WWII.By.Drone.S01E01
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00:00In Belgium, researchers are using a drone to investigate the secrets of World War II.
00:07The target of their search? Hidden evidence from the front line of the Battle of the Bulge.
00:14The Battle of the Bulge was the biggest and deadliest single battle of World War II for the U.S. Army.
00:20Nearly 20,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the battle,
00:26including many all too often forgotten African-American front line troops.
00:32My dad's unit, the 333rd, fought night and day.
00:37He just would tell me, if you want to paint a picture of hell, this was just about it.
00:44Can the drone team discover the remarkable 333rd Field Artillery Battalion's long lost fighting positions?
00:53You can see the depressions of what might be large gun emplacements. Very interesting.
01:00These are the battlegrounds of World War II, revealed.
01:23World War II
01:40Deep in the Ardennes Forest, along the Belgium border with Germany,
01:44World War II researchers are using a drone equipped with the latest LiDAR technology
01:49to search the woods for long lost traces of the Battle of the Bulge.
01:56Okay, here we go. Take off.
02:03So, as archaeologists, we really like to use LiDAR because it's a technique where you attach a laser scanner to a drone
02:11and the laser scanner sends beams towards the branches of the trees and towards the bottom.
02:16You can filter away the trees and then you have a bare model of the earth and that's what's really important for archaeology.
02:26Taking up to 300,000 measurements a second, the LiDAR can uncover features hidden beneath the dense forest
02:33and help build an accurate 3D picture of what's revealed.
02:42What excites me in doing this LiDAR scan today is that using cutting-edge LiDAR technology,
02:49conflict archaeology and military history together actually allows us to better understand
02:56one of the largest battles the American army ever fought during World War II.
03:01The Battle of the Bulge
03:09Lasting six weeks from December 1944 to January 1945, the Battle of the Bulge was fought on an epic scale.
03:20At its peak, more than 600,000 U.S. soldiers were involved in the ferocious fight to stop Nazi Germany's last major offensive.
03:32Some of America's most celebrated military units fought in the battle, such as the 101st Airborne Division.
03:40But an often overlooked unit, the African-American 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, also played a key role in the battle.
04:02Robert Hudson Jr.'s father was one of the few hundred men who fought in the Battle of the Bulge with the 333rd.
04:11The conditions in 1940 were that we were a segregated country, but because of this epic struggle that we had against Germany,
04:21the United States Army had no choice but to utilize African-American soldiers in the fight for freedom.
04:28Never forget, the United States, with a segregated army, fought the most racist regime in history.
04:37Think about that irony. I mean, that just makes your head explode.
04:45In fact, over a million African-Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II,
04:52but due to discrimination, most were only deployed in service roles behind the front lines.
04:59The 333rd are an unusual artillery battalion in the U.S. Army.
05:03Black soldiers tend to be segregated in specific units in the supply lines in a quartermaster general corps.
05:10So to find a black American unit at the front is extremely unusual.
05:15Today, the research team is trying to find the 333rd's long-lost fighting positions
05:21on the former front line of the Battle of the Bulge near Schoenberg in Belgium.
05:27So while we know that the 333rd was actually in the Schoenberg area,
05:31and it's been reported that their firing batteries were on the east side of the river,
05:36we really don't know where exactly they were positioned.
05:40So that remains a mystery, and that really intrigues me.
05:47Although the drone and lidar search of the forest will take time,
05:51it will hopefully uncover evidence about the remarkable exploits of the 333rd
05:56during the Battle of the Bulge and the tragic events that overtook them.
06:02The 333rd had been activated as part of a new segregated regiment in 1942,
06:08once the United States entered World War II.
06:14After intensive training in Oklahoma, they landed on the Normandy beaches just after D-Day
06:20in late November of 1942.
06:24After intensive training in Oklahoma, they landed on the Normandy beaches
06:29just after D-Day in late June 1944, and rapidly earned a formidable reputation.
06:40In Normandy, when they landed, the first thing that they were told to do
06:44was that there was a German sniper unit in a church depot,
06:48and they needed to take the unit out.
06:51And so they fired two shots, this was about three miles away,
06:56and they took out the sniper nest.
06:58And so at that point, that's when their reputation started for their accuracy.
07:04Within days, they were called upon to fire upon a Nancy Tiger tank nine miles away.
07:10They shot four rounds of artillery, three direct hits.
07:15That was unprecedented.
