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00:00The weather has made it impossible for the Allied airpower to take to the skies over
00:07the Arctic.
00:08We've got an American infantry unit here. And guns have opened up on us.
00:14A small fire has opened up on us.
00:16Just ahead of us on the crossroads, I can see an assault.
00:19An assault near the French border. Field reports say German tanks have battered into Bastogne
00:24and swept along the Winnie.
00:25and the American troops on the road here are coming under fire and shooting at us.
00:31Not only had the German army escaped us in France and stalled our plans,
00:35but it had managed, in defense of its homeland,
00:38to mount a new gigantic counteroffensive.
00:42The tide of battle had turned,
00:48slowly but inexorably,
00:51against those who sought to destroy civilization.
01:22For almost five years,
01:25Hitler has dominated the brutal Second World War.
01:29His armies have ruthlessly conquered and enslaved the lives of more than 200 million people.
01:38But in June of 1944, with the Allied landing in Normandy,
01:43followed by their extraordinary sweep across Europe,
01:47Hitler's great war machine is being destroyed.
01:53He must watch as the Allies retake France, Belgium, and the Netherlands,
01:59all the while smashing his armies and moving closer to the motherland.
02:05But fate will hand Hitler one last chance to save his beloved Germany.
02:36After months of meat-grinder fighting,
02:40the extraordinary Allied advances into Europe have dangerously overstretched their supply lines
02:46and exhausted the fighting men.
02:50Under strength and in desperate need of time to regroup,
02:54the massive Allied armies grind to a halt.
02:59In contrast to the attrition of soldiers slugging it out in daily death matches,
03:05is the vast complex of support groups working behind the front lines.
03:18A more colorful group could not be found than the combat engineers.
03:29The squad members of these small 12-13 man squads were primarily trained in construction
03:36and only very lightly trained in combat skills,
03:41such as the operation of machine guns and rifles and small unit tactics.
03:47They didn't spend much time on that at all.
03:51Young Colonel David Pergrin, commanding the 291st, has less than 200 men.
03:58Smart and fiercely independent, Pergrin's outfit, while young in age and inexperienced in warfare,
04:05are experts in the dangerous job of explosives and demolition.
04:11They called us the Bastard Battalion.
04:14We were floaters. We were just attached to any outfit.
04:20We were all stuck together, worked together, and fought together.
04:29As delays in the resupply stretch into December,
04:34a thick fog, typical of the season, settles in over the battlefield.
04:42In nearby Snedderton-Heath Airfield, Allied air reconnaissance flights, critical to the battlefield,
04:49are canceled as weather continues to worsen.
04:55Entrenched, exhausted, and without aerial reconnaissance,
05:00the Allied front lines have become virtually blind and increasingly vulnerable.
05:10But just beyond the edge of their front lines,
05:14masked by the thick December fog, is a growing menace,
05:19more treacherous than any of them could have imagined.
05:35Hitler, defiant and resilient to the end,
05:38seizes the opportunity that a slowing Allied front provides.
05:44He initiates a daring plan to turn the tide of the war back in his favor
05:50with a stunning new offensive that will take the Allies completely by surprise.
05:58With utmost secrecy and cloaked in the thick December fog,
06:02Hitler has positioned an incredible quarter of a million troops
06:06and 4,000 tanks directly in front of his enemies.
06:12He will launch them in a surprise attack against the weakened Allied front
06:16in an effort to push them back
06:19and open an uncontested avenue through which the lead assault unit,
06:23under Lieutenant Colonel Joachim Peiper,
06:26will race to capture the critical Allied supply port at Antwerp.
06:31This move will trap four complete Allied armies behind the new German front,
06:36robbing the Allies of precious war supplies
06:39and stalling disastrously and indefinitely the Western Allied advance.
06:47Confident the shocking victory will paralyze the demoralized Western Allies
06:52and split them from their Russian counterparts,
06:55he will gain precious time necessary to rebuild his decimated troops
06:59and create larger, more powerful weapons
07:02that can then be used to defeat the Russians, now void of Allied support.
