[music playing] NARRATOR: General S Patton's
battle-hardened heroes of the Third Army are blasting
their way through a deadly maze of barbed wire,
concrete, and steel. The hell for leather charge
across Europe is over, and now, Patton's
warriors are going up against the centuries-old
fortress city of Metz and the underground monster
known as Fort Driant. 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. There is nowhere to run
when the war is all around. "Patton 360-- Siege Warfare." Fall, 1944. Hitler's empire is fighting to
survive, squeezed on all sides by Allied forces. But in the Lorraine,
his soldiers have slowed General
George S Patton's advance towards Germany
in Eastern France. Now, Patton's Third Army has
stalled out, brought to a halt by terrible weather, a
shortage of supplies, and enemy firepower. This is the worst for Patton. To be stuck in the
rain and the mud? With not enough
supplies to fight? This is not the kind
of war Patton wants. He's getting frustrated,
he's not getting what he wants, he's not seeing
results that he would like to see on the battlefield. NARRATOR: September 27, 1944. American P-47s under the command
of General Jimmy Doolittle nail a major obstacle outside
of Metz known as Fort Driant. Codenamed Operation
Thunderbolt, the air campaign is all part of Patton's plan to
clear the way to the vital city of Metz. The mission to take Fort Driant
has fallen on the shoulders of Patton's 20th Corps under
Major General Walton H. Walker. SPEAKER 2: Walton Walker
was Patton's bulldog and he was known
during World War II. He was an armor officer, very
loyal to Patton, very creative, very aggressive commander. He would kind of give
those same salty speeches that Patton gave. SPEAKER 3: It was because of
that reputation and that talent that Patton ultimately
would refer to him as the fightingest
son of a bitch I have. NARRATOR: The first
assault on Fort Driant begins with a
massive bombardment. Once the warplanes have
plastered the Fort with bombs, Walker plans to clear it
out with a combined ground attack by a thousand rifleman,
tankers, and engineers. Two miles away,
heavy field artillery unleashes a steady
stream of shellfire. The rifleman of the 5th Infantry
Division watch and wait. In a matter of minutes, they'll
enter the killing grounds of Fort Driant. Flashback. August 1944. After breaking out from
the Norman hedgerows, General George S Patton,
a.k.a., Old Blood and Guts, raced across France grabbing
headlines and raising hell for the Nazis. But with gas and
ordnance in short supply and heavy rain setting
in, Patton's drive grinds to a halt, giving German
forces a chance to regroup. SPEAKER 4: We had rain
coming out our ears. Rain and mud and our
tanks would get caught. I was so tired of rain and snow
and cold and wet and wishing, I want to go home, but
the war wasn't over. SPEAKER 2: The war has
changed from a war of maneuver to basically a boxing match. We are away from these
grand, sweeping maneuvers and we're looking
at static warfare. NARRATOR: In the south,
elements of Patton's army have made some progress
on the right flank. Some units have advanced
past the Moselle, but even here, progress
has slowed to a crawl. In the north, the
campaigning has turned into a horrific stalemate. Tanks and infantry soldiers find
themselves facing determined resistance as they move in
on the medieval city of Metz. Located at the confluence of
the Moselle and Seine Rivers, Metz was born for warfare. Nearly impenetrable, it's held
out against foreign invaders for hundreds of years. And since the 1870s, rival
French and German forces have been turning
Metz into a fortress. The capture of
the city of Metz became necessary, because
as Patton's Third army moved through the area roughly
between the cities of Thionville and Epinal in the
Lorraine area of France, if they move through
that flat area, they needed the flatlands so
that they could advance out of Lorraine and into the Saar
district of Western Germany. NARRATOR: Target-- Metz. Strategy-- seize the fortress
city and the vital roadways in order to advance
into Germany. Tactics-- use infantry
supported by tanks and artillery to overwhelm the
city's outer defenses, take Metz with a
full frontal assault. Metz has become a linchpin in
Hitler's defensive strategy, and he's handpicked General
Hermann Balck to hold the line. SPEAKER 5: Balck was a
favorite of Adolf Hitler. Balck was a commander
who had fought and done miraculous things on
