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Well, the virus has now killed more than a hundred people in China, and new cases have been confirmed around the world. | |
So you don't want to frighten the American public. | ||
France and South Korea have also got evacuation plans. | ||
But you need to prepare for and assume. | ||
Broadly warning Americans to avoid all non-essential travel to China. | ||
That this is going to be a real serious problem. | ||
France, Australia, Canada, the US, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, the list goes on. | ||
Health officials are investigating more than a hundred possible cases in the US. | ||
Germany, a man has contracted the virus. | ||
The epidemic is a demon and we cannot let this demon hide. | ||
Japan, where a bus driver contracted the virus. | ||
Coronavirus has killed more than 100 people there and infected more than 4,500. | ||
We have to prepare for the worst, always, because if you don't and the worst happens, War Room Pandemic. | ||
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Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | |
Welcome to War Room Pandemic. | ||
We're the number one political podcast in the United States of America. | ||
Very proud of that. | ||
I want to thank everybody in Denver, Real America's Voice, the John Fredericks Radio Network, all of our distribution partners from Roku to Pluto TV, Rumble, YouTube, Facebook, all of it that's made us what we are today or helped us make us what we are. | ||
I just really want to thank everybody. | ||
Every year on Christmas Day. | ||
We do the combat history of Christmas. | ||
We always start off with America's really probably the darkest Christmas that America ever had and that's America's first Christmas in 1776 when an army that had really had one defeat after another since | ||
Late August, early September, within 60 or 90 days of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, had really been pushed back from Long Island all the way across through Brooklyn Heights, Manhattan, up through White Plains, and all the way down to New Jersey, crossed left New Jersey into Pennsylvania, and then conceived a plan that on Christmas night, in the middle of a storm, would cross the Delaware and do a launch and attack on a battle-hardened group of mercenaries, German mercenaries called Hessians. | ||
So, the last question, because we took the whole first hour to go through this, which we normally do anyway, Patrick, because I just love this story so much. | ||
You said a double envelopment. | ||
I mean, there's so many things they did right against this hard battle, which they had never been able to pull off, although they never broke. | ||
Even in their retreats, they never broke this army. | ||
I mean, how did Washington pull it off? | ||
It really is a miracle, but behind the miracles, how did he conceive and pull this off that really saved the American Republic? | ||
Because if you hadn't had a victory like this, or you hadn't had some sort of thing that gave people some hope, given the winter you were about to go through, you wouldn't have had an army left. | ||
People would have just melted away, like you already saw people signing Ezra Pardons. | ||
The revolution would have been snuffed out if there would not have been a major victory. | ||
And it was very conceivable that this could have been a very minor victory where they just, you know, won the battle and Rahl retreated back to one of the other outposts and they would have fought again. | ||
But that's not what happened. | ||
And it's, you know, it's the grit. | ||
It's the determination of, you know, individual soldiers. | ||
That were, you know, in this army, that they were tenacious. | ||
They were at the end of their rope. | ||
But, you know, Steve, paint the picture here a minute. | ||
These guys, many of them didn't have shoes. | ||
They were, you know, they were walking in bloodstained trails. | ||
No clothing, no winter clothing, but still fighting on. | ||
And that's, you know, it's inspiring. | ||
The origin myth of this country. | ||
They hold the bridge at Aspen Peak with Washington at their side, and that's an amazing American victory. | ||
And it's that night that both sides conduct a council of war. | ||
Cornwallis meets with his men, and he basically lays out that they're going to attack at dawn, and according to legend, we're going to bag the old fox in the morning. | ||
That was what they said. | ||
And, um, you know, Washington at this point conceives a council war and decides, you know, he's got his options in place. | ||
Does he retreat back across the Delaware or make a stand or fight or advance again? | ||
And he comes up with this, it's debatable who, you know, was, who designed the plan. | ||
It's probably Washington. | ||
To attack Princeton, which is the British outpost a little bit above Trenton, and then also go on to attack this major war chest, a series of supplies in New Brunswick. | ||
And Washington decides to fight again and attack, and they lay out a series of deception plans. | ||
They light fires, etc. | ||
They make the British believe that they're digging in. | ||
Their shovels and pickaxes are hitting the ground with a small group of men. | ||
To make the British believe that they're digging in for the British attack in the morning. | ||
