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00:26After the German failure at Kursk, even Hitler had at last begun to realize that it was now impossible to inflict a serious defeat on the Russians.
00:49Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Hitler did believe that a well-executed offensive in the West could defeat the Western Allies and free up much-needed forces for the East to at least try and halt the Russian advances.
01:05With his planned Western Offensive, he believed that he could force the Allies to sue for peace from a stalemate position.
01:14But even Hitler must have known that this was the last chance for the Panzers.
01:19The basic reason for the Arden Offensive was that in late 1944, Germany was obviously facing defeat within a measurable period of time.
01:36In the West, the British and American forces were closing up on the Rhine and in the East, the Russians were poised to invade East Germany and flood on into Berlin.
01:46Hitler decided that he needed to sustain the war and the one way was to counter offensive in the West and try and split the armies in the West and then hopefully we would sue for peace and then he could turn all his attention through to Russia.
02:08This resulted in a battle in the Ardennes, which is quite commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge.
02:21By a small miracle of logistics, the hard-pressed Germans of the Third Reich somehow managed to scrape together the men and machines for one last great offensive.
02:31In the middle of December 1944, Hitler launched his surprise Winter Offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium.
02:54For this offensive, 250,000 men and over 1,000 tanks and armoured vehicles had somehow been assembled.
03:01After the destructive battles through France in the summer, this force represented the very last reserves of manpower.
03:07Hitler placed all of his hopes on this, the last great offensive in the West, during World War II.
03:28The Ardennes Offensive was Hitler's last gamble because he committed all of his forces in the West, the entire armies and air forces, to the Ardennes Offensive.
03:41And if that offensive failed, he had no reserves and there was nothing to stop the Allies going into Germany.
03:46The plan for the attack was fairly straightforward. The Ardennes region provided a successful launch pad for the Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1940.
03:57Once again, Hitler planned to push a strong armour-led thrust through the Allied-held positions and on to Antwerp.
04:04The Ardennes Offensive, or as the Germans called it, the Von Rundster Offensive, as the Americans called it the Battle of the Bulge.
04:11The idea of this offensive was to split the Allied forces, the British and the Canadians in the north and the Americans in the south,
04:18split the Allied forces and aim for the port of Antwerp, which was by then the main port for the supplies for the Allied armies.
04:25It would achieve several objectives. It would cut off the supplies to the Allied armies.
04:30It would also split the Allied armies, and the Germans were well aware of the personality conflicts and clashes between the various Allied commanders,
04:39and they thought that this would help. And they also thought that, as they'd done it in 1940 and surprised the French by going through the Ardennes, they could do it in 1944.
04:49Unlike 1940, however, the Germans were fighting an army who were used to their tactics.
04:55This time the Allies had better equipped forces that they could call upon to meet any threat.
05:04The terrain and supply problems did not favour the Germans this time either.
05:08The German generals could see the shortcomings of the offensive.
05:12But at this late stage in the war, few of them dared to question Hitler's authority for fear of their lives.
05:18There was perhaps some possibility of success for the Ardennes Offensive, but it was a gambler's throw.
05:27Hitler was relying very much upon surprise, upon the hope that the winter weather would prevent Allied aircraft from taking to the air and interfering,
05:37that they would capture Allied fuel supplies to fuel the drive on.
05:42However, he did have 100 miles to go to Antwerp, and his generals rather thought that it might be better to go for a shorter victory to try to pin the Allied armies against the line of the River Meurs,
05:56about halfway towards Antwerp.
05:59He was risking, however, a lot upon surprise and upon the superiority and the fanaticism of his tank, crews and infantry.
06:26The Germans had been busy in developing new tanks and assault gun designs during this period.
06:38One of the most significant new designs was the Tiger IIB, or King Tiger.
06:50This tank weighed 68 tons and was manned by five crew members.
06:54The main armament was the dauntingly high-velocity 88mm L71 cannon.
07:00This was backed up with two 7.92mm machine guns.
07:05The armour protection was formidable, and the top speed was a respectable 24 miles an hour.
07:11By 1944, at the end of 1944, German tank design had responded to the designs put forward by the Russians of the IS-2,
07:26and they had developed what is known as the King Tiger, or Tiger B.
07:31This was a very impressive vehicle.
07:36If it was seen used today, it would still be a very impressive vehicle.
07:41It had a very large gun, much larger than a normal Tiger.
07:44It was still an 88, but much longer.
