Hitler's Last Stand (2018–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Panzer Fury - full transcript

Normandy, France.

One month after D-Day.

A Canadian regiment confronts
a notorious SS Panzer unit

accused of horrific war crimes.

The Canadians and the 12th
SS Hitler Youth had clashed,

uh since the 7th of June.

So, the Canadians and the 12th SS
have a very vicious personal war.

For the Germans, this
leaves no room for compromise.

It's only victory or death.

On June 6th, 1944 allied forces
finally land troops in Normandy

to open the western front.



But Nazi fanatics and diehards continue
to fight ruthlessly for survival.

D-Day was a battle.

The allies still
need to win the war.

♪ ♪

July 8th, 1944.

Outskirts of Caen, France.

The Canadian Regina Rifles prepare to do
their part to liberate the French city.

They scout the approach to their
objective in the northwest sector.

And what they saw
they didn't like.

It was extremely flat.

There was very little cover.

Lieutenant Colonel Foster Matheson has
brought along his company commanders:

Acting Major Gordon Brown, Major
Eric Syme, and Major Stuart Tubb,

to find the best way forward.



And they're driving around in universal
carriers and at one point they get lost.

The driver takes a wrong turn

and they find themselves
in the midst of fighting.

The Regina Rifles
quickly come under attack.

One of the drivers is shot and
killed, the passengers dive for cover.

As the battle rages around them,
the vehicles try to reverse course.

In the confusion, the carriers start to
pull away leaving the officers behind.

It proves to be yet another
setback in the quest to take Caen.

Only 12 miles from the coast allied forces
had planned to take the city on D-Day.

But more than a month later, the
goal has proved stubbornly elusive.

Both sides understood that the capture
of Caen was crucial to going through

the rest of the country,
that if you could capture Caen,

you could enter
the rest of France.

860,000 allied troops are bottled
up at the Normandy beachhead.

The allies need their forces
to break out into France,

then east for Paris.

Caen is a critical
road and rail hub.

The Germans understood, if you can defend
Caen, you can block the Allies' advance.

These are armored divisions
that had hundreds of tanks.

They needed good roads and so they were
going to be passing through Caen to strike

at the Allies who were on the beaches
and who of course were very vulnerable.

The Regina Rifles have landed
in a battle between the.

German 12th SS Panzer division
and other Canadian forces.

This is not the first time the
rifles have encountered the 12th SS.

A month earlier,
on D-Day plus one,

the Reginas had seized the town
of Bretteville, not far away.

The Reginas withstood four counterattacks
from the 12th SS Panzer division,

inflicting 152 German casualties and
destroying six tanks to hold the town,

and earned battle
honors for their unit.

At a distinct disadvantage here,
the trucks make a desperate escape.

The officers of the Regina Rifles
are in danger of being left behind.

Go, Go! Go!

They haul themselves onto the back of
a vehicle loaded to their surprise,

with crates of explosives.

They duck for cover as enemy fire
riddles the vehicle, and can only hope,

that a bullet doesn't
ignite a fatal explosion.

♪ ♪

After finally clearing the battle scene
the officers take up their reconnaissance

position in the
nearby village of Authie.

Earlier that day, General Bernard
Montgomery launched Operation Charnwood,

the British Second Army's
latest attempt to seize Caen.

To support the operation, the Regina
Rifles must take the Abbaye D'ardenne,

which guards the
northwest approach.

A high stone wall surrounds the 12th
century church and its adjoining buildings.

It was a stone fortress.
It had a large tower.

And from the heights of that tower
they could see the entire countryside.

And so, it's a really
critical position.

A strong point that the Germans will
use both to observe the Allies coming

off the beaches and from where they
will launch their counterattacks.

Flat grain fields surround
the Abbaye on all sides,

providing clear lines of
sight for German snipers.

The Germans
occupy the only cover:

A dirt mound, that once held anti-aircraft
guns, partway across the field.

Matheson plans for Major Syme's B Company
to advance 400 yards from the village of.

Authie and take the mounds.

