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00:00Lorraine, France, September 1944.
00:10U.S. General George Patton's 4th Armored Division
00:13seems unstoppable as it rolls towards Germany.
00:16We were an avalanche of fire, fire and movement.
00:21But Hitler strikes back with hundreds of dreaded Panther tanks.
00:25The Panzer was a real big thing.
00:31Made you feel pretty secure riding on one.
00:35The American Sherman tanks use tactics to avoid destruction by the superior German armor.
00:41It's not a matter of just firing. We have to think.
00:45At stake is the Allied invasion of Germany and the end of the war in Europe.
00:50Two giant armored forces collide
00:54in one of the biggest tank-on-tank clashes of the war.
00:57This is the Battle of Alakor.
00:59Normandy, 1944.
01:25Almost two months after the D-Day invasion.
01:30Allied forces finally break through fierce German resistance
01:34and begin to roll across occupied France.
01:37The drive towards Nazi Germany has begun.
01:41British and Canadian forces advance in the north
01:43while the Americans strike south and east.
01:50Spearheading the attack is General George Patton's 3rd Army.
01:55Patton, considered one of the greatest field commanders in U.S. history,
02:02leads a powerful force of more than 160,000 men,
02:071,500 artillery guns,
02:10and 930 Sherman M4 tanks.
02:14The M4 is armed with a short-barreled 75-millimeter gun
02:20with an effective range of just 800 meters
02:22and is protected by only 51 millimeters of frontal armor.
02:27It's vulnerable, but light and fast,
02:30able to reach speeds of up to 40 kilometers an hour.
02:35That speed makes the M4 the most maneuverable tank on the battlefield,
02:39ideal for Patton's rapid thrust across France.
02:44Leading the advance are the tanks of the battle-hardened 4th Armored Division.
02:49We had mission-type orders,
02:50and the best classic example of a mission-type order
02:52was Patton saying to us,
02:54go east and go like hell.
02:59So starting about the 16th of August,
03:01we went like hell.
03:03We would be moving 20 to 25 miles an hour
03:09down the road.
03:12We would recon by fire
03:14with the bow gun shooting one direction
03:15and the coax machine gun shooting another.
03:20So we were an avalanche of fire.
03:25When we hit the resistance,
03:27if we felt it was going to take us time,
03:29we just pulled back and bypassed.
03:32And at that time,
03:33the tanker's byword was bypass and haul ass.
03:43The American advance is fast, powerful, and relentless.
03:49Vastly outnumbered and suffering huge losses,
03:53the Germans are forced into full retreat.
03:57The peak advantage was material.
03:59The German M4, you could destroy 100 of them,
04:04there were 120 more.
04:09They never ran out of men either.
04:12Patton's forces overwhelm the Germans,
04:15who keep fighting desperately as they retreat.
04:17The German units had by then already fought some battles
04:22with the Americans.
04:25We drove past those and onto the road.
04:28The road looked like an abattoir.
04:36Entire German platoons had been killed by airstrikes.
04:39We drove around the bend, and all of a sudden,
04:41we stood in front of an American tank, which was ready to shoot.
04:47And as soon as I moved the barrel, he started to fire at us.
04:55It was our luck that the gunner was nervous and fired at the slanted panel on our bow.
05:03The shell just bounced off and did no damage.
05:09Protected by 80 millimeters of frontal armor,
05:11the Panther is almost invincible to head on fire,
05:14and its 75 millimeter cannon has a higher velocity than the Sherman's,
05:18making it deadly even at long range.
05:20The German's was the only one chance to shoot at us.
05:24And he only got one chance to shoot at us.
05:26He didn't get a second chance.
05:30Our shells went right through their armor like it was butter.
05:40American tank crews used to say,
05:42we and the Sherman are only suicide candidates against a Panther.
05:50But even the best tank of the Second World War is not enough to hold off the large number
05:56of Shermans in Patton's strike force.
05:58And in front of us on the field there were anti-tank guns and tanks.
