December 1944, when an American scout loses his way behind enemy lines...
he does his best to collect important information and create havoc.
In response, German forces strive to locate the intruder
and close in on his position.
Halt.
On June 6th, 1944,
Allied forces finally land troops in Normandy
to open the Western Front.
Ten-hut. Fire!
But Nazi fanatics and diehards
continue to fight ferociously for survival.
D-Day was a battle.
They still need to win the war.
December 22nd, 1944, the Ardennes sector, Belgium.
American Lieutenant Michael McDonald peers out into a dark winter night.
The main fighting force of the 3rd Armored Division pulled out two days before
to meet the German attack launched into Belgium.
Thirty three miles from the border,
the village of Hotton was thought to be far from the front line.
This left McDonald, some engineers, and a mix of reserve forces
when a surprise German attack hit the village the next day.
They're soldiers that are working the logistics, in supply,
they're clerks, they're mechanics, they're drivers,
there's priests, and there's headquarters staff,
what we call rear echelon troops or rearguard troops.
But not necessarily the battle-hardened soldiers
a commander would want to defend against a German tank attack.
McDonald is a scout and should have moved out too,
but he was in sickbay with pneumonia.
As one of the few combat officers available,
McDonald dragged himself out of bed and now directs the fight
from a schoolhouse in the north of Hotton.
For the last 26 hours,
he has called down mortar fire on the German forces probing the edge of town.
He's one reason the Germans have not swept through the village.
Send out a flare.
From his observation post,
McDonald radios for a flare in front of the schoolhouse.
The illuminated field swarms with German soldiers.
Ready.
McDonald uses the artificial light
to call out German positions to his mortar team.
But he's cut short.
A German soldier with a panzerfaust spots him
and launches a rocket at the American lieutenant.
Panzerfaust!
The rocket rips into the schoolhouse
and blows McDonald across the classroom.
The chaplain responds and moves forward to drag McDonald to safety...
...as another rocket tears into the building.
Word will go out, the north of Hotton has fallen.
These troops must retreat into town and hope for reinforcements.
By December 1944,
the war on the Western Front reached a stalemate.
The Allies have broken out from the Normandy landings
where they were bogged down, and they really raced ahead.
But the big problem that they're facing is that they have overrun their supply lines
and they can't get enough material to fight on.
So the idea is to consolidate, to rest for a little while
before they carry on the fight into Germany.
Instead, German forces attack
and pour into Luxembourg and Belgium on December 16th
to recapture the critical supply port of Antwerp.
The Germans follow the road network from town to town.
The small towns mark where there are crossroads or bridges.
And it's one thing to move men and material in through an area,
but in order to get heavy equipment like tanks across,
you do really need to rely on the bridges.
The German 116th Panzer, or Greyhound Division,
is in search of one such bridge.
It fought in Normandy
and its performance was criticized by some superiors.
Nonetheless, the 116th Panzer Division is one of the best German divisions
in the Western Theater of War in late 1944.
Its emblem is a greyhound,
and it shows that this is a very quick, fast and furious division.
During an opening blitz of the Battle of the Bulge,
these Greyhounds raced 18 miles in a day and half.
On December 21st,
a Kampfgruppe or Battlegroup from the Greyhound Division arrives in Hotton
to capture the timber bridge across the river Ourthe,
at the western-most edge of the famous Bulge.
The Germans are the farthest west. They are closest to the Meuse River.
If the Germans capture Hotton, they can cross the Meuse River
and then they get a direct beeline to the important city of Antwerp.
American command labels the relief and defense of Hotton
as a key priority for the U.S. Army.
One solution is to bolster the Allied line with airborne units like paratroopers.
Members of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment set out for Hotton.
The 517th were undergoing a retrofit when they're rushed to the Front.
They receive weapons so new, they're still covered in cosmoline.
Cosmoline is a type of material that's used to preserve weapons during shipment.
Typically, it's intended to prevent rust.
It's a waxy grease that must be stripped away
for the weapons operate properly, a challenge in the cold.
The paratroopers use gasoline to remove the cosmoline,
but they do not have time to test or sight the weapons.
Soldiers don't like going into combat with a new weapon
because they don't know how it's gonna perform.
You don't know if there's some damage that occurred to the weapon.
The only way you can trust a weapon
is to fire it before you bring it out into combat.
The normally airborne troops board trucks in freezing temperatures.
After more than 20 hours, they unload near the town of Soy, Belgium.
Let's go!
With little preparation, 1st Battalion is ordered to attack along the highway.
Camouflaged armor hidden in the woods quickly opens fire.
