October 1944. Western Germany.
An American captain watches,
as a German soldier returns to a bunker loaded with ammunition.
Bobbie was stalking. He didn't realize it, but Bobbie was right there.
NARRATOR: The captain pulls the fuse and deposits an explosive charge,
before the soldier can react.
On June 6th, 1944,
allied forces finally land troops in Normandy to open the western front.
But Nazi fanatics and diehards continue to fight ferociously for survival.
D-Day was a battle.
They still need to win the war.
October 8th, 1944. Near Aachen, Germany.
Soldiers from the American 18th infantry regiment advance under the cover of smoke.
They must move quickly and quietly towards their attack positions
before the Germans know they’re there.
Captain Bobbie Brown commands C Company.
At 41, Brown is older than most other officers and likely many of his superiors.
He has served most of his life.
Bobbie didn't want to be a burden on his family.
So, he decided to go down to Columbus, Georgia and attempt to enlist in the army.
He told the recruiting sergeant he was 18,
he was big for his age, but he was only 15.
The army needed big kids like him in 1922 so they took him.
Brown trained with all the infantry weapons in peacetime,
and became a recognized leader after the war broke out.
When Bobbie went ashore on D-Day, he was with the first division.
By August there needed to be a new captain named for Company C.
His battalion commander had lots of choices, including West Point graduates,
but he favored Bobbie because Bobbie was a scrapper,
he had an uncanny sense of timing, his men revered him.
Brown and his men prepare for battle once more.
Suddenly, the wind picks up and their smoke cover blows away.
C Company is exposed.
It doesn’t take long for the German guns to find their targets.
Incoming!
Get down, keep your heads up!
Go, go!
Up you get!
After the rapid advance over the summer,
Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
identifies an objective that promises to end the war:
The Ruhr Valley.
The Ruhr was the most important strategic objective of the allied armies
in 1944 and 1945. It was Germany’s industrial heartland.
It contained most of their major steel mills,
their tank plants and their weapons factories.
After the D-Day landings,
the race across Europe brings the allies up to the German border in September 1944.
To clear the way to the Ruhr Valley to the northeast,
Eisenhower orders parts of four American divisions
to secure the ancient German city of Aachen.
The stakes are high on both sides.
What is a propaganda dream for Eisenhower is a nightmare for Hitler.
If the Americans take Aachen, they are not only fighting on German soil,
they capture the first major German city.
After the violent greeting from the German guns,
Bobbie Brown and his men gather on their start line at the base of a hill.
The men knew they were taking on a very, very difficult mission.
They knew the Germans had these prepared pillbox locations all over Crucifix Hill.
They knew they had their firing ports and angles of fire aimed at their approach.
Brown’s objective is clear:
he is to neutralize all enemy activity on the hill
and then prepare for counterattacks.
He scours the slope to plot a path to the closest bunker,
and looks to the sky for friendly allied aircraft.
The air support that Brown expected
was two flight of P-47 thunderbolts which were actually just eight planes.
He had been relying on continuing air missions
but the air liaison, who was on his way up to Crucifix Hill earlier,
his tank was busted up, so he never got up there.
Brown can’t wait any longer.
BROWN (yells, muted): Go, go, go, go!
As he and his men jump up,
the Germans unleash a barrage of artillery fire.
The Germans had the avenue of approach that was chosen by the Americans,
zeroed in and pre-plotted before they even attacked.
There were 84 separate artillery pieces that rained down on Brown’s men.
As they try to approach, machine guns also open up with deadly accuracy.
Allied artillery shells pound the bunkers on the hillside in support,
but fail to disrupt the German fire.
Brown and his men attack Crucifix Hill.
Named for the large stone cross on its summit,
its fortifications protect Aachen from the northeast.
It also called hill 2-3-9, for its height in meters.
It bristles with pillboxes and bunkers.
Despite being somewhat outdated,
the bunkers on Crucifix Hill give a good opportunity to fire
from the heights down on the Americans in the valley.
With his men pinned at the start line,
Captain Bobbie Brown and his command unit,
which includes a radio operator and runner, make a move.
Bobbie Brown had trained his men to understand
that so long as one person wasn’t pinned down,
do the job of the man ahead of you, so that everybody could start moving.