07:46It had sloping armour, very similar to the Panther, but in a much bigger design.
07:50They were built around about 470 of these vehicles, but they were unfortunately only used in small quantities,
07:58and probably only 70 at any one time were available for use.
08:03The King Tiger was ordered after Hitler demanded a tank that could mount the massively powerful L71 main gun.
08:12Even the mighty Tiger I was unable to do this.
08:15So, in January 1943, the order was placed for the new machine.
08:21The first vehicles came off the production line a year later.
08:25Heavier tanks became necessary during the Second World War for all of the combatants,
08:52and the reason was that it was found that in combat,
08:55survival depended upon having a good big gun and lots of armour.
09:00If you had those, you could survive.
09:02But tanks that were more thinly skinned perished quite quickly.
09:07The first 50 King Tigers were fitted with a turret made by Porsche,
09:11who were later to become famous for rather different reasons.
09:15The remaining 439 Tiger IIs were fitted with the Henschel turret.
09:21The Porsche turrets were originally built for a Porsche design of the Tiger I.
09:27When this contract was unexpectedly awarded elsewhere,
09:31Porsche had already completed 50 turrets,
09:34and they were found to be large enough to accommodate the larger gun.
09:38The sole remaining example of this type can be found in the Tank Museum in Bovington.
09:44This is the Sonderkraftzug 182, better known as the King Tiger.
09:55It really represents the absolute limits of tank design in World War II.
10:01In some respects, we've actually passed the limits, because at 75 tonnes,
10:06this vehicle really is too heavy for the suspension that's intended to take it,
10:12and for the engine that's designed to drive it along.
10:15But it does have a number of features that you would see in post-war tanks.
10:20As you can see, the lessons of World War II tank fighting had been incorporated into the Tiger II,
10:28because in addition to having this enormous thickness of armour, which is 180 millimetres thick,
10:34it's also beautifully sloped, so it was designed to deflect shots away from the vehicle,
10:41and that's what happened in practice.
10:43So in that respect, Germany had come very close to producing the ultimate machine on the battlefield,
10:50but that's all they'd done, they'd come close, because it had so many disadvantages
10:55that it completely outweighed the advantages it had.
11:00The first time that King Tigers saw action was during the Allied invasion of France in June 1944.
11:07Around 15 King Tigers were involved in these battles.
11:18A full battalion of 45 King Tigers was later sent to the Arnhem area in September 1944.
11:25They helped to ensure that the Allied Market Garden operation was thwarted.
11:30They were next to feature in the coming German offensive in the Ardennes.
11:39Like the Tiger I, this tank was better suited to the open country,
11:43and the majority of them were sent east to battle with the advancing Russians.
11:48A full battalion of 45 tanks was earmarked for the assault.
11:52The SS 501st heavy tank battalion, which was part of the 6th Panzer Army,
11:58was placed with Kampfgruppe Piper at the front of the arm and advance.
12:04The spearhead of the Ardennes offensive was the King Tiger tank,
12:08which was the first time it was used en masse.
12:11The problem was that the King Tiger was too heavy, too large and too cumbersome
12:15to get through the very narrow valleys and through the forests that comprise the Ardennes.
12:22Now, it may have been formidable on the battlefield,
12:26but there were a number of problems with regard to getting this thing into action.
12:31They were massively prone to break down.
12:34They were very difficult to keep running.
12:36The other thing that was likely to happen with the complete control of the air that the Allies had,
12:43was that the Germans were unable to bring forward sufficient fuel to keep a beast like this running.
13:06Besides tanks, the German forces had also come to rely upon turretless tank destroyers,
13:13which sacrificed the tank turrets in return for the ability to mount a bigger gun and better armour.
13:19They were also easier and cheaper to produce under the difficult conditions which the Germans now faced.
13:27They were also ideally suited for defensive warfare.
13:36By late 1944, the assault guns and tank destroyers had become a valuable addition to the German arsenal.
13:48Following on from earlier tank destroyer designs,
13:51the chassis of the King Tiger was adapted to create a new heavy tank destroyer, the Jagdtiger.
13:58The resulting monster weighed in at 70 tons and required a six-man crew.
14:10The main armament was the massively powerful 128mm cannon,
14:15which fired a shell of such high velocity that it could blow apart any Allied tank
14:19by the massive power of the kinetic energy in the solid metal shell.
14:24The armour protection was a colossal 250mm thick.
