Original subtitles

December 1944.

Cameras capture German troops as they smash through Allied lines.

And surround outnumbered American units in the Ardennes,

Unstoppable King Tiger Tanks power through the forest.

Heavy snow and below freezing temperatures send American plans

for victory into a spin.

SS Commandos wreak havoc behind Allied lines

The Battle of the Bulge is the single biggest and bloodiest

battle American soldiers have ever fought.

Now stunning newly colorized footage

takes us to the very heart of the fighting.

This is Adolf Hitler's last gamble to turn the tide of war.

In the fall of 1944, 37-year-old Hollywood director

George Stevens films in Kodachrome as US Forces

in Normandy drive the Nazis from France.

They see what it means to be greeted as liberators.

The town of St Malo in Normandy is in ruins.

But locals are still jubilant.

They have survived four years of brutal Nazi rule.

Allied confidence is high.

Stevens also films US General George S. Patton

swaggering with his ivory-handled

Colt 45 on his hip,

and General Omar Bradley celebrating as they present

awards for valor during the invasion.

Even British General Bernard Montgomery,

Ground Forces Commander cracks a smile

as he gives out bravery medals to US Service men.

All three play nice for the photo op.

But behind the scenes,

there is a fierce disagreement about what to do next.

Flush with success after Normandy, they have no idea

that the war is about to take a dramatic turn.

One that will result in the US Army's largest

and bloodiest battle of World War II.

The Nazi war machine is far from beaten.

German factories continue to churn out ammunition and tanks.

Including their pride and joy, the new heavily armored

68 ton King Tigers.

German tigers have tusks, enormous 88 millimeter guns.

The German Armed Forces, the Wehrmacht,

is still a potent mobile attacking force.

Now they are regrouping in Eastern France.

And Adolf Hitler is scheming a new counter attack

that will drive the Allies back into the sea.

The Allied Commanders are oblivious to Hitler's plans.

Many believe the war will be over before Christmas.

Eisenhower's new broad front

stretches along the Belgian border.

The British and American forces have their eyes on Antwerp.

They need a large port to supply their armies

and continue their advance towards Germany.

On September 2nd, the Allies push into Belgium.

A Belgian underground fighter secretly films

the Germans as they flee Antwerp, however they can.

Resistance men cut down street signs to confuse their retreat.

They also sack the homes of suspected collaborators.

On September 4, the first British units

drive into Antwerp in Sherman tanks.

The mood changes to one of unlimited celebration

as the crowds again embrace their Allied liberators.

Some six thousand German POWs get a very different treatment.

The anger of the liberated Belgians turns against

the imprisoned German soldiers.

These soldiers are now being brought to all kinds

of prison pens across Antwerp.

But the most famous, or infamous of them, is the Zoo of Antwerp.

So, where once the mighty lions roared,

now sit these meek and humiliated German soldiers.

They will later be sent to Prisoner of War

camps in the US and UK.

But the port at Antwerp is still not in Allied hands.

German troops are dug in on the muddy banks

of the Scheldt Estuary,

the only strategic point into Antwerp harbor.

In fact for all the talk of victory,

the Allies initial attempts to invade Germany fail.

In September they fight a bloody drawn out battle

in the dense woodland of Hurtgen Forest.

It becomes the longest single battle

the US army has ever fought.

There are more than 33,000 casualties.

It's been three months of near continuous fighting since D-Day.

The men who won the battle for France

need experienced reinforcements. But there aren't any.

Four days after landing in Europe,

the 106th infantry division

is already filmed heading to the front line.

The vast majority have no combat experience.

Among them is college student turned GI Kurt Vonnegut.

He enlisted as an artillery mechanic.

But the Army needs foot soldiers.

There were not only college kids but people

who had been let out of jail, given the opportunity

to make their country proud of them instead of ashamed.

And we didn't know how bad it was

or what it was like on the front.

In December 1944, these untrained men find themselves

in the heavily forested Ardennes region of Belgium.

One of just three divisions

covering 80 miles on the southern front.

Facing them is the notorious Siegfried Line,

a dense defensive belt of minefields, tank traps

and bunkers protecting the German border.

The sector is so quiet that GIs call it the "Ghost Front."

There are wide gaps in the line between units.

But the Allies consider the Ardennes

to be almost impassable.

The terrain is extremely difficult

for any military operation.

It's hilly there is a lot of forest areas.

There are not many roads leading from west to east

that the Germans could use.

There is only a limited number of paved roads

that are suitable for the movement of heavy armor

and it is basically and practically a maze.

But the Nazis know the way through.

