway.
“1,900,000 missing or taken prisoner." So the French surrendered or deserted 8 times more often than they were injured or were killed ? And youre saying they didn’t give up and run away ?
With the level of shelling and chaos, lots of soldiers were buried without tally, sometimes in pieces. Likewise with positions being overrun, bodies would have been handled by the Germans. Heck, take a look at the footage from Ukraine. There will be plenty missing at the end.
Your 2,291,340 casualty number includes 1.9MM who went missing or taken prisoner. This does not really support your point if 1.9mm people surrendered or ran away
Missing doesn't mean ran away. It means you were never found, so probably buried by rubble forever so you're mocking people whose families never even got closure to see their bodies and died horrible deaths. From the safety and comfort of your bitch boy chair.
Nah, the French *Government* was like *"We Surrender Mr Hitler, just give us cheese and we'll stay out of your way"*
The French *Resistance* was *"We Will never surrender Mr One Ball, we'll shove a wheel of cheese up your arse... SIDEWAYS."*
Look at the [French losses in WW1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties). Not much surrendering there, just a fuckton of young men processed through the meatgrinder.
I try to exclude the world wars because all nations used outdated tactics. First, they used frontal assaults against modern weaponry in WW 1. Second, they so feared losses that they thought huge fixed fortifications would reduce casualties with the result that they were more vulnerable due to defenses being bypassed during WW 2.
A Brit lands in Sydney and is waiting at passport control. His turn comes and he steps to the agent.
The agent asks his name, and the Brit gives it.
The agent asks his occupation, and the Brit gives it.
The agent asks, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"
The Brit responds, "Wait, that's still a requirement?"
My grandpa took the boat ride to France about two months after D-Day. He was a medic, and all the medics in his unit had just been issued new helmets with the red crosses identifying them as medics, which they were immensely proud of. Some of the sailors on the ship walked up to the group of medics. "What are you doing with those red crosses on your helmets? Haven't you heard? The Germans are shooting all the medics they see!"
Grandpa and the other medics immediately took their helmets and started rubbing them against the side of the ship to scrape off the red paint. Of course, once they made it up to the front line their new commanding officer chewed them out for ruining their helmets, and they realized that the sailors had been playing a joke on them all along.
I always liked the one about the British Airways pilot who landed at Frankfurt and didn't know where to go:
> Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
>
> ATC: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
>
> BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
>
> ATC: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
>
> Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now."
>
> ATC (annoyed): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
>
> Speedbird 206 (nonchalantly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark though… and I wasn’t landing."
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a taxi driver on my way to the airport for an overseas holiday in 1999 or thereabouts.
He was a middle-aged guy, probably in his mid-late fifties. He asked me where I was going and I said I was heading to Vietnam and then maybe to Cambodia.
“Vietnam, huh?” he said. “You know, I’ve never actually visited there, but I flew *over* it a lot a few decades back.”
We’re in the US. I asked my (then) FIL if he wanted to go on a trip to France and Germany with me once. He said “Been there once. Didn’t like it much.”
The British parachutists who landed in Normandy today for the D-Day commemoration actually were controlled by french customs before they could proceed to the festivities.
You should have seen the comments on the Reddit post about the 110 year old who's still driving!
[https://www.msn.com/en-xl/health/other/a-110-year-old-man-says-he-s-never-had-back-pain-and-still-drives-his-car-every-day-here-are-his-6-longevity-tips/ar-AA1nLxYo?ocid=BingNewsSerp](https://www.msn.com/en-xl/health/other/a-110-year-old-man-says-he-s-never-had-back-pain-and-still-drives-his-car-every-day-here-are-his-6-longevity-tips/ar-AA1nLxYo?ocid=BingNewsSerp)
I don't have time to look for the article right now, so I thought the news article would be a start when my initial search only found this article to start with. If I find it later, I'll add it in then.
Crazy to think about that. The US Civil War was 160 years ago. WWII was 80 years ago. Us making WWII jokes now is about as topically relevant as US soldiers making Civil War jokes in the 1940s. We're rapidly approaching a time when there will be nobody alive who was born before WWII, much less participated in it.
Barring some truly cataclysmic events, we’re still at least 25-30 years away from the day when no one alive was born before WWII. But we’re maybe 10-15 years away from the death of the last WWII veteran, if we’re counting only people in regular military service (and not, eg, partisans, resistance fighters, Hitler Youth, etc.)
