[music playing] [gunfire] NARRATOR: The Battle
of Normandy is won and now Patton is determined
to destroy the German army and put an end to the war. It seems that nothing
can stop Patton and his armored divisions from
completing a legendary charge across France. But Patton's bosses
continue to infuriate him. Will controversial decisions
by Eisenhower and Bradley keep Patton from his
ultimate victory? General George S 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,
Leading the Charge." August 20, 1944, following the
success of the D-Day landings in the Normandy breakout,
[whistling of missiles] the Allies are now pursuing the
German army deep into France. Hitler is getting squeezed
on two fronts as the Russians advance in the East. As day breaks over a long
Valley near Chambois, France, thousands of soldiers
and armored vehicles of the German 7th Army are
retreating on the double, aiming for a narrow
2-mile wide gap, but they are nearly surrounded. It's called the Falaise
Gap, but it will soon become known as the Valley of Death. General Patton was
driving fast and furious from the south. And he wanted to bag
all of the Germans that he could within
the Falaise Gap. NARRATOR: Over the tree tops,
American aircraft closed in. The P-47 Thunderbolts
are armed to the teeth and about to feast
on the exposed army. The fast flying P-47
fighter bomber carries up to 2,500 pounds of bombs. Even more lethal are its eight
Browning M2 machine guns, mounted four per
wing, each firing at up to 800 rounds per minute. Today, the descendants
of the P-47 pack an even bigger punch
while supporting ground troops. MARTIN MORGAN: P-47 Thunderbolt
has a modern equivalent in the form of an aircraft
that is sometimes referred to as the Thunderbolt
2, the A-10, sometimes called
the A-10 Warthog. It is used exclusively for
tactical close air support purposes. NARRATOR: After the P-47s
ripped through their ammunition and shred the orderly
retreat, artillery shells begin exploding everywhere. [explosions] Above
the destruction, on the western slopes,
the Canadian army guns are zeroed in. On the eastern side, General
George Patton's Third Army is raining down fiery lead. [explosions] Two
Massachusetts tankers, Tony D'Arpino and Don Knapp
survive the horrors of Normandy to witness the
destruction of an army. [explosions] TONY D'ARPINO: It's
like a shooting gallery. All our tanks are
lined up firing. Everybody took turns firing. Even the gunner get so
tired of shooting that he let somebody else shoot. [explosions] Such carnage I have never
seen in my life, a whole Seventh Army shot up. [music playing] NARRATOR: Sickened by the
slaughter, some even cheer the enemy onward. Driven on a motorcycle,
everybody and his brother was shooting machine gun at him. You can see the bullets
hitting behind him. We were going, come
one, come on, move it. We want him to get away. We didn't want him to get hit. NARRATOR: The devastation
rages for hours. The road becomes blocked
with the wreckage of burning vehicles and German corpses. The deafening explosions
are a vivid reminder of another day, four weeks
earlier, when the ground shook and Hitler's plans
began to unravel. [music playing] NARRATOR: Flashback, July
25, 1944, Normandy, France, Operation Cobra, the Allies
heavy bombing campaign to break out from the beaches
unleashes 9 million pounds of bombs. [explosion] The
American army breaks out of the deadly hedgerow country
and begins a rapid charge across France. Leading the charge
is General Patton, commanding an armored
advance like none before. In one diary entry, he
marvels at his own progress. In exactly two
weeks, the Third Army has advanced farther and faster
than any army in the history of war. Patton's drive across France
was absolutely fantastic. This is something that he had
been dreaming of all his life. This was an exhilarating moment. NARRATOR: Patton refuses to
stay put at his headquarters in the rear, constantly
racing forward to motivate his men near the front lines. Corporal Francis Sanza, a
mechanic from Pennsylvania, personally drives the general's
Jeep throughout France. One day, Sanza hits
a large pothole. It managed to lift him off
his seat about 6 inches anyhow, you know. He didn't say nothing to me. I had a habit of wearing
my helmet sideways. Then he got that little
stick and he straightened out my head. He says, can you see better now? NARRATOR: It seems
nothing can stop him, except for his former
subordinate, General Omar Bradley, now Patton's boss. On the night of August
12, Bradley orders Patton to halt his advance,
leaving the Falaise Gap wide open. Basically, you're looking at
the opportunity of a lifetime and Omar Bradley
getting cold feet. COL HR MCMASTER: Patton was
biased always towards seeing the opportunities. Other commanders were biased
toward seeing the dangers. NARRATOR: Patton is shot. But after spending a year in
