(narrator) During World War II, when things looked at their worst and elite American airborne unit was created for the most extreme combat missions.

♪ (Ed) There were traces all around.

You could see the stuff going through your parachute.

♪ (narrator) They were the first US soldiers to set foot in Nazi occupied France who took part in the biggest airborne assault in history.

♪ (Carl) At 800 feet that 20 millimeter fire is vicious.

♪ (narrator) And stood firm in the face of Hitler's last defensive.

(Frank) We killed a couple of them and then all hell broke loose.

(narrator) Before tackling the Führer's famed -Eagle's Nest.

-I brought back a bottle of cognac set for the fuel juice only.

(narrator) They were the United States 101 Airborne Division.

The Screaming Eagles.

(gun fire) ♪ An extraordinary war demanded extraordinary soldiers.

♪ (Ed) Oh, we were good.

We were very good.

The best there was.

♪ (narrator) Forged into elite bands of brothers.

(Veteran #1) You were fighting for your buddy.

You didn't want to let them down.

♪ By facing the trials of war together.

(Veteran #2) They tacked us up through the vapor trails and butchered us up pretty good.

♪ (narrator) These are the stories of the Second World War's most famous fighting formations.

♪ And their journey through trade and triumph.

(Veteran #3) The German commander said, "I've never seen any people -as brave as yours."

-To earn their Battle Honors.

♪ On the night of the fifth of June, 1944 across Southern England 6,600 paratroopers from the US 101st Airborne Division are bound for Normandy.

The first wave of the most ambitious invasion plan in history.

(music intensifies) Over the past two years, the war has turned in the Allies' favor.

But the Nazis are still a potent force entrenched across Western Europe and armed with some of the war's most formidable weaponry.

Success for the Allies will depend on these men.

The Screaming Eagles.

(orchestral music) The 101st Division of the United States Army was created in the dying days of the First World War.

♪ But the war in France ended before they had even begun recruiting.

The Division was demobilized.

But in 1921, the 101st was reconstituted at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

(dramatic music) It was at this time that the Screaming Eagle emblem first became associated with the Division.

♪ Dr. John O'Brien is director of the Don F. Pratt Museum.

The official museum of the 101st Airborne in Kentucky, USA.

♪ (Dr. John O'Brien) I have two shoulder patches that represent the 101st Division.

Now there's some unique features to this patch.

The Division organized in Wisconsin in 1923.

And the 101st Infantry Division looked for heritage from Wisconsin and what they found was there was three regiments in the American Civil War that were organized from Wisconsin on the Union side.

One of those regiments was given a eagle which became the mascot.

♪ The eagle, Old Abe, the war eagle lead the regiment into battle 33 times and a Confederate General even put a bounty on the head of Old Abe.

When the Division was reorganized in 1923 as a part of the Wisconsin National Guard on the heraldry here, the eagle represents Old Abe and if you look at the flames, they symbolize the phoenix rising from the ashes.

In my other hand, you have the patch when the 101st became airborne and the new edition is the airborne tab.

♪ (narrator) When American entered the war in December, 1941 the 101st were still just reservists.

But on the 15th of August, 1942 they were made into a new paratroop unit, the 101st Airborne Division.

♪ Addressing his troops the Division's Commanding Officer, Major General William Lee, declared... (reenactment of General Lee) The 101st Airborne Division has no history but it has a rendezvous with destiny.

Let me call your attention to the fact that our badge is the great American eagle.

This is a fitting emblem for a division that will crush its enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies.

♪ (narrator) In summer 1942, the recruitment drive to find volunteers for the Screaming Eagles kicked into gear.

Lofty advertisements earned an extra 50 dollars a month, had men throughout the US Army rushing to join the Screaming Eagles.

Among the first to sign up was Ed Shames who would rise through the ranks to become a lieutenant and then, colonel.

(Ed) They put (indistinct) and showed this beautiful parachute gentlemen with these beautiful boots with a gal on each arm.

And idiots like me fell for it.

And, uh, we were looking for something, uh, ideal.

You know, something different.

(narrator) But when the division's recruits were sent to Camp Toccoa, Georgia they encountered a brutal regime.

Here, the basic training was specially designed to weed out all but the toughest.

Carl Beck was 19 years old when he joined the 101st.

(Carl) The training, you know, was just built to run your nose into the ground and make you... make you hurt.

Because when the rubber met the road that's when they wanted you to be in shape.

(Ed) The training was so heed because they wanted to make us a super unit and as a matter of fact, in order to get into this unit you had to have an IQ of 110 or better and they had to be in superb physical condition.