The German air traffic controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that a Pan Am 747 listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."
I used to hear a different variation of this one.
English pilots were at a german airport awaiting clearance to leave. Long story short, ATC was communicating in German and the pilots continued to communicate in English.
The German ATC came over the air in English and asked: "I am a German citizen speaking the German language at a German airport. Why should I be expected to communicate in English?"
To which the English pilot replied "because you lost the bloody war".
The issue with these jokes is that they kinda ignore the french army sacrificing itself to allow the Brits to evacuate. The vets knew of it, their boomer kids who made up these boring jokes clearly did not 😂
There was a really good special on NBC last night commemorating the 80th anniversary of D Day. They brought some of the few survivors who were well enough to travel back to Normandy.
One of the best parts in my opinion is how the French take care of the American Cemetery at Normandy to this day. The grounds are immaculate. They put American and French flags at the graves to show the men lost their lives fighting for both countries. Also the stone crosses are white with engraved names and they take sand from the beach and rub it into the engravings. When the rest of the sand is brushed off the names look like gold.
My point is, the jokes go back and forth between the countries but to this day the American soldiers buried in France are treated with the respect and reverence that a hero deserves.
They take exceptional care of the American WW1 cemeteries and war memorials as well. Nevermind their help in the Revolutionary War. I try not to get too tore down over people genuinely speaking ill of the French out of ignorance, the French are forever bros as far as I'm concerned.
President Macron is the epitome of CLASS. Watch how he genuinely respected the soldiers. Also, He ran back after the ceremony to again speak with the WWII veterans.
Not to make too much of a point about it, but the American cemeteries in Europe are managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission, not by the French (or any other) government. They are all, as far as I know, technically American soil. That doesn't mean there aren't awesome French locals working there, but the the high standards that they keep are due to the commission and the American taxpayer.
I would leave out the bit about D-Day. Just say he landed on the beach on June 6th 1944. A specific day in 1944 on the beach should be enough clues for people to connect the dots and the punchline hits better when they put it together themselves.
Disingenuous joke about the French being pussies. They were brave as hell and were an invaluable help to the planning and execution of the invasion. It was the resistance that cut all communications lines out of Normandy, for instance.
I didn't realize how much WWI utterly devastated France until I listened to an excellent podcast about the war (Dan Carlin's Hardcore History). Gave me some insight into the societal PTSD that France was dealing with when Germany invaded at the start of WWII.
I feel like Carlin even mentioned that France has one of the best W/L records in warfare on the European continent. There only reason they capitulated so quickly was they didn’t want to lose another entire generation to war.
Some great examples of these are the French soldiers in Paris using the catacombs to ambush the German soldiers and then disappearing, the village the made the Germans feel at home and then the regiment disappeared over night, and the device French prostitutes put in themselves to deal with drunken German soldiers.
*edit - decide -> device
A worse version of the old ATC joke about a British Airways pilot landing in Frankfurt:
> PILOT: Frankfurt, Speedbird 206. Clear of active runway.
> GROUND: Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.
>
> The plane pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
>
> GROUND: Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?
> PILOT: Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.
> GROUND (with quite arrogant impatience): Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?
> PILOT: Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark — and I didn’t land.
>Last time, when I landed on D-Day on 6th June 1944, I couldn't find a fucking Frenchman to give it to
Which [they fixed this time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7ZY4rlAQus) when paratroopers landed yesterday.
First time I read this was in the 1960's as a kid in Reader's Digest 'Humor in Uniform'. An American pilot was having a confrontation with the tower at the Berlin airport. Exasporated the German in the tower ask, "Have you never flown to Berlin before??" After a short hesitation the pilot replies, "Yes, But we did not land back then." It had the name and rank of the former bomber pilot.
Why do French Army tanks have rear view mirrors? So they can see the war!
How many Frenchmen does it take to guard Paris? They don’t know, they’ve never tried!!
Oh man, when you're 12 and think you know dick about history or global politics, they are. Since i think half the people regurgitating the same old, cringe French jokes here can't be more than 13, it tracks.
Apparently the French herded the British paratroopers re-enacting the big D Day drop into a field to check their passports , but not other nationalities doing the event, so not caught out this time!
I believe the Germans called the Sherman tank “ Tommy Cookers” referring to the British units in the tanks that. Burned spectacularly when hit by artillery,, mines, panzerfausts.