General Eisenhower's doghouse, he decides to hold his tongue. As a result, the Allies failed
to close the Falaise Gap, north of Argentan, allowing
thousands of Germans to escape in the days to come. Faced with a dire situation,
Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge commands the
limping German army. His men call him Clever
Hans, after a famous horse that reportedly did arithmetic. In the Falaise Gap, he'll
need all the cleverness he can muster to rescue what's
left of the Seventh Army, including hundreds of tanks. He is basically a man
with an impossible job and is going to try to do
whatever he can to stall or stop and maybe even turn
back the Allies, no matter how impossible a task this might be. NARRATOR: But Adolf Hitler has
lost all faith in his general. von Kluge is a
suspected conspirator in the attempt on the fuhrer's
life the previous month. When Hitler orders von Kluge
back to Germany on August 18, the field marshal kills
himself by swallowing cyanide. By August 20, thousands of
troops have already escaped. But some 50,000 men are still
desperately trying to get out of the Valley of Death. As Allied artillery
rains hellfire down on the enemy, just
2 miles to the east, Patton's 90th Infantry
Division stands in the path of the escaping
Germans near Chambois. [gunfire] And the engagements were
sharp, intense, fierce. NARRATOR: Sergeant John
Hawk from Washington state was drafted right out
of high school in 1943. Now, he's commanding a
30-caliber machine gun squad near Chambois when the
Germans counterattack to keep their escape route open. JOHN HAWK: They came
across this field with a whole bunch of tanks,
a whole bunch of infantry, and we shot off
all the infantry. [gunfire] NARRATOR: The 31-pound
30-caliber Browning light machine gun requires
a 2-man crew. It's air cooled barrel fires a
30 odd 6 cartridge with a max fire rate of 500 rounds per
minute from a 250 round belt. The position is overrun and the
two machine guns are taken out. Hawk takes cover
behind an apple tree when a German bullet
passes through his thigh. I see a lone guy from another
outfit with a bazooka and six or eight rockets. But he's all by himself. He's got nobody to
load for him and nobody to run shotgun for him. NARRATOR: Together, the men
begin to stalk the enemy tanks. Every time we'd see a tank,
why, he'd rear up and plant one on them and then we'd disappear. [gunfire] NARRATOR: The bazooka forces
the tanks into a retreat out of the field. Sergeant Hawk gathers his
men and quickly rebuilds a working machine gun from the
parts of the two damaged guns. They pin down the
remaining enemy infantry, but the Germans are hell bent on
dislodging the men of the 90th. John Hawk watches as three
takes re-enter the field, they are King Tigers,
the German's biggest and most devastating tanks. They are racing right at him. [gunfire] [music playing] [explosions] August 20, 1944, thousands
of German soldiers are trapped in the Falaise
Gap, desperately trying to escape to the east between
the British and Canadian forces to the North and Patton's
Third Army to the South. So imagine the scene that
you have here along this road of thousands of Germans
being strafed and bombed, artillery coming in and falling
amongst them, tanks blowing up, smoke everywhere. NARRATOR: As the Germans
surrender en masse in the Valley of Death, farther
up the Valley near Chambois, a desperate Panzer division
is close to breaking out of the Allied noose. Three King Tiger tanks
and German infantry are heading straight for
Sergeant John Hawk's machine gun crew. Knowing his machine gun is
useless against the Tigers, Hawk goes in search
of a bigger gun. [gunfire] Hiding near
the base of a ravine and out of sight of the
Tigers, sit two American tank destroyers. Still bleeding from
a bullet wound, Hawk runs over and
shouts at the commanders to open fire on the
advancing Tigers. They say, we can't see them. So I says, well, I can see. If I get out in the middle, line
up on me, not on aiming stake. You line up on me, and
I'll get out of the road, and you shoot because there'll
be one behind that building. NARRATOR: With small
arms fire all around, John Hawk climbs the ravine and
becomes a human aiming stake. Hawk directed their fire so
that it went directly over him and struck and destroyed
these enemy vehicles. [gunfire] NARRATOR: For his unparalleled
bravery at Chambois, Sergeant John Hawk is later
awarded the Medal of Honor, personally presented
by President Harry Truman after the war. When the Germans finally
surrendered near Chambois, the 90th Infantry Division
alone takes 12,000 prisoners. Another 10,000 Germans are dead. KEVIN HYMEL: For weeks
after the battle, people said they would see
a gray cloud over the Valley of Death. It wasn't a cloud. It was flies feeding
off the dead bodies. NARRATOR: But Patton wants
