Allied forces had planned to take the French city of Caen on D-Day, but more than a month later, German troops still cling stubbornly to the critical hub, bottling up 860,000 Allied soldiers on the Normandy beachhead. On July 8th, a Canadian regiment must capture the Abbaye d’Ardenne, which guards the city but is held by a notorious Panzer unit accused of horrific war crimes.
Desperately needing men and supplies to feed the Allied advance after D-Day, the Allies target the deep water port of Brest, France occupied by the Nazis since 1940. During the month-long siege, the US 116TH Infantry Regiment storms a fort protected by minefields and defended by elite paratroopers. When flame-throwing tanks fail, they turn to an explosive solution to bring down the walls.
Six months after D-Day, the war in Europe reaches a stalemate. As Allied forces close in on the German border, supply lines fail to keep up and fighting conditions deteriorate as winter sets in. US Rangers must capture Hill 400, a critical peak which permits observation of enemy activity for miles around, including a secret Nazi build up preparing for the infamous Battle of the Bulge.
After Adolf Hitler’s suicide during the final days of World War Two, an American Tank Commander leads a motley mix of German and American soldiers determined to protect French VIP prisoners held in a castle in the Austrian alps from loyal Nazi troops. When their tank is struck and the Waffen SS forces attack, it is not clear they will be able to hold out.
When an American regiment drives for the coast to liberate the French port city of St Malo, they encounter stiff Nazi resistance and every road blocked. Even when the 3rd Battalion does break through, within hours, they find the roadblock retaken by Nazi forces and the Battalion surrounded by the enemy. Cut off from food, reinforcement and medical care, the saga of the Lost Battalion begins.
December 1944. Determined to recapture the port of Antwerp, Hitler mobilizes a massive surprise offensive into the Ardennes Forest against undermanned American lines. The plan relies on speed and paved roads to advance tanks to Bastogne, then Antwerp before the Allies can mobilize a response. US forces fight to extinction to slow the Nazi advance allowing for the legendary defense of Bastogne.
January 1945. As part of the Allied campaign to liberate France, the Americans 7th Infantry Regiment prepares to capture the village of Houssen in the Colmar Pocket. To drive Nazi forces back across the Rhine, a decorated battle hero volunteers for a dangerous role as forward artillery observer to counter an attack by elite Mountain Division troops, despite efforts to keep him safe.
September 1944. After liberating much of France, Luxembourg and Belgium Allied forces launch General Bernard Montgomery's ambitious plan to end the war in 1944. Operation Market Garden is the largest airborne operation ever, but over confidence and miscalculations trap Allied soldiers behind Nazi lines in desperate attempts to capture bridgeheads. When they fail, the fight for survival begins.
As part of the Allied effort to open the port in Antwerp, the Canadian First Army spends weeks clearing the Scheldt Peninsula in Holland. On November 1st, 1944, the Calgary Highlanders launch a diversionary attack against a heavily defended causeway. With the Germans distracted, Allied Commandos carry out an amphibious assault on Walcheren Island, the final Nazi stronghold guarding the port.
March 1945. As Allied armies line up along the River Rhine prepared to invade Nazi Germany, the generals jostle for the honor to be the first to cross. Hitler has ordered that no bridge is to fall into Allied hands. So when a surprise opportunity develops, there is a dramatic race to capture a crossing intact, which could change the course of the war.
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.
In June 1944, paratroopers from the 101st Airborne race to secure the French city of Carentan and open a link between the American forces on Omaha and Utah beaches. But Nazi paratroopers arrive first and pin them down outside of the city. Running out of options, their commander orders a daring bayonet charge to break through the Nazi defenses.
As the war finally arrives on German soil, US soldiers must smash through two layers of the infamous Siegfried Line to capture the city of Aachen.
A Japanese American regiment fights through darkened forests, heavy rains, and entrenched Nazis to reach a lost US battalion in the Vosges Mountains.
As the Battle of the Bulge rages, a young US scout becomes separated from his regiment and spends the night trapped behind the enemy line.
After a nighttime crossing of the Savio River, a platoon of Canadian tank hunters fights off Nazi Panther tanks with only the weapons they can carry.
In a bid a bid to support the Battle of the Bulge, Himmler launches a surprise offensive into France against nearly arrived, green US troops.
In July of 1944, French resistance fighters called Maquisards declare a Free French Republic on the remote Vercors plateau in eastern France to support the Allied invasion of Normandy.
In August 1944, when Hitler launches Operation Lüttich to retake the port city of Avranches, German panzer and SS troops quickly overrun the French town of Mortain and encircle a battalion of US soldiers who hold the high ground on Hill 314.
In the autumn of 1944, Patton's Third Army approaches the heavily fortified region of Metz; after being turned back from Fort Driant, Patton's men target Fort Koenigsmacker a month later.
In February 1945, Allied forces lead an attack out of the Netherlands and onto German soil west of the Rhine defended by elite paratrooper units; a Canadian battalion administrator must assume command of a company and lead them into battle.
When his company attempts to capture a small village, an American soldier, born in Mexico but raised in Texas, must crawl through an enemy minefield to capture two German machine gun nests holding up his unit.
An American 2nd lieutenant sends his company back during an enemy counterattack during the Allied bid to clear the Colmar Pocket; he tries to hold off the German soldiers with his carbine rifle and calling in artillery but runs out of bullets.