07:17That would be great shooting even today with GPS.
07:22Along with the rest of the Allied army trying to liberate occupied Europe,
07:28the 333rd then began to fight their way towards Germany.
07:37After breaking out from Normandy across France,
07:40by late 1944 the Allies forced Hitler's army to retreat all the way to the Siegfried Line,
07:47a 400-mile long line of concrete bunkers and tank traps,
07:52protecting Nazi Germany from invasion.
07:56Breaking through the Siegfried Line would be a major challenge.
08:00So in late 1944, units like the 333rd dug into the frozen ground along the German border
08:07and waited as the Allies built up supplies and military strength.
08:12An all-out assault across the Siegfried Line into Germany was planned for early 1945.
08:18But until then, the troops faced a long, cold winter.
08:29Five miles west of the Siegfried Line,
08:32the research team is closing in on the site that could be the 333rd's encampment.
08:38They have completed the LiDAR survey of the forest near Schoenberg in Belgium
08:42and started processing the raw data.
08:50So guys, this is the scan we've processed of this area behind us.
08:54The most interesting part is the forest to the east, I think.
08:59If we zoom in a bit.
09:02That looks very nice.
09:03Wow.
09:04Now I've filtered most of the trees out.
09:06You can already see the archaeology.
09:08You can see all those dugouts and shelters.
09:11You can see at least seven or eight of them.
09:13You can already do measurements.
09:15Yeah, we can do some cross-section.
09:17It's taking a couple of seconds.
09:19Wow.
09:20Oh, wow.
09:21We can do some basic measurements.
09:23Like, we want the width of it.
09:25Then it's about five and a half meters.
09:28And it probably measures one and a half meter depth.
09:32Yeah.
09:33So there you have a cross-section.
09:35An archaeological drawing without the need to do any excavation at all.
09:42With the dugouts now revealed in detail by the LiDAR,
09:45the research team heads into the forest to investigate what's visible on the ground.
09:52So here we are at the site.
09:54And we can see the remains of some kind of a shelter.
09:58If you want to find some shelter, you dig a hole.
10:02You put the earth to the side.
10:04It had some overhead cover.
10:05This would have been deeper.
10:06It's been filled in the last 75 years.
10:10Very interesting.
10:11This is just one.
10:12There's one here.
10:13A second one is there.
10:15A third one.
10:16A fourth one.
10:17A fifth one.
10:18And a sixth one.
10:19Yeah.
10:20Okay.
10:24Given the camp's location,
10:26it's a strong possibility that it was the 333rd who dug these shelters
10:31to use while waiting for the planned invasion of Germany in early 1945.
10:37If so, further LiDAR scans may well reveal the 333rd's long-lost artillery emplacements,
10:44hidden in the forest somewhere nearby.
10:49This is certainly something that you don't build in a couple of hours.
10:52You don't make this to stay here for a couple of days.
10:54Probably you bring some engineers in to actually help you,
10:57or even build it for you, I'd reckon,
10:59to be here over the wintertime.
11:01It would be logical to start digging and making these kinds of positions
11:06to cover themselves from the harsh winter conditions.
11:16As it turned out, winter 1944 was one of the coldest winters in decades.
11:21But as the 333rd and other U.S. troops sheltered from it in their foxholes,
11:26Hitler celebrated.
11:28Heavy snow and freezing fog was exactly what he wanted
11:31to provide cover for a massive surprise attack
11:34to try to turn the tide of the war.
11:40The German situation at the time is desperate.
11:43They've abandoned most of France.
11:45In the east, they've abandoned most of Poland.
11:47And the Soviets are gearing up for another gigantic offensive.
11:51It's now or never for the Germans to launch this attack in the west.
11:58Surprise was essential for success.
12:01So in December 1944, Hitler secretly moved 200,000 troops
12:06and over 500 tanks to an 80-mile attack front
12:10just behind the Siegfried Line,
12:12centered on Schoenberg in the Belgian Ardennes.
12:21Early on the morning of December 16, 1944,
12:25the German Blitzkrieg began with a massive artillery barrage
12:28from over 1,500 heavy guns.
12:32The ferocious Battle of the Bulge had begun,
12:35and the unsuspecting 333rd would be right at the heart of the storm.
12:42The Germans poured through the Ardennes forest.
12:46My dad's unit, the 333rd,
12:48had no idea of the magnitude of what was coming at them.