But at this moment, Bobbie Brown knew that his entire company was pinned down,
and he was gonna have to do something about it.
Brown heads towards a dip in the terrain.
His team throw themselves over the edge.
Brown and his command group were able to jump into
a dug-out depression at the foot of Crucifix Hill
because he had had the wisdom the night before to go out and dig that hole
and bring canvas with him so that he could drag the dirt away
so when the daylight came, the Germans wouldn’t even know anyone had been there.
They find a little protection, just below the enemy’s fire.
The radio operator makes contact with the platoon leaders.
The news is not good.
One of his platoon leaders is injured
and both of the assault platoons remain pinned down.
Binoculars.
Brown looks up the hill and observes the gunfire
coming from the bunker above him.
He’s trying to take in the totality of this situation.
The radio operator looks at him and says,
“Are we gonna send some engineers up first?”
Bobbie looks back at him and says, “I wouldn’t ask a man to commit suicide.”
In a split second, Brown makes a decision.
He will take out the bunker himself.
The American captain Bobbie Brown prepares a plan to put into action.
Bobbie Brown decides at that moment
that he's gonna have to lead by example and do what his men can’t do.
He wasn’t pinned down.
So, he turns to his radioman and says,
“What we’re gonna need is a pole charge and a satchel charge.”
- And the radioman, he’s incredulous. - Sir?
Brown needs more firepower than the weapons he has at hand.
He believes that explosives are the answer.
The bunkers on Crucifix Hill make up a dense sector of the Westwall,
or Siegfried Line.
The Siegfried Line was created in the 1930s
so that the German army could fight a two-front war.
And what happened in 1939 is the German army threw all of its strength
against Poland and conquered Poland in September.
But at the same time,
they didn't have to have a large military force on their western border,
facing the French and British Army, because they had the Siegfried Line there.
It required a minimal force, a so-called economy of force maneuver.
This is considered especially important around Aachen,
which boasts a double line of fortifications.
The Westwall in the Aachen sector was extremely thick,
especially as compared to other sections of the Westwall further away.
The reason was mainly because of the strategic importance
of some relatively flat terrain immediately south of the city of Aachen,
that allows tank forces access further east
towards the Ruhr River and towards the Rhine River.
Often built into the landscape and camouflaged by grass and brush,
the bunkers have narrow openings,
or apertures, to allow just enough room to fire weapons.
These fortifications vary in size, but can be up to 50 feet wide and 25 feet deep.
They are designed to Standard B.
Standard B means is that
they are two meters thick of steel reinforced concrete.
Now, two meters thick of steel-reinforced concrete
will defend up to an eight-inch artillery projectile,
or a 1,000-pound aircraft bomb.
So, it's a very, very substantial military structure.
Bobbie Brown needs to find a way to attack the structure.
He's not sure exactly what he's going to do.
What he does see is a crater that had been left by,
in all likelihood, one of the P-47's.
It's about half the distance between where he is
and where the pillbox is located that he wants to go after.
Brown signals second platoon commander, Lieutenant Charles Marvain,
- to deliver the explosives he requires. - Okay!
The German fire was just coming down repeatedly at Marvain's location,
so Marvain may have been happy to leave where he was.
He heaves a satchel charge to Brown.
A satchel charge is a type of an engineered demolition charge.
And it's called a satchel charge
because the explosives are contained inside a satchel bag.
And they're typically used to blow up obstructions.
So, it might be an anti-tank wall, it might be a bunker.
In this case,
the satchel charge is loaded with 60 quarter pound blocks of TNT,
to be detonated by a three second fuse.
With the charge ready, Brown crawls out of his ditch, with 15 pounds of TNT.
It’s an unusual job for a man of his rank.
A company captain was responsible for being in a position
where he could communicate with his battalion commander
so that he could get change orders,
including "reinforcements are on the way" or "we want you to withdraw."
It was very unusual for a captain to be the tip of the spear during World War II.
Brown inches up Crucifix Hill toward the bunker that targets his men.
Crawling as best he can to stay under the trajectory of the fire.
All he has to do is stick his head up and he's going to get shot.
The only sign of the enemy inside
are the gun barrels firing through the aperture.
