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00:00:00I have been asked to be the spokesman for this Allied Expeditionary Force in saying
00:00:23a word of introduction to what you are about to see.
00:00:26It is the story of the Nazi defeat on the Western Front.
00:00:30So far as possible, the editors have made it an account of the really important men
00:00:35in this campaign.
00:00:37I mean the enlisted soldiers, sailors, and airmen that fought through every obstacle
00:00:43to victory.
00:00:44Of course, to tell the whole story would take years, but the theme would be the same.
00:00:51Teamwork wins wars.
00:00:53I mean teamwork among nations, services, and men.
00:00:59All the way down the line, from the GI and the Tommy to us Brass Hats.
00:01:05Our enemy in this campaign was strong, resourceful, and cunning, but he made a few mistakes.
00:01:12His greatest blunder was this.
00:01:14He thought he could break up our partnership, but we were welded together by fighting for
00:01:20one great cause into one great team, a team in which you were an indispensable and working
00:01:28member.
00:01:30That spirit of free people working, fighting, and living together in one great cause has
00:01:36served us well on the Western Front.
00:01:39We in the field pray that that spirit of comradeship will persist forever among the free peoples
00:01:46of the United Nations.
00:02:20To you who now, living in love and hope, who sense the future in the surrounding air, this
00:02:25testament is offered.
00:02:27Here you may look on the violent fragments of our age and the once thinness of the little
00:02:32thread that made us then the citizens of freedom.
00:02:36For dark was Europe and the face of man when this begins.
00:02:41The nation had gone mad and struck out everywhere the compass knew.
00:02:45The ebbtide of our honor fell away and left its wreckage on a hundred coasts.
00:02:49The German cast his fires about the globe.
00:02:51His strength, drawn from the smoking Tsar and Ruhr, lay in our weakness, and at last
00:02:57his conquest smoldered behind the barriers of his arms.
00:03:02Along the channel where the sea strikes France stood the West Wall of concrete, stone, and
00:03:07steel to mock the frail hopes of the petty free.
00:03:10Wounded, hard-pressed, and wasted on our strength, almost like madmen then, we planned to breach
00:03:17the wall and smash the German spine.
00:03:19But where?
00:03:20We searched the coast of Europe like fierce eagles.
00:03:25Between low flushing and deep harbored Cherbourg, our eyes sought out the place of the assault.
00:03:30Exits and tidal range marked shallow flushing off, sand and the wind canceled the Belgian
00:03:35coast, the North Seine beaches were too small, and cliffs barred the approaches.
00:03:40Cote d'Antin, too narrow, the Pas de Calais, heavily defended.
00:03:45It all resolved on Normandy, on Côte.
00:03:49Their planes could land upon the carpet ground, the coast defenses were more light, and tides
00:03:54had a good range, and men were safe from winds.
00:03:58So on five miles of still unblooded sand, the fretful course of fate would be assailed
00:04:03by armored nations.
00:04:05Now our people bent to the construction of a steel array and took the builder's hammer
00:04:09in their hands.
00:04:11It seemed almost as though the sun stood still till our free peoples, full of rage and power,
00:04:17heaved through the air the ponderous spear of war.
00:04:21This is our people's story, in their words.
00:04:24I suppose if the battle of the North Atlantic hadn't gone right, things might have been
00:04:46considerably different.
00:04:47That was an ugly time for all of us, merchant ships, naval escort, air patrol.
00:04:54I guess I had my share of bad luck.
00:04:57I lost three ships, and some good friends.
00:05:15I remember reading somewhere that when a seagull comes down on a patch of oil, its feathers
00:05:20stick together and it can't get off the water again.
00:05:22There must have been a lot of dead seagulls around the North Atlantic.
00:05:28Of course, we only saw it happening on the wall map, and yet it was, well, quite real.
00:05:34When I started there, those markers we used reminded me of toys out of some children's
00:05:38game.
00:05:39But soon they became U-boats, and ships carrying cargoes, food and supplies, and weapons, and
00:05:45men to use them.
00:05:51I remember coming over, the worst thing about the trip was you didn't know where you were
00:05:55going.
00:05:56Wherever it was, you'd be a stranger, and nobody likes that.
00:05:59That ship was loaded from stem to stern with sad sacks.
00:06:03Around the third day out, things got pally, like the fellow said, we're all in the same
00:06:07boat.
00:06:08A comic.
00:06:09Finally, we got to Liverpool.
00:06:13They had a band to play us in, an English army band, full of chimes.
00:06:17I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, they played.
00:06:20To tell you the truth, it was pretty corny, but nobody said anything because, well, you
00:06:24know, it was a nice gesture.
00:06:29Funny thing, on the way over, you felt like you were the whole works.
00:06:34You couldn't help it.
00:06:35But then, all over the UK, you'd see things that made you begin to realize you were just
00:06:39part of a big proposition.
00:06:43All kinds of things.
00:07:13I
00:07:39was a pre-med student at Johns Hopkins in civilian life.
00:07:43Now, I do know a little something about anatomy, and I say it is scientifically impossible
00:07:49for the human body to stand up to the training we received, an absolute impossibility.
00:07:55Muscles and tendons and bone structure was not designed to withstand that battering.
00:08:00Don't ask me how it happens that we did stand up to it.
00:08:02I don't know.
00:08:03It has no scientific explanation.
00:08:05Here, listen to this, out of one of them army pamphlets.
00:08:13To a young man, soldiering in the army of today offers exceptional advantages and opportunities,
00:08:21such as physical training, foreign travel, sport, and many other facilities which are
00:08:27normally denied to those engaged in the majority of civilian occupations.
00:08:34The majority of occupations in civil life become monotonous, to say the least.
00:08:39But in the army, life is so varied that there is little or no prospect of a monotonous or
00:08:45irksome time.
00:08:49So men were girded for their highest hour.
00:08:52While they learned the lethal arts of war in small and secret rooms, the planners met
00:08:56to watch their work mature.
00:08:59Beyond our view, the German, proud and confident, stood calm in deep emplacements on the armoured
00:09:04coast.
00:09:05The war was not yet one of men and blood.
00:09:09The weapons were the factories and the maps and voices speaking in the hidden night.
00:09:14Season by season, all our plans advanced, and those few men on whom the mass of war
00:09:18rested with all its weight worked ceaselessly.
00:09:23I used to wonder whether the millions of people doing their various jobs realised they
00:09:27were part of it all, paving the way for the invasion.
00:09:33We kept bashing away at German targets, mostly steel and oil, the Ruhr, Hamburg, Battle of
00:09:39Berlin.
00:09:40Things were getting tougher every trip, more ground defences, more night fighters, more
00:09:44crews not coming back.
00:09:54We got away early in the morning, sometimes we'd see Lancasters coming back.
00:09:58A lot of times we'd stoke up the same targets they did.
00:10:02We'd beat up aircraft factories too, it was a deluge service, day and night, twenty-four
00:10:06hours a day.
00:10:10We dropped agents over France, must be awful to risk your neck and have to keep it secret.
00:10:15One man submarines, torpedo boats, commandos, we used them all to bring back cups full of
00:10:19sand from the beaches for analysis.
00:10:21It had to be quick drying with a solid clay foundation, it would have to support thirty
00:10:25tonne tanks.
00:10:26I must have photographed nearly every field in France, the real job of course was the
00:10:29corn area, but I didn't know that, nor did Jerry.
00:10:32We dropped stuff to the Maccy, arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and so on, then went over
00:10:37ourselves and taught them how to use it.
00:10:38We built it to specification, but we had not the least idea what kind of a gadget it was.
00:10:43The only name it had was Mulberry.
00:10:45It was vital to know all about the same bay and the tides, and we trained the men to negotiate
00:10:49those tides and landing craft.
00:10:51Wearing down German sea power in preparation for the day.