14:29The speed of this machine was similar to the King Tiger at 24mph.
14:34For close defence, the Jagdtiger was equipped with two machine guns.
14:39One of these was the familiar MG34.
14:42The other was the new MG42,
14:45which quickly became a much feared weapon amongst the Allies due to its high rate of fire.
14:51This is the Jagdtiger.
14:56It was the hunting version of the King Tiger.
15:01And this was the largest armoured vehicle to sea service in World War II.
15:07Up above us here, we have the 128mm anti-tank gun,
15:14which was big enough to destroy any tank at almost any range that it could see or hit the target.
15:23It was hugely armoured with this great metal box on top of the King Tiger chassis.
15:32Only 70 or 80 of these machines saw action in their own heavy tank battalion in the Ardennes campaign.
15:47The Jagdtiger was a highly effective tank destroyer,
15:50but only a total of 70 Tiger II chassis were ever converted to the new design.
15:55This was enough to equip two heavy tank destroyer units.
16:00One of these, the 653rd, saw action during the Ardennes offensive.
16:05This very imposing machine was more suited to the open country and not the close confines of the Ardennes.
16:14The over-stressed engine and transmission did provide the crews with a few problems.
16:25It was almost impossible to maintain.
16:27It had been designed and built in such short timescales that there wasn't really time to test them properly.
16:34If they had been tested properly, I think it would have been quickly proved
16:37that these things were well beyond the limit of the engine to drive it
16:40and the suspension to bear it and the tracks to carry it around.
16:44It suffered from all of the problems of the Tiger II in terms of being able to negotiate villages.
16:50In addition, it was so large you couldn't really conceal it on the battlefield.
16:57So it was designed to stand there as a kind of a semi-mobile pillbox.
17:03It would take up a position, it would engage the Allied tanks at the longest possible range
17:09because with this gun we really had no answer to a machine like the Jagdtiger.
17:15And its only hope was to keep the Allied tanks at a sufficient distance
17:19that it could destroy them at a range before they could get close enough to fire their own guns.
17:25Overall, this vehicle was an excellent destroyer of Allied tanks.
17:31But its introduction was too late in the war and the numbers too few to have any effect on the final outcome.
17:43The manufacture of assault guns was more cost effective
17:46and these types increasingly proved their worth on the battlefield.
17:50More and more resources were put into developing new designs
17:53and the trend was not always to larger machines.
17:58One vehicle which was produced in rather large numbers was a vehicle called the Hetzer.
18:04Now the Hetzer was a very, very small vehicle but with a very large gun
18:08and was actually probably one of the finest vehicles the Germans had used.
18:14The Hetzer, in contrast to the 70 tons of the Jagdtiger, only weighed 16 tons and carried a four-man crew in its interior.
18:24Despite its small size, it packed a punch as it was armed with a powerful 75mm L48 gun.
18:31It had a single 7.92mm machine gun for close quarter fighting.
18:37The armour protection was 60mm thick but being of the sloped design actually increased the protective capabilities.
18:45The top speed was 26mph.
18:48By the middle to late 1944, the Germans had developed their tank destroyer fleet into a vehicle very similar to the one behind.
18:57This is a Hetzer, light tank destroyer.
19:00Based on the 38T tank chassis, it had become obsolete.
19:05Rather than discard it, they used it, adapted it and this is what you got.
19:10It uses a 75mm gun which you could not put in the old 38T because it was not capable of taking that size gun.
19:19So, you build a tank destroyer.
19:22They learnt the lessons from the T-34.
19:25As you can see, sloping armour.
19:28That increases the armour protection.
19:30The vehicle has a very low silhouette but the same drawback as you got with the SU-100s and the other tank destroyers.
19:39The gun has got the very limited traverse so you have to move the vehicle.
19:45That is alright when you are attacking because you are moving forward and you can be seen.
19:49But if you are in a defensive position, the movement would actually show your position.
19:56Another assault gun design that was used by the Germans during the Ardennes Offensive was the Jagdpanzer IV Lang.
20:03This vehicle was based on the Panzer IV chassis and weighed around 26 tons.
20:13The crew contained four men.
20:15Its main armament was the very potent 75mm L70 main gun.
20:20This was the same gun that was used on the Panther.
20:24One MG-42 machine gun provided the close-quarter support.
20:29Armour protection was 80mm thick.
20:31Top speed was 24mph.
20:34This vehicle had a low silhouette and together with the very effective main gun made this machine a very capable killer.
