[rapid fire] NARRATOR: General George
S Patton's forces race across France in one of
the greatest advances in military history. But exhilaration
turns into frustration as they near the German border. Supply problems cripple
Patton's advance. Heavy rains turned
roads into swamps, and the retreating
Germans suddenly launched deadly counterattacks. Mistakes are made
but heroes emerge in some of the fiercest tank
battles of World War II. General George S Patton, his
bold attacks are legendary. See the war as he saw
it, and right 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, on
Hitler's Doorstep. [cannonfire] [RAPID GUNFIRE AND MISSILE
ATTACKS] September 1944, following
General George Patton's historic race across
France and the Soviets continuing gains on
the Eastern Front, the Allies are beginning to
squeeze Hitler like a vise. The fuhrer desperately wants
to change the momentum. September 8th, 3 AM. Outside the town
of Mairy, France, in the middle of
the night, a column of tanks and other vehicles
moves down a small lightly wooded country road. Corporal Don Knapp of
Whitman, Massachusetts is a tank commander in
the 712th Tank Battalion. It's his night to keep watch. He's trying to figure out
of if the vehicle sounds in the darkness
are friend or foe. And then they got
abreast, and there's some trucks called viona Germans
sit on the tailgate talking. But I could hear, you
know, that's close. So I got out quietly. We weren't visible
because, you know, we were sort of
camouflaged in the trees. NARRATOR: Knapp goes to
alert his company commander. But before the rest of the
company could be woken, the German 106th Panzer
brigade moves past. Then 200 yards away,
the German column stumbles right into the
90th Infantry Division's headquarters and
artillery units. For the enemy to
suddenly launch a thrust that places him within reach
of divisional headquarters and divisional artillery
is very, very bad news. NARRATOR: A Sherman
tank assigned to protect HQ nails
a German halftrack at the end of the column. A Panzer brigade
suddenly realizes it's in the middle
of an American Camp. [cannonfire] German and American
tanks blast away then scatter in the darkness. ERROL JAMES SNYDER: No matter
how well you prepare, sometimes you're just caught off guard. I mean, the Americans
were completely surprised. But they regrouped and then
they took care of business. NARRATOR: The next morning,
Knapp and two other Shermans find a protected
spot near a road. Only their barrels are visible. And they don't have to wait
long for a target to approach. All by itself, we see a
Panzer coming down slowly. So we threw
everything out of it. We caught upheld by the
bulgy wheels in the back. Big explosion and a big
black smoking ring come up. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: By the end of
the day Patton's troops have decimated the Panzer
brigade, knocking out 21 German tanks and tank
destroyers, 60 halftracks, over 100 support vehicles,
and taken 764 prisoners. [cannonfire] But on this same
day, September 8th, General Patton is
frustrated beyond belief, not with his troops
but with his bosses. The resentment has
been building for days. Flashback, eight days
earlier, August 31, 1944. Patton's 3rd Army
has just completed an unprecedented
sweep across France. MARTIN K. A. MORGAN: In August,
he swept through and got to the Seine River, crossed the
Seine River, continued moving, advances all the way to Eastern
France, and then he stops. General Patton is forced to do
something that is completely and utterly counter
to his nature. NARRATOR: Gasoline deliveries
to Patton's 3rd Army have suddenly fallen from
about 400,000 gallons a day to almost nothing. Patton is stuck in the
Lorraine region of France only 60 miles from the
fortified Siegfried Line at the German border. He wants to thrust into
Germany towards Frankfurt. And he can't because he
doesn't have the gasoline to fill up the vehicles, to
move the tanks, the halftracks, the Jeeps, the tank destroyers,
and all of the other vehicles forward. NARRATOR: Supreme Allied
Commander General Dwight Eisenhower has given the fuel
priority to Patton's rival, British Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery who's trying to advance with
other Allied forces across Belgium and Holland. KEVIN HYMEL: Patton become so
frustrated at the situation. He basically says, if
Eisenhower would just stop holding Montgomery's hand
and give me the supplies I need, I could go through
the Siegfried Line like [bleep] goose. NARRATOR: Now,
Patton and his men are stuck west of
the Moselle River, only able to fight
local battles. KEVIN HYMEL: The Allied
pause in September is a godsend to the German army. At this point in the war, the
Germans are feeling defeated. They're basically walking
