NARRATOR: Adolf Hitler
launches a massive surprise attack in the dead of winter. Nazi forces smashed
through the weakest spot in the Allied line. They capture thousands
of American soldiers across the Ardennes Forest
and completely surround the 101st Airborne
Division at Bastogne. Patent vows that his Third
Army will ride to the rescue. As conditions worsen,
Patton and his men charge into a
frozen hell, knowing that they may be the Allies
only hope in the West. General George Patton, his
bold attacks are legendary. See the war as he
saw it and ride along with his hard fighting troops
as they battle their way through World War II. On this 360 degree
battlefield, Patton's enemies could be anywhere
and everywhere. There's nowhere to run
when the war is all around. Patton 360, Battle of the Bulge. Six months after D-day, the
Allies are set for a final push into Germany. All the top generals think
the Nazis have had it, but Hitler hasn't given up. He's just hit the Allied
line in a weak spot. American reserves
have been pushed back for miles creating a huge bulge
in the Allied front lines. George Patton's 4th
Armored Division is driving North to push back
in what is to become known as the Battle of the Bulge. Patton was ultimately drawn
into this battle in a very dramatic and important
way, and in a way that some people might
call his finest hour. NARRATOR: December 23, 1944,
Flatzbourhof, Luxembourg. Captain Jimmie Leach's company
in the 37th Tank Battalion grinds its way towards a train
station half a mile ahead. Leach has already been right
in the middle of the action for months fighting with the
4th Armored since Normandy. The snow was about knee deep. As we approach Flatzbourhof,
and I was the advance guard, I commenced receiving
fire from the left front. And they knocked
out one of my tanks and killed two of my soldiers. NARRATOR: The fire is pouring
in from a tree line on the left and possibly from the far
side of the railroad tracks. 100 yards due North, Leach spots
the enemy's chief firepower, two German self-propelled
anti-tank guns along with a Sherman tank. The American
Sherman's obviously have been captured
by the Germans, because it's had a big
Balkan cross painted on the side of the turret. My first round hit the nearest
railroad track toward me. NARRATOR: The gunner
of a Sherman tank aims through a periscope
site some 14 inches above the bore of the gun. At a distance, the aim line and
projectile eventually converge, but at very short
ranges, the gun shoots lower than the aim line. I told driver,
move up a little bit. Boom. Hit second track. Oh, God, can't be. Driver, move up
a little further. He did this, but he finally was
able to get beyond the track. We put a round or two into
these self-propelled guns in this tank to them. NARRATOR: The biggest
danger for Patton's soldiers at Flatzbourhof is now
gone, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. One mile north in the
village of Bigonville. German paratroopers are
prepping for a bloodbath. The coming battle is just one
of hundreds that have already been raging across the
Ardennes Forest for a week. Now it's up to
Patton and his men to see if they can turn the
tide back in the Allies favor as it was before the battle
began seven days earlier. Flashback. December 16, 1944. Despite having slowed the
Allied advance in the West, Adolf Hitler is losing
ground on all sides. To the East, Soviet forces are
on the move, and to the South, American and British
troops continue to push up through the Italian boot. George S. Patton's Third Army is
in the Saar region of Germany, beginning an attack
on the German border at the fortified Siegfried Line. Third Army is still
pushing forward. Patton's philosophy is to
keep the Germans off balance in his sector negating their
ability to do anything to him. NARRATOR: With Patton
keeping the pressure on, the Germans strike
another sector further North with a monster blow. On the morning of
December 16th, they smash into the entire
Ardennes region at once with 20 divisions
across a 60 mile front. It's where units went to
sort of go to a quiet area, to get sort of acclimatized
and used to maybe some small skirmishes before
they're employed elsewhere. NARRATOR: The Ardennes separates
the two main Allied army groups, so to Hitler's
thinking, it's a perfect spot for a surprise body blow. The idea was to drive a wedge
between Montgomery's 21st Army Group and Bradley's
12th Army Group, separating the two with
the hope to forcing the surrender of the entire
21st Army Group in the North. NARRATOR: At the same
time, Hitler hopes to grab the port of Antwerp. That's where the Allies are