Soldiers from the 352nd grenadier regiment are among those manning the bunkers.
A grenadier regiment is basically an infantry regiment.
In 1942, the Germans renamed all the infantry units as grenadier regiments,
reminding of the old Prussian grenadier regiments from the 18th and 19th Century.
They have been handpicked,
and moved quickly into defensive positions on Crucifix Hill,
as the Americans closed in on Aachen.
Despite the fact that these bunkers were outdated, to a certain degree,
it gave the German soldiers a sense of security.
You've got German documents,
when they retreated from France in early autumn 1944,
that these bunkers were extremely important for their morale
because for the first time, they've got a clearly defined line of defense.
The regiment’s commander is Oberstleutnant Josef Eggerstorfer.
Lieutenant Colonel Eggerstorfer is a 35-year-old officer.
A former NCO, but who has seen a huge and quick career during the second World War.
He's a veteran from the eastern front,
and got promoted thanks to a preferential promotion.
This means he was promoted quicker than normal
due to his performance on the battlefield.
Eggerstorfer has orders to defend the ancient German city,
no matter what the cost.
Aachen has great historical significance to the German people.
The city served as the coronation site for the Holy Roman Empire for over 700 years.
Its majesty aligns with Hitler’s imperial aspirations.
Aachen has got a mythical and symbolic value for the Nazis
because it is the old imperial capital of Charlemagne,
who was the founder of the first Reich.
And the Nazis consider to have the third Reich,
so there is a link, a historic link in the Nazi mindset,
between the first Reich and the third Reich.
The bunkers on Crucifix Hill defend the city from the northeast.
As the fighting builds, the conditions within deteriorate.
It's cramped, it's smelly, smoke everywhere.
Shoot! Shoot! Keep shooting! Shoot! Fire!
When you fire a machine gun, the noise reverberates.
So, psychologically, it's extremely demanding for an ordinary soldier.
On the slope below the bunker,
Brown must decide the best way to neutralize it using the satchel charge.
It's usually something where you're not under enemy fire,
so you take it up to a wall and you position it very carefully,
and you might use multiple satchel charges.
When a satchel charge is used in close combat,
it's usually used in an improvised fashion.
Brown works out a plan. The explosives have a three second fuse.
It doesn’t give him much time to take cover before the charge explodes.
If he were to crawl to the flank of that box and come in from behind it,
he might be in a position to see if the back door was a way he could get into it,
or close enough so he could throw his satchel charge through it.
But, if Brown can throw the charge through the aperture,
the bunker should protect him from the blast.
Brown picks up speed.
As he runs up the slope towards the opening, he encounters a German soldier.
Before American captain Bobbie Brown can make his move to the aperture,
the startled soldier dashes back into the bunker.
Brown leaps to pull the door closed, to trap him inside.
But it won’t shut.
So as the German turned, his rifle, which was slung over his shoulder,
slipped off his shoulder, down his elbow, and into the door jam.
Brown sees the rifle. He opens the door to kick it in.
With the fuse pulled on the satchel charge,
he drops it inside and slams the door.
Brown jumps back as the bunker explodes behind him.
From down the hill, what Bobbie Brown’s men saw
was a bunker where smoke was pouring out of the apertures,
the air vent on top of it. Flames were licking the sky,
and there were nothing but loud explosions, one following another.
The destruction is total.
A satchel charge of that size inside a bunker is going to be devastating
because it contains the blast within the bunker.
No German survived that blast.
The biggest body part they found later was a thigh.
C Company’s command and control group,
of the American 18th infantry regiment,
would be happy to see their captain return safely to the ditch after the explosion.
Brown immediately asks for a progress report.
Despite knocking out the bunker, the men of C and A Companies
remain pinned by the heavy German fire from across Crucifix Hill.
Brown has taken out the first bunker, but the others continue to operate.
Because they are so high, they can see the approach
and direct their fire with accuracy on the attacking Americans.
When Brown looks further up the hill,
he identifies another bunker beyond the one he’s just destroyed.
The job's not finished.
He believes he got a command bunker with the first one he took
and he wants to go get more of what he believes are
the command-and-control bunkers for the German firing.