the Eastern Front. He was an excellent
tank commander, and he was considered one of
the best in the German army. NARRATOR: Balck knows his
forces can't beat Patton in a war of maneuver and
has no intention of fighting on Patton's terms. Instead, he orders
General Heinrich Kittell to dig in and slow
Patton's drive to the Rhine. SPEAKER 3: To do that
was to spare Germany one more day of the ravages
of the war that were surely coming, which is why
the fighting around Metz assumes this desperate quality. NARRATOR: Balck has a
major ace up his sleeve-- the deadly network of
forts guarding the city. Mostly underground, they're
made of steel and concrete and nearly impossible for
the Americans to spot. They can dish out a lethal
dose of killing power from heavy artillery that
can cover a wide area, allowing each fort to protect
another in the defensive chain. The most dangerous
enemy stronghold is Fort Driant, a massive
subterranean complex of concrete bunkers, underground
tunnels, and pillboxes protected by reinforced
concrete, seven feet thick at its weakest spot. Driant is more than 1,000 yards
wide, protected by at least five batteries of heavy 100
and 150-millimeter siege guns, and a score of
automatic weapons. 200 yards out from
the central complex, Driant to surrounded by a moat
30 feet deep and 20 yards wide, perfect for stopping an American
tank dead in its tracks. You know, firepower
would have limited effect. I mean, large bombs were
direct hits on this fort, but really didn't affect
the ability of the defenders to continue to fire
artillery machine guns and so forth from
those positions. NARRATOR: Manning the
fort are 1,500 Nazi cadets and landlocked sailors, all
of them ready to hold out to the very end. Lieutenant Colonel Kelly Lemmon
from the 5th Infantry Division already felt the fort's
wrath while trying to lead his men across the
Moselle in early September. We had to stop and say, hell,
we're not trained for this. Let's take a timeout. And we went up to Luxembourg
and trained on the Maginot Line to attack a fortified position. Lemmon handpicks the largest
abandoned casemate he can find, then has the engineers hit the
concrete walls with every type of explosive in their arsenal. And we really wrecked it. Well, they had to bring
the troops up and show them what the munitions
did, which was good. It gave them confidence,
a little more confidence in their weapons. NARRATOR: Unfortunately,
just as his men prepare for their mission, Lemmon
is taken off the frontlines and sent to Washington, DC. Lemmon's soldiers will
have to take on Fort Driant without him. Using what little
intelligence he has on Driant, Patton has decided the concrete
megafort is one of the keys to capturing the city and
orders an immediate assault. But despite a heavy pounding,
the Germans are unscathed and easily repel the
1,000-man ground attack. SPEAKER 5: Now today, we
would take out those forts with precision weaponry that
allows bombs and other types of munitions to
penetrate the steel and reinforced concrete of those
bunkers and explode inside. We have bunker-buster
bombs specifically designed for this kind of role. NARRATOR: Patton decides to
send an even figure ground force to wipe out the German fort,
adding an entire regiment to the assault and more tanks. The attack now totals
about 3,300 soldiers. October 3, 1944. A tank company from
the 735th Battalion rolls into position for
an assault on Fort Driant. Among the fighters of the 735th
is Frank Chambers of Indiana. SPEAKER 8: We were supposed to
have air, we didn't get any, and that might have
helped, but I doubt it. Because a 500-pound bomb
dropped on one of those places didn't even open them up. NARRATOR: The assault
plan against Driant calls for a strike
against two vital points. One force of tanks and
infantry will hit the fort from the southwest while
another force will attack from the northwest. 12:00 PM, the battle
of Fort Driant begins. Under a shower of
American ordinance, the assault teams swarm towards
the fort, heading into a fight they will never forget. General George S
Patton's Third Army is facing one of its toughest
challenges in October 1940-- seizing the fortified
French city of Metz on the rain-swollen
Moselle River. Patton has underestimated
his opponent, Hermann Balck, and his strategy of digging in. Using a series of World
War I-era concrete forts, Balck is keeping Patton at bay. The fighting has turned into
