Original subtitles

January 1945. Eastern France.

When defiant Nazi forces threaten a newly captured position,

an American soldier runs towards the onslaught

to put himself between his unit and the attack.

But when the enemy closes in...

The battle has gotten bad enough

that he's going to call down artillery basically on his own position.

Will saving the battalion...

cost him his life?

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.

January 23rd, 1945.

The Colmar Forest, eastern France.

Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Ramsey

leads Third Battalion of the American Seventh Infantry Regiment

through the woods.

By his side is First Lieutenant Garlin Conner,

Ramsey's intelligence officer.

The battalion spearheads an attack on German forces,

launched the night before

with a surprise crossing over the Fecht River.

The fighting conditions are terrible.

The winter of 1944 and '45

was one of the coldest ever on record.

There had been quite a bit of snow,

which, uh, of course makes the environment that much more miserable for the soldiers.

Their advance proves relatively quick.

Down!

Until they are hit with fire from a German tank

on the southern edge of the forest.

Shells explode all around,

then the Germans open up with rifle and machine gun fire.

With the battalion under pressure from its left front...

Ramsey must hold their position against a determined enemy.

The Americans had crossed on foot bridges the night before,

which could not support the weight of armor.

Without tank support, Ramsey relies on American artillery

positioned to their rear for back up.

With detailed maps of the French countryside, soon,

American shells begin to drop into the German positions.

But Nazi soldiers will not just give up this place

they believe is a part of Germany.

Alsace had been a source of contention between

Germany and France for centuries.

The local population speaks a German language,

but at various times in history Alsace has been under the French kings.

In more recent times, after the Franco-Prussian war,

Alsace went back to Germany.

And then when World War I ended,

Alsace went back to France.

Nazi forces occupied the region in 1940

reclaiming it as German ethnic soil

and some of its people as members of the new Reich, or empire.

After D-Day, the Allies push hard to liberate France,

and drive out Hitler's soldiers.

In autumn 1944,

Alsace is the last French part occupied by the Germans.

And when the US and French forces push towards Strasbourg and seize it,

Colmar to the south

is the only part that is left over in German hands.

A bridgehead to the west of the River Rhine.

The Germans now defend roughly 850 square miles

around the city of Colmar.

This stubbornly held region becomes known as the Colmar Pocket.

The Allies had tried to, to overrun the Colmar Pocket

in December 1944

and fought several, very, very bloody battles

and did not succeed in reducing the pocket.

After the Nazis launch two counter attacks

from the area in January,

Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower orders a full scale effort

to expel the Germans from Alsace.

The operation will complete the liberation of France

and set the stage for the Allied invasion of Germany from the west.

The effort is led by the French first army

plus several American divisions.

Lieutenant Garlin Conner

serves as part of Seventh Infantry Regiment,

within the American Third Infantry Division.

He has already earned three Silver Stars

for valor in combat,

to go along with three Purple Hearts.

His most recent injury

was a shot to the thigh while on patrol,

just a few days before.

Conner refuses to stay in a field hospital,

and insists on rejoining his unit.

He's the kind of person who feels that

if he leaves before the job is done that perhaps he's shirking.

If I'm there, I'll save more lives

and if I'm not there,

I'll have to then live with the guilt of what might happen

especially to my guys in the unit if something happens to them.

Conner has been with Third Infantry Division since 1942.

The Third Infantry Division was one of the more experienced divisions

and one that saw the most combat in World War II.

They had fought in North Africa,

landed in Sicily and battled up the Italian boot.

After action in Rome and Anzio,

they land in occupied France in August 1944,

and fight to Alsace from the south,

rather than Normandy to the west.

If you were a guy who was in the invasion of North Africa

and you were still with the unit as of Colmar two plus years later,

you were a real fugitive from the law of averages.

Stay low!

Conner is now just a little more than

ten miles from the Rhine River

and the border with Germany.

Finally, American artillery shells and mortar

extract their toll from the enemy.

Third battalion have cleared the strong points

in their sector of the Colmar Forest.

These kind of bloody brawls of attack

and counter attack and the Allied advance

kind of trying to move forward in very slow increments

is really very, very common throughout much of the Colmar Pocket.

