- 8 minutes ago
German officers kept guarding roads the Americans never used because, by late 1944, the map no longer told them what was impossible. This military history narrative follows the strange chain of events that began with a fake American armored division in Luxembourg and ended with German units reacting to roads, bridges, and river crossings the U.S. Army could now create or erase at will.
From the Brittany dash of the 6th Armored Division to the rubber tanks and radio deception of Operation FUSAG, the story shows how American engineers, armor, and deception warfare reshaped the Western Front. German commanders, trained to trust the road net and march routes, found themselves covering junctions, river lines, and fortified positions while the real attack went somewhere else.
The result is a gripping WW2 documentary-style story about deception, engineer battalions, bridge building, and the collapse of German operational prediction. If you enjoy WW2 stories, military history, World War II deception operations, and narrated battlefield analysis, this is a strong listen for study, background viewing, or anyone searching for forgotten WW2 stories and American army history.
Created for listeners who search for WW2 documentary narration, military history stories, Operation FUSAG, bridge-building in World War II, and German army deception stories. It also fits searches for historical war stories, American armored division history, and calm long-form history narration for focused listening and background discovery.
From the Brittany dash of the 6th Armored Division to the rubber tanks and radio deception of Operation FUSAG, the story shows how American engineers, armor, and deception warfare reshaped the Western Front. German commanders, trained to trust the road net and march routes, found themselves covering junctions, river lines, and fortified positions while the real attack went somewhere else.
The result is a gripping WW2 documentary-style story about deception, engineer battalions, bridge building, and the collapse of German operational prediction. If you enjoy WW2 stories, military history, World War II deception operations, and narrated battlefield analysis, this is a strong listen for study, background viewing, or anyone searching for forgotten WW2 stories and American army history.
Created for listeners who search for WW2 documentary narration, military history stories, Operation FUSAG, bridge-building in World War II, and German army deception stories. It also fits searches for historical war stories, American armored division history, and calm long-form history narration for focused listening and background discovery.
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LearningTranscript
00:00on the morning of september sixteenth nineteen forty four german observers on the wooded ridges east of the moselle were
00:07looking west toward a luxembourg village called abweiler and counting cooking fires
00:12there were a great many of them scattered through the trees in the loose careless spread of an armored division
00:20making breakfast the night before those same observers had listened to engines tracked vehicles moving into position for two hours
00:29after dark the grinding of transmissions the squeal of road wheels the particular sound a thirty-two ton tank makes
00:38when it pivots on one track in soft ground
00:41all night german radio intercept crews had pulled american traffic out of the air ten stations division level chatter supply
00:51march orders the ordinary electrical noise of eight thousand men settling into a new sector in the towns behind the
00:59american line there were men on leave they wore a shoulder patch with a six on it they sat in
01:06cafes and talked about their outfit its commander where it had fought
01:11by the evening of september sixteenth german intelligence in that sector was reporting everything from an armored combat command to
01:18several divisions over the following days german units began shifting across the moselle to meet the sixth united states armored
01:27division
01:27the sixth armored division was 400 miles west it was sitting in front of the fortress port of brest on
01:35the atlantic coast of britney in those woods north of abweiler there were about 500 americans they had 12 inflatable
01:44sherman tanks a few trucks carrying speakers the size of a wardrobe ten radios and a supply of shoulder patches
01:51sewn on that week
01:53now i want you to hold on to one thing because the whole rest of the whole rest of this
01:58story turns on it
02:00the interesting part is not that the trick worked the interesting part is what a german staff officer had to
02:06already believe before he would take that report seriously enough to move real divisions on the strength of it
02:13he had to believe that an entire american armored division could appear overnight in a sector where nothing in the
02:20road network explained how it got there
02:23and he did believe it he believed it because for six weeks american armor had been doing exactly that in
02:30front of his eyes over ground the german army had assessed and dismissed
02:35that is what this story is about from a crossroads in britney in the first week of august 1944
02:41to the east bank of the rhine in the last week of march 1945 german commanders again and again put
02:49their strength their guns their last mobile reserves on roads the americans never used
02:55regiments held junctions nothing came down fortified lines faced empty valleys
03:01gun crews sat over highways that stayed quiet while the war went past them somewhere else
03:06these were not amateurs
03:08this was the army that had invented modern mobile warfare
03:12and something took away its ability to read a map
03:17if this is worth your time hit like and subscribe
03:20it helps these stories reach the people who want them
03:23and it keeps me digging into what the american army actually did in europe
03:28let me set the ground because the danger in those woods was real
03:32it was september 1944
03:35patton's third army had run out of gasoline in lorraine and stopped
03:39and the stopping had been more dangerous than the running
03:42on the northern flank general walton walker's twentieth corps was grinding into the fortress belt around metz
03:49and between walker's corps and the army to the north there was a hole in the american line roughly seventy
03:55miles wide
03:57screened by a cavalry squadron which is a few hundred men in armored cars and light tanks
04:03seventy miles
04:05if the germans put two decent battalions into that gap
04:08they were behind patton's army with nothing between them and his supply dumps
04:12so the americans put a division in it
04:14they just didn't have a division
04:17what they had was a unit that did not officially exist
04:21five hundred men strong carrying inflatable rubber and phonograph records into a seventy mile hole in the front line
