Bombing missions over Europe. An aerial view of a bombing target. A mountainous terrain with a river and forests. A fleet of B-24 bombers fly in formation. They drop bombs over the targets on the ground.
Henry Cabot Lodge returns as U.S. Ambassador to Saigon, Vietnam. Henry Cabot Lodge in a meeting with other officials. United States troops along with Vietnamese troops land from a helicopter in a jungle area of Vietnam. U.S. soldiers march in fields and forest area. They cross a small water stream. The 105 Howitzer emerges from helicopters. Units of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat team advance towards enemy. (Vietnam War period).
United States soldiers on alert in Michelbach, Alsace, France during World War 1. The soldiers, at the ready, with weapons in hand are in well established trenches reinforced with woven slender tree limbs and sand bags. They are in a forest with what appears to be a footbridge in the background. Troops aim their weapons.
Wounded United States soldiers in France during World War I. The soldiers load and fire gas shells. Smoke rises from the shells along a hillside. Fields in the foreground. Smoke spreads in the surrounding area. A group of soldiers advances on a field and goes towards a forest area.
German Paratroop Commander, Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Baron Friedrich August von der Heydte is seen following his surrender to U.S. forces at Monschau, Germany, during World War 2. He has a bandaged right arm, injured when he led a contingent of paratroopers in a nighttime drop during German Operation Stösser. He is being carried on a stretcher and placed aboard a U.S. Army field ambulance. ( Note: Von der Heydte commanded German paratroopers in the ill-fated parachute landings of Operation Stösser, on the Hautes Fagnes, Belgium, during the Ardennes counter-offensive. After attempting, for a couple of days, to return to German lines,through thickly forested area, the exhausted Von der Heydte gave himself up to the Americans at Monschau, Germany.)
Film begins showing a sign in English pointing to the Tower Room of the Malmedy Protestant Church. Views of burning buildings from German counteroffensive (The Battle of the Bulge) begun December 18, 1944 during World War 2. Fire fighter pouring water from a hose. A substantial church building in background. Fire fighters directing stream of water upward onto side of a burning building. Closeup of fire fighter directing stream of water. Ice from fire fighting efforts. Change of scene to British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery exiting a building with U.S. Major General Matthew Ridgway, Commanding General XVIII Airborne Corps. They greet some British officers. Closeup of Montgomery and Ridgway walking together. A tank and driver silhouetted against light sky. Allied troops riding on a Stuart Light Tank. Armor moving along a rural road. Snow on the ground. British infantry walking in the snow and then marching along a cleared road. Trucks and armored vehicles in the background.Allied troops and vehicles passing substantial buildings, as they advance. Damaged buildings near a rail line. Allied forces advancing through rural area with many trees in background. Animated map showing the Allied push-back against the German offensive, showing British forces under Montgomery pressing from Malmedy and U.S. General Patton's advancing from Bastogne. Glimpse, from above, of allied bomber over enemy target. Bombs away view of bombs dropping from bomber aircraft and detonating on the snowy ground below. Allied troops moving in snow, beside a rail line and into a town. Four Allied soldiers make a fire and warm themselves, beside a parked snow-covered M4 Sherman tank. Then they begin removing snow from the tank. Army truck moving on snow-covered road. A jeep that slid off the slippery road. Other vehicles having difficulty on the snowy road. Trucks continuing to make their way along road through the forest.