06:05A big battle started and we got hit a few times.
06:15The soldiers must have been nervous or inexperienced because they kept hitting us on the front plate
06:21and none of the hits had any effect on us.
06:26We brought down three tanks there.
06:32There were probably more, but during all that chaos it was hard to tell.
06:41So then I continued on for a bit.
06:47And just before I got to the corner of these two roads I saw a Sherman.
06:57But it was going so fast that it went straight across the road and ended up with its front
07:02end in the ditch on the other side.
07:05We wanted to shoot and then one of the worst things that a tanker can experience happened.
07:18My electric firing malfunctioned.
07:23You just want to hang yourself or drown yourself when that happens.
07:30And then we realized he's going to fire at us as soon as he gets out of that ditch.
07:36And just as I turned my head, four more Shermans drove onto the road and we couldn't defend ourselves.
07:43Langanqui is forced to retreat.
07:47While all across France German soldiers are doing the same.
07:52It was a pursuit and we were moving faster than they could retreat.
07:59By summer's end, the relentless American air attacks, combined with Patton's massive
08:07armored assault, brings the 3rd Army within striking distance of the German border.
08:12My tanks advanced from the middle of August to the first day of September when we crossed
08:17the Meuse River.
08:20My tanks had advanced 328 miles in 12 days.
08:25So we were euphoric.
08:29But that euphoria is short-lived.
08:31On September 1st, the 4th Armored Division is suddenly stopped in its tracks.
08:36On the 2nd of September, no orders.
08:41So we sat second, sat the third, we didn't know what happened.
08:47But on the third day, we learned that the reason we were stopped was gasoline.
08:52The speed of the American advance has come at a cost.
08:57After five weeks of fighting, the 3rd Army has outrun its own supply lines and is forced
09:03to halt just west of the Moselle River.
09:08All they can do now is sit and wait for fuel.
09:11And we knew that each day that we didn't move, that was giving time to the enemy.
09:16That's the most valuable commodity on the battlefield, time.
09:23And the Germans were masters at reorganizing.
09:26So we thought we had a window of about five days.
09:28If we sat for five days, we were going to start hitting resistance because they could gather
09:32their forces.
09:41The Germans take full advantage of the lull and gear up for a massive counter-attack.
09:50That will turn into one of the biggest tank-on-tank battles of the Second World War.
10:01The Lorraine, a quaint and rustic region of Eastern France near the German border.
10:08The armies have fought here for centuries.
10:11But nothing comes close to the ferocity of the fighting that took place here in the late
10:15summer of 1944, when this became a killing ground in one of the largest tank-on-tank battles
10:22of the Second World War.
10:30September 1st, General George Patton's American 3rd Army has pushed the Germans nearly 1,000 kilometers
10:37across France and now approaches the Moselle River, the last natural barrier before Germany.
10:48But just as they get within striking distance of the fatherland, a fuel shortage stalls the
10:52American advance.
10:56And the 4th Armored Division, Patton's lethal spearhead, is forced to sit idle.
11:01And we knew that each day that we didn't move, that was giving time to the enemy.
11:07That's the most valuable commodity on the battlefield, time.
11:13The German army is in desperate shape.
11:15Since the Allied invasion in June, Germany has lost 400,000 men and now has just 200 serviceable
11:22panzers.
11:24Soldiers in the field struggle to keep up morale.
11:26Soldiers never knows what's going on, except what's going on immediately around him.
11:34We still had faith.
11:35We still knew that we were going to win the war.
11:40We were told, you know, there's just something coming down the pipe that'll frighten them so
11:44bad that they'll swim back to New York.
11:49Hitler has been gambling on the development of new wonder weapons to turn the tide of war in
11:54Europe.
11:56But their development has been slow, unsuccessful, and unable to match the speed of the Americans'
12:05advance.
12:07Hitler has one last chance at stopping the American juggernaut.
12:12Throughout 1944, German factories have been producing tanks in record numbers for the Eastern
12:17Front.