more Germans, dead or alive. He gets General Bradley
to agree to a new plan. MARTIN MORGAN: He wanted to
be able to push the Third Army directly over
the Seine River and then continue moving
forward, with the hopes that he would be ordered to
conduct a sweeping move that would pocket the enemy again. [music playing] NARRATOR: Field Marshal
Walter Model now plans to use the wide Seine
River as a defensive front to stop Patton cold. Model replaced von Kluge the
same day he committed suicide. As Model proved at
the Russian front, he excels at defensive
wars of attrition. His men call him Frontschwein,
or the Front Line Pig. [music playing] NARRATOR: Patton's plan is to
capture several major bridge crossings, including those
at Nantes, Fontainebleau, and Troyes. In the center is the
French capital of Paris. There was the old saying
that he who controls Paris controls France. NARRATOR: On August 19, the
French Resistance in Paris stages a revolt
against the Germans. The clock is ticking. If the Allies decide to invade,
it needs to happen quickly. Eisenhower did not
want to liberate Paris. Once you take Paris,
you have to feed them. You have to take care of them. NARRATOR: But Ike faces
political pressure. The Communists control
the Resistance in Paris, while the Americans and British
want General de Gaulle to take control of a
democratic government. [cheering] Eisenhower allows a
French unit to move into Paris and grab the glory. General Patton's Third
Army is officially denied the prize, but
ironically not the headlines, as his diary points out. "BBC said this morning
that Patton's Third Army had taken Paris. Poetic justice. It will be refuted, but no
one will pay any attention." When Paris fell
and was liberated, it was a wonderful
exhilarating moment. But for the Allied
logistics planners, it was a nightmare,
because now they had to figure out how to get
even more supplies, even more food, even more ammunition
and stuff ashore, and they still didn't
have the ports to do it. NARRATOR: While the First
Army struggles with Paris, General Patton is charging
hard to capture several bridges over the Seine River. August 23, the enemy
still controls all bridge crossing south of Paris. Patton's 20th Corps,
5th Infantry Division, called the Red Devils by
the Germans in World War I, is marching on the
first crossing. Target-- the town
of Fontainebleau. Strategy-- capture
the bridge intact, chase down the retreating
Germans to the east. Tactics-- use an intel
and reconnaissance platoon to strike quickly before the
defenders can blow the bridge. If it's blown up,
it'll take days for them to build a pontoon bridge. They've got to keep
that bridge intact. NARRATOR: Sergeant Frank
Chambers of the 735th Tank Battalion is commanding one of
the lead tanks in the strike force. The Shermans dodge enemy small
arms fire as they approach the Seine River crossing. So we went down to the river. We were getting ready
to go cross the river, and they blew the bridge. We did have one
tank on the bridge when they blew it,
on the first part. NARRATOR: Amazingly, the
explosions only take out the center section, thanks to
the handiwork of one member of the local French Resistance. He disconnected the far
side and the near side, and the only thing that
blew was the middle. NARRATOR: Battalion Commander
Lieutenant Colonel Kelly Lemmon, a West
Pointer from Maine, knows time is of the essence. Little opportunity to
bring up the small boats that I had in my column. And I spotted five rowboats
across the river tied up to a stake upstream. [gunfire] SGM ERROL SNYDER: There's fixed
machine guns on that objective, just waiting for the Americans. It's a suicide mission. NARRATOR: Lemmon strips down,
and with incoming enemy fire, he dives into the Seine River. [music playing] NARRATOR: Summer is nearly over. And Patton's army is
rolling like thunder across northern France. Paris is about to be liberated,
and the retreating Germans are mounting a desperate
effort to hold the Seine River crossings. We weren't about to
let the Germans stop us by putting defenses up along
the water's edge of a river and stopping the drive
of the Third Army. And Patton wasn't about
to let that happen. NARRATOR: In one of
his many letters, Patton is sure that
victory is imminent. "I am taking
chances," he writes. "But I'm convinced that the
situation in the German army warrants the taking
of such risks. And I am sure that if we
drive him hard enough now, we will cause the end of
the war in a very few days." At the town of Fontainebleau,
just 25 miles south of Paris, the 5th Infantry Division
and 735th Tank Battalion are looking to
enforce Patton's will. As the American
tanks begin to cross, the Germans blow the bridge
over the Seine River. But Lieutenant Colonel
Kelly Lemmon, former captain of his West Point swim
