In WW2 American tanks were outgunned and out armored by the more advanced German tanks.
US tank crewmen suffered staggering losses against the superior enemy vehicles.
It is April 1945.
The Allies fight deep in the heart of Nazi Germany, encouraging the most fanatical resistance yet.
In desperation Hitler declares total war, mobilizing every man, woman and child ... Fury 2014 starring Brad Pitt & Logan Lerman & Shia LaBeouf & Michael Pena & Jon Bernthal & Jason Isaacs & Scott Eastwood & Xavier Samuel & Brad William Henke & Jim Parrack & Anamaria Marinca & Alicia von Rittbert et al, director David Ayer, opening caption
We are going to send somebody to find him. And we are going to get him the hell out of there. Saving Private Ryan 1998 starring Tom Hanks & Vin Diesel & Edward Burns & Tom Sizemore & Jeremy Davies & Adam Goldberg & Barry Pepper & Giovanni Ribisi & Matt Damon & Dennis Farina & Ted Danson & Harve Presnell & Bryan Cranston & David Wohl & Nathan Fillion et al, director Steven Spielberg, big cheese
This is the story of a squad of marines. A rifle squad … A long way from Stateside: eight thousand miles. Sands of Iwo Jima 1949 starring John Wayne & John Agar & Adele Mara & Forrest Tucker & Wally Cassell & James Brown & Richard Webb & Arthur Franz & Julie Bishop & James Holden & Peter Coe & Richard Jaeckel & Bill Murphy & George Tyne & Martin Milner et al, director Allan Dwan
Thomas: That’s war.
Bass: What’s war?
Thomas: Trading real estate for me. ibid.
December 1944: British and American armies were on the threshold of victory. Stretched across half of Europe the Allies gathered themselves for the final assault on Germany. Battle of the Bulge 1965 starring Henry Fonda & Robert Shaw & Robert Ryan & Dana Andrews & George Montgomery & Ty Hardin & Pier Angeli & Barbara Werle & Charles Bronson & Hans Christian Blech & Werner Peters & James MacArthur & Robert Woods & Telly Savalas et al, director Ken Annakin, opening commentary
From the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 it took almost a full year to win the war. Hitler’s Last Year I & II, National Geographic 2016
The Allies were unable to exploit the breakdown of the Western Front. As a result, the Germans had time to re-group their defences. ibid.
Even Himmler refused to admit it: ‘You see, General, I don’t think the Russians are going to attack.’ ibid.
Hitler gradually shut himself into his own world. ibid.
Stalin’s army plundered shamelessly in this land of plenty. ibid.
Across the whole German territory close to two million women are thought to have been raped. ibid.
She is perhaps Hitler’s best-known victim. Her book has sold more than twenty-five million copies and has been translated into at least fifty-five languages. She has become a symbol of the ten million souls murdered by the Nazis, Jews and non-Jews and in particular the one and a half million innocent children. She was just fifteen when she died, a miserable and lonely death in a concentration camp in Germany yet she is remembered for her faith in humanity. Anne Frank Remembered, 1995
The landlord of their apartment turned out to be a Nazi party member and in March 1931 they moved. The bank owned by the family also had serious problems resulting in its complete collapse in the Spring of 1933. ibid.
In those years before the war Holland was generally good to its Jewish refugees from Germany. ibid.
At first they conducted a hearts and minds campaign to win over the Dutch, their Aryan brothers. ibid.
From the beginning Anna addressed her diary as a special friend. ibid.
For almost a year he [Otto] had been secretly preparing a hiding place for them all … in several rooms behind the company offices. ibid.
Her increasing problems with her mother … ‘She’s not a mother to me …’ ibid.
Any one of them could have called the authorities at any time to collect the reward for betraying the Jews in hiding. ibid.
Their world collapsed … The authorities had been tipped off by an anonymous phone call. ibid.
Clermond-Ferrand: 134,000 residents in the Puys-de-Dome region … the capital of France from 1940 to 1944: ‘But the two emotions I experienced the most were the sorrow and the pity.’ The Sorrow and the Pity, 1969
Chronicle of a French city under occupation. ibid.
Lasting peace is what we need. There’s nothing dumber than fighting. ibid. farmer
These are the black brothers of the French. ibid. German newsreel of prisoners
Then they began to see that we just wanted to help. ibid. German invader
Suddenly, treason was everywhere. There was a will to surrender. ibid. Frenchman
My heart is heavy as I tell you today that we must stop fighting. ibid. Marshal Petain’s radio broadcast
Marshal Petain guaranteed a new order, renewed honour etc. ibid. French Nazi
For some time Petain was extremely popular. ibid. Frenchman
There were 1,600 sailors killed by the British Navy. ibid. French Nazi
Give me your watch, I’ll give you the time. ibid. slogan
The races started up again and continued until 1944. ibid. Frenchman
There were 15,000 French sailors in Liverpool … The desire to get out [of the war] was almost spiteful. ibid.
Anti-Semitism had also begun to rear its ugly head. ibid.
In 1940 Vichy came out with the Jewish decrees. ibid.
Some women dated Germans. But they paid for that later, after liberation. ibid.
German-French cooperation is the solution, they would say. ibid.
The people who helped me most were the railwaymen, and though it’s hard to admit now, the communists. French workers were wonderful people. ibid. undercover agent in France
The resistance was a permanent guerrilla war. ibid. Frenchman
They didn’t know how welcomed they would be in England. ibid.
Soldiers felt they were the guardians of the right wing. ibid.
We, the fans of collaboration, the bloodthirsty. ibid. French fascist
October 1938: Adolf Hitler made his triumphant entrance into Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, home to three million German-speaking Czechs. Secrets of War s1e1: German Intelligence in WW2, 1998
An immense organisation of undercover spies and listening posts all over the world. ibid.
A peculiar relationship between Germany’s top spymasters. ibid.
By 1942 Reinhardt Heydrich had personally assumed responsibility for the systematic extermination of Europe’s Jewish population. ibid.
More than a hundred million-pound notes were eventually printed but they were never dropped on England. ibid.
At sea, radio was even more indispensable … The secret weapon of the blitzkrieg – the lightning war – would be war; it was also its secret weakness. Secrets of War s1e2: The Ultra Enigma
The power of the Enigma was in the vast number of crypto-variables. ibid.
Bletchley was learning to combine signals intelligence with traffic analysis. ibid.
The Battle of Britain was the RAF’s finest hour. ibid.
1942: In north Africa the Allies battled back. ibid.
The Bletchley Group created the world’s first electronic computer. ibid.
August 1944, somewhere in eastern France: This woman is about to embark on a clandestine mission behind German lines. She’s a member of the French resistance … Her codename is Millie … A signal-core camera captures the final preparations of her mission … If she fails she risks torture or execution. She represents the thousands of women who played a vital role in all phases of espionage during World War II. Secrets of War s1e3: Women Spies in World War II
By World War I women began to take on a broader role in intelligence gathering. ibid.