The Germans repel the attack
and the battalion fails in its first bid to relieve Hotton.
After the setback, the 517th splits their unit.
One task force will advance along side roads
to outflank enemy troops to reach Hotton.
While another task force continues to strike German defenses
along the main highway towards the village.
But instead of attacking in the open,
Captain Dean Robbins, Commander of B Company,
moves his men off the highway and into the woods.
Biddle.
He summons Private First Class Melvin Biddle...
Need you out front.
...and sends him to scout ahead.
The scout is the reconnaissance element of an army unit,
and that's the soldier or small group of soldiers
that goes out to see where the enemy is located.
If the enemy is setting up an ambush,
if there's a way to get across a key river.
So their mission is to lead ahead with the main body.
In the quiet of the woods, Biddle advances in bursts.
He worked in a factory when he received his draft notice
two years before at the age of 19.
He's the third of three brothers to enter the service.
When gunfire pierces the silence, the scout hits the snow.
He continues to pick a path
through the dense trees near some train tracks.
Despite his limited field of view,
he discovers a camouflaged German position occupied by three soldiers.
Biddle is a good scout for a number of reasons.
He's calm under pressure.
He's an excellent marksman, but most importantly he has excellent eyesight,
and this means he can see the enemy before the enemy sees him.
With this target, Biddle circles around and closes in.
Private First Class Melvin Biddle creeps towards a German position.
He must proceed carefully.
Any sound or movement could give away his location.
When within 30 yards, he crouches and takes aim.
A German soldier goes down.
Biddle lines up a second shot, yet hesitates to pull the trigger.
He considers taking the other two prisoner,
but they reach for their rifles to return fire.
Biddle shoots the second German in the torso.
The last soldier bolts.
Biddle fires off two more shots hitting him twice.
But he stays on his feet and stumbles toward the rear.
Biddle approaches the German position...
but there is no sign of the fleeing soldier through the brush.
He turns to the second soldier who has a severe wound to his stomach.
The man is young and reminds Biddle of himself.
He reaches to release the belt of the dying German to relieve the pressure.
Suddenly, the woods around him erupt in mortar and small arms fire.
It appears the third German has made it back to his own line
and alerted them to Biddle's presence.
Throughout much of southeast Belgium on December 23rd, 1944,
German forces exploit the weakness of the Allied line in the Ardennes region.
The Ardennes is considered to be a bit of a backwater.
One of the main reasons is the terrain.
It's very hilly and boggy and wooded, and there's the assumption
that the Germans are simply not gonna come through there.
Eisenhower has troops to the north and to the south
that he's planning to sort of send forward
once the military, once the battles start up again,
but the Ardennes has really been overlooked.
This allows German tanks and soldiers
to plunge more than 30 miles into Belgium in their quest to retake Antwerp.
Melvin Biddle crawls away from the fierce crossfire to the highway...
...which connects the Belgian town of Soy to neighboring Hotton in the west.
As he approaches the road, Biddle sees vehicles up ahead.
He creeps forward to take a better look.
As Biddle gets closer he sees that they are American vehicles
with the star on the side,
but at the same time, the soldiers around those vehicles are speaking German,
and that makes him very suspicious.
He decides he must tell his commanding officer.
The captured vehicles could be used to infiltrate the American lines.
Biddle's a good scout.
He realizes that he's discovered an important piece of information
and now he has to get back and report back to headquarters.
At the western edge of the German advance,
the other task force of American paratroopers
from the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment
have traveled along back roads to the besieged town of Hotton.
They rendezvous with Lieutenant Michael McDonald
and the other 3rd Armored Division reserve troops who defied the odds.
This delay of the German advance is impressive.
These are soldiers that had very little front line combat experience
and here they are holding back the tide of Germans.
But while the Germans can't take Hotton,
the combined American forces can't break out of the village either.
They're trapped together and continue to hold the town.
The delay frustrates the Greyhound Panzer Division troops
- who need to cross the Ourthe River. - Go, go, go, go, go!
Unable to capture the Hotton bridge quickly,
they move southeast to find easier passage.
The rerouting takes the spearhead unit further off course.
It also has larger implications.
Come on.
Hitler begins the Ardennes offensive with the idea
that he's going to surprise the Western Allies.
That they're gonna be so shocked that they won't know what to do
and he's just gonna race through, take Antwerp.
Well, of course that doesn't happen quite the way Hitler planned.
The more time the Allies have to scramble, to react to this surprise attack,
to bring in more troops, more ammunition and tanks and equipment
and actually fight back.
As the Greyhounds move out, German Volksgrenadiers move in
under the command of Oberstleutnant Helmut Zander.
