power to prosper. december 1942. it was 20 degrees below 0. hitler's under the command of the general was locked in a life

and death struggle with stalin's red army. one of the russian soldiers inside stalingrad. >> we held the center of the city but almost no one was left. the germans bombed every day trying to destroy all the buildings. it was getting cold and we had no heat. >> this point in time hitler is exercising command and control personally. >> begins a long standing policy out this point. you will not withdraw. >> the ground is beginning to freeze. >> hitler and the generals believe it's a necessary condition to conduct the final drive. >> like so many before them, german soldiers began to die from the bitter russian winter. their mercy louse bombing blasted the city to ruins. >> translator: nothing remained. there were only walls of the buildings. but we lived in basements. i can only describe it as hell. >> it was the most intense fighting man kind has ever seen.

>> translator: we had no idea where the germans were. if you went inside a building, the germans would be in the basement. on the third floor, then the enemy one floor below. that's how we lived. right alongside the germans. >> cunning and deception was vital. it was the perfect setting for snipers. >> translator: yes, there were a lot of snipers. throughout the city. of course the most famous. >> the expert hunter as a boy. he was brought in to hunt germans. >> translator: i saw him a few times. he was a real siberian. a great hunter and an excellent sniper. >> he moved through the rubble for weeks. the germans called it rat e.n.krig. he killed 242 german soldiers, the most famous, a super sniper

brought stalingrad to find the siber siberia. it was brought to the big screen in "enemy at the gates." >> translator: my brother fought with him. he proved himself a great sniper. >> russians are now getting airplanes from the united states. do they play any role in the defense of stalingrad. >> the overall increase of receipts of weaponry play a significant if not critical role of the ability of the red army to defend in 1942. >> translator: we knew that america and great britain were helping us. >> in stalingrad, hitler suffered his first major defeat. two massive thrusts to the north and south of the city encircled the remainder of the 6th army. >> turning points to russia. >> 22 german divisions encircles and the defenses are being shattered. >> 800,000 german soldiers died at stalingrad and a brutal day

in february 1943, the general surrendered the remaining 110,000 troops. they looked more dead than alive. it was the beginning of the end for adolph hitler. >> i had no idea where i was. it was all mystique. they gave me a ticket and in one daytime i flew into teheran. >> 23-year-old didn't know she would be joining churchill, roosevelt and stalin in the most important meeting of the war to date. >> again, i had no idea why i was brought there. they said with your background of knowledge of languages, they took me into the intelligence. >> she was no stranger to soviet jengs. her father was an intelligence officer and her stepfather the man assigned to orchestrate the assassination of stalin's most bitter enemy. the extraordinary life is kroel kled in "inside russia."

>> i was working at the press department at the embassy. i was translating the war bulletins from russian into english and they were distributed amongst the embassies. >> what was decided at teheran. >> they were miffed because we hadn't opened a second front, at least they considered we hadn't and pushing that issue of second front. >> november 28th, 1943. stalin played host at the embassy. >> it was an old mansion. it was very impressive. >> you are looking at actual film from day one of the conference. there, in the corner, is zoya. >> mr. roosevelt was already in. churchill was in and sitting at the table and i had no idea when stalin is coming. i had an urgent errand. i was rushing. i saw that the military standing at attention. i said, why should they stand at attention? and the door was open. and i rushed in to somebody's

shoulder and i really pushed hard and to my amazement i saw it was the ranking officer was the highest in the country. >> zoya literally just run into josef stalin. >> i said to myself, now they're going to shoot me. so i will tell you, i was so frightened. the first feeling you had you were disappointed by his physical features. he was short. he was fragile. he had a lot of smallpox marks on his face. >> in teheran, he asked roosevelt for more supplies to fight the war. ships were moving car gunshot go and aircraft flying over the alaska. >> syria route. >> we're sending in massive amounts of material. >> the soviets received more material. >> at the closing dinner of the

conference, stalin toasted the american aircraft and their pilots. zoya stayed in teheran to work as a translator for american and british troops delivering tons of supplies. >> they were safeguarding the route they took from the persian gulf up to the soviet union. >> but it wasn't all work all the time. amongst the g.i.s, she was regarded as a beautiful pin-up girl and the teheran conference was a high moment in u.s.-soviet relations. >> they put all their ideological differences aside. they had one aim in mind. the need to be together to fight the common enemy. >> coming up, the red army begins the race to berlin. with them, a young american from the 101st airborne who escaped a nazi prison camp. you'll meet him next.

