A documentary account of the allied invasion of Europe during World War II compiled from the footage shot by nearly 1400 cameramen.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:00 ♪ [music] ♪
00:00:18 I have been asked to be the spokesman for this Allied Expeditionary Force in saying
00:00:23 a word of introduction to what you are about to see.
00:00:26 It is a story of the Nazi defeat on the Western Front.
00:00:30 So far as possible, the editors have made it an account of the really important men
00:00:35 in this campaign.
00:00:37 I mean the enlisted soldiers, sailors, and airmen that fought through every obstacle
00:00:43 to victory.
00:00:45 Of course, to tell the whole story would take years, but the theme would be the same.
00:00:51 Teamwork wins wars.
00:00:53 I mean teamwork among nations, services, and men.
00:00:59 All the way down the line, from the GI and the Tommy to us brass hats.
00:01:05 Our enemy in this campaign was strong, resourceful, and cunning, but he made a few mistakes.
00:01:12 His greatest blunder was this.
00:01:14 He thought he could break up our partnership, but we were welded together by fighting for
00:01:20 one great cause into one great team, a team in which you were an indispensable and working
00:01:28 member.
00:01:29 That spirit of free people working, fighting, and living together in one great cause has
00:01:36 served us well on the Western Front.
00:01:39 We in the field pray that that spirit of comradeship will persist forever among the free peoples
00:01:46 of the United Nations.
00:01:47 [Music]
00:01:49 [Applause]
00:01:51 [Music]
00:02:20 To you who now, living in love and hope, who sense a future in the surrounding air,
00:02:25 this testament is offered.
00:02:27 Here you may look on the violent fragments of our age and the once thinness of the little
00:02:32 thread that made us then the citizens of freedom.
00:02:36 For dark was Europe and the face of man when this begins.
00:02:41 The nation had gone mad and struck out everywhere the compass knew.
00:02:45 The ebbtide of our honor fell away and left its wreckage on a hundred coasts.
00:02:49 The German cast his fires about the globe.
00:02:51 His strength, drawn from the smoking sarr and roar, lay in our weakness.
00:02:57 And at last his conquest smoldered behind the barriers of his arms.
00:03:02 Along the channel where the sea strikes France stood the West Wall of concrete, stone, and
00:03:07 steel to mock the frail hopes of the petty free.
00:03:10 Wounded, hard-pressed, and wasted on our strength, almost like madmen then, we planned to breach
00:03:17 the wall and smash the German spine.
00:03:19 But where?
00:03:20 We searched the coast of Europe like fierce eagles.
00:03:25 Between low flushing and deep-harbored Cherbourg, our eyes sought out the place of the assault.
00:03:30 Exits and tidal range marked shallow flushing off.
00:03:34 Sand and the wind canceled the Belgian coast.
00:03:36 The north Seine beaches were too small and cliffs barred the approaches.
00:03:40 Cote d'Antin, too narrow.
00:03:42 The Pas-de-Calais, heavily defended.
00:03:45 It all resolved on Normandy, on Côte.
00:03:49 Their planes could land upon the carpet ground.
00:03:51 The coast defenses were more light, and tides had a good range, and men were safe from winds.
00:03:58 So on five miles of still unbloodied sand, the fretful course of fate would be assailed
00:04:03 by armored nations.
00:04:05 Now our people bent to the construction of a steel array and took the builder's hammer
00:04:10 in their hands.
00:04:11 It seemed almost as though the sun stood still till our free peoples, full of rage and power,
00:04:16 heaved through the air the ponderous spear of war.
00:04:21 This is our people's story, in their words.
00:04:39 I suppose if the battle of the North Atlantic hadn't gone right, things might have been
00:04:46 considerably different.
00:04:47 That was an ugly time for all of us.
00:04:50 Merchant ships, naval escort, air patrol.
00:04:53 I guess I had my share of bad luck.
00:04:57 I lost three ships, and some good friends.
00:05:15 I remember reading somewhere that when a seagull comes down on a patch of oil, its feathers
00:05:20 stick together and it can't get off the water again.
00:05:22 There must have been a lot of dead seagulls around the North Atlantic.
00:05:28 Of course, we only saw it happening on the wall map, and yet it was, well, quite real.
00:05:34 When I started there, those markers we used reminded me of toys out of some children's
00:05:38 game.
00:05:39 But soon they became new boats, and ships carrying cargoes, food and supplies and weapons,
00:05:45 and men to use them.
00:05:51 I remember coming over, the worst thing about the trip was you didn't know where you were
00:05:55 going.
00:05:56 Wherever it was, you'd be a stranger, and nobody likes that.
00:05:59 That ship was loaded from stem to stern with sad sacks.
00:06:03 Around the third day out, things got pally.
00:06:06 Like the fellow said, we're all in the same boat.
00:06:08 The comic.
00:06:10 Finally, we got to Liverpool.
00:06:13 They had a band to play us in, an English army band full of chimes.
00:06:17 I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, they played.
00:06:20 To tell you the truth, it was pretty corny.
00:06:23 Nobody said anything, because, well, you know, it was a nice gesture.
00:06:29 Funny thing.
00:06:31 On the way over, you felt like you were the whole works.
00:06:34 You couldn't help it.
00:06:35 But then, all over the UK, you'd see things that made you begin to realize you were just
00:06:39 part of a big proposition.
00:06:43 All kinds of things.
00:06:50 [music]
00:06:57 [applause]
00:07:04 [music]
00:07:11 [music]
00:07:39 I was a pre-med student at Johns Hopkins in civilian life.
00:07:43 Now, I do know a little something about anatomy.
00:07:47 And I say it is scientifically impossible for the human body to stand up to the training
00:07:51 we received.
00:07:52 An absolute impossibility.
00:07:53 The muscles and tendons and bone structure was not designed to withstand that battering.
00:08:00 Don't ask me how it happens that we did stand up to it.
00:08:02 I don't know.
00:08:03 It has no scientific explanation.
00:08:05 [gunshots]
00:08:06 Here, listen to this, out of one of them army pamphlets.
00:08:13 To a young man, soldiering in the army of today offers exceptional advantages and opportunities,
00:08:21 such as physical training, foreign travel, sport, and many other facilities which are
00:08:27 normally denied to those engaged in the majority of civilian occupations.
00:08:34 The majority of occupations in civil life become monotonous, to say the least.
00:08:39 But in the army, life is so varied that there is little or no prospect of a monotonous or
00:08:45 irksome time.
00:08:49 So men were girded for their highest hour.
00:08:52 While they learned the lethal arts of war in small and secret rooms, the planners met
00:08:56 to watch their work mature.
00:08:59 Beyond our view, the German, proud and confident, stood calm in deep emplacements on the armored
00:09:04 coast.
00:09:05 The war was not yet one of men and blood.
00:09:09 The weapons were the factories and the maps and voices speaking in the hidden night.
00:09:14 Season by season, all our plans advanced.
00:09:17 And those few men on whom the mass of war rested with all its weight worked ceaselessly.
00:09:23 I used to wonder whether the millions of people doing their various jobs realized they were
00:09:28 part of it all, paving the way for the invasion.
00:09:33 We kept bashing away at German targets, mostly steel and oil.
00:09:37 The Ruhr, Hamburg, Battle of Berlin.
00:09:41 Things were getting tougher every trip.
00:09:42 More ground defenses, more night fighters, more crews not coming back.
00:09:54 We got away early in the morning.
00:09:56 Sometimes we'd see Lancasters coming back.
00:09:58 A lot of times we'd stoke up the same targets they did.