Brown's D Company on the left along
with Tubb's C Company on the right

are to pass the mounds and advance
the remaining 700 yards to the Abbaye.

At 1700 hours allied artillery
begins to shell the Abbaye D'ardenne,

in preparation for the assault.

The barrage is meant to soften up German
defenses and keep German heads down

as the Canadians approach.

The artillery will
last for 30 minutes,

after which the Regina Rifles
will launch their attack.

The Abbaye D'ardenne is the
headquarters of the 12th Panzer division

they had encountered earlier.

Their commanding officer is
Standartenfuhrer Kurt Meyer.

The 33-year old colonel is one of
Germany's youngest divisional commanders.

Kurt Meyer is an extremely
courageous and brave officer.

But at the same times,
he's also extremely ruthless.

He's very much determined to the
cause of Nazism and is also determined

to instill this
ideology into his men.

Meyer's Panzer division is
made up of former Hitlerjugend.

The infamous "Hitler Youth" movement
Raised a generation of German children

to believe in their
Aryan superiority.

For the SS leadership, 12th SS
Panzer Division Hitler Youth

is a kind of symbol for
the next generation of Nazism.

Meyer withstands the barrage
inside the Abbaye complex.

The main building, as such, would be too
much exposed to allied artillery fire or

allied air bombardment.

So, he situates his headquarters in
a secondary building, in the cellar,

so that he's protected.

As the allied shelling of
the Abbaye continues, Brown,

and the rest of the Regina
Rifles try to move into the

field from which
they are to attack.

But it proves difficult.

Well the Regina Rifles are
pinned down because the village

of Authie is not cleared.

This means that the Germans are also able
to bring fire to bear down on the Rifles.

German counter
battery fire also opens up.

Several allied tanks
position themselves nearby.

But as their jump-off time approaches a
hidden German 88 begins to launch shells.

The 88 millimeter gun is the most effective
artillery piece in the Nazi arsenal,

and feared by allied
tankers everywhere.

In ground combat, it has a maximum
range of over 16,000 yards.

And a well-trained crew can fire
a round every three seconds.

♪ ♪

The 88 quickly destroys
three Sherman tanks.

As their crews escape, they draw German
machine gun fire from the nearby mound.

Unwilling to stay exposed to the German
artillery, the remaining tanks retreat.

The fighting in Normandy is often
envisioned as a slashing tank assaults,

um and almost blitzkrieg
like attacks on the enemy.

But, this was combined arms warfare and if the
tanks got too far in front of the infantry,

they were easily knocked out by
anti-tank guns that are very effective

at this point in the war.

With their tank support gone,

all three Regina Rifle companies
are trapped in the open.

The German barrage continues.

The Canadians risk being wiped out
before they can even leave their lines.

July 8th, 1944.

German artillery targets the Regina Rifles'
position as they prepare to attack the.

Abbaye D'ardenne, which blocks
access to the French city of Caen.

The Regina Rifles are dubbed "farmer
johns" by other Canadian units

because they come
from a rural part of Canada.

Obviously the Farmer John's is
meant as, a, a bit of a put down.

But ah, the John's they seem to have shortened
it, they got rid of the farmer part

and they proudly,
they embraced it.

Pinned down due to enemy fire,
the Johns miss the jump-off

time for their
attack against the Abbaye.

In the chaos and the confusion, units
are late arriving to the front and

in fact most of the, the uh three
attacking, um Regina companies get there,

um after the
barrage has gone off.

And so, with communications broken down
there's really a dire situation here.

The Reginas are looking at attacking this
fortress with almost no artillery support.

The Reginas can only take cover and
wait for the German barrage to ease.

When it finally does acting Major
Gordon Brown and his fellow officers

hurry to organize their men.

At 1800 hours, 30 minutes
after their jump off time,

the Reginas commence
their assault,

with Major Eric Syme's
B Company in the lead.

The Germans have put
the time to good use.

During this pause, the German
defenders are able to regroup and

sight their machine guns,
sight their anti-tank guns.

And this is the worst-case
scenario for any army.