now getting their supplies. The Germans had their
backs against the wall. It was clear that the
Russians were coming, and there weren't enough
Germans to stop them. So Hitler decided he was going
to win on the Western Front, so that he could free
up all those forces and then turn on the Russians. NARRATOR: In the North,
the 6th Panzer Army swarms in and shocks the
American divisions there. In the South, the
German 5th Panzer Army overwhelms two regiments of
the 106th Infantry Division capturing more than 7,000 GIs. Hitler's juggernaut
is helped along by some awesome firepower,
the King Tiger tank. Now this is a modified, souped
up, more armor covered tank. Still has the 88
millimeter cannon, but the armor on the
tank is a lot thicker and it's going to be much more
survivable on the battlefield. NARRATOR: While Patton is more
than 100 miles to the South, the 5th Panzer Army
drives westward. It surrounds the village
of Bastogne, Belgium. Americans hold the town, and
it's a key hub in the Ardennes road network. Trapped inside is the
101st Airborne Division and part of the 10th Armored. To make matters
worse, the troops aren't sure who to trust. Word is English speaking
Germans dressed as Americans and led by notorious
Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny have
infiltrated the lines. Their job ranged
from everything from killing officers to
knocking down signs to blowing up bridges or capturing
bridges, so that the Germans had a better advantage
in punching through. NARRATOR: When it's
clear to the Allies how massive the
attack really is, Ike calls Patton, Bradley, and
British commanders to Verdun. They have to figure
out a response. Before Patton
leaves he pulls some of his units out of
their battle in the Saar and begins moving them North. He's sure his army will be
ordered in that direction. Patton's probably
thinking, you might be able to catch a
few of my forces off guard, but watch out. I'm going to come up there and
give you a surprise of my own. NARRATOR: On December 19th in
Verdun, when Ike asked Patton how soon his army can
disengage from battle, turn North and
get moving, Patton tells him he can attack with
three divisions in two days. Everyone in the
room is shocked. One of the witnesses says
there was a shuffling of feet and some nervous churns
in people's seats. The Americans are
basically thinking, you know, George has bitten
off more than he can chew. The British in the
room are going, these Americans don't know
what warfare is about. NARRATOR: Ike tells Patton
not to joke with him. That such a move
would be impossible. And Patton immediately
responses, he says, I'm not kidding. My army is ready. I can have one corps going. In 48 hours, I can have
another corps right behind. You want to talk about
getting a guy fired up, just say impossible to Patton. He's going to sit
there and say, what? Impossible? Just watch me. NARRATOR: Patton leaves
the meeting with a mission, relieve Bastogne 140 miles
away as soon as possible. And over the next
day and a half, he tirelessly visits each of his
divisions to help quickly work through the nuts and bolts
of the 140 mile move. Figuring out what roads
they needed to take, calculating fuel consumption,
all the minute details of just a symphony of work
to be done, Patton handles like the
perfect maestro. NARRATOR: But there's
one full sized challenge Patton's incredible energy
can't overcome, bad weather. Sleet, snow, and cold are
making everything harder and poor visibility is keeping
support and scout planes grounded. It was really unclear what
the Third Army would face as it conducted this counterattack. A way to mitigate
that uncertainty is with aerial reconnaissance,
and Patton didn't have that available to him. NARRATOR: The weather is less
of a problem for today's radar equipped reconnaissance planes. If we had during the
Battle of the Bulge something like the AC130
gunship, an aircraft that can get at
altitude and can hover and can look down
through the weather and can see the enemy
on the battlefield and see the enemy on the
battlefield at night, imagine what a
difference it would have made to have had that
kind of weapon at that time. NARRATOR: But Patton's army
will have to advance blind. So for the drive
to Bastogne, Patton puts his favorite tank unit,
the 4th Armored Division, at the tip of his spear. They were called Roosevelt's
butchers by the German army, because they were so effective. And the Germans thought all
of them had been prisoners, had been criminals, and had
been let out of jail in order to be in the American army. Of course, none
of this was true, but the members of the
4th Armored Division certainly played that up because
