Original subtitles

August, 1944.

An American battalion is completely cut off

and surrounded by Nazi forces in western France.

Hoping for rescue, lookouts spot an American vehicle

approaching their defensive perimeter.

McMANUS The first thought has to be, our relief is here!

It must be a reconnaissance element of some sort

and they've come to save us.

Shoot!

But hope turns to horror as German soldiers pour out and open fire.

On June 6th, 1944

allied forces finally land troops in Normandy

to open the western front.

But Nazi fanatics and diehards continue to fight ruthlessly for survival.

D-day was a battle.

The allies still need to win the war.

August 8th, 1944.

Near St Malo, France.

Members of the 121st Infantry Regiment

enter the small village of Pleurtuit.

As they press to the French coast.

With L Company in the lead, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Eyler

orders his men to prepare to spend the night,

to allow other battalions to catch up.

After two days of fighting there is no sign of the enemy.

Everything is still.

McMANUS By this point in the war

the ThirdBattalion has been through enough combat

to understand that you don't necessarily want it to be all that quiet.

Boys they left us half a bottle here.

SOLDIER Tank!

A German tank engine roars to life from a side street.

At the same time, German machine guns and rifles open up.

Sniper! Upper window!

Their fire targets the American soldiers

from upper windows and nearby doorways.

Get out of the streets!

We got an ambush on our hands!

McMANUS This is late in the day, and soldiers may be a little bit tired

but all of a sudden instant adrenaline.

The result is chaos.

Go, drive, go!

SOLDIER Incoming!

Without armor of their own, the Americans are virtually defenseless.

Keep firing!

The American 121st Infantry Regiment have been assigned

to the 83rd Infantry Division

to help capture the French port city of St Malo.

Two months after D-day, the allies have a supply problem.

Machines, equipment and supplies they need to liberate Europe

pile up in Great Britain.

Allied planners hoped to land 725,000 tons of war material in July

but only 450,000 tons came ashore,

most of it at Omaha and Utah, the original D-day beaches.

They need a proper port.

Capturing St Malo would help.

It has been a famous ocean port for hundreds of years.

Its walls contain a medieval fortress known as the citadel.

Sitting high with water on three sides,

the citadel is perfectly positioned

to rebuff attack from any direction.

It was further fortified by the Nazis

after the occupation of France in 1940.

In February 1944, Hitler declares a number of sea ports in France

and in Belgium and in the Netherlands as fortresses.

So in German, as Festung.

The defense of Festung St Malo is commanded by Oberst Andreas Von Aulock.

DR.. LIEB When a city is declared a Festung,

the commandant of the fortress

gets full power over all troops garrisoned in this fortress.

So, he's something like a little king in his own little kingdom.

Even for the time, Von Aulock is an eccentric character.

He wears a monocle, always gives orders in a snarling voice.

Von Aulock is a veteran of the eastern front

where he had fought the soviets.

DR. LIEB He had fought in Stalingrad.

He knows what street to street and house to house fighting is.

Von Aulock's skills will be tested.

As the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division

sets to capture the strongholds that ring St Malo.

The 121st Infantry Regiment targets the town of Dinard,

also fortified to protect St Malo from across the Rance River.

Less than four miles from Dinard.

Stay low! Stay low!

In the village of Pleurtuit,

the advance of the 121st comes to a dramatic halt.

The Americans report a German tank firing its gun.

Enemy soldiers use the safety of nearby houses

to pick off the lead company.

Lieutenant Colonel Eyler orders his men to retreat.

Hear me? Double time it out of here now!

Fall back, fall back!

Two have already been killed and others wounded.

Eighth let's go!

They withdraw under fire

and the battalion suffers more casualties as they fall back.

SOLDIER Get out of the streets!

The Americans take up a position 400 yards southeast of town.

The Germans do not pursue.

Let's go!

Eyler commands 121st Infantry Regiment's Third Battalion,

made up of about 800 men.

The second and third battalions both set off the day before.

But encountered strong resistance.

The Germans try everything to slow down the Allied advance.

So they set up roadblocks so that every road is an obstacle to the Americans.

SOLDIER I need men on the left and on the right.

Move.

The German defensive positions are organized as kampfgruppe,

or battle group, Bacherer.

Named for its commanding officer Oberst Rudolf Bacherer.

DR. LIEB Bacherer is a cavalry officer from the First World War,

becomes a civvie in the interwar years,

and then is called up for service again in the Second World War

as a reserve officer.