00:10:02 We'd beat up aircraft factories too.
00:10:04 It was a deluke service, day and night, 24 hours a day.
00:10:10 We dropped agents over France.
00:10:11 Must be awful to risk your neck and have to keep it secret.
00:10:16 One-man submarines, torpedo boats, commandos.
00:10:18 We used them all to bring back cups full of sand from the beaches for analysis.
00:10:21 It had to be quick-drying with a solid clay foundation.
00:10:24 It would have to support 30-ton tanks.
00:10:26 I must have photographed nearly every field in France.
00:10:29 Real job, of course, was the corn area, but I didn't know that, nor did Jerry.
00:10:32 We dropped stuff to the Maccy, arms, ammunition, sabotage materials, and so on.
00:10:36 Then went over ourselves and taught them how to use it.
00:10:38 We built it to specification, but we had not the least idea what kind of a gadget it was.
00:10:43 The only name it had was Mulberry.
00:10:45 It was vital to know all about the Seine Bay and the tides.
00:10:48 And we trained the men to negotiate those tides and landing craft.
00:10:51 Wearing down German sea power in preparation for the day.
00:10:54 Study of the weather along the Normandy coast.
00:10:56 Miles of wire netting for the beaches.
00:10:58 7,200 tons of petrol per day.
00:11:00 With an underwater pipeline to carry it to France.
00:11:03 A white star as the emblem of liberation.
00:11:05 Triple inoculation for all personnel.
00:11:07 New ships pouring from the stocks.
00:11:09 Old ships adapted.
00:11:10 Listening to the German radio output for fresh intelligence.
00:11:14 That was just part of the pre-invasion work.
00:11:16 By December '43, the plan itself was set and we took it to Tehran for final discussion.
00:11:20 The three leaders approved the plan.
00:11:23 Our Russian forces advancing from the east and invasion from the west.
00:11:28 And then the date was set.
00:11:30 [Music]
00:11:40 I assumed command at Schaef with the best all-around team for which a man could ask.
00:11:45 Some had already been working for months in England.
00:11:48 Others I brought with me from the Mediterranean.
00:11:52 We adopted first a master plan and then had to coordinate every last detail of the ground,
00:11:59 sea, and airplanes.
00:12:01 While this was going on, we led off with an air show designed to make the landing points
00:12:06 as soft as possible, to batter the German communications, and to make certain we'd have
00:12:12 control of the air.
00:12:13 It was quite a show.
00:12:15 Those airmen did a magnificent job.
00:12:17 [Music]
00:12:25 We had Polish, French, Czechs, all sorts in our outfit.
00:12:28 They'd natter away in the mess about what they'd been up to.
00:12:30 The only word you could ever make out was marshaling yards.
00:12:33 Us bombardiers seemed to do nothing but look down on French bridges those days.
00:12:37 We used to ask each other, "Have you cut any good bridges lately?"
00:12:40 Well, finally, there was only one whole railway bridge left over the Seine between Paris and the sea.
00:12:44 [Music]
00:12:49 Down in the late spring, through the wounded towns of England, moved the mass made by our
00:12:53 patience.
00:12:54 Two precious years of plans were put away.
00:12:56 The offices were empty.
00:12:58 All the maps were rolled up on the walls.
00:13:00 What had been paper at last had come alive.
00:13:03 Across the channel, aware of our resolve, with cold contempt, alerted Germans stood
00:13:07 beside their guns, and reinforcements rumbled from the Rhine.
00:13:11 Their generals were prepared.
00:13:12 Their might was poised.
00:13:14 They looked across the heaving sea and grinned.
00:13:17 They would reap harvest of us on the beaches, and even death himself would stand amazed.
00:13:23 Yet faint across the groaning of the sea came the thin thunder of a mass of power.
00:13:28 Drawn from the great free peoples of the earth, it gathered in the ancient ports of England
00:13:32 to crowd upon the steel-encumbered ships.
00:13:35 [Music]
00:14:05 [Music]
00:14:25 It was a funny sort of feeling, marching down to the ships.
00:14:28 We'd done it plenty of times before, of course, on schemes and that kind of thing.
00:14:32 They didn't tell us this was the big show.
00:14:35 Might have been just another exercise.
00:14:37 Some of the chaps cracked gags.
00:14:39 They wasn't very comic, but we laughed.
00:14:42 I think we all guessed.
00:14:43 The general feeling was, "Okay, if this is it, let's get in there and get it over with."
00:14:48 Waiting always got on my nerves.
00:14:50 Even waiting for a bus, never could stand it.
00:14:52 Well, after a bit, our ship found its place in the middle of all the rest of the stuff.
00:14:56 And there we stayed, for days.
00:14:58 [Music]
00:15:18 They gave us the final briefing then.
00:15:21 We knew what to do and how.
00:15:22 They told us where and when.
00:15:24 That's a briefing.
00:15:26 I listened to every word.
00:15:28 Wrote it down in my head like a record, and it kept playing over and over again.
00:15:32 Piece of beach in the morning.
00:15:35 Ever since I became a soldier, they were getting me ready for this.
00:15:39 Before, there'd been time in front of me, protecting me.
00:15:43 Now, the time had worn away, and there were only a few hours left.
00:15:48 In the morning, I'd have to face it.
00:15:51 I tried to imagine how much fear I would have.
00:15:53 You know, if it would keep me from doing my job.
00:15:56 I suppose everybody else was wondering the same thing.
00:15:59 [Music]
00:16:16 Nobody said anything official, but all of a sudden, the ship got much busier.
00:16:22 And over the amplifier, the chaplain said he'd be saying mass at 1830 hours.
00:16:28 Funny, I don't think I ever believed, even after the final briefing, that the invasion was going to come off.
00:16:33 Then a voice in the loudspeaker said, "Men who wish to take their anti-sea-sick pills should take the first one now."
00:16:40 That did it.
00:16:41 [Music]
00:17:11 [Music]
00:17:21 [Music]
00:17:31 [Music]
00:17:51 [Music]
00:18:11 [Music]
00:18:28 I was tugging a glider the way we always practiced it, except that I'd never been in the air with a whole army before.
00:18:34 Three airborne divisions, the 6th British, and 82nd, and 101st American.
00:18:40 Just before a glider pilot cast off over the landing zone, I wished good luck over the radio.
00:18:46 Seemed a sort of inadequate thing to say.
00:18:49 [Music]
00:18:52 As Supreme Commander, let me break in at this point to say just a word about the Navy.
00:18:58 From the moment of embarkation to that of landing, the full burden fell upon the Navy and our merchant fleets.
00:19:05 They had to sweep the mines, bombard the coastal batteries, marshal and protect the transports along the coastline preparatory to landing,
00:19:13 and finally, man the small boats that carried the soldiers to the beach.
00:19:19 On that day, there were more than 8,000 ships and landing craft on the shores of Normandy.
00:19:25 It was a most intricate task and a vital one for the success of our plans.
00:19:30 The courage, fidelity, and skill of the Royal and American navies have no brighter page in their histories than that of June 6th, 1944.
00:19:41 [Music]
00:20:10 [Music]
00:20:20 [Music]
00:20:30 [Music]
00:20:40 [Music]
00:21:00 [Music]
00:21:20 [Music]
00:21:40 [Music]
00:21:52 Back in London, only a few people knew. It was a well-kept secret.
00:21:56 Around daybreak, we correspondents were called and told to be at the Ministry of Information at 8.
00:22:02 Then they told us.
00:22:04 [Music]
00:22:32 Omaha Beach, Omaha. Don't ask me why. I've never been to Omaha, the one in Nebraska, I mean.