As the three Regina companies start
out Baker Company is to advance

400 yards from the village and take
the mound the only cover, in the field.

German forces open fire
on them from all directions.

Caen is considered so critical,
General Field Marshall Erwin Rommel

has assigned elite
units to defend it.

Overseeing the defense of Normandy, Rommel
had invested heavily in the Atlantic wall.

It is a series of bunkers, block
houses, casements, fortified positions

along the French, Belgian, Dutch,
Danish and Norwegian coast.

It is supposed to ward
off an Allied invasion.

Based on Rommel's experience with the
allies in North Africa he knew German

tanks were vulnerable to
allied air superiority.

Rommel believed the allies had
to be defeated on the beaches

in the earliest
hours of the invasion.

The German failure to do so on D-Day,
makes the fighting more desperate.

Germans are still determined to fight, because
they think if the Allies win the war,

this would mean the annihilation
of the German people.

This was especially true of German
military leadership, like Kurt Meyer,

who commands the 12th SS Panzer
division, which holds the Abbaye.

How they understand war is that it
must be fought in the most ruthless way

because it is a
struggle for survival.

Meyer has encountered
Canadian units before.

The Canadians and the 12th
SS Hitler Youth had clashed,

uh, since the 7th of June.

So, really the second
day of the fighting.

Um, and there had been fierce
battles all over the front.

On June 7th and 8th Meyer's unit
executed 18 Canadian prisoners of war

at the Abbaye D'ardenne, in flagrant
violation of the Geneva Convention.

For people like Meyer or for SS
officers, it's all or nothing.

And there is no way of compromising with
the enemy so it's only victory or death.

Now, the 12th SS
Hitlerjugend believed that if

they are captured or
surrender to the Canadians,

they will be
executed in retaliation.

And so, the Canadians and the 12th
SS have a very vicious, personal war.

Regina rifles B Company, still
leads the advance towards the.

German occupied mound
partway across the field.

Faced with heavy gunfire,
B Company must run, or crawl,

in short bursts
to avoid being hit.

The Germans open up with mortar
fire, machine gun fire, sniper fire.

And the Regina Rifles are
being picked off one by one.

As they inch their way forward, the
company suffers heavy casualties.

There's no easy way
to take out machine guns.

Machine guns firing 500 bullets
a minute, firing on an arc.

You have to sacrifice
soldiers to take that out.

They have no
choice but to keep moving.

Three companies
of the Regina Rifles commence

an assault against
the Abbaye D'ardenne.

Across more than 1100 yards of
open field, without tank support,

and one half hour after
their artillery barrage lifts.

B Company leads the way.

Baker Company advances slowly and
using whatever cover is available.

But there's not a lot of cover.

So, this means
you gotta stay low.

You gotta stay in the grass.

You gotta try to stay out of sight
of any sort of German sniper,

German artillery,
or German machine gun.

So, it is a very slow process and
it causes significant casualties

because every time
they pop up, they get shot.

As the casualties mount weeks
of strain also take their toll.

The Regina Rifles
were very weak at this point.

They had lost a lot of soldiers in the
fighting in the first month of Normandy.

As frontline troops at the sharp
end, they get very little sleep

and endure unimaginable stress.

There's no question that the lack of
sleep and the continual engagement

with the enemy that just
combined will wear anyone down.

It has been four
weeks of constant combat.

So as these soldiers are engaged with the
German enemy, as they're approaching the

Abbey, there are soldiers
that are breaking down.

There are soldiers
that are crying.

There are soldiers that are
catatonic and can't even move.

This now includes baker
company's commander, Major Syme,

who succumbs to what is
called, battle exhaustion.

Major! Major! I need a medic!

Though the Canadian division had
undertaken psychiatric screening prior to

deployment conditions like battle exhaustion
or battle fatigue prove unpredictable

and claim many soldiers.

By late July 1944, battle
fatigue makes up 25% of

all non-fatal
casualties to the allies.

After D-Day the British
and Canadian army group

established front-line centers
to treat battle exhaustion.

Sedation and sleep.