they thought any advantage against the Germans was good. And if the Germans were afraid
of them, so much the better. NARRATOR: But the
4th Armored has never faced a nightmare like this as
it races into one icy battle after another. December 22, 1944, day seven
of the Battle of the Bulge. General George S. Patton's
4th Armored Division is fighting its way North in the
middle of Europe's worst winter in decades. Their mission to relieve
the 101st Airborne Division trapped by Nazi
forces in Bastogne. The 4th Armored has fought
its way through France, winning its reputation as one
of the best American units under the leadership of
General John Tiger Jack Wood. Major General
Wood was a commander who was formed in
Patton's own image. He was a guy who believed
in attacking and never giving the enemy a chance
to prepare a defense. NARRATOR: There's
just one problem. Wood and his boss, infantry
minded 12th Corps Commander Manton Eddy had been at each
other's throats for months. While aggressive, Wood
also looks after his men. He publicly slams Eddy for
keeping the 4th on the front lines for too long during the
grueling fighting in the Saar Valley. General Manton
Eddy had a schedule. He wanted the 4th Armored
Division to go forward and General Wood says, no way. These kids need a
rest, and that's what they're going
to have, and it's not going to be any other way. NARRATOR: Wood's
insubordination finally forces Patton to make one of his most
difficult decisions of the war. On December 1st, Patton
relieves Wood of command, calling Wood's feud a case
of nervous exhaustion. The news has a devastating
effect on the 4th Armored Division. When he was relieved
of his command, it was like a body blow. The two things that hit
me the most during the war was the news that
Wood was relieved and the news that President
Roosevelt had died. NARRATOR: Now the 4th Armored is
heading into the biggest battle on the Western Front, and
their beloved commander has been sent packing. In war, you have to be able
to push yourself beyond what you think you can do. You're tired, you're
hungry, I mean, you're cold, but these soldiers
kept moving forward. Now that's a testament to
the American fighting spirit. NARRATOR: Hal Mayforth,
a 21-year-old sergeant from Boston, is in a cavalry
recon unit at the front of the division's
Combat Command B. He endures the miserable
conditions in an armored car instead of a tank. At night, the only
thing that I took off were my shoes and
my combat jacket, and I think I used the
combat jacket as a pillow. And inside my sleeping
bag, I put my carbine to keep that warm, and I put my
shoes inside the sleeping bag because if I left them out, I
could never put them on again. They would have
frozen like boards. Dawn, December 23,
1944, Chaumont, Belgium. Combat Command B is 12 miles
south of Patton's objective, the surrounded town of Bastogne. In command is Albin Irzyk,
a former horse cavalryman from Salem, Massachusetts. We traveled all night
and just about little after daylight on the 23rd, we
hit the outskirts of a place called Chaumont. NARRATOR: As Patton's men rolled
towards the outskirts of town, Hal Mayforth's recon
unit is in the leading. Light tanks of the 8th
Battalion are right behind them. But just as they top a rise
that slopes down to Chaumont, 700 yards ahead, a
self-propelled German tank destroyer searches
for another victim. Mayforth's platoon leader,
Lieutenant Jim Bennett, leaps into action. Jim Bennett, who'd received
a battlefield commission, jumped from his armored car
onto the deck of a light tank to point out the position
of the German anti-tank gun, and that was when the vehicle
found its range and wiped out the tank and wiped out
Jim Bennett as well. NARRATOR: Soon, more
German guns opened fire. Sergeant Hal Mayforth is
farther back in the column. Here, Germans have opened
up on Patton's soldiers from a forest on the
right side of the road. You could see flashes. As it turned out, they were
German paratroopers on the edge of the wood firing, and the
returned fire that we made was just in the general
vicinity of the gun flashes. NARRATOR: Ahead of Mayforth, his
friend John Dibattista attempts to return fire with his
50 caliber machine gun. I didn't have any
cover on that 50 caliber. I wouldn't dare have the cover
in case you need it right away, you know. But in the evening, when that
Siberian high comes through, that wet 50 caliber froze. It fired one round and didn't
eject because it didn't throw the bolt back far enough
to pick up another round. So he urinated on it, and
I witnessed the whole thing, and it really amazed me that
under dire circumstances he could get his