04:27with orders to be the sixth armored division
04:31they stayed for eight days
04:32on the second night somebody cut their telephone wire
04:37civilians came in and said there were germans in the woods a mile off
04:40and the men in that wood understood in a very concrete way
04:44what it would cost them if one german infantry company walked in and pushed
04:49there were no anti-tank guns
04:51there was nothing there that could stop a single real tank
04:55if the germans came
04:57five hundred men would die to protect a lie
05:01remember the number twelve
05:03twelve rubber tanks in a luxembourg wood
05:05six months from now on the Rhine
05:07the same organization will put more than six hundred of them on a riverbank
05:11and by then the deception will not be a desperate patch over a hole
05:15it will be an instrument aimed
05:17with a whole german army moving where the americans point
05:21but none of that works in a vacuum
05:23a lie only lands if the target is already primed to believe it
05:28and the priming had happened weeks earlier
05:30four hundred miles west
05:32on a britney crossroads where a two-star american general sat
05:36holding two orders that contradicted each other
05:39one came from his corps commander and told him to stop
05:42one came from his army commander and told him to run
05:45what he decided in the next few minutes put a lesson into the german command system
05:49that it never got out again
05:51on the first of august 1944
05:54everything the american army had west of the seine was moving through one town
05:59the town was avanche on the base of the cotentin peninsula
06:03and it was a bottleneck in the most literal sense
06:07one road complex
06:09one bridge at pontobos
06:11and behind it the whole of patton's third army waiting to become operational
06:16in seventy-two hours seven divisions went through that hole
06:22traffic control officers stood at the junctions for twenty-four hours at a stretch
06:27waving columns through nose to tail headlights on
06:31in a place the luftwaffe could still reach
06:34for the german command that bottleneck was not only a disaster
06:38it was also information
06:42an army that comes through a single corridor
06:44has to spread out along the roads on the other side
06:47and there were not many of them
06:50Brittany is a peninsula
06:51with a handful of good highways running west to the ports
06:55Saint-Malo, Brest, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire
07:00hold the ports, blow the bridges
07:02put a garrison and a couple of guns on each junction
07:05and you slow the advance to the speed of engineering
07:08that was sound
07:10it had worked in russia, in italy
07:12in the hedgerows six weeks earlier
07:15it assumed one thing
07:16that an advancing army has to use the roads
07:20on the first of august
07:22the sixth armored division came through avanche
07:24with a different set of instructions
07:25its commander was Robert Groh
07:28a 49-year-old cavalryman
07:30who had spent the interwar years
07:32arguing that armor's job was distance, not battle
07:36Patton gave him the mission directly
07:37and in about one sentence
07:39get to Brest, 250 miles west
07:43and bypass anything that tries to stop you
07:46bypass is a small word
07:48watch what it means on the ground
07:50a german detachment holds a village
07:53where two roads meet
07:54it has an anti-tank gun covering the western exit
07:57a few machine guns
07:58and the bridge behind it is already down
08:00in 1940
08:01in 1942
08:03that position buys a day
08:05in Brittany
08:06in August of 1944
08:08the lead troop of an American armored column
08:11comes to within a mile of it
08:13looks at it
08:14and goes around it
08:15not around the corner
08:16around the whole thing
08:18off the pavement
08:19across a field
08:21down a farm track
08:22over a ford
08:24the engineers have opened
08:25while the column was still moving
08:27and back onto the highway
08:28three miles the other side
08:30the gun crew hears the column
08:32they hear it pass
08:34nothing ever comes down their road
08:36the 6th armored covered 250 miles in 10 days
08:40it averaged 25 miles a day
08:43and in one 24 hour period
08:45it made 48
08:46on the afternoon of Monday
08:48August 7th
08:50its leading elements were in front of Brest
08:52at the far western tip of France
08:54with 15,000 men
08:57and their own fuel trucks
08:58think about that against the map
09:00in 10 days
09:01one American division crossed a distance
09:04about equal to the length of England
09:05through country the German command
09:07had planned to defend for months
09:09behind that column
09:11the German garrisons were still
09:13exactly where they had been
09:14still holding their junctions
09:16still sitting on the ports
09:18with the bridges down in front of them
09:19what had changed
09:21was that they were now
09:22behind the American front
09:23instead of in front of it
09:24and a good many of them
09:26found out from their own
09:27rear area traffic
09:29in the end
09:30about 40,000 German troops
09:32were bottled up in the Brittany ports
09:34out of the war
09:34waiting for somebody to come
09:36and take their surrender
09:37there is one moment in that 10-day run
09:40that tells you more about the American army
09:42than the mileage does
09:43on the 4th of August
09:45the division was near Dinan
09:47when new orders arrived
09:48from Groh's corps commander
09:50General Troy Middleton
09:51who had not been told
09:53what Patton had said
09:54Middleton wanted the division stopped
09:56and used against the ports
09:58Groh sent an officer back
10:00to ask permission
10:01to keep going to Brest
10:02the answer came back in one word
10:06no
10:07so the 6th Armored halted
10:09and began planning an attack
10:11on Dinan
10:11and while it was planning
10:13Patton arrived
10:14he had come forward
10:16to find out
10:16why his division had stopped
10:18and when he found out
10:19he overruled the corps commander
10:21on the spot
10:22told Groh
10:23he had a bet running
10:24with Field Marshal Montgomery
10:25about being in Brest
10:27by Saturday night
10:28and gave him two words
10:30take Brest
10:32now that anecdote
10:34is usually told
10:35for Patton
10:36I want you to look at it
10:37from the other side
10:38of the hill
10:38two American generals
10:40had issued contradictory orders
10:42to the same division
10:43and the contradiction
10:45was resolved
10:46on a road
10:47in a few minutes
10:48by the senior man
10:50physically standing there
10:51and the column was rolling again
10:53that day
10:55hold that thought
10:56it is going to matter
10:57a great deal
10:58in December
10:59when a German battle group
11:00finds the road
11:01it has been assigned
11:02is not usable
11:03and discovers
11:04what it costs
11:05to change one
11:07by the middle of August
11:08something had entered