a deadly siege, the kind of static battle Patton hates. SPEAKER 2: He really
didn't have an idea of what was in front of him. He didn't have the
maps for it, he didn't have the aerial
photography because of bad weather. So he was kind of
punching blind, and it's going to affect him,
it's going to affect his corps, and the fighting
soldiers on the ground. NARRATOR: Right now, the combat
is centered on Fort Driant, the strongest of a chain
of forts blocking the road to the French city of Metz. For days, the men of General
Stafford Irwin's 5th Infantry Division have been trying to
take the underground complex, but so far, the Germans have
easily repelled every attack. October 3, 1944. American howitzers send a
volley of steel crashing into the fort. Now, Patton's infantrymen and
tanks prepare to assault Driant and claim it once and for all. One of the men tasked
with hitting Driant is Andy McGlynn of the 2nd
Battalion, 11th Regiment. Recently promoted
to squad leader, McGlynn is leading replacements
fresh out of boot camp into the fight. SPEAKER 9: The replacements
are scared to death because the rumor was, if you
get transferred to an infantry outfit, that's like signing
your own death warrant. We got the order to
go after Fort Driant, and those poor guys
were so afraid. I didn't blame them. Hell, I was afraid, too. NARRATOR: Backing
up the foot soldiers are the tanks of
the 735th Battalion. 11 of the Shermans
headed into battle are armed with an improved
76-millimeter main gun. By late 1944, many of the
weaker 75-millimeter tank guns are being switched out. The newer 76-millimeter gun
weighs in at 1,200 pounds. It has a muzzle velocity
of 2,800 feet per second and can fire a 3-inch projectile
at a maximum range of eight miles. As heavy mortar and cannon
shells slam on top of Driant, Patton's attack kicks off. Armored vehicles and infantrymen
surge across the open ground and storm the citadel. SPEAKER 9: I never
thought I'd be killed. Never. I wanted to get a nice wound,
broken bone or something like that, but you be
careful what you wish for. NARRATOR: As the
735th Tank Battalion moves toward the outer
defenses, Patton's tankers attempt to use explosive snakes
to bust through the barbed wire entanglements and minefields. And we pulled it
up to the minefield, then we got behind it. The idea was to push it out into
the minefield and explode it. Well, did you ever try
to push a wet noodle? It didn't work. It didn't work at all. It just kept turning around this
way, turning around that way. They never did work. NARRATOR: 500 yards away, Andy
McGlynn leads his rifle squad towards the deadly killing
grounds outside the fort. And I came to this field
and I looked up in a corner and I could see two bodies-- two GIs' bodies up there. Below their waist I saw blood,
and I figured, holy hell, I'm in a minefield. So I got the guys
and we moved around and we found a tank truck. We followed the
track of the tank on up toward what we
thought was a fort. NARRATOR: Despite the failure
of the explosive snakes, tank fire rips up the razor
sharp thickets of barbed wire. Then, the 76-millimeter Shermans
open up on the fort's block houses and pillboxes. SPEAKER 8: You really
couldn't get the tanks in where the people were. The people were all
underground, and the tanks wouldn't go underground. So all we could do is
head up on top and shoot. So it made it tough
on the infantry because they had to
do it all themselves. The firepower on
the tanks were not sufficient to really penetrate
these fortifications. And then to get a direct fire,
which is right from your tank gun to the fortress shot. So these are very courageous men
who were going there to support their infantries. NARRATOR: 30 yards away,
the massive casements of Fort Driant absorb the shock
of the shells fired at them. SPEAKER 8: Well,
nothing happened. That's what-- in fact, they
even took a 155 rifle, which is a big gun, and
fired point blank and it just chipped a
little of the concrete off. Those walls were
eight feet thick. SPEAKER 7: Some troops got
into the underground areas of the fort. They didn't get too far. Others were involved in dropping
grenades down the air vents. It's a different
type of warfare. Makes you think
back to World War I. SPEAKER 5: It was
bloody, it was lethal. It was close, hand-to-hand
combat in some cases. The Germans, of course, would
use interconnecting trenches to move from one
fortification to the next. So they had the advantage,