plumbing to function. This just goes to show
you American ingenuity at its finest. The American soldier
faced with a problem, he's going to figure a
way to get out of it. I mean, peeing on a 50 cal? Come on. NARRATOR: In the next minutes,
the Shermans of the 8th Tank Battalion, the first unit
behind the recon company, rushed forward to the fight. But 800 yards ahead, 15
Sturmgeshutz III tank destroyers belch fire
and steaming lead. The Sturmgeshutz III is
built on a tank chassis giving it a top speed
of 25 miles per hour. Its high velocity, 75
millimeter main gun, makes it an efficient
tank killer. But the firepower
of Irzyk's tanks is enough to drive the
surviving Stugs from the field. Despite the Nazi
ambush, Combat Command B now holds the high ground
overlooking Chaumont. Well, at that
point, I pull back and I said that we can't go down
the road like we've been going. This is going to require
a coordinated attack, so I planned an attack
where I had C Company over on the left wide open. I was going to have C
Company go around and flank, so they could protect B Company,
which was going to attack down the road into Chaumont. I had A Company move on
a ridge on the right. NARRATOR: Elements of
the 10th Armored Infantry are brought forward
to join the attack, along with armored artillery. Patton's men aren't going
to be surprised this time. And it was a little after noon
that we launched the attack, and it was a fight B Company
going down the town firing where they needed to fire. They had the Armored Infantry. It was a very small town,
cluster of buildings, and there were a lot
of Germans dug in. NARRATOR: After heavy
fighting, Irzyk's unit pushes through the town. The fight for
Chaumont is brutal. The tankers and rifleman
of the 4th Armored Division start to get the upper
hand, but Patton's warriors are about to slam into a
major roadblock on the drive to Bastogne. December 23, 1944, the Battle
of the Bulge is raging. Hitler has gambled
on a massive push to drive a wedge into the Allied
armies on the Western Front. And the eye of the Nazi storm
is centered around the town of Bastogne, Belgium. General Patton has
ordered the 4th Armored to break through the enemy and
relieve the 101st Airborne. Right now, the men
of Combat Command B are in the thick of the
fight forcing their way through Chaumont, Belgium. B Company got to
the end of the road and is headed up to a place
called Grand Rue, which would be the next town. And just as they were getting
ready to make the turn, all hell broke loose. We had a massive,
massive counterattack. NARRATOR: German
paratroopers and enemy armor in the form of massive
Jagdtigers mounting an awesome 128 millimeter
gun tear into the Americans. You couldn't turn
around because there's not room to turn around. You never expose your tank,
so I started backing up. I reached the
point where I said, we're absolutely safe now. I think we're out of range. So I turn the turret
around, at that point, we were hit by a
massive jolt. Our tank was hit so dramatically
that the 37, 38 ton tank was pushed as though two
giant hands had pushed it. And all of us went sprawling. NARRATOR: The turret is
cracked, but the round did not penetrate, and none of
Patton's tankers are killed. Irzyk and his crew can't
believe their luck. It turns out the round
hit a protruding section of the turret next
to the antenna well. But ricocheted off. Someone was looking
out for me that day. NARRATOR: While the 8th Tank
Battalion regroups and plans a coordinated attack,
Combat Command B comes to a temporary
halt. The brief pause allows Irzyk to survey
the devastating losses. All of B Company,
all the tanks were damaged, a lot of
casualties to the 10th Armored. I'll never forget. It was the worst day of my life. I've never forgotten Chaumont
on the 23rd of December. NARRATOR: 12 miles ahead
of Irzyk's battered unit, soldiers holding out in
the village of Bastogne are also struggling, hoping
that General Patton can pull off a miracle and rescue them. One problem infantrymen
on the perimeter are having is that the cold
is affecting their M1 rifles. Introduced in 1936,
the M1 rifle self feeds from an eight round clip. When a round fires,
explosive gases cause the ejection of the
spent cartridge and the loading of a fresh round. However, extreme cold
causes the gun oil used on the moving
parts to harden and gum up the open action. The 101st is also short on men. They needed every
rifleman on the line, so on the 23rd, a couple
of days before Christmas, the word came down that we're
not getting relieved right away here. We need help. So commanders went
to the hospitals and asked for volunteers. And all the guys who could carry