But what they're actually doing is attacking towards Princeton. | ||
And they surprise the British garrison there. | ||
But initially it doesn't go well for the Americans. | ||
And the British are quite tenacious. | ||
Their commander holds and several of the American elements in the field retreat. | ||
And it's here that Washington's leadership is on full display. | ||
He charges in the middle of battle, where bullets are literally flying all over the place, musket balls, etc. | ||
And he is not hit. | ||
It's simply a miracle that that doesn't occur, because they're aiming at him. | ||
But he seems impervious to all this fire, and he rallies the army. | ||
And they succeed at Princeton. | ||
And it's here that Washington makes a wise decision. | ||
He does not go to New Brunswick, because that's where, actually, Cornwallis anticipates that move. | ||
The army is exhausted. | ||
They had been fighting for three days straight. | ||
And they're exhausted. | ||
And he decides to march further up into New Jersey, where they set up a winter camp in the high ground there. | ||
And it saves the army. | ||
And, you know, it's really a remarkable story. | ||
They turned the tide of the entire revolution. | ||
They turn the tide because they attack on Christmas night, the fighting's on Boxing Day at dawn. | ||
Jack, give us the order he writes on the 27th of December. | ||
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27th. | |
The General with the utmost sincerity and affection thanks the officers and soldiers for their spirited and gallant behavior at Trenton yesterday. | ||
It is with inexpressible pleasure that he can declare that he did not see a single instance of bad behavior in either officers or privates, and that if any fault could be found, It proceeded from too great an eagerness to push forward upon the enemy. | ||
He also then declares that the commissary should distribute rum to all the men and then we're going to split up the booty. | ||
He's obviously in a great mood, but I also wanted to read a letter that he wrote to John Bannister two years later, really describing in a private detail the condition of his army at that time. | ||
He says, Without arrogance or the smallest deviation from truth, it may be said that no history now extant can furnish an instance of an army suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude. | ||
To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions as they march through the snow, frost and snow. | ||
And at Christmas, taking up their winter quarters within a day's march of the enemy without a house or hut to cover them, till they could be built and submitting to it without a murmur is a proof of patience and obedience, which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled." Incredible. | ||
What we owe, what we owe the founders of this country and not just the signers of the Declaration, but the deplorables, the hardworking men and women that actually had to deliver the victory It's just incredible. | ||
Talk about courage, talk about valor. | ||
We'll get back to General Sherman and Christmas Day in Savannah later, but I want to go, I want to pivot because we We are burning through time here, Patrick, and I want to go now all the way up to World War II, the other great, you know, our common heritage or knowledge, right? | ||
The collective conscious of Bastogne, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Hurricane Forest. | ||
Walk us through that winter of 1944. | ||
And what American troops were facing there as they drove to the Rhine and tried to drive, you know, the big hope was to, after D-Day and after this horrific Battle of Normandy, the breakout, to try to have Market Garden, remember the great paratrooper drop, but to try somehow, there was a concept of trying to end the war by Christmas 1944. | ||
That clearly was not going to happen. | ||
So walk us through the Hürtgenfors and the Battle of the Beech. | ||
No, it wasn't going to happen. | ||
And it's here, it's the factory of death. | ||
This was called the Hürtgen Forest. | ||
And it was a forest that was sort of in the middle of Germany that the Germans had heavily defended. | ||
Every inch of that forest, there were bunkers, there were mines everywhere. | ||
It was zeroed in with artillery and machine guns. | ||
And the Americans command decided to go right through the forest to try to seize it because they felt that there was an opportunity that the Germans had that they might actually Um, try to flank them through using the forest. | ||
It was a giant mistake. | ||
They should have just bypassed the forest and surrounded it and sealed it off. | ||
But instead they attacked headlong through it, which is exactly what the Germans wanted. | ||
And it was an incredible disaster. | ||
Literally, their casualties there rivaled what we had in the entire Korean War. | ||
And it's largely unknown, but the book that I talk about there is called Dog Company, and it's on the 2nd Ranger Battalion. | ||
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc that seized the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc during D-Day, the toughest objective. | ||
They took out several large guns that were on top of the cliff. | ||
They were a little bit further off to the side. | ||
They were under nets in an apple orchard, but they disabled them. | ||