back into Germany. A pause gives the Germans
time to regroup and meet whatever the Allies
are going to dish out. NARRATOR: During Germany's
disastrous summer, Hitler fired his top general in
the West, Gerd von Rundstedt. The fuhrer was also slightly
wounded during an assassination attempt. But on September 1st,
Hitler reinstates the well-respected
von Rundstedt. Stability is returning
to the German ranks. KEVIN HYMEL: Von Rundstedt
that is basically your quintessential caricature
of what a German or Prussian General would look like. He's ramrod straight, he
wears the old Prussian helmet with a spike coming
out of the top. He's one of the most experienced
generals in World War II. NARRATOR: The Germans don't know
that Patton's hands are tied. But Patton wants to keep
taking any small steps forward that he can. So on September 8th,
units of the 20th Corps under the command of Major
General Walton Walker attempt to move East at Dornot. Target, the Moselle River. Strategy, advanced
past the Moselle, break the Lorraine stalemate
and take the war into Germany. Tactics, an amphibious assault
by the 5th Infantry Division to secure a bridgehead,
establish pontoons, and then bring armor across
on portable bridges. Weeks earlier, Kelly
Lemmon kept his unit moving when he swam across
a river under enemy fire and brought row boats back when
assault boats were available. But at Dornot, things don't
go well from the start. KELLY LEMMON: I found
myself in a dogfight with a brigadier general from
the 7th Armored Division, who claimed he was
supposed to cross over. NARRATOR: Lemmon's
men were supposed to cross in assault boats
under the cover of darkness on September 7th. Now, due to the traffic
jam, the element of surprise is completely gone. As they crossed in
midday on the 8th-- [cannonfire] --German artillery pounds Dornot
as heavy rain begins to fall. The assault boats don't
offer much protection. The M1 Assault Boat
is made of plywood. The 16-foot long boat
weighs only 300 pounds. It can carry nine
soldiers across at a time, and the crew of three
engineers then paddles back to pick up another squad. 24-year-old Private
First Class Andy McGlynn of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
is in one of the five boats crossing the Moselle. ANDREW MCGLYNN:
We've got our boats and started crossing under
some small arms fire. The fellow two ahead of
me in my boat was killed. Never made a sound. When we got to the other side
of the river and unloaded, he never moved. He just stayed there. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: German artillery
takes out two of the boats. But somehow, the rest of the
battalion makes it across. Surprisingly, when the
soldiers move inland, there is little resistance. They are now closer to
Germany than anyone else on the Western Front. Their objectives are
two hilltop forts. But when they see the
rows of barbed wire and the thickness of these
subterranean strongholds, it becomes clear
they will need help. ANDREW MCGLYNN: And
then we really got hit. [cannonfire] And then we were told,
pull back to the river. One fellow was hit
right behind me, right through the helmet, never made
a sound, just died instantly. NARRATOR: McGlynn and the
other survivors retreat to a wooded area
next to the river. They set up a horseshoe-shaped
defensive perimeter within the trees that will
become known as horseshoe wood. [cannonfire] KELLY LEMMON: Back
across the Moselle, half a mile to the
west, Colonel Lemmon wants to get across the
river to join his men. The German artillery
suddenly changes that plan when a shell strikes his Jeep. The executive officer,
the intelligence officer, a couple of key enlisted men,
and radio operators killed. So I went to a house in
Dornot that had been fitted with the wire
communications in rear and reestablished the
command post there. NARRATOR: Lemmon
request the heavily outnumbered soldiers be
allowed to withdraw back across the river that night. But his commanders
have other plans. They're trying to open
another crossing a few miles to the south and need to
keep the enemy near Dornot distracted. The request to
withdraw is denied. KELLY LEMMON: One of the
most difficult things I ever did in my life was to inform
the troops that they become expendable, that I had just
received orders that we're to hold at all costs. That really got your attention. NARRATOR: The only
thing Lemmon can do now is pray that his
entire battalion won't be wiped out trying to
hold Horseshoe Wood. [music playing] In August 1944, General Patton's
troops often chewed up 50 miles a day as they pursued
the retreating Germans across France. But now in early September,
Patton's historic advance has ground to a halt. It had to have been an
incredibly frustrating situation for General