00:10:53Special study of the weather along the Normandy coast.
00:10:56Miles of wire netting for the beaches, seventy-two hundred tonnes of petrol per day.
00:11:00With an underwater pipeline to carry it to France, a white star as the emblem of liberation.
00:11:05Triple inoculation for all personnel.
00:11:07New ships pouring from the stocks, old ships adapted.
00:11:10Listening to the German radio output for fresh intelligence.
00:11:14That was just part of the pre-invasion work.
00:11:16By December 43, the plan itself was set and we took it to Tehran for final discussion.
00:11:21The three leaders approved the plan.
00:11:23Our Russian forces advancing from the east, and invasion from the west.
00:11:28And then the date was set.
00:11:30I assumed command at Schafe with the best all-around team for which a man could ask.
00:11:46Some had already been working for months in England.
00:11:49Others I brought with me from the Mediterranean.
00:11:52We adopted first a master plan, and then had to coordinate every last detail of the ground,
00:11:59sea, and airplanes.
00:12:01While this was going on, we led off with an air show designed to make the landing points
00:12:06as soft as possible, to batter the German communications, and to make certain we'd have
00:12:11control of the air.
00:12:13It was quite a show.
00:12:15Those airmen did a magnificent job.
00:12:25We had Polish, French, Czechs, all sorts in our outfit.
00:12:28They'd natter away in the mess about what they'd been up to.
00:12:30The only word you could ever make out was marshaling yards.
00:12:34Us bombardiers seemed to do nothing but look down on French bridges those days.
00:12:37We used to ask each other, have you cut any good bridges lately?
00:12:40Well, finally, there was only one whole railway bridge left over the same between Paris and
00:12:44the sea.
00:12:49Down in the late spring, through the wounded towns of England, moved the mess made by our
00:12:53patients.
00:12:54Two precious years of plans were put away.
00:12:57The offices were empty.
00:12:58All the maps were rolled up on the walls.
00:13:00What had been paper, at last, had come alive.
00:13:03Across the channel, aware of our resolve, with cold contempt, alerted Germans stood
00:13:07beside their guns, and reinforcements rumbled from the right.
00:13:11Their generals were prepared, their might was poised.
00:13:14They looked across the heaving sea and grinned.
00:13:17They would reap harvest of us on the beaches, and even death himself would stand amazed.
00:13:23Yet faint across the groaning of the sea came the thin thunder of a massive pallor.
00:13:28Drawn from the great free peoples of the earth, it gathered in the ancient ports of England
00:13:32to crowd upon the steel-encumbered ships.
00:14:24It was a funny sort of feeling, marching down to the ships.
00:14:28We'd done it plenty of times before, of course, on schemes and that kind of thing.
00:14:33They didn't tell us this was the big show.
00:14:34Might have been just another exercise.
00:14:37Some of the chaps cracked gags.
00:14:39They wasn't very comic, but we laughed.
00:14:42I think we all guessed.
00:14:43The general feeling was, OK, if this is it, let's get in there and get it over with.
00:14:48Waiting always got on my nerves.
00:14:50Even waiting for a bus, never could stand it.
00:14:52Well, after a bit, our ship found its place in the middle of all the rest of the stuff.
00:14:56And there we stayed, for days.
00:15:19They gave us the final briefing then.
00:15:21We knew what to do and how.
00:15:22They told us where and when.
00:15:24That's a briefing.
00:15:26I listened to every word.
00:15:28Wrote it down in my head like a record, and it kept playing over and over again.
00:15:32Piece of beach in the morning.
00:15:35Ever since I became a soldier, they were getting me ready for this.
00:15:39Before, there'd been time in front of me, protecting me.
00:15:43Now, the time had worn away, and there were only a few hours left.
00:15:48In the morning, I'd have to face it.
00:15:51I tried to imagine how much fear I would have.
00:15:54You know, if it would keep me from doing my job.
00:15:57I suppose everybody else was wondering the same thing.
00:15:59♪♪
00:16:16Nobody said anything official, but all of a sudden, the ship got much busier.
00:16:22And over the amplifier, the chaplain said he'd be saying mass at 1830 hours.
00:16:28Funny, I don't think I ever believed, even after the final briefing,
00:16:31that the invasion was going to come off.
00:16:33Then a voice in the loudspeaker said,
00:16:35men who wish to take their anti-sea-sick pills should take the first one now.
00:16:40That did it.
00:16:41♪♪
00:17:11♪♪
00:17:21♪♪
00:17:31♪♪
00:17:41♪♪
00:17:51♪♪
00:18:01♪♪
00:18:11♪♪
00:18:21♪♪
00:18:28I was tugging a glider the way we always practised it,
00:18:31except that I'd never been in the air with a whole army before.
00:18:34Three airborne divisions, the 6th British and 82nd and 101st American.
00:18:40Just before a glider pilot cast off over the landing zone,
00:18:43I wished good luck over the radio.
00:18:46It seemed a sort of inadequate thing to say.
00:18:52As Supreme Commander, let me break in at this point
00:18:55to say just a word about the Navy.
00:18:58From the moment of embarkation to that of landing,
00:19:01the full burden fell upon the Navy and our merchant fleets.
00:19:05They had to sweep the mines, bombard the coastal batteries,
00:19:09marshal and protect the transports along the coastline
00:19:12preparatory to landing, and finally,
00:19:15man the small boats that carried the soldiers to the beach.
00:19:19On that day, there were more than 8,000 ships
00:19:22and landing craft on the shores of Normandy.
00:19:25It was a most intricate task,
00:19:27and a vital one for the success of our plans.
00:19:30The courage, fidelity, and skill
00:19:33of the Royal and American Navies have no brighter page
00:19:36in our histories than that of June 6, 1944.
00:19:40MUSIC
00:20:10ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:20:40ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:21:11ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:21:22ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:21:41ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:21:52Back in London, only a few people knew.
00:21:55It was a well-kept secret.
00:21:57Around daybreak, we correspondents were called
00:21:59and told to be at the Ministry of Information at 8.
00:22:02Then they told us.
00:22:04MUSIC
00:22:10ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:13ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:16ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:19ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:22ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:25ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:28ROCKET ENGINES ROAR
00:22:31They called our beach Omaha.
00:22:33Don't ask me why.
00:22:35I've never been to Omaha.
00:22:37Only Nebraska, I mean.
00:22:39If it's anything like Omaha, France, you can have it.
00:22:42I understand Omaha was the roughest spot.
00:22:46We lost some good men.
00:22:48Took a few prisoners.
00:22:50It was a lousy trade.
00:22:52We'd been told what to expect,
00:22:54so it wasn't like a surprise or anything.
00:22:56It just, well...
00:22:58When it really happens, it's different.
00:23:01For a while, they were pinned down,
00:23:03but the lucky thing, the other beaches were going better,
00:23:06so we got a little more than our share of the old teamwork.
00:23:09The Navy come in, the air guys,
00:23:11and finally we got moving good.
00:23:14Now, you hear a lot about how long it takes
00:23:17to make battle-hardened soldiers out of Green troops.
00:23:20Listen, I got to be a veteran in one day.
00:23:23That day.
00:23:27And so they paved the beaches with their blood
00:23:29and lurched across the dunes and reached the roads.
00:23:32The German parried fiercely.
00:23:34In the depths of rich green pasty of Normandy,
00:23:36the three airborne divisions, first of all to land,
00:23:39fought lion-like against most grievous odds.
00:23:41And loud across the cratered face of France
00:23:43came German reinforcements.
00:23:45From Berlin, a voice cried out,
00:23:47the Allies must be hurled into the sea
00:23:49before another day had burned its hole in history.
00:23:51Locked in battle, the armies clashed.
00:23:54Our first objective, then,
00:23:56was to merge all the beachheads into one
00:23:58and 50 miles of men drive on together
00:24:00beyond the red sands through the broken wall.