He seems to be a very competent and brave commander.

With loads of battle experience from the Eastern front.

Then in '44 he's fighting in Normandy as a regimental commander.

And takes over command of 77th Division, when the actual division commander dies.

Bacherer must now make the capture of St Malo

as expensive as possible for the Americans.

SOLDIER Down!

SOLDIER Get down.

SOLDIER Incoming!

SOLDIER Get to cover now!

SOLDIER Move! Move!

Earlier that day, Eyler had managed to break through

one of Bacherer's roadblocks on the left flank

and pulled ahead of 2nd Battalion.

But after being pushed out of Pleurtuit by Bacherer's men,

they will wait for the other battalions to catch up.

Then capture Pleurtuit together in the morning.

As they dig in, Eyler sends word to bring forward the aid station

and battalion surgeon to treat the wounded.

Early the next morning, Private First-Class Albert Mixon,

and Corporal Ben Graves head back towards the roadblock

behind the American position.

They must replenish supplies to prepare for the coming attack.

In the darkness, Mixon spots what he believes are other members

of his battalion near the roadblock.

SOLDIER Americans!

He realizes his mistake when they fire on his jeep.

SOLDIER Stay low, stay low!

Mixon flees back to the American line.

As he reports to his platoon sergeant, the Germans open fire.

Striking three American jeeps and blowing up two loads of ammunition.

Mixon and the others hold off the attack,

to hook up with the rest of third battalion.

McMANUS The troubling thing about this attack,

it's coming from behind

and of course you never want that.

Lieutenant Colonel Eyler sends out a patrol

and confirms that the roadblock is now heavily defended by enemy soldiers.

Eyler and his men cannot advance into Pleurtuit without reinforcement

and now cannot retreat.

They are trapped.

I just got a message from HQ...

When he reaches headquarters, Eyler receives his orders.

The battalion is to hold at all costs.

August, 1944.

Western France.

German forces recapture a roadblock behind an American unit.

DR. LIEB Bacherer surrounds the US battalion and encircles it.

It's very typical for German doctrine in the Second World War.

If there is a chance, try to regain the initiative as soon as possible.

Counter attack at the soonest opportunity.

And this is a classical example of that.

I want ten men out by the field there...

Lieutenant Colonel Eyler has been ordered

to hold their tenuous position at all costs.

McMANUS He's going to do what most any battalion commander in the US Army

would do which is to begin to fan out his companies and create a perimeter,

to maximize his fire power.

In his perimeter defense, I Company sits on the right of the road,

across from L Company.

With K Company to the rear.

Eyler sets up a command post at the center, in a one-story farmhouse.

Eyler is fortunate that the regiment's anti-tank guns kept pace with them the day before.

They are now positioned with L Company to guard the road to the village of Pleurtuit

which had been their objective.

Now Nazi forces surround them on all sides.

The American attack will have to wait.

At around 0930, men from I Company spot something strange.

About 15 German soldiers, crawl along a ditch beside the road from Pleurtuit.

Grey blankets on their backs as crude camouflage.

Over on the hill there's definitely Germans over there.

Stay down!

SOLDIER Krauts over there!

400 yards.

Hold fire.

The men from L and I Companies wait patiently

until the Germans close within 200 yards.

Then open fire.

Fire!

Three Germans are killed and several wounded.

The remainder withdraw back to the village.

Keep up the line of fire!

McMANUS The purpose is probably to probe the perimeter

to get a sense of what kind of strength

they're facing on the opposite side.

It's a little bit of a clumsy probe um, but probably just that.

Fire!

But only 30 minutes later, explosions erupt.

German artillery and mortar fire start to fall within the American defensive perimeter.

And in quick succession the command post is struck by two direct hits.

SOLDIER Reloading!

Two officers are killed and two NCO's are injured.

DR. LIEB This 10:00 counter attack

clearly shows that the Germans are not defeated.

That the Germans are able to launch a counter attack

and that the Germans are still able to inflict

heavy casualties upon the Americans.

It's very shocking to see officers at that level killed so quickly.

This was a bad situation.

It creates a sense of fear and crisis among any soldier.

As the rescue and first aid efforts continue,

the men hear the worst possible sound.

Tank!

A stug three, a German self-propelled assault gun built on a panzer chassis.

McMANUS To a typical American infantry man enemy armor's terrifying.

It doesn't really matter the particulars of what it is and what it isn't,

what does matter is it does create a, a kind of a tendency towards fear

and panic that a tank can basically wreck and destroy your world.