Patton in late August, early September of 1944 when
fewer resources were taken away from 3rd Army and then given
to Field Marshal Montgomery, Patton's chief rival, a person
against which Patton often clashed going back
all the way to Sicily. NARRATOR: Now, the Germans
facing Patton's men have regrouped along
the Moselle River, but Old Blood and Guts is slow
to adjust to the new situation. In a letter to his wife,
Beatrice, he writes, I am doing my damnedest to get
going again but it is hard. Once people stop,
they get cautious and the enemy gets set. Books will someday be written
on that pause which did not refresh anyone but the Germans. KEVIN HYMEL: Patton's strategy
in crossing the Moselle River is basically to regain
the momentum he lost during the pause in September
and cross the river basically on the run. This does not work
because of the terrain. [cannonfire] His armor and infantry are not
able to support each other. There are several crossings
that the Germans cut off. They're quite bloody. NARRATOR: September 8,
1944, the 2nd battalion of the 5th infantry
divisions 11th regiment is in the middle of one of
those bloody crossings. The soldiers are trying to hold
on to their small bridgehead across the Moselle at Dornot. There's no chance of escape
until another crossing is made further south. That was the worst we had
ever been in from Normandy all the way through. We had never been in a point
where we were trapped and had to suffer tanks and artillery
and everything else. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: American
artillery across the river joins in lobbing shells to
try and hold the Germans back. Finally, on the night
of September 10th, the crossing to the
south is established. The desperate remaining
soldiers at Dornot are allowed to retreat back
across the river for a much needed break. They're passing out
bottles of cognac. So I got a bottle and I
found my buddy saying, help finish that cognac. The casualties in that
thing are across the river for the battalion was 80%. ERROL JAMES SNYDER: You don't
have to be charging forward to be a hero. Holding the bridgehead
against all odds, fighting, clawing,
taking it to the enemy while you're sitting in
a defensive position, those are real
heroes in my book. NARRATOR: By September 10th,
Patton's 3rd Army finally receives enough gasoline
to make a larger advance. He can see that Walton
Walker and his corps are going to have a tough
time moving forward. The fortified city of Metz has
repelled attacks for centuries. 35 miles south of Metz,
near the city of Nancy, looks like a softer target. But two of Patton's generals
disagree about how Nancy should be taken. In command of the
battle-hardened 4th Armored Division is
General John Wood, an aggressive larger-than-life
character known to his men as Tiger Jack. His boss is General Manton Eddy,
a friend of Eisenhower's who served with Patton in
North Africa and Sicily. But Eddy has only been
overseeing Wood in the 3rd Army since mid-August. KEVIN HYMEL: Wood seize an
opportunity north of Nancy where there's only one river
and he can advance rapidly and cut off Nancy. Eddy, the infantrymen,
wants to go south where he thinks resistance
is a bit thinner but there's a number of bridges. And infantrymen can
cross rivers a lot easier than an armored
division, obviously. NARRATOR: This is not the first
time Wood and Eddy have clashed and it won't be the last. But Eddy finally
agrees to a compromise and allows Wood to send half
his armored forces around Nancy to the north while the
rest of the division will attack from the south. But at the same time, Hitler
is preparing his own offensive. Against the advice
of General Rundstedt, Hitler orders a major
counterattack against Old Blood and Guts. Hitler calls in one of the most
gifted officers of the Third Reich from the Eastern
Front to lead the assault-- General Hasso von Manteuffel. At 5-foot-2-inches, his lack of
height has never held him back. MARTIN K. A. MORGAN:
Hasso von Manteuffel was one of Germany's
most decorated officers. He was one of only 27
recipients of the Knights Cross with oakleaf swords
and diamonds, highest decoration Germany
could possibly give. He was also one of Germany's
greatest battlefield commanders. NARRATOR: Hitler
wants Manteuffel to flank Patton's entire army. Hitler envisions a
massive counterattack, being thrust through Lorraine
into the heart of the United States 3rd Army. That would drive
out of Lorraine, drive on to the ancient
French city of Reims. NARRATOR: But before the
assault can kick off, Patton makes the
opening move at Nancy. For now, Hitler's strategy
has been put on hold. [cannonfire] September 11th, the battle for
Nancy gets off to a rough start to the south at the