Four years earlier the Germans launched a massive attack

right through this same forest!

Now Hitler wants to do it again

and drive a wedge between the Allies.

In July 1944, the wooden map room

in Adolf Hitler's command center, the Wolf's Lair,

is blown apart.

Lieutenant Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg

and several army generals have planted a bomb

in a suitcase in an attempt to assassinate Hitler.

They want to take power and negotiate peace with the Allies.

Four men die in the blast.

But the newsreels are quick to show

that Hitler himself is alive.

The coup has failed.

By this stage Hitler has lost trust in his Army Generals

and the army officers because of the 20th of July plot 1944.

And he knows that the Waffen SS are bound to him

by a personal oath and he can expect more loyalty

from them than the army.

Wearing signature pea-dot camouflaged uniforms,

the Waffen SS are the military wing of the SS,

Hitler's fanatical elite guard

They will be the spear point in a bold new attack.

Right at the Allied weak point in the Ardennes.

Code Named Operation Autumn Mist.

Three German Armies will launch a large-scale attack.

The aim is to drive a wedge between the Allies in the north

and south, cut off their supplies,

and break Hitler's enemies into pieces.

If now we can deliver a few more heavy blows

then at any moment this artificially bolstered common

front may suddenly collapse with a gigantic clap of thunder.

When Hitler looks at the battlefield,

ideology clearly plays a role.

He doesn't look at the US Army

as some huge conquering force;

he sees it as a mongrel army

of different races and ethnicities.

And in Hitler's racial world view, that's a real weakness.

In the north the Sixth Panzer Army

will drive through the Northern Ardennes.

Their ultimate goal is to retake Antwerp.

The Fifth Panzer Army will attack through

the heart of the Ardennes region.

While the Seventh Army

protects the southern flank of the operation.

They must complete the entire attack in just four days,

or the Allies have time to bring in reinforcements.

They plan it for late November or early December

when the Ardennes is famously fogged in.

Hitler is betting that this autumn mist

will ground Allied Air support.

And he's counting on his new favorite weapon,

the new King Tigers, to power through the forest.

They rumble into formation on the Western front.

The Assault force will be 240,000 strong.

To support the tanks, Hitler rebrands the new infantry

regiments as "Volksgrenadiere" -- The People's Grenadiers.

Some are hardened veterans but there are also older men

who would previously have been considered unfit for the army.

And teenagers.

The word Volk in their name, means people.

So, these are divisions now drawn from the masses

of the German people. The distinction between

civilians and soldiers becomes blurred,

as they all rise up to defend Nazi Germany,

and try to stave off defeat.

Troops including the Volksgrenadier

will be equipped with a deadly new automatic rifle the STG44.

It can fire faster than any other infantry rifle

on the battlefield.

While the Wehrmacht gears up,

Hitler consults with one of his best-know SS officers,

Otto Skorzeny.

Skorzeny is a Commando Specialist.

He's already famous for the daring rescue

of the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

The dueling scar on his cheek only enhances his reputation.

Now he will be in charge of a unit creating havoc

behind enemy lines, Operation Greif.

Commandos in Operation Greif are going to attempt

to pass themselves off as Americans.

Using American uniforms, speaking the language;

trying to get into the American rear, confuse American troops,

shoot up American supply depots.

Operation Autumn Mist will be blitzkrieg all over again.

Thousands of troops set out for the Ardennes.

Convoys of tanks drive along the snowy forest roads.

Camouflage and the weather

provide cover from Allied Aerial Reconnaissance.

By the middle of December Hitler's forces are ready.

A quarter of a million German troops

are poised to attack through the Ardennes.

Astonishingly the Allies do not respond to reports

of these troops massing behind the Siegfried Line.

They think the Germans are just bringing in reinforcements

to hold off possible American attacks.

In the early hours of December 16th,

American soldiers are out digging

muddy foxholes in the forest.

They have no idea what's coming.

There is dense cloud cover over the Ardennes.

Just what Hitler has been hoping for.

At 5:30 am the German artillery sound reveille.

1900 guns target American support positions

and forward defenses.

This will clear the path for the attack.

The earth seemed to break open.

A hurricane of iron and fire went down

on the enemy positions with a deafening noise.

Cameras capture the chaos as German mortars scream in.

Untested and unprepared, the Americans are blown away.

It was a terrifying experience to wake up to the crash

of the artillery and the ear-splitting scream

of the rockets. The ground shook like a bowl of Jell-O.

The German attack in the Ardennes

could have hit a number of US units,

but it hit a completely green one,

and that unit melted away in the face

of the German attack, and now there's a hole

where the US defenses used to be.