by 1944, the alaska siberia

route was in full swing. betty and steve alison were among the hundreds of pilots delivering thousands of air cobras to the russians. betty almost paid the ultimate price. in a p-39 over montana. >> i was about 20 minutes from great falls and it could going. i was trying to get it started. and it just wouldn't do it. weren't you afraid someone said. the answer to that is, no. and i actually waited a little too long to get out of the airplane. i bailed out to count to three and pull your rip cord. and so i swung once and came down outside of hobson, montana. i got out pretty late but safely. >> betty showed "war stories" what was left of her p-39. >> this is part of my airplane.

it usually has montana dirt around it. i saved some of the dirt. >> to this day, betty believes there was a reason her plane's enjoy failed. >> i think it was sabotaged. and the sign of safety said that it had impurities in the gasoline from niagara falls. >> meanwhile, steve alison was still flying dozens of p-39s to america's last frontier. >> the city of fairbanks wasn't very large but it was the end of the run as far as we were concerned. >> russian pilots as soon as they got into ladd field spent a lot of time in town. they had u.s. dollars with them. real good greenbacks. >> there was one time we went into the fairbanks to the local liquor establishment and two russian pilots came in. clerk behind the counter, he says, vodka?

and the big old russian boy says, nyet. whiskey. whiskey. vodka, nyet. he didn't want any part of vodka. he had enough of that. he wanted some whiskey. >> the american made fighter planes took off for russia. >> 7,926 aircraft were transferred out of fairbanks. >> but the beginning of 1945 the russians were grinding the germans back to berlin. outside of warsaw, to land, the red army found an escaped american prisoner of war. >> only american that fought with the russian army we know of? >> yes. >> 21-year-old joe byerly was a long way from his home in mus coe gone, michigan. >> when you enlisted, how did you happen to choose the airborne? >> camp custer at that time. a sergeant came in and he said any of you men want to jump out of airplanes? and i says, i will.

>> how did you pick up that nickname? >> first time i rode in an airplane i jumped out of it. first 40 times i rode in an airplane i jumped out of it. >> joe joined the 101 z airborne the screaming eagles. he parachuted into normandy on d-day. >> i estimated five seconds too soon and i landed on a church. >> joe landed safely only to be captured two days later. germans shipped him off to a p.o.w. camp. they put you on the 40 and 8. that's the size of the boxcar. >> they put 50 men in there. they locked us in for seven days and seven nights. and they unlocked the doors in germany. >> a big prisoner of war camp. is that where the mug shot is taken? >> that was when i was registered as a prisoner of war and then from there on september 17th, 1944, we were moved loaded

in boxcars again and moved. we were the first americans in that camp. >> they move you east in spite of the fact that the german army is getting ready for the major attack to collapse the eastern front? >> yes. >> joe tried to escape three times. tell me about the last escape. >> we knew every afternoon there was a man came in there on a horse and wagon. he had three barrels. they were loaded when he came in and empty when he went out. we waited and got in the barrels and rode off. we took off down and scrubbed pines, zigzagging. the two guys escaped with me were killed. and i took off and i went ace for a couple of days and i could hear the guns coming and coming. >> the gun fire was coming from the red army under the command of zukoff charging toward berlin. >> i went into a farm yard and

hit in a halo and waited two days. one night the russians came by. if i identify myself, i went down and, hands up. met a -- with that fortunately i was taken to the battalion commander who was a female. i told her that i wanted to go with my brothers, my comrades, and defeat the hitler-its. i figured that that was the quickest way home because they were going to berlin. i couldn't get to berlin on my own. >> how a russian general helps >> how a russian general helps joe of the 101st airborne get i'm leaving the track behind, but i'm not standing still... >> how a russian general helps joe of the 101st airborne get and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ ♪

i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ ♪ everything is working, working, just like it should ♪

now part of the soviet army? >> yeah. part of the soviet army. >> poland, january 1945. sitting in a soviet tank formation, american joe beyerle part of the red army soldiers racing toward berlin. >> this was the vanguard of the soviet army closing in on berlin. >> we were in the zugof front. >> soviet general zuhoff he are of leningrad was spearheading the drive. you had studebaker trucks. you were earn-made sherman tanks? >> yeah. dodge ton and a halves. >> survived the siege at leningrad and at 17 he signed up. >> translator: i wanted to go fight on the front. in poland, our tanks race forward but the germans still kept attacking. >> though on the defensive, 2

million soldiers were fighting to the death. >> caught in a draw and i was about the fifth tank back. came to a halt. >> 50 miles from berlin, a squadron of germans attacked. >> all hell breaking loose in and they're chattering in russian. i was blowing off the tank. i woke up in a russian hospital. i had a groin wound and i was in the knee and several other places. >> hospital idesed over a week, joe could never have imagined what would happen next. >> one morning in the ward this little short man kind of pudgy came in and was marshal zukoff. i recommendsed him. he went from bed to bed. got to me. he wanted to know how i got to where i was, i told him i was captured and i had escaped. did say through the interpreter, is there anything i can do for