The stug three approaches from the northeast followed closely by infantry.

When it gets within 500 yards, its gun opens fire.

Keep firing! Come on!

In the panic, it appears that the command post may be completely wiped out.

We need reinforcements!

The stug three closes in to about 300 yards.

Suddenly, assistance from a completely unexpected place.

A young private, Francis Gardner, takes matters into his own hands.

He aims with a bazooka.

A bazooka was one of the standard US Army anti-tank weapons

and it basically looks like a pipe.

It's about three feet long and it's held over the shoulder and it fires a rocket

that has a special anti-tank warhead called a shape charge,

so even though the rocket is quite small it can penetrate a great deal of armor.

The three and a half pound rocket can be launched up to 600 yards,

through as much as five inches of armor plate.

Gardener's first shot misses.

Load one eighteen.

But the American anti-tank guns open up at the same time.

Up. Fire!

A shot hits and disables the stug three.

As the crew tries to escape the flames, Gardner lines up a second shot.

SOLDIER Keep firing! Let 'em have it!

This time he does not miss.

His shot strikes and kills the fleeing crew.

Americans love these underdog stories of the,

the bespectacled soldier who takes out the German tank, kind of thing.

What is unusual in this instance is yes of course it's very customary

for troops to fire at uh, a retreating tank crew as they get out of the tank,

but not usually with a bazooka.

The bazooka is not really designed to be that kind of anti-personnel weapon,

that according to the accounts you know it kills the tank crew.

So it must've been a really accurate shot

and they must've been in the exact wrong place at the wrong time.

The German infantry soldiers join the battle,

and press forward into the fray.

Covering fire!

But the Americans hold the line.

After 20 minutes, the Germans fall back

towards the village of Pleurtuit.

SOLDIER Move out, move out, move!

Within the American perimeter the battalion is in disarray.

SOLDIER Medic! Need a medic!

After three attacks in rapid succession,

along with the attack the day before,

there are more and more wounded.

The battalion surgeon had not made it through

the roadblock the night before.

There is no doctor.

All they have are the limited medical supplies of an advancing battalion.

McMANUS A lot of bandages.

Pressure bandages, tourniquets, morphine ampules,

you would have self-thalidomide,

what they called sulpha powder,

which was to combat infection in a wound.

You might have some blood plasma here and there.

Care is provided by soldiers called medics.

McMANUS A 19 or 20-year-old kid,

who's been basically given two months or so

of rudimentary first aid medical oriented training.

Designed basically to save lives quickly,

patch 'em up and then get 'em back to somewhere else

where they're going to get more substantial medical care.

Unable to evacuate his wounded

Eyler establishes an aid station with medics from each platoon.

They set up in another farm house just behind the command post.

It is primitive. But it is all they've got.

As German artillery continues to target the battalion's position.

The medics and the wounded face a new kind of fight.

August 9th, 1944.

The American 83rd Infantry Division

has orders to capture the French port of St Malo.

Allied forces fight street by street to capture the city.

Its defenders are defiant.

When called to give up, Oberst Andreas Von Aulock allegedly replies,

"I am German. Germans never surrender."

SOLDIER Come on let's go!

Meanwhile, the U.S. 121st Infantry Regiment

is supposed to take out the German guns in nearby Dinard.

SOLDIER Keep firing! Let em have it!

However, two battalions have gotten bogged down

and the German defenders close the gap behind the third battalion.

Cutting them off from the others.

Word of the 'lost battalion'

makes it up the 83rd Infantry Division's chain of command

to General Robert Macon.

McMANUS General Robert Macon

had you know a lot of combat in this war.

He had been a regimental commander in the invasion of North Africa.

When the 83rd had fought in Normandy he had fought quite successfully

given the circumstances and the terrain and the difficulties.

Macon is a mission first kind of guy and he's someone you can rely on.

But Macon is not impressed with the 121st Regiment assigned to him.

If I'm a platoon leader and I think the Third Platoon uh isn't any good

because I'm the first platoon leader and these are my guys.

Well this can be true all the way up the line to a division commander

who will trust his guys in the 83rd Infantry and his three regiments.

He doesn't know the 121st Infantry.

Macon finds the slow progress of the 121st suspicious.

Having an entire battalion of 800 men encircled by the enemy

further undermines his confidence.

But before he can turn his attention to rescuing the third battalion,

Macon's 83rd Infantry Division must capture

St Joseph's Hill on the east side of the Rance River.