20:43These new tank designs joined the existing German machines including the Panzer IV, Panther and Tiger.
20:52On the whole, the German tanks were probably superior to the Allies who still relied on the Sherman.
21:05Well, here is the only other tank in the world which equalled the production figures of the T-34.
21:16And that's the American Sherman.
21:18Again, about 45,000 were built at different marks, just like the Russian.
21:23And it was all around a very good tank, but its success is mainly because of the quantity it was produced in.
21:32The American enemies just couldn't match that sort of thing.
21:37These early Shermans were fitted with a 75mm gun, but not very long as you can see,
21:45which means it hasn't got a high starting velocity of the shell.
21:49But it was changed later, and especially the latest Shermans in the end had the famous British 17-pounder,
21:57which was as good as the German 88.
22:00In places, probably even better, with a tungsten shell in it.
22:03On top, of course, you got a heavy machine gun as well.
22:06And otherwise, as are most tanks, the bow machine gun, here next to the driver.
22:12The coaxial one next to the gun, you see sticking out there.
22:16And then a very heavy one on the top.
22:18And later, as well, you had anti-aircraft machine guns for defence against low-flying aeroplanes.
22:25The Ardennes offensive was given the codename Wacht amorein, or Watch on the Rhine.
22:44Hitler had envisaged a repeat of his great victory in the summer of 1940,
22:49which knocked France out of the war.
22:51But the situation in December 1944 was very different to May 1940.
23:00For one, the planned route for the new offensive cut straight across the Ardennes.
23:05In 1940, the route used had travelled in a south-westerly direction,
23:09and utilised the road system that generally ran in that direction also.
23:13The strike of the roads, the run of the roads, follows, of course, the valley bottoms.
23:19And the valley bottoms run south-westerly.
23:22However, the Germans wanted to strike, to get to Antwerp, north-westerly.
23:27So they were striking across the grain of the countryside, across the grain of the road system.
23:32That would mean difficulties when they were trying to plan a fast mobile offensive using tanks.
23:39The Ardennes is a very thickly forested area.
23:42The roads, certainly in 1944, and even today, are very narrow roads, very steep roads.
23:48There's lots of areas in which they can be ambushed.
23:51For example, on a very narrow road, one anti-tank gun knocks out the first tank.
23:54Nothing can get past it.
23:56And this is one of the problems that the Germans faced.
23:58Another restrictive feature of the planning was the lack of sufficient fuel.
24:03By late 1944, the Germans were desperately short of fuel.
24:07All of their fuel came from the Romanian oil fields, which by that time were either in the hands of the Russians or were being overrun by the Russians.
24:15The only fuel that they could produce was synthetic fuel, which was produced from coal.
24:20And so part of the overall planning for the Ardennes offensive was that the German forces, the Panzer forces in the advance, would capture and use American fuel stocks.
24:31As we know, the Americans actually destroyed those fuel stocks.
24:37The fuel factor, on its own, was to play a significant part in the eventual failure of the operation.
24:46The deployment of the forces was not best suited to ensure success either.
24:55The advance towards Antwerp required the forces to swing northeast after the Germans had reached the Mears river.
25:03Given that the Allies had strong forces in Belgium and Holland, it was suspected that they would eventually mount a counter-attack into the German left flank.
25:13However, the strongest armoured German forces were situated on the right flank, and too far removed to meet any potential threat.
25:27The Germans did have some elements in their favour.
25:30In the Ardennes, the Americans had weak forces that were there for rest and recuperation.
25:37Or there were units that had been badly mauled in the fighting and they were there to, it was a quiet part of the line.
25:42And that was another reason why the Germans attacked.
25:44The other point is, of course, its unpleasant fighting conditions.
25:48This is December 1944.
25:50It's cold, rain, sleet.
25:53Very difficult conditions for fighting in.
25:56The Germans, of course, were rather more accustomed to this, given their experience on the Eastern Front.
26:01And so Hitler may well have thought that that was a gain for them.
26:05He was also, of course, hoping that the weather would keep the Allied air forces at bay.
26:12The much-feared Yarbos, or rocket-firing planes, struck fear into the heart of every German soldier.
26:18The poor weather situation prevalent in the middle of December 1944 would keep the Allied planes on the ground for the vital opening phases of the attack.
26:28This would hopefully allow the advance to make a good start and reach some of the objectives.