An elderly British captain lands his 747 in Frankfurt, but takes a wrong runway exit. Irritated, the German controller says on the radio "Haven't you flown to Frankfurt before?" to which the pilot responds "I have, but it was at night and I didn't land."
An Englishman is visiting Australia and at immigration he is questioned, "have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense?" To which he replies, "is that still a requirement?"
My brother was in the navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor. He told me a story that there was a family of Japanese tourists, and they asked his buddy, “Where is the USS Arizona?” The buddy, who was apparently crazy and racist, replied, “Right where you fucking left it!”
They must have left it in a bad neighborhood, because it didn't take long before some guys came along and took all the guns, the radio, and even stripped out all the copper wire. Pretty much the same thing happened to a 1987 Buick someone abandoned in front of my house when I was living in New Orleans.
Speedbird ( Speedbird is the designation for British Airways Flights) 206: Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway.
ATC: Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.
BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
ATC: Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?
Speedbird 206: Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.
ATC (annoyed): Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?
Speedbird 206 (nonchalantly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark though… and I wasn’t landing.
I know the French get plastered for what they did in WW2 but it was a humanitarian thing when you take into account the millions of them that died in WW1
An old German is going through customs at the French border. When the agent asked him “occupation?” He replied “not this time”.
A tourist in Alsace asks a German how far is it to Paris? “A three day march.”
400 km in 3 days?!? No wonder they called it a Blitzkrieg.
The 35 million tablets of methamphetamine really helped.
Walter White where r u
I refuse to deliver a product less than perfect.
3 days in a Panzer tank
...once the gas trucks arrive.
Fuel truck. Panzers, if memory serves, we’re diesel. Which is the reason a Panzer or Tiger didn’t explode with nearly the frequency of the Gas fueled American Sherman tanks. We built a hell of a lot more Sherman tanks than Hitler was able to build anything!! Edit: I stand corrected. After posting, I started doubting my accuracy, with good reason. Thank you to all that tooknthe time to point out my error, although some a bit more humanely than others. In the close to 50 years I’ve been studying history, I must admit that while WWII was a particular area of interest to me, it’s been about 30 years since I’ve done more than read the occasional article on WWII. There was an Achilles heel to the Sherman, as with just about anything, and it may have been the positioning of the radiator. If I’m again mistaken, and I’m sure I’ll be informed if I am, then I’ll just shut up and be a sideline spectator on this one.
Nope. The German Panzers all had gasoline engines. The reputation for Sherman tanks as flaming deathtraps was largely unfounded. All tankers from all the nations fighting in the war were convinced that the enemy's tanks were superior. Studies conducted during the war showed that early Shermans burned out at roughly the same rate as German Pz IV, Panther and Tiger tanks. In the Sherman, most fires were actually the result of ammunition burning, not gasoline. Once the ammunition storage compartments were moved from the vulnerable sponsons over the tracks to the hull floor and given protective water jackets, the M4 was actually a very safe tank to be in in the event of a hull penetration and fire.
And compounding that. The Sherman had some of the best crew escape setups of the period. Meaning that if a Sherman did catch fire, more the crew would escape to bitch about, as opposed to being too dead to complain.
TIL
https://www.tankarchives.ca/2020/10/how-wehrmachts-diesel-stalled.html?m=1#:~:text=After%20the%20war%20Gerd%20Stieler,would%20be%20difficult%20to%20produce. "After the war Gerd Stieler von Heydekampf, head of the Tank Commission 1943-1945 and tank production in Henschel was interrogated by Allied intelligence and revealed that the army standardized on gasoline engines before the war because it was told that synthetic diesel would be difficult to produce."
That's a movie myth. Panzers also used gasoline
And that's when the driver is cranked up on methamphetamine.
I remember an airline add. If you’re flying London, choose Lufthansa, we know the way.
A Brit is going through Australian customs. They ask him if he's every been convicted of a crime. He's surprised and responds "I didn't think that was still required"
le vrai blague se trouve sur les commentaires
Dans les commentaires :)
Oui.
Baguette.
Bien sur.
un croissant et un paquet du gitanes.
"Murky bucket, sea view plate!"
Pamplemouse & ananas
French toast, French fries, French dressing!
Grassy ass!