(narrator) At the heart of the wanna-be paratroopers grueling fitness regime were regular runs up local landmark Mount Currahee.

(Ed) At the end of the training area, at the core, was this mountain.

The first day, they said, "Okay, we're going to run that mountain three-and-a-half miles up, three-and-a-half-miles down.

You're going to run it, you're not going to walk and you're not going to stop.

If you stop you're out."

And 18 percent was out that first day.

We also had an obstacle course.

People broke their arms, necks, legs, backs and so forth on that obstacle course.

It was wicked.

But of course, that made the 101st Airborne Division.

(Jon) Parachute training tends to be very, very physical.

They have extreme aggressing, determination to succeed no matter the odds.

They see themselves as separate.

As superior.

They're willing to do whatever it takes in combat.

(narrator) After three months of basic training the 101st Airborne were amongst the fittest soldiers in the US Army.

A fact which didn't win them any friends with their new instructors at jump school.

(Carl) When my regiment moved to Fort Benning to go to jump school they had instructors that were supposed to be the Flash Gordons of the world.

You know, the super heroes and all that stuff.

And we would run those guys around loss and field and we'd say, "Hey, come on.

Let's keep going, you know."

And then, we'd run those instructors crazy.

(Ed) And we ran for about two hours and we looked around and the jump school teachers, they looked like their tongues were hanging out and we weren't even breaking a sweat.

(narrator) On top of the grueling physical challenges there was also the question of jump training.

They decided that everyone was going to jump and they did.

The only ones that didn't, the ones that were hurt.

(Jon) You needed to jump out of a balloon and then move onto actual jumps from aircraft.

And only once you've done that can you claim your paratroopers wings.

(intense orchestral music) (narrator) And such a finely honed unit needs equally refined kit for this new type of warfare.

Particular, purpose built weapons.

♪ The M1A1 was a specially adapted version of the M1 Carbine.

A 30-caliber, semi-automatic.

With a 15-round magazine and an effective range of up to 300 yards.

Originally designed in 1938, it had never been intended for use as a primary infantry weapon.

By the M1A1 had one feature that made it perfect for the men of the Screaming Eagles, a folding buttstock that meant it was lightweight and easy for paratroopers to carry when dropping out of the sky.

♪ In June 1943, the 101st Airborne showed just how far it had come.

Performing well in maneuvers.

(Jon) By that stage they were trained as well as they could be.

They really started to come together as a unit and to establish a reputation among both their comrades across the US forces and indeed with British forces.

Oh, we were good.

We were very good.

-The best there was.

-The spirit that we evolved in our airborne training is you're just not going to let your friends down.

(intense music) ♪ (narrator) In September 1943, the Screaming Eagles joined the massive Allied buildup in England.

Destined to take part in the next decisive phase of the war.

♪ (Jon) Tehran Conference at the end of November, beginning of December 1943 was the first meeting of what would become known as The Big Three.

The main focus of the conference was Stalin's demand that the Anglo-Americans open a second front.

He wanted that to be in France.

♪ (narrator) The countdown to D-Day had begun.

In the Italian campaign of 1943, American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne had made combat jumps into Sicily.

Gale-force winds scattered the drops and blew gliders off course.

But once landed, the paratroopers were able to sow confusion behind enemy lines.

But for D-Day, Allied commanders wanted to us airborne troops on a scale that would dwarf all previous efforts.

The D-Day plan involved three Airborne Divisions landing in Normandy.

The British 6th Airborne would protect the Eastern flank of the amphibious landings.

The American 82nd Airborne would screen off the Western flank.

And the Screaming Eagles would land being Utah Beach.

Securing the roads inland and protecting its Southern flank.

♪ Planning for D-Day was a monumental, logistical and strategic effort.

But in order to maintain secrecy, most of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers were kept completely in the dark.

♪ (Carl) One time, when we went to make what we thought was a jump, they had built an enclosure on the end of the runway that looked like, kind of like a minimum security prison.

So we went into this area, you could get in but you couldn't get out.

And that's where we got briefed for Normandy.

I knew it was coming because I was an operations sergeant of the battalion and I attended all these meetings with the Operation Officer.

I did the sand tables for the invasion.

Sand tables, of course, is a replica of what you're supposed to be seeing on the ground.

♪ (narrator) On the evening of the fifth of June, the men of the Screaming Eagles received their orders.

Its 502 Parachute Infantry Regiment got theirs from a special guest, General Eisenhower.

Little did they know that their Supreme Commander feared he was waving off doomed men.