07:08The date of the attack is set for Saturday, December 16th.
07:13It will place the small squad of the 291st Engineers directly in the kill zone.
07:32We thought the war was over.
07:37And they had the guys running sawmills.
07:43And what the idea was, the war was over,
07:46they're going to build barracks for the Army of Occupation,
07:49which would be coming after the war was over.
07:53You could watch the Germans on the other, over in the other field,
07:58milling around, and they weren't worried about us.
08:01They had the guys scattered all along the line.
08:04They didn't have any defense up there.
08:07They, too, thought the war was over.
08:10But then we found out it wasn't.
08:29Help!
08:43December the 16th, Battle of the Bulge started.
08:49We knew something was going to happen, but we didn't know for sure what it would be.
08:56We sat there shivering, waiting, waiting, looking,
09:00and just waiting for something to happen.
09:08Railroad guns fired two shells in the top.
09:16Lieutenant Lawrence came in and said,
09:18the Germans are coming our way.
09:21Make sure that you have the right equipment.
09:24You have the mines with you.
09:36As planned, Hitler's surprise attack quickly overwhelms the thinly held American lines
09:42that fight hard but are pushed back with great losses.
09:47To the south, German units tie down Patton's Third Army
09:51and Montgomery's British forces to the north.
09:56They create a bulge in the American line for Piper and his race towards Antwerp.
10:02The only thing that stands in his way are the 291st Engineers.
10:17Let's go!
10:20291st, they got their orders to move into Malmedy.
10:28Everybody else had moved out.
10:31I dare say there wasn't over a hundred of us guys,
10:35and we were supposed to hold the city, protect the city at all costs.
10:47We set up our roadblocks, laid our minefields.
10:53We didn't have no ammunition to speak of.
10:56We were just very, very little.
10:58Everybody had their M1s, and we had three machine guns for each company.
11:05I'm not sure how many bazookas we had, maybe a half a dozen.
11:10We took everything we had and set up our roadblocks.
11:14Defended the city.
11:21We knew that we were up against a massive horde of Germans,
11:25but we didn't know how many because we didn't know where they were coming from,
11:29how many troops they had.
11:30We knew they had tanks and so forth, you know.
11:33It was always dangerous.
11:38Pergrin and his small band of engineers,
11:41Pergrin and his small band of engineers, less than 150 men,
11:46have no idea that the spearhead of Hitler's last hope for Germany,
11:51Lieutenant Colonel Joaquin Piper's 4,500 SS troops and 90 tanks,
11:56are headed directly towards them.
12:03We would never say, oh, we can't do this, let's get out of here.
12:05No one took off.
12:12We always stayed with the outfit from the beginning to the end.
12:19Outmanned and outgunned,
12:21the engineers are about to enter the realm of legends
12:24in one of the greatest David versus Goliath fights of World War II.
12:42We gather American communications ahead of the advancing Germans.
12:49Field reports say German tanks have battered into Bastogne
12:53and swept down to within 20 feet.
12:55This indicates that if the Germans are moving at even half their announced speed of a mile an hour,
13:00they may by now have reached France itself.
13:03As the Battle of the Bold rages,
13:05the tip of the German spear, Piper's battle group,
13:09is racing to reach the River Meuse,
13:11the halfway point to his goal of Antwerp, within 24 hours.
13:25Hitler has no idea what he's doing.
13:27Hitler has made his instructions to Piper clear.
13:31Be ruthless in your pursuit,
13:33take no prisoners,
13:35and bring me Antwerp.
13:39With the weather continuing to hamper Allied air forces from lifting off,
13:45the German armored spearhead has arrived.
13:48With the weather continuing to hamper Allied air forces from lifting off,
13:52the German armored spearhead has arrived.
13:57Field reports indicate that the Americans have crossed
14:00both Bastogne and Babel in Belgium
14:03after two time-saving battles.
14:06It's reported that they've used the alarming...