You want to treat them quickly.

You want to treat them effectively and
then you want them back in the front line.

As Major Syme is carried from the
field the remainder of B Company

continues to press to the mound.

As they are making those hard
yards, Riflemen would lay down fire,

Bren machine gunners
would lay down heavier fire.

The way they knocked out those machine
guns was to use grenades for the most part.

And those grenades explode and they
send shrapnel of course and that's how,

ultimately, they
knock out the mound.

♪ ♪

The Germans are forced to
retreat back towards the Abbaye.

♪ ♪

To achieve the objective,
Baker Company is gutted.

61 out of 100 men
become casualties.

With the mound finally in Canadian hands,
C Company and D Company now continue the

advance and pass through
the remains of B Company.

From that position,
Baker Company can then provide

covering fire for
the other two companies.

You have Dog Company on the left,
Charlie Company on the right.

And Baker Company will provide very important
covering fire, which will allow the other

troops to move up slowly.

So, the idea simply here is
what we call fire and movement.

Someone's shooting.
Someone's moving.

To prevent his men from meeting
B Company's fate, Major Stu Tubb,

the commander of C Company, orders high
explosive mortars against the Abbaye complex.

He hopes the distraction will
provide his men much needed coverage.

But Tubb receives word that the Reginas
have no high explosive mortars available,

and he is offered smoke instead.

This works for a while,
until the wind comes up.

They're now wide open and exposed
completely to German fire.

All Hell breaks loose.

♪ ♪

Facing heavy enemy fire C and D
Companies of the Canadian Regina Rifles

must attack the Abbaye D'ardenne
across 700 yards of open field.

They have just learned that they've run
out of high explosive mortars to subdue

the German counter fire.

Such shortages have proved a
problem across the allied front.

Just three weeks before a Major
storm struck the Normandy coast.

800 ships and vessels were stranded,
damaged or destroyed on June 19th.

To further cripple allied
supply lines, already hindered,

by a lack of a deep-water port.

All units were
having to make do.

Advancing in the
open would be suicidal.

So, the Reginas fire
smoke to cover their advance.

Once more, acting Major Gordon
Brown and D Company press forward

on the left flank.

But with the men still 500 yards short
of the Abbaye, wind clears the smoke.

With the companies now exposed.

The Germans have clear shots.

In the chaos C company's 13th
platoon stumbles into a minefield.

You don't know where to step, and they
are set up for a number of reasons.

One is to cause
casualties of course.

But secondly to slow an advance.

The minefield
creates a shooting gallery.

Riflemen and snipers and machine gunners
will turn upon those isolated soldiers who

are stuck in the middle,
unsure of where is safe.

As their losses mount,

Major Stu Tubb enters the
minefield to help extract his men.

Tubb falls to German
machine gun fire.

His second-in-command moves
forward to help, and is killed.

C company's third in command
is wounded moments later.

Wiping out the enemy's leadership
is a time honored military strategy.

And that is a technique that
the Allies and the Germans use,

that snipers would aim for those NCOs
or those lieutenants or those captains

to try to in, in effect
decapitate the unit.

Without leadership C Company
retreats to the mound.

They have lost
85 out of 106 men.

General Bernard Montgomery's stated goal at
Caen was to draw in German troops to kill,

wound or capture as
many as possible.

A war of attrition.

But the campaign to capture Caen
proves costly to everyone involved.

Allied aerial bombing to support Operation
Charnwood began the night before,

on July 7th.

More than 460 aircraft dropped
6000 bombs on the city.

While the bombing improved
the morale of allied soldiers,

the strategic impact
on German troops was minimal.

The rubble created hinders the allied
advance and retreat by German forces.

It also has got an impact on
French civilian population.

Because, French civilians perished and
this had a negative influence on the

attitude of the French
population towards the Allies.

Now, to the northwest of the
city the remaining 15 able-bodied

members of C Company retreat to Authie to
bring back stretchers for their wounded.

Almost three hours after commencing
their attack on the Abbaye D'ardenne,

Gordon Brown's D Company remain the
only Regina Rifles left in the fight.