♪ The paratroopers would be jumping into enemy territory at night, inevitably, many would be lost and scattered in the darkness.

While gliders would attempt to land onto fields where the Germans had set out thousands of stakes to rip them apart.

(music intensifies) ♪ (Dr. John O'Brien) Here is the CG-4 Waco Glider.

Developed in World War II to help overcome the problem of the paratrooper being so lightly equipped.

Function of the glider was being able to get more heavily armed and equipped soldiers and equipment into the battlefield that the paratroopers had just secured the night before.

It could carry a Pack 75 Howitzer or an anti-aircraft gun.

Or an anti-tank gun.

The tow rope had a piece of communications wire that provided a battery powered telephone system.

The tow pilot could communicate to the glider pilot, "Release, release, release."

And the glider pilot could reach up and there's a big, red handle that he could pull down that opened that allocator clip and the glider descended to the ground.

♪ The aircraft is made of about 7,000 pine wood parts, some aluminum tubing, and is covered in canvas that has been doped.

The soldiers that actually rode in the gliders, um, it was a scary proposition.

It was very, uh, dangerous from ground fire.

Tracer rounds could catch it on fire.

Everybody talks about throwing up in their helmet.

♪ And of course, the landing.

Once the glider is cut loose it begins a descent of seven feet down for every one foot forward.

So the landings could often be described as a controlled crash.

♪ (narrator) As the 101st prepared for battle, some of the men, looking to American's frontier past, -shave their heads.

-A few of the outfits got the idea they ought to show the Germans we had Indians in America.

Here they are.

Indians from the Loop, from Back Bay and the Bronx.

(Carl) I do want to mention that at this point in our lives we were 17 or 18 years old.

And the thing that you feel, of course, is a little bit of fear.

Pretty much of the unknown.

But the greatest fear to me and I'm sure I express this for my comrades, was to not let my friends down.

♪ (Dr. John O'Brien) The museum figure that we're looking at depicts how a paratrooper from the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division would be uniformed and equipped for the jump that occurred on six June, 1944.

♪ Paratroopers wore a distinctive uniform.

They were going to be cut off behind enemy lines.

So they needed to bring whatever ammunition, medical supplies, food with them when they jumped out of the airplane.

So the uniform itself has additional pockets sewn on the jacket and on the pants that could be stuffed with additional equipment.

A creative idea that the soldiers came up with was the development of the leg bag.

And you'll see something here that looks like a duffle bag.

Extra ammunition and supplies could be put into this bag and it has a rope, about 50 feet long.

The parachute would deploy, he would come down, the bag would hit first.

He would drift a little bit away from where the bag landed and landed and be able to follow the rope back to where his additional supplies would be located.

♪ Underneath the reserved parachute is the Griswold Bag.

The M1 rifle could be taken into three parts and put into the bag, reassembled very quickly.

The first aid pack strapped to the shoulder.

A wrist compass, a combat fighting knife.

When you put the weight of the parachute, the reserve, the equipment, the weapons, the medical gear, the food, the water.

He's carrying between 60 and 80 pounds of additional equipment.

Or in some cases, you know, nearly half his body weight.

So these guys had to be fit and they were.

♪ (narrator) In the night, the men of the Screaming Eagles boarded their transports and began to taxi for takeoff.

They would fly to France in one of the war's most iconic planes.

The Douglas C-47 Skytrain.

The C-47 was the most ubiquitous troop transport of the whole war.

The British called it The Dakota.

But to the US Army, it was known as The Skytrain.

It served on every front, even in Eastern Europe where it was produced under license by the Soviets.

An adaptation of a civilian airliner, each C-47 would carry a stick or group of 18 to 28 paratroopers.

It was powered by two 1,200 horsepower engines.

With a range of 1,600 miles and a maximum speed of 230 miles per house.

Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower ranked the C-47 alongside the Bazooka, Jeep and atomic bomb as the technical innovations that won the Allies the war.

(orchestral music) ♪ (Dr. John O'Brien) This is what got the 101st behind enemy lines.

This was the key to vertical envelopment.

On the night of D-Day, hundreds of these aircrafts were used.

They filled the skies.

In Normandy, a German commander who looked up and saw the Air Armada flying over said, "If only once, I could have such power in my hands."

A story that has to be mentioned is the bravery of the men who flew these aircraft.

It was absolutely essential that they fly in formations at particular altitudes at a particular speed.

Otherwise, it was unsafe for the men to jump.

Flying these aircraft in Normandy the pilots encounter a lot of German anti-aircraft fire.