12:19Hoping to buy more time, Hitler diverts these freshly minted tanks to the west and creates
12:24new formations called Panzer Brigades.
12:31They're equipped with 135 Panzer IVs, 280 Panthers, and are supported by more than 14,000 infantry
12:40called Panzer Grenadiers.
12:43Among them is 18-year-old Heinz Altmann.
12:47The idea was to have fast-moving small units available as kind of fire brigades.
12:56They were intended to be used in the east.
13:03They were used in the west because that was all available at the time to stop the Allied
13:10advance to the Rhine.
13:13Hitler's plan is to encircle and destroy Patton's stalled Third Army and then quickly advance
13:20northwest to drive a wedge into the Allied front line.
13:25In advance of the main attack, the 112th Panzer Brigade is ordered to head off the Americans,
13:31just west of the Moselle River, near the French village of Domper.
13:35The assignment was to attack Patton's Third Army in the flank from the south.
13:47We rode on tanks as Panzer Grenadiers, we rode on a tank.
13:51Path was a real big thing.
13:54Made you feel pretty secure riding on one.
13:58We advanced until evening came and stopped for the night.
14:09We dug in in the hills on either side of the valley, and the tanks stayed on the bottom
14:15in orchards.
14:20And what happened was, in the morning, the French notified the coming allies.
14:28There were these almost 50 tanks.
14:32The French Second Armored called in an airstrike.
14:40We didn't have any anti-aircraft protection in the brigade.
14:47These aircraft came and attacked the tanks.
14:50It was a terrible sight that we saw from our foxholes.
14:59The thing that stays in my mind was a tank being engulfed in napalm.
15:15And the crew comes out, they drop to the ground and roll around.
15:28It was a terrible sight to see a human being burned to death.
15:40And by late afternoon, we had lost most of our tanks.
15:46So by the next morning, we had something like eight tanks left out of the almost 50 and retreated
15:53with the tanks.
15:56The pencil brigades didn't have their own artillery.
16:00They did not have their own reconnaissance units.
16:05The danger is you don't know where the enemy is.
16:08And the enemy knows where you are.
16:11It's like fighting with your eyes covered.
16:18The main attack has not even begun and the 112th Panzer Brigade has already lost nearly 80% of its armor.
16:26It's a blow to German plans and worse is to come.
16:32By September 13th, the now refueled 4th Armored Division crosses the Moselle River and resumes
16:38its advance towards Germany.
16:41In response, Hitler changes his plan of attack and rushes to meet the advancing Americans.
16:47He wanted us pushed back over the Moselle.
16:49He wanted to set up the Moselle as his winter defensive line.
16:54So he threw everything that he could gather at us at that particular time.
16:59September 19th, 1944.
17:03Heavy fog rolls in across the Lorraine, grounding American warplanes.
17:08At dawn, the Germans attack.
17:12The advancing tanks encounter small pockets of American resistance.
17:23The sound of gunfire alerts a platoon of American M18 tank destroyers.
17:28They move forward, expecting to encounter a small force, only to find themselves face-to-face
17:34with more than 40 German tanks, including dozens of deadly new Panthers.
17:47September 19th, 1944.
17:51In a desperate bid to stop the American Third Army's advance towards Germany, Hitler launches
17:56a massive counteroffensive aimed at forcing the Americans back across the Moselle River.
18:02In the early hours of the attack, the 113th Panzer Brigade surprises and overwhelms scattered pockets
18:09of American resistance.
18:11The Battle of Arakor has begun.
18:13A platoon of four M18 Hellcat tank destroyers moves through heavy morning fog towards the
18:20sound of gunfire.
18:23The Hellcats reach the battlefield and come up against 40 tanks of the advancing 113th Panzer
18:29Brigade.
18:33One of the destroyers, or TDs, is Private Paul Colangelo.
18:38After we realized they were German, we started to open fire.
18:42We would shoot and move.
18:48With our speed and maneuverability, we were having a field day.
