June 6, 1944. An American paratrooper jumps into Normandy in the dark and lands on the roof of a church. By the end of the war he had been declared dead, held a funeral he didn't attend, escaped the Nazis, and fought his way toward Berlin in a Soviet tank unit. His name was Joseph Beyrle. He's believed to be the only American soldier to serve in both the US Army and the Red Army during World War Two. Beyrle was from Muskegon, Michigan. He joined the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles. His buddies called him Jumpin' Joe. On D-Day night his plane was hit by flak and he jumped early. He came down on a church roof, slid off, and lost his unit in the chaos. For a few days he fought on his own, blowing up a power station and cutting German communications. Then he was captured. Here's where it gets strange. A German soldier ended up wearing Beyrle's uniform and dog tags. That German was killed. When the body was found, the Americans identified it as Joseph Beyrle. The army told his parents their son was dead. His hometown held a funeral mass for him. His obituary ran in the local paper. Meanwhile, he was very much alive, being moved from one German prison camp to another. He escaped more than once. One time he and two other prisoners jumped off a train heading east. They thought they were heading for Russia and freedom. They got lost and ended up in Berlin, where they were caught by the Gestapo, beaten, and tortured. In January 1945, from a camp in eastern Germany, he finally made a clean escape. He went east, toward the gunfire. Toward the Soviets. When he found a Soviet tank unit, he walked out with his hands up, holding a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and shouted the only Russian he knew. American comrade. It worked. He asked to join them. And they said yes. For about a month, an American paratrooper rode with Soviet tank crews as they pushed toward Germany. He used his demolition training. He fought. He was reportedly welcomed by a Soviet officer who was one of the rare women commanding a tank battalion. Then a German dive bomber attacked. Beyrle was badly wounded. He was evacuated to a Soviet hospital. Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov reportedly visited, heard his story, and gave him papers to get to the American embassy in Moscow. When he showed up, the embassy didn't believe him. As far as the US was concerned, Joseph Beyrle was dead. They held him under guard until his fingerprints proved who he was. He made it home to Michigan in April 1945. In 1946 he got married. In the same church where they'd held his funeral. Decades later, in 1994, he was honored at the White House by President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin for serving both countries. And the last twist. His son, Joseph Beyrle II, grew up to become the United States Ambassador to Russia.

May 5, 1945. Hitler has been dead for five days. The war in Europe is almost over. In a castle in the Austrian Alps, American soldiers, German soldiers, and a group of elderly French prisoners grab rifles and get ready to fight the SS. Together. The castle was called Schloss Itter. The Nazis had turned it into a prison for very important people. Not ordinary prisoners. Trophies. Inside were two former prime ministers of France, Paul Reynaud and Édouard Daladier. Two of France's top generals, Maxime Weygand and Maurice Gamelin. A famous tennis champion, Jean Borotra. And the older sister of Charles de Gaulle. As the Reich collapsed in early May, the SS guards panicked and ran. The prisoners suddenly found themselves in charge of a castle, with weapons left behind, and a serious problem. Waffen-SS units were still roaming the area. Fanatics who would gladly kill them all. They needed help. Fast. One of the castle's prisoners, a Yugoslav handyman, slipped out on a bicycle to find the Americans. Separately, a German army officer named Major Josef Gangl also went looking for them. Gangl was a Wehrmacht officer who had turned against the Nazis and was secretly working with the Austrian resistance. He wanted to protect the prisoners too. He found an American tank commander named Captain Jack Lee. Lee was 27, tough, cigar chewing, and willing to do something insane. With a single Sherman tank and a handful of American soldiers, he drove up into the mountains alongside Gangl and a few of his German troops. They reached the castle on May 4. The French prisoners were not exactly thrilled to see a tiny rescue force. They had expected an army. Instead they got a few Americans, a few Germans, and one tank. The next morning, the SS attacked. Somewhere between 100 and 150 Waffen-SS troops hit the castle with machine guns, mortars, and anti-tank weapons. The defenders fought back from the walls and windows. Americans and Germans side by side. The French prisoners refused to hide. Some of them, including Reynaud, picked up weapons and joined in. The Sherman tank was knocked out. The defenders were running out of ammunition. It looked like the castle would fall. Then Jean Borotra, the tennis star, volunteered to make a run for it. He jumped the wall, slipped past the SS, and sprinted through the countryside to find American reinforcements. He found them. And he insisted on coming back with them to finish the fight. During the battle, Major Gangl saw Paul Reynaud exposed to gunfire and moved to pull him to safety. A sniper shot Gangl dead. He had survived the whole war as a German soldier, only to die defending French prisoners from the SS in its final days. That afternoon, the American relief force arrived and broke the attack. The SS were scattered and captured. The prisoners were saved. Jack Lee received the Distinguished Service Cross. In Austria, Josef Gangl is remembered as a hero, and a street is named after him. It is believed to be the only battle of the war where American and German soldiers fought together on the same side.