village of Bayon. As the rifleman of the
35th Infantry Division attempt to establish a
bridgehead across the Moselle for the tanks of
the 4th Armored, they encounter heavy firepower
from the enemy ashore. Albin Irzyk, a native
of Salem, Massachusetts and an officer in the
8th Tank Battalion knows that 3rd Army must
make some progress soon. If they don't, Montgomery
and the British will get their fuel again. ALBIN IRZYK: And for the
infantry to cross the river, for the engineers to come up
and install a bridge would take two or three days. And we tankers said, there
must be something we can do. So I led the forces along
a canal to the north. NARRATOR: When his unit
takes a position overlooking the Moselle, Irzyk
spots what he thinks might be their ticket across. Below them, the Moselle
has splintered, broken up by fingers of land. The first of the iron beast
enters the swift current to the Moselle. ALBIN IRZYK: And they get
going down deeper and deeper. Finally, it got to the point
where the river is swirling around the tank. So when he got there, he
gunned the tank till he finally got across the Moselle River. NARRATOR: One by one, the tanks
of the 8th battalion make it across, gunning their engines
at just the right moment to push over the banks and
climb out of the river. Mind you, this
is a major river. This was totally,
totally unconventional. NARRATOR: Irzyk and
the determined tankers of the 8th battalion have broken
the stalemate south of Nancy. Patton finally has armor
across the Moselle. But the fight for Nancy
and the Moselle River is just getting started. [cannonfire] [music playing] Eastern France,
September 13, 1944. General George S Patton's forces
are fighting the German army for control of
the Moselle River. Patton is still trying to grab
back the momentum he lost when his gasoline supplies were taken
away at the start of the month. H. R. MCMASTER: In those five
days, really, at the beginning of September that the Germans
gained because Patton is just flat out of fuel really gives
the Germans an opportunity to develop defenses
along the Moselle River. NARRATOR: In the north,
Walker's 20th Corps has been pushed back at Dornot. But in the South, the
tankers and riflemen have Manton Eddy's
12th Corps are slowly taking ground south of Nancy. 12 miles north of Nancy,
American engineers are hard at work at
the town of Dieulouard. The 80th Division
reaches the river and through the construction
of a pontoon bridge, they were able to cross the
Moselle on September 13th. NARRATOR: This is the break
4th Armored Division commander Tiger Jack has been waiting for. One of the first units to cross
is this 4th Armored's 37th Tank Battalion under the command of
30-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams. H. R. MCMASTER: Creighton
Abrams is a real hero in our army because
of his prowess on the battlefield, his
charismatic leadership, his ability to train and
prepare his unit for combat, and then lead that
unit in combat. As commander of
37th Tank Batallion, he led from the front with a
great deal of physical courage. He sensed opportunities
and exploited them without hesitation. General Creighton Abrams was
not only a hero in World War II but he was somebody who
inspired an entire generation of tankers. It was fitting that we named
the M1 Abrams tank after him. NARRATOR: Now,
Abrams has his sights set on the goal of
getting behind Nancy and cutting off the
German-occupied city. General Wood's demand to
attack Nancy from the north has paid off. In one day, Abrams 37th Tank
Battalion covers 15 miles. September 14, 1944. The 4th Armored's
combat Command A has closed in on the
vital town of Arracourt. On the main north-south
road to the east of Nancy. From the south, combat Command
B including Albin Irzyk's 8th Tank Battalion, has fought
its way northeast over three days from Bayon towards Maixe. The German forces in Nancy
have been almost completely encircled. General Johannes
Blaskowitz has already ordered most of his
troops to retreat toward the German border. [cannonfire] Wood wants to race after them,
but his boss, General Manton Eddy, hesitates. MARTIN K. A. MORGAN:
Manton Eddy regularly had conflict with
General John Wood, commanding 4th Armored
Division with the approach to and the capture of
the city of Nancy. Wood was frequently
wanting bolder action. Eddy was a bit more cautious. KEVIN HYMEL: So
here, Nancy is taken and he wants to pause
for a number of days so he can tidy up his line. So Patton, wanting to show
confidence in his commanders and Eddy's reluctance
to move forward combine to give another
pause to the Germans and allow them to
stiffen their resistance. NARRATOR: And Adolf
Hitler is quick to make the most of Patton's mistake. After days of delay, s the