00:24:05Where I was, it wasn't too bad getting ashore.
00:24:08After that, it started.
00:24:10We had to fight for every bloody field.
00:24:12It was the same each time.
00:24:14You'd crawl on your belly,
00:24:16keeping your backside down like you'd been told,
00:24:18chuck in a few hand grenades, then rush them.
00:24:21Sometimes they killed us,
00:24:23but we were killing more of them.
00:24:25The trickiest part was the farns.
00:24:27They were regular little jerry-farns
00:24:29that you'd put up on the beach.
00:24:31The trickiest part was the farns.
00:24:33They were regular little jerry-farns.
00:24:35If we couldn't manage them on our own,
00:24:37then we'd have to wait while the company commander
00:24:39called back for artillery support.
00:24:41The navy was still with us, too,
00:24:43chucking in the shells ahead of us.
00:24:45In three days, we advanced seven miles.
00:24:48Then we were told to stand fast and dig in.
00:24:51Next morning, we heard the news
00:24:53and got it from the BBC.
00:24:55It sounded great.
00:24:57We'd joined up all along the bridgehead.
00:24:59There was a solid line, 45 miles of it.
00:25:02We'd got a foothold. We were in.
00:25:22We didn't have to do much navigating to get there.
00:25:25You just followed the convoys.
00:25:27I was doing close support.
00:25:29We waited around, and then the ground troops
00:25:31would whistle us out
00:25:33and told us about some hardened target
00:25:35they wanted removed, and then in we'd go.
00:25:38We were like taxis on a cab ring.
00:25:51There's something nice about a beach, any beach.
00:25:54You think of a beach, and chances are
00:25:56you'll remember something nice,
00:25:58like a party or a picnic,
00:26:00pals from the old days, girls in bathing suits.
00:26:03But the one I worked, Utah,
00:26:05looked more like a freight yard once we got going.
00:26:08For quite a while, we brought most supplies
00:26:10right over the open beach,
00:26:12like we'd practiced it and like we'd made up
00:26:14as we went along.
00:26:15We worked a 24-hour shift,
00:26:17ducks, lights, rats, rowboats,
00:26:19all sorts of Rube Goldbergs.
00:26:21The stuff just kept pouring in,
00:26:23tanks, trucks, food, ammo, guys,
00:26:26millions of things.
00:26:33We didn't think we'd spend 15 days
00:26:35in the same field outside Conn,
00:26:37with the wood behind us and the Germans
00:26:39in another wood half a mile in front of us,
00:26:41and a little empty valley in between,
00:26:44each side mortaring each other all the time.
00:26:47Just meant you had to live in a slip trench.
00:26:50You got into a routine.
00:26:52You know, stand true from half-past four
00:26:55to half-past five,
00:26:57and two hours wait for breakfast.
00:27:00Came up fairly hot.
00:27:02Tin bacon or sausage, tea,
00:27:05and of course biscuits.
00:27:07We'd been living on compo food since D-Day.
00:27:11It was good food, but,
00:27:13well, you know, you got tired of it.
00:27:16Hard to get in the lot for a slice of fresh bread and butter
00:27:19or a cup of fresh tea.
00:27:22Fifteen days is a long time to stay in one place
00:27:25and be mortared.
00:27:27Yet so you think everyone's coming straight for you.
00:27:51I can remember every case we ever had,
00:27:54especially the first one.
00:27:56The ambulance brought him in late one afternoon.
00:28:00I came over to where he was lying,
00:28:02and he looked up and grinned.
00:28:04I asked him how he felt.
00:28:06He said something about the German with a machine pistol
00:28:09using him for a dartboard.
00:28:12He was quiet and patient and a little bewildered.
00:28:15He'd never been hurt before.
00:28:17He asked how the fighting was going,
00:28:19then he passed out.
00:28:21The doctor came over and looked at his wounds and swore,
00:28:25said he had no business to be alive.
00:28:28We put him on the operating table and did what we could.
00:28:31The doctor kept swearing all the time he was operating.
00:28:35We couldn't stop the bleeding.
00:28:38I remember the radio news that night.
00:28:40They said the casualties had been surprisingly light.
00:28:48They said the whole thing was dear old Winston's idea.
00:28:52A collapsible prefabricated harbour
00:28:54with everything on it except a naffy.
00:28:56Well, I wouldn't put it past him,
00:28:58it's the sort of idea he would have.
00:29:00Worked in the end.
00:29:02Mulberry, they called it.
00:29:04I felt pretty good about it because I'd watched it grow
00:29:07right from the sinking of the first ships
00:29:09for the outer breakwater.
00:29:11And further along to the west,
00:29:13the Yanks had brought one over too.
00:29:15Then on D plus 13, I think it was,
00:29:18an onshore wind started up.
00:29:21Not much at first, but it got worse.
00:29:24Unloading onto the open beaches got very tricky.
00:29:27We heard that over on the Yank section,
00:29:29the other harbour had been put right out of action.
00:29:32And when the wind dropped,
00:29:34old Mulberry looked pretty sick.
00:29:36And up to that time, it was the only bleeding harbour we had.
00:29:40At the green tip of Normandy, the town of Cherbourg lay,
00:29:43the harbour for supplies.
00:29:45Our need for ports was vital as our breath.
00:29:47The German knew our lack
00:29:49and swiftly drew his forces into tight defensive groups
00:29:52so to contest the issue.
00:29:54All our plans turned upon Cherbourg.
00:29:56All our strategy waited upon its empty docks and piers.
00:29:59So the Americans sent all across Normandy to the coast,
00:30:02swung toward the north,
00:30:04and to the south.
00:30:06So the Americans sent all across Normandy to the coast,
00:30:08swung toward the north,
00:30:10impatient for the port.
00:30:12Through hedge and field they carved their heavy way.
00:30:31You remember back now
00:30:33it felt like we took Cherbourg a couple of days after we hit the beach.
00:30:36Actually, it took 19 days to cover 30 miles.
00:30:3930 miles and about 92,000 hedgerows,
00:30:41and a battle at every hedgerow.
00:30:44Otherwise, it was nice country, like Connecticut.
00:30:47Pretty trees and orchards, lots of cows,
00:30:49and nice little farmhouses.
00:30:51The apples were too green to eat, I remember.
00:30:53We hit it off fine with the people.
00:30:55Farmers, nice people.
00:30:57It got tougher when we pulled up on the outskirts of Cherbourg.
00:31:00They had great defences.
00:31:02And the artillery really carried the ball.
00:31:04For three days we sucked it to them.
00:31:06Sometimes we were pouring in at point-blank range over open sites.
00:31:11Finally, old Von Schlieben, the German commander,
00:31:15tossed in the sponge.
00:31:17That's after telling his men to fight to the death.
00:31:20We took Cherbourg on June 25th.
00:31:23Everything was rosy except the harbour we come from.
00:31:26The jerrys had really smeared that harbour.
00:31:29But right away our guys went to work cleaning it up.
00:31:32And the way they tore into it,
00:31:33you could see that pretty soon it would be waiting for us fine.
00:31:36Then...
00:31:38Well, we fought our way up the peninsula.
00:31:41Now we'd have to fight our way out of it.
00:31:48And everywhere inside France,
00:31:50we men of the Maquis were fighting too.
00:31:53I was in the north myself.
00:31:55We cut telephone and telegraph and high-tension lines,
00:31:58and eventually when the Allies landed,
00:32:00we fought in the open.
00:32:02In the Savoie Mountains,
00:32:04our friends held up German convoys.
00:32:06Well, it was a little easier in the mountains.
00:32:10Bosch reinforcements were delayed for many days.
00:32:13Factories and bridges would frequently disappear.
00:32:18But the price we paid for it was frightful.