14:12...reports by the player as to how large the force was,
14:16but they are recruiting casualties.
14:37With communications in shambles,
14:39the 291st Combat Engineers are secluded and out of touch.
14:47The tiny unit is unaware that the deadly tip of Hitler's enormous force
14:52is already at their doorstep.
14:58We could hear the shots,
15:00but we didn't know what was going on.
15:11Colonel Perkin, he went up there
15:14to check out, see what it was.
15:36And he found three survivors.
15:39That was really when we found out what had happened.
15:50When I first got there,
15:55it was just a whole field full of dead Americans.
16:09As he had at Hansfeld, Piper,
16:11in search of gas and supplies for his massive force,
16:14overwhelmed an American observation battalion
16:17and slaughtered them.
16:26These chappies were out picking up the American guys that were killed.
16:32And they were taking them and throwing them in the back of a truck,
16:37you know, and just piling them up to get them out of there.
16:41And that didn't seem quite right.
16:49Sorry.
16:57So I went down there and I says,
16:59OK, which one of you want to get shot first?
17:03What do you mean you get shot?
17:05I says, that's an American GI.
17:10You handle him the way you try.
17:21But it was a terrible thing, all them GIs.
17:30This war must be waged.
17:33It is being waged with the greatest and most persistent intensity.
17:43Everything we are, everything we have is at stake.
17:55Everything we are and have will be given.
18:00We have no question of the ultimate victory.
18:03We have no question of the cost.
18:06Our losses will be heavy.
18:09But we and our allies will go on fighting together to ultimate total victory.
18:16The Malmedy Massacre has shown the engineers first-hand
18:20the terror their enemy is willing to unleash.
18:30Pergrin is at a crossroads.
18:33He's got a gun.
18:36He's got a gun.
18:38He's got a gun.
18:40He's got a gun.
18:43Pergrin is at a crossroads.
18:45His 291st engineers are a support unit, not a combat unit.
18:50And they are certainly no match in manpower or firepower
18:54against the thousands of SS troops and hundreds of German tanks.
18:59But unwilling to do nothing,
19:01Pergrin realizes that fate has handed his 291st one critical asset.
19:07Geography.
19:10The terrain between Piper and Antwerp
19:13is cut by an extensive network of rivers and streams.
19:17Driven by necessity to capture large fuel depots en route to Antwerp,
19:22Piper must cross those rivers and streams.
19:25And to do so, he will need intact bridges.
19:30And that will be his Achilles' heel.
19:35So begins one of the great cat-and-mouse games of World War II.
19:40The 291st, on their own initiative, form a seemingly impossible plan.
19:48Pergrin, guessing at Piper's route,
19:51breaks up his 291st into small squads
19:55and sends them racing ahead of Piper's speeding armor
19:59to mine and then blow those critical bridges to smithereens
20:03in the hopes that it will delay Piper long enough
20:06for the major Allied armies to catch up
20:08and annihilate his massive force before they can reach Antwerp.
20:19What Pergrin did was take the bull by the horns.
20:24Sending of people to bridge sites,
20:28he did that on his own authority.
20:31He was never ordered to assume any sort of a combat position.
20:37But at that time, he had really turned this unit into a combat unit,
20:43not a support unit.
20:46We knew it was critical that we had to stop the Germans' advance.
20:51We took all our mines that we had on there,
20:55took our ammunition, took our rifles,
20:58and each squad leader said,
21:01OK, you have this position, that position, that position.
21:08You see a column of tanks coming down the road,
21:12and that makes you leery because what do we do?
21:16We can't do nothing.
21:18All we got is a couple of BARs.
21:22Pergrin, having dispatched his men throughout the Ardennes,
21:25has kept most of his unit in defensive positions around Malmedy,
21:29where he believes Peiper will first make contact.
21:39As the men of the 291st brace themselves
21:42for what will surely be a death match,
21:46Peiper has instead turned south towards Stavelo,
21:50not Malmedy, and Pergrin's dug-in positions.