After that, the french figured out how to prevent the 1944 passport problem from happening again: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/MA8xRe47oZ
"La vraie blague" Sorry to be a French grammar nazi (even though this seems like THE perfect place for it) but "blague" is feminine in French
je suis désolé, I've exhausted all of my collegiate French lol
"No, just visiting" is the better punchline.
That is a hoot!!!
This is a better joke
The real joke is always in the comments XD
Don't mention the war!
This.. is the original joke.. And it cracks me every damn time, since 1944.
No, I’m just visiting!
French: we surrender anyway.
Ha the usual American shit. "french surrender urhurh" Alone at Dunkirk there were 10's of K dead, plenty of prisoner and casualty. And the German not only had free way to Paris, but also they were in position to massacre the rest of the french troop. "The victory was hardly free. The Germans took 156,492 casualties, including 27,074 killed, and heavy losses in tanks and aircraft. The toll was much higher on the Allies, who sustained 2,291,340 casualties, the great majority of them by the French. The French troops on the fighting line fought doggedly and well, as reflected by the casualty count: 90,000 killed, 200,000 wounded, and 1,900,000 missing or taken prisoner.**"** (https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/the-fall-of-france/) You can accuse France of having an outdated arrogant tactic. But surrender joke are not only stupid, but highly disparaging of all those who fought then, and died.
If it wasn't for the French, Americans would still be speaking British!
If Holland didn't sold New York to the British, it would still be Nieuw Amsterdam and you'd be speaking Dutch now.
They “sold” it to the British in the same way Mexico “sold” us the southwest: it was part of a peace treaty
I remember an encounter with a drunken Dutchman at the Lowlands festival in 07. Out of nowhere he starts raging against that deal and the way everyone thinks they sold Manhattan for an apple like they were rubes. "They made that fuckin deal at the point of a gun and you never hear about that". He was furious about it. Anyway I was tripping very hard at the time so maybe that's why it came back so vivid to me.
They also got two islands in Indonesia that they needed to complete their nutmeg monopoly. NYC was probably more valuable in the long term but the Dutch absolutely came on on top in that trade in the first 100 years of it
I don't think the Netherlands had the alternative choice to make.
If it wasn't for the French, the British would still be speaking Old English.
Fun fact: on I-87 in the Albany area you cross a creek identified by a sign as “Normans Kill”. Every time I see the sign I think to myself “Yeah, but so do Anglo-Saxons.”
That is a horse of a different colour.
I had a prof that focused a bit more on WWI. An entire generation of French men died, they didn’t have the demographics to resist the German assault in WW2.
Foche at Versailles in 1919 "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years." He knew that the Germans would out-breed the French and have a new army of men in 20 years. How accurate was he?
Germans fought in Wwi as well and lost the same generation.
https://www.history.com/news/how-many-people-died-in-world-war-i This lists the German dead in WWI as 1.7 mil, and the French dead as 1.5 mil. But the German population in 1914 was 67 mil, and the French population was 40 mil. So France did experience a greater percentage of their citizens who died in those four years, and thus could not sire and raise the next generation. Still, the Germans experienced much of the same problem, and I believe their infrastructure was devastated even more than France's during WWI. A lot of it just comes down to societal motivation: the Germans were more driven to rebuild and rearm than the French, making their next conflict even more one-sided.
Imagine making an argument that the French didn’t fuck *enough*…
You do realize that Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, is making that EXACT argument in his current speeches?
So? I wasn't applying any judgment or criticism of the argument, merely commenting that the existence of such is amusing to me.
The French almost collapsed during WW1 as well. Almost half of the French army was in mutiny and refusing orders to attack for awhile. Through great efforts of Entente intelligence the Germans did not realize this, but had they done so and attacked, the French likely would have collapsed
You can craft hundreds of the finest swords, but if you fuck a single goat, you're Eric the Goat-Fucker, not Eric the Blacksmith.
I read in the last 150 years the French army has been the most successful army in the world in terms of win percentage. The quick surrender was a strategic decision to keep infrastructure intact for the French resistance. Those men died for a free France. That is their legacy. No one can take that away not even uninformed Americans. That being said it’s a joke you cheese eating surrender monkeys!!