a weapon, anybody who could walk, anybody who
could fight, got up even though they were wounded,
and went out to fight the line. NARRATOR: The attacking
Germans are under the command of General Heinrich Freiherr von
Luttwitz, a no nonsense Eastern front veteran. But general Tony McAuliffe,
in charge at Bastogne, is a fighter just like Patton. The Germans, realizing they
have the whole unit surrounded, send a messenger through the
lines with a message to General McAuliffe to surrender. NARRATOR: McAuliffe
hands a one word response to Luttwitz's messenger
that simply reads, nuts. As the German's
leaving, he looks at it, and says to his
American guard, nuts. What does that mean? And the American says
it means go to hell. Luttwitz is incensed and
pours on the artillery fire. It's clear now that this
is a fight to the death. If Patton doesn't break
through to Bastogne, the 101st Airborne is
going to be wiped out. December 24, 1944,
Luxembourg City. George S. Patton is
thrilled this morning by the sight of clear
skies with planes aloft. He knows his ground troops
will need close air support if they're going to break
the German noose surrounding Bastogne. He radios General McAuliffe,
Christmas Eve present coming, hold on. Patton heads to the front to
keep the pressure on his units. He's got three combatant
commands pressing ahead. All three are hitting
stiff German resistance, but he's promised Eisenhower
he'll be in Bastogne any day now, and his reputation
is on the line. Patton had always said
in war men are nothing, man is everything. He really believed that the
individual with that sort of focused attention
and aggressiveness can achieve great
things in warfare. He is out in a Jeep every
day pushing troops forward. His Jeep driver, 20-year-old
Californian Francis Sanza, remembers Patton's words to
him the day Third Army headed for Bastogne. He says, are you ready? I didn't say nothing. Then he to me, are
you afraid to die? And I looked at him, I said,
I didn't come here to die. He says, I'm going
to tell you why. Listen, they're going
to try to get me, but they're going to
kill you to get me. NARRATOR: Patton is so sure his
Jeep will take fire, he orders Sanza to empty the gas from
the five gallon can in back and replace it with water. You understand, he says to me. Because in case somebody
would shoot at the Jeep, it would have blew it up. There's gas in that tank. NARRATOR: On Christmas Eve, as
Patton rolls out of Luxembourg, 40 miles North of him,
the 37th Tank Battalion is rolling into the
village of Bigonville. As the battalion
halts to split up, Captain Jimmy Leach takes
a flesh wound to the head. But it didn't break the skull,
even though it bruised it. Oh, God, it was a knot there. NARRATOR: But his battalion
commander, Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams, isn't
aware Leach has been shot and orders his company
to the far side of town. The captain's only
carrying out orders, but the location and arrangement
of his tanks in the battle is confusing to US aircraft. Two miles to the West, American
fighter planes soon appear. Well, here came four
P-47 fighter bombers. They circled us once or twice. NARRATOR: All the
rest of the Americans are on the other side of
town, and from the air, it looks like Leach's
men are opposing them. Then they came back and made
an attack run on my company. And they bombed me twice
and strafed me twice. NARRATOR: Incredibly, Patton's
tankers are unscathed. Not a bullet hit a tank,
not a bomb scraps a tank. I bet you they went home
and reported great things, but nonetheless, there
was none that touched me. But NARRATOR: The young
captain's luck does not hold. As Abrams and the
rest of the 37th press the attack on the village, 200
yards away, German rifleman continued firing from
upper story windows. Soon, another enemy bullet
screams toward Leach's tank. It smashes into one of the
vision slits in the tanks cupola. Hit that thing and that
splattered glass and aluminum, put about a $0.50 hole right
through my jacket and gave me a wound under the arm, and
it needed a bandage on it because it was a wet wound. NARRATOR: Despite
his wounds, Leach remains in command
of his company to the close of the battle
at the end of the day. By evening, the
37th Tank Battalion has cleared
Bigonville and seized over 300 German prisoners. Nevertheless, General
Patton is getting impatient. He wants Bastogne relieved, even
if it means an all night march after a hard day's fight. Christmas Eve, 1944. The Battle of the Bulge has
been raging for more than a week during one of the harshest
winters anyone in Europe can remember. General George S.