26:34When the attack began, the scale of the German forces unleashed surprised the Allied commanders.
26:50Some of them had suspected a German attack around this time, but not to this extent.
26:59Some of the forces that were part of the German attack had been severely mauled during the Normandy battles.
27:05The planned area of attack was also being held by Allied troops who themselves had only recently been involved in heavy fighting around the Hürtgen forest.
27:15Hitler was confident of success and did not allow any alterations to his plans.
27:25By the 16th of December, everything was in place.
27:29The quiet, Ardennes sector was about to erupt with the sound of battle.
27:35The panzers were once again moving west.
27:48The Germans had assembled an impressive line-up of tank forces for the offensive.
27:52The powerful 6th Panzer Army were positioned in the north under Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich.
28:03This force included the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler,
28:092nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich,
28:129th SS Hitler Panzer Division Hohenstaufen and the 12th SS Panzer Division.
28:17Their task was to advance along the route from their forming up area near Dahlem in Germany
28:25and into Belgium, around the town of Losheim.
28:28Their objective was to cross the Meurs River, just below Liege, and advance onto Antwerp.
28:38Just to the south of this force was the 5th Panzer Army,
28:41under the command of Lieutenant General Hasso von Manteufel.
28:49He had the 2nd Panzer,
28:529th Panzer,
28:54116th Panzer,
28:56and the Panzer Lehr Divisions,
28:58together with the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division.
29:00Their objective was to move from Pruhm in Germany and onto Antwerp via Brussels.
29:07The 7th Army, under General Erich Bradenberger, was to take the southernmost route into Luxembourg.
29:22This was the infantry only formation, made up from the 5th Infantry Divisions,
29:28including a better halved parachute division.
29:31They were to move from Bitburg in Germany,
29:34and into the area held by the US 3rd Army,
29:37with the objective of tying down these forces.
29:39All these forces were part of Army Group B, commanded by Field Marshal Model.
29:50They had very limited reserves in the shape of the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division,
29:55and the Führer Begleit Brigade, and the Führer Grenadier Brigade.
29:58This total force had 2,000 artillery pieces,
30:05over 1,000 tanks and assault guns, and 250,000 men.
30:16To have assembled this impressive force,
30:19after the destructive battles in Normandy and the East,
30:22was an exceptional feat on its own.
30:24Hitler recognised that the greatest factor that would operate to the German advantage would be surprise.
30:32No commanders were to travel with copies of the plan in their possession,
30:38if they were going to go by air.
30:40There was to be no radio traffic concerning the plan.
30:44All communications were to be by hand, personally delivered,
30:48and if necessary, destroyed afterwards.
30:50Knowledge of the plan was kept on a very strict, need-to-know basis.
30:55Then, as far as the movement of forces was concerned,
30:58movement was at night only, in order to avoid Allied air reconnaissance.
31:03There were strict instructions about camouflage.
31:06So, very strict precautions to achieve surprise.
31:10The storm was about to break on just four infantry divisions,
31:14who were part of the US 5th Corps, under Major General Gerau.
31:21Two were positioned opposite the 6th Panzer Army.
31:24Facing Manteufel in the centre, were the 28th and 106th Infantry Divisions,
31:30who were part of Major General Troy Middleton's 8th Corps.
31:33In the south, facing Brandenburger's men, were the 9th Armoured and the 4th Infantry Divisions.
31:38All of these American units had recently been involved in heavy fighting,
31:44and were in the area for a rest.
31:46They totalled around 80,000 men,
31:49less than 450 tanks and assault guns,
31:52and around 400 artillery pieces.
31:55Although initially outnumbered,
31:56the Allies had strong forces positioned close by,
32:01including Patton's 3rd Army,
32:03that could be called upon to back up the defences in this area.
32:06On the morning of the 16th of December,
32:23the German artillery opened fire along the entire front line.
32:27The object of this was to confuse the enemy,
32:30disrupt their lines of communication,
32:32and open gaps in the lines.
32:34Due to the extreme secrecy beforehand,
32:39the Germans were unable to identify the Allied positions in advance.
32:43The result was that the German bombardment had limited success.
32:47It did sever Allied lines of communication,
32:51inflict some casualties and provide some confusion,
32:54but not to the extent that was hoped for by the Germans.
32:57In the north, Dietrich's forces advanced towards Elsenborn Ridge.
33:08A German parachute drop had been ordered for this area,
33:11with the objective of capturing a vital road junction in the Barac Michel.