There was a gigantic granite outcropping

that the Germans had fortified with a number of bunkers

and also with 400, 55-millimeter guns.

So, until they could eliminate that defense post they really couldn't conduct

the campaign to reduce the rest of the St Malo fortifications.

The lost battalion will have to wait.

On the west side of the Rance,

within the vulnerable defensive perimeter of the third battalion,

the medics do their best to keep the wounded men alive.

Many however, have lost a lot of blood.

Surrounded by the enemy on the ground, the only hope comes from above.

A plan develops to have two planes from the 56th Field Artillery drop blood plasma.

All goes smoothly, with the crates landing within a few feet of the drop zone.

But triumph fades fast,

as the battalion members watch the planes lock wings

and tumble to the ground.

Members of K Company crawl toward the burning wreckage.

It is too late.

There is nothing they can do to help.

All four airmen are killed in the crash.

But the blood plasma gives the gift of life.

By the end of August 9th, Macon's 83rd Infantry Division captures St Joseph's Hill.

He reorganizes his forces, and assigns his 331st Infantry Regiment to liberate

the lost battalion and then together capture Dinard.

Macon takes personal command, to make sure they do.

As the Third Battalion awaits rescue,

the men remain surrounded by the enemy and on high alert.

Just after midnight,

a lookout spots an American vehicle emerging from the fog south east of the perimeter.

Help may finally have arrived.

August, 1944.

A battalion of American soldiers fighting to liberate the French city of St Malo

have become encircled by German forces commanded by Colonel Rudolf Bacherer.

Bacherer has ordered a series of attacks against the GI's.

Late one night, an American vehicle approaches the U.S. defensive perimeter.

McMANUS The first thought has to be,

"Oh my gosh, our relief is here.

It must be a reconnaissance element of some sort and they've come to save us."

It almost seems miraculous,

until shots ring out from the darkness at the Americans.

The car had been captured by the Germans.

They are using it to penetrate the American lines.

DR. LIEB Captured enemy kit was quite useful in the war for both sides.

And at this stage of the war, an American reconnaissance car comes in quite handy.

So instead of a rescue force, the car is a Trojan horse.

Staff Sergeant Clyde Webster, responds quickly

and grabs a B.A.R. ready to fight back.

B.A.R. is the abbreviation for Browning Automatic Rifle

and it's the squad automatic rifle in a U.S. Army infantry squad.

It is classified as a light machine gun with a 20 round clip.

ZALOGA It offers automatic fire,

meaning that when the gunner starts firing it,

it's just round after round after round.

Unlike a rifle which is semi-automatic which means that you

have to fire a round at a time.

You have to keep squeezing the trigger.

Easily operated by a single soldier it is considered

one of the most reliable weapons of the Second World War.

American rifle fire ignites the car.

The crew within, try to escape the burning vehicle.

SOLDIER Let 'em have it!

Webster picks them off one by one.

Then continues his attack against other German soldiers advancing in support.

SOLDIER Keep firing!

The fighting continues intermittently until 0330

when the surviving German troops melt back into the night.

SOLDIER Fire!

The steady stream of attacks continue to draw down

the battalion's limited supplies.

An infantry unit when it goes into combat usually will only carry

a small amount of ammunition and a small amount of food.

As combat unit, there is no kitchen facility or mess hall.

The men have only K rations.

A package which weighs a little over two pounds

and contains dehydrated and canned food.

They can be carried by individual soldiers, and some were transported by vehicle.

The men of the lost battalion enter their fourth day since

leaving the security of the American lines.

Still without a doctor, regular GI's called medics, care for men with their

limited medical supplies at the Purple Heart Hotel.

McMANUS Purple Heart Hotel as the Americans colorfully called it

was just a make shift aid station,

right there where the wounded are gathering and where you see,

I think it's fair to say, the worst of the suffering at the Battalion.

There is no way to protect the injured from the incoming German artillery.

Despite the shortages, some of their patients are German.

McMANUS Even a situation like this where they're surrounded,

they cared for them.

Almost always.

And in many cases, the medics prioritized

based on the severity of the wound rather than nationality.

That wasn't always true, but in this case, it was.

Ah, because there were some pretty badly hurt Germans.

The American position is tenuous.

McMANUS Think about it. We're surrounded.

We don't know the size of the German force.

It's very possible that all of us will become POW's tomorrow or the next day.