Lieutenant Colonel Ramsey orders his battalion

to advance towards its next objective,

another patch of forest called the Brunnwald Woods.

He must hold here

until the other two battalions arrive to cover his right flank.

Then all three will capture the town of Houssen together.

But they must ensure the woods are secure.

As they make their way through the trees,

Ramsey's men spot what looks like an bunker.

It belongs to members of the German 64th corps,

under the command of General Der Infanterie Helmut Thumm,

which defends the pocket.

Helmut Thumm is a general

who sees things very realistic.

He understands that the time of big offensives are over.

The only thing he can do is hold the Colmar Pocket.

Along with the weather,

Thumm's greatest advantage may be the terrain itself.

It is very flat and criss-crossed with rivers and canals

patches of forest provide the only sources of cover.

Thumm's men have added to these.

The Germans have had a lot of time

to prepare for the defense.

So every little town, every little village is a kind of hedgehog.

So with barbed wire, minefields,

and so forth.

The bunker is yet another fortification.

Ramsey.

Ramsey's men are cold and tired.

Ready to hunker down and wait for reinforcement,

but they must assume it is occupied.

Ramsey sends a squad forward...

to see if anyone is home.

January 23rd, 1945.

Eastern France.

American and French forces attack and press towards the city of Colmar.

American Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Ramsey sends a squad forward

to investigate a dugout in the Brunnwald Woods.

His men make their way to the bunker's entrance.

Hearing nothing, they force their way in.

Hey, you!

The Americans surprise a group of German soldiers.

Get up. Get up!

Who then surrender.

Ramsey sets up his command post in the bunker

to prepare for their attack on the town of Houssen

when the other battalions of the Seventh Infantry Regiment arrive.

They fight in Alsace,

a region of eastern France, occupied by the Germans in 1940.

De Gaulle desperately wants to liberate the last section

of what they consider France.

And likewise, the Germans who regard Alsace as German want to defend it.

German General Helmut Thumm soon receives word

that Americans have captured the woods near Houssen.

According to German military doctrine,

if you lose a position,

you have to counter attack immediately,

in order to exploit the weaknesses of the enemy

when he's still trying to consolidate.

When Thumm asks for reinforcements for the task,

he learns he has been assigned battalions from the Second Mountain Division.

Second Mountain Division is a specialized infantry division

fighting in cold weather conditions.

Their soldiers hail from Austria

and the division had been fighting in Norway.

The Second Mountain Division

have held off British and Soviet forces in the Arctic since 1940.

They have hard-won experience

in utilizing terrain and weather conditions to their advantage.

They are now sent in to defend against an Allied winter offensive in France.

Sending a specialized formation

like Second Mountain Division to the Colmar Pocket

shows that this area has got a high military priority.

Thumm knows he must force the Americans back at all costs.

He plans to sneak a battalion of the German Mountain Division soldiers

to within few hundred yards of Ramsey's position

and launch a surprise counter attack to retake the woods.

While unaware of the elite German forces being mobilized against him,

Ramsey does expect a German counter attack

and organizes defense of his exposed flanks.

He sends companies to the west, south, and eastern edges of the woods.

They dig into their defensive positions in the bitter cold and wait.

The fighting for the Colmar Pocket was very heavily shaped by the weather.

It was extremely cold.

The rivers were freezing, which is unusual in that sector.

It was a particularly stiff winter.

Meanwhile...

Seventh Infantry Regiment's second battalion

fight to advance to protect Ramsey's right flank.

But the company's become separated.

Visibility's just really bad for the second battalion.

Now add the fog to it, the fear.

It's kind of a dark and brooding place at that point of the year.

In the confusion,

German soldiers infiltrate the battalion's rear elements.

Hey, you!

The Americans must flush out the intruders in their midst.

Get him!

Some are captured.

Drop it!

By afternoon, second battalion is clear to advance.

Later that day,

Private Robert Dutil, an intelligence aide in third battalion,

approaches Ramsey and Lieutenant Garlin Conner

with some fresh information.