12:56On the first day of the Battle of the Bulge, December 16, 1944,
13:07the Belgian village of Schoenberg
13:09in the low-lying Oer River valley in the Ardennes
13:12was right at the center of the massive surprise German attack.
13:21Today, the drone and LiDAR research team
13:23is continuing to search the forest around Schoenberg
13:27for the positions of the African-American
13:30333rd Field Artillery Battalion who fought here.
13:35The wartime dugouts already discovered
13:37may well have belonged to the 333rd,
13:40but to confirm this, the team hopes to find
13:43the 333rd's long-lost artillery emplacements
13:47somewhere in the nearby forest.
13:51So what I like about this kind of investigation
13:54is that we're discovering small pieces of a puzzle.
13:57We have a puzzle piece in this wood, in this wood,
14:00and what's interesting for an archaeologist and a scientist
14:03is to put back together these small different pieces of the puzzle
14:07and puzzle together the landscape of the Battle of the Bulge,
14:10and that's what makes it really exciting.
14:14When Hitler launched the surprise offensive
14:17that began the Battle of the Bulge,
14:19Schoenberg became a key battleground
14:21because of its crucial bridge over the River Ur.
14:27The capture of the Ur River bridge at Schoenberg
14:30was absolutely crucial to the German plan.
14:32Schoenberg is practically smack dab
14:34in the middle of the German attack,
14:36and if there's no early seizure of the bridge,
14:38the German follow-on waves are not going to be able
14:41to get to Antwerp on day four of the offensive.
14:45Reaching Antwerp, 100 miles northwest of Schoenberg
14:48in just four days, was the German offensive's
14:51ultimate and very ambitious target.
14:56Antwerp's huge port was critical to the Allied war effort,
14:59and Hitler believed his capture could change the course of the war.
15:05Why Antwerp? It's the largest port in Europe,
15:08and it's where all the Allied supplies are coming into.
15:11So if you control it, you shut off all the petrol,
15:14all the ammunition, all the reinforcements of men,
15:17material, everything you need,
15:19and the Allied advance will grind to a halt.
15:23But speed would be crucial to the success
15:26of Hitler's very risky weather-dependent attack plan.
15:32The Germans have chosen to attack in midwinter,
15:35principally to shut off the Allied control of the air.
15:40And of course, sooner or later, the skies are going to clear.
15:45If U.S. ground troops, including the 333rd,
15:49could delay the German advance towards Antwerp
15:52until the weather improved and Allied air power could be used,
15:55Hitler's big gamble to save his Nazi regime would be doomed.
16:06But initially, at Schoenberg at least,
16:08all went very well for the Germans.
16:12The story of the German attacks in the Schoenberg area
16:16is one of complete and total surprise
16:19and shock on the part of the Americans.
16:23All of a sudden, the sky is lit up by this massive bombardment,
16:27followed by tanks and troops who aren't meant to be there at all.
16:31What they soon come to realise
16:33is that this isn't an isolated local attack,
16:36this is happening all along the front.
16:41When they call for help, it's not there
16:43because the Germans are attacking absolutely everywhere.
16:48Sheltering in their forest dugouts,
16:50the 333rd were on their own and under overwhelming attack.
16:59They fought for 36 consecutive hours,
17:02being shelled night and day by mortars,
17:06what's known as screaming Mimis from the Germans.
17:10My father, he said the scariest thing
17:13was the shells exploding from the trees,
17:15and then the trees, the splinters from the trees
17:18would come and kill the soldiers.
17:20That's what they feared more than anything else.
17:24And then the other thing he talked about
17:26was the sound of the German tanks.
17:29And he said they knew they were in trouble
17:31because they heard incessant squeaking of gears clanking and clinging,
17:37and he said that he knew that they couldn't hold out
17:40because they had no tank cover of their own.
17:43And eventually they were overrun.
17:52Three quarters of a century later,
17:54the research team has now finished searching the Schoenberg forest
17:58for the 333rd's overrun positions.
18:03With the LiDAR data now processed,
18:05one area of the forest floor looks of great interest.
18:13Okay, so we've processed the first bone cloud.
18:16You can see it over here.
18:17It's all points included, so all trees are visible.
18:20That's already a very nice visualization.
18:22So now we're virtually going into the forest,
18:25starting to go down below the tree cover
18:28and reveal the archaeology at the surface.
18:31You can see some bluish points coming up over here and over here,
18:37indicating that that is lower than the surrounding surface.