Still hundreds of
yards from their objective,

the covering smoke has also
just cleared on their position.

And leaves them dangerously
exposed to enemy fire.

The 12th SS quickly pin
down Brown and his men again.

Several of the Reginas are hit.

To limit the company's casualties, Brown
and his men push forward in short bursts,

often gaining just
a few feet at a time.

German troops at the
Abbaye have the ideal weapon

to prevent Brown from
achieving his objective.

The MG-42 is arguably the best
machine gun of World War II.

At 1200 rounds per minute,

its rate of fire outpaces
comparable allied machine guns.

Light, reliable and easy to deploy, the
MG-42 has a range of nearly 1,100 yards

to avoid the German machine guns D
company's number 16 platoon makes a

flanking move to the
left of the Abbaye.

The remaining Regina Rifles
continue their frontal assault.

But at 2100 hours his runner reports
to acting Major Gordon Brown,

that number 16
platoon has vanished.

July 8th, 1944.

As darkness falls, the Regina Rifles continue
their assault on the Abbaye D'ardenne.

A fortified position that controls
access to the French city of Caen.

With reports that
some of his men are

missing and knowing he needs
them all to seize the Abbaye,

acting Major Gordon Brown goes
in search of his 16th platoon.

Searching the battlefield,

he makes a disturbing discovery.

And he Stumbles into a small ditch area,
which is a scene of a, a nightmare.

There are wounded
soldiers bleeding,

um dying, crying out and he
thinks that's his lost platoon.

It's not.

It's a group of the Can Scots, who
have stumbled into the battle somehow,

and there are
many wounded there.

Brown tries to help.

He bandages some of the
more seriously wounded.

And he's not sure what to do, of course
human instinct is to care for them,

but that's not the role
of a company commander.

And so, he rightly
gives them his water.

He must have been parched.

Unable to do any more for them,

Brown turns back to
rejoin the rest of his company.

He did the right thing.
He did what he had to do.

He did what a soldier had to do, was to
keep pushing on to the final objective.

When he returns Brown finds D
Company in the thick of battle.

D Company is spread
out over the battlefield.

They're facing a
fortress a stone fortress,

the Germans are
firing at them non-stop.

I'm amazed at how they could
have pushed their way forward.

They make a daring
charge for the Abbaye walls.

They do call in some smoke, and
the smoke is quite effective.

It obscures the front,
ah for precious minutes.

The men shoot and
throw grenades on the run.

Their bold initiative pays off.

At 2200 hours, D Company
reaches the Abbaye walls.

With the Regina Rifles closing in, Colonel
Kurt Meyer had made plans to protect his

fighting strength and asks
for permission to retreat.

He gets the answer, no.
There is no way to retreat.

The, reason for that
is in the mindset of the

German leadership is
where does our retreat end?

But Meyer withdraws anyway.

He would later claim that he
knew Caen could not be held.

Hitler's order to hold
the city to the last bullet,

would mean the needless and
futile sacrifice of his men.

Thus, the desperate fighting on
July 8th, was to bide time for the

evacuation of Meyer's wounded
soldiers under the cover of darkness.

They devise a plan to delay
the capture of the Abbaye,

and make it as costly as
possible for the Canadians.

The Regina Rifles encounter the German
soldiers left to cover the withdrawal.

They launch one final assault
and they find a way through

and around those walls
and drive the Germans out.

Some of the Canadians begin to
push into the Abbaye courtyard.

Captain Brown
calls the soldiers back and

he tells them to dig
in outside of the walls.

Having fought the Germans for a month
now Brown knows they are not safe yet.

The Germans will have
pre-ranged their guns.

One of the nice things about occupying a
position when you're on the defense is you

have it perfectly
placed on your map,

which means your artillery
knows exactly where to hit it.

Learning that allied
troops have reached the walls,

Meyer orders an artillery
barrage against the Abbaye.

Brown's shrewd orders prevent
further casualties amongst his men.

But they have yet to completely achieve their
objective to occupy the Abbaye itself.