fuhrer's armored counterattack is about to begin. He wanted to strike deep
into Allied territory before Patton took Nancy. But the German goal now is just
to push Patton's forces back across the Moselle
River, and Manteuffel knows even this won't be easy. He knows that he has a
limited amount of firepower and he knows that the
skies belong to the Allies. Yet, he's a German officer. He's going to follow orders. NARRATOR: September 18, 1944. Manteuffel's assault begins. His target, Patton's
forces along the Moselle and the town of Luneville,
which the Nazis hoped to use as a base of
operations for ongoing attacks against Patton's soldiers. What they had were
brand new Panther tanks, freshly minted out
of the factories. These were Panther tanks mainly. These Panther tanks
came out of the fog. It was a total surprise. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: But
Manteuffel's Panthers encounter heavy resistance at
Luneville by US tank destroyers and artillery. Now, the German commander is
forced to change his plans. Manteuffel redirect his units
to take on Patton's tankers at the town of Arracourt. Dawn, September 19, 1944. The men of the 4th Armored's
Combat Command A wake up to a French countryside
covered in a thick layer of fog and a breakfast of German leg. [cannonfire] MARTIN K. A. MORGAN: During
the battle that develops, C Company 37th Tank Battalion
knocks out 11 German Panthers. Using the fog to
mask their approach and to mask their position, they
move quickly, they get around to the sides of the
German Panthers, and they get in
shots that disable and knock out the Panthers. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: Then at 8
AM, Captain Bill Dwight leads a platoon of
M18 tank destroyers on a seek-and-destroy mission. Joseph Barto of
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is a mechanic in the 704th
Battalion whose motto is seek, strike, destroy. JOSEPH BARTO: You go out
and try to find the enemy, then strike the enemy
once you found them. You had to kill them and then
get the hell out of the way. NARRATOR: The M18 gun
motor carriage a.k.a. Hellcat has an open turret and
is operated by a five-man crew. It's designed for rapid
response and heavy firepower. The high velocity
76-millimeter main gun packs a greater punch than
the Sherman's main gun. And its 9-cylinder engine makes
the Hellcat the fastest piece of American armor with a top
speed of 50 miles per hour. JOSEPH BARTO: I never
in any kind of a fight they brought us up in there
because our guns could knock them out. NARRATOR: Dwight's Hellcat
platoon creeps through the fog and takes a position
behind a low rise. 150 yards away, German
tanks enter the crosshairs. [cannonfire] In a matter of minutes, the M18s
knock out seven German tanks, three of the Hellcats
are destroyed. But Patton's gunners have forced
the enemy column to fall back. What they basically do is
fire down on these German tanks and then back off the ridge
where the Germans can't fire back, go back up onto the
ridge, fire another volley. And they keep this sort
of back forth attack going while they're holding
the high ground. NARRATOR: That
afternoon, 2 miles East of Arracourt, 37th Tank
Battalion Commander Creighton Abrams forms a task force
to search for enemy tanks. A Company joins James
Leach's B Company. Leach is a South Carolina
native who's already a veteran to drive across France. It doesn't take Leach
and his comrades long to find a good
target in a valley. They found this in
German tank company. They were all dismounted and
they had a field kitchen there, and they were eating supper. [rapid gunfire] And we were on top of
them, first thing you know. We went completely through
the German position and occupied their position. Nine tanks were the result
of the combined fires of A Company and my company. NARRATOR: The German
assault on Arracourt is a complete disaster. [cannonfire] Thinking that his tankers
have exhausted the enemy, Patton finally allows
Wood to resume his drive to the German border. But Manteuffel
isn't finished yet. The Battle of Arracourt
is far from over. [cannonfire] September 19, 1944, Patton's
tankers in the 4th Armored Division have been in
the fight of their lives near the French
town of Arracourt. In the all-day slugfest,
the combined firepower of Combat Command A has held
back a major counterattack. And they've annihilated
50 enemy vehicles. HARRY FEINBURG: This wasn't
all done without mishap. Many of our tanks got knocked
out, got sick over it, many of the boys that
I knew, and we just had to forget about
it, and that's all. This is war and this is
what we had to go through. NARRATOR: Now, on September
20th, Patton and the 4th Armored's commander,
Tiger Jack Wood, think that yesterday's
German attack is spent. They can finally escape the
