As an American private covers the retreat of his fellow soldiers,
a blast from a German tank throws him off his feet.
The explosion destroys his machine gun and breaks his glasses.
He retrieves a rifle and continues to hold the line.
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.
January 9th, 1945.
The Alsace region, France.
American Private First-Class Glenn Schmidt scrambles through
the snow clutching a Browning automatic rifle.
Germans ambushed his patrol outside the French town of Hatten.
In the firefight, Schmidt’s B.A.R. jammed and he’s shot twice.
One blast knocked off his helmet and another bloodies his face.
He’s the sole survivor.
The patrol Schmidt is on is extraordinarily unlucky.
They're doing something that's pretty routine,
and they just happen to be out there when the Germans are about
to launch their attacks.
With enemy soldiers in pursuit,
Schmidt must get word to a commanding officer.
In this case, the information you've gathered is firsthand information.
Schmitt is kind of lucky to even get out of there
more or less unscathed compared to many others.
The Germans are in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge.
As Wacht Am Rhein loses momentum,
Hitler decides to attack at a weaker part of the front.
This would mean that the American and the British attention
is drawn away from the northern battles.
For this operation, known as Nordwind,
Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler,
Reichsfuhrer and head of the SS, in his first military command.
As the war progresses, Hitler trusts less and less people.
However, there's one exception, Himmler,
and he knows for sure that Himmler will always be loyal to him.
Himmler is eager to impress and mark Hitler’s anniversary as Fuhrer.
Himmler's goal is to recapture Strasbourg and present it to
Hitler as a gift for the 12th anniversary of the seizure
of power on the 30th of January.
As the capital of the Alsace region,
Strasbourg had been liberated in late November by free French troops.
Himmler’s success...
Would mean a major blow for
the American French alliance.
25 miles northeast of Strasbourg,
outside the village of Hatten,
Private Schmidt races for the American line.
Suddenly the night erupts in white light.
Schmidt is struck.
His back burns and he rolls over in the snow to cool the heat.
He must have been frightened out of his wits.
He's wounded in several places.
He's tattered and torn up.
The new wounds are from American phosphorus grenades
and mortars fired by U.S. defenders into the Germans behind him.
Still smoldering, he stumbles toward the safety of a bunker to join defenses there.
At Pillbox nine, Schmidt reaches a section of the famous Maginot Line.
The Maginot Line is a fortified line
that the French army erected after World War I,
and it covered from roughly the Swiss border
all the way up to the Belgian frontier.
It contains massive reinforced concrete bunkers.
Some of these bunkers were essentially underground cities.
You'd have large personnel bunkers.
You'd have all sorts of gun herds that would pop up
on top of the bunkers.
You'd have tunnels that would go between bunkers.
The concrete could be more than 11 feet thick.
So, they could be bombarded by aircraft bombs,
by artillery, and yet the troops within would still be protected.
The problem was when Germany invaded in 1940,
they just went around it.
So, the Germans never got through the Maginot Line.
They instead avoided the Maginot Line and went through
Belgium where the Maginot Line did not exist.
American forces now occupy the bunkers which must
once again protect the French border against German attackers from the east.
Oberstleutnant Karl Proll and his 35th Panzergrenadier Regiment
spearhead the assault into Hatten.
Karl Proll is a former NCO who commissioned later.
He gets promoted very quickly due to his command performance
on the eastern front.
And he's the holder of some of the highest German military decorations.
From the woods, the Panzergrenadiers cross
a large field toward the pillboxes.
The Germans believe that the bunkers are unmanned,
but suddenly, they run into a fierce resistance.
The lead elements come under fire from American mortar,
machine guns and artillery.
They suffer very heavy casualties in the frontal attack.
The survivors retreat back to the trees.
Proll, who is a veteran from the eastern front,
knows he must be flexible now and
change his tactics and pivot.
Proll’s men and tanks must find a path between
the American bunkers to attack Hatten directly.
Pillbox nine is one of a series of fortifications which
extend out up to a mile from the eastern edge of Hatten.