Patton's men are trying to achieve the impossible
by racing 140 miles North in the snow, ice, and hot German
lead to free the 101st Airborne Division surrounded in Bastogne. The men were being pushed
to the extremes of endurance in combat, having to stay
awake longer, alert longer, living out in the cold in the
open, dealing with the elements constantly. In a situation where you
just could not find warmth. NARRATOR: General Patton
is not in a holiday mood. As he maps the progress of
his troops toward Bastogne, he confides in his diary. This has been a very
bad Christmas Eve. All along our line,
we have received violent counterattacks. Patton refuses to fall
short of his promise to arrive in Bastogne
as soon as possible and calls for
something unexpected. He orders the reserve combat
command of 4th Armored, the unit that fought all day
for Bigonville, to make an end run in the middle of the night. Indications are that
the path to Bastogne is clear on the left
of the division. Injured the day before, Captain
Jimmy Leach's men wake him up in the middle of the night. No rest for the
weary or the wounded. We got orders and the orders
were that at midnight we're going to move into
our combat command around the south end of
the other two brigades that are attacking, the
other two combatant commands, and come up on the left flank
of the left one, which is CCB, and resume the attack. NARRATOR: Leach and the
reserve command march all night and manage to come up on
the left of the division by first light. It's Christmas morning,
a cheerless holiday for both the men of the 4th
Armored and American soldiers stuck in Bastogne directly
in front of Patton's men. I mean, it's hard
enough for a guy to be away from home, especially
to be away from your family, but at Christmas and
under these fighting conditions and this kind
of an intense fight. Man, that's brutal. NARRATOR: All three combatant
commands spend Christmas day locked in vicious combat. That evening, Jimmy Leach's
battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Creighton
Abrams, gets orders to push toward the enemy
stronghold of Sibret the next day. Abrams is a 30-year-old with a
reputation as a tough fighter who could get the job done. Patton himself said there's
only one tanker better in this army than myself
and that's Creighton Abrams, so that's a heck of a
recommendation coming from the expert. NARRATOR: The next morning,
Lieutenant Colonel Abrams takes up a position on
a hill East of Sibret, but instead of attacking
his assigned target, Abrams believes that
a drive directly ahead through the Belgian
village of Assenois could open a direct path to
Bastogne just one mile away. And what Abrams does is he
calls an artillery barrage on Assenois and his plan is to
lift it as soon as his troops reach the area. NARRATOR: Soon,
three of Abrams tanks churn through Assenois with
Lieutenant Charles Boggess's Sherman in the lead. 500 yards ahead, German
soldiers in the town and beyond are still battling
viciously trying to repulse the American drive. And basically what the
commander, this Lieutenant Boggess is doing is he's firing
into the woods to his left and right, but not stopping. His concept is let's just
keep their heads down while we move forward. NARRATOR: Finally,
the Lieutenant spots what looks like an
American walking towards him, but it could be a
German impostor. Boggess says, I'm Lieutenant
Boggess with the 4th Armored Division. Tell me who you are
or I will open fire. And the guy says I'm Corporal
Miller with the 101st Airborne. Thank God you're here. And with that,
Bastogne is relieved, the link has been made between
the 4th Armored and 101st. And when he pulled in to what
is now called McAuliffe Square in the center of
downtown Bastogne on his tank, the Cobra King,
it represented the moment of greatest triumph. NARRATOR: The siege of
Bastogne may be over, but General Patton still
faces stiff challenges in the Battle of the Bulge. His men must keep the
corridor to Bastogne open, and at the same time, help push
Hitler's forces back where they came from. To collapse the bulge, there
will be many more firefights in the days ahead. January, 1945, Bastogne
is firmly in American hands, but for General George Patton's
army, the Battle of the Bulge is still raging. For the ground pounders
in the infantry, the nightmare of battle
is only made worse by the misery of winter. Minnesota native Reuel Long,
a soldier in the 90th Infantry Division knows
firsthand just how hard it is to live and fight
in sub zero weather. In the morning, your
canteen would always have some ice on the top of it. We'd have to light
our key ration cartons and melt the ice in the
canteen so we could use it to drink and to shave, and
we were still going around in leather boots and