stalemate of the Lorraine region. During one of the wettest
Septembers on record, it's an area that
Patton has come to hate as he makes crystal
clear in a cable to the war department. He writes that, in the
final settlement of the war, you insist that the Germans
retain Lorraine, because I can imagine no greater burden
than to be the owner of this nasty country. Patton and Wood have ordered
Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams to get back on the
road and drive to the east, toward the German
border at Sarreguemines. But German General
Johannes Blaskowitz knows that his Supreme Commander
Adolf Hitler won't settle for a defeat. He's ordered General
Hasso von Manteuffel to continue the assault
no matter what the cost. H. R. MCMASTER: Manteuffel is
in an impossible situation. This is why Hitler has regarded
and rightfully so as not only a brutal and murderous
dictator but also an extremely ineffective commander-in-chief. He becomes very
directive and says continue to counterattack
at this particular place. And it's a place where there was
a very well-organized defense. NARRATOR: Now, two
full Panzer brigades move in through the woods
outside of Arracourt and try to catch combat
Command A from behind. Manteuffel's forces
outnumber Abrams 2 to 1. JAMES LEACH: When the Germans
came out of the woodwork, they started shooting in our
direction, I engaged them, held them at bay. NARRATOR: Leach
sounds the alarm. [cannonfire] Abrams immediately orders
his 37th Tank Battalion to turn back and engage
the enemy forces. Just south of Arracourt-- [cannonfire] --the 155-millimeter guns
of the 191st field artillery used withering fire to
hold back the Panzers. [cannonfire] While Leach and
his platoon leaders attempt to size
up the situation, a German tank moves into
position and opens fire. JAMES LEACH: And
it appeared to me he was shooting at
my command tank. So I ran toward my tank
motioning him to back up, back up, back up,
back up, and he did. But suddenly he stopped as
if he was thinking maybe the captain wants to
get up on the tank. In a moment, he stopped. The third round, two
of it missed him, the third round hit right in
the right in front of the tank. Cut the ball gunner in half and
knocked a hit off my driver. Two very heroic young men who
had no idea of what hit them. NARRATOR: While B Company
attempts to rally, C Company has also hit hard
and loses five Shermans in a matter of seconds. Facing a much larger
German tank force, both American companies
pulled back behind the cover of a large ridge. [cannonfire] MARTIN K. A. MORGAN:
The Shermans are moving, they're maneuvering, they're
placing fire on the enemy. By the time that the
engagement finally breaks away and both sides pull
away from one another, an equal number of
tanks are knocked out on the battlefield-- 11 Germans to 11 Shermans. NARRATOR: By the end of the
day, Manteuffel's assault has stalled out. Blaskowitz's army has failed
to shove Patton's armor back across the Moselle. Hitler is enraged. On the 21st, the Nazi
dictator retaliates by firing Blaskowitz. The fighting outside of
Arracourt rages on for days as the men of the 4th Armored
hold off repeated Panzer assaults. And for Manteuffel's
Panzer forces, it just keeps getting worse. In the skies above,
P47 Thunderbolts use occasional breaks
in the dreary weather to slam the enemy armor. ERROL JAMES SNYDER: Now,
you've got the P47s diving in, the Shermans are kicking butt,
Germans are in big trouble now. That's a real one-two punch. NARRATOR: But still,
a Nazi high command insists on repeated armor
assaults on Patton's forces throughout the region. Hitler is hell bent on driving
Patton out of Lorraine. [cannonfire] Dawn, September 24, 1944. Albin Irzyk and the men
of the 8th Tank Battalion are on a ridge 19 miles
northeast of Nancy. Suddenly, the forest in
front of them roars to life. [music playing] Out of the mist and
the fog, we looked up and there's force, large
massive of forces moving out of the woods toward us. There are infantry
on the ground, they had mostly Panther
tanks with two or three Tigers amongst them,
and they're advancing. NARRATOR: Irzyk's
tankers know they're no match for the German armor
in a face-to-face shootout. One of the Americans
facing the attack is Frank Dudash of
Crown Point, Indiana. FRANK DUDASH: We never
would attack one-on-one, we'd attack two-on-one. We get behind and put around
in the engine compartment because that's where the
thinnest part of armor is on, any armored vehicle. NARRATOR: Irzyk's men used the
same tactics as their comrades up at Arracourt. ALBIN IRZYK: We were
looking down at them there on the flat ground
coming toward us. So we get two or
three or four shots up before the Panther or the