From a command post in the village,
A Company commander captain William Corson,
coordinates the defenses.
Pillbox five, come in.
They’re connected through telephone lines with radio back up.
Word trickles in from across the front about the German attacks.
Corson is doing what any commander wants to do in this
kind of circumstance, which is to gather as much
relevant information as he can.
And to do that, you have to stay in touch.
His unit from the 242nd Infantry Regiment,
of the 42nd Division, only recently arrived in Europe.
American command sent them to the Alsace to finish
their training in what should’ve been a quiet sector.
The 42nd Division has these kind of strengths
and weaknesses in that respect.
The weakness is the inexperience, the kind of lack of organization,
maybe the lack of confidence.
But I think the strength is the, the newness of it might create a
level of enthusiasm for fighting that may not be present in,
in more hard-bitten units.
In response to the attacks, headquarters staff of the 242nd prepare
improvised defenses in the village.
Personnel lay mines to prevent German vehicles from passing through.
Their minefield blocks the road in front of
the first battalion command post just across from the church.
Above the minefield, soldiers with bazookas take up position
in the church steeple.
They join an American artillery observer who has been there all morning.
To direct fire in support of the Pillboxes.
The Artillery Observer, besides maybe the Commander,
is arguably the most important person in a, in a World War II fight.
The Artillery Observer is the person controlling
the most important firepower, the deadliest firepower,
especially on the American side,
where the artillery is just a fearsome weapon.
Back at Pillbox nine, Sergeant Alvin Cahoon,
of A Company, had thrown back the first waves of
the German assault against third Platoon’s position...
Fire!
With help from artillery and mortar fire.
But to the south, he observes a dangerous development.
German tanks and infantry break through between Pillboxes four and five.
As the German tanks roll up, they have a chance to flank the bunkers,
and make a straight shot into Hatten.
But suddenly, American bazooka rounds blast into their armor
from high in the village church.
It’s the best place to see any German units
that are on the move.
German commander would certainly grasp that,
appreciate it, and would fixate immediately on that
church steeple as the, as the likely spot for an observer.
The Germans return fire,
and destroy the tower.
The shots eliminate the bazooka teams
and the U.S. Artillery observer posted there.
This means the Americans can no longer count on
accurate artillery support.
The losses weaken their defenses in the village.
Below the steeple, personnel at the first Battalion Command Post
take up positions to actively defend Hatten.
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo is one of the guards.
He has bad eyesight, which obviously can be an issue
and yet he wants to be there.
So, he had volunteered.
He had tried very hard to get into the Army.
Initially, they turned him away.
Of course, as the war unfolds the standards get a little lower
and they need more people, so he gets in on that basis,
but he becomes a cook.
Bertoldo wasn’t really happy in this supporting role.
Bertoldo has already been something of a problem child
for his Mess Sergeant.
If you have a soldier you perceive as a problem or
not that good, you’re going to want to put him where you think
he’s going to do the least harm.
After arriving in Europe,
Bertoldo’s senior officer, Captain William Corson,
transfers him to guard duty in Hatten.
The transfer is not a promotion at all.
It’s kind of a sidelining in a way.
But for Bertoldo, as a guard he’s one step closer
to fighting Germans.
Bertoldo has been bragging to his buddies
about how, you know, if he gets a crack at the Germans, man,
what a hero he’s going to be.
There’s so many stories like that,
and the end of that story is almost always this guy talked
a big game, but when the bullets flew,
he was, you know, in a ditch.
The former cook now sets up a machine gun in
the doorway and waits.
As German rounds pepper the Battalion Command Post...
Sergeant!
Enemy artillery knocks out the communication system.
Before the attack, Captain Corson had direct lines
to each of the Pillboxes.
Now he’s cut off.
The Commander always has to decide where to place himself on the battlefield.
So, where is it appropriate for him to be?
Corson leaves the command post.
He sets out to re-connect with his forward troops in the Pillboxes.
As American artillery falters, Oberstleutnant Karl Proll’s men
renew their attacks on the northern bunkers.
Pillbox nine holds out,
but other U.S. positions give way.
Further south...