They scaled this cliff under enemy fire and took the guns. | ||
And literally, it's one of the most important objectives of D-Day. | ||
But we've got to fast forward a little bit to the Hurricane Forest. | ||
These guys are then the reserve element of Corps Reserve. | ||
And they're called upon for special missions in the case of breakthroughs, etc. | ||
And that's exactly what happened in December, around December 7th, December 6th, 7th. | ||
The Americans advance outside of the Hurricane Forest. | ||
They break through in a key point. | ||
And they're about to seize something called Hill 400, which is the highest round in the entire Hurricane Forest. | ||
It is a vital position for both sides because they can spot with artillery. | ||
But the Germans want it held because it overlooks the assembly area for the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
So it's the most important real estate in the entire European theater at this time. | ||
And the Rangers, their story is epic. | ||
They line up in front of, they take this small town called Bergstein, it's house to house fighting. | ||
And they line up at dawn in front of Hill 400. | ||
And that morning, in early December, middle of December, they attack at dawn basically. | ||
And it's a bayonet attack across an open field. | ||
And, you know, it's extraordinary stuff. | ||
There's a lot of drama that occurs right before the attack. | ||
One of the officers who's not very seasoned decides to send out a scout. | ||
Many of the men that are seasoned NCOs said, F you, don't listen to that command. | ||
The guy, like, initially doesn't do it, goes out in the middle of the field and is drilled through the head by a German bullet. | ||
And that is kind of the spring that breaks at this point, and these men start charging across that field with fixed bayonets. | ||
And they bayonet several of the Germans that are in positions in front of the hill, and they seize it. | ||
And then the Germans, they throw pretty much everything that they can at it. | ||
Assault guns, specialized, some of their best infantry units that are German Fallschirmjagers, German paratroopers. | ||
This is a battle of elites. | ||
These elite units face off on Hill 400. | ||
And it's a really, it's an incredible story, Steve, of holding this hill against all odds. | ||
And, you know, one of the stories that was most compelling to me is I found in the archives, and it was confirmed through the oral histories that I had done with all of these Rangers. | ||
These are, some of these men are some of my best friends. | ||
One of them, Ed Secor, they were so low on ammunition, their foxhole was being overrun, that he pulled two German MP40 Schmeisser submachine guns off of a dead German body and was firing in both hands into this oncoming horde of Germans as they were trying to take out the foxhole. | ||
And he held out. | ||
Patrick, put a pin in that right there. | ||
We're going to take a short commercial break. | ||
We'll return to December of 1944, the Hurricane Forrest and the Battle of the Bulge, with Patrick K. O'Donnell, our combat historian, the story of Dog Company. | ||
Jack Maxey, Stephen K. Bannon, we will be back in a moment. | ||
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War Room with Stephen K. Bannon. | |
Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | ||
Okay, welcome back to Merry Christmas. | ||
It's Christmas Day, December 25th, the year of our Lord 2020, a historic year for the United States. | ||
Every year on this day we do a Combat History at Christmas. | ||
We talk about American fighting men and women that have given their all in defense of their country on foreign battlefields and battlefields Jack, you've got a personal... I have an uncle who received his third Purple Heart. | ||
He didn't recover in time to get back in the fight at that same battle, and I don't know if it was exactly the Hurtigin Forest or the Battle of the Bulge, but he was under artillery fire and a forest got hit. | ||
Actually had to lay out in the open for about 10 hours as his buddies threw him ambulance of morphine that he had to inject into himself. | ||
And just a wonderful guy. | ||
Frank Kelly. | ||
American, Irish guy. | ||
Just personalizing it. | ||
What happened to him after the war? | ||
Oh, he went back, got the GI Bill, went to Duke University, became a very, very successful guy, had half a dozen children, lived into his 90s, just a beautiful human being, but it was always sobering as a kid to see him swimming at the beach, you know? | ||
He had all the scars to show, and what's interesting about that generation, I never heard of any of those guys getting a disability for having all those injuries. | ||
And they never talked about it either. | ||
That's the other thing, you see my father's generation, you just go down with your uncle's stuff, only later you realize what they went through at Anzio and other places. | ||
I want to go back to our combat historian, Patrick K. O'Donnell, that every year donates his time and effort of his great books, which we'll talk about more. | ||
It's always an honor to be on your show, Steve. | ||
Well, Patrick, let's go back, we're at the Hurtgen Forest, and this is, I think what, you know, people don't understand today is that, you know, they think of, like, July 4th, or Independence Day, and they think it's all over. | ||