00:32:22In the village of Oradour, alone,
00:32:25the Germans slaughtered 1,100 out of the 1,200 population,
00:32:30and the place was completely burned.
00:32:33They were accused to have ambushed German troops.
00:32:37Every house was destroyed.
00:32:39Women and children died in flames in the church where they had been locked.
00:32:45Yes, the price we paid was very great,
00:32:49but our job was done.
00:32:56Caen is a town through which the easy on
00:32:58ripples its slow way to the waiting sea,
00:33:00capital of Normandy.
00:33:02And here the British struck a stone wall of Germans.
00:33:05This was no Cherbourg advance,
00:33:07a knife thrust through the fields,
00:33:09but rather was the grinding of a drill,
00:33:11inch by inch forward.
00:33:13Here it was the German feared a quick breakthrough
00:33:15to the reverse Seine,
00:33:16and here it was he massed his army's best,
00:33:18ten of the twelve divisions of his armour,
00:33:20paratroops, SS men, the young, the cruel,
00:33:23against the veterans of Alamein.
00:33:25We wanted him to fight here and to hold the battered ground
00:33:28because the future plans depended on him standing where he was.
00:33:31At Caen, the dust was diamonds.
00:33:34Every foot of ground was priceless,
00:33:36for by midmost summer, Caen was to be the pivot of the war.
00:34:23♪♪♪
00:34:33♪♪♪
00:34:43♪♪♪
00:34:50This was the first decent-sized town we had taken,
00:34:53but there wasn't any celebration because we knew nothing had been settled.
00:34:57Jerry was as strong as ever.
00:34:59One of the men said,
00:35:00God, are we going to have to go right across the world doing this to beat him?
00:35:04Because most of Caen was dust, just plain dust.
00:35:08I wondered what Hamilton back home in Canada
00:35:10would look like after a beating like that.
00:35:13Well, anyway, our tanks and the British started massing
00:35:15and moved south out of the city.
00:35:17We knew there was a big dude coming up.
00:35:19♪♪♪
00:35:25The show for us began south of Caen,
00:35:27where the Poles joined up with us.
00:35:29When we began moving forward, I heard a lot of the lads say,
00:35:32Rommel's on the run.
00:35:34But I'd been at Alamein, I knew he wasn't on the run,
00:35:37and I was right.
00:35:39There was nothing lovely about the battle south of Caen.
00:35:41No pincer movements, no outflanking, no nothing like that.
00:35:45Just an odd bit of bloody slogging match.
00:35:48We had to stay there and give as good as we got,
00:35:50even if we couldn't give better.
00:35:52♪♪♪
00:36:18Beyond the rubble and the dust of Caen,
00:36:20the troops kept up their endless pressure.
00:36:22The German did not dare to disengage,
00:36:24but fought with all his cunning and his strength,
00:36:26still unaware of what we planned for him.
00:36:29West by Saint-Lô, the base of his defense,
00:36:31Americans were poised and bent to fire an armored arrow
00:36:34that would set alight the flame of freedom
00:36:36through the whole of France.
00:36:38But till Saint-Lô was seized, the arrow waited.
00:36:41♪♪♪
00:37:08♪♪♪
00:37:18♪♪♪
00:37:38♪♪♪
00:38:07One minute it's quiet with the birds singing.
00:38:10The next minute the column of Sherman tanks
00:38:12come around the corner going wide open.
00:38:14My buddy says, where do those tanks come from?
00:38:17So I ask the tanker.
00:38:19He yells, down there's the 3rd Army taking off.
00:38:21Been waiting for three weeks.
00:38:23I bet somebody let the rabbit out of the hat.
00:38:25Man, what a rabbit.
00:38:27With pearl-handled revolvers.
00:38:31When I think back to the breakthrough,
00:38:33I don't seem to be able to remember anything
00:38:35but the French people.
00:38:37People beside the road, kids we couldn't stop
00:38:39to give candy to,
00:38:41FFI boys bringing in the krauts from the fields,
00:38:44and farm workers waving as we went by.
00:38:48It was easier to look them in the face and smile
00:38:50and wave back at them
00:38:52when you hadn't had to smash their homes to pieces first.
00:38:55The morning we got into Rennes,
00:38:57boy, that really was liberation.
00:39:00The next minute the column of Sherman tanks
00:39:03come around the corner going wide open.
00:39:06My buddy says, where do those tanks come from?
00:39:09So I ask the tanker.
00:39:11He yells, down there's the 3rd Army taking off.
00:39:14Man, what a rabbit.
00:39:16With pearl-handled revolvers.
00:39:18When I think back to the breakthrough,
00:39:20I don't seem to be able to remember anything
00:39:22but the French people.
00:39:24People beside the road, kids we couldn't stop
00:39:26to give candy to,
00:39:28FFI boys bringing in the krauts from the fields,
00:39:30and farm workers waving as we went by.
00:39:33At Rennes, American armor planned to drive east and northeast,
00:39:36and thus surround and take the German core divisions in the rear.
00:39:40The foe lay plans to stop the Arrow dead
00:39:42by cutting its supply route at the point
00:39:44where it stretched narrowest along the coast.
00:39:46So a great force exploded toward Mortaigne,
00:39:49hoping at Avranches to achieve the scene
00:39:52and drag our hopes down to the smoking ground.
00:39:59There's a lot of places I'd rather talk about than Mortaigne.
00:40:03That's where I got hit.
00:40:05We'd been going great up to there.
00:40:07Some of the guys had even been singing, harmonizing.
00:40:10And then that first German artillery caught us.
00:40:13Pretty accurate, too.
00:40:15An hour later, I was short 18 men.
00:40:17Well, we hauled in and we hit back with everything we had.
00:40:21They weren't just trying to stop us,
00:40:23they were trying to stop us.
00:40:26They weren't just trying to stop us, see.
00:40:28They wanted to come right through.
00:40:30And then me.
00:40:31I get a belt in the face left side and I keel.
00:40:34The last thing I remember is looking up and seeing those RAF typhoons.
00:40:38When I heard them screaming up ahead,
00:40:40I thought, geez, I'm glad they're on our side.
00:40:55I was sitting in front of the intelligence office doing a bit of sunbathing
00:40:58when headquarters came through saying the area northwest of Mortaigne
00:41:00was packed with German armor heading west.
00:41:02Well, that started it.
00:41:03For six hours, the wing kept it up absolutely nonstop.
00:41:05Takeoff, attack, land, refuel, rearm, and takeoff again.
00:41:09It was the same on every airfield in Normandy.
00:41:11The only briefing I gave the chaps was,
00:41:13well, you know where they are.
00:41:14And the only interrogation when they got back was,
00:41:16well, how many did you get?
00:41:25Three days it lasted.
00:41:31Every kind of soldier was in there and every weapon.
00:41:33For me, it was just eating and smoking and loading that 105.
00:41:36No sleeping.
00:41:37Then things quieted down and the word came back.
00:41:39We stopped them cold.
00:41:41Everybody felt like celebrating, but that was a tough order out there.
00:41:44I tried drinking a whole bottle of cough medicine.
00:41:46It worked fine.
00:41:47I got stiffer in the plank.
00:41:51The counterattack, which took us by surprise,
00:41:53still did not hinder our deceptive plans,
00:41:55for down from corps, the foe had drawn a force
00:41:57and left his north flank weakened.
00:42:00Now the stage was set.
00:42:02Toward Falaise swept the Empire troops together with the Poles.
00:42:05The German herd behind his back, American armor,
00:42:07churned toward Argenteau.
00:42:10Out-generaled and out-fought,
00:42:12he found himself within a closing trap.
00:43:53Fire!
00:44:23Fire!
00:44:47I've covered them with a gun down to the clearing stations.
00:44:50Thousands of them.
00:44:52And all kinds.
00:44:54The tough ones with the smile froze stiff on their faces by shellfire.
