American Experience (TV Series) The Battle of the Bulge: World War II's Deadliest Battle (1994) User Reviews

About as good as you can find....

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 25 May 2012]

An extremely high percentage of the topics covered on "The American Experience" are ones that you seldom hear about otherwise. Marcus Garvey, Nellie Bly, Minik the Eskimo and the Greely Expedition are just a few topics covered in the shows that you'll rarely hear about otherwise. However, a few times, the show talks about events that have been covered a lot, but this isn't a problem because in most cases the show did a better job of it that you'd see on other documentaries and films. This is definitely the case with "The Battle of the Bulge: World War II's Deadliest Battle". There are several films about it (including "Battleground" and "The Battle of the Bulge") and MANY documentaries (the History Channel seems to talk about it every week), but none are as complete and compelling as this show--though I do applaud "Battleground" for giving a good account of the soldiers' personal experiences in this awful battle.

As you'd expect, the show is filled with lots of great interviews with various survivors, lots of stock footage and excellently written and delivered narration. It's top-notch all around and did a good job of conveying the sort of hellish fight that the battle entailed. Well worth seeing--and a great reminder of the sacrifices our vets have made.

After the Ball Was Over.

[rmax304823 · 8/10 · 9 February 2013]

The usual scenario for the Battle of the Bulge goes something like this. The front line through the Ardennes forest runs through Luxemburg, Belgium, and France. In 1944, approaching the war's end, the four American divisions stationed there are either beaten up from recent combat and need time to recoup, or else they're green troops who are placed there to get their feet wet and undergo some on-the-job training. All is quiet.

Then, boom, twenty-five German divisions of motorized infantry and tanks burst through the almost impassable forest, taking the Americans by surprise and capturing thousands, while routing the rest, creating a "bulge" filled with German troops. The survivors and some hasty replacements huddle in the crucial village of Bastogne and, though surrounded and desperately short of all supplies, hold off the attackers until they are relieved from the south by the prescient General Patton and from the north by the dogged Montgomery. The sun breaks though, the Allies can now be supplied by air, and the victory march towards Berlin resumes. End of scenario.

According to this documentary, the scenario is close, but doesn't win the cigar, largely because the most bitter fighting was yet to come. The Battle of the Bulge didn't end when the sun came out. The "bulge" was still there and had to be compressed until the original starting line was restored. The Americans took more casualties when they took the offensive than they had during the initial German attack. Supplies were now available but not proper winter clothing. It was easy to freeze to death and even easier to lose your toes to frostbite. And replacements were difficult to scratch together, finally including band musicians and clerks who barely knew how to load a rifle, let alone fire one. Losses were so high that many replacements died before anyone had learned their names.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, two prima donnas, Patton and Montgomery, were haggling over who deserved the glory of relieving Bastogne. Montgomery went further. He not only took all credit for the relief but insisted on being placed in charge of all ground troops. Eisenhower had to threaten to fire him to get him to back off.

The film combines combat footage, still photos, and reminiscences of some of the men involved. None of them are dull, and some are so horrifying that one would like to be able to doubt them, although they're clearly honest.

The feature film, "Battleground," ends with the sun breaking through but the real story rolls on and on through weeks of unspeakable misery for the foot soldiers. This documentary deserved credit for its candor.

Good but too PBS'sh in Nature

[verbusen · 8/10 · 31 March 2013]

This is a good documentary about the Battle Of The Bulge. It basically breaks down into two parts, the part before Bastogne is relieved and the part after it is relieved and the actual "bulge" is taken back. The best part for me is that they got on film two higher level officers who witnessed the happenings on the ground level and at Bradley's headquarters. Chet Hanson was a major on Bradley's staff and in the mid 1990's (when this was made) was the last American staff officer left alive to tell the tale. He reminds me of a refined older Edward G Robinson and is very well spoken. The other officer is (then) LtCol Henry Kinnard, he is pictured with Gen Mcauliffe holding the Bastogne road sign after the battle and is the one who helped the General with the one word reply of "Nuts" to surrendering. He would later fight in Vietnam and his battle tactics in 1965 would be used for the book and film "We Were Soldiers". He would retire a 3 star general after 30 years of service. With that said, having these two men is worth viewing this alone, but what is disappointing though is that Kinnard disappears from the film immediately after Bastonge is relieved and we enter the second half which is almost all done from a foot soldiers point of view. It just seems like a waste not to have asked what he and his men did and what his views were on the way the battle was handled. Also noticeably absent was any mention of all the black support troops captured in the first days and their treatment. I watched that on the Military channel and found it fascinating listening to a living Vet tell us his story, I'm really surprised PBS didn't go there. The second half goes into shell shock and the extreme casualties and while that is all worth talking about, seems a waste to devote as much time as it did when they still had living command officers to interview about tactical and strategic actions taking place. Perhaps Kinnard only wanted to input up to Bastogne, if so I wonder why? His career was set in stone and would only have been enhanced more to tell it like it was. More likely the film makers just left him out, maybe even edited out his input because it did not go with the storyline? I guess we will never know. Still worth an 8 of 10 for history buffs.