So in order to maintain those formations often times the pilots would put themselves at tremendous personal risk.

(dramatic music) (narrator) A complete lack of armament was the Skytrain's greatest weakness.

♪ However, by June 1944, the Allies had almost complete control of the skies.

But while the Luftwaffe threat had been largely neutralized, anti-aircraft gunners still posed a major danger.

♪ As soon as the planes reached France they entered a hail storm of flack.

♪ (Carl) You're at 800 feet and that 20 millimeter fire is vicious.

If you're ever in an airplane that gets hit, now I hope you never are, it sounds like your head is in a bucket and somebody's pounding on the bucket.

(pounding) (Ed) If you've ever been to one of these places where they have fireworks, well, that's what we jumped in.

You could hear the stuff and see the stuff going through your parachute because there were tracers all around.

And how in the world they missed any of us I'll never know.

And you could hear those bullets shooting through the parachute and that's the sound that I can hear right today.

(gun fire) They really put it on us.

(pounding) ♪ (narrator) The incoming fire caused the pilots to panic.

The planes were traveling too fast to drop their troops.

But in their eagerness to dump their men and get out of the maelstrom the Screaming Eagles were told to jump, -more or less at random.

-Our routine training called for us to get green light and go.

But all we ever got was a bell.

And a bell just means unass this airplane.

These guys, they could hardly walk getting out of that door because of the weight that they were carrying.

Throw the jump master through the buttline and out we went.

We were completely off the drop zone and just scattered all over.

(narrator) The men of the 101st spent most the night trying to regroup.

So I landed in this bunch of cows.

Had no idea in the world where I was.

♪ What I knew, I was absolutely the Operations Sergeant.

I knew my maps, I knew the directions of where we were supposed to go.

And I said, "Okay buddy, you've got to go at least northeast."

Which I did and uh, I picked up a total of 18 men that had jumped near that area as we traveled down the road, the three or four miles, -to the bridges.

-Carl Beck found himself -all alone.

-When I landed, and I hate to say, my canopy, my parachute had gone over some trees.

So I pulled out my jump knife, cut my way out of my canopy and I went to looking for somebody.

And I found one guy.

10,000 guys dropped on that peninsula that night and I found one.

My friend, Robert Johnson.

♪ (narrator) The Allies knew that the paratroopers were likely to be scattered in the darkness and in danger of blundering into enemy troops before they could find their comrades.

So every man was issued with a special cricket clicker.

With all the clickers, which by the way, the clicker is... (clicking) here I am...

I hear you.

That's the thing of the clicker.

When I--with all these signs and counter signs and clickers and being a great solider, when I saw Robert I said, "Hey, Johnson!"

So Robert and I got together.

♪ (Dr. John O'Brien) This is a metal cricket.

It was originally a toy that was part of a board game that British children played in the 1930s and early 1940s and it was made use of by the 101st Airborne Division on the night of the invasion of France.

The metal cricket makes a noise like a cricket.

One of the problems that the 101st Airborne Division had to overcome was that they were going to be jumping at night.

You cannot see anybody around you and it's very, very important to link up as quickly as possible.

The soldiers, each one, equipped with one of these crickets was able to--if they heard a noise... give the challenge.

And if it was Fritz, Fritz didn't know what it was.

So the soldier could take him out.

If it was Fred, a friendly soldier, he would give the counter recognition, two clicks.

(clicking) So a very clear delineation between friend and foe, the cricket.

♪ (Frank) And I heard some firing not too far up the road.

It was a small enemy patrol.

I would say five men maybe.

We killed a couple of them.

Then I got my men back on the road and I got about 100 yards and then all hell broke loose.

(intense music) ♪ (narrator) Due to the confusion, the 101st weren't able to achieve their formal objectives, but this didn't mean that the drop was a total bust.

(Jon) Despite all of the problems that they had in being scattered on landing, on loosing a good chunk of their command hierarchy, they managed to fulfill most of their task that day.

(narrator) The 101st caused considerable confusion and disruption to the Germans.

Airborne troops were on hand throughout D-Day to take on new objectives at a moment's notice.

The most famous would be an attack by 12 men from Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Their target was a German battery shelling Utah beach.

It was led by Lieutenant Dick Winters.

(Bill) Winters turned out to be a great leader in combat.

He called all the shots and we followed his orders.

He was smart, quick, resourceful, fearless.

I had a lot of respect for him.

I knew after the first bullets came in that day we had a good commander leading us.

You knew you could follow Winters anywhere.