Even as their artillery pound away in the Ardennes,

the Germans fire a new weapon

from one of their mobile launches in the Netherlands.

The V-2 Rocket.

This supersonic ballistic missile is developed

as a vengeance weapon against Allied targets.

It's aimed at the docks in newly liberated Antwerp

about 60 miles away.

But instead it hits the roof of the Cinema Rex

in the city center at precisely 3:23pm.

More than a thousand people are packed inside.

The V2 rocket attack that slams into the Cinema Rex in Antwerp,

is utterly devastating. In a matter of seconds,

close to six hundred people are killed.

Half of those are civilians;

the other half are Allied soldiers of all kinds

of nationalities and services.

Among them, many navy personnel

from ships docked in Antwerp port.

It takes more than a week to clear the rubble.

For the Germans the first day of the operation Autumn Mist

is running on schedule.

The 6th Panzer army with their elite SS troops

rumbles through the Northern Ardennes.

In the south the 5th Panzer Army has also broken through

the first US defenses.

The King Tigers roll right past isolated groups

of Allied soldiers defending the forest's villages.

Hitler's gamble is paying off.

Hitler's Ardennes Offensive is going according to plan.

So far, the German troops have stuck to their time-table

and are on course to storm through the thin Allied line.

Once through they'll seize key bridges over

Belgium's Meuse river and push west to the North Sea coast

and cut the Allied Armies in two.

Within two days some German units have advanced

up to 30 miles into Allied territory

creating a bulge in the frontline,

giving the battle its popular name.

This captured footage taken by a German cameraman

shows German soldiers from the 6th Panzer Army

very happy to get their hands on looted Chesterfields and Camels.

Waffen SS troops carrying their new STG44s lead the push.

But many American troops do regroup.

In the northern villages they put up a fierce resistance.

The motorized columns of the 6th Panzer army

are now jammed together on the narrow roads.

Small American units play a crucial role

in delaying German troops in the Ardennes.

They, by holding roads, crossroads, small bridges

over rivers, will derail a very tight

and strict German timetable,

and thereby diminish the chance of German success

in the Ardennes.

With the 6th Panzer Army and their SS units

now held in check by the American forces

they try to find another way through.

Cameras catch the Germans stopping for directions

in the middle of the invasion.

These men are from an SS reconnaissance company

in the 6th Army.

They've found a muddy road through the forest.

Towards a town called Malmedy.

Leading the 6th Panzer Army advance is a powerful

battle group commanded by SS officer Joachim Peiper.

On December 17th one of Peiper's units captures

an American truck convoy at a crossroads near the town.

134 GIs surrender.

But the SS do not want to be slowed down by prisoners.

They herd them into a field and massacre more than 80 men.

Then they continue on their way.

Almost four weeks later

advancing US forces find their frozen corpses in the snow.

This is a war crime, and some horrific scenes

play out in that field near Malmedy.

Some of these soldiers beg for mercy and then are shot

anyway by the Waffen SS,

others cry for their mothers before being shot.

Some are actually asked to hand over their watches

before they'll be executed.

Lee Carson from the International News Service,

seen here in Normandy, is one of the few female

war correspondents covering the Battle of the Bulge.

She visits the site and describes the atrocity

as a mass slaying that made Custer's famous last stand

pale in bloody comparison.

The Malmedy Massacre is not an isolated incident.

On the same day German cameras

film POWs from the 106th Infantry Division.

Among the prisoners are the black soldiers

of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion

who are supporting the American frontline positions.

Staff Sergeant George Shomo,

who has been wounded in both legs,

and his comrades are paraded for the cameras

in this German propaganda film.

George Shomo is sent to a POW camp in Germany.

But 11 of his comrades hide out in a house

in the nearby village of Wereth.

Until they are betrayed to the SS.

And these men were tortured,

they were stabbed through their eyes,

their fingers were cut off, their limbs were broken,

they were shot in the head.

They were mutilated.

Peiper and 70 other SS men

later face a war crimes trial for the Malmedy massacre.

...session at least two thirds of the members present...

...sentences you to death by name.

Such time and place as our authority may...

Peiper's death sentence is later commuted to life imprisonment.

But charges are never brought against anyone

for the murders of the 11 soldiers at Wereth.

During that time, particularly in the South,

if a white was accused of killing a black person,

overwhelmingly, charges would not be brought.

If charges were brought, and the person was put on trial

for that crime, the jury deliberation

may last two or three minutes, and invariably,

that person would be found not guilty

and I think that same type of thinking played out in terms

of the prosecution of the murders of the Wereth 11.