00:44:59And the plain Joes had had too much and ready to tell you that.
00:45:03And their poker-faced officers had never lost the poker-faced look.
00:45:07The SS, the parachute troops, the old soldiers off the Russian front,
00:45:12I've seen them all.
00:45:14The Hitler youth babies looking like they walked out of Lincoln High.
00:45:18Expert killers.
00:45:20Smart Alec with their talk of rights under the Geneva Convention
00:45:24and asking, when do we go to America?
00:45:27And the other guy who crawled out of a hole with his hands up
00:45:30all through and talking too much
00:45:33and ready to swear he hated Hitler all the time.
00:45:37The kids that knew how a machine gun worked and nothing else.
00:45:41Grinning like they were still on top
00:45:43so they could hardly hold that trigger finger still.
00:45:46The middle-aged guys wanting to tell you about the wife and kids.
00:45:49You'd let them.
00:45:52And they were through killing when I saw them.
00:45:55And through getting killed too.
00:45:57Some of them thought they were lucky and others didn't.
00:46:01And some didn't give a...
00:46:04I covered them down to the rear where it was somebody's job
00:46:07to find out what made them tick.
00:46:09But it wasn't my job to figure them out.
00:46:11I just kept them covered.
00:46:14And brother, I never gave them more than the Geneva Convention.
00:46:18And that was all.
00:46:22American tanks ground on into the east toward Paris and the upper Seine.
00:46:26Before them, the Germans helter-skelter fled away and saw retreat
00:46:29or stood with hands up raised by roads all littered with their smoldering gear.
00:46:33And still the tanks ground on beyond the smoke into the unscarred country.
00:46:40A good solid map, well delineated,
00:46:42is an absolute must for a modern mechanized army traveling at high speed.
00:46:46In our division, the issuing of maps was my job.
00:46:49When we broke out of the Cherbourg Peninsula,
00:46:51my department had the situation well in hand.
00:46:54Then for us, everything went mad.
00:46:56Stark, raving mad.
00:46:58One morning I woke up and the army had gone right off the map.
00:47:01Absolutely right off the map.
00:47:04So we rushed through an order for 500,000 maps of the Orléans region.
00:47:08They arrived in due time.
00:47:10To our horror, the army progressed far beyond the Orléans region.
00:47:14It was off the map again.
00:47:16This was a period of acute crisis for me.
00:47:19I gave the highest priority to a fresh order of maps to the Paris area.
00:47:22We refused to be licked by this situation.
00:47:24The final blow came when it became evident that we were going to bypass Paris.
00:47:28That almost finished us.
00:47:30Eventually we had to drop 10 tons of maps to them by parachute.
00:47:33It was a very humiliating experience.
00:47:36I'll be glad when I get back to the Library of Congress
00:47:39to see if those maps have some permanent value.
00:47:47While the Allies were fighting near Paris,
00:47:50we French soldiers of the Leclerc division were fighting in the Normandy fields.
00:47:54And suddenly an order came.
00:47:57Go to Paris, it said, and take it.
00:48:02The Allies, after having equipped our division with tanks, guns, rifles, lorries and jeeps,
00:48:08that night decided to give us Paris, too.
00:48:11So at 4 o'clock in the morning, the division starts rushing on the roads.
00:48:16And in the sky, on the right, on the left, everywhere,
00:48:21the American Air Force protects our trip.
00:48:24What a trip.
00:48:26250 kilometers in one day.
00:48:29I think I'll tell it all the time to my grandchildren
00:48:32and bore them with it until I die.
00:48:36At the beginning of August, we in Paris were seized by rumors.
00:48:41What could be confirmed was towards the middle of the month,
00:48:45the Germans started to leave the city.
00:48:48Yes, those were the same Germans who had signed 25-year leases on their apartments.
00:48:55Then, on the 14th, our police went on strike.
00:49:00The next day, the Gestapo left.
00:49:03That was the day, too, when a police car opened fire on a German detachment
00:49:08on the Place de la Concorde and began the battle for the city.
00:49:12After that, it seemed the French flag was hanging from every window.
00:49:17All the flags were made of curtains, all dresses, rags, everything, it didn't matter.
00:49:22Four days later, we heard shouting coming from the Hotel de Ville.
00:49:28We started running.
00:49:30Me, my husband, everyone in our house.
00:49:33As we ran, people were screaming.
00:49:36The French army had arrived.
00:49:39When we got to the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, we saw it was true.
00:49:44I kissed my husband because he was crying.
00:49:47It's funny, eh?
00:49:50We began to realize how unhappy we had been for four years
00:49:54and how lucky we were to be alive on this August evening.
00:50:01The great pursuit was on.
00:50:04At last, the Battle of France was ending
00:50:07when all suddenly another D-Day stunned the shaken foe.
00:50:11Two armies struck, American and French, along the broad-beached southern coast of France.
00:50:16Then north, the two new armies rolled like waves to join the forces moving on the Reich.
00:50:21Beyond the Seine, where from a hundred sites the Germans launched their flying bombs
00:50:26and brought death and destruction on the English towns,
00:50:29the Italian armies went about the task long since assigned them.
00:50:32Toward the Reich frontiers, Americans advanced.
00:50:35Against the ports hugging the Channel,
00:50:37garrisoned in force by desperate foes, Canadians were sent.
00:50:40And in a thunderous sweep, the British army surged toward awaiting Brussels.
00:51:00The people of Brussels laughed and cried and threw flowers in the tank and said,
00:51:05Goodbye, Tommy, when they meant to say hello.
00:51:09Man, they were happy.
00:51:12I suppose we were no longer afraid.
00:51:15But I remember wondering then how the first German civilians would react to us.
00:51:22I remember one day we were coming across a big flat field.
00:51:25It didn't look like nothing special.
00:51:27I hopped a barbed wire fence and a guy says to me, Guess what?
00:51:29So I says, What?
00:51:30So he says, You're in Germany.
00:51:31There's a sign over there that says.
00:51:33Then like a dope I thought, Well, it won't be long now.
00:51:36I want to quit over the fall of Paris and Timbob in Brussels.
00:51:39And I have to.
00:51:40I have to.
00:51:41I have to.
00:51:42I have to.
00:51:43I have to.
00:51:44I have to.
00:51:45I have to.
00:51:46I have to.
00:51:47I have to.
00:51:48I have to.
00:51:49I have to.
00:51:50I have to.
00:51:51I have to.
00:51:52I have to.
00:51:53I have to.
00:51:54I have to.
00:51:55I have to.
00:51:56I have to.
00:51:57I have to.
00:51:58I have to.
00:51:59I have to.
00:52:00I have to.
00:52:01I have to.
00:52:02I have to.
00:52:03I have to.
00:52:04I have to.
00:52:05I have to.
00:52:06I have to.
00:52:07I have to.
00:52:08I have to.
00:52:09I have to.
00:52:10I have to.
00:52:11I have to.
00:52:12I have to.
00:52:13I have to.
00:52:14I have to.
00:52:15I have to.
00:52:16I have to.
00:52:17I have to.
00:52:18I have to.
00:52:19I have to.
00:52:20I have to.
00:52:21I have to.
00:52:22I have to.
00:52:23I have to.
00:52:24I have to.
00:52:25I have to.
00:52:26I have to.
00:52:27I have to.
00:52:28I have to.
00:52:29I have to.
00:52:30I have to.
00:52:31I have to.
00:52:32I have to.
00:52:33I have to.
00:52:34I have to.
00:52:35I have to.
00:52:36I have to.
00:52:37I have to.
00:52:38I have to.
00:52:39I have to.
00:52:40I have to.
00:52:41I have to.
00:52:42I have to.
00:52:43I have to.
00:52:44I have to.
00:52:45I have to.
00:52:46I have to.
00:52:47I have to.
00:52:48I have to.
