Against the Odds

Adolf Hitler said Germany’s attempt to take back France would be “the most decisive of the war.” But a small group of National Guardsmen, sitting atop Hill 314 in the little-known town of Mortain, would change everything. Their courage and sacrifice would help save France—and mark the beginning of the end of Hitler.

The First Marine Division engaged in a ferocious struggle with the Japanese at Peleliu. It would take 74 days and cost 10,000 American lives, but the courage of this small band of heroes would ultimately break the back of the enemy.

The noble warriors of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines face down an overwhelming North Vietnamese Army in Dai Do and rescue their fellow Marines. Though tattered, torn and depleted, the men of Echo Company dig deep to repeatedly deny the enemy its victory.

Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, helped lead the charge into Iraq’s most dangerous city in 2004. Battling in the bloodiest, most sustained house-to-house urban combat American soldiers had seen since Vietnam proves costly beyond measure.

Charlie Company of the 1st Cavalry Division wanders into an NVA stronghold. A blistering attack leaves supplies low, casualties mounting and the enemy circle tightening. But Team Alpha, hearing the distress calls, volunteers to pull off the difficult rescue.

The paratroopers of Fighting Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment fought and died from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. Their sheer determination against the enemy was matched only by their devotion to one another.

When Colonel MacFarland arrived in Iraq's deadliest city, the odds could not have been worse. Al-Qaeda had arrogantly declared Ramadi capital of a new caliphate. The boys of MacFarland’s Ready First Combat Team would fight to give America a clear victory.

The city of Hue, South Vietnam, was the site of one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam War. Three understrength U.S. Marine battalions, consisting of fewer than 2,500 men, attacked and soundly defeated overwhelming, entrenched enemy troops, liberating Hue for South Vietnam. The Marines At Hue tells the story of one of the most significant battles of Vietnam, while zooming in to provide an under-the-helmet perspective, as we follow the young men of Fox Company 2nd Batt/5th Marines right down to their individual squads.

This is the untold true story of “Bloody George,” an understrength, undermanned, Marine rifle company, hastily called to serve their country in 1950 at the start of the Korean War. As the war turned apocalyptic, a cruel twist of fate awaited Bloody George. Their small numbers would face overwhelming enemies, in barbaric battles of carnage, from the invasion of Inchon, to the bloody street battles of Seoul and the frozen hell of the Chosin Reservoir. They would endure unimaginable horrors as they desperately fought in hand-to-hand combat to save their fellow brothers trapped by a merciless enemy. Their courage would be legendary, their fight, epic. Their valor and sacrifice would forever change the course of the war. But few would survive.

The capture of the island of Okinawa proved to be one of the most incredible and costly engagements of WWII. The key to the taking of Okinawa was an otherwise nondescript hill dubbed Sugar Loaf Hill. The epic battle would come down to the sheer courage, ingenuity, guts and sacrifices of the young men of Charlie Company. The Battle for Sugar Loaf Hill captures all the fury, heartbreak and spectacular moments of those seven days of Hell that would forever change the course of history.

In December of 1944, the seemingly defeated Germans secretly mustered 600,000 battle-hardened troops, including whole SS Panzer Divisions, into an all-out offensive to capture Antwerp, the heart of the Allied supply chain. What the Germans couldn't have anticipated was the courage and can-do against the odds of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion.

Everything went wrong in America’s first test of whether the Japanese-held islands of the Pacific, the key steppingstones to the doorstep of Japan, could be captured by across-the-beach infantry assaults.