German footage shows thousands of Americans,

many of them wounded, taken prisoner in the Ardennes.

General Eisenhower decides to take drastic action.

At a crucial meeting on December 19,

he overrules General Bradley.

And orders General Patton to stop the German advance.

Patton's Third Army is an experienced fighting force.

But they are still days away.

The 6th Panzer army and its heavily armed SS units

have stalled in the north.

But the 5th is still pushing forward,

toward two towns at key road junctions in the US sector.

St Vith and Bastogne.

Eisenhower's only immediate reserves

are the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions.

He sends - the 82nd to St Vith and the 101st to Bastogne.

Their orders are to prevent the Germans breaking through

to the town at any cost.

Christmas is five days away.

The Germans are coming for Bastogne.

Some locals gather what they can and get out.

Everyone is on edge.

Otto Skorzney's sabotage plan,

Operation Greif, has been implemented.

This Signal Corps footage shows a German prisoner,

caught dressed in GI fatigues behind The Allied lines.

Skorzeny's men cause as much havoc as possible

committing small acts of sabotage.

When captured they are treated as spies and executed.

Operation Greif sows paranoia in the Allied ranks.

The Americans tighten up their security at checkpoints.

Military police bombard innocent soldiers with questions

about the World Series and Mickey Mouse's girlfriend

to make sure that they are not imposters.

There are not that many German agents

involved in Operation Greif,

but they do manage to create mass confusion,

chaos, and panic at times.

Especially, with regards to Belgian civilians,

because now you have American soldiers wondering everywhere

in the Ardennes, is this a Belgian civilian,

or a dressed-up German soldier?

On December 19th some 10,000 of the 101st Airborne Division,

the paratroopers called "The Screaming Eagles"

pour into Bastogne. Orders are to grab what they can carry

and get to the front.

The next day the 5th panzer army reaches the outskirts

of Bastogne and surrounds them.

They want the network of roads that runs

from the town through the Ardennes.

So while the bulk of the army pushes west,

the remainder lay siege to Bastogne.

Conditions in the Ardennes are now near arctic.

Visibility is almost zero. There is no air support.

And the Americans have no cold weather gear.

It's hand shovels versus frozen ground.

Reward for their hard work is a cold foxhole.

And low rations.

Man it was one cold blast up there.

You couldn't touch the tanks or your hands stuck to the metal.

The tanks just couldn't make it.

They were sliding back like bears on a slippery slide.

Foxholes are meant to provide cover from incoming artillery.

They'll need it!

The Germans open up all around them.

The Germans surrounded us, were blowing away

the woods acre by acre.

They were shooting German 88s that would hit the trees

and shrapnel would spray everywhere.

We were like sitting ducks, exhausted; we had no reserves.

At night the Germans use giant searchlights

to help them probe the Bastogne defenses.

When the light catches a gun or a foxhole - they open fire.

The Germans heavily outnumber, and outgun, the Americans.

The 101st are paratroopers.

They only carry semi-automatic M1 rifles,

the primary weapon of American infantrymen.

But they do have some support.

Including the African-American Artillery Field Battalion,

the 969th.

The Battle of the Bulge is the first time in World War II

that Black units are allowed to fight alongside white units.

One of the units, the 969th Field Artillery Battalion,

an all-black unit, provides fire support

in the defense of Bastogne.

The 969th fires 155 millimeter Howitzers,

and they are major players, major supporters

of the 101st Airborne Division during the defense of Bastogne.

The situation seems hopeless.

On December 22nd,

Acting Commander General Anthony McAuliffe

is awakened by a German invitation to surrender.

He writes back: Nuts!

The 101st stands its ground.

The German push to split the Allied forces,

so precisely coordinated and timed with the weather,

is stalling.

The following day the skies clear over Bastogne.

And the Allied Air forces go into action.

A formation of Mitchell and Boston Bombers

swoop in on German supply lines. And unload.

Fighter Bombers strafe trucks and panzers

trapped in traffic jams on the Ardennes's icy roads.

Most welcome for the Screaming Eagles are the C47 Skytrains

airdropping medicine, blankets, ammo and food.

The Germans respond with their heaviest attack on Bastogne,

on Christmas day.

The chilling sound of Nebelwefer rockets,

the screaming mimis, fills the sky.

But the re-supplied Allied troops

fire back hard with howitzers and field guns.

Then on December 27th, General Patton's 350,000-man Third Army

finally links up with the beleaguered defenders

at Bastogne.

The siege is broken.

A jubilant Patton can barely contain himself.