00:22:38 If it's anything like Omaha, France, you can have it.
00:22:42 I understand Omaha was the roughest spot.
00:22:46 We lost some good men, took a few prisoners. It was a lousy trade.
00:22:52 We'd been told what to expect, so it wasn't like a surprise or anything.
00:22:56 It just, well, when it really happens, it's different.
00:23:00 For a while, they were pinned down, but the lucky thing, the other beaches were going better,
00:23:06 so we got a little more than our share of the old teamwork.
00:23:08 The Navy come in, the air guys, and finally we got moving good.
00:23:14 You know, you hear a lot about how long it takes to make battle-hardened soldiers out of green troops.
00:23:20 Listen, I got to be a veteran in one day. That day.
00:23:24 [Music]
00:23:27 And so they paved the beaches with their blood and lurched across the dunes and reached the roads.
00:23:32 The German carried fiercely. In the depths of rich green pasty of Normandy,
00:23:36 the three airborne divisions, first of all to land, fought lion-like against most grievous odds.
00:23:40 And loud across the cratered face of France came German reinforcements.
00:23:44 From Berlin, a voice cried out, "The Allies must be hurled into the sea
00:23:48 before another day had burned its hole in history."
00:23:50 Locked in battle, the armies clashed.
00:23:53 Our first objective then was to merge all the beachheads into one,
00:23:57 and 50 miles of men drive on together beyond the red sands through the broken wall.
00:24:02 [Music]
00:24:11 Where I was, it wasn't too bad getting ashore.
00:24:13 After that it started. You had to fight for every bloody field.
00:24:17 It was the same each time.
00:24:19 You had to crawl on your belly, keeping your backside down like you'd been told,
00:24:23 chuck in a few hand grenades, then rush them.
00:24:26 Sometimes they killed us, but we were killing more of them.
00:24:30 The trickiest part was the farms.
00:24:32 They were regular little jerry fortresses.
00:24:34 If we couldn't manage them on our own, then we'd have to wait
00:24:37 while the company commander called back for artillery support.
00:24:41 The Navy was still with us too, chucking in shells ahead of us.
00:24:45 In three days we advanced seven miles.
00:24:48 Then we were told to stand fast and dig in.
00:24:51 Next morning we heard the news and got it from the BBC.
00:24:55 It sounded great. We'd joined up all along the bridgehead.
00:24:59 There was a solid line, 45 miles of it.
00:25:02 We'd got a foothold. We were in.
00:25:04 [music]
00:25:22 We didn't have to do much navigating to get there.
00:25:25 You just followed the convoys.
00:25:27 I was doing close support.
00:25:29 We waited around and then the ground troops would whistle us out
00:25:33 and tell us about some hardened target they wanted removed.
00:25:36 Then in we'd go.
00:25:38 We were like taxis on a cab rank.
00:25:41 [music]
00:25:51 There's something nice about a beach, any beach.
00:25:54 You think of a beach and chances are you'll remember something nice,
00:25:58 like a party or a picnic.
00:26:00 Powers from the old days, girls in bathing suits.
00:26:03 But the one I worked, Utah, looked more like a freight yard once we got going.
00:26:08 For quite a while we brought most supplies right over the open beach,
00:26:11 like we'd practiced it and like we'd made up as we went along.
00:26:15 We worked a 24-hour shift, ducks, lights, rats, rowboats, all sorts of rube goldbergs.
00:26:21 The stuff just kept pouring in, tanks, trucks, food, ammo, guys, millions of things.
00:26:28 [explosions]
00:26:34 We didn't think we'd spend 15 days in the same field outside Cairn,
00:26:38 with the wood behind us and the Germans in another wood half a mile in front of us
00:26:42 and a little empty valley in between.
00:26:45 Each side mortaring each other all the time.
00:26:48 Just meant you had to live in a slit trench.
00:26:51 You got into a routine.
00:26:54 You know, stand true from half past four to half past five,
00:26:58 and two hours wait for breakfast.
00:27:01 Came up fairly hot.
00:27:03 Tin bacon or sausage, tea, and of course biscuits.
00:27:08 We'd been living on compo food since D-Day.
00:27:12 It was good food, but, well, you know, you got tired of it.
00:27:17 Hard to get a lot for a slice of fresh bread and butter or a cup of fresh tea.
00:27:23 Fifteen days is a long time to stay in one place and be mortared.
00:27:27 Yet so you think everyone's coming straight for you.
00:27:30 [explosions]
00:27:51 I can remember every case we ever had, especially the first one.
00:27:55 The ambulance brought him in late one afternoon.
00:27:59 I came over to where he was lying and he looked up and grinned.
00:28:03 I asked him how he felt.
00:28:05 He said something about the German with a machine pistol using him for a dartboard.
00:28:11 He was quiet and patient and a little bewildered.
00:28:14 He'd never been hurt before.
00:28:16 He asked how the fighting was going, then he passed out.
00:28:20 The doctor came over and looked at his wounds and then swore.
00:28:25 He said he had no business to be alive.
00:28:28 We put him on the operating table and did what we could.
00:28:31 The doctor kept swearing all the time he was operating.
00:28:35 We couldn't stop the bleeding.
00:28:37 I remember the radio news that night.
00:28:40 They said the casualties had been surprisingly light.
00:28:43 [music]
00:28:53 They said the whole thing was dear old Winston's idea.
00:28:56 A collapsible prefabricated harbour with everything on it except a naffy.
00:29:00 Well, I wouldn't put it past him, it's the sort of idea he would have.
00:29:03 Worked in the end.
00:29:05 Mulberry, they called it.
00:29:07 Well, I felt pretty good about it because I'd watched it grow right from the sinking of the first ships for the out of breakwater.
00:29:13 And further along to the west, the Yanks had brought one over too.
00:29:18 Then on D plus 13, I think it was, an onshore wind started up.
00:29:24 Not much at first, but it got worse.
00:29:27 Unloading onto the open beaches got very tricky.
00:29:30 We heard that over on the Yank section, the other harbour had been put right out of action.
00:29:36 And when the wind dropped, old Mulberry looked pretty sick.
00:29:39 And up to that time, it was the only bleeding harbour we had.
00:29:43 [music]
00:29:46 At the green tip of Normandy, the town of Cherbourg made a harbour for supplies.
00:29:51 Our need for ports was vital as our breath.
00:29:54 The German knew our lack and swiftly drew his forces into tight defensive groups so to contest the issue.
00:29:59 All our plans turned upon Cherbourg.
00:30:01 All our strategy waited upon its empty docks and piers.
00:30:05 So the Americans sent all across Normandy to the coast, swung toward the north, impatient for the port.
00:30:11 Through hedge and field, they carved their heavy way.
00:30:14 [music]
00:30:31 You remember back now when it seems like we took Cherbourg a couple of days after we hit the beach.
00:30:35 Actually, it took 19 days to cover 30 miles.
00:30:38 30 miles and about 92,000 hedgerows, and a battle at every hedgerow.
00:30:43 Otherwise, it was nice country, like Connecticut.
00:30:46 Pretty trees and orchards, lots of cows, and nice little farmhouses.
00:30:50 The apples were too green to eat, I remember.
00:30:53 We hit it off fine with the people. Farmers, nice people.
00:30:57 It got tougher when we pulled up on the outskirts of Cherbourg. They had great defenses.
00:31:01 And the artillery really carried the ball. For three days, we sucked it to them.
00:31:06 Sometimes we were pouring in at point-blank range over open sites.
00:31:10 Finally, old Von Schlieben, the German commander, tossed in the sponge.