11:09the German picture
11:10of the war in the West
11:11that never left it
11:12a German battalion commander
11:14on a road
11:15could no longer answer
11:16a simple question
11:17am I in front of the Americans
11:20or behind them
11:22the road told him nothing
11:23the map told him nothing
11:26the one certainty
11:27his profession
11:28had always given him
11:29that an enemy army
11:30has to come down a road
11:32and here are the roads
11:34was gone
11:35which raises the obvious objection
11:37and I want to deal with it now
11:39because if you know anything
11:40about this war
11:41you are already thinking it
11:42the Germans invented this
11:451940
11:46the Ardennes
11:47the drive to the channel
11:48that was their idea
11:50why couldn't they simply do
11:52to the Americans
11:52what the 6th Armored
11:53had just done to them
11:54the answers
11:56in the German division's
11:57own equipment list
11:58it isn't tanks
12:00it is a number
12:01almost nobody quotes
12:02and once you know it
12:04every empty road
12:05in this story
12:06starts to make sense
12:07here is the number
12:08a German infantry division
12:10in 1944
12:11the standard type
12:13the kind holding most
12:14of the line in the West
12:15had about 4,600 horses
12:18not one unusual division
12:21that is the table of organization
12:24around 1,400 horse drawn wagons
12:27about 600 motor vehicles
12:29for the entire division
12:30and 150 motorcycles
12:33out of roughly 264
12:36German combat divisions
12:38in existence that year
12:3942 were motorized
12:4142
12:44sit with that for a moment
12:45because it is one of the most
12:47misunderstood facts of this war
12:49the army whose name
12:51became a byword
12:52for mechanized speed
12:53fought most of the war
12:55on foot
12:56and on hooves
12:58the panzer divisions
12:59were real
13:00and they were dangerous
13:01and they were also
13:02a thin steel tip
13:03on a wooden spear
13:05here is what it means
13:07at 2 in the morning
13:08on a road
13:08in the Eiffel
13:09a gun section
13:11is moving up
13:126 horses
13:13to a 150mm howitzer
13:16and the drivers
13:17walking beside them
13:18because a man
13:19on the seat
13:19can't feel
13:20when a horse is going
13:22behind it
13:22wagons
13:23ahead of it
13:24wagons
13:26the division on the march
13:27is a single object
13:28about 20 miles long
13:30moving at 3 miles an hour
13:31and it can only exist
13:33on a surface
13:34hard enough to carry
13:35an iron shod wheel
13:36in the rain
13:37each of those animals
13:38eats something like
13:4020 pounds of fodder a day
13:41and you cannot parachute hay
13:43take that column
13:45off the pavement
13:46into a wet November field
13:47and it does not slow down
13:49it stops
13:51it sits there
13:52while the drivers cut brush
13:53and the horses go down
13:55in the mud
13:55and stay down
13:56now put yourself
13:58behind the eyes
13:59of the officer
13:59responsible for that column
14:01for him
14:02a road is not a route
14:04among options
14:05it is the artery
14:07terrain divides
14:08into two categories
14:09road
14:10and obstacle
14:11when he defends
14:12he defends road
14:14when he attacks
14:15he attacks along roads
14:17and when he tries
14:18to work out
14:19where the enemy will come from
14:20he looks at the road net
14:22because in his professional experience
14:25the road net
14:26is the answer
14:27he is not being stupid
14:29he is describing his own world
14:32with complete accuracy
14:33and then assuming the other fellow lives in it too
14:38the German army even had a word that gives the whole thing away
14:42rollbahn
14:43it means a march route
14:45a road assigned to a formation from above
14:48by number
14:49with priority and timing attached
14:52not a road you choose
14:54a road you are given
14:56I want you to see how far that went
14:58because it produced something almost unbelievable
15:02on the 16th of December 1944
15:06Germany launched the largest offensive it would ever mount in the west
15:11everything was in it
15:13the last panzer reserve
15:15the last fuel
15:16the last trained crews
15:18thrown into the Ardennes in fog and snow
15:22with the aim of reaching Antwerp
15:24and in the north
15:25the plan for the 6th Panzer Army
15:27the main effort
15:28the SS formations
15:30the Schwerpunkt of the whole thing
15:31was five roads
15:33rollbahn A
15:35B
15:35C
15:36D
15:37and E
15:39the last great German gamble of the war
15:42was written as five numbered highways
15:44the strongest battle group in that army
15:47belonged to Jochen Peiper
15:49it had well over a hundred tanks
15:51it was given rollbahn D
15:53and in the first hours
15:55on his assigned road
15:57Piper's columns stopped
15:58the route ahead of him was cratered and broken up
16:02the roads in his sector were in poor condition
16:04and the traffic behind him was jammed solid with horse transport
16:08and marching infantry
16:10that had been fed onto the same routes
16:13his engineers were not up
16:15his tanks stood in the dark
16:17on a road they had been ordered to use
16:19burning the fuel of an offensive
16:21whose entire timetable assumed motion
16:25compare that with a Brittany crossroads
16:27four months earlier
16:28two American generals
16:29two contradictory orders
16:31resolved in minutes
16:32by the senior man standing in the road
16:34and the column moving the same day
16:38Piper's problem was different in kind
16:40his route was not something he could resolve
16:43his route was the plan itself
16:45issued from an army headquarters
16:47tied to the fuel he did not have
16:50and to the schedules of formations
16:51he could not see
16:53changing it meant going back up a chain of command
16:56that took days to answer
16:57in an army where the answer had a habit of coming back
17:01as one word
17:03this is the deepest layer of the thing we are chasing
17:06and I want to say it plainly
17:08because everything that follows in this story
17:10rests on it
17:11when a German officer put a company and two guns
17:14on a road junction and waited
17:16he was not doing something careless
17:18he was defending the one variable
17:21that in his own army decided everything
17:25he had spent five years watching wars be won and lost
17:29by which formation got which road on which day
17:32he looked at the map
17:33found the places where the enemies advance had to funnel
17:36and put his strength there
17:39that is not a mistake
17:41that is professional judgment
17:43based on a lifetime of correct experience
17:45applied to an enemy who had quietly stopped obeying the rule
17:50because the Americans were not merely driving across fields
17:54any army can drive across a field once
17:57the Americans were doing something the German staff had no category for
18:02they were manufacturing roads
18:05they were putting bridges across rivers
18:07in the time it takes to work a shift
18:09in the dark
18:10under fire