Zander joins the army in the late 1920s,
initially as a ranker and then as an NCO.
He gets commissioned only very late in 1940 as a first lieutenant,
but then pursues a quick and successful career during the war.
He's a battle-hardened Eastern Front veteran and highly decorated.
Zander's men continue to hammer the Americans in Hotton
and along the Soy-Hotton highway with tank destroyers.
The Americans must locate and eliminate these camouflaged gun positions
if they hope to fully reunite their forces.
After reporting to his commanding officer,
Private Melvin Biddle and two other paratroopers
set out to investigate the suspicious American vehicles as night falls.
They've also got orders to seize an enemy soldier if possible.
Capturing German prisoners is pretty standard protocol.
If they can capture a German prisoner,
they can get even more information on the situation.
Along the highway, the trio spot a German officer
next to an American decoy vehicle.
One of the men with Biddle, a sergeant takes aim.
When they try to capture the German officer things go a little awry.
The sergeant tells the German officer to halt.
Halt.
And he does this twice, but very quietly.
Halt.
Almost so that the German officer can't hear.
At very close range, only about 15 yards,
the sergeant fires at the officer, but misses.
At this point, the German officer fires back and everybody scatters.
Hey, Johnny!
While his partners race back to the US line,
Biddle freezes.
Biddle is shocked.
He can't believe the sergeant missed the German officer twice.
He finally pulls himself together and starts to run.
But in his haste Biddle turns away from the American line.
US Private First Class Melvin Biddle runs in the wrong direction
toward German positions in the forest.
He carries his M1 Garand, a knife, and some grenades.
In addition to being lost,
American artillery targets German activity in the woods, and now falls around him.
Despite the danger of friendly fire,
the 21 year old resolves to continue his mission.
When Biddle realizes he's behind enemy lines
he's going to do what he's always done, he's a scout.
He's going to try as quietly as possible to gather as much information as he can.
He prowls through the trees and tries to pinpoint enemy positions
without revealing himself.
As Biddle watches, a German patrol nears his location.
Out of the darkness he hears another German challenge.
- Halt! - "Halt."
The German patrol calls back, "Hottentot."
Hottentot.
Although Biddle does not understand or speak German,
he recognizes "hottentot" as the password to the challenge, halt.
The information could save his life if he stumbles into a German post by mistake.
But there's a problem.
Biddle is worried about his Indiana accent.
The simple fact is that if he yells out "hottentot,"
and he doesn't sound German,
the Germans are gonna know an enemy is in their midst.
He decides if he does encounter anyone,
he will have to be quick to challenge halt first.
He figures it'll be easier to say for a boy from Indiana.
As Biddle continues to roam in the darkness,
he does more than collect information.
He decides to eliminate a machine gun nest he identifies ahead.
Despite the risk of exposing his presence, Biddle pulls the pin on a grenade.
After it explodes, he opens fire with his M1 Garand to clear the soldiers.
He fades back into the night while the Germans search for the attacker.
US troops currently hold out in Hotton, Belgium
under attack from enemy forces outside the town.
The American goal is to protect a bridge across the Ourthe River
which would allow German tanks access to the Belgian road network
and to race towards Antwerp.
Members of Biddle's regiment also try to attack the German forces from the rear
along the highway from the northeast.
Hidden in the German line, Biddle stumbles across tank destroyers in the forest.
These tank destroyers have been key
in allowing the Germans to beat back American attacks
and now Biddle knows where they are.
If he can get this information back to headquarters, the tide of battle can turn.
After-action reports
often misidentified enemy tank destroyers as tanks.
When American GIs would encounter
a German armored vehicle on the battlefield,
usually it was covered with pine boughs
or tree branches or other forms of camouflage.
So, whether it was a Panzerkampfwagen IV or a Panzerjäger or some other type,
the GIs had a hard time telling what it was.
But armored vehicles serve different purposes.
The German tank destroyer, also called a Panzerjäger
is a dedicated anti-tank vehicle.
Its weapon is located within a fixed casemate,
a fixed superstructure without a turret.
The tank destroyer's low profile made it difficult for the Americans
to get a fix on its position.
Its primary purpose is to attack enemy tanks, so it must be well protected.
A German Panzerjäger usually has more armor than a tank,
and at the same time, it usually has a more powerful gun.
He notes the location of the tank destroyers.
Biddle doesn't attack the tank destroyers
because he's just one man, and he's a scout.
His job is to gather information.
With this key intelligence, he moves on.
But out of the darkness, a voice stops Biddle in his tracks.
Halt!
When a young American private
tries to answer a password challenge in German...
Hottentot.