and the Americans paid for that advantage in blood. NARRATOR: German
defenders inside the fort also have another advantage-- their heavy artillery
is protected by armored domes similar to the
gun turrets on a battleship. The domes are placed on the tops
of reinforced concrete block houses that the attacking
Americans can't even see. Inside, artillerymen can
load and fire the guns, while underneath, a
system of hand cranks rotates the dome
into firing position. The battle for the
Fort is simply murder. SPEAKER 8: And we
couldn't get down in the underground passageways,
and of course, that's what the infantry was
trying to do, you know? And they lost a lot
of people down there. NARRATOR: Andy McGlynn
leads a fireteam towards one of Driant's outer pillboxes. And I stuck my
head over the door, I could hear Germans talking. And I got up to the door
and I was reaching out with my left hand when this
guy shot me right through here up the wrist. NARRATOR: Thinking
he's been killed, McGlynn's comrades
beat a hasty retreat. Now, Andy McGlynn is on his own. 500 yards away, the armored
assault against Driant has failed. Hidden German artillery
has knocked out five tanks. And as night falls
over the battlefield, enemy shells arc in from other
redoubts throughout the sector. For soldiers in the
5th Infantry Division, the nightmare at Fort
Driant has only just begun. For the men of the 5th Infantry
Division in Patton's Third Army, how on earth is a
place called Fort Driant. SPEAKER 1: Fort Driant, that
is one tough place to take. I mean, it's fortified, it's
got guns in the right place. I mean, that is a
serious objective that they're looking at. NARRATOR: For over
a month, Patton has been stuck in the
rain-soaked Lorraine region of Eastern France. His fuel and artillery
supplies are draining, his forces are unable to
make any rapid advance. Patton is frustrated. And even with his
army out of gas, he still has to take on
the imposing city of Metz and its string of
protective forts before he can
advance to Germany. Back inside the fort,
the 5th Division is still slugging it out. SPEAKER 2: The Germans defending
it are fanatical NCO graduates. They are charging out
of their defenses, firing their machine guns
screaming Heil Hitler, basically making the American
soldiers' blood run cold. NARRATOR: As the battle rages
nearby, squad leader Andy McGlynn lies in a growing
pool of his own blood, and a German soldier is
watching his every move. SPEAKER 9: Then I thought,
I'd better get a run for it. So I tried to raise my head,
I tried to move my hands, and I found out I
could hardly do that. And I thought, I'm bleeding
to death, and I groaned. The German right away-- [speaking german]? And I turned and I said,
I'm wounded, I'm wounded. [speaking german] And
two guys reached over, got me over the door,
took me back and-- oh God. NARRATOR: McGlynn is
led into the depths of the German bunker, which
turns out to be one of Fort Driant's main barracks. SPEAKER 9: And they
had rooms with bunks and they had a
kitchen down there, they had a room with some
kind of an air compressor to bring fresh air in. They got me in this
room full with Germans, and they didn't have anybody
there to speak English. They tried to ask me
questions, and one German, they saw my hand was a mess. NARRATOR: McGlynn is
stripped of his gear and escorted behind enemy lines. For now, the war is
over for Andy McGlynn. Throughout the night, the
Americans hold their positions and fend off waves of
enemy counterattacks. Frank Chambers and his crew
have pushed their Sherman as far as they can, Stopped cold
by a 30-foot deep tank trap. SPEAKER 8: I fired my
76 and both machine guns all night long. And down the left
of me maybe 50 feet, guys down there from B
Company ran out of ammunition, and they captured them. They kept coming and
we kept shooting, and our 30-caliber
barrel got red-hot, and then it got white-hot,
then it got blue-hot. Then we changed barrels
and started over again. NARRATOR: At the same time,
a barrage of enemy shells pour onto the Americans from
other nearby German forts. SPEAKER 8: The first night we
got hit by what was probably a 155 artillery shell. Blew all-- everything off
our back deck of our tank which is where all rations were. NARRATOR: Fighting at Fort
Driant rages on for days. Finally on October 13,
the assault is called off. Nearly 500 Americans
have perished. Now, Patton is faced with
seriously reconsidering his own trademark
fighting style. SPEAKER 3: Oh, it had to have
