SHOOTOUT: World War II Assault on Germany

In 1944 General Eisenhower's order was short and to the point: Destroy the German army. If successful, the Allied forces would win the war in Europe. To the soldiers that meant defeating a foe bent on defending his homeland at all cost.
This programme recounts and re-enacts the vivid combat experiences of Allied soldiers who participated in one of the greatest military campaigns of World War II - the assault on Germany.

Through interviews, archive footage and re-creations, veterans share their graphic memories of assaulting the Siegfried Line, the formidable German border defence system; fighting in the Hurtgen Forest, a dark, dense wooded area that rendered tanks and air power useless; and sewing up the Ruhr Pocket, an industrial region where some of the most intense fighting in the European theatre took place.

The veterans' deeply personal stories explain what it was like to shoot and kill the enemy and conquer Germany one pillbox, one troop shelter, one hill top and one town at a time.

They shed tears over lost comrades and reveal the awful effects of combat, including the psychological stress that still haunts them sixty years later.