18:41You can see the depressions of what might be large emplacements.
18:45You can see all kinds of pits and slit trenches.
18:49I think where you're mousing now might probably be one of those.
18:52Gun emplacement.
18:53It's a rectangular shape.
18:54It's a big pit with earthen embankments next to it.
18:58Very, very interesting.
19:02The large scale of the military positions
19:04newly revealed by the LiDAR investigation
19:07suggests the team may indeed have found
19:09the site of one of the 333rd's gun batteries.
19:17But to try to confirm what would be an important discovery,
19:21the team heads into the forest.
19:23Can they find conclusive evidence on the ground
19:26that they really have found the 333rd's long-lost fighting positions?
19:41In the forest near Schoenberg in the Belgian Ardennes,
19:44the LiDAR research team has made an important new discovery
19:48of World War II military positions.
19:52But to confirm whether it is one of the 333rd
19:55Field Artillery Battalion's gun batteries,
19:58the team needs to search for evidence on the ground.
20:05So the LiDAR shows us that one of the first large features is over here.
20:10It's one of the four huge emplacements.
20:13It's something like four to six meters wide,
20:18almost two meters deep.
20:20They clearly made a deep excavation in this ridge.
20:23They took away the earth to make this embankment.
20:26And there you have a protective area.
20:28You could have some locks over here.
20:30And typically those earthen embankments of this size,
20:32that's artillery emplacements.
20:34Especially there are four of them.
20:36A battery mostly consists of four pieces.
20:38So those are all clues that point into the direction
20:42of being gun emplacements.
20:47The positioning of the artillery emplacements in the forest
20:51is another significant clue.
20:54The position gives away a little bit.
20:56This used to be the edge of the forest
20:58during the Second World War.
21:00There's now a forest here that wasn't there
21:02during the Second World War.
21:04So 1944, this would be the tree line.
21:06This would be the tree line.
21:08Just two meters further, you're outside of the woods.
21:10So you're at the edge of the woods.
21:12And you're having a clear view outside of the forest.
21:15If you take into account the direction,
21:17the four artillery emplacements,
21:19they're having a clean field of fire towards Germany.
21:23Most probably those are American positions,
21:25given that they were around in this area.
21:28Scattered on the surface of the forest floor,
21:31the team then luckily discovers
21:33what appears to be conclusive evidence.
21:38Can you make sense of this?
21:40Seems to me just a piece of...
21:42It's a piece of iron.
21:44And on the back side,
21:46it says something green back four.
21:51And then it says M1 howitzer.
21:54Howitzer M1.
21:56M1 howitzer.
21:58Okay, that is American artillery.
22:01155-millimeter howitzers were called M1s.
22:05That's interesting. It's an interesting clue.
22:08♪♪
22:12Combining the evidence on the ground
22:14with the data from the LIDAR scans,
22:16the layout of the American gun battery discovered
22:19can now be reconstructed.
22:22On the edge of the forest protected in deep emplacements,
22:26four powerful 155-millimeter M1 howitzers
22:30face towards German lines.
22:33While behind them, hidden in the forest,
22:36are the log-covered foxholes
22:38where the gunners could shelter.
22:41But the key question remains.
22:44Was it really the 333rd
22:47who fought here at this gun battery?
22:50We know that the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion
22:53was in the Schoenberg area with the firing batteries
22:56here on the east side of the river.
22:58And we know that they had 155-millimeter guns.
23:02I'm quite convinced
23:04that this was a site used by one of the batteries
23:07of the 333rd.
23:09Based on the evidence, it's very, very likely.
23:13It's very moving to see the landscape
23:17that literally remains as the last witness of the war.
23:21This site is exceptional, but it's even more spectacular
23:24when you know who was there.
23:26You can put faces into it.
23:28Then this site really comes alive.
23:32Poignantly, in this very spot,
23:34Robert Hudson Jr.'s father may well have fought
23:37and been wounded trying to hold back the German onslaught.
23:44My dad's experience was, he had fragments from mortar fire.
23:49His buddy, a gentleman by the name of Lester,
23:53was in the foxhole next to him,
23:55and he was eviscerated by German machine-gun fire.
24:00And the rest of his memory was a blur.
24:03He said that he was dazed and confused.
24:05He was bleeding profusely from the head and arm,
24:08and he just remembered the horrific screams.
24:11But he was in and out of consciousness.
24:13The next thing he remembers, he was at a prisoner of war camp.