33:14This drop did not go well, as the Paras were scattered over a wide area.
33:20They found themselves in amongst the US 1st Infantry Division,
33:24so the small force had to fight its way back to their own lines.
33:27The failure of this small but significant action would help to delay the advance of the SS armour.
33:34Dietrich's men had Obersturmbandführer Jochen Peiper at their head.
33:49This SS officer was a seasoned veteran of Russia and Normandy.
33:53He had a battalion of 45 King Tigers under his command,
33:58but in the opening stages they were not with the lead force.
34:02He helped to ensure that the advance got off to a good start towards the Elsenborn Ridge,
34:08under the cover of the bad weather.
34:11However, the Americans gave a good account of themselves,
34:14and succeeded in preventing the Germans from taking this vital high ground.
34:17Slightly south of here, the main body of the 1st SS Panzer Division moved into the gap
34:31that had been opened up between the US 5th and 8th Corps.
34:35The route of their advance was towards Honsfield, which they reached on the following day.
34:41Various delays had taken place, but by the end of day one, progress had been made.
34:47In the 5th Panzer Army's area, the advance got under a good start.
34:55They moved against the thinly spread American units, and forced through the enemy positions.
35:01Some of the American forces slowed the advance, and managed to hold some of the bridges in the area.
35:07By the end of day one, however, crossings had been made over the Auer River,
35:12and the German Panzers rolled on towards Clairvaux.
35:14Further south, the 7th Army ran into similar difficulties to Dietrich.
35:20The ground was favourable to the defender, and Brandenburger's men made little headway.
35:24A great deal of confusion reigned for the first day or so, but after that, the plan began to fall apart.
35:34Partly because, once the initial surprise was overcome, American soldiers stood and fought, and this slowed the German advance down, especially in key areas.
35:44The roads proved as difficult to negotiate as had been anticipated, and it slowed down again.
35:55Overall, although difficulties had been encountered, the 17th of December would see the all-important armour committed to the war.
36:02However, however, the American High Command was starting to react to the German attack.
36:20Reinforcements were being rushed to the area to meet the threat.
36:26Among these reinforcements were the 7th and 10th Armoured Divisions, together with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.
36:33These last two units were ordered to the vital road junction of Bastogne.
36:46The German attempt to reach their objective continued.
36:49Dietrich in the north was keen to make progress.
36:53He moved the 12th SS Panzer Division from their attack on Elsenborn Ridge, and pushed them in behind the 1st SS Panzer Division, who were moving towards the Amblev River.
37:13The move actually helped to relieve the pressure on the Americans defending the ridge area.
37:18This allowed them to catch their breath, and set up a defence that the Germans could not breach.
37:28Dietrich had an ace up his sleeve, in the shape of the 150th Panzer Brigade.
37:34This force was under the command of Otto Skorzenet, who is probably best known for his dramatic rescue of Mussolini.
37:40But part of the deception plan, the Germans actually equipped Sikorsky's units with English-speaking Germans wearing American uniforms and driving American vehicles.
37:53The idea was to spread confusion amongst the American forces.
37:57These units would actually go ahead and capture the fuel supplies, and then the Panzer units would refuel and continue their advance towards the Channel ports and towards Antwerp.
38:07They were also to pass false information to the enemy, and generally cause confusion.
38:14They did have some successes. The most notable was when they reached the Meurs.
38:20They were unable to capitalise on this success, as the main body of troops were too far behind.
38:26Also, groups of them began to get stopped and arrested by the Americans.
38:30The rumours quickly spread that there were Germans driving around posing as friendly forces.
38:36Everyone became a suspect, and some very high-ranking American officers found themselves in awkward situations.
38:43Eisenhower himself was confined to his headquarters for fear of assassination.
38:48Although their objectives were not entirely reached, the psychological effect that this unit had was very widespread and out of proportion to the small numbers involved.
38:59Most of those that were captured were shot as spies.
39:02Piper's advance in the north had come across a group of Americans whom they took prisoner.
39:17They were held in a field near the crossroads at Malmedie.
39:22It was here that around 80 of them were shot.
39:26The Americans claimed that this was in cold blood.
39:30The Germans claimed that they were trying to escape.
39:32The bodies were found a short time later, and the search went out for the culprits.
39:41The story spread throughout the American lines and actually helped to instil resistance in the men.
39:52Just before this incident, Piper's men had succeeded in capturing a fuel dump at Bollingen.
