At the platoon level, Lt. Hanley is ordered to take a strategic hill that overlooks a needed road, and the hill is protected by two concrete bunkers with German machine guns and infantry in each bunker. Saunders gets hit in his thigh in the first assault on the bunkers while several other GIs are killed. Hanley asks for artillery support, but his company commander tells Hanley he will have to take the hill without artillery support. Hanley tries several different strategies to take the hill, but each time the men go up the hill, the overwhelming fire from the bunkers stop them, and each time they leave a few more dead GIs on the hill.
—David Wile