He had a volunteer that wanted to go, and Bobbie just turned to him and said,
“That's bad crap shooting soldier. I don't quit while the dice are hot.”
Satchel charge.
This time, Brown grabs both a satchel
and a pole charge and prepares for his ascent.
A pole charge consists of a length of wood
with a small demolition charge at the end.
And it differs from a satchel charge
in that a pole charge can be placed very precisely next to the embrasure
to try to destroy it.
It has improvised, do-it-yourself qualities.
The quantity of explosives can be adjusted.
An engineer unit attached to the infantry unit will bring up some satchel charges.
The engineers will make the pole charges in the field.
Brown has his next target. But as his men try to move up the hill,
allied artillery also pounds the sector to support their advance.
It would be dangerous to get too close.
Put some smoke in the pillbox!
Brown orders his runner to fire a yellow smoke grenade
on the bunker’s south side.
This will signal the American 155 millimeter gun to lift its fire,
so he can approach the bunker safely.
From within the bunker, the Germans may not be able to see the yellow smoke.
The thick concrete and rebar mean bunkers can withstand heavy fire power,
but limit visibility of their immediate surroundings.
Each bunker has a field of fire that their guns can reach.
As a system, the bunkers are designed to support each other
by providing overlapping fire.
Even if one bunker is taken out,
the ones around it should be able to continue to cover the hillside.
Brown creeps up.
His plan was to go for the back door again.
But as he crawled up closer to that bunker,
the German fires were so strong that he was convinced that they had spotted him.
Brown must reduce his profile.
They could only aim so low.
If he could crawl underneath that, he could get closer to the pillbox.
The machine gun fire above him stops.
Bobbie keeps going and he realizes this time
that his best approach is going to be frontally.
So, this time he crawls close enough the aperture to reach out
and put his pole charge through it.
With very little distance between him and the detonation,
once he pulls the fuse he has just three seconds until it explodes.
The blast is powerful.
However, the pole charge deployed by American captain Bobbie Brown
fails to destroy the bunker.
But the explosion does widen the aperture and distracts the soldiers inside.
Surveying the situation, he decides he's not finished yet.
So, he grabs his satchel charge,
and he heads right for the opening that he had created with his pole charge.
Brown pulls the fuse and throws a satchel charge into the bunker.
He ducks away in the short seconds before the explosives detonate.
With the bunker in blazes behind him, Brown returns to his command group.
What was remarkable about this instance
is that it was a captain performing this mission.
It's not the job of infantry captains to go running around with satchel charges
blowing up bunkers.
He's supposed to leave that to the enlisted men and to his sergeants.
But by the fall of 1944,
the First infantry division had suffered so many casualties.
He may not have had someone to turn to,
and he might have just felt, "Nobody's there to do it. I'm going to go do it."
Brown asks for a report on their company’s advance up the hill.
The radio operator notices that Brown’s canteen has bullet holes in it,
and that his captain is bleeding.
Sir! You’re wounded!
Brown was, you know, as we say today,
just absolutely pumped up on adrenaline.
In fact, his canteen having three holes in it was the least of his problems.
His men had noticed that he had a bloody knee.
But to Bobbie that was only a scratch.
Don’t worry about it!
Brushing off the injuries, Brown demands the report.
He learns men from second platoon have finally started up Crucifix Hill.
But they have suffered multiple casualties,
including the death of their platoon leader.
The Germans continue the fight, in defiance of the American attack.
But one month earlier, the commander of the garrison at Aachen,
Generalleutnant Gerhard Graf von Schwerin
appealed to American military leadership for mercy.
Aachen was the first major German city under direct threat.
Much of its prewar population of 165,000 was desperate to flee
and it created chaos for soldiers and civilians alike.
Concerned that there would not be enough time for remaining residents to escape,
Schwerin calls off the order to evacuate, and people return home.
He then drafted a letter asking the American commander
to care for his civilians, a request which at least implied
that the city was to be surrendered to U.S. Control.
For Schwerin, it's an extremely risky thing,
because Hitler had ordered, that on German soil, every city,
every bunker must be defended to the last man.
The Nazi media writes about Aachen must be defended like a German Stalingrad.
And in this context,
it just doesn't match the picture of a determined fight.