So, it might behoove us to treat the Germans well

if we hope to be treated well in captivity, too.

On August 10th, General Macon arrives at 121st Regiment's headquarters

to assume command of the mission to locate the third battalion and capture Dinard.

By 20:00 hours, the men of Macon's 331st Infantry Regiment

jump off and advance.

Throughout the night, flares and colored smoke are used

to signal and locate the lost battalion.

Despite their efforts, no contact is made.

Macon's men return to action the next morning, jumping off at 08:30.

Their progress is slow as they encounter the same roadblocks

and resistance that delayed the 121st.

SOLDIER Stay low!

SOLDIER Keep firing!

McMANUS Now that Macon is seeing the level of German opposition

that they're facing

he begins to realize exactly what these guys from the other regiment have been up against.

Move out! Fall out!

It is not until 21:30,

Macon's men break through a particularly tough roadblock.

Before they even consolidate their position,

they come under immediate counter attack by Bacherer's men.

SOLDIER Fire!

Incoming!

So that evening Macon finds himself defending his position,

and his lack of progress to his commander.

McMANUS That happened all the time.

Ah, you know, regimental commander justifying a division commander.

Division to corps.

Corps to army.

And so, Macon wants to make sure Middleton understands, very clearly,

hey the, you know, the resistance is tougher than we had thought.

This isn't because any deficiency on my part or my division.

From within the lost battalion's defensive perimeter,

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Eyler sends out regular patrols

to connect with relief forces.

But they have not had any success.

So, on August 12th, rescue may seem unlikely for the patrol from K Company,

when they leave the battalion's defensive perimeter at 11:00 hours.

They move to the left flank

in the hopes of locating members of 331st.

When they notice movement up ahead.

Get down.

A patrol of American soldiers from the Third Battalion,

121st Infantry Regiment creeps forward,

hoping to make contact with the American 331st.

The battalion has been encircled and cut off for four days by Nazi forces,

in their bid to liberate St Malo , France.

As they try to avoid the surrounding Germans,

the patrol drops to the ground when they spot movement ahead.

They have been discovered... by Americans.

McMANUS It's a great moment.

You know, when the patrol realizes that these guys come from another unit,

to try and relieve them and that this might mean help is on the way.

It's such an American notion, here we are embattled

and now the cavalry is here to help us.

The two patrols connecting is the first step.

The 331st will still have to have fight their way

in through the surrounding Germans.

McMANUS All of this takes many, many hours to develop, of course.

So the, the patrol contact is just tip of the iceberg

of what you're eventually going to need to do.

August 14th, 1944.

The final breakthroughs puts all three battalions of the 121st

in addition to the 331st Regiment

in position to capture the town of Dinard

and knock out the guns defending the citadel at St Malo.

The Americans continue to encounter stiff German resistance.

Under the command of Rudolph Bacherer.

Covering fire!

McMANUS Bacherer strikes me as a professional.

Not like a Nazi fanatic.

He strikes me as more of a military professional of the sort

who are really the backbone of the German armed forces

and makes such formidable enemies.

He's going to use a lot of the architecture

which is very well suited to defensive warfare,

on a heavy stone buildings and all that.

SOLDIER Go! Go, go, go!

Four soldiers from Company G volunteer to attack a subterranean fortification

surrounded by a high stone wall, and topped by a steel fence.

Sergeant William Vaughn uses a bazooka to break through.

With little effect.

Vaughn eventually locates a tunnel through which he leads his group.

The tunnel takes them inside,

and they capture the position rounding up 200 German P.O.W.s.

Okay, can you make it happen?

SOLDIER Yes sir. I can.

Good. Thank you sir.

At the same time, German defensive mortars try to halt the advance.

While American guns target the Nazi strongholds.

As night falls, fires burn.

Dinard is in flames.

Despite the fact the Americans make it all the way to the coast,

they have yet to locate and capture Rudolph Bacherer,

the defiant commander of Dinard.

Early the next day, the phone in Bacherer's bunker rings.

The voice on the other end of the line introduces himself as

American General, Robert Macon.

Macon's able to call because the, the Americans had captured a, a German pillbox

that had a phone line that basically went to Bacherer.

So, a very logical way, pick up the phone and call the guy.

If you want him to surrender, ask him yourself.

Through an interpreter, Macon explains

that the Americans have captured all the German strong points in Dinard

and asks Bacherer to surrender.

DR. LIEB Bacherer refuses to surrender.

For him the terms are not honorable enough.

