Hitler's Last Stand

- Season 3

(2021)

In advance of the D-Day Landings, paratroopers from the US 82nd Airborne Division are dropped behind enemy lines to capture strategic positions. One such location is near the town of Ste Mere Eglise where American airborne troops fight Nazi forces for control of a bridgehead for three days, to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the beaches.

In November 1944, Eisenhower's Broad Front strategy is tested by heavy rains and thick mud which sever supply lines and hinder reinforcements, as British troops arrive to fight on German soil alongside US troops to take the fortified town of Geilenkirchen, a stronghold in Hitler's infamous Siegfried Line.

In April 1945, 2nd Lt. Vernon J. Baker and a platoon of American Buffalo Soldiers fight three miles into enemy territory to close in on a Nazi occupied castle in Italy, avoiding minefields, destroying observation posts and capturing machine gun nests. But to make a final assault, they must wait for reinforcements. It will take more than fifty years for the valor of these African American soldiers to be fully acknowledged.

In August 1944, the Allies close in on remnants of the German Army in Normandy-about 100,000 soldiers, their weapons and tanks to create the Falaise Pocket. But as they squeeze, a small gap remains in the Allied line that promises escape. A small Canadian tank squadron must hold the line as the pressure builds.

In December 1944, Hitler launches his infamous Operation Wacht am Rhein and his tanks make a desperate dash for the port of Antwerp in the opening of what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. In response, the US 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment is sent into the Ardennes to secure a critical bridge against a Nazi battle group and defend it at all costs.

After coming ashore with the French-Canadian Regiment de la Chaudiere on D-Day, a sniper loses the sight in one eye during the battle for Caen but refuses to be sent home and rejoins his regiment. In April 1944, as the Chaudieres Leo Major volunteers to try and make contact with the Dutch resistance in the city of Zwolle, and manages to liberate the city without the loss of civilian life.