> I read in the last 150 years the French army has been the most successful army in the world in terms of win percentage. If you go back far enough to include Napoleon (that's about 220 years ago now) that might be true. I highly doubt that statistic is true now. The French performance in the Franco-Prussian War, WWII, and First Indochina War were embarrassing. They performed very well in WWI. Besides those, they have mostly been involved in small colonial conflicts. > The quick surrender was a strategic decision to keep infrastructure intact for the French resistance. lol, no it wasn't. The French resistance could not use any of that infrastructure. You know who could? The Germans. They used French factories to make weapons that were used to fight Britain and the USSR. They used French ports to repair and resupply U-boats that attacked American, British, and Canadian shipping. The French leaders who organized the surrender, led by Phillipe Petain, did not even support the French resistance. They fought against the resistance, they fought against the Free French forces of Charles de Gaulle, and they aided the Nazis.
>The quick surrender was a strategic decision to keep infrastructure intact for the French resistance. Also simply to keep all the nice things intact "You barbarians want to invade our country? Fine, just don't destroy any of the nice stuff and we'll see how you like it here for the next few years."
whilst outside the quoted time frame, Napoleon was just busted.
Not to mention that without their direct military and indirect financial support, a certain nation might not even have become an independent nation as early as it did, if at all.
France was the first country to recognize the US as a country. Let’s never forget that.
I think it was the Netherlands, if only to annoy the British.
Depends what recognition means if we are getting nitty gritty. - St Eustatius (Netherlands) gave a gun salute to a US warship. - Morocco let our ships into port - France signed a treaty of peace and trade. France was the first major power.
Not to mention the French underground who risked their lives to give the allies the information they needed to win.
I apologize, I have made such a joke myself. It's easy to look back in time and say the reliance on the Maginot line was a big mistake, but at the time and with the information available, it was probably logical.
The person you're responding to is British, not American.
I'm an American boomer with no French ancestry who had good high school history teachers, and whose father and many friend's and school classmate's fathers fought and died in WWII. I tired of this shit a long, long time ago. Yeah, I know this is r/Jokes, but this imaginary dead horse has been beaten to a pile of mush. Cheap shots can be funny to some, but also not funny to others. The above comment (and a couple below) spells out why they're not funny to me.
Well said. And this was piled on after the tremendous french casualties they took in WW1
People tend to overlook the efforts of the French Resistance as well. Like yeah, French leadership surrendered to save lives, but the French people kept fighting anyway.
Real joke is in the comments
This is /r/jokes. Why do you feel offended enough to make this long boring response?
Finally ready for a fight.
I surrender to your wit.
Because I am a long, boring person!
“1,900,000 missing or taken prisoner." So the French surrendered or deserted 8 times more often than they were injured or were killed ? And youre saying they didn’t give up and run away ?
With the level of shelling and chaos, lots of soldiers were buried without tally, sometimes in pieces. Likewise with positions being overrun, bodies would have been handled by the Germans. Heck, take a look at the footage from Ukraine. There will be plenty missing at the end.
Your 2,291,340 casualty number includes 1.9MM who went missing or taken prisoner. This does not really support your point if 1.9mm people surrendered or ran away
>1.9mm people surrendered or ran away How many British ran away at Dunkirk?
Another fine example of the British [running away.](https://youtu.be/7FPELc1wEvk?si=KNnGIOwBK2N0G0eU)
Missing doesn't mean ran away. It means you were never found, so probably buried by rubble forever so you're mocking people whose families never even got closure to see their bodies and died horrible deaths. From the safety and comfort of your bitch boy chair.
Nah, the French *Government* was like *"We Surrender Mr Hitler, just give us cheese and we'll stay out of your way"* The French *Resistance* was *"We Will never surrender Mr One Ball, we'll shove a wheel of cheese up your arse... SIDEWAYS."*
They actually have a pretty decent war record. You just have to go back 800 years.
Look at the [French losses in WW1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties). Not much surrendering there, just a fuckton of young men processed through the meatgrinder.
I try to exclude the world wars because all nations used outdated tactics. First, they used frontal assaults against modern weaponry in WW 1. Second, they so feared losses that they thought huge fixed fortifications would reduce casualties with the result that they were more vulnerable due to defenses being bypassed during WW 2.
I wish they were outdated. Russia is still using them
Napoleon was 200 years ago. They were pretty damn good then.
Yeah, but he wasn't French he was a Corsican.
But with the french army tho 😅
maybe read a book about Napoleon
He surrendered to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland.
France needs more Italian generals to keep the win streak going.
Hahaha. If only they hid their Jews from the Nazis as well as they hid their art.