But at the same time he asks Macon to take care of his wounded.

Macon agrees.

Macon says, "Well sure we'll, we'll take care of your wounded. Absolutely."

A short cease fire is organized.

German wounded are transferred into American care as prisoners of war.

Within minutes, the peace is once again shattered.

With the goal of driving the Germans into final surrender.

Bacherer's position is targeted with white phosphorus,

when an incoming shell strikes an ammunition dump,

it sets off a massive explosion.

Fires spread.

The straw bedding in the dormitories speeds the flames.

Bacherer's men pour out to escape the smoke.

Bacherer sees that further resistance is impossible.

He and 350 men surrender.

Dinard has now fallen.

But the citadel and the city of St Malo still hold out.

Colonel Andreas Von Aulock remains defiant.

With supporting guns from the west silenced,

General Macon must now capture the final prize.

August, 1944.

As two American regiments liberate the nearby town of Dinard,

other units commanded by General Robert Macon close in on the walled city of St Malo.

Located on the French coast, the allies have been desperate to capture it

to help move men and materials into France to liberate Europe.

The citadel of the city is held by Colonel Andreas Von Aulock,

who is known as the mad Colonel.

The Germans also call him the mad Colonel.

But not, not necessarily in a negative way, yeah?

So, Von Aulock was respected by his men, yeah.

'Cause he was, he was a character, he was eccentric.

But still, his men followed him, yeah.

American general Macon knows the job must be completed.

They cannot leave pockets of German resistance behind them

as they advance further into Brittany.

The citadel must fall.

SOLDIER Forward! Forward!

Two eight-inch guns with a range up to ten miles

are brought within 1,500 yards of the fort.

They are less efficient against the solid stone walls,

but can target portholes and vents with direct fire.

In addition, Macon positions companies with 4.2 inch mortars.

Load up.

The 4.2 inch mortar crews would use a mixture of high explosive

and white phosphorus smoke rounds.

The high explosives would blow open the buildings.

Then they would follow up with the smoke round

because the white phosphorus had incendiary effects.

The white phosphorus smoke shells would start the building on fire.

To further soften up the fortifications in the final drive,

Macon relies on near constant aerial bombardment.

They drop a new kind of incendiary into the battle... jellied gasoline.

Jellied gasoline is probably better known as napalm

and it originally started its combat use during World War II.

It contains an additive to make it sticky.

Meaning that if you drop a big tank of this stuff from an aircraft

onto a target, instead of the liquid simply spreading out

the jellied gasoline somewhat sticks to the material

and it stays there and burns.

Lieutenant Colonel Seth McKee

prepares to take off in his P-38,

with 165 gallon tanks filled with napalm.

As McKee flies over, he releases the tanks,

which contain phosphorous grenades to ignite the napalm.

Amazingly, it lands in a ventilation shaft of the citadel.

It brings to mind obviously Luke Skywalker's

perfect shot against the Death Star in Star Wars.

But it is somewhat that dramatic in, in terms of its effect.

The jellied gasoline is not used to burn the occupants.

ZALOGA When the jellied gasoline hits the top of a bunker,

it starts sucking out all of the oxygen that's inside the bunker

and so it destroys a heavily defended

bunker by suffocating the crews inside.

When McKee looks back, he sees the Germans have raised the white flag.

He calls off his men and they drop the rest of their incendiaries

on another target.

Soon after, Von Aulock and 550 of his men surrender,

despite the promise to hold out.

DR. LIEB It's always quite difficult to tell whether these orders of fighting

to the last cartridge, fighting to the last man,

whether they really mean it for real.

Quite often they just give these orders in order

to show to Hitler their will to resist.

Because they are summoned to fight to the last cartridge,

and if they don't do this job,

it will have consequences against their family.

It takes two weeks to capture the fortifications of St Malo,

occupied by the Nazis for four years.

General Macon's troops are persistent.

His 83rd Infantry Division capture nearly 10,000 German prisoners of war.

The lost American battalion of the 121st weathered its four days of isolation.

After the series of constant attacks,

they report 31 killed, 106 wounded and 16 missing.

Unfortunately, Von Aulock had ordered the port facilities destroyed on August 7th,

to ensure that they provide no assistance to allied forces.

So, while the fall of the French port cities proves inevitable,

Nazi holdouts tie up allied forces for many weeks.

This allows time for others to retreat and secure the German border,

and set the stage for a series of desperate battles.

The war in Europe would continue for another eight and a half months.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.