Hard to understand how Van Johnson got railroaded into this B-movie trash, except he was on the downhill grade by then and his agent had bills to pay.
As it happens he was involved with Clover Productions again.
Clover's enviable slate of schlock - some now total classics:
It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) The Giant Claw (1957) Zombies of Mora Tau (1957) Don't Knock the Rock (1956) The Houston Story (1956) Rock Around the Clock (1956) New Orleans Uncensored (1955) The Enemy General (1960) The Werewolf (1956) Creature with the Atom Brain (1955)
Director Arthur Dreifuss, German by birth had an enviable B-movie list behind him, and certainly the background touched home with him. But obvious budget restrictions lead to basically intolerable errors: German officers with British Sten guns. Or German troops using Browning machineguns. Plus Arthur isn't a natural adept of the 'action genre'.
If they had a combat 'technical advisor' he was drunk on the job. NOBODY would last 10 seconds with this kind of 'action'.
On the other hand there would still be a large number of combat veterans from WW2 & Korea in 60's audiences, so anything more 'realistic' and brutal might cause traumatic memories to return they preferred to try to forget. (But if so, why go to a war movie???)
There's a message but like most of the swathe of 'Battle of The Bulge' outings from the 50's and later like the pitiful 'Ardennes Fury' (2014) why waste time even looking for them?