team, dives into the river to retrieve rowboats from
the far side, 300 yards away. KELLY LEMMON: My concern was
that the downstream both not be tied. And it was not. But I think I actually
said a prayer. MARTIN MORGAN: Lieutenant
Colonel Lemmon swam the breadth of the Seine river
to the other side, under fire from the enemy,
where he found five small boats on the opposite bank. He gathered those boats
together, tied them together. NARRATOR: As the tanks
cover his return, Lemmon tows the boats across. Patton's men use the boats to
get the first assault force across. By day's end, the Americans
secure the East bank. It's the first Seine crossing
secured south of Paris. MARTIN MORGAN: For the action of
swimming across the Seine River under fire on August
23, 1944, Kelly Lemmon was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross. [music playing] NARRATOR: South of
Fontainebleau, General John Wood's 4th Armored Division is
nearing the bridge at Troyes. Wood is the 4th's
larger than life commander, pushing his men to
advance more than 350 miles in just 12 days. Major Albin Irzyk is a
former first cavalry officer from Massachusetts. He will soon command
the 8th Tank Battalion and lead many critical
battles in the months to come. ALBIN IRZYK: We were so
aggressive in the resistance that we had, we could overcome
with our mobility, firepower, shock action. NARRATOR: General
Wood's key tactic is to move quickly
around enemy resistance. What he wanted to do is get
into the rear of the enemy and be able to destroy their
logistics, destroy their armor, and maintain the initiative. ALBIN IRZYK: So we
were then moving faster than the Germans could retreat. It was like the hound
chasing the wounded hare. NARRATOR: At the tip of
the 4th Armored's spear, probing enemy strong
points ahead of the tanks, is the 25th Cavalry Recon. A recon platoon deploys
in line with six Jeeps, each carrying a 30-caliber
machine gun or a mortar. Three armored cars are spaced at
intervals throughout the line. COL JOHN ANTAL: This
armored car is not a tank. The M-8 Greyhound was designed
to move quick, find the enemy, and provide reconnaissance. NARRATOR: When a
situation gets hot, the men can count on
their tanks racing forward to take over the fight. [gunfire] And during the
long, clear August days, they can also count
on the Air Force. COL JOHN ANTAL: The
19th Tactical Air Force was Patton's ace in the hole. In front of Patton's
tank columns flew several pairs of
close air support aircraft, usually P-47s or P-51s. And they would clear
the area to the front. [gunfire] NARRATOR: In their
drive across France, Patton's air force destroys
5,000 armored vehicles. COL JOHN ANTAL: Right
behind those aircraft would be spotter aircraft. And these L-9 and
Piper Cub aircraft would fly with observers. And they would be able
to pass information back to the lead tank
columns to tell them where the Germans
were setting up, which was valuable
intelligence information. NARRATOR: General
Wood and even Patton himself used the Piper Cubs to
keep track of their advancing forces. But things are about to
change for General Wood. On August 18, he
gets a new boss. Eisenhower appoints one
of his own close friends, General Manton Eddy,
an infantry commander, to lead the 12th Corps. Eddy now gives orders to the
4th Armored and Tiger Jack Wood. So we had this infantryman,
who knew nothing about armor, with this great
armored leader Wood. NARRATOR: To preserve the
4th's slash and burn tactics, Patton must transform his
thinking, as his diary notes. "He has been thinking that
a mile a day was good going. I told him to go 50,
and he turned pale." By the time the 4th approaches
the Seine River crossing at Troyes on August 24,
they're closer to Germany than any other Allied division. Intelligence sources say
that 500 enemy troops defend the town of Troyes. Lieutenant Roger Boas
is from San Francisco and a forward observer with the
94th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. Despite his hazardous job,
he'll be with the 94th until the end of the war. We knew there would
be opposition in Troyes, but we thought it
would be light. At least that was
the general feeling. NARRATOR: Boas shares the
duty of forward observer with Lieutenant Lewis Dent,
a football star from Colorado State University. And he said, I know
if I go in that attack and I've been ordered to
go in I can't make it, I'm going to die. I want to get out of it. How can I get out of? NARRATOR: Boas
suggests that Dent talk to their commanding officer. But the CO insists that he
complete his scheduled duty. The next day, the 4th's
tanks and infantry commence the attack on a
wide open, 3-mile long plain fronting the city. There's little cover, so the
tankers push their engines to full power. As the tanks advance,
American artillery begins to hammer the defenders. [explosions] Up ahead in