00:31:16 That's after telling his men to fight to the dead.
00:31:20 We took Cherbourg on June 25th. Everything was rosy except the harbor we come from.
00:31:25 The Jerries had really smeared that harbor.
00:31:28 But right away, our guys went to work cleaning it up.
00:31:31 And the way they tore into it, you could see that pretty soon, it would be waiting for us fine.
00:31:36 Then, well, we fought our way up the peninsula.
00:31:40 Now we'd have to fight our way out of it.
00:31:43 And everywhere inside France, we men of the Maquis were fighting, too.
00:31:52 I was in the north myself. We cut telephone and telegraph and high-tension lines.
00:31:57 And eventually, when the Allies landed, we fought in the open.
00:32:01 In the Savoie Mountains, our friends held up German convoys.
00:32:06 Well, it was a little easier in the mountains.
00:32:09 Bosch reinforcements were delayed for many days.
00:32:12 Factories and bridges would frequently disappear.
00:32:16 But the price we paid for it was frightful.
00:32:21 In the village of Oradour, alone, the Germans slaughtered 1,100 out of the 1,200 population.
00:32:29 And the place was completely burned.
00:32:32 They were accused to have ambushed German troops.
00:32:36 Every house was destroyed.
00:32:38 Women and children died in flames in the church where they had been locked.
00:32:44 Yes, the price we paid was very great.
00:32:48 But our job was done.
00:32:51 Cor is a town through which the easy on ripples its slow way to the waiting sea, capital of Normandy.
00:33:01 And here the British struck a stone wall of Germans.
00:33:04 This was no Cherbourg advance, a knife thrust through the fields,
00:33:08 but rather was the grinding of a drill, inch by inch forward.
00:33:12 Here it was the German feared a quick breakthrough to the river Seine,
00:33:15 and here it was he massed his army's best, ten of the twelve divisions of his armour,
00:33:20 paratroops, SS men, the young, the cruel, against the veterans of Allemagne.
00:33:25 We wanted him to fight here and to hold the battered ground
00:33:28 because the future plans depended on him standing where he was.
00:33:31 At Cor, the dust was diamonds.
00:33:34 Every foot of ground was priceless, for by midmost summer, Cor was to be the pivot of the war.
00:33:41 [Music]
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00:34:31 [Music]
00:34:38 [Music]
00:34:41 Corn was the first decent-sized town we had taken,
00:34:52 but there wasn't any celebration because we knew nothing had been settled.
00:34:56 Jerry was as strong as ever.
00:34:58 One of the men said, "God, are we going to have to go right across the world doing this to beat him?"
00:35:03 Because most of Corn was dust, just plain dust.
00:35:07 I wondered what Hamilton back home in Canada would look like after a beating like that.
00:35:12 Well, anyway, our tanks and the British started massing and moved south out of the city.
00:35:16 We knew there was a big dude coming up.
00:35:19 [Music]
00:35:22 The show for us began south of Corn, where the Poles joined up with us.
00:35:29 When we began moving forward, I heard a lot of the lads say, "Rommel's on the run."
00:35:33 Well, but I'd been at Alameen, I knew he wasn't on the run.
00:35:37 And I was right.
00:35:39 There was nothing lovely about the battle south of Corn.
00:35:41 No pincer movements, no outflanking, no nothing like that.
00:35:45 Just an odd, bitter, bloody slogging mansion.
00:35:48 We had to stay there and give as good as we got, even if we couldn't give better.
00:35:52 [Music]
00:35:56 [Explosion]
00:35:58 [Music]
00:36:01 Beyond the rubble and the dust of Corn, the Empire troops kept up their endless pressure.
00:36:22 The German did not dare to disengage, but fought with all his cunning and his strength,
00:36:26 still unaware of what we planned for him.
00:36:29 West by St. Lo, the base of his defense, Americans were poised and bent to fire an armored arrow
00:36:34 that would set alight the flame of freedom through the whole of France.
00:36:37 But till St. Lo was seized, the arrow waited.
00:36:41 [Music]
00:36:50 [Explosion]
00:36:53 [Explosion]
00:37:09 [Explosion]
00:37:18 [Explosion]
00:37:21 [Explosion]
00:37:37 [Explosion]
00:37:40 [Explosion]
00:37:46 [Music]
00:37:53 [Music]
00:37:56 One minute it's quiet with the birds singing.
00:38:09 The next minute the column of Sherman tanks come around the corner going wide open.
00:38:14 My buddy says, "Where do those tanks come from?"
00:38:16 So I ask the tanker.
00:38:18 He yells down, "There's a 3rd Army taking off. Been waiting for three weeks."
00:38:22 Apparently somebody let the rabbit out of the hat.
00:38:25 Man, what a rabbit, with pearl-handled revolvers.
00:38:29 When I think back to the breakthrough,
00:38:33 I don't seem to be able to remember anything but the French people.
00:38:36 People beside the road, kids we couldn't stop to give candy to,
00:38:40 FFI boys bringing in the krauts from the fields,
00:38:43 and farm workers waving as we went by.
00:38:46 It was easier to look them in the face and smile and wave back at them
00:38:51 and you hadn't had to smash their homes to pieces first.
00:38:54 The morning we got into Wren, boy, that really was liberation.
00:38:59 [Music]
00:39:03 [Music]
00:39:06 [Music]
00:39:33 At Wren, American armor planned to drive east and northeast
00:39:36 and thus surround and take the German corps divisions in the rear.
00:39:40 The Foley plans to stop the Arrow dead by cutting its supply route
00:39:43 at the point where it stretched narrowest along the coast.
00:39:46 So a great force exploded toward Mortaine,
00:39:49 hoping at Avranches to achieve the scene
00:39:52 and drag our hopes down to the smoking ground.
00:39:56 [Sound of gunfire]
00:40:04 There's a lot of places I'd rather talk about than Mortaine.
00:40:08 That's where I got hit.
00:40:10 We'd been going great up to there.
00:40:12 Some of the guys had even been singing, harmonizing.
00:40:15 And then that first German artillery caught us.
00:40:18 Pretty accurate, too. An hour later I was short 18 men.
00:40:22 Well, we hauled in and we hit back with everything we had.
00:40:26 They weren't just trying to stop us, see.
00:40:28 They wanted to come right through.
00:40:30 And then me. I get a belt in the face left side and I keel.
00:40:34 The last thing I remember is looking up and seeing those RAF typhoons.
00:40:38 When I heard them screaming up ahead, I thought,
00:40:41 "Geez, I'm glad they're on our side."
00:40:44 [Sound of gunfire]
00:40:53 I was sitting in front of the intelligence office doing a bit of sunbathing
00:40:57 when headquarters came through saying the area northwest of Mortaine
00:41:00 was packed with German armor heading west.
00:41:02 Well, that started it. For six hours the wing kept it up absolutely nonstop.
00:41:05 Takeoff, attack, land, refuel, rearm and takeoff again.
00:41:08 It was the same on every airfield in Normandy.
00:41:11 The only briefing I gave the chaps was, "Well, you know where they are."
00:41:14 And the only interrogation when they got back was, "Well, how many did you get?"
00:41:18 [Music]
00:41:29 Three days it lasted. Every kind of soldier was in there and every weapon.
00:41:33 For me it was just eating and smoking and loading that 105.
00:41:36 No sleeping. Then things quieted down and the word came back.
00:41:39 We stopped and called. Everybody felt like celebrating,
00:41:42 but that was a tough order out there.
00:41:44 I tried drinking a whole bottle of cough medicine. It worked fine.