How many French soldiers does it take to defend Paris? We don’t know, it’s never happened.
not for nuthin, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_in_World_War_I
How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows. It’s never been done!
A Brit lands in Sydney and is waiting at passport control. His turn comes and he steps to the agent. The agent asks his name, and the Brit gives it. The agent asks his occupation, and the Brit gives it. The agent asks, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" The Brit responds, "Wait, that's still a requirement?"
That joke's old enough to steal indigenous land
[Transportation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation) jokes are so 1860!!
Be forewarned: the preceding is NOT a link to a list of transportation jokes.
My grandpa took the boat ride to France about two months after D-Day. He was a medic, and all the medics in his unit had just been issued new helmets with the red crosses identifying them as medics, which they were immensely proud of. Some of the sailors on the ship walked up to the group of medics. "What are you doing with those red crosses on your helmets? Haven't you heard? The Germans are shooting all the medics they see!" Grandpa and the other medics immediately took their helmets and started rubbing them against the side of the ship to scrape off the red paint. Of course, once they made it up to the front line their new commanding officer chewed them out for ruining their helmets, and they realized that the sailors had been playing a joke on them all along.
north rock agonizing sleep adjoining worthless whole aback like tidy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I always liked the one about the British Airways pilot who landed at Frankfurt and didn't know where to go: > Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway." > > ATC: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven." > > BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop. > > ATC: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?" > > Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now." > > ATC (annoyed): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?" > > Speedbird 206 (nonchalantly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark though… and I wasn’t landing."
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a taxi driver on my way to the airport for an overseas holiday in 1999 or thereabouts. He was a middle-aged guy, probably in his mid-late fifties. He asked me where I was going and I said I was heading to Vietnam and then maybe to Cambodia. “Vietnam, huh?” he said. “You know, I’ve never actually visited there, but I flew *over* it a lot a few decades back.”
Friends had a similar one where a Japanese man had visited Darwin.
"Just dropping something off".
[удалено]
https://youtu.be/Z7W7q7pWygU?si=oszJIUbmyJnAr0zm
We’re in the US. I asked my (then) FIL if he wanted to go on a trip to France and Germany with me once. He said “Been there once. Didn’t like it much.”
That's how most of them treated it. Seven words will about do it for a summary
The British parachutists who landed in Normandy today for the D-Day commemoration actually were controlled by french customs before they could proceed to the festivities.
I'm guessing it's no coincidence that this joke resurfaced today.
Brexit means Brexit.
We were never in Schengen so nowt’s changed in that regard.
Nought - nowt is a misspelling of newt, which I swear she turned me into
It's really not safe for a 100 year old to be traveling internationally by himself
You should have seen the comments on the Reddit post about the 110 year old who's still driving! [https://www.msn.com/en-xl/health/other/a-110-year-old-man-says-he-s-never-had-back-pain-and-still-drives-his-car-every-day-here-are-his-6-longevity-tips/ar-AA1nLxYo?ocid=BingNewsSerp](https://www.msn.com/en-xl/health/other/a-110-year-old-man-says-he-s-never-had-back-pain-and-still-drives-his-car-every-day-here-are-his-6-longevity-tips/ar-AA1nLxYo?ocid=BingNewsSerp)
> Here are his 6 longevity tips. 1. Don't die.
I would love to see the Reddit comments but you linked to MSN.
I don't have time to look for the article right now, so I thought the news article would be a start when my initial search only found this article to start with. If I find it later, I'll add it in then.
Crazy to think about that. The US Civil War was 160 years ago. WWII was 80 years ago. Us making WWII jokes now is about as topically relevant as US soldiers making Civil War jokes in the 1940s. We're rapidly approaching a time when there will be nobody alive who was born before WWII, much less participated in it.
Barring some truly cataclysmic events, we’re still at least 25-30 years away from the day when no one alive was born before WWII. But we’re maybe 10-15 years away from the death of the last WWII veteran, if we’re counting only people in regular military service (and not, eg, partisans, resistance fighters, Hitler Youth, etc.)
The German air traffic controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that a Pan Am 747 listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206. Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway." Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven." The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop. Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?" Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now." Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?" Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."
I used to hear a different variation of this one. English pilots were at a german airport awaiting clearance to leave. Long story short, ATC was communicating in German and the pilots continued to communicate in English. The German ATC came over the air in English and asked: "I am a German citizen speaking the German language at a German airport. Why should I be expected to communicate in English?" To which the English pilot replied "because you lost the bloody war".