24:17He just would tell me,
24:19if you want to paint a picture of hell, this was just about it.
24:23So it was a very, very brutal experience for him.
24:28But he was able to make it back alive.
24:35Apart from Robert's father,
24:37more than 200 men of the 333rd were killed or captured
24:41in Schoenberg on 17 December 1944.
24:46And for U.S. forces in the area, much worse was to follow
24:50when inexperienced troops of the 106th Infantry Division
24:54tried to recapture Schoenberg's vital bridge.
25:01Much of the 106th Infantry Division are simply swallowed up.
25:05They're surrounded and fall into German captivity.
25:08It's a disaster of the highest order for the U.S. Army.
25:12In total, around 7,000 soldiers
25:15of the 106th Infantry Division were captured,
25:19the largest mass surrender of U.S. troops in Europe in World War II.
25:30Nearly 300 men of the 333rd were able to carry on the fight, however,
25:35after successfully withdrawing west from Schoenberg
25:39towards the town of Saint-Vite.
25:42Saint-Vite
25:47By 18 December 1944, the third day of the German offensive,
25:51Saint-Vite still held out.
25:54But either side of Saint-Vite, the Germans continued to advance
25:58toward Bastogne in the south and Spa in the north.
26:01Antwerp
26:06In the north, the fearsome 1st SS Panzer Division spearheaded the attack.
26:11Originally founded as Hitler's personal bodyguard,
26:15it was very well equipped with nearly 120 panzers,
26:19but made slower progress than anticipated.
26:24Hitler had expected the 1st SS to make it to Antwerp in just four days,
26:29but getting tanks through this part of the dense Ardennes forest
26:32proved very difficult.
26:36The quality of roads is abysmal.
26:39And one of the German commanders afterwards said,
26:42essentially, you've given me a logging track
26:44that a man with a bicycle couldn't get along,
26:47much less a panzer army.
26:49And that's why the Germans are much, much slower
26:53than they ever expected.
26:56Further south, though, the Germans were making better progress
27:00in their push towards Antwerp
27:02and were closing in on the highly strategic crossroads town of Bastogne.
27:10Defended by relatively few US troops,
27:13Allied commanders decided that to slow down the German advance,
27:17Bastogne must be held at all costs.
27:25The renowned 101st Airborne Division were sent in as reinforcements.
27:33And in addition, the surviving gunners of the 333rd,
27:36who had escaped from Schoenberg, were also rushed in
27:40to join another African-American artillery unit, the 969th.
27:51The reinforcements arrived in Bastogne
27:53just in time before the Germans encircled the town
27:56on 20th December 1944,
27:59and the famous Siege of Bastogne began.
28:03The Germans are unlucky, really.
28:05It takes them longer to get to Bastogne than expected,
28:09by which time they're way behind schedule,
28:11they're exhausted, the weather is appalling,
28:13and they hunker down for the night.
28:15And in that brief moment while they're asleep,
28:18Bastogne has been reinforced, so they miss it by a whisker.
28:22And so instead of an easy advance down the high street of Bastogne,
28:26which is now full of Americans who aren't going to let them in,
28:29the Germans have to flow either side of the town,
28:32and that creates the siege.
28:35As it turned out, the firepower of the 333rd
28:39during the siege of Bastogne was crucial.
28:43Besides the 101st Airborne at Bastogne,
28:45a conspicuous part of the defense was played by the 333rd Artillery.
28:50Airborne troopers need heavy fire support,
28:53certainly for something like perimeter defense against German tanks,
28:56and they got it from the 333rd.
29:00But completely surrounded and outnumbered
29:03with German panzers attacking Bastogne from all sides,
29:06would the 101st Airborne and the gunners of the 333rd
29:12be able to hold out against the ferocious German siege?
29:30When the highly strategic crossroads town of Bastogne
29:33became completely encircled by the advancing German offensive
29:37on the 20th December 1944,
29:40both sides knew it would be a decisive encounter.
29:48In the woods all around the town,
29:50the 101st Airborne Division's power troopers fought off German attacks,
29:55as the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion's surviving gunners
30:00supported them from the rear.
30:05The remnants of the 333rd
30:08play a crucial role in defending the town,
30:11providing heavy artillery support
30:13to the paratroopers in forests like this.
30:16So whenever an attack occurs,
30:19whether it is to the east or the northeast, northwest, and so on,
30:23each time the paratroopers will resist that attack,
30:26held by the artillery shells
30:29fired onto the Germans by these African-American gunners.