(narrator) Winters and his men not only disabled four artillery pieces but also captured a map detailing every German gun position on the Cotentin Peninsula.

The attack became a textbook example of small unit combat.

For the next week, the 101st would be locked in a fierce battle to capture the crucial junction town of Carentan.

(Jon) The town of Carentan was a key transport hub.

Allies needed to capture the town so that they could then start to exploit inland into the countryside as quickly as possible.

The German's realized this and realized they had to heavily defend it.

(gun fire) (narrator) The battle for Carentan was characterized by bloody hand-to-hand fighting and high causalities on both sides.

Much of the fighting pitted American paratroopers against their German equivalence, The Elite Fallschirmjäger.

♪ (Ed) The armor was in Carentan.

They had to go across that river to defend the beaches.

And our job was to prevent anything crossing those bridges.

Which we did.

(narrator) At one point, Colonel Robert Cole of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment led his man to dislaunch German defenders blocking the way to the last of four bridges.

It was a desperate and costly fight but cleared the way for the capture of Carentan.

(Dr. John O'Brien) This presentation has the picture and citation pertaining to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cole.

He was one of the two men of the 101st Airborne Division who were awarded the Medal of Honor, our highest value metal in the United States Army.

(dramatic music) (Reader) "With utter disregard for his own safety and completely ignoring the enemy fire, he shouted to his men to follow him in the assault.

Catching up a fallen man's rifle and bayonet he charged on and led the remanence of his battalion across the bullet swept open ground and into the enemy position."

(Dr. John O'Brien) Colonel Cole was put in for the award and he never knew that he received it.

Several months later, in Holland, he sustained a mortal wound.

So he received the award posthumously.

♪ (narrator) After 33 days of continuous combat in Normandy the 101st were withdrawn to England.

But their respite would be brief.

They soon joined British powers and the US 82nd Airborne in an ambitious plan to break into Germany and bring about the final defeat of Hitler's regime.

By September 1944, over three months after D-Day, the Allies hadn't taken as much of Western Europe as hoped.

But after the collapse of German forces in France the Allies sped eastwards until Nazi resistance hardened again.

As they inched closer to German soil.

The strains of war were also having an impact on the relationship between the Allies.

-Particularly, their commanders.

-D-Day was a success.

However, fighting thereafter turned pretty quickly into a battle of attrition.

And the Allies struggled between themselves.

As to how to break that deadlock.

The Americans, particularly Omar Bradley and George Patten on their side, considered the British and the Montgomery's command to be too cautious.

Not willing to take the risks necessary to bring a swift and decisive victory.

♪ (narrator) In order to break into Germany and bring a quick end to the war, Field Marshall Montgomery came up with a daring plan to bypass the formidable German fortifications known as The Siegfried Line.

It was given the code name, Operation Market Garden.

At the very heart of the plan, the Screaming Eagles.

The first Allied airborne army would secure a series of bridges making it possible for a vast British armored column to make a dash across Holland to the Rhine.

British First Airborne would take the furthest bridges at Arnhem.

The American 82nd Airborne would secure Nijmegen and the 101st were tasked with taking the Southern most bridges around Eindhoven.

♪ At first, it went well.

Despite taking some flack, the 101st executed a textbook landing in the Dutch sunshine.

It was a far cry from the chaos of D-Day.

(Ed) The drop was... beautiful.

It was what we call a parade ground drop.

It was so vast, there was plans still taking off in England while men were dropping in Holland.

It was a huge, huge drop zone right outside of Eindhoven.

(Frank) I landed and right on the drop zone and it was filled with big, Holstein cows.

And they panicked, of course, when all these parachutes started coming down.

And I'm thinking, "Oh man, I'd hate to have to write home from the hospital that I was severely wounded by a big, Holstein cow.

Or even killed by one."

(music intensifies) ♪ (narrator) The Screaming Eagles moved quickly to secure landing zones for the glider borne troops that were to follow.

They headed for a bridge on the outskirts of Eindhoven.

But the Germans blew it up before they could capture it.

Attention turned to another bridge nearby at best.

But men from the 101st only to to within 100 meters before it too was blown.

This is when the Medal of Honor winner, Colonel Cole, was killed by a sniper.

At the same day the regiment won its second Medal of Honor when Private Joe Mann, already wounded, threw himself on a grenade to save him comrades.

♪ But by nightfall, the US paratroopers were in control of the three local towns.

A temporary bailey bridge had been constructed over the canal.

And they entered Eindhoven to a heroes welcome.

(cheering) (Frank) The Dutch people were so hopeful trying to help at every way they could.