been immensely frustrating. This is the great American
master of battle in the Second World War, and
suddenly he no longer has this ability
to fight his army in a manner consistent with
his bravado, which was attack, attack, attack. SPEAKER 2: Throughout World War
II, Patton had never retreated, but at Fort Driant, the
enemy caused him to pause and pull back. So technically, you could say
that Fort Driant was Patton's biggest defeat
during World War II. NARRATOR: If Patton is going
to take on Metz and the forces under Hermann Balck, he'll have
to come up with a new strategy. He simply cannot pull off the
kind of maneuvers that made him famous in the battles
across France. And hitting Fort Driant
head-on is taking a heavy toll on his infantry. With the fight for
Driant called off, Third Army enters a quiet
pause on the frontlines during the lull in battle,
fresh combat outfits join the ranks of Third Army. One of them is the
761st Tank Battalion. SPEAKER 3: And this
battalion has the distinction of being an all-African-American
tank battalion. They enter battle as a
part of a segregated army in a segregated
unit where they have black NCOs, junior officers,
white senior officers. NARRATOR: One of the
tankers in the 761st is William McBurney
of New York City. I was born and raised down in
Hell's Kitchen in New York City and then moved uptown. Then the war started
and I joined the Army. I wanted to go in as a
pilot, but at the time, they didn't have
blacks in aviation. NARRATOR: Unable to
get his pilot's wings, McBurney joins the 761st in the
training grounds of Louisiana. But when the 761st
arrives in France, Patton is not impressed. In his memoirs, Patton noted,
individually they were good soldiers, but I expressed my
belief that a colored soldier cannot think fast enough
to fight in armor. Now as the Black Panthers
of the 761st Tank Battalion prepare to head into
battle against the Nazis, they're honor-bound to
prove their commander wrong. SPEAKER 10: When he was talking
to me, you know, in my mind, I said, [bleep] on you. We gonna prove it. I'm going to prove it. Not we, but I. I as a person. And that's it. NARRATOR: On a daily
basis, other soldiers fresh from replacement depots
join manpower-starved veteran units in Patton's army. One of them is Arnold
Whittaker of Lansing, Michigan. I was 6-foot-1, 174
pounds, played football, and they thought, well,
this is a good guy to be an infantryman. So I think I was a part of a
maybe 260 replacements that joined the 5th. NARRATOR: Another
unit joining the fight is the young tested
95th Infantry Division. Serving as a combat
scout in the 95th is Edwin Kolodziej
of New Jersey. Kolodziej quickly receives
his own baptism of fire during a mission behind enemy
lines in the town of Vezon. The next day, he has a chance
run-in with Old Blood and Guts himself, when Patton
personally decorates the scouts with combat
infantrymen's badges. SPEAKER 12: He came up, he
said to me, how many of them did you kill? And I said, well, I was told
they carried 30 out of there. And he said, well, that's that
many of the bastards who won't reproduce, and that
was George Patton. NARRATOR: But for the men of
the 95th, the firefight at Vezon on is nothing compared
to the true test they're about to face. Resupplied with
fuel and ammunition, Patton is hungry for action. The ultimate battle for
Metz is about to begin. October 1944. General George S
Patton's Third Army is preparing for a massive
offensive, bent on breaking the German resistance
at Metz and pushing hard on the German border. Patton's army has been
tied down in the Lorraine for months, so close
to the enemy homeland that they can almost taste it. Until now, Patton
has played right into the hands of the
enemy, attempting a series of headlong assaults
against the forts that defend the city of Metz. Patton has underestimated
the Germans. The Germans had really
established a very strong defense along the Moselle River,
and around Metz in particular. NARRATOR: German
General Hermann Balck knows there's no chance
of defeating Patton, but he's done a great
job of slowing him down. Bleeding Patton's regiment
and division-sized attacks in places like Fort Driant and
in house-to-house street fights in the town of
Maizi res-l s-Metz. SPEAKER 2: Metz is
such a lengthy campaign that there are debates in
the beginning of November about changing the
strategy of how to take it. What Patton realizes is they