00:41:47 I got stiffer in the plank.
00:41:50 The counterattack, which took us by surprise, still did not hinder our deceptive plans
00:41:55 for down from corps the foe had drawn a force and left his north flank weakened.
00:42:00 Now the stage was set.
00:42:02 Toward Fallais swept the Empire troops together with the Poles.
00:42:05 The German heard behind his back American armor churn toward Agencourt.
00:42:09 Out-generaled and out-fought, he found himself within a closing trap.
00:42:16 [Music]
00:42:25 [Music]
00:42:35 [Music]
00:42:45 [Music]
00:42:55 [Music]
00:43:05 [Music]
00:43:15 [Music]
00:43:25 [Music]
00:43:35 [Music]
00:43:45 [Music]
00:43:55 [Music]
00:44:05 [Music]
00:44:15 [Music]
00:44:25 [Music]
00:44:35 [Music]
00:44:45 I've covered them with a gun down to the clearing stations.
00:44:49 Thousands of them, and all kinds.
00:44:52 The tough ones with the smile froze stiff on their faces by shell fire.
00:44:57 And the plain-joes had had too much and ready to tell you that.
00:45:01 And their poker-faced officers had never lost the poker-faced look.
00:45:05 The SS, the parachute troops, the old soldiers off the Russian front, I've seen them all.
00:45:12 The Hitler youth babies looking like they walked out of Lincoln High.
00:45:16 Expert killers.
00:45:18 Smart Alec with their talk of rights under the Geneva Convention.
00:45:22 And asking, "When do we go to America?"
00:45:25 And the other guy who crawled out of a hole with his hands up, all through and talking too much.
00:45:31 And ready to swear he hated Hitler all the time.
00:45:34 The kids that knew how a machine gun worked, and nothing else.
00:45:39 Grinning like they were still on top, so they could hardly hold that trigger finger still.
00:45:44 And middle-aged guys wanting to tell you about the wife and kids, you'd let them.
00:45:50 And they were through killing when I saw them.
00:45:53 And through getting killed too.
00:45:56 Some of them thought they were lucky, and others didn't.
00:46:00 And some didn't give a...
00:46:02 I covered them down to the rear where it was somebody's job to find out what made them tick.
00:46:07 But it wasn't my job to figure them out.
00:46:10 I just kept them covered.
00:46:12 And brother, I never gave them more than the Geneva Convention.
00:46:17 And that was all.
00:46:19 American tanks ground on into the east toward Paris and the upper Seine.
00:46:25 Before them, the Germans helter-skelter fled away and saw retreat, or stood with hands up raised by roads all littered with their smoldering gear.
00:46:32 And still the tanks ground on beyond the smoke into the unscarred country.
00:46:39 A good solid map, well delineated, is an absolute must for a modern mechanized army traveling at high speed.
00:46:45 In our division, the issuing of maps was my job.
00:46:48 When we broke out of the Cherbourg Peninsula, my department had the situation well in hand.
00:46:53 Then for us, everything went mad. Stark, raving mad.
00:46:57 One morning I woke up, and the army had gone right off the map.
00:47:01 Absolutely right off the map.
00:47:03 So we rushed through an order for 500,000 maps of the Orléans region.
00:47:07 They arrived in due time.
00:47:09 To our horror, the army progressed far beyond the Orléans region.
00:47:13 It was off the map again.
00:47:15 This was a period of acute crisis for me.
00:47:18 I gave the highest priority to a fresh order of maps of the Paris area.
00:47:21 We refused to be licked by this situation.
00:47:23 The final blow came when it became evident that we were going to bypass Paris.
00:47:27 That almost finished us.
00:47:29 Eventually we had to drop 10 tons of maps to them by parachute.
00:47:32 It was a very humiliating experience.
00:47:35 I'll be glad when I get back to the Library of Congress where maps have some permanent value.
00:47:40 While the Allies were fighting near Paris,
00:47:49 we French soldiers of the Leclerc division were fighting in the Normandy fields.
00:47:54 And suddenly an order came.
00:47:56 "Go to Paris," it said, "and take it."
00:48:01 The Allies, after having equipped our division with tanks, guns, rifles, lorries and jeeps,
00:48:07 that night decided to give us Paris too.
00:48:11 So at 4 o'clock in the morning, the division starts rushing on the roads.
00:48:16 And in the sky, on the right, on the left, everywhere,
00:48:20 the American Air Force protects our trip.
00:48:23 What a trip.
00:48:25 250 kilometers in one day.
00:48:28 I think I'll tell it all the time to my grandchildren and bore them with it until I die.
00:48:34 At the beginning of August, we in Paris were seized by rumors.
00:48:41 What could be confirmed was towards the middle of the month,
00:48:45 the Germans started to leave the city.
00:48:48 Yes, those were the same Germans who had signed 25-year leases on their apartments.
00:48:55 Then, on the 14th, our police went on strike.
00:49:00 The next day, the Gestapo left.
00:49:03 That was the day too when a police car opened fire on a German detachment on the Place de la Concorde
00:49:09 and began the battle for the city.
00:49:11 After that, it seemed the French flag was hanging from every window.
00:49:16 All the flags were made of curtains, old dresses, rags, everything, it didn't matter.
00:49:22 Four days later, we heard shouting coming from the Hotel de Ville.
00:49:28 We started running.
00:49:30 Me, my husband, everyone in our house.
00:49:33 As we ran, people were screaming.
00:49:36 The French army had arrived.
00:49:39 When we got to the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, we saw it was true.
00:49:43 I kissed my husband because he was crying.
00:49:47 It's funny, eh?
00:49:49 We began to realize how unhappy we had been for four years
00:49:54 and how lucky we were to be alive on this August evening.
00:49:58 The great pursuit was on. At last, the Battle of France was ending
00:50:07 when all suddenly another D-Day stunned the shaken foe.
00:50:11 Two armies struck, American and French, along the broad-beached southern coast of France.
00:50:16 Then north, the two new armies rolled like waves to join the forces moving on the Reich.
00:50:21 Beyond the Seine, where from a hundred sites the Germans launched their flying bombs
00:50:26 and brought death and destruction on the English towns,
00:50:29 our valiant armies went about the task long since assigned them.
00:50:32 Toward the Reich frontiers, Americans advanced.
00:50:35 Against the ports hugging the Channel, garrisoned in force by desperate foes, Canadians were sent.
00:50:40 And in a thunderous sweep, the British army surged toward awaiting Brussels.
00:50:45 [Music]
00:51:08 The people of Brussels laughed and cried and threw flowers in the tank and said,
00:51:12 "Goodbye, Tommy." When they meant to say, "Hello," man, they were happy.
00:51:19 I suppose we were no longer afraid.
00:51:22 But I remember wondering then, how the first German civilians would react to us.
00:51:28 I remember one day we were coming across a big flat field.
00:51:36 Didn't look like nothing special. I hopped a barbed wire fence and a guy says to me,
00:51:40 "Guess what?" So I says, "What?" So he says, "You're in Germany."
00:51:43 There's a sign over there that says. Then like a dope, I thought, "Well, it won't be long now."
00:51:47 I went to quit over the fall of Paris and Timbub on Brussels.
00:51:50 And I had a fiver on it being over by October the 1st.
00:51:53 I remember the point system for getting out of the army came out about this time.
00:51:56 I began to think of that great shark-striped, double-breasted suit and the mothballs.
00:52:00 I was in the 7th Army coming up from the south of France.
00:52:03 One day a lieutenant said, "Take a ride with me. I got some prisoners for you to guard."
00:52:06 "How many?" I says. "About 20,000," he said.