39:57This had helped the advance to continue.
40:01They reached the bridge at Stavallot, but were held up for a number of hours when they came under attack.
40:10The advance into Stavallot did resume the following morning, and the town was captured.
40:15The advance continued towards Trois-Ponts. Close to here were the bridges that crossed the Salme and Amblev rivers.
40:28These bridges were destroyed by the American defenders as Piper's men approached.
40:33Germans got stopped. They got stopped by American anti-tank guns.
40:39People like Team Cherry was just one anti-tank gun on a corner and a very narrow corner, a very narrow bend with a railway bridge over the top.
40:46The Tiger tank came through under the bridge, got knocked out. That was that route blocked.
40:51They went another way, and the Americans blew up the bridges, so they couldn't cross the river.
40:55The Amblev, for example, had stopped the offence. There was only five or six roads they could use.
40:59Well, as each road got blocked, the offence just petered out.
41:03Piper was forced to move back towards Laglaise.
41:06He tried to advance through to Cheneau, where another bridge crossed the Amblev, but came under attack from American planes.
41:14He decided to set up defences around Laglaise and Stumont.
41:20With the failure of this advance, the main emphasis was shifted to the 5th Panzer Army's sector.
41:26They were having better luck against the US 106th Division.
41:35However, the US 101st Airborne Division had reached Bastogne and set up all-around defences.
41:42They offered such stiff resistance that Manteufel ordered his forces to bypass the town and continue their advance.
41:51This created a bulge within a bulge, and would provide a very prickly thorn in the German side.
41:57The Germans couldn't take Bastogne principally because of the Allied General's reactions.
42:05When the offensive began, within a matter of a day or so, Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, saw how the situation was developing.
42:14And he saw that places like Bastogne and a similar town called St Vith were going to be crucial because they were road junctions.
42:21They commanded some key roads going through the fighting area.
42:26And so he sent, at great speed, a very experienced American division, the 101st Airborne Division, to occupy Bastogne.
42:34On the 22nd of December, the Germans went to Bastogne with a white flag and the offer of surrender for the Americans.
42:44The garrison commander, General McAuliffe, offered his famous, nuts reply.
42:49The vital town of St Vith, further north, had fallen to the Germans on the same day.
43:00They had been battling around this town for days, and like in other areas, these delays allowed the Americans to build up defences further back.
43:07On the 24th, Manteufel's forces reached an area just west of Seil.
43:26This was to become the furthest point reached by the Germans during this offensive.
43:30Christmas Day, 1944, saw the besieged Bastogne coming under increasing pressure from the Germans.
43:43They pushed more and more forces into this area in an attempt to eliminate the pocket.
43:51Further south, elements of Patton's forces were moving closer,
43:55and on Boxing Day they managed to force an opening through the German lines and into Bastogne.
44:02This was the beginning of the end of Hitler's Ardennes offensive.
44:08I think that probably the fundamental reason for failure was that Allied troops, American and British troops,
44:17after the first confusion and flight, stood their ground and fought.
44:22And it was essentially that that blunted the Germans.
44:27Lots of small firefights, where they imposed an hour's delay, two hours delay, three hours delay, upon the attacking forces.
44:36This gave the Allied staffs time to move the reinforcements into place, which would ultimately seal off the blockage.
44:46Another significant occurrence around this time was the improvement in the weather.
44:50This allowed the Allies to send sorties against the German positions.
45:07Had the Germans enjoyed the same kind of logistical support and air supremacy that the Allies did,
45:13this might well have been a war winner.
45:17But as it was, it was probably one of the worst kind of vehicles you can imagine to be in.
45:23The skies above it were completely dominated by Allied fighter bombers.
45:27And this presented a massive target that made it a lot easier for a fighter bomber to hit.
45:35And that was a frequent cause of destruction of these guys.
45:38The
45:43At La Glaise, Piper could see the hopelessness of the situation.
45:48His men were receiving a pounding by American artillery and tanks.
45:52The Americans fired over 58,000 shells into this area during the battle.
46:04This provides a good picture of the punishing fire that Piper's men would have endured.
46:09He ordered that the tanks and half-tracks that had not already been destroyed by Allied fire,
46:16to be destroyed by his own men to prevent their use by the enemy.
46:21They were out of vital fuel and ammunition.
46:24He left some of his men behind to give the impression that they were still battling,
46:31and also to look after the 150 American prisoners that they had captured.