18:52Each combat command usually had one company of TDs.
18:57They could penetrate the front slope plate of a Panther.
19:01They were lethal.
19:06Armed with a high-velocity 76-millimeter cannon, the Hellcat is designed to quickly engage and
19:12destroy enemy armor.
19:16It has a top speed of close to 100 kilometers per hour, but that speed comes at a cost.
19:23The Hellcat's armor is only 13 millimeters thick, making it highly vulnerable to enemy fire.
19:29The Germans quickly exploit that weakness and knock out three of the four Hellcats.
19:42But Colangelo and his platoon have bought enough time for four more Hellcats to arrive.
19:47Leading the reinforcements is Captain Tom Evans of the 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion.
19:52As the fog burned off, we saw at least 30 to 40 German tanks start up towards us in
19:59a frontal attack.
20:01We waited and waited, then we fired.
20:03The leading two tanks were hit and stopped dead aflame.
20:11The others, their crews apparently confused, turned sideways.
20:15That's where they made a big mistake.
20:21From our position, with only turrets showing, we hit 11 more as fast as we could load and
20:25shoot.
20:27It was a turkey shoot.
20:29By mid-afternoon, eight Hellcats of the 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion have knocked out 19
20:35panzers.
20:37The German attack ends in failure.
20:40It's the same story almost everywhere along the front.
20:45American forces holding back large numbers of advancing German tanks.
20:53But just outside the village of Arakour, the Panthers punch through American lines, threatening
20:58the headquarters of the 4th Armored Division's Combat Command A.
21:06Tank commander Jimmy Leach and his company get an urgent call for help.
21:11The Germans had a couple of brigades of tanks attacking CCA.
21:20Leach's company arrives just in time.
21:23They find the American headquarters caught off guard, defended by only a few artillery guns.
21:29The artillery was shooting direct fire at them and had them stymied at least.
21:36They had not spotted CCA headquarters.
21:39Their vehicles could be seen, I reckon, from the German position.
21:44But the Germans were concentrating on the artillery shooting.
21:48And Clark said, where's your company?
21:51I sent for you, you know, ages ago.
21:53He said, I want you to get rid of those damn tanks right there.
21:58You see them?
21:59Get rid of them.
22:00Yes, sir.
22:01Drive them away.
22:02I said, all right, I want us to deploy just beyond this point right here now.
22:08Deploy right out here in line formation and move toward these Germans, guns a-blazing.
22:12Well, when we emerged, guns a-blazing, the Germans turned tail and left the battlefield.
22:23And man, they took off, went several thousand meters to the right and got up on a high hill.
22:28We should probably go look for those bastards, why don't we, before dark, move in that direction?
22:39Leach quickly rallies his men and, with his small Sherman force, launches a pursuit of the Panthers.
22:45A-Company went around the left on a high ground and then dropped down.
22:53And here was a German logger of over a dozen Panther tanks.
22:57A-Company immediately started shooting at them and they returned fire to A-Company.
23:09We lost three Sherman's.
23:12A-Company lost its commander and two platoon leaders.
23:18Their armor protection was superior to ours.
23:21Their hit-ability, superior to ours.
23:26But we had the smoke round in the 75.
23:32The advantage of the smoke round was to screen the target where he couldn't shoot back at
23:36you, blind it, and then try to maneuver to the flank and get a flank shot into it.
23:43A-Company's frontal attack is costly for the Americans, but it allows Leach's tanks to
23:48strike from the side, targeting the Panther's thinner, more vulnerable side armor.
23:53I gave by the left flank.
23:58Let's go!
24:00When I dropped over, we were right in the middle of them.
24:04I hit them broadside.
24:07I'm given a fire command, gunner, traverse right, steady.
24:12And when I get on a tank, I said fire.
24:17We would be firing shot ammunition at these tanks.
24:20Shot is a solid round, anti-tank round.
24:25The M61 is an armor-piercing round designed to punch a hole through heavy armor.