18:12and then putting a second one downstream
18:14in case the first one was hit
18:16I have the tally sheets of two of those American engineer outfits in front of me
18:19what they built
18:21where
18:22and how many of them went up while men were shooting at them
18:25one of those numbers is 1900 feet long
18:29and once you know what those engineers could do
18:32the question at the center of this story changes shape
18:36it stops being about roads at all
18:38it becomes this
18:41what exactly is a river worth as a defensive line
18:44when the enemy can put a bridge over it in 12 hours
18:48late in the afternoon of the 18th of December, 1944
18:51a squad from the 2nd platoon of A Company, 291st Engineer Combat Battalion
18:57was wiring a small bridge over a creek called the Lien
19:00near the Belgian hamlet of Abimont
19:03it was not much of a bridge and not much of a creek
19:06it was, however, the last crossing on the road
19:10Kampfgruppe Piper needed to reach the Meuse
19:13they packed 2,500 pounds of TNT onto it
19:17then they waited, in the open, on the wrong side of the river
19:20watching the road bend where the sound was coming from
19:24the lead German tank came around that bend and fired
19:27the engineers blew the bridge in its face
19:30and the whole thing went down into the creek
19:32in front of a hundred tanks that had nowhere else to go
19:36Hyper turned north
19:37he never got to the Meuse
19:40nobody in that squad had the rank
19:42to decide the fate of a German offensive
19:44and that is exactly what they did in about 40 seconds
19:47with a hand generator
19:48now stay with me
19:49because I want to put the two halves of this together
19:51and the second half is the one nobody talks about
19:55the battalion those men belonged to
19:57was commanded by a young lieutenant colonel
19:59named David Pergrin
20:01about 600 men
20:02here is what that single battalion did
20:05in 11 months in Europe
20:0723 timber bridges
20:1044 Bailey bridges
20:127 Treadway bridges
20:1511 of those bridges built while the enemy was shooting at them
20:197 river assault crossings
20:226 bridges destroyed
20:247,000 mines lifted
20:2715 unexploded bombs taken apart
20:308,500 German prisoners taken
20:34by a bridge building outfit
20:361 battalion
20:38and there were dozens of them
20:40take one level up
20:42the 1139th engineer combat group
20:45put in 119 tactical bridges in the campaign
20:4839 of them were 200 feet or longer
20:52and one of them ran 1896 feet
20:55the longest floating tactical bridge
20:57built anywhere in the European theater
21:00let that land properly
21:02that is a bridge more than a third of a mile long
21:05floating
21:06carrying tanks
21:07assembled by men standing in a river in winter
21:11not a peacetime engineering project
21:13with a ribbon at the end
21:14a thing that had to exist by morning
21:16because a division was going to drive over it
21:20a Bailey bridge could be assembled and pushed across in 12 hours
21:23and the veterans of those outfits will tell you they routinely did it in less
21:28Patton's Third Army fought its way across 24 major rivers
21:31and I do not mean streams
21:3324
21:35so look at the German problem again
21:37and look at it the way the man with the map pencil had to look at it
21:41you are a staff officer at a German corps headquarters
21:44your front is anchored on a river
21:46the bridges are down
21:47you blew them yourself properly
21:49with the charges calculated by an engineer who knew his work
21:53in your own army
21:54that river buys you time you can actually put a number on
21:58because you know what it takes to bridge it
22:00the equipment has to be requisitioned
22:02moved forward on roads that are being strafed
22:05behind horse columns that cannot be passed
22:08days
22:09maybe a week
22:11you write your estimate
22:12you allocate your reserves according to that estimate
22:15you go to sleep
22:16and in the morning
22:18there is a bridge
22:20not a repaired bridge
22:21a new one
22:22of a type you have never had to plan against
22:25put in overnight at a place with no road leading to it
22:28because the same Americans who built the bridge
22:31also cut the approach roads to it with bulldozers
22:33while the bridge was going in
22:36this is the thing I most want you to hold on to from this part
22:39because it is where the story we started with actually begins
22:42for the German command terrain had always been fixed
22:47rivers
22:47ridges
22:48marsh
22:49the road net
22:50these were the constants of the problem
22:53the part of war that stayed still
22:55while everything else moved
22:56that is what made professional prediction possible at all
23:00you looked at the fixed things
23:02you worked out where the enemy had to go
23:04and you put your strength there
23:07the American army took that away
23:09not with a secret weapon
23:10with engineer battalions
23:12and the doctrine that gave them the authority to work at the front
23:16instead of behind it
23:18and notice both directions
23:19because that is the whole trick
23:21the same units that manufactured roads and bridges
23:25also deleted them
23:26in seconds
23:27at the moment of maximum embarrassment
23:29as at the Lien
23:31where a German battle group with more armor than most divisions
23:34was stopped by a squad and a box of explosive
23:38for an army whose entire operational plan was five numbered roads
23:43the enemy had become able to add and subtract roads at will
23:47so put the two facts side by side
23:51American columns did not need the road net
23:53American engineers could rewrite it
23:55which means that by the autumn of 1944
23:58when a German officer looked at his map
24:01to work out where the Americans would come
24:03the map was no longer answering the question
24:06it was just a picture of the ground
24:09that is a terrifying position for a professional to be in
24:13and it produced a very specific kind of behavior
24:15when you cannot predict
24:17you cover
24:19you spread
24:20you garrison every junction that might matter
24:23and you hold your mobile reserve back
24:26to react to whatever finally shows up
24:28which means that when it does show up
24:30you are late
24:32and there is one more consequence
24:35and it is the reason we started this story
24:37in a Luxembourg wood
24:38when an officer no longer trusts his map
24:41he becomes dependent on reports
24:43on what somebody saw
24:45what somebody heard
24:46what the radio traffic sounded like
24:49at three in the morning
24:49which is precisely the moment
24:51when 500 Americans with rubber tanks
24:54stop being a stunt
24:55and start being a weapon
24:57I told you they were out there
24:59for eight days
25:01what I have not told you
25:02is how they decided
25:03what to show the Germans
25:05or what happened
25:06on the night the Germans came in
25:08to have a look
25:08the sound started at 10 o'clock