46:36He took the remaining 800 survivors with him, and made for German-held lines.
46:43Piper managed to reach these lines a few days later.
46:46The escape attempt had been dangerous,
46:49and on more than one occasion his men became involved in firefights with American forces
46:52that were moving across Piper's escape route.
46:57Piper not only left behind some of his men,
47:00he also left behind an impressive bag of irreplaceable armoured vehicles
47:04that included 6 King Tigers, 13 Panthers, 6 Panzer IVs,
47:09and over 50 other vehicles including around 45 armoured half-tracks.
47:13These losses were hard to take at this stage of the war.
47:16Further south, the corridor into Bastogne was slowly widened.
47:26Ferocious battles took place around this area,
47:29and both sides fought desperately for control.
47:32The Americans pushed more and more forces into the Bastogne area.
47:36The Battle of the Bulge, as the Americans called the battle,
47:42was proving a very hard fight for both sides.
47:45As the Allies were able to push more forces into the area,
47:49they slowly succeeded in pushing the Germans back.
47:52By the 2nd of January 1945, the front line had been reduced by around 15 kilometres.
47:57Although the Ardennes offensive is always associated with American forces,
48:06the British forces also played a vital role.
48:09In the early stages of the offensive,
48:12Montgomery had recognised the importance of the River Meurs to the Germans,
48:16and had placed strong British forces in a defensive position along the northern sector.
48:21He was also given command of some of the American forces.
48:23This, in itself, caused a rift between the Allies,
48:28and in some respects almost helped Hitler to achieve his goal.
48:32When the time was right, Montgomery launched a counterattack into the German lines
48:37with the objective of linking with the Americans further south.
48:40This objective was finally reached on the 4th of January, at the town of La Roche.
48:45What this meant was that a solid defensive line now existed that the Germans could not hope to penetrate.
48:53Also, the River Meurs, that was vital to German success, was now out of reach.
48:59Hitler still ordered the advance to continue, and achieve the original objective, but at this stage this was an increasingly impossible task.
49:15The intensity of the battle is best described by Patton himself, who on the 6th of January expressed his very real fears that the war could still be lost by the Allies.
49:28The 1st SS Panzer Division were moved down to this area, to help destroy the Americans at the end of December.
49:39This did nothing to change the final outcome, and only added to the German casualty list.
49:44The Allied fighters flew sortie after sortie against the Germans, and inflicted further aerial destruction on the increasingly pressurized German forces.
49:58The Luftwaffe launched their own attacks around the start of January, when around 1,000 planes flew against Allied targets.
50:05This attack had some notable successes, including the destruction of 300 Allied aircraft, and the damage to around 25 Allied airfields.
50:20Around the middle of January, some of the German units were withdrawn, including the 1st SS Panzer Division.
50:27This put even more pressure on the remaining German forces.
50:30Hitler had also launched another, smaller offensive, called Nordwind, at the start of January.
50:40It had the objective of destroying the Allied positions around the Vosges mountains.
50:45The attacks quickly bogged down against the Allied defenders, but fighting did continue, until the middle of January.
50:52The operation itself achieved nothing of any significance, but it represented a high irreplaceable cost to the Germans in men and machines.
51:00The aftermath of the offensive was that the battlefield was covered with abandoned German tanks, left by the crews because they'd run out of fuel.
51:10Either destroyed by the crews themselves, or destroyed by Allied tanks, or by Allied air power.
51:16By the end of January, the front line was back to where it had been at the start of the German offensive six weeks earlier.
51:28The loss of the Ardern offensive removed any reserves that the Germans possessed, and that could have been used in the defense of the Reich.
51:40In the East, the Russians had launched their new offensive in January 1945.
51:47There was nothing available to counter this threat.
51:50Hitler's last gamble in the West had failed completely.
51:55The end of the Third Reich was in sight.
51:58The end of the third Reich was the only one who was before the apply to the 녀석ians.
52:02A collective power was compounded through the molyestorn manproject.
52:03The leverage had gained more and more patterns of command and left tension within racial AREA's history.
52:07The first hit of the démons that Werner world after the war began on the AIDS – for the Ostras nur in Africa – in guerre.
52:08The 20 years since death, the war began a perfect symptom in the suffering – for the Alexandra恐us movimiento.
52:09Over Hmm 90 years since 14 years before the sides of government are hàng too young.
52:10The next turned out to the Hornsville germans right!
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