A POW taken prisoner by second battalion

revealed that the Germans plan a counter attack

on the Brunnwald Woods at 0630 the next morning.

Ramsey radios for immediate artillery and armor reinforcement.

Defensive preparations take on a new urgency.

Soldiers dig in and camouflage their machine guns,

but with the ground frozen,

it proves difficult for all the men to entrench.

As 0630 approaches,

the riflemen are alert to any movement in the fields ahead.

But visibility is poor in the pre-dawn darkness.

The expected time of attack passes.

The typical mindset would be,

oh, intelligence thinks

that there's going to be an attack coming at 6:30 this morning.

Man, I hope they're wrong.

After more than an hour of waiting,

their vigilance wanes.

But if you had any experience as a rifleman

by that point in time you would've known the Germans well enough to know

they're not going to just give up this terrain easily.

There's going to be another fight,

and you better be ready for it.

The Nazi Mountain Division just now moves into position.

They leave from the town of Houssen

via a long irrigation ditch,

and occupy a concealed position behind a dyke.

Inside the American command post,

Ramsey remains wary.

He is sure the Germans are up to something

and wants to send out some scouts to confirm,

but none are available.

Garlin Conner volunteers.

Conner and Ramsey had fought together since January of 1944.

When Ramsey had transferred in,

wanting to serve in a combat unit

after serving as an aide de camp to a British general.

He witnessed Conner earn multiple battlefield honors,

as well as numerous wounds.

Knowing Conner qualifies to be sent home,

Ramsey wants to keep him safe

and ensure he makes it back alive.

As Ramsey considers his options...

...mortar shells crash outside.

Get ready.

Their battalion is under attack.

January 24th, 1945.

You, go! Go!

Eastern France.

A battalion of the US Seventh Infantry Regiment surges ahead

in an attack on the last German occupied territory in France--

The Colmar Pocket.

Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Ramsey's men

occupy a small patch of forest with exposed flanks.

And the enemy has just announced its presence

with a round of mortar and artillery shells in the woods outside.

The men of K Company report a Mark Six Tiger Tank,

one of the most potent of all German war weapons,

emerging from some trees.

9 feet high, 27 feet long and 12 feet across,

the Allies have nothing like it.

Some of its armor is four inches thick.

But it is not a Tiger Tank.

There were no Tiger Tanks in the Colmar Pocket.

Even though there's many accounts from

the American side and from the French side.

Enemy armor often creates fear and confusion in soldiers,

making misidentification more likely.

They never received any specific identification training,

so to them a German tank whether it's a Panther

or a Tiger or Panzer 4 or StuG III.

It's a Tiger.

It is probably a StuG III armored fighting vehicle,

built on a Panzer tank chassis, the gun does not rotate.

But still discharges a deadly salvo.

And rakes the American lines along the edge of the woods.

As it fires,

the German Mountain Division soldiers swarm over a dyke

about 200 yards away,

charging across the field

towards the American infantry.

Ramsey's companies unload on the advancing Germans

with machine gun and rifle fire.

Back at the battalion command post,

as the mortar and artillery shatter the woods outside,

Ramsey gets word that six of these Tiger Tanks

along with an entire battalion of soldiers

close in on his position.

It is not a welcome development.

It has to be dealt with somehow.

You want to make sure that your battalion doesn't break and run,

uh, that probably isn't going to happen in the, in the 7th infantry.

But still, how do you fight back?

With his men facing a crisis, Conner approaches Ramsey

with a plan to set up a forward artillery position

between the American line and the oncoming enemy.

If he can get out front,

perhaps he can bring down the big American artillery pieces

against the German attack.

Ramsey hesitates.

If there's anybody in whom you'd have confidence

to go forward and do this kind of thing it's Conner,

but there's another dynamic.

One of the reasons why Ramsey has assigned him to a staff job

is to keep him out of danger.

Ramsey struggles to find another option,

but Conner insists.

You're kind of throwing him to the wolves, maybe,

and knowing how he courts danger,

there's a really good chance that he's not coming back from this.

All that must've rushed through his mind in a hurry, I would think.