25:10on the night of the 15th of September 1944
25:13and ran until midnight
25:15it came out of speakers
25:17weighing several hundred pounds each
25:19mounted on half tracks
25:21driven up to within a few miles
25:23of the German positions
25:24and then shut down
25:25so the crews could listen
25:27to their own work
25:28what the Germans heard
25:30was tanks moving into an assembly area
25:32engines under load
25:34tracks on pavement
25:35the clatter of a tank turning
25:37tailgates voices
25:38the particular unhurried noise
25:41of a large unit
25:42that has arrived somewhere
25:43and intends to stay
25:46none of it was happening
25:48the recordings had been made
25:49months earlier
25:50in the United States
25:51at Fort Knox
25:52by engineers
25:53who took wire recorders
25:55out to real armored units
25:56and captured them
25:57doing ordinary things
25:59then the sounds were cut
26:01and mixed like a film score
26:02this many minutes of movement
26:04then bridging equipment
26:06then quiet
26:07so that a listener
26:08two miles away
26:09in the dark
26:09would assemble the story
26:11in his own head
26:12that was the job
26:13of the men in that wood
26:15they were the 23rd Headquarters
26:16Special Troops
26:17and they were
26:18on paper
26:19an 1100 man unit
26:21with no combat mission
26:23at all
26:24a large part of the outfit
26:26came out of the 603rd
26:27Engineer Camouflage Battalion
26:29recruited heavily from art schools
26:31and advertising studios
26:32in New York
26:33and Philadelphia
26:34among the privates
26:36and sergeants
26:37sewing false shoulder patches
26:38that week
26:39were men who would spend
26:40the 1950s becoming famous
26:42the fashion designer
26:44Bill Blass
26:44the painter
26:46Ellsworth Kelly
26:47in September of 1944
26:49they were enlisted men
26:51inflating rubber tanks
26:53in Luxembourg
26:54they worked in four dimensions at once
26:57and I want you to see all four
26:59because the fourth
27:00is the one that mattered most
27:03there was the visual
27:04twelve inflatable Shermans
27:06in the trees north of Obweiler
27:08positioned badly
27:10on purpose
27:10because a unit that hides perfectly
27:13is a unit nobody sees
27:15there was the sonic
27:16which you have just heard
27:18there was the radio
27:19ten stations
27:20sending the traffic
27:22an armored division generates
27:23in the sending style
27:25of the actual operators
27:26of the actual division
27:27which had been studied
27:29and then there was the fourth
27:31which the unit called
27:32special effects
27:33and which was really
27:35just acting
27:37vehicles were repainted
27:38with sixth armored markings
27:40men were given a short history
27:42of the division to memorize
27:43where it had fought
27:45who commanded it
27:46they put on the patch
27:47drove into Beddenborg
27:49and the towns nearby
27:50as if on leave
27:51sat in cafes
27:52and talked about their outfit
27:54where they could be overheard
27:56think about what that asks
27:58of a twenty year old private
27:59he is sitting in a bar
28:00in a country full of people
28:02whose loyalties
28:03nobody has audited
28:05improvising a life story
28:06for a division
28:07he has never served in
28:08with no script
28:10and if the man at the next table
28:12asks the wrong question
28:14he has to answer it correctly
28:16immediately
28:16in a way that survives
28:19being repeated
28:19to a German intelligence officer
28:22nobody could tell him
28:24what to say
28:24he had to decide
28:26it is the same reflex
28:28we watched on a Brittany road
28:30in August
28:30pushed down to the lowest rank
28:33in the army
28:33and it is not an accident
28:35it is what that army
28:37was built to produce
28:39around them
28:40the situation was genuinely bad
28:43the gap they were plugging
28:45was some seventy miles of front
28:47screened by cavalry
28:49the men in the wood
28:50had no anti-tank guns
28:52and nothing
28:53that could stop
28:54a single real tank
28:56they had been sent out
28:57expecting a short job
28:59and then
29:00they were asked
29:01to stay
29:01day after day
29:02each extra day
29:04increasing the chance
29:05that some patrol
29:06would get in close enough
29:07to see that the tanks
29:09were made of rubber
29:10and the division
29:11was made of nothing
29:13on the second night
29:14their telephone wire
29:15was cut
29:17civilians came in
29:18to report Germans
29:19in the woods nearby
29:21German patrols
29:22were reported
29:22within a few miles
29:23working forward
29:25looking
29:26and on the other side
29:28of the hill
29:28the reports
29:29were going up the chain
29:31German intelligence
29:32in that sector
29:32over those days
29:33was carrying
29:35an American presence
29:36there that ranged
29:36from an armored combat
29:38command
29:38to several divisions
29:41German units
29:42began moving
29:42across the Moselle
29:43to meet the 6th armored
29:45division
29:46here is the part
29:47I find
29:48genuinely remarkable
29:49and it is not the rubber
29:52a German intelligence
29:53officer
29:54receiving those reports
29:55had no way
29:56to disprove them
29:58that is the whole thing
29:59rubber tanks
30:00would not fool
30:01a professional army
30:01that could say
30:02with confidence
30:03that no American
30:05armored division
30:05could possibly be
30:06in that sector
30:07because there was
30:08no road capable
30:09of bringing one in
30:10that fast
30:11and none of the bridges
30:12were up
30:12and the fuel situation
30:14made it absurd
30:15but by September of 1944
30:18no German officer
30:20in France
30:20could say any of that
30:21with confidence anymore
30:22he had watched
30:24American divisions
30:25cross 250 miles
30:27of impossible country
30:28in 10 days
30:29he had watched
30:31American engineers
30:32put bridges over rivers
30:33overnight
30:33his profession's method
30:35for saying
30:36this cannot be true
30:37had stopped working
30:38in August
30:40so when the sound
30:41of an armored division
30:42came out of the dark
30:43the report went up
30:44and the reserves moved
30:46and for 8 days
30:47a stretch of German front
30:49stood facing
30:50500 Americans
30:51and 12 balloons
30:53on the 22nd of September
30:55the 83rd Infantry Division
30:57came up
30:57and took over the sector
30:58and the 23rd
31:00quietly took down
31:01its tanks
31:02folded them
31:03and drove away
31:05nothing about it
31:07could be written down
31:07or mentioned in a letter
31:09or told to anyone at home
31:11not then
31:12and as it turned out
31:14not for a very long time afterwards
31:18but a bluff
31:19only works
31:20if the fear
31:21behind it
31:21is real
31:23so let me ask
31:24the question
31:25that has to be asked
31:26here
31:26was the German fear
31:28justified?
31:30were they guarding
31:31those roads
31:31because the Americans
31:32really could
31:33have come down
31:34any of them?
31:35or had they simply
31:36been rattled
31:37by a summer
31:38of bad news?
