The series continues apace with participant and expert testimony, a judicious blend of combat footage and computer-generated graphics, spoiled by editorial techniques more suited to a thirty-second television commercial for an underarm deodorant.
Patton has been taken back from exile and now leads his army in an attempt to break out of the Normandy beach head, which is only some thirty miles inland. The Americans decide the quickest way to do this is to "pulverize" the German infantry and armor that are putting up such a spirited defense.
An armada of bombers and ground-attack aircraft are called in and flatten miles of French territory around the village of St. Lo. In his history of the landings, Steven Ambrose remarks that the GIs found the French civilians sullen and attributes this to regional character. It doesn't seem to occur to Ambrose that if you pulverize many square miles of France, you are going to destroy civilians as well as Germans and that they're likely to be less appreciative of their liberation. To compound the problem, one squadron of B-17s dumps its load on the American front line, killing many.
A flashback explains that Patton had been sent into exile for making "two monumental errors." One is slapping two soldiers, both from the First Infantry Division, in a hospital, suffering from combat fatigue. Patton, like many other Army officers, didn't believe in combat fatigue. But this isn't entirely accurate. The first soldier, Kuhl, also had malaria. And Patton didn't merely slap him. He dragged him by the collar to the tent entrance and kicked him in the butt, swearing and shouting that this coward would be sent back to the front at once.
The second soldier, Bennett, a four-year veteran, had been sleepless and was ridden with anxiety. He had a fever and showed symptoms of dehydration, including fatigue, confusion, and listlessness. He repeatedly asked to be returned to his outfit at the front but the medical officers turned him down. Patton called him a "yellow bastard," knocked his helmet liner off and pulled a pistol. The medical personnel had to separate them.
Exit General George S. Patton for a year. His exile was put to good use. He was designated commander of the First US Army Group in England and it was hinted that he would lead the invasion of Normandy. There was no First US Army Group but the Germans believed it.
At Normandy the skilled German defense remains and, in frustration, General Omar Bradley orders another armada of bombers and fighter bombers to pulverize the enemy. They do so, but they also repeat the mistake of the first armada and bomb American troops, again killing many, including Lieutenant General Lesley McNair, who is only identified later by the three stars on his lapel.
Patton takes his armored division down the Atlantic coast of France, isolating the German U-boat pens located there, then Bradley unleashes him and he attacks to the east, towards a town called Falaise, where the episode ends.
It's a minor carp but the narrator continues to mispronounce both German and French names. General Kluge become General "Cloodje." Falaise becomes "Falay." Why didn't somebody TELL him?