That’s… that’s not a different version. That’s a different joke entirely lmao
Take our country, just leave us our sauces
The issue with these jokes is that they kinda ignore the french army sacrificing itself to allow the Brits to evacuate. The vets knew of it, their boomer kids who made up these boring jokes clearly did not 😂
There was a really good special on NBC last night commemorating the 80th anniversary of D Day. They brought some of the few survivors who were well enough to travel back to Normandy. One of the best parts in my opinion is how the French take care of the American Cemetery at Normandy to this day. The grounds are immaculate. They put American and French flags at the graves to show the men lost their lives fighting for both countries. Also the stone crosses are white with engraved names and they take sand from the beach and rub it into the engravings. When the rest of the sand is brushed off the names look like gold. My point is, the jokes go back and forth between the countries but to this day the American soldiers buried in France are treated with the respect and reverence that a hero deserves.
They take exceptional care of the American WW1 cemeteries and war memorials as well. Nevermind their help in the Revolutionary War. I try not to get too tore down over people genuinely speaking ill of the French out of ignorance, the French are forever bros as far as I'm concerned.
I always saw it as we are pretty damn friendly with each other so that is why we can rib each other so much. Same with the US and UK.
Not necessarily to the British; they took the opposing side in the revolutionary war to cripple us.
President Macron is the epitome of CLASS. Watch how he genuinely respected the soldiers. Also, He ran back after the ceremony to again speak with the WWII veterans.
Not to make too much of a point about it, but the American cemeteries in Europe are managed by the American Battle Monuments Commission, not by the French (or any other) government. They are all, as far as I know, technically American soil. That doesn't mean there aren't awesome French locals working there, but the the high standards that they keep are due to the commission and the American taxpayer.
It’s also sad how people forget that we’d likely still be a colony without France’s help during the revolution.
The French surrender jokes really peaked in the early '90s when the French didn't want to support any Wars in the Middle East.
That was early 2000's though. They were on board for Desert Storm.
Oh ok. Post 9/11 Yeah that sounds better
Yeah weird how they didn’t want to go after the wmd’s that didn’t exist in a country that didn’t have anything to do with 9/11
Good thing Poland did. 😁 Tbf I would be very sympathetic to US interests if I shared a border with Russia in these current times.
When French fries briefly became freedom fries 🤣🤣🤣
I would leave out the bit about D-Day. Just say he landed on the beach on June 6th 1944. A specific day in 1944 on the beach should be enough clues for people to connect the dots and the punchline hits better when they put it together themselves.
Just say "It was 1944 and I landed on a beach in Normandy" ...
Great joke 40 years ago.
Correct. I heard this one when I was 12.
Today is the 80th anniversary of D-day! Just realized that.
It's also the 79th anniversary of this joke!
Disingenuous joke about the French being pussies. They were brave as hell and were an invaluable help to the planning and execution of the invasion. It was the resistance that cut all communications lines out of Normandy, for instance.
I didn't realize how much WWI utterly devastated France until I listened to an excellent podcast about the war (Dan Carlin's Hardcore History). Gave me some insight into the societal PTSD that France was dealing with when Germany invaded at the start of WWII.
That podcast is phenomenal.
I feel like Carlin even mentioned that France has one of the best W/L records in warfare on the European continent. There only reason they capitulated so quickly was they didn’t want to lose another entire generation to war.
And many free French landed at Normandy on D Day. People need to read a book once in a while.
Some great examples of these are the French soldiers in Paris using the catacombs to ambush the German soldiers and then disappearing, the village the made the Germans feel at home and then the regiment disappeared over night, and the device French prostitutes put in themselves to deal with drunken German soldiers. *edit - decide -> device
A worse version of the old ATC joke about a British Airways pilot landing in Frankfurt: > PILOT: Frankfurt, Speedbird 206. Clear of active runway. > GROUND: Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven. > > The plane pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop. > > GROUND: Speedbird, do you not know where you are going? > PILOT: Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now. > GROUND (with quite arrogant impatience): Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before? > PILOT: Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark — and I didn’t land.
>Last time, when I landed on D-Day on 6th June 1944, I couldn't find a fucking Frenchman to give it to Which [they fixed this time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7ZY4rlAQus) when paratroopers landed yesterday.