31:40five months later
31:41on the border
31:42between France
31:43and Germany
31:43Germany
31:44the German army
31:45built the cleanest
31:46possible test
31:47of that question
31:48thirteen miles
31:50of concrete
31:51dragon's teeth
31:52and bunkers
31:53across the base
31:54of a triangle
31:55held by a full division
31:57and on the 1st of March
31:591945
32:00an American task force
32:03drove into a Roman city
32:04forty miles behind it
32:06and found the bridge
32:08still standing
32:09on the 19th of February
32:111945
32:11in the rain
32:13before daylight
32:14riflemen
32:15of the 301st Infantry
32:17walked east
32:18out of a wrecked village
32:19called Sins
32:19and started uphill
32:21the hill was a hog back ridge
32:23wet
32:24steep
32:24no road up it
32:26worth the name
32:27that was the point
32:29behind them
32:29was the
32:30Saar Moselle triangle
32:31the wedge of German ground
32:33where the two rivers meet
32:34and across the base
32:36of that wedge
32:36the Germans had built
32:38one of the most conscientious pieces
32:39of fortification
32:40on the western border
32:41it was called the
32:43Orschold's switch
32:44thirteen miles of it
32:46running from Nenig
32:47on the Moselle
32:48to Orschold's
32:49on the Tsar
32:50two miles deep
32:52dragon's teeth
32:53anti-tank ditches
32:55concrete bunkers
32:56and pillboxes
32:57wired
32:58and mined
32:59and tied
32:59into field positions
33:00held by the
33:01416th Infantry Division
33:04behind it
33:05as the Mobile Reserve
33:06sat the 11th Panzer Division
33:08about 30 Mark IVs
33:1020 or 30 assault guns
33:12two Panzer Grenadier regiments
33:14still in decent shape
33:16that wall existed for one reason
33:18and by now
33:19you can state it yourself
33:21the triangle
33:22is a funnel
33:23go into it
33:25and the ground channels you
33:26toward a handful of routes
33:27and those routes lead to Trier
33:29and Trier
33:31is a gateway into Germany
33:33put concrete across the roads
33:35at the base of the funnel
33:36and the funnel is closed
33:38the American division
33:40sitting in front of it
33:41was the 94th
33:42under Major General Harry Maloney
33:44part of Walton Walker's 20th Corps
33:46the same corps
33:48that five months earlier
33:49had asked for a division
33:50it did not have
33:51and been given 500 men
33:53with rubber tanks
33:55the 94th had been in that triangle
33:57since the 7th of January
33:58and what happened there
33:59is one of the least known bloodlettings
34:01of the Western Front
34:03village fighting in the snow
34:05Nennig
34:06Tettingen
34:07Butsdorf
34:08Sintz
34:09small places
34:10taken and lost
34:12and taken again
34:13at a cost nobody at home
34:15ever heard about
34:17that fighting is also what set the German picture
34:19the pressure was down in the south
34:22near the Moselle heights
34:23and German planning bent that way
34:25when the 11th Panzer came forward to hit back
34:29its raid ran straight through
34:31Butsdorf and Tettingen
34:33toward exactly the sector
34:34where the Americans had been bleeding
34:36for six weeks
34:37then
34:38before dawn on the 19th
34:40in rain that grounded aircraft
34:41the 301st went up the ridge instead
34:44they were on the crest
34:46near Munzingen
34:47inside two hours
34:49two hours
34:50six weeks of villages
34:52and then a fortified line
34:54thirteen miles long
34:55was flanked
34:56in the time it takes
34:57to eat a meal
34:58and drive home
34:59and what they found on top
35:01was not the Panzer troops
35:02the map promised
35:03it was Volksgrenadiers
35:05worn out
35:06many of them survivors
35:08of the January fighting
35:09down in Alsace
35:10holding ground
35:11that headquarters had assumed
35:12nobody would attack
35:14the hole was opened by daylight
35:15and on the 20th
35:17the 10th Armored Division
35:18came through it
35:19Major General William Morris
35:22with Combat Command A
35:23under Brigadier General Edwin Pyburn
35:26into the open country
35:27behind the concrete
35:28now hold the picture in your head
35:31because this is the thing
35:32this whole story is named for
35:34the Orschuld switch
35:36did not fall
35:38nobody broke it
35:39it stood there
35:40thirteen miles of bunkers
35:42and dragon's teeth
35:43and anti-tank ditch
35:45fully manned
35:46guns laid on the approaches
35:48garrison alert
35:49an American armor
35:51was driving north
35:52behind it
35:53the men in those pillboxes
35:55were guarding roads
35:56that no longer had
35:57an American on them
35:58their war had gone past
36:00their shoulder
36:01and kept going
36:02on the 27th of February
36:04Combat Command A
36:06turned north
36:07up the triangle
36:08resistance was mostly
36:10single tanks
36:11and assault guns
36:11lying in ambush
36:12at bends
36:13which is what an army
36:15has left
36:15when its line
36:16has been turned
36:17not a defense
36:18but individual crews
36:20doing what they can
36:21and on the 1st of March
36:22a task force
36:23under Lieutenant Colonel
36:24Jack Richardson
36:25drove into Trier
36:27Trier is an old Roman city
36:29on the Moselle
36:30and the bridge that mattered
36:31was the Kaiserbrücke
36:33Richardson went for it
36:35in a tank himself
36:35and found his men
36:37on the near end
36:37under small arms fire
36:39from the far bank
36:40the German demolition party
36:42was on its way
36:43it arrived too late
36:45the bridge stayed up
36:47task force Richardson
36:48took 800 prisoners
36:49on its own
36:50that day
36:50and the American army
36:52now owned
36:53an intact bridge
36:54over the Moselle
36:55at the doorstep
36:56of Germany
36:58that bridge is worth
36:59one more sentence
37:00because of what it says
37:01about the clock
37:03German engineers
37:04were not incompetent
37:05and they were not
37:06cowards
37:06their charges were prepared
37:08and their orders
37:09were clear
37:10what beat them
37:12was arrival time
37:13a column that reached
37:14the bridge
37:15from a direction
37:15and on a schedule
37:16that nobody's planning
37:18had produced
37:20higher headquarters
37:21had ordered Patton
37:22to bypass Trier
37:23as too strongly held
37:24to be worth two divisions
37:26he took it anyway
37:27and sent up the message
37:28people still quote
37:29he had taken Trier
37:31with two divisions
37:31and did they want him
37:33to give it back
37:34so let us total up
37:36where we are
37:36because we are now
37:37one step from the answer
37:39the Germans were not
37:41guarding roads
37:41out of stupidity
37:42Brittany taught them
37:44that American columns
37:45would not use the roads
37:46they expected
37:47the engineers taught them
37:49that rivers and demolitions
37:50bought hours
37:51instead of days
37:52Bettenborg proved
37:53they could no longer
37:54disprove a report
37:55and the Sarmoselle triangle
37:57proved the final
37:58expensive thing
37:59even their best fortification
38:02built exactly
38:03where the map
38:04said it should be
38:05could be left standing
38:06and simply
38:07walked around
38:09which brings us
38:10to the last three weeks