24:30Traveling at 620 meters per second, an M61 round can easily penetrate the Panther's
24:3650 millimeters of side armor.
24:41If I'd have hit them on the front like A-Company did, they would have been bouncing off.
24:46But I hit them on the flank, and my guns would go right through the side of a German tank.
24:58Together, A-Company and my company knocked out nine Panthers.
25:05By the end of the first day, the battlefield is littered with a hulks of 43 German Panzers.
25:12The Americans lose just five Shermans and three Hellcats.
25:16General Patton analyzed what was going on, and they thought this was just a skirmish that
25:22the Germans had thrown at us, and it wasn't the real thing.
25:27It was a pretty good skirmish.
25:29It lasted a day and a half of heavy fighting, a tank versus tank.
25:35And he ordered a continuation of the attack to the northeast toward the Saar.
25:42The bulk of Patton's forces resume their advance towards Germany.
25:46Jimmy Leach and his company get orders to stay behind near the French town of Moncourt.
25:52I was to be the rear guard as they pushed on away from me.
25:57And suddenly, to my right, the Germans reappeared in spades in tanks again.
26:05September 20th, 1944.
26:19General George Patton's 4th Armored Division has been fighting off a massive German offensive
26:24aimed at driving the Americans back across the Moselle River and stopping their advance
26:28towards Germany.
26:31The Germans throw hundreds of new Panzer IV and Panther tanks into the battle.
26:36But the Americans, with their fast and agile Shermans, inflict heavy losses.
26:42Believing the offensive has petered out, Patton orders the advance towards Germany to continue.
26:49The 37th Tank Battalion rolls out and heads east, leaving behind the Shermans of B Company,
26:55commanded by Captain Jimmy Leach.
26:59I was to be the rear guard as they pushed on away from me.
27:04And suddenly, to my right, the Germans reappeared in spades in tanks again.
27:16They're tanks of the 111th Panzer Brigade, responding to Patton's move east with a surprise attack
27:22on the American rear, just outside the village of Moncourt.
27:27So I commenced a long-range firing, shooting at the Germans, and stalled them off a little
27:30bit.
27:35I ordered my exec and I both to dismount and go look over this hill.
27:44While I'm dismounted out in front of my own tank, up toward Moncourt on our right, a tank fired at my tank.
27:56And missed it.
27:59I didn't have time to mount, so I motioned my tank to back up.
28:02There was a building nearby.
28:06And they fired a second round and they missed again.
28:11Why I don't know, but Boggs, my driver, stopped.
28:17Because all the Germans needed.
28:19Now they got a steady target.
28:24And the third round went right through the right side of the tank, knocked the head off
28:32of my driver, Boggs, and cut Popovich, my bow gunner, in half.
28:42And to this point, Abrams engaged that tank that knocked me off.
28:51Well, he missed that damn tank, but he cut a furrow near it and the tank backed off and left.
29:02Abrams was well respected by every man in our division.
29:06I admired him for his strength and leadership abilities.
29:11The bold and aggressive tactics of Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams will earn him a reputation
29:16as one of America's greatest tank commanders.
29:21While leading the 37th Tank Battalion, Abrams will become the number one American tank ace
29:26of the Second World War.
29:28He didn't lead the attack.
29:30He didn't do that.
29:31But he was among the group of tanks that were in the attack.
29:35He was one of them.
29:36He's been knocked out just like any one of us.
29:41By nightfall on September 20th, the Americans have repelled the German attack.
29:48But the Germans have taken Moncour and pose a threat to the American flank.
29:55Abrams gathers his forces and with daylight fading plans a bold and risky move.
30:02He'll strike Moncour when the Germans least expect it, in the dead of night.
30:10It goes against all the rules of tank warfare, but it works.
30:15Caught by surprise, the Germans are all but wiped out.
30:21With the bulk of the German forces destroyed, the Americans consolidate their front and begin
30:27mopping up.
30:28We were retreating in the face of American advancing and got into Morsell, a small village south
30:40of Louisville.