Heavy German shelling prevents
acting Major Gordon Brown

and the rest of the Regina Rifles' D Company
from fully capturing the Abbaye D'ardenne.

As the men endure the barrage, their
lost platoon finally reappears.

During their absence,
16th platoon has been busy.

16th Platoon is able to achieve
something pretty remarkable.

They've knocked out
a battery of German 88 guns.

This means that any Sherman tanks coming
up behind them are now free to move

in the open countryside.

The platoon's reappearance
brings the company's strength to

70 soldiers but Brown
knows he needs more men,

if he's going to take
and hold the Abbaye.

They've fought for
five and a half hours.

They've lost about 200
soldiers killed and wounded.

Many of them left strewn
over the battlefield.

And now in the dark
crying out for help.

Um, but there's no communication
from front to rear.

Um, though, there's no wireless.

There's no telephones.

Brown, and a lieutenant return to
the village of Authie on foot to

request reinforcements and inform
headquarters of their progress.

But on their way, the two men are
caught in a sustained mortar attack.

They endure the
80-round bombardment.

The shelling is another
phase of Colonel Kurt Meyer's

plan to cover the German retreat
of the 12th SS from Caen.

Meyer's withdrawal proves sensible, to
protect the unit's fighting strength.

By the second week of July,
German battle casualties in

western Europe totaled
more than 100,000 men.

Yet German command had managed to
replace only 9% of their manpower losses.

Late into the night Brown returns to
the Abbaye walls with reinforcements...

the Regina Rifles A-Company,
which had been held in reserve.

In the early morning hours of July
9th, the German shelling stops.

It's an eerie calm.

I couldn't imagine what
it'd be like to look around

and not hear bullets
whizzing by your face.

And not hear artillery
rounds exploding around you.

And suddenly realize that for a
brief period there's some calm.

You've done it.

At first light, the
Regina Rifles A and D Companies

advance cautiously
into the courtyard.

So, when Meyer retreats, he

tries to delay the enemy's
advance by leaving snipers.

This gives his own troops
time to withdraw in good order.

With snipers and booby traps,
the enemy doesn't feel secure.

He doesn't know where the enemy
is, where he's coming from,

so he must be very
cautious when he advances.

It takes them until mid-afternoon to
clear the Abbaye of German snipers.

♪ ♪

Inside the Abbaye they discover
the headquarters in the cellar.

♪ ♪

Captain Brown who himself
is beyond exhaustion.

He, he later talks about almost
being delirious, uh, hallucinating.

An exhausted Gordon Brown pours
a drink, climbs into the bed,

and falls asleep.

The western half of Caen to
the Orne River would fall to

the allies by
the end of July 9th.

During Operation Charnwood, the
Regina Rifles suffer 216 casualties,

including 36 men killed.

In terms of the casualties on that day,
something like 50% of the combat soldiers

were killed,
wounded or taken prisoner.

The casualties were so severe for Charlie
Company and Baker Company that after

this combat on the 8th and 9th of
July, they were non-operational.

French civilians
are also deeply affected.

Up to 75% of Caen lay in
ruins and hundreds were killed.

After the war, Colonel Kurt Meyer
faces trial for war crimes for his part

in the execution of Canadian prisoners
of war at the Abbaye D'ardenne.

Meyer would be sentenced to death
later commuted to life imprisonment.

He serves nine years
before being released.

The two Canadian
company commanders,

Majors Stuart Tubb
and Eric Symes,

recover and survive the war.

Major Tubb is later awarded the Distinguished
Service Order for his leadership and

coolness in the
face of enemy fire.

Gordon Brown continues to serve
throughout the war, and would earn the.

Distinguished Service Order for
personal valor and devotion to duty.

While ultimately successful, the capture
of Caen, confirms that allied gains

could be slow and sometimes
measured only in yards.

It is clear to the Allies the road
to Berlin is not a simple walkover.

It will be a costly
and bloody campaign.

And the war in Europe would
continue for another 10 months.

Captioned by Cotter
Captioning Services.