Without another word, Conner grabs a radio,

a reel of wire and a sound power telephone

and takes off into the woods.

He has two ways to communicate.

The main means of tactical communication in World War II

was field telephones.

Everyone thinks, oh, we have radios by now,

why isn't everybody using radios?

But the radios in World War II weren't very reliable,

they didn't carry very far.

But to use field telephones

a physical line must be laid

sometimes for hundreds, or thousands of yards,

without a break in the wire.

Conner charges ahead, unspooling the line,

Private Robert Dutil in pursuit to help, if he can.

They dash through the forest towards the battalion's front line.

German artillery explodes all around.

Garlin Conner is on a mission.

January 24th, 1945.

Eastern France.

American Lieutenant, Garlin Conner races towards an enemy attack

of incoming artillery and mortar fire.

He is determined to set up a forward observation position.

An intelligence aide follows close behind.

It had to be so awkward, the dash to the front line.

Radio strapped along and then stringing the telephone wire.

You're weighted down with all this camo gear.

You're moving the telephone line yourself, which isn't generally done, uh,

by an officer, much less an intel officer.

As the enemy artillery hits the forest,

some shells land within 25 yards.

Debris from the tree bursts shower the soldiers.

It's a very single-minded thing.

Because that's what's going to be needed to break up this enemy battalion's attack.

Simple as that.

Conner pauses for a moment at the edge of the American line,

surrounded by the riflemen protecting their position.

Then breaks out about 30 yards beyond.

Cover him!

And throws himself into a ditch.

Private Robert Dutil is not far behind.

He doesn't have a lot of cover.

It's a very shallow kind of ditch or indentation,

which is by all accounts a foot and a half two feet, maybe.

You'll often hear in the descriptions his cheeks, quote unquote, the butt cheeks,

could've been exposed

but also having to raise your head above in order to observe,

just a really, really wild situation.

Conner gets the phone to his ear and calls Ramsey.

Communications are the whole key to this thing,

beyond his own courage,

uh, and the courage of the accompanying riflemen with him.

To make sure that you can access the kind of firepower you need

in order to destroy the enemy.

Conner calls in coordinates to target the attacking soldiers,

which Lieutenant Colonel Ramsey relays to the artillery battery.

Fire!

The shells shriek in overhead,

and land amid the charging German Mountain Division soldiers.

Conner stays focused and determines the next target--

A skirmish line about 100 yards ahead.

He adjusts fire and calls in another barrage.

The American artillery crew responds,

firing off another round from their field artillery piece.

The 105 millimeter Howitzer was one of the most important weapons

in the American arsenal.

With a range of up to 7 miles,

each shell could create chaos within a 33 yard radius

at a rate of two to four strikes per minute.

Conner's coordinates direct the shell in the midst of the advancing Germans.

But some of the Nazi Mountain Division soldiers

continue towards Conner's position

in front of the American line.

He estimates the distance between the last shell and their advance...

and calls in an adjustment.

Conner hears the shell flying in over his head.

He is spot on.

Conner's ability to act as a forward artillery observer

is every bit on par with someone who's been trained

and it's not an easy job.

Mastering trigonometry

and the properties of the projectiles and all this kind of stuff.

But he has obviously picked that up under the school of combat.

Conner calls in another round to target the skirmish line.

And the accurate shelling eventually sends

the soldiers of the German Mountain Division

back to the cover of the dyke.

But the German tank still fires.

An American tank destroyer commanded by Lieutenant Leonard Lebo

arrives at the woodline to protect the American defenders.

Lieutenant Lebo lines up his three inch gun,

and with an accurate shot...

takes out the troublesome tank.

Conner remains in his ditch.

A lot of people would've just sort of retired back

to being the intel officer and gone back to the command post,

we leave it at that.

I think he understands, enough about,

the pace and the nature of combat

that the Germans probably aren't finished yet.

Conner eyes the field and beyond

for any signs of movement.

He spots more German armor hidden in the trees.

Conner tells Ramsey he will be out of contact for a few minutes

and takes off towards the American tank destroyer.

Conner directs the volley of the tank destroyer's gun...

and the hidden tank is eliminated.