are able to make some progress north and south, and that a
pincer movement is the best way to take it instead of the
original frontal assault that they had planned. NARRATOR: While General Manton
Eddy's XII Corps fights its way up the Saar River Valley from
the south towards the Rhine, Patton directs General Walker's
XX Corps to resume the attack on Metz. Instead of a frontal
assault, Walker's men will encircle Metz and cut
of the German defenders. With his ranks swelling
with manpower and supplies, Patton can finally unleash
an attack combining firepower and maneuver. SPEAKER 3: On November 8, 1944,
you see within Third Army, you see kind of
this new offensive. And it's with this thought
and this recognition that it would continue momentum
toward the Rhine River. NARRATOR: But even as Patton's
army prepares for what they hope to be the final
battle for the Lorraine, the day-to-day suffering
of the common soldier continues as the
temperatures start to drop. SPEAKER 10: We just survived. And it was miserable, and
we slept inside the tank when they was shelling and
used our helmet for everything. The steel helmet without
a house, as you would say. Our kitchen, our house,
we cooked with it, we'd wash up with it, we learned
to survive with just the helmet itself. NARRATOR: But almost worse
than the weather and the enemy shelling, keeping connected to
the people they've left behind is difficult for
Patton's soldiers. SPEAKER 4: We do have a custom,
though, or we did in that day. I don't know if they
have it today or not, but in those days, when a guy
loved a gal, a lot of times we would get a
lock of hair, just a kind of a thing between us. And I had a lock
of Lucille's hair. And one day, she sent me in one
of those letters the imprint of her lips with lipstick
on it, and I wrapped that around the lock of
hair and I carried it-- and I carry that to this day. I still carry it 65 years. A little lock of hair and
a reminder that she still loves me. NARRATOR: November 8, 1944. The battle for Metz begins. Three infantry divisions with
armored units and support close in and surround the city. The veterans of
the 90th Division, a.k.a., the Tough 'Ombres,
will move in from the north, the 5th Division will
come from the south, and the 95th Infantry Division,
including Ed Kolodziej, will make a headlong
assault from the center. But the big guns at Fort
Driant aren't making it easy. SPEAKER 3: They used the
artillery in that Fort to harass the
Americans struggling to capture the city of Metz. So it's not as if Fort
Driant just went away. It continued to be a problem. NARRATOR: The battle outside
of Metz rages for nearly a week on both sides of the Moselle. Poorly-trained German
reserves fight like hell beside their Nazi comrades
doing all they can to hold off the Third Army. As much as Patton's
troops are trying to avoid the German force, one
company from the 95th Infantry Division enters the crosshairs
of machine guns near Fort Jeanne d'Arc. The combat scouts, including Ed
Kolodziej and Sergeant Melvin Grondahl, are called in to help. When he got there, we
found there was a trench that surrounded this bunker
which most of it's 75 feet long and solid concrete. NARRATOR: Kolodziej
and Grondahl settle in for a horrific night on the
frontlines outside of Metz. The following day, heavy German
artillery begins to pour in. Two miles away, the
big guns of Fort Driant send out a steady
barrage of iron, keeping the men of
the 95th pinned down in Jeanne d'Arc for two days. As the combat scouts of the
95th whether the storm of fire, one thing is certain-- it's only a matter of time
before the entire unit is wiped out. Machine gunners
Kolodziej and Grondahl are about to do the
unthinkable, and it just might save their comrades. November, 1944. After bashing his head against
the formidable defenses guarding Metz, Patton
has revised his strategy and is attempting to
encircle the city. SPEAKER 2: Patton spent
his birthday, November 11, as he like to say, getting
where the bodies are still warm. Even though it was
his birthday, he was still visiting the front,
keeping an eye on his men, and taking a tally
of German casualties. NARRATOR: Right now, a
violent bunker-to-bunker fight is playing out near
Fort Jeanne d'Arc. It just didn't appear to
be any way out there at all. And Grondahl and I decided,
what the hell, if we're going to die anyway, let's
give them a shot before we die. We then commenced firing. We caught them with