38:11of March 1945
38:12and to the Rhine
38:13because up to this point
38:15every one of these
38:16was a German error
38:18the Americans exploited
38:19after the fact
38:20what happened
38:21on the Rhine
38:21was different in kind
38:23there
38:23there
38:24the American army
38:25decided in advance
38:26which sector
38:27of the river
38:28the German command
38:29would defend
38:30and then made it
38:31defend it
38:32we know exactly
38:33how well it worked
38:34because the
38:35intelligence section
38:36of an American
38:37infantry division
38:38captured a German
38:39staff map
38:40just before the attack
38:41on that map
38:43one of the two
38:44American divisions
38:45is drawn precisely
38:46where the Americans
38:47wanted it drawn
38:48the other one
38:50is not there at all
38:51on the 18th of March 1945
38:53on the west bank
38:55of the Rhine
38:55American soldiers
38:57began inflating
38:57tanks
38:58in daylight
39:00that is the hole
39:01of the change
39:02right there
39:03in September
39:04they had hidden badly
39:05on purpose
39:06hoping to be half seen
39:08now they were setting
39:09out rubber armor
39:10in the open
39:11in a river valley
39:12under observation
39:13and running sound
39:15equipment
39:15at midday
39:16that played the noise
39:18of bridging gear
39:19being assembled
39:19because they wanted
39:21the German staff
39:22on the far bank
39:23to hear men
39:24building the approaches
39:25to a crossing
39:25and to write it down
39:27and to send it up
39:28the operation
39:30was called Fiersen
39:31it was conceived
39:32planned and run
39:34by a liaison officer
39:35from the 23rd
39:36named Lieutenant Colonel
39:37Merrick Truly
39:38working inside
39:40the operations section
39:41of 9th Army
39:42the mission
39:43in the official language
39:44was to deceive
39:46the enemy
39:46as to the actual
39:47crossing area
39:48the strength
39:49of the crossing
39:50and the time
39:51of the crossing
39:52in practical terms
39:53simulate the 30th
39:54and 79th
39:55infantry divisions
39:56in assembly areas
39:57in the 13th
39:58Corps zone
39:59while the real
40:0030th and 79th
40:02quietly assembled
40:03miles away
40:04in the 16th
40:05Corps zone
40:05roughly 1,100 men
40:08were to be
40:08two divisions
40:09about 40,000
40:10they put
40:11more than 600
40:12inflatable tanks
40:14guns
40:14and vehicles
40:15along that stretch
40:16of river
40:17sixty-four
40:18rubber 40mm
40:19guns
40:20and 16
40:20rubber 90mm
40:22guns
40:22went to 13th
40:23Corps
40:24to thicken
40:24the display
40:25there were even
40:26five inflatable
40:27liaison aircraft
40:29because a division's
40:30little spotter planes
40:31sit in fields
40:32behind the front
40:33and an intelligence
40:34officer who does
40:35not find them
40:36starts asking why
40:38the radio nets
40:39of the real divisions
40:40went silent
40:41and identical nets
40:42came up in the wrong
40:43place
40:44a phony army traffic
40:46control net
40:46went on the air
40:47and spent days
40:48reporting heavy
40:49vehicle movement
40:50into a sector
40:51where nothing was
40:52moving at all
40:53sonic trucks
40:53played convoys
40:55arriving after dark
40:56and construction
40:57through the day
40:58every element
40:59told the same story
41:00and the story was
41:02the Americans
41:03are going to cross
41:04here
41:06now
41:07how do we know
41:08it worked
41:09not by inference
41:10by a captured document
41:14just before the attack
41:15the intelligence section
41:17of the 79th Infantry Division
41:18took a German staff overlay
41:20showing the German picture
41:22of the American order of battle
41:24on that overlay
41:26the 79th Division is drawn
41:28approximately where the 23rd
41:30had been pretending it was
41:31and the 30th Division
41:33one of the most experienced
41:35divisions in the United States Army
41:37sitting on the Rhine
41:38with its assault boats
41:39is not on the map at all
41:41lost altogether
41:43the 9th Army's own
41:45intelligence summary
41:46put the German expectation
41:48plainly
41:49the enemy anticipated
41:50the main allied effort
41:52north of Waisel
41:53with a minor crossing
41:54opposite Krefeld
41:55so here is the answer
41:57to the question we started with
41:58in a Luxembourg wood
42:00in September
42:01and I want to give it to you
42:03without decoration
42:04by March of 1945
42:06when a German officer
42:08on the Rhine
42:09deployed his men
42:10to cover a stretch
42:11of bank
42:11and the roads leading back
42:13from it
42:13he was not guarding
42:15what he had chosen to guard
42:16he was guarding
42:18what the American army
42:19had shown him
42:20every instrument he had
42:22for finding the truth
42:23had been taken away from him
42:24one at a time
42:25his knowledge of what terrain
42:27would permit
42:28taken by columns
42:29that crossed impossible country
42:31his sense of what a river
42:33or a demolished bridge
42:34was worth
42:35taken by engineers
42:36who could add a bridge overnight
42:38and remove one
42:39in 40 seconds
42:41his ability to reason
42:43from the road net at all
42:44taken by an enemy
42:45who did not need it
42:47strip a professional
42:48of every means of prediction
42:50and he is left with reports
42:52and once he is left with reports
42:55whoever controls the reports
42:57controls where his divisions stand
42:59that is what left German officers
43:01guarding roads
43:02no American ever came down
43:04not one trick
43:06a system that had made their map
43:08an American product
43:10you can see both ends of it
43:12in the same week of March
43:14in the north
43:15on the 24th
43:16after a bombardment
43:17by thousands of guns
43:18the real 30th and 79th
43:21crossed near Rheinberg
43:23into a sector
43:23the German first parachute army
43:25had not waited
43:26and the resistance in front of them
43:28was disorganized
43:30in the south
43:31on the night of the 22nd
43:32there was no deception at all
43:34just the habit by then
43:36the 11th Infantry Regiment
43:38of the 5th Division
43:39under Colonel Paul Black
43:41crossed the Rhine
43:42at Nierstein
43:43and Oppenheim
43:44at 10 o'clock at night
43:45with no artillery preparation
43:47whatsoever
43:49thirteen battalions of artillery
43:51stood ready
43:52and were ordered to stay silent
43:54because surprise
43:55was worth more than shells
43:57about 500 assault boats
43:59run by the 204th Engineer Battalion
44:02the first boat to touch the east bank
44:04carried a platoon leader
44:06eight men
44:07and the commander of Company K
44:09First Lieutenant Ervin Jacobs
44:12seven Germans on that bank
44:13surrendered immediately
44:14having plainly not expected the war
44:17to arrive that evening
44:19upstream at Oppenheim
44:20it was harder
44:21machine guns opened on boats
44:24in mid-stream
44:24and there was a half hour
44:26of close fighting
44:26before it was over
44:28in the entire assault crossing
44:30of the Rhine
44:31the 11th Infantry lost 20 men
44:3420
44:36on the river that had been
44:37the German army's last line
44:39since the fall of Rome