The Jagdtiger was the largest, most powerful
armored vehicle of World War II.
The basic chassis was the same as the Royal Tiger heavy tank,
except that instead of having a turret with an 88-millimeter gun,
it had a fixed superstructure with even thicker armor and
an even more powerful 128-millimeter gun.
Used to attack and kill enemy tanks,
the 128-millimeter gun weighs five and a half tons
and can penetrate seven and a half feet of concrete at a range
of over half a mile.
During the time of the fighting in Alsace,
the German troops started to run into
the old Maginot Line bunkers for defense.
Adolf Hitler heard about this, and he said,
"Ah-ha, I have the ideal weapon.
Send some Jagdtigers down and have these powerful Jagdtigers
blast away at the bunkers."
As tanks and Panzergrenadiers attack
along the line, the American Pillboxes fall.
Captain William Corson speeds toward Pillbox nine,
hoping to re-establish communications.
As he nears the bunker...
The jeep comes under fire.
They bail out and find refuge in an empty mortar position.
Corson decides to make a run for the Pillbox.
This incident is a classic example of
something you see in ground combat.
Simple things become really difficult.
He gets pinned down; he doesn’t know what’s going on.
The communications are spotty.
Now, the simplest things become
extraordinarily difficult and deadly.
He leaves a walkie-talkie with one of
his men at the jeep, to act as a relay for messages back
to first Battalion in Hatten.
With the Americans at the Pillboxes in a fight for their lives,
German tanks and Panzergrenadiers
press further into the village.
This is supposed to be in a rear area.
I mean, technically, okay?
So, here’s the first thing that’s gone wrong,
all of a sudden, the Germans are there at this command post,
a place where they were never supposed to be.
Fortunately, the makeshift minefield outside
the U.S. 242nd Infantry Regiment,
first battalion command post halts the German advance.
Oberstleutnant Karl Proll’s Panzergrenadiers move out front
to clear the mines.
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo doesn’t have
a clear shot from the command post doorway.
He decides to find a better angle.
They take the machine gun into the middle of the street and set it up.
Here!
In full sight of attacking enemy soldiers,
American Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo
opens fire with his machine gun.
He targets the German panzer units who attempt to clear
a minefield that blocks the advance of their tanks.
Bertoldo forces their retreat.
He and his assistant pick up the machine gun to relocate.
Bertoldo, has been trained like any other soldier,
that a, an effective machine gunner displaces.
Because of course, a machine gun is the target for the enemy.
It's a deadly weapon.
Outside Hatten, Captain William Corson breaks
through the German fire and arrives at Pillbox nine.
He finds Sergeant Alvin Cahoon and other members of A Company,
of the 242nd Infantry Regiment.
But they’re low on ammunition and
have many wounded who need evacuation.
By this time, most of the American defenses along
their sector of the Maginot Line have crumbled,
but Pillbox nine in the north continues to resist.
Corson relays the regimental orders;
to continue to hold at all costs.
We are requesting artillery support.
Copy.
He also tries to contact his relay man at
the jeep but can’t get through.
He decides to wait until dark and
then return to Hatten to get help.
If the Pillbox falls and Hatten can be flanked from
the north, it makes the Alsace region
and its newly liberated capital Strasbourg, vulnerable.
In the early part of operation Nordwind,
Supreme commander Dwight D. Eisenhower
was ready to yield territory here, including Strasbourg.
Eisenhower is really focused on attacking Germany from
the north and the Alsace region is too far south
he doesn't consider it to be particularly important and so
for Eisenhower it would actually make more sense just
to simply withdraw from that front all together,
and really put the focus on the rush to Berlin.
The proposal nearly causes a mutiny amongst French forces.
The Alsace region, it's been going back and forth
between the French and the Germans for centuries,
but what's so very important about it in this period is that
the free French have liberated Strasbourg and so of course it's
emotionally very, very important and a potent symbol
for the French and they're damned if they're going to give it up again.
In Hatten, German infantry and tanks
launch a fresh attack against the first Battalion headquarters.