30:43Then late in the morning or early in the afternoon, they began to shoot fog into our field of fire.
31:00That of course meant that there was an attack taking place.
31:06And we started firing into the fog.
31:09There were two or three tanks that advanced on the road.
31:17One of the guys who had dug in let go with a Panzerfaust anti-tank grenade.
31:25I don't know how he could have missed.
31:27He was right next to the tank, but he missed.
31:30When it left her, it buried him by pivoting the tank around the tank track, around the
31:39hole that was dead.
31:43Then orders came through to retreat.
31:46And I did.
31:47I went down the embankment to the big farmhouse.
31:53Everybody had left.
31:54I was the only one that seems to have been left behind.
31:59I went around the corner of the building, looked down the main street, and here was an
32:03M4 tank, oh, I'd say 50 feet away from me.
32:09That scared the hell out of me.
32:13It was bigger than an elephant, very menacing.
32:18And it seems that his gun was pointed at me.
32:23I just got scared.
32:25It was so big, I got scared.
32:29If I'd had a Panzerfaust, I could have picked that guy up like nothing.
32:34But I didn't have him.
32:35All I had was a machine gun.
32:40I started running with a machine gun around my neck.
32:46That tank scared me.
32:47I still suffer from that scare.
32:57By the end of the fourth day of fighting, the Americans have destroyed two entire Panzer
33:01Brigades.
33:04The Germans are on the run, but they're far from finished.
33:09Repeatedly beaten back by the tanks of the 37th Battalion at Arakor, the Germans turn
33:14their sights northward.
33:17They target the town of Chateau Salin, now occupied by the 8th Tank Battalion of the 4th Armored
33:23Division.
33:24We had been holding high ground, dominating ground, holding terrain.
33:31We were stabilized.
33:32This is an unusual situation for us.
33:35We were an offensive weapon and we were good on the offense.
33:37Now we were in the defense.
33:43They were probing and they were shooting artillery at us.
33:50But somehow we sensed that they were building up to something bigger.
33:56And sure enough, at first light we looked out and there was this big patch of wood, Chateau
34:01Salin, and out of the woods started coming tanks.
34:08We started firing everything we had at them.
34:11We fired the immediate tanks, the tank destroyers, a massive fire as they came out so they knew
34:19immediately they were going to have a fight.
34:28The Lorraine Valley, a small pastoral province along the French-German border, known for its
34:34quiet fields and forests.
34:38But it was here for 10 days in September of 1944 that the Battle of Arakor took place.
34:45We are here on the site of the Battle of Arakor.
35:10We can see the landscape as it looked at the time.
35:19There are not many traces of the battle left here.
35:25Here's an example of the objects that you can still find, but they are very rare.
35:29Here's a 75 millimeter shell that we found between two tree trunks.
35:44It's been here for more than 60 years.
35:46And it's still there.
35:47No one has been able to remove it.
35:51It's one of the few traces left of the battle that once took place here.
36:06Shermans of the 8th Tank Battalion of the American 4th Armored Division are defending the town
36:11of Chateau Salin.
36:13It was on the morning of the 24th of September.
36:19It was another foggy day, gray, miserable, raining, ceiling zero.
36:27I had everything that we could get our hands on.
36:29I had my medium tanks.
36:31We had a platoon of tank destroyers with us.
36:34We had all this lined up along the ridge feeling that we were going to be attacked.
36:39And sure enough, at first light we looked out and there was this big patch of wood, Chateau
36:44Salin, and out of the woods started coming tanks.
36:52And these were mostly Panthers, but they were interspersed were Tiger tanks.
37:01The Tiger is one of Germany's biggest and most fearsome tanks.
37:05Its 100 millimeters of frontal armor make it virtually impregnable at long range.
37:10And its 88 millimeter cannon can destroy a Sherman tank at a distance of more than 2 kilometers.
37:16It has the best gun that was created in World War II, the 88, which makes it a fearful gun.