Everybody, we've so made Normandy such a huge deal, which it should be, you know, the greatest amphibious assault in history, that somehow people forget all the rest of it. | ||
You know, you had the huge, brutal breakout of Normandy, and all those battles, then you had Patton going to the South, and the British under Montgomery, Trying to do this, the biggest air assault, you know, paratrooper landing, memorializing the bridge too far. | ||
But you get up there and they're driving to Berlin. | ||
Everybody wants to end the war by Christmas. | ||
It's clearly not going to happen. | ||
But then for some reason, the high command kind of takes its eye off the ball. | ||
There's some reason for the first time, there seems to be a really a lapse in either urgency or focus. | ||
And you have, really, this massive battle of which Hitler and the Wehrmacht bet it all in thinking that they can somehow roll the Western Army, you know, the Allies back in the West, cut some deal, and then stave off the Russians in the East. | ||
So what happened? | ||
How did we get into this jam, the Hürtgenforce, and then the Battle of the Bulge? | ||
Well, the Hürtgenforce is this meat grinder, and on Hill 400, they seize the hill, and for three days, they're plastered with Eighteen battalions of German artillery. | ||
I mean, this is some of the heaviest artillery that's there. | ||
And the reason why the Germans have so much artillery nearby is that they're staging for this Battle of the Bulge, this massive counteroffensive. | ||
And the hill overlooks the assembly area on part of the northern part of the Bulge. | ||
And the Germans want that hill back at all costs. | ||
Dog Company, men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, they hold it. | ||
And they, that unit, as well as other army units, report the intelligence that there is this large, there's buildup of German tanks and other units that are in the area. | ||
But it's another intelligence failure. | ||
The information is gathered, it's sent up the chain of command, and it's ignored. | ||
Various things happen. | ||
And the Germans quietly, Assemble a massive, hundreds of thousands of men, thousands of tanks and assault guns and artillery, and they hit what is the Ardennes Forest. | ||
This is the area that they attacked in 1940 when they invaded France. | ||
This is considered a rest area or a lighter front on the Western Front where they send in units, American units largely, or Allied units to sort of rest and refit. | ||
Because not much activity is happening, but it's here that Hitler decides to assemble a massive army. | ||
They strip bare a large portion, some of their best units from the Eastern Front. | ||
The SS, for instance, the Waffen-SS, which you're seeing in some of these pictures and these films, they're going to spearhead the main assault or attack at the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
And they assemble the men, and on the morning of December 16th, They attack, and they surprise the American defenders that are holding the line. | ||
The information that was seized at Hill 400 was not conveyed. | ||
There's a number of intelligence failures that occur. | ||
For instance, the OSS, which actually had, this is the first CIA slash Special Operations Forces, they had a unit that was in that army, but they were removed. | ||
Prior to the Battle of the Bulge, several weeks prior to the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
So they didn't really have any, the eyes of that army were gone to some degree and intelligence was ignored on various levels. | ||
So the Germans attack and the surprise is tremendous. | ||
I've interviewed thousands of veterans and I interviewed members of the German army as well. | ||
And many of those, some of the men that I interviewed were actually part members of the Waffen-SS that attacked that day. | ||
And that was a chilling, chilling account of how these men, you know, had been battle-hardened, they had been defeated, but now they were armed with some of the best weapons that Germany had to offer. | ||
They had some of the King Tiger tanks, for instance, as well as other weapons. | ||
I remember the one German veteran I interviewed talked about how Saw a jet fly over overhead. | ||
These guys felt they were back and they were ready to attack and they were excited about it. | ||
It was quite, you know, I mean, this is I remember the interview that took place over 40 years after the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
And this guy was still kind of had a tingle. | ||
You can tell when he was relaying that information to me as they attacked that morning and they were rolling up Americans left and right. | ||
We were fleeing. | ||
There was also cases where there were There's pockets of really heroic Americans that made some final stands that alters the timetable of the entire offensive. | ||
The plan of the Battle of the Bulge is to divide the American and British Army, the Allied Armies, and drive towards the port of Antwerp. | ||
That's the plan, and then somehow create a separate piece. | ||
I mean, it's a bit optimistic, but initially that first attack, it succeeds. | ||
The American Army, for the most part, there are many instances where they valorously fight, but other instances where they flee. | ||