Under covering fire,
Panzergrenadier troops once again move forward to clear the minefield.
Which anchors the American defenses in the sector.
The minefield is how you're going to restrict German mobility,
it's how you're going to buy time.
And that's a big part of the battle of Hatten,
is to, to buy time, to get reinforcements.
And it could be better.
What you hope, from the American standpoint,
is that a tank comes in and blows off a mine,
blows a tread, is immobilized,
and now becomes a kind of a nice roadblock there.
In a house from which they can monitor the approach to
the command post and the minefield,
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo and
his assistant set up their machine gun.
The gunner's assistant does a number of things.
The most obvious is that he helps feed the ammunition into
the machine gun, but he has a secondary role of defending
the machine gun against approaching enemy troops.
They secure the weapon to a table.
A light machine gun is usually mounted on a tripod.
It has little feet on the end of it to dig into the ground.
So, by strapping it to the table,
he could keep the machine gun stable
and therefore, fire more accurately.
Bertoldo opens up with his tabletop machine gun.
Once more, his fierce fire forces
the German troops to pull back.
But this time, the enemy tank pinpoints Bertoldo’s position.
And from 75 yards, fires directly at his window.
Fire!
The tank round punches through the room.
As the dust settles,
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo and his assistant are thrown back,
but amazingly, remain unhurt.
He gets a little lucky because the tank is firing
an armor piercing round.
It's not pleasant when a shell comes into your room like that.
Uh, the concussive effect is, is terrific.
But it's not as deadly as it would be if it were
a high explosive round.
Bertoldo crawls back to the table.
The tank still sits just beyond the minefield.
When he reaches the machine gun, he opens fire again.
Firing a machine gun at a tank,
there's a level of insanity to that.
You are not going to penetrate the tank.
You're going to give away your position.
A German Tank Commander emerges from the hatch to get a better look.
Bertoldo grabs a rifle.
At a range of 75 yards, he takes a shot...
And kills the German officer.
Bertoldo continues his defense of the minefield to
hold the German armor at bay.
How the battle is going to turn out,
that's really still up in the air at this stage.
A lot’s going to depend on what happens next with Bertoldo,
whether he's able to, to stop any kind of German push deeper
into Hatten and whether there's going to be any reinforcements
in a reasonable amount of time.
Meanwhile at Pillbox nine,
Captain William Corson waits for dark to sneak back into Hatten.
He moves to an aperture to observe the German assault and
gauge the status of the nearby Pillboxes.
He hopes when he gets back to the village, with access to a radio,
he can call in artillery positions, send ammunition,
and alleviate the pressure on the Pillbox.
Without warning, an artillery blast hits the turret and sends Corson flying.
As the sun sets,
German Panzergrenadiers close in on Pillbox nine.
As an elite infantry unit,
Oberstleutnant Karl Proll’s troops fill the gaps between
tanks and other armor with their weapons
and respond quickly as the battle evolves.
Armor is rarely effective in fighting directly against bunkers.
Much better, suited are armored infantry,
or Panzergrenadiers, because when they fought dismounted,
they can recognize better the weak spot in the defense system
and also protect tanks in the flanks.
With Captain Corson wounded,
Sergeant Alvin Cahoon faces difficult choices.
The intensity of the German fire increases.
With the men outside running out of ammunition
and the wounded piling up,
Cahoon orders them to return to the relative safety of the bunker.
We tend to think of these bunkers
and Pillboxes in World War II
as these incredible, impervious fortifications.
But I think it's important to kind of step back and remember,
there's just scared groups of men in there.
And their view of the world is really limited to the small apertures they got.
In the darkness, Cahoon and his men hear sounds around,
and on the roof of their bunker.
Trapped inside the Pillbox, they listen as German engineers stuff
explosives down the ventilation tubes.
Between the time they were built in the 1930s
and the time they saw combat in 1945, in many cases,
the German army had come in and stripped out a lot of the steel work
to be put into the Atlantic wall along the Normandy coast.
And so, they suddenly became vulnerable to attacks
from unusual directions.
On some of these bunkers, the ventilation shafts could be an Achilles heel.