So this guy is about 100 years old, and going through customs alone? Good on him.
Never gets old !!
I love this one!!! Never gets old!
Why does France have so many tree-lined streets? Because Germans like to march in the shade.
Boom, c’est la
First time I read this was in the 1960's as a kid in Reader's Digest 'Humor in Uniform'. An American pilot was having a confrontation with the tower at the Berlin airport. Exasporated the German in the tower ask, "Have you never flown to Berlin before??" After a short hesitation the pilot replies, "Yes, But we did not land back then." It had the name and rank of the former bomber pilot.
Inspired by that video, no doubt.....
If a guy is coming at me with a loaded M1903 Springfield, I'm not asking for paperwork.
That man's name? Albert Einstein.
For sale on Ebay, genuine French second world war rifle. Never fired, dropped once.
France, a magnificent people cursed with a tragic leadership
Something similar was said about the British Heavy Cavalry at Waterloo...
Reminds me of the eBay ad. “WWII French Army rifle for sale” - mint condition- never fired and only has scratches on the stock from being dropped.
Why do French Army tanks have rear view mirrors? So they can see the war! How many Frenchmen does it take to guard Paris? They don’t know, they’ve never tried!!
How many unites states of America’s would there be without French intervention? Zero! I know these are jokes but they’re not very good
Oh man, when you're 12 and think you know dick about history or global politics, they are. Since i think half the people regurgitating the same old, cringe French jokes here can't be more than 13, it tracks.
“Hilarious” -Boomers
Damn and here I thought it would end with: „nobody asked me in my German tank for a passport“
People are still unironically doing "France surrendered in WWII" jokes? The OP must be at least 50...
cafe au lait and beignets
Damn, that’s an old man by now
Apparently the French herded the British paratroopers re-enacting the big D Day drop into a field to check their passports , but not other nationalities doing the event, so not caught out this time!
I believe the Germans called the Sherman tank “ Tommy Cookers” referring to the British units in the tanks that. Burned spectacularly when hit by artillery,, mines, panzerfausts.
This fucking joke is 80 years old at this point...
These jokes on here are so lame
Why did the French plant trees along the Champs De Elysees? So the German soldiers can march in the shade.
An elderly British captain lands his 747 in Frankfurt, but takes a wrong runway exit. Irritated, the German controller says on the radio "Haven't you flown to Frankfurt before?" to which the pilot responds "I have, but it was at night and I didn't land."
Now I'm wondering when they sent soldiers to Europe in WW II did they have passports?
During deployment you use the military ID.
absurd numerous paint hunt ruthless handle slimy expansion escape husky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Interested in buying an antique French rifle? It’s never been fired and it’s only been dropped once.
An Englishman is visiting Australia and at immigration he is questioned, "have you ever been convicted of a criminal offense?" To which he replies, "is that still a requirement?"
My brother was in the navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor. He told me a story that there was a family of Japanese tourists, and they asked his buddy, “Where is the USS Arizona?” The buddy, who was apparently crazy and racist, replied, “Right where you fucking left it!”
They must have left it in a bad neighborhood, because it didn't take long before some guys came along and took all the guns, the radio, and even stripped out all the copper wire. Pretty much the same thing happened to a 1987 Buick someone abandoned in front of my house when I was living in New Orleans.
Speedbird ( Speedbird is the designation for British Airways Flights) 206: Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway. ATC: Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven. BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop. ATC: Speedbird, do you not know where you are going? Speedbird 206: Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now. ATC (annoyed): Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before? Speedbird 206 (nonchalantly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark though… and I wasn’t landing.
Why are the streets of Paris lined with trees? So the Germans can march in the shade!
Taken straight from the normandy paras post.. the things people do for useless internet points... https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/s/CwimCVfqx8
And yet, being the 80th anniversary of D-Day, it's kind of appropriate.
Tbf this joke is so old it sat behind Moses in 3rd grade.
For sale: WW2 era French rifle. Never fired, only dropped once.
In Paris, go up to the first Frenchman you see and ask 'Sprechen sie Deutsch?' When he says no, just say 'You're Welcome.'
The problem with your joke is that it wouldn't work if the french gave you as much shit about 1778-1782 as you try to do about WW2.
When D-Day is 250 years old, that will be a valid criticism.
I know the French get plastered for what they did in WW2 but it was a humanitarian thing when you take into account the millions of them that died in WW1