I had some ammunition, mortar ammunition and even 60 millimeter mortar ammunition it gets pretty heavy.

the men had to carry it quite a ways.

One guy has a cart and he came over and he says, "I will take it, I will take it to where you go."

I said, "You know, that's a pretty good friend there."

(narrator) By the evening, armor from British XXX Corps raced through Eindhoven heading north.

The first stage of Operation Market Garden was complete.

But the job of the paratroopers was far from over.

Their task was to defend their stretch of this vital road from German counter attacks.

For the next eight days the US paratroopers fought a series of bitter engagements along the roadway.

Now earning its nickname, Hell's Highway.

For the Germans it was key.

If they could then cut it at any point it would help stymie the Allied operation.

So the 101st had to keep it open but units of German stragglers often thrown together constantly brought it under fire and cut it repeatedly.

It really was a very, very dangerous place to be.

(narrator) The German's saw the threat and rushed whatever troops and panzers they could into scratch combat formations known as Kampfgruppe to try and cut the road.

These Kampfgruppe included the remanence of veteran units.

And they were equipped with some of the latest and most deadly -Nazi war machines.

-A British crew in an American tank with a long barrel 76 millimeter on it was going to cross a double railroad track and come out toward the sand dunes.

Some of our guys told him, "We've got an 88 firing down that railroad track and we can't find that SOB.

We just can't find it."

When that tank came up and over just about the first railroad track that 88 put three rounds in it.

And it's trapped on the stuff that sprawls off the inside of a tank that makes hamburgers out of a crew.

And what had happened is Kraut had taken the backside of a house and dug it out.

And he was firing down this railroad track through the door of the house.

And that's what we couldn't find that sucker.

(eerie music) (narrator) While the two American airborne divisions managed to capture their targets the final set of objectives at Arnhem proved to be a bridge too far.

♪ On the 25th of September, British paratroopers surrounded and taking heavy causalities were forced to surrender.

Monty's dream of a spear thrust into the heart of Germany and Christmas in Berlin lay in tatters.

After nearly two months defending a road to nowhere in Holland, the Screaming Eagles were shipped out to France -for a well deserved rest.

-I managed to get a three-day pass to Paris.

And a runner came down and he said, "The Colonel wants to see you right away."

Well, I took off up the road.

I knew something was serious.

(narrator) The Screaming Eagles chance to take a break from the frontline was about to be interrupted.

December, 1944.

Nazi resistance has collapsed back to the borders of Germany but Allied attempts to breakthrough have stalled in the face of bitter resistance.

And on the Eastern front, the Soviets continued their costly advance towards Germany.

Hitler remained convinced that victory was within his grasp as long as Germany could knock the Western Allies out of the conflict and he believed he had spotted a critical Allied weakness.

His plan was an audacious armored assault through the heavily forested Ardennes.

A three-pronged attack through the Allied lines would deny them the use of the port at Antwerp and cut off the Allied armies.

(Jon) Hitler most definitely didn't have the full support of his generals for the Ardennes defensive.

There were no cheers, no solutes.

The assembled Generals and senior officers simply filled out, holding their heads in their hands.

♪ (narrator) On the 16th of December, 1944 German military units began their assault.

Catching the Allies entirely by surprise.

In France and completely unaware of these developments, the men of the 101st were looking forward to some long overdue rest and recuperation.

I was to take 50 soldiers and two trucks to Paris and instead, the military police picked us up, said we had to come back to get on trucks to go somewhere.

Where?

We didn't know.

Nobody knew where we were going to go.

We had no overcoats.

We had no overshoes.

We had no gloves.

We had almost nothing.

I mean, absolutely nothing.

Get on these trucks and mount the machine guns over the side.

Krauts are just up the road and I said, "Man, I don't need this stuff.

You know, I need to recover.

I ain't over this Paris trip."

So sure enough, we got on these trucks.

Rode for two or three days.

And dismounted... just south of the town of Bastogne.

♪ (narrator) The Screaming Eagles were rushed to the small Belgium town of Bastogne.

Here, the US Army would make a stand, to try and break the German advance.

(Jon) Bastogne as a transport hub was incredibly important.

If you needed to move east, west, north or south you had to have Bastogne.

So it was a race, really, between the Americans to reinforce the town and the Germans, who could get there first -and then exploit to the west.

-Germans had not reached Bastogne at that point.

So like, the commander says, "I want you to get up this road here until you run into the Germans and stop them."

I said, "Yes sir."

They were attacking with divisions, the German's were, and I had one rifle company with about 100 men.