...the enemy sentry does not buy it.
Nein.
As the German soldier raises his rifle,
Melvin Biddle takes off into the night.
- The soldier opens fire... -Halt!
...but the shots go wide.
Alarm!
Biddle runs deeper into the woods...
finds cover...
and waits.
Members of the 560th Volksgrenadier Division
under Oberstleutnant Helmut Zander
must locate the enemy interloper who has created havoc in the German lines.
Biddle hears boots in the snow.
The Germans creep nearer.
Biddle is extremely cold,
in fact he's worried that his fingers are so cold
he won't be able to pull the trigger if he gets into trouble.
He makes a quick decision.
His solution is to use his left hand
to pull the trigger finger of his right hand in case he gets into a fire fight.
In the darkness, a German soldier gets so close,
his boot lands next to Biddle's hand...
but he does not detect the American scout's presence.
The German soldiers move on.
After the threat passes...
...Biddle hears gunfire in the distance.
He recognizes the sound of his own machine guns.
Every machine gun makes a distinct sound
and when he hears the American machine guns firing at the Germans,
he can sort of pinpoint the location of the Americans.
Biddle tracks the gun chatter in the direction
of what he hopes is friendly fire.
Back along the American line, Biddle's fellow paratroopers from the 517th
are in a firefight with German defenders
over a key crossroad along the highway from Soy.
After a big US push, the Germans counterattack with everything at hand.
The nighttime fight is fierce and in close.
The German machine gunners in between bursts are yelling,
"Merry Christmas, American bastards." And this incites the Americans.
Many of them don't even know they're fighting on Christmas Eve,
and this is sort of fuel to the attacking fire.
Defense by a platoon from C Company holds off the German assault.
They then advance about ten yards and the enemy fire drops off.
The paratroopers seize the moment.
The platoon rises up and charges, firing as they go.
Others join in from B and A Companies.
They overrun the dug-in German positions to finally take the crossroads.
The capture of the crossroads is extremely important,
because now the Americans can push on to Hotton and relieve the men fighting there.
The lost scout, Melvin Biddle
gets closer to the sound of the American machine guns
when he hears something different.
It's a German Junkers JU 88, a reconnaissance plane flying low.
Its wings almost touching the treetops.
Biddle watches as the German aircraft nears his position
when a second plane appears.
An American P-61 Black Widow speeds overhead.
The P-61 was the U.S. Army Air Force's dedicated night fighter.
It was a very large aircraft.
It had twin engines, had a three-man or sometimes four-man crew.
It had a very good air-to-air radar,
so that the fighter could locate enemy aircraft at nighttime.
It didn't have to see the enemy aircraft, it could pick them up simply by its radar.
Suddenly one of the planes erupts into flames.
Under attack from the American night fighter,
the German Junkers JU 88 falls from the sky.
Watching an aircraft battle at night would've been pretty surreal.
It would've been loud, especially at low altitude.
You would've at first celebrated
the fact that the American plane had emerged victorious
and then you would've started to panic
as the German plane started to come down really close to where you are.
The wreckage misses Private First Class Melvin Biddle.
But it crashes nearby and illuminates the forest.
Biddle sets off again to locate the American line in the darkness.
He's been gone since the day before
and doesn't know the new password for December 24th.
He worries he might get shot
because he can't properly answer the challenge.
As Biddle moves forward...
- he hears a voice. - Biddle, is that you?
- Yeah. - An American soldier hears him
and instead of shooting or asking for the password,
he actually calls him by name and Biddle is able to make it back safely.
Biddle locates his company commander, Captain Dean Robbins.
Captain Robbins thought Biddle was dead.
And when Biddle turns up, Captain Robbins is very happy to see him.
But he's even happier to know
that Biddle has an extremely important piece of intelligence to give him.
Biddle identifies German machine gun emplacements,
and most importantly,
shows Robbins where the camouflaged German tank destroyers are dug in.
With an attack planned for early, Robbins dismisses Biddle to eat and get some rest.
Biddle leans against a tree and opens a tin of cold rations.
He eats the food and closes his eyes.
In the early hours of December 24th, the 517th has had no rest,
and to top it off, they're really, really cold
and most of them have to keep moving around to avoid freezing.
- Biddle manages to drift off... - Biddle.
...but is soon shaken awake with a familiar command.
Need you out front.
Captain Robbins is happy that he's there and he says to him,
"You're so damn lucky, we want you back out there."
And Biddle finds himself right at the front again.
Robbins positions his paratroopers
in front of a contingent of American armor.
They have tried twice to breakthrough into Hotton
and the hidden German tank destroyers turned them back.