And it's here that I write a book called Beyond Valor. | ||
It's my first book. | ||
And it's the oral histories of the Rangers and the Airborne. | ||
And it's the story of these men, in many cases, at the Battle of Balch. | ||
And it's about the 82nd Airborne and the 101st Airborne. | ||
But I also really captured the stories of what were known as the independent airborne battalions and regiments, such as the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment. | ||
These guys, they dropped in Southern France. | ||
They were not attached initially to a division, but during the Battle of the Bulge, this was the only reserve available. | ||
And the High Command sent both the 82nd, 101st, and these independent units into the Bulge to sort of hold the line. | ||
At all costs. | ||
And these men rolled in there. | ||
In many cases they were on leave or etc. | ||
They just rolled in with whatever equipment they had. | ||
Sometimes these guys didn't even have proper ammunition or grenades. | ||
They rolled in on flatbed trucks and they charged as quickly as they could towards an area called Bastogne, which was a road network. | ||
And they were trying to basically plug the line as quickly as possible. | ||
They were the only reserve, essentially the only reserve in the Allied Army. | ||
And as they were rolling in, you know, several of the guys that I interviewed, they talked about how they were receiving the ammunition from the retreating American soldiers. | ||
They were taking anything they can, ammunition, weapons, anything, because they knew they were going to go in for a fight. | ||
And it was the 82nd that goes a little, they pass through Bastogne. | ||
And they go up towards the north. | ||
And the north is where the SS, the main thrust, is occurring. | ||
And they set up in a small series of hamlets, and they block the SS at a place called Lake Trois-Ponts, Chennault, etc. | ||
And it's epic stuff, Steve. | ||
I mean, not many people know the story of the 82nd and these independent units. | ||
They literally fight the SS. | ||
I've got a St. | ||
Christopher medal on that I was given right before Fallujah by a member of the 509, Ernest Williams, and that unit was almost 900 strong before the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
They were down to 55 men after they fought the SS. | ||
But they held, and they received a Presidential Unit Citation as a result of their extraordinary heroism. | ||
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But that's the story of the 82nd and 2nd. | |
We've got about a minute. | ||
I just want to tee up the 101st when we come back. | ||
We've got about a minute. | ||
The 82nd goes through Bastogne, because that's kind of a crossroads, and they go up to defend these Hamlets against the SS. | ||
The 101st gets to defend, actually, Bastogne. | ||
And when we return, I want to tell the heroic story of the 101st and what they accomplished, I guess, right up to the Christmas week and then beyond the Christmas holidays. | ||
But this is another situation, we'll see it in Chosin Reservoir, where the fighting in the middle of winter is just absolutely brutal, and these happen to be brutal winters that they're And it's around Christmas. | ||
Patrick K. O'Donnell, the combat historian is going to return. | ||
We're going to take a short commercial break. | ||
Jack Maxey, Stephen K. Bannon. | ||
It is the combat history of Christmas on War Room. | ||
We will return in just a second. | ||
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War Room with Stephen K. Banner Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | |
Welcome. | ||
It is Christmas morning, December 25th, the year of our Lord, 2020. | ||
You're in the War Room. | ||
Every year we do the Combat History of Christmas and we focus on American men and women who have fought on foreign battlefields or in the United States in the Revolution, Civil War, on Christmas Day or through the Christmas season. | ||
Jack, you've had a very good observation between segments here. | ||
Well, I mean, while we're in the season of Christmas and Hanukkah, a spiritual time of year, I think it's important to recognize the providential nature of the change in weather that occurs so many times through history, both at the Battle of the Brooklyn, both at the invasion in Normandy, just in time to go ahead. | ||
And then, obviously, there's the great story of Patton requesting a chaplain to make a prayer for the weather so he could go and relieve Bastogne. | ||
And he actually writes a He actually gets his printers in his army to print up a card that he has delivered to all of the troops on Christmas Day, and I'll give you the prayer. | ||
Yeah, read the prayer. | ||
Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee of Thy great goodness to restrain these immoderate reigns with which we have had to contend. | ||
Grant us fair weather for battle, graciously hearten Harken to us, soldiers, who call thee, that, armed with thy power, we may advance from victory to victory and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish thy justice among men and nations. | ||
Amen. | ||
And then he writes, to each officer and soldier in the 3rd United States Army, I wish a Merry Christmas. | ||
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. | ||
We march in our might to complete victory. | ||