Cahoon has no way to fight back.
If the explosives detonate, they won’t survive.
He's run out of ammo, he's not in communication with
larger units that he knows are going to come and help him.
He can't get his people out of there.
He consults with his Captain William Corson,
who’s injured, but alive.
The Germans are basically everywhere,
and he feels there's no purpose in,
you know, just dying there and destroying the lives of his men.
And so, he decides to surrender.
Corson agrees.
Cahoon shouts to the Germans on the roof.
The remains of A Company file out of Pillbox nine with
their wounded comrades and commander.
As the last of the Maginot Line defenders in the sector,
they’re captured as prisoners of war.
With the American resistance eliminated outside of the village,
the Germans can sweep into Hatten unopposed.
On the night of January 9th, 1945,
in northeastern France,
the new main line of resistance for U.S. forces
in the region becomes the village of Hatten itself.
After the fall of Pillbox nine,
command posts of the first and second Battalions,
242nd Infantry Regiment,
still hold the line in the eastern part of town.
But they need reinforcements.
When the Germans launched one of these local attacks,
the Americans then react and then they come back
with more stuff, more firepower, more people.
So, it's a very uncomplicated, unambiguous.
Go back in, take the town and just sort of reverse the situation.
In the meantime, first Battalion relocates its
command post away from the church to a more secure position.
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo volunteers to
remain on guard duty through the night to cover the move.
Why does he do it?
I would doubt that he does it because he has a death wish.
But I think that he’s ready to embrace death if that’s what it takes.
And that is a really amazing thing to consider.
Just after dawn, the Germans are first off
the mark and launch their own attack before the Americans get started.
The Germans are eager to push the Americans out of Hatten
and advance further towards Strasbourg.
It has got a very high symbolical value.
The capital of Alsace should remain German,
this is the way the Nazis think.
Arriving American reinforcements block the German advance,
but can’t push far enough into Hatten to relieve
Bertoldo and the command posts.
As the day wears on, Bertoldo remains in his position in front of the minefield.
German troops try repeatedly to clear the mines which block
the road and hold back the tanks.
Bertoldo uses bursts from his machine gun to drive them off.
The German soldiers scatter and the tank backs away.
Bertoldo and his assistant gunner reload and wait for the next assault.
Bertoldo and his buddy are,
you know, chalking on the wall or writing on the wall,
to keep track of the damage they think they've inflicted.
If that helped pass the time,
if that helped keep the, the mind,
you know, all good, great.
All of a sudden, the lull is shattered,
and the room ripped apart.
A blast knocks Bertoldo down.
After the explosion he crawls over to aid his assistant gunner,
despite being injured himself.
His buddy is pretty badly wounded, and so,
he helps patch him up and get him out of there,
all of which had to be very difficult.
With his assistant out of harm’s way and the dust clearing,
Bertoldo looks out and sees the barrel of an enemy tank
which had crept up a side road.
Before he can act, the tank bursts into flames.
An American bazooka team on the second floor
scores a direct hit.
Blazing, the panzer kicks into reverse.
Bertoldo opens up with his machine gun.
There's an anger side to what he does.
It's time to inflict damage on the Germans because of what
they had done to his buddy.
The battle's just become personal for Bertoldo.
Holding them responsible for the wounds
suffered by his assistant gunner,
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo targets
the German soldiers who flee the burning tank.
By 2300 hours on January 10th,
orders come down for the remains of the 242nd Infantry Regiment
to retreat from Hatten to the safety of another village to the west.
The depleted battalions have held out since the attack
started early the day before.
They come back in small groups.
They're, one person covering another,
filtering through the buildings, going through the shadows.
Take it out with a grenade.
However you can escape, you are going to do it.
Move! Move! Move!
To add to the confusion,
replacement units fight their way forward at the same time.
Bertoldo, now without his assistant,
once more volunteers to provide covering fire for the retreating troops.
The looming question for anybody who's covering withdrawal is,
you know, when the time comes,
am I myself going to be able to get away?
In the dark, German soldiers reach
the battalion command post and advance beneath Bertoldo’s line of fire.
