Battle Of The Bulge. - Review - video recording reviews

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 1999

BATTLE OF THE BULGE SHANACHIE ENTERTAINMENT 90 MINUTES, $24.95 (DVD)

On Dec. 16, 1944, Nazi Germany launched one last desperate attack on the American forces who had been pouring across Europe since D-Day. With a battle plan personally designed by Adolf Hitler, 250,000 German troops--a combination of elite Waffen SS and the Volksgrenadier, the so-called People's Infantry made up of "cripples, convicts, grandfathers, and children"--broke through a thinly defended 80-mile front between southern Belgium and Luxembourg, driving a 50-mile "bulge" into the Ardennes forest. The aim was to split U.S. and British lines, penetrate to the Belgium port city of Antwerp, and, ultimately, negotiate a favorable peace settlement.

The ensuing five weeks proved to be the bloodiest battle in American military history, leaving 16,000 U.S. dead and 60,000 wounded. With 25 divisions to four and a half for the Allies and aided by 0 [degrees] F temperature, snow, and fog that kept U.S. air support grounded, the Germans chewed up the outnumbered Allied troops and surrounded the town of Bastogne. When they demanded surrender, U.S. Gen. Tony McAuliffe uttered his now-famous response--"Nuts!"--and the American soldiers dug into the frozen battlefield, fighting to buy time for Gen. George Patton to race across Luxembourg with his tank divisions and come to their aid.

The situation became so critical that Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt contemplated dropping the still-experimental atomic bomb on Germany. Ultimately, though, American GIs were the deciding factor. The 101st Airborne Division was rushed in via truck to reinforce Bastogne, and on Dec. 23, the weather finally cleared, allowing supplies to be parachuted in and American bombers and fighters to pound the German lines. Ironically, it was in the ensuing counterattack to drive Hitler's forces back out of the territory they had taken, rather than in the valiant defensive effort, that the U.S. troops suffered the majority of their casualties.

Utilizing archival American and German films, newsreel footage, and interviews with the men who fought the Battle of the Bulge, their experiences still etched deeply into their minds more than a half-century later, this gripping video shows war the way it really is, not as Hollywood portrays it. As such, it is a stirring tribute to the American foot soldier.