After a summer of bloody fighting in France and the harrowing retreat through the Falaise Gap, the boy soldiers of Germany's notorious 12th SS Panzer Division regrouped in the winter of 1944-45. During the ensuing Battle of the Bulge in the snow-encrusted Ardennes, the division fought tenaciously against combat-hardened Americans but suffered irreplaceable losses. Within days of withdrawing, the survivors were transported to Hungary to make a desperate final stand against the Soviet onslaught. Facing an increasingly hopeless situation, the battered division was driven into Austria, where it surrendered to U.S. forces on May 8, 1945.