37:24So when it's head on, if it's tank versus tank, it has a tremendous advantage.
37:30And they had another big advantage, the sky was so gray that there no air, we couldn't
37:41call on air support.
37:42So they had that advantage.
37:46The minute they came into range, even before they came into real knockout range, we started
37:52firing everything we had at them.
37:53Massive fire as they came out, so they knew immediately they were going to have a fight.
38:04So what our tanks would do, they'd rise, go up to the hill, just high enough so that the
38:10gun was above the ridge.
38:14Fire two or three rounds, move back, and then move to the side.
38:18Sure enough, as soon as he moved, bang, bang, would come around in the area where he had
38:27just left.
38:32And then hit the top of the ridge and ricochet off.
38:38The most terrifying sound I've ever heard is an 88 hitting the ridge and ricocheting.
38:45It's a deafening, deafening, frightening sound.
38:58They kept advancing, little by little, and we kept firing.
39:01Every now and then we'd see a flash, and we knew we'd hit them, and we were losing tanks.
39:08So, uh, this got to be sort of a seesaw.
39:12It was only a question of whether they would prevail.
39:17At that point, it was almost a tie.
39:19And then we noticed suddenly a little crack in the sky, a little daylight.
39:26And the next thing we knew, down came the tactical air force.
39:33They apparently had been flying overhead, waiting for an opening.
39:39And the minute they saw this little opening, down they came.
39:42They started hammering away.
39:47They were strafing and bombing.
39:50They were in, and at the end, they were in...
39:57Boy, we can't give them enough credit for the way they operated in support of us.
40:03And at that point, the Germans said, no, this is too much.
40:08too much, and the ones that were still able to function moved back.
40:22The Battle of Arakor continues for five more days.
40:29But Hitler's beleaguered armored brigades cannot break the stubborn American defenders.
40:34By the end of September, the Germans retreat back towards the Rhine.
40:44General Patton's 4th Armored Division has won the Battle of Arakor.
40:56On September 29th, the Battle of Arakor ends with the victory of the American tanks
41:01over the last German tanks near RĂ©chicourt La Petite.
41:07Nine Panthers were left burning in a field near the woods outside of RĂ©chicourt.
41:11We acquired this tank, which is a Sherman, of the same type which fought here,
41:26to maintain the memory of those who fought here,
41:32and to show our gratitude for the freedom we still enjoy.
41:47In less than two weeks of fighting, the Germans lose 200 tanks and assault guns,
41:52almost 75% of their original force.
41:56And thousands of men are killed, wounded, or captured.
42:02It went badly for several reasons.
42:05One was completely inexperienced top leadership.
42:10The whole planning at the time was so makeshift.
42:18There was such poor coordination operationally on the top level.
42:27We didn't have any training.
42:29We didn't even know each other.
42:30That was one of the major, major disadvantages of these new Panzer Brigades.
42:41The German soldier couldn't be blind to the reality of the situation
42:49that they were on the losing end.
42:51They were just losing too much ground overall on both fronts, you see,
42:55just moving, moving, moving back toward Germany.
42:56But the American victory in the Lorraine comes at a price.
43:03225 men are killed and 648 wounded.
43:1141 Sherman tanks and seven Hellcat tank destroyers are lost.
43:16The 4th Armored Division seals its reputation as America's elite armored force.
43:22And for the rest of the war, they are known as Patton's vanguard.
43:26It gave us notoriety in the Corps and in 3rd Army.
43:36It was a significant victory because we became extremely well versed and trained
43:42in anti-tank warfare, in tank versus tank warfare.
43:48We did a beautiful job of keeping the pressure on them.
43:52That was the biggest tank battle of World War II.
43:57I can't think of another one.
44:01Sitting here now, looking back, unbelievable.
44:05But I'm very, very proud that I've been there.
44:12If I'd be asked to do it again, I would do it.
44:15I can't believe I was there.
44:17I can't believe I did what I did.
44:20It's a very strange feeling.
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