30:35Already renowned for their accuracy
30:38in the heat of the battle for Bastogne,
30:41the 333rd's gunners also needed to be very fast,
30:45and they had a unique way of achieving this.
30:48The 333rd operated as a team, they operated in unison.
30:53They would sing African-American spirituals and songs and chants
30:57when they fired their weaponry.
31:00Because of their expertise and rhythm that they got
31:03from singing Negro spirituals,
31:05they were able to fire the 155-millimeter howitzer
31:08at unprecedented speed.
31:14With the 333rd in the thick of the action,
31:17the ferocious battle for control of Bastogne continued for days,
31:21without a backwards step on either side,
31:24until the besieged U.S. forces defending the encircled town
31:28finally got lucky.
31:31Every single day is a desperate day.
31:34But then the Americans get their big break,
31:37and that is December the 23rd.
31:39Up to that point, it had been very grayish, foggy weather.
31:43After one week of Battle of the Bulge fighting,
31:47all of a sudden the sky's clear to a very crisp blue.
31:52And this means that now the most powerful weapon of the Allies
31:56can be thrown into battle, which is the Air Force.
32:03First of all, the troops inside Bastogne are desperate for equipment,
32:08shells, they need weapons, they need food,
32:11they need especially medical assistance,
32:14and so transport aircraft are flown in in wave after wave
32:18and parachuted in all the help they need.
32:23In addition to the transport aircraft, fighter bombers are thrown in,
32:28and they bomb everything around Bastogne that even moves and looks German.
32:35They're in the air constantly, targets are being radioed in,
32:39and they swoop down on these German targets time and again,
32:43very close to Allied lines sometimes.
32:46They use explosives, but also incendiaries like napalm,
32:51and they put the fear of God into the Germans.
32:56Finally, on December 26, 1944,
32:59tanks of the U.S. 4th Armored Division
33:02broke through German lines on the ground,
33:05and the siege of Bastogne was over.
33:11The same day, Allied bombing
33:13forced the German offensive's leading spearhead to a halt.
33:17The 5th Panzer Army had made it less than half way to Antwerp.
33:22Further north, the elite 1st SS Panzer Division was also pushed back.
33:36Over the next few weeks,
33:38as Allied forces continued to retake ground lost,
33:41the brutality of Hitler's SS became shockingly apparent.
33:48At Malmedy, on the route taken by the 1st SS Panzer Division,
33:53U.S. soldiers found the bodies of over 70 murdered American POWs
33:58frozen in the snow.
34:02The Battle of the Bulge, unfortunately,
34:04was characterized by a number of atrocities on the German side,
34:07and there's a number of reasons for it.
34:09I think you could say the SS was perhaps brutal by nature
34:12and then made more brutal by its training,
34:14but a second factor is the tight timetable of this battle.
34:17If you have to get forward to Antwerp in four days,
34:20which is probably impossible by any reasonable expectation,
34:23and you're a fanatical SS trooper,
34:26you don't have a lot of time for the niceties
34:28of prisoner handling and processing and marching them to the rear,
34:32the first thought that passes through your mind is to shoot them.
34:37Apart from at Malmedy,
34:39U.S. troops discovered evidence of other shocking SS war crimes nearby.
34:44And worryingly, 11 of the 333rd's men
34:48had been missing in action for over a month
34:51since the German capture of Schoenberg.
34:54Would they be found alive or dead?
34:58The 11 African-American soldiers of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion
35:03had been missing in action since the Germans captured Schoenberg
35:07on 17th December, 1944.
35:11They had been on the front lines of the war
35:14and had been on the front lines of the war
35:17and had been on the front lines of the war
35:20and had been on the front lines of the war
35:23and had been on the front lines of the war
35:29After escaping capture,
35:31it transpired that they had tried to find their way back to American lines.
35:35Ending up lost in German-held territory,
35:38a local Belgian farmer then wide kindly gave them shelter in this house,
35:42because of the risk of retribution if the Germans found out any of them.
35:47They came upon the house
35:49and they were let in by a gentleman
35:51a gentleman by the name of Matthias Langer.
35:53The fact that he took the risk of taking in those African-American soldiers
35:57speaks volumes about his courage and empathy
36:00in terms of taking in people and strangers
36:04from another land that he knew nothing about.
