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Drugs in WW2

babunbabun Member Posts: 11,054 ✭✭✭
edited July 2019 in General Discussion
Watched an interesting show last night from BBC.

Called Secrets of the Dead.

This one was about drugs GIVEN to GI's during WW2.
Told about the British Army given Massive dosages of Benazine {sp} {amphetamine} to a whole brigade of tank crews before their attack on a strong German holding at El Alimain.

The drug kept the crews awake for 48 hours and REDUCED their fear and sense of self preservation.
They charged into the battle against overwhelming odds. 90% lost of the Brit's.
Even the US army used "bennies", first with aircrews, then with dogfaces too.
Pervitin tablets were used by all armies.
Hitler {a druggie from way back} issued them to many of his army companies.

Never Knew any of this......... :shock:
benzedrine-sulfate-box-wwii.jpg

9316020ba8dd34b71ba4e5a8a1c08bcf.jpg

Comments

  • WearyTravelerWearyTraveler Member Posts: 2,006 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    This is another example of an instance where we shouldn?t judge actions of yesteryear by today?s ?feelings.?

    Things that were done of necessity back then will get the government chastised under today?s standards.
    ”People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
    - GEORGE ORWELL -
  • bambihunterbambihunter Member Posts: 10,675 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Meh, just caffeine on steroids. I have zero issues with these types of drugs. Now, hallucinogenics is another story.
    Fanatic collector of the 10mm auto.
  • bustedkneebustedknee Member Posts: 2,002 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I saw that show as well.

    Drugs are bad! That's not right.

    I think we should overturn the surrender and award the war to Germany and Japan then pay each person reparations.


    You realize I'm just talking poop?
    But I wanted to make the suggestion before AOC or Bernie does.
    I can't believe they misspelled "Pork and Beans!"
  • babunbabun Member Posts: 11,054 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Oh, I not condemning what was done. Maybe for the Brits over drugging, the amount given was WAY too much, they knew what it would do. It was a hopeless attack plan from the start, so they drugged the whole tank company so high, they just raced into the German's
    88mm anti-tank line, which was like using a .458 Win Mag. for rabbit hunting.
    The Brit's sent in the "new" Sherman tanks we gave them first, then the British old WW1 tanks in the rear.
    The Sherman, altho much better that the British old junk, was never a match for any good
    anti-tank gun, and the 88"s were the BEST of the war.
  • 11b6r11b6r Member Posts: 16,588 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Late 1960s, US Army. "Ranger Candy". Everybody had a bottle of Darvon Compound 65. Feel like your body has been beaten with a meat tenderizer? Take two, wash them down, FIDO.
  • Hawk CarseHawk Carse Member Posts: 4,365 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    That makes more sense than Tom Clancy calling Tylenol or Motrin "Ranger candy."
    I guess he didn't want readers to think his characters a bunch of dopers.
  • JunkballerJunkballer Member Posts: 9,147 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    In VN 69/70 I know a few of us at times (how many men I don't know) were issued drops to dilate our pupils, guinea pigs maybe ?? .....anything that helps you come out a winner is fine in my opinion, deal with any repercussions later ;)

    "Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee

  • BrookwoodBrookwood Member, Moderator Posts: 13,278 ******
    edited November -1
    Being a common soldier on the lines of fighting where your commanding officer orders you to jump out of the trenches for an attack against machine guns, mines, barbed wire, artillery fire, and small arms fire......I wouldn't mind some dope to take the edge off of my FEAR!
  • TRAP55TRAP55 Member Posts: 8,270 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    My uncle was a B-17 pilot, and told me they gave them Pemoline to stay awake for missions over Germany.
  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,183 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I just saw a one hour show last week, about the Germans and speed in WW2. They handed out 31 million Pervitin pills during the assault on France and Belgium. This is amphetamines.
    The attack lasted 20 days and there were 3 million German troops involved.
    Those Krauts were hopped up when they ran those tanks through the Ardennes!
  • buschmasterbuschmaster Member Posts: 14,229 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    when your body is exhausted I don't see how speed/methamphetamines/bennies/coke/crack/smack can help it along any. you fell "better" but the fatigue is still there. how many heart attacks did that cause? what was it like coming down, had to be like a dead man on your feet
  • JunkballerJunkballer Member Posts: 9,147 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    when your body is exhausted I don't see how speed/methamphetamines/bennies/coke/crack/smack can help it along any. you fell "better" but the fatigue is still there. how many heart attacks did that cause? what was it like coming down, had to be like a dead man on your feet

    When you're loaded you feel great, like Superman....it's when you stop taking the speed you drop like a wet rag ;)

    "Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee

  • yoshmysteryoshmyster Member Posts: 20,979 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I was watching a trailer for a new Pablo Escobar movie where they used a news clip of Reagan talking about "illegal" cocaine and I thought wait a tick there's "legal" cocaine back in the '80s?
  • TRAP55TRAP55 Member Posts: 8,270 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Yosh, there was, I know it was used to numb you up for a reset on a broken nose. It's been replaced with Marcaine? and Lidocaine now.
  • buschmasterbuschmaster Member Posts: 14,229 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    yoshmyster wrote:
    I was watching a trailer for a new Pablo Escobar movie where they used a news clip of Reagan talking about "illegal" cocaine and I thought wait a tick there's "legal" cocaine back in the '80s?

    sure was! this must be some of it
    On one of the 1983-'84 videotapes filmed by local narcotics officers, Roger Clinton was said to tell a supplier jauntily, 'Got to get some for my brother. He's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner.' Years later, after the suspicious murder of her husband, Jane Parks, the resident manager of an expensive Little Rock apartment complex, would tell Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Sunday Telegraph that during the summer of 1984 Roger Clinton had been a nonpaying guest there for two months. The governor was 'a frequent visitor,' the Telegraph reported. 'There was drug use at those gatherings . . . and [Parks] could clearly distinguish Bill's voice as he chatted with his brother about the quality of the marijuana they were smoking. She said she could also hear them talking about the cocaine as they passed it back and forth.'
  • kidthatsirishkidthatsirish Member Posts: 6,985 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    pilots can still be perscribed uppers today. they also have downers to.
  • 11b6r11b6r Member Posts: 16,588 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Like Trap said- yes, there was- and is- legal coke. It is a Schedule II drug. Back in 1980 I popped a pharmacist that had diverted around 40 grams of USP Cocaine Hydrochloride, a gram at a time.
  • Smitty500magSmitty500mag Member Posts: 13,603 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    The German's were giving their military drugs long before the Brits or US. That's how they overran France in about 2 weeks. They went across the county none stop before the French knew what hit them.
  • shilowarshilowar Member Posts: 38,815 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    In the 60's and 70's when my Dad was a Flight Surgeon in the NAVY they gave pilots Benzos. He would do long anti-sub flights/patrols up to Alaska along the coast and they'd take them! It's probably not a coincidence that so many NAVY SEALS etc have been reported to be hiding meth addictions.
  • yoshmysteryoshmyster Member Posts: 20,979 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Well that explains why the government hates competition on coke.
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