Tiger could get a shot at us. So the tanks would come
up on the ridge, and fire. [imitating fire] So
we were knocking out quite a few of them. NARRATOR: The Panzers
are quick to respond. The enemy tanks unleash
a deadly barrage of 75 and 88-millimeter fire. ALBIN IRZYK: The worst most
horrendous noise that I've ever heard in my life was
one in 88 hits a ridge and goes ricocheting off. You talk about locomotives
and roars of planes. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: If Patton's
tankers are going to survive this
slugfest with the enemy, they're going to need help. [rapid gunfire] [cannonfire] September 24, 1944, for nearly
a week, German General Hasso van Manteuffel's Panzer
brigades have been doing all they can to
dislodge General George S Patton's 3rd Army from its
foothold east of the Moselle River. [cannonfire] Patton's army has been
countering each move that Manteuffel makes, but
the Germans aren't showing any signs of letting up. Near the town of Chateau-Salins,
Albin Irzyk's battalion is facing a heavy
assault by German armor. If Irzyk and his men
can't hold the line, the Germans could make a mad
dash all the way to Nancy. [cannonfire] We were at a
great disadvantage because the Tiger
and the Panther had better guns
head on than we did. [cannonfire] NARRATOR: Heavy cloud cover
has kept American aircraft from joining the action. ALBIN IRZYK: The fog is heavy. It's raining. They were flying over, but
this cloud cover was so thick that they couldn't come down. NARRATOR: Just when it
looks like all 6th unit will be overrun, the cloud
cover begins to break. There was a little hole
of blue opened up in the sky and the hole kept getting
bigger and bigger. And then all of a sudden, it
was big enough for a fighter support to come down. [fighter planes firing] FRANK DUDASH: They
come so low and they're very scary because they dropped
bomb in here behind you, like it was coming right at you. And then of course, seal over
your head go right into target. [fighter planes firing] NARRATOR: 23 Panzers
have been destroyed, 300 soldiers have been killed,
and 194 have been captured. The Nazis attempt to break
through to Nancy has failed. Hitler wants to keep
pressing the attack, but his commanders are sitting
there thinking, with what? The whole
counter-attack is shot. NARRATOR: Following their
historic offensive advance in August, Patton and his
men have proven in September that they can be just as
deadly in a defensive struggle. [cannonfire] They destroyed or damaged almost
500 German tanks and assault guns plus another 150 armored
vehicles in just one month of fighting in Lorraine. [cannonfire] The Battle of Arracourt has
become one of the largest tank battles of the war,
and the place where the myth of German armored
superiority has died. All fire. MARTIN K. A. MORGAN:
Fantastic example of the American military,
particularly US army armored forces, who have learned
how to take what they have, the Sherman tank which
was certainly not the best tank of World War II, and make
it deadly on the battlefield when you are facing the enemy
that does have some of the best armored vehicles
of the entire war. NARRATOR: Despite the
victories on the battlefield, Patton is in for a
major disappointment. Just as in early
September, Patton doesn't have enough fuel
to follow up his success on the battlefield. Eisenhower again diverts
Patton's fuel to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. He gave Montgomery the
fuel that he requested, and Montgomery launched this
operation which of course we know is Operation Market Garden. Operation Market Garden
ultimately did not succeed. NARRATOR: Any opportunity to
end the war before Christmas has just been lost. Instead, Patton is ordered to
stop any plans for an advance east of Nancy and to dig in
along the Moselle near Metz. They're dealing with a
deteriorating weather situation that's only going to get
worse as the days tick by. And they're dealing with
shortages of supplies. September is the critical
month of the supply shortages of the Allied armies that
are fighting in Europe. NARRATOR: But even though
the rapid advance is over, the fighting rages on. Forced to settle in for
a long and deadly siege near the battlefields where
he fought in World War I, Patton will face a new challenge
and yet another tough opponent in the month ahead. Nazi General Hermann Balck,
Blaskowitz's replacement is digging in for
a last ditch battle to keep Patton out of Germany. Soon on Patton 360, General
Walton Walker's 20th Corps and the men of the
5th Infantry Division are about to take on
Balck's defenses at Metz. And the heavy guns of a
mysterious enemy stronghold known as Fort Dryad. For Patton, it seems that
Lorraine will continue to be a sea of mud and blood. [cannonfire]