the center of the firestorm, Lieutenant Dew Dent calls
in the fire from his Jeep. He went in with
three other observers. He was on the radio
giving firing commands. And we heard them, and
then we heard him scream. And he was cut in two
by machine gun fire. [gunfire] NARRATOR: As the tanks
approached the city, the Germans opened
up with several of the versatile and
deadly 88 millimeter guns. The enemy resistance
is impossibly fierce. That's because the original
intelligence report of 500 defenders is dead wrong. Patton's men are about to slam
headfirst into a 2,000-man brigade of SS troops. [music playing] [explosions] NARRATOR: As the
German army begins to crumble, in mid-August
1944, General George Patton moves at will through
liberated French towns. [cheering] The admiring
French citizens are the subject of
one diary entry. "I get quite an
ovation," Patton writes. "I used to wave back. But now I just smile and
incline my head, very royal." We were the focus of such
adoration and such hysteria, it's overwhelming. It is when people
wanted to touch you and almost pull you
out of the vehicle and tearing your clothes. NARRATOR: Many are rewarded
with gifts of food, wine, and flowers. When Patton's 712th
Tank Battalion passes through the
Champagne country, Sergeant Tony D'Arpino turns his
tank into a rolling wine rack. TONY D'ARPINO: Behind the
driver and you assistant driver, it had all these cubbyholes
where you store the ammunition. I filled up every
one of them holes with bottles of champagne. I was drinking pink champagne
for breakfast, dinner, and supper. [music playing] NARRATOR: 100 miles south of
Paris at the city of Troyes on the Seine River, the men
of the 4th Armored Division aren't celebrating. A force of 2,000 SS defenders
are putting up a fierce fight. Sergeant Don George, an
in-fight light tank driver from Kentucky, is
in the first wave. Oh, the accident
happened so fast, we didn't have a chance to
worry what's going to happened. It just kept going. We knocked out the machine
gun, some of the A-8s. And then the infantry
followed up in back of us. NARRATOR: The 10th
Armored Infantry is gashed with a hail of
machine gun fire and mortars. Near the edge of the city,
the American Shermans are confronted with a
7-foot wide anti-tank ditch. They had some ditches there
that the tanks on full speed jumped the ditches. We took the Germans by surprise. NARRATOR: With most of the
tank company inside the city, it becomes a ferocious
street by street assault. They wouldn't quit. So we had to route
them out door to door. We went down the street, machine
gunning everything we could. NARRATOR: As the
Americans close in, the Germans blow the main
bridge over the Seine. But the advance continues
when two smaller bridges are captured intact. The action is so fierce,
General Patton later describes the battle for Troyes
as a magnificent feat of arms. In less than four weeks,
the 4th Armored Division has advanced 500
miles across France. But the historic dash
comes at a price. We find Patton's forces
moving so far and so fast that they've outstretched
their supply lines. NARRATOR: In August of
1944, Patton's Third Army is consuming an average of
350,000 gallons of gasoline per day. A solution is needed fast. They create what's called
the Red Ball Express, relaying trucks laden with
equipment to the front. They're doing anything they can
to keep Patton's army supplied. NARRATOR: The general fears
something else is going on. When Patton confronts
Omar Bradley, he gets some crushing news. Eisenhower is diverting
the Third Army's fuel in favor of British Field
Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Field Marshal Montgomery
approached General Eisenhower with a proposal. And the proposal was this. Take the limited fuel
supply available and rather than spreading it out over the
broad front of the army groups, give it to 21st Army group, give
it to Field Marshal Montgomery. NARRATOR: Using the Canadians to
the north and the American 1st Army to the south
in support, Monty plans to attack Germany from
the north through Belgium. For the resources to go to
Montgomery, one of Patton's chief rivals, it had to have
been absolutely frustrating. NARRATOR: But the fuel
tanks aren't dry yet. When Patton learns the
4th Armored Division is close to the Meuse
river at Commercy, he demands a crossing,
noting in his diary that General Manton Eddy
can adopt World War I tactics if need be. "We must and will get a
crossing on the Meuse. In the last war, I
drained 3/4 of my tanks to keep the other quarter going. Eddy can do the same." But the river
crossing at Commercy is a hornet's nest of
German troops and equipment. Patton's was legendary
charge could end here. [music playing] NARRATOR: The month
of August 1944 is a smashing success
for General Patton. His forces have chewed
up hundreds of miles, liberated most of France, and