we were losing men to frostbite and trench foot. January 9, 1945, day 25
in the Battle of the Bulge. The 761st Tank Battalion is
pushing toward the German held village of Tillet, Belgium,
part of the Third Army's drive to close the bulge
in the American line. There is basically a bulge
within the Battle of the Bulge now that the Americans
are occupying, and Patton is sending the
11th Armored Division, the 6th Armored Division, a
number of infantry divisions in there, to fight some of the
heaviest fighting even worse than the fighting
going into Bastogne. NARRATOR: The 761st is an
African-American unit that fought as part of Patton's army
for weeks in the soggy Lorraine region and now in
frigid Belgium. These guys fought hard. They fought well. They were well led. They were dedicated, and they're
something that every American should be proud of. NARRATOR: This
morning, 761st tanks are approaching a
distant tree line. William McBurney is
a 21-year-old gunner from New York City. His tank is covering
the far left flank. And we went into this open
field and was going forward, and it was very deep snow, and
they were hidden in the trees. NARRATOR: 800 yards
ahead, from the tree line, Germany infantrymen and
a Tiger tank opened fire. McBurney fires back, but then
the American tank hits a mine. It looks like a death sentence. The tank won't move, and they're
in an open field with no cover. Tank commander, he
jumped out, and I got out, and Smitty, he came behind
me, and we hollered at Willy to jump out. He got killed in the tank
from machine gun bullets. We start crawling to get away
from where the Tiger tank was, and they were coming up on us. I think about 1,000 yards
or better that we crawled, and we were shooting
soldiers and whatnot. Finally, an American P-38
fighter plane appears overhead. It came out of nowhere. It knocked the tank out,
then it came back over and tipped its
wing and took off. And I was thankful for that. I'll never forget
that plane, P-38. NARRATOR: McBurney will
later receive a Bronze Star for his tenacious fighting. The rest of Patton's men
continue to push the Nazi's back to where they started. As the bulge shrinks in
the middle of January, Patton visits a
hospital in Luxembourg. Lieutenant Roger Boas, a
forward artillery observer, who's battled his way across
France in the 4th Armored Division, is laid up with
bronchial inflammation. Patton enters his ward. And he turned to me and he
said in his high voice, what's the matter with you, boy? And I said I have
bronchitis, sir. And he looked at me a
minute, and he said, what outfit are you in, boy? And I said, 4th
Armored Division, sir. Whole attitude changed. He put his hand on my
shoulder, he said Lieutenant, you had your share of hard work. You stay here as
long as you have to. Patton then
moves down the line to a lieutenant who's
due for an amputation. He wants to pin a Silver Star on
the young officer for bravery. Patton asks his
aide to produce one. Then he started reaching in
his pockets, one after another, and he said, sir,
I don't have one. And Patton again went into
one of his profane periods of dressing this chap down,
went on for quite a while. I'm sure this man
never forgot it. And an hour later, a full
colonel from the staff came with a Silver Star
for the lieutenant and ice cream for all of us, and
the next day the lieutenant was dead. NARRATOR: Throughout
the first weeks of 1945, American forces continue
the struggle in the Ardennes Forest, turning the tide of
battle in favor of the Allies. By the last week of
January, the weakened Nazis have been pushed back virtually
to where they started. The Battle of the Bulge is
Hitler's really last gamble, last punch at the
Allies, and it's Patton who punches
back and shows Hitler to be a pretty lousy boxer. He destroys what's left
of the offensive power of the German army, he's
leaving almost nothing to defend Germany, and
the victory is really his. NARRATOR: It has quite possibly
been Patton's finest hour, especially the
relief of Bastogne. In a letter to his
wife on December 29th, Patton makes no bones about his
pride in this accomplishment. The relief of Bastogne is
the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed,
and is, in my opinion, the outstanding
achievement of this war. Now the enemy must dance
to our tune, not we to his. George Patton,
in many respects, is viewed by posterity as
a general who accomplished the impossible. NARRATOR: But the general
knows this is no time to rest on his laurels. The enemy is still
fighting and still deadly. The bulge may have collapsed,
but the war is not over. George Patton must
now regroup his forces and ready them for
a dagger thrust into the heart of Nazi Germany. The combat ahead is sure to
be every bit as desperate and brutal, for
the enemy will now be fighting for his
homeland on his Homeland.