May God's blessings rest upon each of you on this Christmas day. | ||
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1944. | |
So, Patrick K. O'Donnell, the 101st at Bastogne. | ||
The 82nd goes through and defends the Hamlets and takes on the Waffen-SS north of here. | ||
How does the 101st draw Bastogne? | ||
What happens? | ||
The 101st, along with an assortment of other Army units that had fallen back, retreat towards to Bastogne and they defend a series of the strategic hamlets or villages surrounding Bastogne. Bastogne is vitally important because it's a it's called a road octopus because there's so many roads that that flow out from Bastogne. The German army desperately wants it to you know to make | ||
their advance towards Antwerp. The 101st is there they position themselves in and around these these small hamlets and they dig in. They have M1 Garands primarily light weapons, 30 caliber machine guns in some cases a few mazookas here and there and then they have to fight against German armor. | ||
And they are in foxholes in and around Bastogne. | ||
It's around the 22nd of December that they surround Bastogne, and the German commander then presents The 101st Acting Division Commander at the time, Anthony McAuliffe, with an ultimatum, you know, surrender. | ||
You know, it's the honorable thing to do. | ||
And he responds with one word, nuts. | ||
Which, you know, is the iconic response. | ||
And it drives the Germans nuts, literally. | ||
And they try to attack again, and they're thrown back. | ||
In each case. | ||
Patrick, I understand when they went to the General and they said, hey, listen, they've got a surrender letter here. | ||
He said, so they're surrendering. | ||
And they said, oh no, General, they're asking us to surrender. | ||
He originally throws the letter to the floor and says, nuts. | ||
And then they later convince him to make that the message. | ||
They were pretty upset about that. | ||
The 101st digs in even harder. | ||
And they pretty much repel everything that the Germans throw against them. | ||
The 101st as well as these other, there's several tank destroyer units, elements of the 10th Army are in there, an assortment of men. | ||
You know, this is an Alamo sort of situation, and they hold, and do an incredible job of holding. | ||
And what happens is, the momentum up north, thanks to the 82nd and other units, is slowed down. | ||
The drive across the Meuse River and towards Antwerp is failing, so Bastogne becomes a symbolic place. | ||
Hitler realizes that it has to be seized at all costs, and he starts to take the units that were up north and moves them down south towards Bastogne, and they start to really throw everything they can to destroy Bastogne, because they realize it's a You know, it's a political victory, potentially, if they're able to seize the town and take it out. | ||
But, you know, the Americans hold. | ||
They put in more reinforcements. | ||
The 17th Airborne comes in. | ||
And then, ultimately, Patton's army is able to thrust from the south and then join up. | ||
But that's not the end of the Battle of the Bulge. | ||
This thing wages and rages for over a month. | ||
And well into January, and there's this bitter house-to-house, hand-to-hand fighting that occurs in this incredibly tundra-like weather. | ||
The coldest weather in history in Europe, you know, up until this point in a long time. | ||
And men are just poorly equipped to deal with it. | ||
And they don't have proper winter clothing and everything else. | ||
Most of these guys that I interviewed had something called trench foot. | ||
They were frozen feet because they didn't have the proper equipment to deal with the weather, and their hands were frozen, etc. | ||
And, you know, they had to deal with all this stuff. | ||
Yeah. | ||
For a time, we eventually held off the Germans, and it became one of the great... My daughter, after graduate West Point, served with the 101st in Iraq. | ||
I remember she was, I think, the 326th Combat Engineers. | ||
I went to Fort Campbell to see her the first time I saw her, and we'd go to their headquarters, and they've got... | ||
You walk in and you've got these massive Nazi flags, all the flags that they took from these battles, and of course Bastogne is symbolic of the grit and determination of the 101st, so they go into legend in that. | ||
But while we're on weather, and I think it's one of the connective tissues of this story about the Christmas season, a brutal winter in 1776, a brutal winter, at the time the worst recorded in Western Europe, in 1944. | ||
And now we get to really where the weather is the major features in American history. | ||
When you think of the Chosin Reservoir and you think of Korea, the first thing you think about is the minus 40 degrees and these troops were not, you know, dog company. | ||
We're the Ranger Battalion that took a point to Hawking, where the famous, where Reagan made that speech and later became so famous for what they did. | ||
These were, you know, these were the elite troops, right? | ||
And that's why they're in Hill 400, and in Bastogne you had the 101st, you had the 82nd, the 517. | ||
But you get to the Korean War, you know, America always wants to, after the war, we just want to kind of wash our hands of it, that's it, we're going home. | ||