This time they have an advantage,
because of Biddle they know where the tank destroyers are
and they're gonna be able to target these German pieces of armor.
As Biddle gets underway, his sergeant gives him a signal...
...then motions for him to drop.
Biddle hits the snow as the Sergeant fires.
Scouts normally work in teams, and this time it saved Biddle's life.
He didn't see the camouflaged German soldier, but his teammate did.
Biddle gets to his feet and continues ahead of the paratroopers
from the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment
fighting through to stranded Americans forces in Hotton, Belgium.
Biddle has orders to hold the left flank
while American armor moves toward the German tank destroyer positions.
He crawls ahead.
In the distance, he sees a group of enemy soldiers, but the brush limits his view.
Biddle moves to a seated position.
From here, he spots a line of helmets bobbing along, about 200 yards out.
He tucks his elbow below his knee to steady his rifle,
takes a deep breath...
and fires.
The posture assumed by Private First Class Melvin Biddle looks unusual.
It's called the seated position,
and it is one of four drilled into American recruits during basic training.
The goal is to always have the soldier's bones
and not his muscles support the rifle.
In the seated position, the rifleman secures the rifle strap as a brace
and twists slightly before resting the left elbow below the knee.
The seated position is an extremely awkward firing position.
You have to practice it a lot to get that muscle memory to do it effectively.
It allows Biddle to see just over the rise.
He is not exposed, but he has eyes on the enemy helmets.
Biddle fires, aiming a little high to compensate for the distance.
At about 200 yards, his shots find their mark... repeatedly.
Back in basic training as he's practicing it over and over again,
he thought to himself he was never going to need to use it.
He obviously thought wrong.
Biddle makes at least a dozen successful shots,
but chose not to look for himself.
Later in life Biddle was glad he didn't go and inspect the dead Germans.
He felt that would've been a horrific memory to carry with him.
To Biddle's right, American armor rumbles toward Hotton.
Assisted by the intelligence from his scout the night before,
they approach the camouflaged German positions.
Schnell, schnell.
The German tank destroyers turn to confront the American force...
...but the Americans fire first...
and finally eliminate the German armor which has stymied their advance for days.
With the combination of US armor and paratroopers,
the German defenses give way.
At this time, the Germans are fighting on two fronts.
You've got the American troops fighting out of Hotton,
and you've got another American force pushing along the highway westwards.
So, what remains of the German forces melt down to the south.
The two American groups tie in on the outskirts of Hotton.
These rear echelon troops had just spent days defending against Germans.
Germans in the town, Germans in the forest, Germans in the houses.
And then all of a sudden, it's an American soldier,
and it means the battle's over. They did it.
Hotton and its bridge are now firmly in Allied hands.
The devastation and the wreckage
show the steep cost of the battle to the combatants
and the residents of the village.
Most members of the 517th are sent back to get some respite
and Christmas dinner in Soy.
For B Company and Biddle, they can't rest yet,
but B Company returns to the crossroads...
Biddle. Need you out front.
...to clear the woods and secure the highway.
1st battalion of the 517th parachute infantry Regiment
earns a Presidential Unit Citation for their actions at Hotton.
The trapped men of 3rd Armored Division
also distinguish themselves within the village.
Defensive maneuvers there
earned the grudging admiration of even the German general, Hasso Manteuffel.
Private First Class Melvin Biddle earns the highest award
in the American Army for actions in combat,
the Congressional Medal of Honor, for his intrepid courage and superb daring
which enabled his battalion to break the enemy grasp on Hotton
with a minimum of casualties.
Biddle's actions were worthy of a Medal of Honor
because he went above and beyond the call of duty.
Often, we think of battles as large formations achieving grand objectives.
But often battles come down to the bravery
or the decisions being made by one or two people,
and this is what happens here at Hotton, and Biddle makes a major difference.
The 517th and the 3rd Armored hold off the Greyhound troops at Hotton,
but it's only a delay.
German troops soon divert to La Roche, Belgium and cross the Ourthe River there.
However, like the other panzer troops soon outrun their supply lines.
There's an old expression that, armchair warriors look at tactics,
but the true generals look at logistics, because if you can't supply your troops,
you can't supply your men, you can't defend the flanks,
then you're in big trouble.
The Battle of the Bulge was the last German attempt
to win back the initiative in the west.
However, it failed, and it was at great costs
because the Germans deployed their last armored reserves,
and they were more or less naked in the east.
On the 12th of January, the Soviets start their Winter Offensive
and break quickly through the German defenses
and pushed through Poland towards Berlin.
And the war in Europe will still rage for nearly four more months.