21:55Pergrin is shocked.
21:57He became very alarmed because he had just placed
22:02an engineer squad at Stavelot,
22:05a major crossing point at the Embliff River.
22:12So the 291st has exactly one engineer squad
22:16under Sergeant Chuck Hensel,
22:18just beginning to rig Stavelo's bridge for demolition.
22:23As Peiper's 4,500-man juggernaut
22:26close in on their first and most crucial bridge crossing towards Antwerp,
22:30Hensel's squad is waiting,
22:33all 13 of them.
22:53On the afternoon of December 17th,
22:56Joachim Peiper and his massive battle group
22:59are racing towards the small hamlet of Stavelo
23:02and the bridge over the Embliff,
23:04critical to his capture of Antwerp by tomorrow evening.
23:10With some 4,500 SS troops and 90 tanks,
23:14he would be little concerned if he knew
23:16that the only thing that stood between his panzers and Antwerp
23:19were just 13 men from the 291st.
23:26But, as Peiper will soon learn,
23:28they're not just any men.
23:36In Stavelo, racing to finish the rigging of the bridge
23:39over the Embliff for destruction
23:41are Chuck Hensel and his 12-man squad.
23:45Outmanned and outgunned,
23:47they understand that Peiper must not cross at Stavelo,
23:51no matter the cost.
23:57I just can't tell you how great my squad was.
24:02When you live and eat for three years
24:06with 12 men like I did,
24:11you get to know them.
24:14And wasn't anything that we ever got asked to do
24:18that we couldn't do.
24:22One great bunch of men.
24:37He sent out one scout,
24:39Private First Class Bernie Goldstein,
24:43to warn of any approaching German forces
24:47coming up from the south.
25:02Later on that night,
25:04Goldstein, by himself,
25:06armed only with an M1 rifle,
25:09was out front when he heard the rumble of tanks
25:13coming down the road towards Stavmont.
25:18He stepped out into the road,
25:20into the darkness,
25:22looked at the looming tank,
25:24and commanded this 90-tank convoy
25:29of German troops to halt.
25:33The German column stopped.
25:42Goldstein immediately runs to the rear,
25:46just in front of a bazooka team.
26:02There was a 20-minute delay
26:04before they heard much of anything
26:06other than the idling of the tanks.
26:15Then they heard the sound of the tanks
26:18coming down the road,
26:20and the sound of the tanks
26:22coming down the road,
26:24and the sound of the tanks
26:26coming down the road,
26:28and the sound of the tanks
26:30Then they heard the tanks beginning to back up.
26:39Piper made a decision
26:41that since he didn't know
26:43what was at Stavmont,
26:46he decided that he would take that on
26:49in the morning in daylight
26:52and not attack at night.
26:55They all turned around and went back.
27:03If they had known what we had,
27:06they would have come right through.
27:18In the morning, an armored unit
27:20led by Major Paul Solis
27:22arrives and takes charge of the town.
27:27Believing that Piper's goal
27:29was never Stavelot,
27:31but instead a major American fuel dump
27:33just up the road,
27:35he quickly sends the bulk of his force
27:37across the river to defend the fuel depot.
27:42Thinking the town is safe,
27:44Solis does not allow the engineers
27:46to blow the bridge at Stavelot.
27:49He keeps the bridge intact
27:51for his roadblock force to return.
27:56The engineers, having rigged the bridge
27:59for a destruction of that bridge,
28:02is not given instructions to blow it.
28:08But Solis has made a grave error
28:10in not blowing the bridge.
28:12Piper, as planned,
28:14strikes like a cobra.
28:19Go!
28:25Go!
28:30Go! Go! Go!
28:35Go! Escape!
28:49Go!
29:16Spared by Solis' decision
29:18not to blow the bridge,
29:20Piper crosses over the dynamite-laden structure
29:22and speeds on towards Antwerp.
29:26For the engineers,
29:28they have lost their first battle
29:30in their life-and-death sprint with Piper.