Before the letter could be delivered to the Americans,
it fell into Nazi hands. Hitler had Schwerin relieved from duty and arrested.
He is replaced with commanders ready to fight to the death.
Now weeks later, as his men start their advance,
American captain Bobbie Brown orders them to complete
the capture of their assigned bunkers on the lower part of the hill.
But as he surveys the slope, he can see a particularly large bunker at the top.
It is heavily armed, and continues to fire at his men.
Satchel charge!
Brown decides once more, to launch an attack.
As the U.S. Captain Bobbie Brown nears the crest of Crucifix Hill,
on the afternoon of October 8th, 1944,
the 60-foot cross that gave the peak its name is now in ruins.
The Crucifix had provided an excellent outpost for German artillery observers
to direct fire at the advancing Americans.
Some witnesses to the action said that it fell
during the P-47 thunderbolt strikes, before the attack began.
The other account was the German side. They claimed they shot it down.
Because they didn't want the Americans climbing up on the Crucifix
and using it as an observation post as they had been doing.
Brown’s goal is to clear the German defenses
that protect the city of Aachen.
He’s already knocked out two bunkers. Now, he targets a third.
There's another type of a bunker, which is sometimes used
both as an observation bunker and a machine gun bunker.
And this is the most formidable of them. It typically has an armored cupola,
and the armored cupola would have vision slits all around it on six or eight sides.
And it might also have a machine gun mantlet
that was completely protected against outside attack.
That's what I think he attacked.
Based on the sources, this bunker appears to be a panzerturm.
Although often associated with tanks, in German, “panzer” means armored,
and refers to the three-inch steel plating.
They're sometimes mistranslated as a tank turret. They don't traverse.
They're not made from tank turret parts. They're an armored cupola.
The cupola may sometimes be the most visible element.
The rest of the bunker, is very large and dug into the earth.
It contains everything needed to sustain 45 soldiers and their officers.
Panzerturm were built in places that were critical to defend.
The Germans have very specific terms for them.
But because the U.S. Army would sometimes mistranslate the name,
they are sometimes called tank turrets.
The panzerturm is Brown’s target.
Based on the imposing nature of this big bunker,
its location, the turret on top of it,
in Bobbie Brown’s mind that was where the Germans central command and control was.
That's why he wanted to go get it.
Inside the bunker, the Germans pour fire on the slopes below
to thwart the American advance. Their specific actions are unknown.
We don't know for sure because the documents haven't survived.
But generally speaking, the communication between the bunkers was relatively good.
I think it always depends on the situation,
whether you are still have your communication lines
with their neighboring bunkers or with your superiors.
Whether the bunker next to you is still holding out
or whether it has already surrendered.
And this makes it, for a commander, quite complicated, quite difficult to decide
whether it's time to give up or whether it's time to fight on.
- Schnell! Schnell! Ammo! Now! Go! - In the meantime,
the German defenders will need all the fire power they can get their hands on.
Bobbie Brown approaches the bunker. He comes in from the side.
He can get close to the exterior walls, but they are so thick,
it would take hundreds of pounds of explosives to penetrate.
He has 15 pounds of TNT in his satchel charge.
TNT, or trinitrotoluene,
remains one of the most widely used explosives in the world
and is still found in many military weapons.
During the war, one factory alone could produce 720,000 pounds of TNT a day.
It’s considered a very stable explosive,
which is why it’s safely handled and widely used, by World War II soldiers.
But unless Brown gets the satchel charge inside, the damage will be insignificant.
He also notices a second bunker.
He surmised that the second,
that was on top the concrete slab, was likely an ammo bunker.
So to him it seemed logical that if anyone came out of the back of the big bunker,
the back of the big bunker they'd likely be going to the back bunker
to get some ammo.
As Brown watches,
an enemy soldier emerges from a door to the rear of the main bunker.
It’s exactly the opportunity he’s been waiting for.
American captain Bobbie Brown observes a German soldier,
who leaves a large bunker then returns with a load of ammunition shells.
Bobbie was stalking. He didn't realize it but Bobbie was right there.
Brown closes in.
The soldier enters the bunker with his arms full of ammo.
