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It's 1989, and a former American soldier is in prison in Panama with an execution order on his head. The U.S. has just one hour to free him before a full invasion begins. [suspenseful music] - The U.S. is preparing to launch an invasion of Panama to depose General Noriega, the military dictator accused of drug trafficking, election fraud, and human rights abuses. [David] Noriega knows the U.S. is closing in. But he's got one last bargaining chip, a U.S. Army veteran locked away in one of his prisons.
[Don] Kurt Muse is imprisoned in Cárcel Modelo, a notorious Panamanian prison. He's been imprisoned for running a clandestine radio station called "The Voice of Liberty," which broadcast anti-Noriega messages. [David] It's also suspected, though never confirmed by the agency, that Kurt Muse is a CIA asset. [Andrew] Noriega has given the order that on the first sign of a U.S. invasion, Muse is supposed to be killed on the spot. In fact, there's a guard stationed outside his cell 24/7 specifically for that purpose. [David] President George H.W. Bush doesn't want to abandon Muse, so in 1989, he gives the green light for an invasion of Panama.
He issues an impossible command. Muse must be extracted first. - Delta Force, which is an elite U.S. Army unit known for their expertise in impossible missions, is selected for the task. [Greg] To prepare for this mission, they build a full-scale, three-story mock-up of the Modelo prison at a base in Florida. - Operatives conduct intense assault rehearsals with live fire and close quarters combat based on operational plans derived from intelligence.
They wanna be prepared for every eventuality. [David] By mid-December, practice is over. The invasion is set for 1:00 a.m. on the 20th. And the Delta Force operatives have one chance to get this right. They fly into a U.S. Air Force base just 4 miles from the prison. [Sami] The hour's before midnight. In secret, Delta Force operatives assume positions across the city. [David] The mission starts at the stroke of midnight. Delta operators will have just one hour to get in, grab Muse, and get out before the full U.S. invasion begins.
- Two teams of snipers move in. They target an anti-aircraft battery and the prison's main power supply. [thunder crashes] [Sami] That takes time, but eventually they manage to take it out and the whole prison is plunged into darkness. [Don] Two U.S. helicopters then approach the prison. They land on the roof and 23 Delta operatives rush out. [David] By now, 45 minutes have passed. The Delta Force operatives have only 15 minutes left to rescue Muse. [device beeps] - They load the rooftop door with explosives.
They back up, light it up, it blows up, and they're in. [Martin] Heavily-armed Delta operators make their way down the stairs to the cell where Muse is being held, and they kill the guard before he has a chance to kill Muse. [Sami] The operatives shoot the lock off the cell door. One of them shouts, "Muse! We're gonna take you home." They lead him out of his cell and up through the prison to the roof. [alarm blaring] [David] To break in, to break out, the whole thing takes just six minutes. But that's when this precision plan starts to fall apart.
- He's then loaded onto one of the little bird aircraft, one of the helicopters. And just as the pilot begins to pull pitch and climb out, it's raked by gunfire. [rapid gunfire] - The chopper falls to the earth. Muse and the pilots are unharmed, but the four Delta Force operatives are injured. Then time's up. At 1:00 a.m., the wider invasion begins. They're now caught in the middle and they're under fire. [gunshot] - The Special Forces operators, as well as Muse, take cover as fire erupts between Panamanian forces and the Delta team itself.
- The perfect extraction has suddenly fallen apart. They decide to do anything that they can. - They use strobe lights to signal U.S. aircraft that's flying overhead. - The strobe light, which is invisible to the naked eye, alerts U.S. troops to their location. [Greg] Finally, an armored personnel carrier spots their signal and it whisks them away to safety. [suspenseful music] [car rumbling] [explosion] [David] Hours later, Kurt Muse is back on U.S. soil and reunited with his family. As for Noriega, his bargaining chip is gone.
Two weeks later, he surrenders. He's brought to the U.S., where he's sentenced to 40 years for drug trafficking and money laundering. - In 2006, Kurt Muse publishes his account of the mission. And reveals the minute-by-minute details for the first time. rushed to liberate a concentration camp in the heart of Axis Italy, precision goes out the window. They load a squadron of commandos on a hijacked passenger train and pray for the best. [explosion] - In September 1943, Allied forces come ashore in southern Italy.
The objective is to liberate Italy from Axis control. [Hakeem] Across southern Italy, the plan is working. The Italians and Germans are in retreat. [David] The Germans, however, are destroying everything as they leave. 40 miles from allied lines, this spells danger for prisoners held inside a brutal concentration camp. [Sami] Pisticci is fascist Italy's first concentration camp. Nearly 1,000 prisoners are being held behind barbed wire. These include Jews, partisans from Yugoslavia, Poland, and France, as well as artists, writers, and priests who oppose fascist rule.
[James] At Pisticci, the Germans' plans are hatched to deport prisoners to Nazi-controlled camps in Germany and then stage mass executions. [David] The British know they need to act fast, but they've just landed in Italy and don't have enough troops for a full-scale attack. They turn to SAS Major Cary-Elwes, a specialist in daring raids. [Jack] He's tasked, really, with mission impossible. He has to get behind enemy lines and liberate concentration camp victims, and then find a way to repatriate them back to friendly lines.
[Sami] The camp is 40 miles behind enemy lines, and all they have is themselves and their Jeeps. They know that if they all cross behind the frontline in those, they'll be spotted right away. [suspenseful music] [David] The camp sits close to a railway line, and that gives the British an idea. - On September 13, 1943, 50 SAS commandos led by Major Cary-Elwes gather outside the station in the small town of Chiatona. - Their plan is to seize a passenger train, hide the commandos on board, ride it to the nearest station, then storm the camp.
[Martin] It needs to be a passenger train instead of a military train. To the Germans at the camp, it won't attract so much attention to see a passenger train. [David] Major Cary-Elwes orders his men to commandeer the train. But now he spots another issue. The tracks ahead run straight along the coast. To reach the camp, the train has to be diverted inland. [Sami] While his men steal the train, Major Cary-Elwes will take a small party of men in Jeeps deep into enemy territory to change the points ahead of the train.
It's an incredibly risky operation. - They know that if they encounter German forces, they'll find themselves outnumbered and outgunned. [David] Less than half an hour later, the Jeeps pull up at the points. - Quickly, they secure all the roads and railway tracks leading to the crossroads and park their Jeeps to form makeshift barricades. [David] Then they switch the points. Now all they can do is wait. - At any moment, they can be spotted. But then one of the units spots the hijacked train from a distance.
This is the critical moment. [tense music] The train steams past. It made it through. The officers watch it disappear down the track on its way to Pisticci, uninterrupted. [David] A few hours later, the train loaded with SAS commandos pulls up just short of a deserted station. And the SAS makes the final leg to the camp on foot. [gunfire] - The only thing that the SAS have on their side is the element of surprise. In a lightning attack, they break through the wire perimeter of the camp, and the guards at first are so shocked that they're paralyzed.
They're unable to understand, much less react. [rapid gunfire] [David] Within minutes, the SAS have the camp under control. They disarm the guards, take the camp commandant prisoner, and free the detainees. - SAS officers escort as many as they can onto the train, putting 180 prisoners into carriages that are bound for safety. Shortly thereafter, the train, the SAS men, the prisoners all arrive safely behind Allied lines.