29:34They now realize that if they don't
29:36blow the bridge,
29:38they will never be able to return to Antwerp.
29:42They have to find a way
29:44to get back to the city.
29:47They have to find a way
29:49to get back to the city.
29:52They now realize that if they are to stop him,
29:55they'll have to be even bolder.
30:00And with time running out,
30:02that's exactly what they plan to do.
30:22As the Battle of the Bulge
30:24moves into its second day,
30:26a deadly game of cat and mouse
30:28has begun between Piper's battle group,
30:31racing towards Antwerp,
30:33and Pergrin's 291st engineers
30:35hell-bent on stopping them.
30:39They had to find an easy way
30:41to get to Antwerp.
30:43They had to find an easy way
30:45to get to Antwerp.
30:47They had to find an easy way
30:49to get to Antwerp.
30:51We had to anticipate where they would be
30:54so we could blow up bridges and lay mines.
30:56As they came forward,
30:58we had to anticipate their every move.
31:02This became a tactical game
31:05of speed and who can get there first.
31:11Piper had to rush as quick as he could
31:14to get to the next bridge
31:16before Pergrin got there.
31:19If they destroyed those bridges,
31:22his mission would be severely jeopardized.
31:35Colonel Pergrin, guessing at Piper's route,
31:38sends two small squads
31:40towards the town of Three Bridges
31:42in the hopes that they can mine the bridges
31:44for destruction before a possible crossing by Piper.
31:49If Pergrin has guessed correctly,
31:51his tiny squads will be the only resistance
31:54standing in the way of Piper.
31:58Outmanned and outgunned,
32:00they will face the full brunt
32:02of Piper's ruthless SS troops,
32:04who have to date been unstoppable.
32:08On the morning of the 18th,
32:10there is no more guessing
32:12as to Piper's route.
32:14Pergrin was right.
32:16At 11 a.m., the first of Piper's 90 tanks
32:20entered the town of Three Bridges.
32:27You'd be sitting there,
32:29like, waiting for a field call to go through,
32:32and you'd be like,
32:34like waiting for a field call
32:36to go through the post.
32:42You're waiting for the right time
32:44for the tank to get there
32:47and hope your charge is wired right,
32:50and it's going to blow okay.
32:55As the lead tank moves towards
32:57the engineers' first roadblock,
32:59they unleash an anti-tank round.
33:04It knocks it off its tracks.
33:14The Panzer returns fire
33:16and scores a direct hit,
33:18destroying the anti-tank gun
33:20and killing his crew.
33:35I watched the tank get on top of a bridge.
33:39We waited till he was crossing.
33:42We blew the bridge.
33:53Abruptly, right in Piper's face,
33:56the main bridge over the Emblève
33:58disappears in a fountain of rubble and dust.
34:05Over here.
34:09Piper still had an ace in the hole.
34:13Earlier, he had sent an infantry unit
34:16a mile south of Three Bridges.
34:19If you crossed there,
34:21you could get behind the Three Bridges area.
34:26German officers came forward
34:29to inspect the bridge.
34:32What they didn't realize,
34:34there was a sergeant from the 291st
34:38in the bushes with a detonator in his hand.
34:42The sound of the Somme River bridge
34:44going up in smoke
34:46echoes across the mile
34:48to Piper and his SS troops.
34:51With hopes for a crossing at either bridge
34:54now destroyed,
34:56an angered Piper is heard to say,
34:58We machen Ingenieurs.
35:00We will not surrender.
35:02We will not surrender.
35:04We will not surrender.
35:06We will not surrender.
35:08We will not surrender.
35:10We machen engineers,
35:12those damned engineers.
35:17Piper thought they'd go right through,
35:20right through Antwerp, you know,
35:22without any hesitation.
35:24He thought that we would be easy capture,
35:27but our small outfit,
35:29we held them back some.
35:33They just thought, that's great,
35:35we got that done.
35:37Because he was always worried about
35:39what was coming next.