00:52:09 The whole German division had surrendered.
00:52:11 We Canadians were advancing in the north.
00:52:13 And one day we came across a thing I'd never seen before.
00:52:16 "I guess it's a flying bomb site," the officer says.
00:52:19 Well, that really made me feel good.
00:52:21 The prisoner told us the newest Jerry gag.
00:52:23 "If an aircraft shows up white, it's American. If it shows up dark, it's British.
00:52:27 And if it never shows up, it's the Luftwaffe."
00:52:30 Every time they sent me along to set up a forward switchboard and I got my earphones on,
00:52:34 I found out that the rear switchboard had leapfrogged five miles ahead.
00:52:38 I wrote to the old man in St. Louis. He owns a men's store.
00:52:41 I told him he'd better cut prices on GI neckties and socks
00:52:44 if he didn't want to be stuck with a lot of military apparel.
00:52:46 Someone asked the sergeant major what he thought the chances were for a spot of leave.
00:52:49 "Don't you worry about leave, lads," he says. "We've got the Japs to finish yet."
00:52:53 Regular soldier, of course. Keen.
00:52:57 It was a terrific feeling crossing the German border. We were sure nothing could stop us.
00:53:07 Every line must somewhere have an end.
00:53:10 In Southeast Holland, nothing lay between the British Army and the German plain
00:53:15 except two rivers and a town.
00:53:18 And so we made our plans.
00:53:20 To send an airborne army down to seize Eindhoven and the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnhem.
00:53:26 Then to hold them for the force that would sweep up like thunder from the south.
00:53:30 Thus, where no line existed, would the Rhine at last be crossed in force.
00:53:36 I was to jump Nasserdam, and so I sat right forward by the window.
00:53:40 I could see nothing but blue skies and the coaters with the fighters up topside like midges.
00:53:45 One of the boys was reading a newspaper.
00:53:48 He showed me a funny piece in it. I couldn't laugh.
00:53:52 The coast of Holland came along before I was ready for it.
00:53:56 Someone yelled, "Running up now!" and he got to action stations.
00:54:00 I remember thinking, "What a bloody bit of bad luck to be bumped off now when the war's nearly over."
00:54:07 [Music]
00:54:11 [Music]
00:54:16 [Music]
00:54:20 [Music]
00:54:39 [Music]
00:54:43 The line is dropping Arnhem and we come down and go to a place called Eindhoven, Holland.
00:54:50 She goes good. We get right, dig in, set up a defense perimeter and wait for the British army to come up.
00:54:57 Then we join them and head out for Nijmegen.
00:55:00 The bridge at Nijmegen hardly had a mark on it.
00:55:04 We crossed the river and started out for Arnhem, but we didn't get far.
00:55:07 The Hun knew as well as we did that we'd got to get through and he put in everything he'd got.
00:55:11 That was the worst eye of his truck.
00:55:13 Knowing our men were there waiting at Arnhem and we couldn't get to them.
00:55:16 At Arnhem we got ourselves well dug in, us and some of the Poles.
00:55:25 We were short of ammo and food. That was our main worry.
00:55:29 I'll never forget those supply dropping missions.
00:55:33 The way Jerry let loose at them and the way they just came straight on into it.
00:55:37 Towards the end we knew the situation was bad.
00:55:42 We knew we were hemmed in. We knew it was possible we wouldn't get out.
00:55:46 More than anything I remember the way everyone behaved.
00:55:50 The men you knew as the toughest fighters became gentle, kind and considerate to each other.
00:55:57 I knew a lot more about men after Arnhem.
00:56:03 The guns died out in Arnhem.
00:56:06 Then we knew the Great Escalantria was not enough to cross the final bridge.
00:56:10 And now no choice remained to us.
00:56:13 Direct assault against the Siegfried Line would be the only way to carve our corridors into the Reich.
00:56:18 But first a port was needed for supplies.
00:56:21 Antwerp we had, but thundering German guns controlled the 30 cold miles of the shelter from Antwerp to the sea.
00:56:27 The docks were still, the winches silent, all the ports lay dead.
00:56:32 A useless city severed from the sea.
00:56:35 It would stay dead until we cut our way through the grey shelter.
00:56:39 So the battle formed to free the estuary for our ships.
00:56:43 I covered that battle for the Associated Press.
00:56:47 I only wish I could have written the story with the greatness of the men who fought it.
00:56:52 It was vicious and fearsome fighting all the way.
00:56:55 The Canadians and the Poles clearing the south bank of the river.
00:56:59 The Royal Navy and Marines and Norwegians charging knee deep in blood and water into the mouths of the 9-inch shore guns at West Capelle.
00:57:07 It was the kind of fighting that makes legends.
00:57:11 And the minesweeping of the Skelt afterwards.
00:57:14 It was the greatest operation of its kind in history.
00:57:18 The cost of that first ship into Antwerp harbour was the lives of the men who died.
00:57:24 It was the lives of thousands of our bravest men.
00:57:29 I reported it as well as I could.
00:57:32 But their memory deserves more than words.
00:57:35 [Music]
00:57:46 I was hauling on the first convoy out of Antwerp.
00:57:49 When I got to the front I saw more empty supply dumps than I like to see.
00:57:53 The boys wanted to know where the stuff was.
00:57:55 You can't fight without stuff. Anybody knows that.
00:57:58 I made lots of trips. I don't know how many.
00:58:01 Driving all day, all night, singing songs to keep awake.
00:58:05 Songs like "Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet."
00:58:10 [Gunfire]
00:58:21 My job was to see to it that they had a new toothbrush and a cot,
00:58:26 maybe a book to read when they came over from the east bank to the west bank of the Moselle for a little rest.
00:58:32 We brought them over one company at a time because that was all the regiment could spare from the line at any one time.
00:58:39 Somebody had tapped them on the shoulder and said,
00:58:41 "All right, boy, you're going back across the river for 24 hours rest."
00:58:46 And here they were where they could rest.
00:58:48 They just couldn't believe it.
00:58:50 Here they were for just 24 hours without war.
00:58:53 Everything was down to essentials, counted out like dollar bills through a teller's window.
00:58:58 One night's sleep, one day's hot meals, one clean change of underwear,
00:59:02 one clean pair of pants, one shave, one hot shower, one movie.
00:59:07 I used to wonder what was the best of that day.
00:59:10 Was it the chance for them to write home, hot shower, or that long-legged girl on the screen?
00:59:18 Whatever it was, all of it was over by morning.
00:59:21 They were going back with their one clean suit of underwear, their hot shower, their clean shave, and their good night's sleep.
00:59:27 Back across the Moselle to their holes in the ground and their shells.
00:59:36 By that time we knew we were going to see a winter campaign.
00:59:40 There was no way out of it.
00:59:42 The Germans were dug in and they were tough.
00:59:45 And it was plain that until we got a lot stronger we weren't going anyplace.
00:59:49 The squadron was operating whenever it could.
00:59:52 There wasn't a lot of flying. We were iced up and fed up.
00:59:55 "Suppose you're having a swell time in Paris," my cousin wrote me,
00:59:59 "with all that perfume and silk stockings and that champagne."
01:00:03 They called our end of the line south.
01:00:06 We were in the Vosges Mountains with the American 7th Army.
01:00:10 But it was very little warmth in the south.
01:00:13 We were called with pleasure the Mediterranean where we had landed in August.
01:00:17 Ah, but memories do not keep one warm.
01:00:20 Before I joined the Army I'd have thought it was certain death to dig a hole in my back garden and live in it for the winter, but that's what we did.