44:40held by a state
44:42that had spent five years
44:43telling its people
44:44it would never be crossed
44:46by the late afternoon
44:48of the next day
44:49there was a treadway bridge
44:50open at Oppenheim
44:51and trucks were driving
44:53into Germany
44:53over a river
44:54that had stopped being
44:55a barrier
44:56at 10 o'clock
44:57the night before
44:59I want to be careful here
45:00because these numbers
45:02can make it sound bloodless
45:03and it was not
45:05men drowned in that river
45:07men died on those bank
45:09and in the sectors
45:10where nothing came
45:11German soldiers stayed
45:12at their posts
45:13on empty roads
45:14waiting for an attack
45:15that had been aimed
45:16somewhere else
45:17which is its own kind of ending
45:20what became of the men
45:22who did all this
45:22is the part I have been saving
45:24some of them went home
45:25in 1945
45:26and were forbidden
45:27to say a single word
45:28about what they had done
45:29to their wives
45:30their fathers
45:31anyone
45:33most of them died
45:34still not allowed to say it
45:35and in March of 2024
45:38three very old men
45:39stood in a room
45:40in Washington
45:41and finally accepted something
45:43on behalf of all of them
45:44go back for a moment
45:46to the wood
45:47north of Abfeiler
45:48by the end of September 1944
45:50there was nothing there
45:52twelve rubber tanks
45:54had been deflated
45:55folded
45:55and stacked
45:56in trucks
45:58the speakers
45:59had gone back
45:59on their half tracks
46:00the ashes
46:02of a great many
46:02cooking fires
46:03had been rained on
46:04and the men who lit them
46:06were somewhere else
46:07being somebody else
46:09across the Moselle
46:10the officers who had
46:12watched that wood
46:13who had listened
46:14to those engines
46:15and written those reports
46:16and moved real units
46:18to meet a division
46:19that was 400 miles away
46:20we don't know their names
46:22they are the anonymous
46:24part of this story
46:25what survives of them
46:27is a set of intelligence
46:28summaries describing
46:29an American armored division
46:31that did not exist
46:32in the memory of a sector
46:34that stayed quiet
46:35while their army lost the war
46:37somewhere else
46:39their concrete is still there
46:41some of it
46:42bunkers in the tree lines
46:44of the Tsar-Moselle triangle
46:45dragon's teeth
46:47in the scrub
46:47near Orschultz
46:48poured by men
46:50who did an honest
46:51professional job
46:52of covering the roads
46:53into Germany
46:54it faces west
46:57nothing ever came
46:58now the other side of it
47:00which is the side
47:01worth carrying out
47:02of this story
47:02the 23rd headquarters
47:04special troops
47:05came home in 1945
47:07and were told
47:08to say nothing
47:10not a partial silence
47:12total
47:13they could not tell
47:14their wives
47:15what they had done
47:16or their fathers
47:17or their children
47:18later on
47:19when men
47:20from other outfits
47:21talked about the war
47:22at the bar
47:22or the union hall
47:23or the legion post
47:25they had to sit there
47:26with a story
47:27about camouflage work
47:28and let it go
47:30Bill Blass
47:31went into fashion
47:31and became a famous name
47:33in America
47:33without ever mentioning
47:35the inflatable tanks
47:36Ellsworth Kelly
47:37became one of the country's
47:39major painters
47:39and said nothing
47:41about the Luxembourg woods
47:43the unit's records
47:44stayed classified
47:45until 1996
47:4751 years
47:49by the time the government
47:50released them
47:51most of the men
47:52were gone
47:53on the 21st of March
47:552024
47:5679 years
47:58almost to the day
47:59after the display
48:00along the Rhine
48:01the Congressional Gold Medal
48:03was awarded
48:03to the Ghost Army
48:06seven of them
48:06were still alive
48:07three were well enough
48:09to be there
48:10Bernard Blustein
48:12100 years old
48:13John Christman
48:1599
48:17Seymour Nussenbaum
48:18100
48:20three very old men
48:22accepting a medal
48:23on behalf of 1100
48:25most of whom died
48:27without permission
48:28to explain
48:28what they had done
48:30and they are only the part
48:31of this that was secret
48:33the rest of it
48:34was never secret
48:35it was just ordinary
48:37which is a different way
48:38of disappearing
48:40the engineers of the 291st
48:42went home
48:43and did not tell people
48:44about the 23 timber bridges
48:46or the 44 Baileys
48:49or the 11 they built
48:50while being shot at
48:51David Pergrin
48:52who commanded them
48:53at 27
48:54wrote his book decades later
48:56mostly so that his men
48:57would exist on paper somewhere
49:00the riflemen of the 94th Division
49:02who spent January
49:03in Nennick
49:04and Teddingen
49:04and Butsdorf
49:05so that somebody could walk up
49:07a wet ridge on the 19th of February
49:09and turn 13 miles of concrete
49:11in two hours
49:12nobody has heard of those villages
49:15the men in the boats
49:16at Nierstein
49:17who crossed the Rhine
49:18at 10 o'clock at night
49:19with no artillery firing
49:21over their heads
49:22because silence was the plan
49:23and who lost 20 men
49:25out of a regiment
49:26doing the thing
49:27everyone had said
49:28could not be done cheaply
49:31so let me finish the question
49:32we started with
49:34German officers were left
49:35guarding roads
49:36the Americans never used
49:38because they were doing
49:39their jobs correctly
49:40in a war
49:41that had stopped rewarding
49:42correctness
49:43they read the ground
49:44found the places
49:46an army must pass
49:47and put their strength there
49:48and they were facing an army
49:50that did not have to pass anywhere
49:52that could build a road overnight
49:54or take one away in 40 seconds
49:56that changed its mind
49:58in minutes
49:59on the initiative
50:00of whoever happened
50:01to be standing at the crossroads
50:02and that had learned
50:04by the end
50:05to hand its enemy
50:06a picture of itself
50:07and let him deploy against it
50:10that is the whole answer
50:12and it is smaller than it sounds
50:15it was not a wonder weapon
50:16and not a genius
50:18it was a private
50:19in a Luxembourg cafe
50:21inventing his division's history
50:23on the spot
50:23a squad on the wrong side of a creek
50:26with a hand generator
50:28a lieutenant colonel
50:29who decided the far bank
50:31was worth a bridge tonight
50:32rather than tomorrow
50:34the American army
50:36let the man on the spot decide
50:37and then gave him the trucks
50:39the explosive
50:40and the bridging
50:41to make his decision real
50:44multiply that by a million men
50:46and it stops being an army
50:48you can predict
50:48the Germans went on watching the roads
50:50to the end
50:51the Americans
50:52had simply stopped needing them
51:23thank you for watching all the way through this one
51:24the world war
51:25put his name down
51:26and the unit he served with
51:28names and units
51:30are how these men stay findable
51:32somebody's grandson
51:33will read yours
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