35:41Well, I got through that,
35:43am I going to get through the next one?
35:49For the engineers,
35:51there is little time to savor their victory.
35:56Piper is still rampaging towards Antwerp.
36:01The engineers must once again
36:03guess at his plans,
36:05then fight against the brutal weather,
36:07terrible roads,
36:09and pitiful communications to stay ahead of him.
36:16But surprise is no longer on their side.
36:20Piper, vengeful and brutal,
36:22will make sure the next time they meet,
36:25the engineers will pay with their lives.
36:36STANDING SHIELD
36:50Reloading!
36:52As the battle continues to rage,
36:54there can be no doubt that our allies and we
36:57have paid a heavy price.
36:59The loss of lives and jobs,
37:01The toughest job has been performed by the average, easy-going, hard-fighting young American
37:09who carries the weight of battle on his own shoulders.
37:13It is to him that we and all future generations of Americans must pay grateful tribute.
37:20While Pergrin and his men of the 291st have successfully prevented Piper's battle group
37:33from crossing the Embledge and Salt Rivers,
37:36Piper is still relentless in his pursuit of Antwerp.
37:44With time running out, Pergrin gambles everything on what he believes will be Piper's next move.
37:51If he is guessed wrong, they will have missed their last chance to stop him.
37:58Pergrin sends Staff Sergeant Edwin Pig and his eight-man squad racing to the Lien Creek Bridge,
38:05where he believes Piper will try to cross.
38:08Fighting bad weather and poor roads, Pig will need nothing short of a miracle to win the race with Piper.
38:15He gets it.
38:28As the long Piper column desperately races towards Antwerp,
38:32the thick cloud cover finally clears just enough for a couple of daring P-47 Thunderbolt fighters
38:39flying at less than 100 feet to deliver the miracle the 291st was hoping for.
38:45The daring Raiders are only able to destroy three of Piper's tanks,
39:05but the bombing has discombobulated the armada,
39:09causing a critical delay in their race to the Lien Creek Bridge.
39:25Pig's nine-man squad from the 291st finish mining the bridge and wait.
39:34Just five short months ago, they had been behind the front lines as a support unit.
39:39Now they stand guard over a frozen bridge as the only force between Hitler's march of tyranny and Allied victory.
40:04A struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization,
40:11and to set free a suffering humanity.
40:15We demonstrate.
40:35At 10 a.m. on December 18th, just as Pergrin had predicted,
40:40Piper's battle group arrives at Lien Creek.
40:44Beyond this final bridge lay open the roads to the muse and his prize of Antwerp.
41:04Piper can only stare helplessly as his planned capture of Antwerp goes up in flames and splinters.
41:24At this time, after the Lien Creek action, Piper actually had nowhere to go.
41:32There was no way he was going to reach the Meuse River.
41:40Piper turns his force back towards Germany to escape, but it is too late.
41:46The engineers have given Patton and Montgomery's armies the critical time they needed
41:51to catch, and now annihilate, Piper's fleeing force.
42:22In the few days since the 291st had come across the frozen corpses of murdered American soldiers at Malmedy,
42:30they had stood in the way of everything evil and won.
42:37They did it with tiny numbers, puny weapons, and gigantic hearts.
42:43The stubborn defenders of Bastogne got most of the headlines after they were rescued by the big hero generals.
42:50But as much as anyone, it was a ragtag handful of combat engineers who saved the Bulge
42:58and denied Hitler his victory and tainted peace.
43:05I don't want to say we saved the whole United States Army, but we had something to do with it.
43:13I wouldn't have wanted to be in any other outfit.
43:19We were the most highly decorated combat engineers in the European theater.
43:27We didn't know that until 60 years later.
43:35Had we done our job for the service of our country,
43:43I would tell anybody that it was the best outfit in the Army.
43:53No one complained. No one was scared.
43:56We knew what our job was to be done. We knew that we had to defeat the Germans.
44:01The sooner we defeated them, the sooner we'd get home.