01:00:27 The sergeant said, "Well, squirrels do it every year."
01:00:30 Yes, I thought, but they don't man machine guns as well.
01:00:34 There was no heating in our Brussels office.
01:00:36 I put on so much under my uniform they called me the bundle from Britain.
01:00:40 I'd never smoked before, but pretty soon I found myself smoking as high as a pack a day.
01:00:44 I worried about that old law of percentages.
01:00:47 My company was melting away.
01:00:49 You'd look up one day and be fighting alongside a stranger.
01:00:52 It was an lonesome feeling.
01:00:54 Our hunk of the line was the Ardennes. Pretty quiet.
01:01:02 A lot of our friends had gone up north.
01:01:04 I started a million latrinograms about to wear in one of our offensive.
01:01:08 One day I'm standing guard and these shells stop.
01:01:10 I thought for a minute this was it, until I realized these shells weren't outgoings, brother.
01:01:15 They were incomings.
01:01:17 Next thing I knew, German tanks.
01:01:19 It was an offensive, all right, but it was going the wrong way.
01:01:23 The offensive we were mounting to the north was suddenly forestalled and set aside.
01:01:37 The Germans threw the rugged, thinly held Ardennes from Rundstedt's truck.
01:01:41 He cut a fiery path through the American lines and sent his tanks desperately driving toward the river Meuse.
01:01:46 The night of fog and pale December frost saw the beginning.
01:01:50 None foresaw the end.
01:01:52 He aimed for Antwerp's harbor through Liege.
01:01:55 And all our plans held fire while we bent our strength to curb the Germans in the bulge.
01:02:02 [Music]
01:02:25 One night I was a replacement in England playing shove hay penny in a pub.
01:02:30 The next day they shoved me in an airplane and that night I was fighting Germans and being kicked around.
01:02:36 I don't know about the other outfits, but mine was being cut to ribbons.
01:02:40 They were dropping all around me.
01:02:42 The thing that still sticks in my head is the medics.
01:02:46 The only weapon they had was a needle, but they were around right where it was the hottest.
01:02:51 You'd hear that yell, "Medic, medic," and they'd always be there.
01:02:55 [Music]
01:03:06 Our whole division got a presidential citation for what happened up at Bastogne.
01:03:10 Even me, just a cook.
01:03:12 I'll never forget that old lieutenant running into the field kitchen and hollering at me if I had any idea how to operate a bazooka.
01:03:19 I said, "No," and he said, "Well, you're going to learn now, son."
01:03:23 I did, and I'll be doggone if in the first shot out the barrel I didn't get me a jerry tank.
01:03:29 Got interviewed later by Stars and Stripes.
01:03:31 They said it was a crackerjack story.
01:03:34 I tell it at the drop of a hat.
01:03:37 [Explosion]
01:03:39 We'd been up north where things were a bit static, so we were quite glad to be moved down to the top side of this bulge.
01:03:45 Coming down through Belgium, we noticed how scared some of the civilians looked.
01:03:49 Natural, I suppose.
01:03:51 We were held in reserve for a week, and then they sent us into action.
01:03:55 [Explosion]
01:03:58 On account of the fog, we couldn't get any air coordination.
01:04:01 You sure miss it bad when you've gotten used to it all the way since D-Day.
01:04:05 And then on December 24th, like a Christmas present, that sun come up, and after a while we was given in the old one-two again.
01:04:13 [Explosion]
01:04:42 We stopped them dead finally. It cost us plenty of men, but we stopped them.
01:04:45 And we started moving ahead again. The rest of us.
01:04:50 [Explosion]
01:05:15 Rundstedt reeled back on a recoiling spring. His great attempt was over.
01:05:19 And his armies that had devoured such a wealth of blood, sagged sodden towards the Rhine.
01:05:24 At Yalter then, while dire explosions shook the German fronts, the three great architects of freedom met to fix the final blow and plot the peace.
01:05:32 And even as they met, we moved to act upon our strategy.
01:05:36 We wished the foe to stand and fight upon the western bank of the Grey Rhine.
01:05:40 For there we could destroy him. Outside his fortress, open, unprotected by any bridgeless river.
01:05:46 Down we cast the gauntlet, challenging him, stand and fight.
01:05:50 [Music]
01:06:19 [Explosion]
01:06:47 We were attacking the north of the Canadians, round about the Reichswald forest, the Dutch frontier area.
01:06:52 It was wet and filthy.
01:06:55 They nicknamed our army commander, Admiral Creeler.
01:06:58 Well anyway, the enemy put up some very stiff opposition.
01:07:01 But actually, this was just what we'd hoped for.
01:07:04 It showed that Jerry's emotions about fighting for every foot of his beloved fatherland were getting the better of his sense of strategy.
01:07:11 And every German killed on our side of the Rhine was to make it easier for us on the further bank.
01:07:16 And a lot of the Bosch were killed, I can tell you.
01:07:19 The Reichswald was the bloodiest show I've seen in this war.
01:07:22 [Explosion]
01:07:28 It was one of a push. The captain told me, eight divisions.
01:07:31 He usually knows, he follows things like that.
01:07:34 I was with the outfit that took Muenchengladbach, I think you say it.
01:07:38 There weren't many civilians in the streets, and even the ones that were there, we weren't supposed to talk to unless we had to.
01:07:44 There was a $65 rack for fraternization.
01:07:47 I wonder how they happened to figure out that number. I mean, why $65?
01:07:51 [Explosion]
01:07:54 We could see the Cologne Cathedral a long time before we got there.
01:07:57 That tower was our objective. It was on the Rhine River.
01:08:01 We went fast, and by the time we got in the town, there wasn't too much fight left in it.
01:08:05 Cologne was mangled, all right, but there were still a few buildings standing.
01:08:09 I was sorry. I thought of those French cities. Flattened.
01:08:14 Anyway, we got our objective. Now we had to cross that river.
01:08:19 [Explosion]
01:08:22 I thought they must be very short of men when they put us sailors into battle dress,
01:08:26 lugged the assault boats onto trucks and sent us across Belgium by road.
01:08:29 Talk about silent service. I'd never been sick at sea, but I was sick as a dog on the road.
01:08:34 When we reached our destination, I was feeling lousy, longing for a breath of sea air.
01:08:38 I found the whole bloody landscape under a stinking smoke screen. Like London it was.
01:08:43 The next day we got up to the Rhine. It was good to get a glimpse of the water again.
01:08:48 [Engine noise]
01:08:55 Our air force has given the old lumps on the east bank of the Rhine, but I was still nervous.
01:08:59 The Germans had blown the bridges, and we knew the crossing would be in fib.
01:09:03 When I'm nervous, I get off my feet. For two days before that crossing,
01:09:06 I couldn't eat nothing but a couple of Milky Way bars.
01:09:09 It was going to be D-Day all over again. Dangerous.
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01:09:16 A miracle. There it was sitting there, big and black.
01:09:20 I'm no architect, but to me that Remagen Bridge was the most beautiful bridge in the world.
01:09:25 In the army, when things go as per plan, that's wonderful.
01:09:28 But when they go better than planned, then you figure the chaplain's working overtime.
01:09:32 There was a break out in that bridge, and we cashed in on it.
01:09:35 And the first guys over the river were over in style.
01:09:38 The watch on the Rhine was finished, washed up.
01:09:41 Put a coin to phrase, kaput.
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01:10:40 We got across okay, and everything was going fine.
01:10:44 But suddenly I get stee-toed to guard some German prisoners.
01:10:47 I'll never forget their faces when them airborne blokes started to come over.
