Now commanding two tanks, fourteen Americans, and Gangel’s Wehrmacht troops, Lee set off through the center of town and toward Itter. There was only one substantial bridge over the small river that bisected the valley, and Lee discovered that the SS had wired it with demolition charges. He had the Wehrmacht troops remove the explosives, then posted Basse’s tank and its accompanying infantrymen there to protect the crossing point. Basse chose to accompany Lee to the castle, leaving Sergeant Elliot in command of Boche Buster.

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By this time Lee could see his objective just over four miles ahead, and he ordered his driver to move out carefully. His caution was justified: within minutes, the Sherman rounded a curve in the road and almost drove over a squad of SS troops trying to set up a roadblock. The infantrymen riding on the tank’s rear deck opened fire, as did the Sherman’s bow machine gunner and Gangel’s troops in the truck, and the SS troops fled into the surrounding woods. Lee ordered his driver to “open her up,” and the tank slued around another corner and up the road to the castle, the Wehrmacht truck close behind. Roaring over the short bridge at the top of the road, the vehicles lurched to a stop directly in front of Itter’s main gate as night began to fall.

The arrival of the eagerly anticipated rescue force left Castle Itter’s French “guests” decidedly unimpressed. The former prisoners had been expecting a column of armor supported by masses of heavily armed American soldiers. What they got was a lone tank, seven Americans, and—to their chagrin—a truckload of armed Germans.

While Gangel went out of his way to be polite and accommodating to the French, Lee was apparently his typically brash self. Paul Reynaud must have found the American lieutenant particularly irritating, for in his postwar memoirs the former prime minister remembered Lee as “crude in both looks and manners,” and sniffed, “If Lee is a reflection of America’s policies, Europe is in for a hard time.”

Crude or not, Lee knew his job. Within minutes of arriving at Castle Itter he had compiled a list of the French notables, positioned the Sherman in front of the main gate so it could command the road, and began rustling up food and bunks for his hungry, tired men. After a brief round of celebratory toasts with the French, Lee, Basse, Gangel, and the young SS officer from the village set off to scout defensive positions and talk over strategy.

Lee’s plan was simple: since he didn’t have enough vehicles to move his men, the French, and the Germans back to Kufstein, he’d stay put and wait to be relieved by advancing American forces. While the presence of Waffen-SS units in the immediate area was a worry, Lee believed that Castle Itter’s thick walls would allow his tiny force to hold off all but the most determined attackers.

His theory was put to the test far sooner than he’d expected. Just after eleven o’clock that evening, Waffen-SS troops in the hills opened fire on the castle with rifles and machine guns. Whether they had come specifically to eliminate the French VIPs or had just decided to wipe out the small Allied force in their midst remains unclear, but the result was the same.

Lee’s men and the Wehrmacht troops moved to their prearranged positions and began returning fire. The shooting from both sides remained desultory until dawn, but with first light things turned serious. Machine guns pounded the exterior walls and blew out the narrow windows of the central housing block. Then an 88mm antitank gun lobbed a shell into the upper floor of the main building, destroying Gamelin’s empty room. Moments later, a second 88 round slammed into Lee’s tank as Corporal Szymcyk was preparing to fire its main gun at SS men in the village. Szymcyk jumped from the tank and ran to cover behind the castle gate just before its gas tanks blew, turning the Sherman into an inferno.

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