you? and i said, yes. i do not have any identification. he didn't say anything. and the next day the interpreter came back with an envelope and he says, it's a passport. it will get you anyplace you want to go. two days later i took off. i got on a hospital train and a couple weeks later e end up in moscow. anyway, we end up at the embassy. i go up toward the marine guard and i said i came from the eastern front. i was wounded. i want to turn myself in to the american. >> after 30 days of fighting with the russians, joe was on the home to america. he told his story in the book "the simple sounds of freedom." for seven days in early february 1945, the big three met at yal that, a soviet resort on the black sea. again in the center of history, 25-year-old zoya was there the

day they divided the world. >> in that wonderful big room were the fireplace and roundtable and discussion took place. >> germmy would be occupied. >> it was an important to stalin politically to have the conference in yalta? >> absolutely. he understood there were people who would like to get rid of him. all paranoids are, he is suspicious. >> even towards zoya. >> probably they didn't trust me too much because i was too friendly with the americans to the first time in teheran. >> goodwill among the allies quickly dissipating. and the 63-year-old president roosevelt was falling ill. >> i have seen those eyes and i was mesmerized. it was absolutely clear in his mind but i saw that he was suffering. >> yalta would be his last meeting with churchill and stalin. he'd not live to see victory in europe nor the collapse of the anti-hitler alliance.

may 1945. as american and british troops invaded germany from the west, the red army ruthlessly pounded hitler's capital from the west. nickolai entered the city on the front lines. >> translator: the street fighting was just horrible. fire was coming from every window. germans had a famous -- defending the city. >> the red army suffered almost 400,000 casualties in the final battle for berlin but it was a small fraction of the 20 million soviet people already dead from the war. >> translator: the germans started to come out of their homes and they hung white flags from every window. >> adolph hitler committed suicide and the thousand-year reich was vanquished. together, american and russian soldiers celebrated the great victory. and around the world, it was the same. from times square to london to

moscow. >> everybody in the street kissed everybody. >> the russians, the americans and the british turned the tide of what could have been disaster worldwide. >> over $10 billion in aid from the united states to russia. but the celebration of victory was short lived. by 1947, stalin was showing his true intentions. now in control of eastern europe, he ruthlessly established puppet communist dictatorships throughout the region. >> goose stepping in the baltic and iron curtain descended across the continent. >> there's more ahead on "war stories."

jackie: as an 18 year old,

i let my mistakes kind of take over my life. i was point-five credits away from completing high school and i didn't do it. angela: i got pregnant and i was the main one working so, i did what i had to do to survive. jocelyn: sentía que la escuela no era para mí. karim: most of my family they never graduated high school or even let alone go to college so i'm trying to break that barrier. jackie: my family never stopped pushing for me to be better because they knew what i could become and who i could become as a person. karim: everyday after work i went straight to school, studied hard, and it paid off. jocelyn: sentía como que si quiero cambiar el mundo tengo que cambiara mi primero. group: surprise! surprise! surprise! angela: i could not have gotten my diploma without my family. jocelyn: mi consejera, ella fue lo máximo para mí porque me ayudó mucho con todo.

jackie: i've been given an opportunity and i'm just thankful for it. angela: yeah it's hard, but keep on going and keep on trying. karim: the high school diploma has just added to the confidence and now i feel unstoppable. narrator: find free adult education classes near you at finishyourdiploma.org it was my duty to volunteer to help save the world from the

hitler-ites. >> the men and women that served in world war ii faced adversity with extraordinary courage. >> many tragedies but this is my land. i love it. >> we understood it was an important role to get aircraft to them. >> this plaque dedicated 50 years after the exchange of aircraft began here at ladd field recommendses a new relationship between the united states and russia. >> translator: i just hope that america and russia can always be allies. >> global struggle to defeat the axis powers in world war ii was the bloodiest encounter in mankind's deadliest century. democracies with dictatorship less than two years after the end of the war, the soviets were our adversaries. today, the soldiers and airmen who use hangar 1 are the inhe t inheriters of a great legacy. those that kept an alliance today to defeat an evil axis.

theirs is a war story that deserves to be told. i'm oliver north. good night. fox report. shep is back tuesday. captioning by closed captioning services, inc. >> tonight, on war stories investigates, george s patton could motivate the troops. >> we said, that's impossible and then we did the impossible. >> oliver:, but he was a lightning rod for controversy. >> my grandfather brought problems to eisenhower. >> oliver: he was paralyzed in the car crash. >> my grandmother hired several private detectives. >> oliver: was it an accident?,p five. silent hill and scary movie 4. "war stories with oliver north" starts right now.