We hit the sons of bitches on the flank and stopped them cold.

Now that may sound like George Patton is a great genius.

Actually he had damned little to do with it.

All he did was to give orders.

But Bastogne residents have little left to celebrate.

Director George Stevens's rare color footage

shows the town in ruins.

Civilians pick through the wreckage,

attempting to resume their lives.

And US soldiers recover the wounded

and give toys and ribbons to the town's children.

The smoke is finally beginning to clear over the Ardennes.

But Hitler has one more surprise for the Allies.

The weather in the Ardennes breaks for good

on New Year's Day 1945.

On the ground Germans forces are in a muddy retreat.

Their push to retake Antwerp,

cut off the Allied armies to the north

and force a surrender has stalled in the Ardennes.

The offensive is on the verge of collapse.

But Adolf Hitler makes one last gamble.

Operation Bodenplatte.

This German propaganda film shows how

in the early hours of the morning, 900 fighter aircraft

take to the skies to launch simultaneous attacks

against Allied airfields.

The brief is to shoot up every Allied plane

and hangar they can see.

To inflict enough damage on the air power

to give the ground forces in the Ardennes some breathing space.

Once again the Allies are caught sleeping.

Another major failure of military intelligence.

The attack becomes known amongst the pilots

as the Hangover Raid.

Following a New Year's Eve celebration

we were on our way to dispersal around 5am when the Luftwaffe

arrived on the scene in copious quantities.

We bailed out of the truck and dug into the mud

in our best uniforms while they strafed our drome.

Spitfires scramble to respond.

And dogfights break out.

Allied planes bring down a German Focke-Wulf 190

as the pilot bails out.

The assault is over by noon.

But the hangover lingers... for both sides.

Altogether the Luftwaffe destroys

about 250 Allied planes.

But they lose around 300 and over 230 pilots.

The shattered wreckage of German hopes

lie scattered across France and Belgium.

The consequences of Operation Bodenplatte

are absolutely dire for Germany and the German air force.

Because of the heavy casualties sustained the German air force

is now no longer able to defend the German airspace

and to prevent the destruction of German cities

by Allied bombers.

The Americans want to strike back.

But ground fog has now replaced the cloud cover

and they can't take off.

So the Allies come up with an ingenious device known as Fido.

They line runways with rows of fuel pipes and ignite them.

The heat disperses the fog and clears the runways for takeoff.

The 8th Air Force bombers, escorted by Thunderbolt

and Mustang fighters attack German positions

in the Ardennes.

They unleash hell.

But the Germans continue to fight ferociously.

They cling to captured villages.

Determined not to give up the ground they have gained.

On January 4 General Patton writes in his diary:

We can still lose this war.

The Germans are colder and hungrier than we are.

But the Nazis attempt to repeat their success

of the 1940 Blitzkrieg has pushed them to the limit.

Although they have forced the Allied line back 60 miles

in four weeks their fuel supplies have now run dry.

Many German troops have to abandon their tanks.

The attacking force is literally out of gas.

Lack of fuel for a German military operation

is like lack of blood in a human body.

The Germans predicate themselves on maneuver;

it's what they are all about. And when there's no fuel,

maneuver is first of all going to slow down,

and then eventually stop altogether.

By mid-January,

Hitler realizes there is no possibility of victory.

The vital SS Units are the first to pull out

and head for the Eastern Front.

Then Hitler orders a retreat

for all German forces in the Ardennes.

From north and south US forces advance

across the snow-covered terrain

picking up German prisoners along the way.

Here in Krinkelt, in the northern sector,

US troops interrogate German prisoners

left behind in the retreat.

And on January 16 the pincers of the First and Third Armies

meet up to crush the famous Bulge.

Hitler's gamble has failed and at a heavy price.

The initiative is again with the Allies.

But the Battle of the Bulge has been a catastrophic blow

to both sides and has left a muddy graveyard

across East Belgium.

The Battle of the Bulge was a decisive US defensive victory.

The Germans had plans to punch through the line,

roll forward, get to Antwerp.

They don't do any of these things. They fail.

And as a result, any hopes they had of victory

in the west have now been dashed.

But let's remember the cost;

this had been a very bloody battle.

The Americans suffer 80,000 casualties,

the German figure is closer to 100,000.

The Allies resume their advance.

In February 1945,

Patton's 3rd Army is rolling on breaching the Siegfried Line.

Then on March 7 1945,

they enter into the heart of Nazi Germany

as jubilant troops cross the Rhine

over the bridge at Remagen.

The Western Allies are one bloody step closer to victory.