From this position, he doesn’t have a shot with his machine gun.
Instead, he reaches for some phosphorus grenades.
Weapons containing the element phosphorus are often
used to create smokescreens for concealment.
When phosphorus comes into contact with oxygen in the air,
it ignites spontaneously and burns at temperatures over
1,400 degrees Fahrenheit to create thick smoke.
Phosphorus grenades and artillery rounds can also be
used as an incendiary to set targets on fire.
Humans are often caught up in the flames.
It's a terrifying weapon too,
because it doesn't take much to cause some damage.
The white phosphorous grenade has a pretty decent radius of,
you know, 20 or so yards in which the shards could come
and get on you and start to burn through your skin.
While water puts the flames out,
phosphorus will reignite when it evaporates.
Soldiers scatter from Bertoldo’s salvo.
The Germans must eliminate the American opposition which still
holds up their advance.
And once more, Bertoldo’s thrown from his feet.
It's possible that maybe there is,
on the German side, somebody directing the fire of the tank to where he is.
Especially after the white phosphorous grenades
have come into play, and this creates perhaps more urgency to get the guy.
A German tank has locked on to his window.
Concussion again had to be terrific.
I don't know what it meant on an auditory level,
but it couldn't have done anything good for his ears and his hearing.
But of course, more immediate, for him, is it destroys his glasses.
And renders his machine gun inoperable.
Bertoldo refuses to concede.
He switches to a rifle and continues to target German soldiers in the street.
Bertoldo has fought with everything he has.
He's used some nice, innovative thinking.
He's brought plenty of courage to the table.
Finally, after defending the minefield for
two days, Bertoldo is told to withdraw himself.
Bertoldo and members of the 242nd Infantry Regiment,
prevent the Germans from sweeping through Hatten.
The grueling battle continues in the village for ten more days.
The delay thwarts the march to recapture Strasbourg.
Fighting throughout January in 1945 is absolutely vicious.
There's bitter street to street, house to house fighting.
And of course not only is this terribly destructive for
the population, but also for the infrastructure of these beautiful towns.
Some of them are completely destroyed.
Himmler’s plan ultimately fails,
and he can’t deliver Strasbourg to the Fuhrer to commemorate
the 12th anniversary of the third Reich.
This doesn't hinder Hitler from promoting Himmler
again to take over command of army group Weichsel on the eastern front.
So, Himmler pursues his military career despite the fact
that he has utterly failed in his first job.
Captain William Corson,
Sergeant Alvin Cahoon, Private First-Class Glenn Schmidt
and the other Americans captured at Pillbox nine serve out the war
in prisoner of war camps.
First Battalion of the 242nd earns a distinguished unit
citation for their staunch defense of Hatten,
to acknowledge the casualties of more than 500 men and officers,
nearly 70% of the rookie battalion’s strength.
Oberstleutnant Karl Proll continues the attack into Hatten until January 19th.
His first Battalion is also devastated, with only 100 survivors.
He earns the Iron Cross with oak leaves for the operation
and the citation reports he repelled 35 American attacks.
They announce the honor before the end of January.
There can be various reasons for that.
First, one might be that his performance was so outstanding
that it was clear cut that he must be awarded with this higher decoration.
Or quite often, it’s the contrary.
The Germans just want to conceal, um,
an actual defeat, but award someone with a higher medal
so that it looks like a heroic defeat.
Private First-Class Vito Bertoldo earns
the highest award; the Congressional Medal of Honor
for his tenacity and bravery.
His commanding officer, Captain William Corson learns of
the award from the newspapers, when he returns stateside.
His ne’er-do-well cook had proved himself a formidable soldier.
It had to be a bit of a head spinner.
"How did I, get this guy so wrong?”
Hitler’s operations;
Wacht am Rhein and Nordwind continue into January of 1945,
but they don’t deal the decisive blow Hitler had hoped for.
Instead they’re forced back to the German border to prepare
and make the Allies pay heavily for every advance onto German soil.
The war in Europe will still rage f or another three and a half months.