In Korea, which happens, what, this is five years after, in 1950, you know, what, five years after the end of World War II, after the surrender of the Japanese, you're basically in Korea, and these troops are not trained at all, not ready at all, the Marine and Army troops, they get into Korea, And it is a nightmare beyond comprehension. | ||
Your book, Give Me Tomorrow, is absolutely stunning. | ||
It's one of the most moving books I've ever read. | ||
Walk us through the Christmas season of, I guess it's 1950, right? | ||
The Christmas of 1950, the season where, at the Chosin Reservoir, the Marines and the Army, and particularly the Marines, the most famous legendary, I guess, what they've done. | ||
Walk us through it. | ||
This is, you know, their story begins in the summer of 1950, where America is basically being demobilized, demilitarized. | ||
You know, they go from, you know, a massive war budget to hardly anything. | ||
And the 1st Marine Division is a shell of its former self. | ||
They don't have even the men to staff up the entire division. | ||
And they call anybody that they can. | ||
And they had the men of George Company, which Give Me Tomorrow was about, These men were, many of them were reservists. | ||
And they're not reservists in the sense that we know today. | ||
These guys didn't even have boot camp in some cases, which a lot of people find extraordinary for Marines, but it's true. | ||
They didn't go to boot camp. | ||
They didn't even know how to throw a grenade properly or anything. | ||
And they were mobilized quickly in the summer of 1950. | ||
And these were the boys that were part of MacArthur's great counter offensive in Korea at Incheon. | ||
They were the first wave To attack in Incheon, which is outside of Seoul. | ||
And this turns the entire Korean War around, where there was a perimeter, you know, just shortly before that, where the North Koreans had surrounded most of South Korea in this small perimeter called the Pusan Perimeter. | ||
There were some American units in there that were holding against all odds. | ||
But this counter offensive in Incheon changes the entire course of the war. | ||
And from there, we advance quickly towards the north and the Yalu River and the border with China. | ||
And it's here that Mao Zedong sees what's going on and decides to throw a large portion of his army into the fray to stop the Americans and defeat them. | ||
And they advance across the Yalu River at night. | ||
They do it very stealthily, to the point that MacArthur basically does not believe that China will be involved in this war at all. | ||
Is this another intelligence failure? | ||
The Yalu River, for the folks at home, is what separates Korea from China. | ||
Was this an intelligence failure? | ||
Because the Army, and by the way, we now know in history that a lot of this was the Nationalist Army that Mal, as I've gotten to know the Chinese better, they say, hey, they sent those kids there to die. | ||
You think you guys are ill-trained? | ||
These guys don't even have weapons. | ||
Mal didn't trust the generals. | ||
He wanted wave after wave to die there. | ||
But was this an intelligence failure? | ||
Was MacArthur caught by surprise on this? | ||
It was a combination of things. | ||
It was an intelligence failure, but also it was MacArthur's own hubris in most cases. | ||
He just didn't want to believe that The Chinese would overturn all of this great success that he achieved. | ||
And he just sort of ignored things. | ||
He would simply, he would receive intelligence and then downplay it. | ||
And he was constantly downplaying everything and he wasn't preparing for the eventuality of a massive Chinese, a series of massive Chinese armies that would first surround the main force, | ||
The 8th Army in sort of the central portion of Korea, and then also MacArthur's 10th Corps, which included primarily the 1st Marine Division on the other side of the Korean Peninsula. | ||
And it's here that the Chosin Reservoir, which is up towards the Chinese border, you know, it's not terribly far from the Yalu River, but the Chinese sneak across the river and then they assemble a massive army around both both of both Allied forces. | ||
The Give Me Tomorrow revolves around the Chosin Reservoir, where the 1st Marine Division is surrounded by tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers. | ||
And that's the epic stand that these men may have to make near Christmas time. | ||
And it's in the most harsh and brutal temperatures that you can imagine, Steve. | ||
I mean, these guys did not have any winter clothing. | ||
Patrick, hang on for one second. | ||
We've got to take a short commercial break. | ||
In what, 30 or 40 degree minus weather, with not winter clothing, the 1st Marine Division took a stand at the Chosin Reservoir. | ||
Patrick A. O'Donnell, the author of Give Me Tomorrow Will Return and Walk Us Through This Heroic Stand Over the Christmas Season of 1950. | ||
unidentified
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War Room with Stephen K. Banner you Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon. | |
Merry Christmas, December 25th, Year of Our Lord 2020. | ||
Historic year for the United States of America, but we've been here through dark days before. | ||
We're now in Christmas of 1950, and we are in Korea. | ||