are now within just 60 miles of the German border. Patton, the idea was to
drive it home, keep the enemy running, never give
them an even chance, never give them a chance to
stop and set up a defense. NARRATOR: August 31, target-- the town of Commercy. Strategy-- capture the Meuse
River crossing before German's blow the bridge. Tactics-- two tank companies
will lead a surprise attack. Commercy is a rear area
outpost in northeastern France. The Germans have no idea the
Americans are in the area. Riding shotgun in his Sherman
is Captain Jimmie Leach, a Southern gentleman and company
commander in the 37th Tank Battalion. He'll face off with
German Panzers many times in the months to come. As we came into Commercy,
we only met one armored car en route. And our light tank and recon
were leading the column. And they knocked
out very quickly. That armored car didn't get
off a message apparently that we were on our way. NARRATOR: 200 yards
ahead, German defenders have covered four deadly
88-millimeter guns to protect them from rain
that just started falling. The act of God is well timed. Before the scrambling
Germans can uncover the guns, the American tanks'
30-caliber machine guns cut down the defenders
and secure the bridge. As usual, the 4th
is so fast, they catch the Germans
with their pants down. [gunfire] [music playing] NARRATOR: On the
north side of town, the 2nd Tank Company stumbles
onto a busy German railroad terminal. The Germans were
promenading on the streets. They were walking about. Trains were loaded
up and steamed up and some were going
back to Germany. [gunfire] NARRATOR: The tanks quickly
unload on the surprised Germans. Enemy troops are machine gunned
before they can take cover. The Sherman's main guns
take out two locomotives. A few miles to the east, a
large column of enemy soldiers and vehicles are fleeing
the devastation in Commercy. Forward artillery observer
Lieutenant Roger Boas watches from the hills above. And on this road were 400 or
500 German troops not moving very fast. They were moving, probably
trying to get out. But they didn't realize
they were within range of American artillery. And so I opened fire with
18 105-millimeter Howitzers. [gunfire] They hit right away. NARRATOR: The exploding lead
tears into the enemy forces, devastating man and machine. But the Germans want revenge. They call on a fighting force
that many believe is extinct. We all of a sudden see
this fleet of planes. They weren't high. They were almost at ground
level, maybe 25 feet above us. And I, of course, was terrified. [music playing] NARRATOR: The Luftwaffe
is back in the game. And they are out for blood. ROGER BOAS: They
flew right over. My cap was about 15 to 20. They were Messerschmitt 109s. And they were one of the
best German attack craft. NARRATOR: The
Messerschmitt 109 lacked some of the punch of
the American P-47, but its armament is
formidable, including one 20-millimeter MG151 cannon,
two 13-millimeter MG131 machine guns and one 551-pound bomb. The 94th Artillery
Battalion guns are dispersed and camouflaged. So the Messerschmitts instead
target the more exposed 66th Artillery Battalion. And the planes found the 66th. And they kept going
down and going down. And, of course,
everyone fired back. NARRATOR: A few Messerschmitts
go down in flames. But the other aircraft
take their toll on the men of the 66th before
heading back to Germany. [gunfire] [music playing] In the attack, the 66th lost
six killed and 57 wounded badly enough to be evacuated. So it was a big hit. [music playing] NARRATOR: In the
days that followed, the Luftwaffe continues to
harass the 4th Armored Division near Commercy. But Commercy is also the end
of the line for Patton's dash across France. Eisenhower's decision to
redirect the Third Army's fuel supplies to Montgomery is
a crippling blow to Patton. Always the loyal
soldier, Patton's diary is the only place he can
say what he truly feels. "I have to battle for
every yard," he writes. "But it is not the enemy
who's trying to stop me. It is they." The Third Army is going
nowhere, but not everyone is singing the blues. We had an outdoor movie with
Bing Crosby in "Going My Way." It was glorious as far as
swimming and sunny and writing letters. But we were horribly,
horribly worried. We knew that every
day was a wasted day. NARRATOR: Patton
notes in his diary that his men could pay a
terrible price for Eisenhower's decision. "We should cross the Rhine. And the faster we do it,
the less lives and munitions it will take. No one realizes
the terrible value of the unforgiving
minute, except me. Some way, I will get on yet." Just one week ago,
Patton believed the war could be over in days. But Ike's decision has altered
the fate of the Third Army. And if the Germans
can take advantage, there will be many more
hardships and much more blood in the days to come.