(narrator) Only one of the three German thrusts had made any real progress in the offensive and the 101st were now directly in their way.

Their race to get to Bastogne before it was completely cut off was so close that the rear units, containing all the division's medical personnel, were captured.

They were now completely surrounded and outnumbered -five to one.

-We were encircled.

We were encircled the minute we got there.

Surrounded, completely surrounded.

-180,000 Germans.

-Bad weather grounded Allied air power, making resupplying the besieged troops from the air impossible.

(Frank) Oh, it was brutal.

It was brutal.

We ran out of food and we're just about out of ammunition.

(gun fire) We got a break in the weather and some C-47s came in and threw out some bundles of ammo.

And we got the ammunition in and they had about five medical officers who parachuted in.

They started working at the aid station and I was glass cause two days later I was back there myself.

♪ (narrator) Adding to the misery for the Screaming Eagles -was the freezing weather.

-Weather was very, very, very nice.

17 degrees below zero.

(Frank) The worst part of it, starting snowing.

And it snowed, before it stopped, about knee-deep.

And it was windy.

So it must've had-- with a wind-chill -of 30 degrees below zero.

-Ugh.

-It went from bad to worse.

-We had no shelter whatsoever except three bowes and foxholes.

(wind howling) It was so cold actually, we had syrettes, little morphine syrettes.

So I reached up from my first aid kit that was on top of helmet, got the syrettes out and shoved it in my leg to ease the pain, it was so cold.

(intense music) (narrator) Over the next five days, German troops launched probing attacks against the 101st.

It was grim, attritional warfare.

(Jon) Conditions at the time were terrible.

The American powers, most of the just had their summer uniforms.

They lacked everything that you needed to survive in what were truly, truly dreadful conditions at the front.

♪ (Dr. John O'Brien) What's depicted in this case are artifacts from the Battle of the Bulge.

The defense of Bastogne.

The large photograph here that shows very famously General McAuliffe who conducted the defense holding that very same sign.

It was the worst and coldest winter on record in Europe in the 20th century and there was a lot of ad hockery that had to go together to stay warm.

They were actually even stuffing their uniforms with newspapers to provide extra layers and insulation.

Brutal, brutal temperatures.

Soldiers doing what they could to survive.

The US Army also at this time did not have winter camouflage.

So the citizens of Bastogne and some of the surrounding villages donated their bed linens.

There's a very usual piece here.

This musical instrument.

It's a kazoo with a slide.

There was a famous American comedian who used this as part of his comedy act which he nicknamed a Bazooka.

(drumming music) The soldiers looked at the M1 rocket launcher used to great effect at Bastogne by the infantry men of the Division.

They nicknamed the M1 rocket launcher the Bazooka because it looks like the same Bazooka from the comedy act.

♪ (narrator) In spite of the hardships, morale remained high and the men of the 101st responded to the dangerous situation with gallows humor.

Even giving themselves a new nickname, The Battered Bastards of Bastogne.

♪ The Germans came in and asked for our surrender and Tony McAuliffe, the General, thought that they were going to surrender to us.

So when he was told, "No, no, they want us to surrender."

He said, "Oh, nuts.

What am I going to tell these guys?"

And General Kinnard, who was then a Bird Colonel, said, "Well, that last remark you made was pretty good."

He said, "What was that?"

He said, "You said nuts."

So he said, "Okay" and they wrote it down and Harper handed this guy the note and he said, "Nuts!

Nuts!

What does this mean?"

And Harper said, "It means we're going to kill every goddamn solider who tries to get in here.

Every damn German who tries to get in here."

People have asked me, "Well, did you think about surrendering?"

And I said, No, there wasn't a single soul that ever said a single word about surrender.

That was not in our vocabulary.

We were trained not to think that way.

We were always going to prevail, no matter what.

There happened to be some of the Public Affairs Newspaper soldiers in the division and they recorded the surrender ultimatum and the Commander's response.

You can read the surrender ultimatum and then the troops were informed that our Commander, General McAuliffe, replied one word, "Nuts."

We point this out to all our new soldiers and the message is, a paratrooper, -a Screaming Eagle, never quits.

-Late on Christmas Eve, Luftwaffe planes strafed Bastogne.

One bomb hit an aid station, killing 30 of the wounded soldiers and their nurse.

The next day, the Germans launched their most sustained offensive on the town.

(gun fire) ♪ Even under fire from panzer tanks the Screaming Eagles held on.

One day later, troops from the US 37th Tank Battalion finally broke through the German lines and relieved Bastogne.