their firing ports open, and we could hear the
screaming coming from there. Apparently those bullets
getting in, ricocheting around all the concrete walls in there
scared the hell out of them. NARRATOR: An eerie silence
passes over the battleground. Suddenly, a German
medic pops out of the door waving a white flag. And he's shouting,
surrender, surrender. NARRATOR: An SS officer and 40
men come out with their hands up. SPEAKER 12: I walked down
into the front of the bunker and put the hand grenade in
the German officer's belly and put the .45 in his
back and I said, now, if this is some sort of
a trick, if I go, you go, cause I'll blow you to hell. His response to me was, no
need to talk that way, sir, I speak English clearly. I understand you
have us surrounded, I'm surrendering
my 40 men to you. NARRATOR: Thinking
he's been surrounded by an entire company, the
SS officer is more than a little surprised to be taken
prisoner by only two machine gunners. By November 22, organized enemy
resistance begins to collapse. American units enter
Metz moving street to street, house to
house, clearing out any German holdouts. SPEAKER 11: We always watched
out for the church steeples, because that's where they
would put their best snipers. With an M1, you can't
do a lot, but when you get the tankers in there-- or we'd have our bazooka man put
a round in the church steeple. NARRATOR: German General
Hermann Balck orders a massive withdrawal, informing
General Heinrich Kittel, commanding the city,
that he's on his own. As the Germans fall back,
their comrades, the survivors of Fort Driant and Jeanne
d'Arc, beg to be relieved, but instead, they are abandoned. November 25, 1944. The battle for Metz is over. Patton's army controls the city. SPEAKER 3: That was the last
strongpoint that was preventing the US Third Army from moving
swiftly through Lorraine, crossing the border, and
entering the fatherland. There's nothing
holding Patton back. He can advance
directly to the border. NARRATOR: In two months
of combat in the Lorraine, from Dornot to
Arracourt, in Metz, Patton's Third Army has suffered
more than 55,000 men killed, wounded, and missing. The 5th Division alone has lost
800 men in the failed attacks on Fort Driant. Among the casualties from
Fort Driant is Andy McGlynn. Now, McGlynn and
hudnreds like him are escorted to a series of
prison camps east of the Rhine River. I'm alive. You know, that was the main
thing, I'm still alive. I didn't know whether I'm
ever going to go home. But I am alive, and you
take each day as it comes. NARRATOR: Patton is quick
to recognize the sacrifice of his soldiers, telling one
wounded GI, tomorrow, son, the headlines will read, Patton
took Metz, which you know is a goddamned lie. You and your buddies are the
ones that actually took Metz. The men of the 95th
infantry division have proven themselves,
winning not only the respect of their comrades,
but that of the enemy. The German general who was
in charge of defending Metz said that the 95th
were iron men, and that's where the Iron
Men and Metz came from. NARRATOR: For their heroic
action in silencing the enemy pillbox near Jeanne d'Arc,
Kolodziej and Sergeant Grondahl both received the Silver
Star for gallantry. I'm proud of the
Iron Men of Metz because I'm grateful
that I lived through being one of them. I'm proud of all
the guys that fought and all the guys that died. NARRATOR: As Walker's corps
celebrates its victory over Metz, the fighting
continues in the Saar River Valley. In the face of heavy combat,
the African-American tankers are the 761st Battalion forge a
reputation, proving themselves to their fellow tankers. SPEAKER 4: You know, as
far as I'm concerned, they were disciplined,
they were ready to go. I'd fight by them tomorrow. SPEAKER 10: The
camaraderie between ourself at night after all
the fighting, I think that's what held us
together, because we were really tight as a unit-- as friends, and it hurt
when we lost one another. NARRATOR: Though Patton
and many Allied generals think the war might still
be over by Christmas, Adolf Hitler is secretly
planning to show them that they're dead wrong. As the temperatures drop,
Hitler plans a massive assault that none of the Allied
brass could possibly predict. In a matter of days, the tankers
of the veteran Fourth Armored and every GI in Patton's army
will enter the frozen hell of the Argonne Forest. The Lorraine campaign
may finally be over, but the Battle of the
Bulge is about to begin.
