German Paratroopers are ordered to hold the line at Monte Cassino in Italy, and halt the allied advance on Rome.

(28 Feb 1944) The decision to attack the monastery, occupied and fortified by the Germans, was a military necessity. The results of the decision are vividly portrayed in the following sensational pictures.

The months-long battle of Monte Cassino, one of the bloodiest of the second World War, is related by the Germans and Allied troops who fought it. Men of the 1st/4th Essex Battalion and the German paratroop regiment are to the fore here, as they were 60 years ago.

Documentary - The story of the Battle of Monte Cassino where, in 1944, the Allies tried to break through the German lines to reach Rome. It was the bloodiest battle of the war in the West and its story is told by men who fought in the American, British and Polish divisions that stormed the rugged Italian mountains to come to grip with elite German paratroopers.

The Allied D-Day invasion is a success, and German forces begin leave Normandy. After an ambush takes out a set of Panzer tanks led by German Lt. Hunter, he finds himself alone with his unit in what may be the last Panzer that's still operational. While traveling through the French countryside, Cooper meets Jeanette, a woman who offers to lead the troops back to Germany, but his feelings for her get in the way of his survival instincts.

War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins Company C, 18th Infantry as this American army unit fights its way across North Africa in World War II. He comes to know the soldiers and finds much human interest material for his readers back in the States. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2000.