The Germans needed to move swiftly.

The whole ethos and concept to the operation was one of speed.

By holding Bastogne the American powers really did damage the offensive, almost-- almost to the point of death.

(music intensifies) ♪ (narrator) In the days following the siege, the Screaming Eagles were ordered onto the offensive.

Tackling German units along the fast collapsing frontline.

They came face-to-face with some of the most battled-hardened and fanatical German units.

Including regiments from the SS Leibstandarte Division.

Hitler's bodyguard.

The Screaming Eagles' exploits at Bastogne made it one of the most famous units in the entire US Army.

But the siege had taken a heavy toll.

The 101st lost over 550 men.

While some units suffered 50 percent causalities.

The Battle of the Bulge was the Screaming Eagles last sustained action of the war.

However, even as the trials of combat were approaching their end they were about to witness the full savagery of the Nazi regime.

(eerie music) ♪ I was the first American officer in Dachau after it was liberated.

♪ The commanding officer heard about this place called Dachau.

He called me because of my religion and also because of the fact that I was the Patrol Platoon Leader and he pointed it out on a map and he says, "Get there as soon as you can.

Take the Jeep."

And I went.

And I see it every night of my life.

Right now.

Every night.

(narrator) By May 1945, peace in Europe seemed close.

Adolf Hitler had committed suicide and Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, had fallen to Soviet troops.

Allied forces were fanning out across the remains the of Third Reich, encountering pockets of resistance but also managing the many thousands of prisoners.

Hoping to chance their luck with the Western Allies -instead of the Soviets.

-The Germans were surrendering in mass, thousands, not hundreds but thousands at a time.

We knew the war was going to be over very shortly.

(narrator) The Screaming Eagles picked their way through Southern Germany close to the boarder with Austria.

The going was slow.

Allied commanders were fearful of ambushes.

(intense music) (Jon) There were many diehards, SS units, Fallschirmjäger and also, the Nazis' own resistance movement The Werewolves, who although, not a totally functioning guerilla movement was still capable of causing casualties.

(narrator) Fortunately, Allied fears did not materialize and aside from isolated pockets, no guerilla movement developed.

Rather than focus on clearing Nazi fanatics from the mountains, the Screaming Eagles were more interested in beating rival Allied units to claim the ultimate prize, Hitler's private hideaway.

The Eagles Nest.

(Jon) The Eagles Nest had huge symbolism.

Simply because it was in effect Hitler's home from home.

This is where so much of the propaganda photos and films of the Nazi dictator had been made.

So for the first Allied unit to get there, to capture it was a hugely symbolically important moment.

(narrator) By May 1945, rival Allied units were all bracing to capture Berchtesgaden.

There's even evidence that German soldiers were trying to reach the town.

However, on the 4th of May the honor fell to the US 7th Infantry Regiment.

Little known but battle-hardened, they've been in almost continuous combat for months.

Soon after, men from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment -relieved them.

-Berchtesgaden, Hitler's mountain retreat.

This had been a playground for Hitler and his cronies.

But now it's under new management and we're getting our first real break for some sightseeing.

♪ The number one attraction is Hitler's Eagle Nest.

A very proper spot for the Screaming Eagles -to finally come to rest.

-The attractive thing to me was this patio-like thing that Hitler had made and you're overlooking these beautiful mountains.

And it's just a beautiful place.

(narrator) For the men of the 101st, it was time to acquire a few souvenirs.

I brought back a bottle of cognac said for the Fuhrer's use only and I brought back 14 pistols.

I told the men, when you get into Germany you can take anything you want.

Anything except a life.

In fact, I took one of Hitler's automobiles.

I personally had one of his automobiles.

You can fire an M1 rifle at the windows and it would just go almost through it but not all the way through it unless you had armor piercing.

Now see, who would believe that if I told them?

But it's true.

(ship honking) (narrator) In the weeks and months after the fall of Germany, most of the 101st began to head home.

After fighting in some of the most pivotal battles of the Second World War they would finally get to see their loved ones again.

My mother and the whole family, they were waiting for me when I got to the Union Station in Norfolk, Virginia.

And I said hello to everyone, hugged them.

(narrator) At the time this program was made Ed Shames was still going strong at 98 years old.

But many of his comrades were not so lucky.

After 214 days in combat, the Screaming Eagles had lost over 2,000 men.

With a further 8,000 wounded and almost 1,200 missing in action.

This band of brothers had proven their worth in battle and written themselves into the history books as one of the US Military's most fearsome units.

♪ (bright music)