Then Conner dives back into his ditch under heavy fire.

The Germans ready themselves behind the dyke.

Another wave of counter attack is about to begin.

January 24th, 1945.

Eastern France.

American troops of the Seventh Infantry Regiment

fight to clear the Colmar Pocket--

The last German-occupied territory in France.

STEVEN" The military reason that it's important is

Eisenhower and the Allied high command

want to push across the Rhine sometime in early 1945.

And in order to do it in southern France

they need to capture the Colmar Pocket.

American Lieutenant Garlin Conner occupies a ditch

in front of his men's forest position.

Operating as a forward artillery observer,

Conner has successfully turned back the first attacks

by German Mountain Division soldiers.

Rather than retreat to the relative safety of the command post,

Conner remains on high alert.

Lieutenant Conner has decided to stay put

because it's apparent to him that he's probably still needed there.

The battle isn't over.

The Germans regroup and prepare for a second wave of attacks.

Conner himself, might be one of their targets.

As the Germans rush toward the American line,

a soldier with a grenade appears to break for Conner's position.

Conner just continues to call in more very witheringly

accurate artillery fire and that's the job.

That's why he's there.

A shell shrieks overhead...

taking out some of the rear elements of the German attack.

Conner quickly calls in another,

and hits his target again.

But the determined Mountain Division soldier

continues his dash,

and closes in on Conner's ditch.

The grenade carrying German

seems to be in a position

to throw the grenade at Conner's position.

At the same time though he's been spotted by American riflemen,

we don't know who, shoots him.

And kills him before he can throw the grenade at Conner.

Unfazed, Conner calls in another fire mission.

He's got this kind of single-minded purpose

and tunnel vision

of staying right in that spot,

which is apparently a very good observation spot

and calling in the artillery

and also, quite significantly his communications hold out.

Conner's fire adjustments continue to take out the Germans,

and send others back towards the cover of the dyke,

while his men hold their positions at the woodline.

The field is silent for a few minutes,

and Conner watches closely for evidence of a retreat.

But instead, he sees another huge wave break over the dyke.

Conner calls in shell after shell,

adjusting on the fly as the surge advances.

Fire!

But the number of German Mountain Division soldiers

is too great.

He cannot target them all...

they are getting too close.

The Germans begin to move in to what had been the American lines

and to threaten that entire position of Third Battalion.

Conner must make a difficult decision.

The Germans are so close,

that the only solution is to target the edge of the American line.

The battle has gotten bad enough

that he's going to call down artillery basically on his own position.

It's very possible, you're going to get killed by your own shells.

So, you're really choosing, self-sacrifice...

to destroy the enemy attack.

His commanding officer is concerned.

When Ramsey asks Conner

if he is bringing in the fire too close to his own position...

Conner is matter of fact.

He says it's fine. I'm calling it where it needs to be.

Kind of understated.

He really is.

As shells continue to explode all around him...

Get down!

Conner's intelligence aide is hit.

Private Robert Dutil,

who had followed Conner from the battalion command post

earlier that day,

is severely wounded by the friendly fire.

But the German onslaught falters.

After three hours,

the attack of the elite Nazi Mountain Division finally breaks.

Medic!

Medics tend to the wounds of Private Dutil.

Incredibly, Garlin Conner is unhurt.

Garlin Conner's actions are extraordinary.

It's just remarkable,

in so many ways and yet,

maybe they wouldn't have seemed like it at the time.

Calling in artillery,

doing his thing throughout the whole crisis,

many hours long at this battle.

From our vantage point all these decades later,

it is just an extraordinary moment.

January 24th, 1945.

The Alsace region, eastern France.

American Lieutenant Garlin Conner

climbs out of a ditch at the edge of a field

strewn with the aftermath of a brutal, bloody battle.

Conner's calm courage and accurate calls

has turned back an attack by a battalion from an elite German Mountain Division.

The precise artillery fire kills some 50 German soldiers

and wounds about 100 more.

But the fight at Brunnwald Woods

is just one battle for the Colmar Pocket.

It is the last remaining region of France,

occupied by Nazi Germany.