00:52:49I have to.
00:52:50I have to.
00:52:51I have to.
00:52:52I have to.
00:52:53I have to.
00:52:54I have to.
00:52:55I have to.
00:52:56I have to.
00:52:57I have to.
00:52:58I have to.
00:52:59I have to.
00:53:00I have to.
00:53:01I have to.
00:53:02I have to.
00:53:03I have to.
00:53:04I have to.
00:53:05I have to.
00:53:06I have to.
00:53:07I have to.
00:53:08I have to.
00:53:09I have to.
00:53:10I have to.
00:53:11I have to.
00:53:12I have to.
00:53:13I have to.
00:53:14I have to.
00:53:15I have to.
00:53:16I have to.
00:53:17I have to.
00:53:18I have to.
00:53:19I have to.
00:53:20I have to.
00:53:21I have to.
00:53:22I have to.
00:53:23I have to.
00:53:24I have to.
00:53:25I have to.
00:53:26I have to.
00:53:27I have to.
00:53:28I have to.
00:53:29I have to.
00:53:30I have to.
00:53:31I have to.
00:53:32I have to.
00:53:33I have to.
00:53:34I have to.
00:53:35I have to.
00:53:36I have to.
00:53:37I have to.
00:53:38I have to.
00:53:39I have to.
00:53:40I have to.
00:53:41I have to.
00:53:42I have to.
00:53:43I have to.
00:53:44I have to.
00:53:45I have to.
00:53:46I have to.
00:53:47I have to.
00:53:48I have to.
00:53:49I have to.
00:53:50I have to.
00:53:51I have to.
00:53:52I have to.
00:53:53I have to.
00:53:54I have to.
00:53:55I have to.
00:53:56I have to.
00:53:57I have to.
00:53:58I have to.
00:53:59I have to.
00:54:00I have to.
00:54:01I have to.
00:54:02I have to.
00:54:03I have to.
00:54:04I have to.
00:54:05I have to.
00:54:06I have to.
00:54:07I have to.
00:54:08I have to.
00:54:09I have to.
00:54:10I have to.
00:54:11I have to.
00:54:12I have to.
00:54:13I have to.
00:54:14I have to.
00:54:15I have to.
00:54:16I have to.
00:54:17I have to.
00:54:18I have to.
00:54:19I have to.
00:54:20I have to.
00:54:21I have to.
00:54:22I have to.
00:54:23I have to.
00:54:24I have to.
00:54:25I have to.
00:54:26I have to.
00:54:27I have to.
00:54:28I have to.
00:54:29I have to.
00:54:30I have to.
00:54:31I have to.
00:54:32I have to.
00:54:33I have to.
00:54:34I have to.
00:54:35I have to.
00:54:36I have to.
00:54:37I have to.
00:54:38I have to.
00:54:39I have to.
00:54:40I have to.
00:54:41I have to.
00:54:42I have to.
00:54:43I have to.
00:54:44The line he's dropping on them and we come down and go to a place called Eindhoven, Holland.
00:54:51She goes good, we get right, dig in, set up a defence perimeter and wait for the British
00:54:56army to come up, and we join them and head out for Nijmegen.
00:55:03The bridge at Nijmegen hardly had a mark on it.
00:55:05We crossed the river and started out for Arnie but we didn't get far.
00:55:08The Hunn knew as well as we did we'd got to get through and he put in everything he'd
00:55:11got.
00:55:12That was the worst I ever struck.
00:55:13Knowing our men were there, waiting at Arnhem, and we couldn't get to them.
00:55:21At Arnhem, we got ourselves well dug in by some of the Poles.
00:55:25We were short of ammo and food. That was our main worry.
00:55:30I'll never forget those supply dropping missions.
00:55:33The way Jerry let loose at them, and the way they just came straight on into it.
00:55:39Towards the end, we knew the situation was bad.
00:55:42We knew we were hemmed in. We knew it was possible we wouldn't get out.
00:55:48More than anything, I remember the way everyone behaved.
00:55:51The men you knew as the toughest fighters became gentle, kind, and considerate to each other.
00:55:59I knew a lot more about men after Arnhem.
00:56:06The guns died out in Arnhem.
00:56:08Then we knew the greatest gallantry was not enough to cross the final bridge.
00:56:13And now no choice remained to us.
00:56:15Direct assault against the Siegfried Line would be the only way to carve our corridors into the Reich.
00:56:21But first, a port was needed for supplies.
00:56:23Antwerp we had, but thundering German guns controlled the 30 cold miles of the shelter from Antwerp to the sea.
00:56:30The docks were still, the winches silent, all the ports lay dead.
00:56:34A useless city severed from the sea.
00:56:37It would stay dead until we cut a way through the Grey Scheldt.
00:56:41So the battle formed to free the estuary for our ships.
00:56:45I covered that battle for the Associated Press.
00:56:49I only wish I could have written the story with the greatness of the men who fought it.
00:56:54It was vicious and fearsome fighting all the way.
00:56:58The Canadians and the Poles clearing the south bank of the river.
00:57:02The Royal Navy and Marines and Norwegians charging knee-deep in blood and water
00:57:06into the mouths of the nine-inch shore guns at West Capelle.
00:57:10It was the kind of fighting that makes legends.
00:57:14And the minesweeping of the Scheldt afterwards.
00:57:17It was the greatest operation of its kind in history.
00:57:21The cost of that first ship into Antwerp harbour was the lives of thousands of our bravest men.
00:57:28I reported it as well as I could.
00:57:31But their memory deserves more than words.
00:57:46I was hauling on the first convoy out of Antwerp.
00:57:49When I got to the front I saw more empty supply dumps than I liked to see.
00:57:53The boys wanted to know where the stuff was.
00:57:55You can't fight without stuff, anybody.
00:57:58I made lots of trips, I don't know how many.
00:58:01Driving all day, all night, singing, so as to keep awake.
00:58:05Songs like Milkman Keep Those Bottles Quiet.
00:58:21My job was to see to it that they had a new toothbrush and a cot,
00:58:26maybe a book to read when they came over from the East Bank to the West Bank of the Moselle for a little rest.
00:58:32We brought them over one company at a time,
00:58:34because that was all the regiment could spare from the line at any one time.
00:58:39Somebody had tapped them on the shoulder and said,
00:58:41all right boy, you're going back across the river for 24 hours rest.
00:58:46And here they were, where they could rest.
00:58:48They just couldn't believe it.
00:58:50Here they were for just 24 hours without war.
00:58:53Everything was down to essentials, counted out like dollar bills through a teller's window.
00:58:58One night's sleep, one day's hot meals, one clean change of underwear,
00:59:02one clean pair of pants, one shave, one hot shower, one movie.
00:59:08I used to wonder what was the best of that day.
00:59:11Was it the chance for them to write home,
00:59:14a hot shower, or that long-legged girl on the screen?
00:59:19Whatever it was, all of it was over by morning.
00:59:22They were going back with their one clean suit of underwear,
00:59:24their hot shower, their clean shave, and their good night's sleep.
00:59:28Back across the Moselle to their holes in the ground.
00:59:31And the shells.
00:59:37By that time we knew we were going to see a winter campaign.
00:59:40There was no way out of it.
00:59:43The Germans were dug in and they were tough.
00:59:46And it was plain that until we got a lot stronger, we weren't going anyplace.
00:59:49The squadron was operating whenever it could.
00:59:52There wasn't a lot of flying. We were iced up and fed up.
00:59:55Suppose you're having a swell time in Paris, my cousin wrote me,
00:59:59with all that perfume and silk stockings and that champagne.
01:00:03They called our end of the line south.
01:00:06We were in the Vosges Mountains with the American 7th Army.
01:00:10But it was very little warmth in the south.
01:00:13I recalled with pleasure the Mediterranean where we had landed in August.