So he puts the load down so that he can close the door,
only to be looking into the eyes of an American captain.
Before the German can react, Brown deposits his satchel charge,
with the fuse pulled, on the floor beside the ammunition.
When the charges went off
Bobbie Brown was not able to turn as quickly as he had before,
and he went head over heels backwards
into the crater he'd hidden in before the attack.
By waiting for the soldier to return,
the explosion of Brown’s satchel charge also sets off
the ordnance the man had brought into the bunker, amplifying the impact.
His patience paid off.
Brown’s attack on the third bunker was everything he had trained for.
Bobbie lived for moments like this. He was fearless.
The least concern he had was for himself. He was so mission centric.
He simply was going to do what he had to do.
With the destruction of the third bunker,
the southern slope of Crucifix Hill falls under American control.
Because the command bunkers that Bobbie Brown had gone after had fallen,
his men had been able to start to move. They were now able to take bigger leaps,
and take the surrender of more Germans
from the different pillboxes all over Crucifix Hill.
Brown has been wounded but his work is not complete.
Bobbie Brown’s mission, in his mind, wasn't accomplished.
He had only increased the chances that Crucifix Hill would be taken.
The other half of his mission was to reconnoiter the back side of the hill
so he could prepare his company for the inevitable counterattack
that would come from the Germans.
So, he stayed on the hill to do that.
As Brown crosses to the north side...
Machine gun fire rips into the ground around him. He dives into the dirt.
Exposed again to the enemy, even the smallest divot provides some protection.
Brown waits for a moment and then lifts his head.
The reaction from the Germans is immediate.
Machine gun bullets whistle past.
He wanted to understand what the direction of that fire was,
so he could best position his forces
to know where the counterattacks were likely to come from.
Brown drops his head and removes his helmet.
This time what he decides is take and put his helmet on his finger
and wave it around. To taunt the Germans, and that obviously draws fire.
Brown has his answer. The Germans are positioned to counterattack,
but he can’t do anything from here.
Brown makes his way back to his command group.
He reports the position of the German guns.
We need a full barrage!
And orders an artillery strike to the south.
Don't let up! Scatter for effect!
He also informs his commanding officers
they have made it to the top of Crucifix Hill.
It’s only been 40 minutes from the start of Brown’s assault.
He will not let the hill be taken back.
Brown’s regiment needs to consolidate its gains.
Clear the remaining pillboxes and move units up to hold the captured positions.
Only when this important work is complete, does he allow his wounds to be treated.
Later that night, Brown proves right.
The Germans launch a significant counterattack,
which he and his men fight off.
And in the morning, the 18th infantry regiment still holds Crucifix Hill.
For his bravery and fearless leadership,
Bobbie Brown earns the highest military award
a soldier can receive for actions in combat:
the Congressional Medal Of Honor, after the war.
The meeting was held in the east room at the White House.
President Harry Truman was going to bestow the honor upon Bobbie Brown,
and as the story went, when he put the medal around Bobbie Brown's neck,
the President said to him, “I’d give up being President to be awarded this medal,”
and Bobbie Brown took that in stride,
still being the straight shooter that he was, said to the President,
“You know you're lying Mr. President.”
In later years,
his injuries kept him in constant pain and led to depression.
In 1971, Brown died by suicide.
The capture of Crucifix Hill led to the encirclement,
and finally, the surrender, of Aachen on October 21st, 1944.
Generalleutnant Gerhard Graf von Schwerin,
the commander of the Aachen garrison in September, is blamed.
Schwerin is held responsible for the disaster at Aachen,
and Hitler probably wants to court-martial him.
But Schwerin is protected by all his military superiors,
so that Hitler, more or less, forgets this story,
and Schwerin is later posted to the Italian front,
out of sight, out of mind for Hitler.
Aachen is the first major German city to fall.
The fall of Aachen is a major blow for the Nazis and for the German people,
because now, you have got the Americans standing on German soil in the west.
And at the same time, you've got the Soviets capturing parts of east Prussia.
So, war has now come onto German soil.
But as the Autumn sets in and the weather gets worse...
German morale improves again because in the east, the Soviets,
and in the west, the Allies, both their advance stalls.
And the war in Europe would still rage for six more months.