36:08He tried to explain to them that they were surrounded by the Germans
36:12and he tried to give them counsel on how to escape.
36:16But because of the language barrier, they just didn't get it.
36:21Today, Matthias Langer's grandson still lives in the family house
36:26in the small Belgian village of Wereth, near Schoenberg,
36:29where his grandfather tried to help the 11 African-American soldiers.
36:50Unfortunately, a Nazi sympathizer in the village
37:15had seen the 11 African-American soldiers arriving and informed the Germans.
37:21Within hours, they were captured by the SS and taken away.
37:26Initially, the heavy winter snow concealed what happened next.
37:30But once the Allies had won back the ground lost to the 1st SS Panzer Division
37:35and the weather warmed, all was revealed.
37:39When the war was almost over and my grandparents went to church for the first time
37:49and the snow melted, they saw the bodies.
37:53It was terrible.
37:55They were tortured, their eyes were pierced with bayonets,
38:02they were beaten, their bones were broken, their faces were broken.
38:09And their fingers were cut off for the rings.
38:12And my father never forgot that moment.
38:26The discovery of the shocking SS massacres hardened Allied resolve.
38:32The Allies continued to retake ground lost in the Battle of the Bulge
38:37and by the end of January 1945 forced Hitler's army all the way back to the Siegfried Line.
38:45Hitler's gamble to try to capture Antwerp and save his Nazi Third Reich had failed.
38:54In February 1945, the Allies finally launched their long-planned invasion across the Siegfried Line.
39:02And after months of bitter fighting, Germany was at last forced to surrender in May 1945.
39:11Nazi Germany's defeat allowed the full horror of Hitler's brutal regime to be revealed to the world.
39:21At Nuremberg and at the former Nazi concentration camp at Dachau,
39:26war crimes trials were held from late 1945 to 1947.
39:32At Dachau, over 70 SS stormtroopers and their commanders
39:37were found guilty of murdering more than 80 American prisoners at Malmedy.
39:44The victims of the Malmedy massacre were all white.
39:47In stark contrast, the SS men who brutally tortured and murdered the 333rd's black soldiers
39:55were never brought to justice.
40:02The US authorities' official reason for not prosecuting the murderers of the 11 men found, killed and weareth
40:09was a lack of evidence identifying the SS individuals responsible.
40:14Some believe the real reason the US failed to prosecute was racism.
40:19But others are prepared to accept it was mainly due to Cold War politics.
40:31Well, in 1948, the Army did their review of all the war crimes
40:39and the War of 11 case was dismissed primarily because
40:44at that point the US Army officials were concerned about Russia
40:49and they were looking to utilize Germans to help in the new war,
40:54the new cold front against the Russians.
40:56And so it was pretty much written off.
41:00Basically, they said, hey, we don't want to worry about that now.
41:03That was yesterday's war.
41:05And so the War of 11 disappeared at that point in 1948.
41:09It was just forgotten.
41:16Although US military authorities failed to ensure justice for the weareth 11,
41:21the Langer family who bravely helped them has raised a monument in their memory.
41:27It's placed in the field where the 11 men were killed
41:30so that their sacrifice should never be forgotten.
41:35The Langer family
41:40This is the memorial to all US soldiers killed in the Battle of the Bulge,
41:44located just outside of Bastogne,
41:47because of the crucial battle that took place here.
41:52And at least in recognition of the 333rd's important role during the famous siege,
41:59the unit was officially honored by the United States.
42:04The 333rd was instrumental in the defense of Bastogne.
42:10When they combined with the 969 battalion,
42:13they were awarded the Presidential Citation Award
42:16for extraordinary bravery and heroism in fighting the enemy.
42:21And that led to President Truman in 1948
42:24ultimately having the confidence to desegregate the US Armed Forces.
42:29So the 333rd played a crucial role in not only winning the war,
42:35but also helping the social fabric of the United States moving forward.
42:46Today, the likely discovery of one of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion's gun batteries
42:53offers an important reminder.
42:55Among the nearly 20,000 US soldiers of all races, colors, and creeds
43:01who lost their lives fighting the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge
43:05were many all too often forgotten African American troops.
43:13I think the discovery of the hallowed grounds where the 333rd fought is very important.
43:19It's important for me personally,
43:21but I think it's important for generations of American and European citizens.
43:28Democracy hung in the balance in December of 1944.
43:32And if not for soldiers like the 333rd,
43:36we wouldn't be looking at the freedoms that we have today.