01:10:50 They just stood there looking up at them, and then after about half an hour of it,
01:10:53 one of them looks at me, looks up at the sky, and says, "Propaganda."
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01:11:32 The rear pocket was the first big objective across the Rhine.
01:11:37 We and the heavy sealed it off, then the ground forces wrapped it up.
01:11:40 After that, they exploded in all directions.
01:11:43 Cut the Jerry armies up in pockets, then take them one by one.
01:11:46 That was the program.
01:11:47 The third wreck was being carved up like a Christmas turkey.
01:11:51 [Explosion]
01:11:54 Chasing the boss was getting a little bit monotonous.
01:11:57 We hardly ever saw him, only burning houses, a few shells, and occasional sniper's rifle shot.
01:12:02 It was a silly kind of defiance, I thought.
01:12:04 Then one day the routine was broken.
01:12:06 We came across a prisoner of war camp, other ranks, Yanks mostly.
01:12:09 They went mad when they saw us, screeched "Red Indian" war cries,
01:12:12 pummeled one another, and asked what the news was.
01:12:15 It seemed a shame to tell them when they were so happy.
01:12:18 Well, there was nothing for it.
01:12:20 I told them, "President Roosevelt died yesterday afternoon," I said.
01:12:25 "You should have had him quietened down."
01:12:27 For once in this campaign, they all felt as though they had suffered a major defeat.
01:12:32 I'd have liked to have stayed there, talking to them, trying to cheer them up,
01:12:35 but we had no time to lose.
01:12:36 Jerry only had a few hundred square miles of earth left to scorch.
01:12:39 Our job was either to hurry him up or scorch it for him.
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01:12:44 We were on the home stretch, cutting deeper all the time,
01:12:46 when we ran into these displaced persons, slave workers.
01:12:49 They were sick, hungry, from all over Europe.
01:12:52 The roads were jammed with them.
01:12:54 But they kept out of the way and didn't give us any trouble.
01:12:58 Like a fellow said,
01:13:00 "There's a lot more than town's going to have to be reconstructed."
01:13:03 I wondered what was up when all R.A.M.C. personnel in our lot down at the stretch of bed,
01:13:10 as we were urgently called for.
01:13:12 I soon found out we'd taken the Bilson concentration camp.
01:13:17 Well, I'm not squeamish.
01:13:20 I'd seen amputations, operations, deaths, long before I went to the Army in '41.
01:13:25 I was a warden.
01:13:27 I lost count of all the arms and legs I'd pulled out of the wreckage down in Croydon
01:13:31 and got quite used to it.
01:13:33 But this was different. Very different.
01:13:37 I don't know any words big enough to make you understand what we all felt.
01:13:42 All I can say, and I'm proud of this, is that I had to fall out
01:13:46 and be quickly sick in the courtyard.
01:13:49 I'm not squeamish, but, well, I'm human and thank God for it.
01:13:55 The government sent a few of us congressmen over to see those camps.
01:14:04 And if there's anybody left who wonders if this war was worth fighting,
01:14:08 well, I wish they could have been along.
01:14:11 There it was, right in front of us, fascism and what its bond will lead to,
01:14:16 wherever it crops up.
01:14:18 I talked to some of the prisoners, the ones that had the strength to talk.
01:14:23 Their offenses were the usual Nazi crimes, you know, wrong religion or wrong race,
01:14:30 belonging to a union or the wrong political party.
01:14:34 In Germany, it led to over 400 camps like the ones I saw.
01:14:39 It was the worst thing I ever saw in my life, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
01:14:46 [Chanting]
01:14:50 When an army gets to moving in a hurry, that's where air transport comes in.
01:15:02 We'd been flying in the stuff along with the British Transport Command since D-Day.
01:15:07 Towards the end, they seemed to be moving faster on the ground than we were in the air.
01:15:14 As pocket after pocket of the foe fell, our hopes rose higher than the soaring flames
01:15:18 that marked the broken towns of Germany.
01:15:21 In Italy, a million prisoners came in.
01:15:23 As with a single sudden blow, the German power was smashed.
01:15:27 Then our tanks drove through the southern mountains,
01:15:30 where the foe had hoped to make his furious final stand.
01:15:33 The Russians took Berlin and cut the heart from Hitler's empire.
01:15:37 And he himself, who planned to rule the earth from pole to pole,
01:15:40 vanished like smoke among the falling walls.
01:15:43 Upon the green banks of the River Elbe, we waited for the east and west to meet.
01:15:48 We linked up with the Ruskies at the Elbe River.
01:16:09 I hung around for a couple of days with a Tommy gunner named, uh, uh, uh, Konnikov.
01:16:14 He didn't know any English, so I taught him to say my Aiken back,
01:16:17 and he taught me tovarisch. That means "comrade."
01:16:20 We drank toast to Len Leeson, had a million laughs.
01:16:23 Then old Konnikov found an interpreter and gives a toast to the great American soldier.
01:16:27 That stopped me.
01:16:28 We did all right, but I don't like to think the way we'd have been without them.
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01:16:35 [explosion]
01:16:38 We were going towards the Danish frontier.
01:16:47 Bremen fell, then Hamburg.
01:16:49 The rot was setting in.
01:16:51 A million and a half surrendered to the north.
01:16:53 The fighting was nearly over and our job was beginning.
01:16:56 We'd been training a long time for the administration of Germany,
01:16:59 and we were prepared for plenty of trouble.
01:17:01 Sabotage, passive resistance, or perhaps something more violent.
01:17:05 You know, werewolves in sheep's clothing.
01:17:07 But as it turned out, most of them were docile and did what they were told.
01:17:11 They seemed healthy, well fed.
01:17:14 Their disease was in their minds.
01:17:16 A German woman, looking at what was left of her town, said to me,
01:17:21 "If only you'd given up in 1940, none of this need have happened."
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01:18:03 At one minute after midnight, May the 9th, 1945, the guns stopped.
01:18:22 D plus 337.
01:18:25 Now it starts.
01:18:28 All the arguments about who won the war.
01:18:31 Well, here's what I say.
01:18:33 That no country on earth could have won it alone.
01:18:36 So what does that mean?
01:18:38 That anybody who wants to take a bow by himself is not only boasting, but nuts.
01:18:43 I spent four years in the infantry and I saw my share.
01:18:50 During that time, I only met three men that liked to fight.
01:18:53 They were a little cracked, but it had to be done.
01:18:56 Now that it's over, I feel good, except for one thing.
01:19:00 All this talk about World War III.
01:19:03 These big pessimists that talk so easy about another war just didn't see this one, or enough of it.
01:19:10 We watched them bringing in some high up prisoners, quite ready to be friendless, all of them.
01:19:17 I was thinking of fellows I'd known who'd bought it, crashed, shot down, missing.
01:19:22 Right through from the Battle of Britain.
01:19:26 I remembered their faces, or some joke they'd played, or maybe just the way they laughed or something.
01:19:32 There seemed to be such a lot of them, I remembered.
01:19:36 To the victor belongs the spoils.
01:19:45 That's what they say.
01:19:47 Well, what are the spoils?
01:19:49 Only this, a chance to build a free world, better than before.
01:19:55 Maybe the last chance.
01:19:57 Remember that.
01:19:59 Now the time has come to put our victory to the tests of peace.
01:20:11 In company with men of many lands to sift from ashes what the struggle taught.
01:20:17 In the rebuilding of a broken earth, may we keep in our hearts this ancient prayer.
01:20:23 O Lord God, when thou givest to thy servants to endeavor any great matter,
01:20:29 grant to us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same,
01:20:36 until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory.
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