01:00:17Ah, but memories do not keep one warm.
01:00:20Before I joined the army, I'd have thought it was certain death
01:00:22to dig a hole in that back garden and live in it for the winter,
01:00:25but that's what we did.
01:00:27The sergeant said, well, squirrels do it every year.
01:00:30Yes, I thought, but they don't man machine guns as well.
01:00:33There was no heating in our Brussels office.
01:00:35I put on so much under my uniform, they called me the bundle from Britain.
01:00:39I never smoked before, but pretty soon I found myself smoking as high as a pack a day.
01:00:44I worried about that old law of percentages.
01:00:47My company was melting away.
01:00:49You'd look up one day and be fighting alongside a stranger.
01:00:52It was an lonesome feeling.
01:00:58Our hunk of the line was the Ardennes.
01:01:00Pretty quiet.
01:01:01A lot of outfits had gone up north.
01:01:03I'd start a million latrinograms about to wear in one of our offensive.
01:01:07Then one day I'm standing guard and these shells start.
01:01:10I thought for a minute this was it.
01:01:12Then I realized these shells weren't outgoings, brother.
01:01:15They were incomings.
01:01:17Next thing I knew, German tanks.
01:01:19It was an offensive, all right.
01:01:21But it was going the wrong way.
01:01:32The offensive we were mounting to the north was suddenly forestalled and set aside,
01:01:36as through the rugged, thinly held Ardennes von Rundstedt struck.
01:01:40He cut a fiery path through the American lines
01:01:43and sent his tanks desperately driving toward the river Meuse.
01:01:46A night of fog and pale December frost saw the beginning.
01:01:49None foresaw the end.
01:01:51He aimed for Antwerp's harbor through Liege.
01:01:54And all our plans held fire
01:01:56while we bent our strength to curb the Germans in the bulge.
01:02:10One night I was a replacement in England playing shove hay penny in a pub.
01:02:14The next day they shoved me in an airplane
01:02:16and that night I was fighting Germans and being kicked around.
01:02:19I don't know about the other outfits,
01:02:21but mine was being covered in hay.
01:02:23I was being shot at.
01:02:25I was being shot at.
01:02:27I was being shot at.
01:02:29I was being shot at.
01:02:31I was being shot at.
01:02:33I was being shot at.
01:02:35I was being shot at.
01:02:37I was being shot at.
01:02:38I don't know about the other outfits,
01:02:40but mine was being cut to ribbons.
01:02:42They were dropping all around me.
01:02:44The thing that still sticks in my head is the medics.
01:02:47The only weapon they had was a needle,
01:02:49but they were around right where it was the hottest.
01:02:52You'd hear that yell, medic, medic.
01:02:55They'd always be there.
01:02:57Our whole division got a presidential citation
01:02:59for what happened up at Bastogne.
01:03:01Even me, just a cook.
01:03:03I'll never forget that old lieutenant
01:03:05running into the field kitchen
01:03:07and hollering at me if I had any idea
01:03:09how to operate a bazooka.
01:03:11I said no, and he said,
01:03:13well, you're going to learn now, son.
01:03:15I did, and I'll be doggone
01:03:17if in the first shot I don't get it right.
01:03:19I said no, and he said,
01:03:21well, you're going to learn now, son.
01:03:23I did, and I'll be doggone
01:03:25if in the first shot I don't get it right.
01:03:27I went out to battle.
01:03:29I didn't get me a jerry tank.
01:03:31Got interviewed later by Stars and Stripes.
01:03:33They said it was a crackerjack story.
01:03:35I tell it at the drop of a hat.
01:03:40We'd been up north where things were a bit static,
01:03:42so we were quite glad to be moved down
01:03:44to the top side of this bulge.
01:03:46Coming down through Belgium,
01:03:48we noticed how scared some of the civilians looked.
01:03:50Natural, I suppose.
01:03:52We were held in reserve for a week,
01:03:54and then they sent us into action.
01:03:57On account of the fog,
01:03:59we couldn't get any air coordination.
01:04:01You sure miss it bad
01:04:03when you've gotten used to it all the way since D-Day.
01:04:05And then on December 24th,
01:04:07like a Christmas present,
01:04:09that sun come up and after a while
01:04:11we was giving them the old one-two again.
01:04:27We stopped them dead finally.
01:04:29It cost us plenty of men, but we stopped them.
01:04:31And we started moving ahead again,
01:04:33the rest of us.
01:04:34We stopped them dead, finally.
01:04:44It cost us plenty of men, but we stopped them, and we started moving ahead again, the rest
01:04:49of us.
01:05:16Brunsch did reel back on a recoiling spring, his great attempt was over, and his armies
01:05:20that had devoured such a wealth of blood, sagged sodden towards the Rhine.
01:05:24At Yalter then, while dire explosions shook the German fronts, the three great architects
01:05:29of freedom met to fix the final blow and plot the peace.
01:05:33And even as they met, we moved to act upon our strategy.
01:05:37We wished the foe to stand and fight upon the western bank of the Grey Rhine, for there
01:05:41we could destroy him, outside his fortress, open, unprotected by any bridgeless river.
01:06:41We were attacking the north of the Canadians, round about the Reichswald forest, the Dutch
01:06:52frontier area.
01:06:53It was wet and filthy.
01:06:56They nicknamed our army commander, Admiral Krierer.
01:06:58Well anyway, the enemy put up some very stiff opposition, but actually, this was just what
01:07:04we'd hoped for.
01:07:05It showed that Jerry's emotions about fighting for every foot of his beloved fatherland were
01:07:10getting the better of his sense of strategy.
01:07:12And every German killed on our side of the Rhine was to make it easier for us on the
01:07:15further bank.
01:07:16And a lot of the Bosch were killed, I can tell you.
01:07:19Reichswald was the bloodiest show I've seen in this war.
01:07:28It was one of a push, the captain told me eight divisions, he usually knows, he follows
01:07:33things like that.
01:07:34I was with the outfit that took Münchengladbach, I think you say it.
01:07:39There weren't many civilians in the streets, and even the ones that were there, we weren't
01:07:42supposed to talk to unless we had to.
01:07:45There was a $65 rack for fraternization.
01:07:48I wonder how they happened to figure out that number, I mean, why $65?
01:07:54We could see the Cologne Cathedral a long time before we got there.
01:07:58That tower was our objective, it was on the Rhine River.
01:08:02We went fast, and by the time we got in the town, there wasn't too much fight left in
01:08:05it.
01:08:06Cologne was mangled all right, but there were still a few buildings standing.
01:08:10I was sorry.
01:08:12I thought of those French cities, flattened.
01:08:15Anyway, we got our objective.
01:08:18Now we had to cross that river.
01:08:23I thought they must be very short of men when they put us sailors into battle dress, lugged
01:08:27the assault boats onto trucks and sent us across Belgium by road.
01:08:30Talk about silent service, I'd never been sick at sea, but I was sick as a dog on the
01:08:34road.
01:08:35When we reached our destination, I was feeling lousy, longing for a breath of sea air.
01:08:39I found the whole bloody landscape under a stinking smoke screen.
01:08:42Like London it was.
01:08:45Next day we got up to the Rhine.
01:08:46It was good to get a glimpse of the water again.
01:08:56Our air force has given the all lumps on the east bank of the Rhine, but I was still nervous.
01:09:01The Germans had blown the bridges and we knew the crossing would be in fib.
01:09:05When I'm nervous, I get off my feet.
01:09:06For two days before that crossing, I couldn't eat nothing but a couple of Milky Way bars.
01:09:09It was going to be D-Day all over again.
01:09:12Dangerous.
01:09:13A miracle.
01:09:14There it was, sitting there, big and black.
01:09:21I'm no architect, but to me that Remagen Bridge was the most beautiful bridge in the world.