The next day Conner's commanding officer,

Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Ramsey advances

and encounters a German patrol.

In the fighting, a German soldier lobs a potato masher,

a type of percussive grenade.

With quick reflexes, Ramsey snatches it and throws it back.

He is wounded by a second.

It explodes, sending razor sharp tin slivers outwards,

to slash the Lieutenant Colonel.

The Germans are killed in the skirmish, and Ramsey needs medical care.

He walks back to the battalion aid station.

The surgeon there removes the shrapnel without anesthetic...

and Ramsey walks back to the observation post.

But the war for the Colmar Pocket continues.

The men of Seventh Infantry Regiment,

including Garlin Conner remain in American lines

to drive the Germans back across the Rhine.

In the early days of February,

Conner volunteers to take command of L Company when its C.O. is killed.

The rifle companies have absorbed terrible causalities

and it tends to be among the leaders

and so you need somebody to step in and lead this sort of ad hoc unit.

Third battalion attempts to liberate the French village of Biesheim.

Where K Company has been cut off,

encircled by Nazi forces in a section of German trenches.

Keep firing!

With 20 men and backed by two Sherman tanks,

Conner and the remainder of L Company

enter the trenches...

and proceed to advance by hand to hand fighting.

That means with whatever weapons or implements we happen to have,

this isn't the sort of combat, that the Americans like to think about.

Once again, here we have Conner right in the middle of this.

Hey!

We've just seen him use heavy firepower, heavy technology,

in a way to bring about victory.

Now we seem him in a little bit different context of right there,

at this worst level of combat, fighting and maybe dying.

They relieve K Company.

They kill 12 Germans, but 75 others surrender.

That tells us something, doesn't it?

It tells us those other 75

have looked at what's happened and they're like, I'm done with this.

You can have this town.

That's the kind of the fighting that it's been.

This is what goes on just on that day

in that little corner of the Colmar Pocket battle.

Conner earns a fourth Silver Star

for his heroic leadership at Biesheim.

The American Third Infantry Division

finishes its longest stretch of combat February 19th,

having fought since they landed in southern France

on August 15th the year before.

As for Lieutenant Conner's actions at Brunnwald,

Lieutenant Colonel Ramsey

intends to request the highest award possible

for an American army soldier.

But Ramsey is still on active duty, while recovering from wounds of his own.

He cannot track down the witness accounts

required for the Medal of Honor.

Instead, he recommends Conner for the second highest award--

the Distinguished Service Cross.

On February 10th, Garlin Conner receives the D.S.C.

from General Alexander Patch, Commander of the Seventh Army.

Conner finally leaves Europe on March 4th,

returning home to Aaron, Kentucky to a hero's welcome.

Then he goes back to just being a farmer.

A farmer in Kentucky, and that's his life.

He was pretty deeply affected, as you might expect.

I don't know that the war was ever too far away from his mind.

After his death in 1998,

the quest to get Garlin Conner the Medal of Honor

was taken up by supporters.

Witness accounts of the dramatic events were found

and after decades of delays and technicalities,

Conner finally receives the posthumous award

on June 26th, 2018, at the White House.

It makes Garlin Conner

possibly the second most decorated American soldier of World War II,

but his proud commanding officer did not live to see it either.

Ramsey had a long career, led many combat soldiers,

from World War II through Vietnam.

Uh, he had Colin Powell under his command,

he had Norman Schwarzkopf under his command.

He'd seen and he'd done a lot of valorous things.

And he felt that Garlin Conner had no peer.

That there was no one who exceeded him,

in terms of bravery, dedication to duty.

He saw Garlin Conner as being really in the first rank

among all the combat soldiers he had led.

On February 8th, 1945,

Nazi forces finally conceded the Colmar Pocket.

When the battle for the Colmar Pocket is over,

19th army is virtually wiped out.

And the Germans withdrew over the River Rhine.

The Rhine is now the new front line.

With Allied forces lined up for hundreds of miles

along the west wall, or Siegfried Line,

the stage is set for a desperate showdown

and the war in Europe will continue for three more months.

- ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, - Captioned by Visual Data Media Services