01:09:26In the army, when things go as per plan, that's wonderful, but when they go better than planned,
01:09:30then you figure the chaplain's working overtime.
01:09:33There was a break out on that bridge and we cashed in on it, and the first guys over the
01:09:36river were over in style.
01:09:38The watch on the Rhine was finished, washed up, for to coin a phrase, kaput.
01:10:32We got across okay and everything was going fine, but suddenly I gets detailed to guard
01:10:46some German prisoners.
01:10:47I'll never forget their faces when them airborne blokes started to come over.
01:10:51They just stood there looking up at them, and then after about half an hour of it, one
01:10:54of them looks at me, looks up at the sky, and says, propaganda.
01:11:33The rear pocket was the first big objective across the Rhine.
01:11:38We and the heavy sealed it off, then the ground forces wrapped it up.
01:11:42After that, they exploded in all directions.
01:11:44Cut the gerry armies up in pockets, then take them one by one.
01:11:47That was the program.
01:11:48The third wreck was being carved up like a Christmas turkey.
01:11:55Chasing the Bosch was getting a little bit monotonous.
01:11:57We hardly ever saw him, only burning houses, a few shells, and occasional sniper's rifle
01:12:02shot.
01:12:03It was a silly kind of defiance, I thought.
01:12:05Then one day the routine was broken.
01:12:06We came across a prisoner of war camp, other ranks, Yanks mostly.
01:12:09They went mad when they saw us, screeched red Indian war cries, pummeled one another,
01:12:13and asked what the news was.
01:12:14It seemed a shame to tell them when they were so happy.
01:12:17Well, there was nothing for it.
01:12:20I told them, President Roosevelt died yesterday afternoon, I said.
01:12:24You should have heard him quieting down.
01:12:28For once in his campaign, they all felt as though they'd suffered a major defeat.
01:12:33I'd have liked to have stayed there, talking to them, trying to cheer them up, but we had
01:12:36no time to lose.
01:12:37Gerry only had a few hundred square miles of earth left to scorch.
01:12:39Our job was either to hurry him up or scorch it for him.
01:12:44We were on the home stretch, cutting deeper all the time, when we ran into these displaced
01:12:48persons, slave workers.
01:12:50They were sick, hungry, from all over Europe.
01:12:53The roads were jammed with them, but they kept out of the way and didn't give us any
01:12:57trouble.
01:12:58Like a fellow said, there's a lot more than town's going to have to be reconstructed.
01:13:07I wondered what was up when all R.A.M.C. personnel in our lock down to stretch a bed, as we're
01:13:11urgently called for.
01:13:12I soon found out we'd taken the Belsen Concentration Camp.
01:13:17Well, I'm not squeamish.
01:13:20I'd seen amputations, operations, deaths, long before I went in the Army in 41.
01:13:26I was a warden.
01:13:27I lost count of all the arms and legs I pulled out of the wreckage down in Croydon, and got
01:13:31quite used to it.
01:13:33This was different.
01:13:34Very different.
01:13:35I don't know any words big enough to make you understand what we all felt.
01:13:41All I can say, and I'm proud of this, is that I had to fall out and be quickly sick in the
01:13:48courtyard.
01:13:49As I say, I'm not squeamish, but, well, I'm human, and thank God for it.
01:14:00The government sent a few of us congressmen over to see those camps, and if there's anybody
01:14:06left who wonders if this war was worth fighting, well, I wish they could have been along.
01:14:12There it was, right in front of us, fascism and what its bond will lead to, wherever it
01:14:17crops up.
01:14:19I talked to some of the prisoners, the ones that had the strength to talk.
01:14:24Their offenses were the usual Nazi crimes, you know, wrong religion or wrong race, belonging
01:14:31to a union or the wrong political party.
01:14:35In Germany, it led to over 400 camps, like the ones I saw.
01:14:40It was the worst thing I ever saw in my life, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
01:14:47When an army gets to moving in a hurry, that's where air transport comes in.
01:15:03We'd been flying in the stuff along with the British Transport Command since D-Day, and
01:15:08towards the end, they seemed to be moving faster on the ground than we were in the air.
01:15:15As pocket after pocket of the foe fell, our hopes rose higher than the soaring flames
01:15:19that marked the broken towns of Germany.
01:15:22In Italy, a million prisoners came in.
01:15:24As with a single sudden blow, the German power was smashed.
01:15:28Then our tanks drove through the southern mountains, where the foe had hoped to make
01:15:31his furious final stand.
01:15:34The Russians took Berlin and cut the heart from Hitler's empire, and he himself who planned
01:15:39to rule the earth from pole to pole vanished like smoke among the falling walls.
01:15:44Upon the green banks of the River Elbe, we waited for the east and west to meet.
01:16:03We linked up with the Ruskies at the Elbe River.
01:16:09I hung around for a couple of days with a tommy gunner named, uh, uh, uh, Konnikov.
01:16:14He didn't know any English, so I taught him to say my Aiken back, and he taught me tovarish.
01:16:19That means comrade.
01:16:20We drank toast to Len Leeson, had a million laughs.
01:16:23Then old Konnikov found an interpreter and gives a toast to the great American soldier.
01:16:27That stopped me.
01:16:29We did all right, but I don't like to think the way we'd have been without them.
01:16:46We were going towards the Danish frontier, Bremen fell, then Hamburg.
01:16:50The rot was setting in.
01:16:52A million and a half surrendered in the north.
01:16:54The fighting was nearly over, and our job was beginning.
01:16:57We'd been training a long time for the administration of Germany, and we were prepared for plenty
01:17:01of trouble.
01:17:02Sabotage, passive resistance, or perhaps something more violent.
01:17:06You know, werewolves in sheep's clothing.
01:17:09But as it turned out, most of them were docile and did what they were told.
01:17:13They seemed healthy, well-fed.
01:17:15Their disease was in their minds.
01:17:18A German woman, looking at what was left of her town, said to me,
01:17:23If only you'd given up in 1940, none of this need have happened.
01:17:53At one minute after midnight, May the 9th, 1945, the guns stopped.
01:18:23D plus 337.
01:18:27Now it starts.
01:18:29All the arguments about who won the war.
01:18:32Well, here's what I say.
01:18:34That no country on earth could have won it alone.
01:18:37So what does that mean?
01:18:39That anybody who wants to take a bow by himself is not only boasting, but nuts.
01:18:47I spent four years in the infantry, and I saw my share.
01:18:50During that time, I only met three men that liked to fight, and they were a little cracked.
01:18:55But it had to be done.
01:18:57Now that it's over, I feel good.
01:18:59Except for one thing.
01:19:01All this talk about World War III.
01:19:04These big pessimists that talk so easy about another war just didn't see this one.
01:19:09Or enough of it.
01:19:12We watched them bringing in some high-up prisoners.
01:19:15Quite ready to be friendly, some of them.
01:19:18I was thinking of fellows I'd known who'd bought it.
01:19:20Crashed, shot down, missing.
01:19:23Right through from the Battle of Britain.
01:19:26I remembered their faces, or some joke they'd played, or maybe just the way they laughed or something.
01:19:33There seemed to be such a lot of them, I remembered.
01:19:43To the victor belongs the spoils.
01:19:45That's what they say.
01:19:47Well, what are the spoils?
01:19:50Only this.
01:19:51A chance to build a free world, better than before.
01:19:56Maybe the last chance.
01:19:58Remember that.
01:20:07Now the time has come to put our victory to the tests of peace.
01:20:12In company with men of many lands to sift from ashes what the struggle taught.
01:20:18In the rebuilding of a broken earth, may we keep in our hearts this ancient prayer.
01:20:24O Lord God, when thou givest to thy servants to endeavor any great matter,
01:20:30grant to us also to know that it is not the beginning, but the continuing of the same,
01:20:36until it be thoroughly finished, which yieldeth the true glory.