Jack, walk us through a couple other things that happened on Christmas. | ||
Well, as we talk about Providence also, when they escape from the Chosin Reservoir, and it's actually a symbol of the veterans, there's something called the Star of Kotori. | ||
And on the night of 7th to 8th of December, they had very bad weather. | ||
They could not get air support. | ||
They had to get across the bridge at Kotori. | ||
And the star appeared in the early dawn sky, and there's stories of Marines seeing the star and feeling that it was a sign that God had favored them. | ||
And they began singing Silent Night in their little tents, trying to keep warm. | ||
It's kind of an interesting story. | ||
And then also, I hope Patrick will cover too, The final evacuation from Chosin ends up at a port called Hongnam on December 24th is the final day they leave and they remove a hundred thousand Korean refugees and today there are over a million descendants of those people. | ||
Incredible. | ||
Patrick, take us back to that moment, minus 40 degrees, wave after wave of Chinese soldiers, many without guns, right? | ||
How do they get out? | ||
How do you get down to actually get the Koreans out? | ||
How do you get to December 24th? | ||
The odds are against you. | ||
You're not clothed for this. | ||
You don't have the weapons for it. | ||
These Marine Reservists have not been trained. | ||
You're surrounded by an army who was sent there essentially to die, but to make sure the Americans die with you. | ||
How do you get out of the Chosin Reservoir? | ||
Steve, the story here is one of George Company, 3-1, who I met after I came back from Fallujah. | ||
And their story is remarkable, and it was untold prior to that. | ||
They had to literally break into the Chosen Reservoir. | ||
They were one of the units that was kind of left behind near Cote d'Ivoire. | ||
And they had to get to a place called Hagerary, where the 1st Marine Division would have had to assemble. | ||
But they were also creating, they were building an airfield to bring in supplies and take out the wounded. | ||
It was all about time, and they had to charge up a 12-mile road in a place called Hellfire Valley, which was surrounded by an entire Chinese division. | ||
And they had to break through to Hagerah Reef, which they did, but at great cost. | ||
They have something called Task Force Drysdale, and nearly half of that task force was destroyed. | ||
But the tanks and the men of George Company had to get through at all costs because they needed the reinforcements at Haggar Re to build the airfield and hold the town so that the rest of the 1st Marine Division could eventually advance outward towards Hagnum. | ||
And it's here that George Company is on that road and they literally have to fight it hill to hill to make the breakthrough. | ||
And my book begins with The gunnery, the master sergeant who was in charge of the men, Rocco Zullo, who was manning a .50 caliber machine gun on one of those trucks, and he is spraying Chinese soldiers left and right. | ||
They make it towards the gates of Pagaray, and they're approached by American soldiers, at least they think so, but they're actually Chinese soldiers that are wearing American uniforms. | ||
At that point, they shoot Zullo through the stomach several times. | ||
And I'll never forget, I interviewed him, and he showed me his stomach, and he lifted it up. | ||
There was all these scars across his stomach. | ||
But everyone in that unit thought he was dead, and they put him on a pile of bodies that were about eight feet high with dead Marines. | ||
And they left him. | ||
Another unit came back, and they heard a cough about eight hours later, and they revived him. | ||
But none of those men of George Company knew that he had survived until 30 years after the war when he came to the first reunion. | ||
And that's the beginning of my book, Give Me Tomorrow. | ||
But there, they break through at Hager Re, and they are tasked with holding East Hill, the most important real estate of the Chosen Reservoir. | ||
It overlooks Hager Re, and they hold it at all costs. | ||
These men don't have any food. | ||
They're only supplied with Tootsie Roll Pops. | ||
That's their food, and their water supply is snow. | ||
And this is 30 to 40 below degrees, with the wind chill and everything else. | ||
But they hold that hill. | ||
against massive Chinese human wave assault attacks. | ||
Chinese, in many cases, as you mentioned earlier, don't have weapons and they just attack left and right. | ||
Wave after wave. | ||
OK, we're running out of time. | ||
I got to have the cover of the book and the title of the book. | ||
It's one of the most moving photographs I've ever seen. | ||
And tell us the title. | ||
Tell us the story of that photo. | ||
One of the most famous photographer, David Duncan Douglas, was Assigned to the 1st Marine Division and he was taking photos and he, you know, sort of cheekily asked, uh, Marine, if you could have anything for Christmas, what would it be? | ||
That Marine who was with, uh, George Company responded, give me tomorrow. | ||
And, um, his wish was almost not granted that night. | ||
He was, they were attacked by a human, Chinese human wave attack. | ||
Their machine gun position was nearly overrun. | ||
And, uh, he nearly died that night. | ||
Uh, many of the men barely survived. | ||
But it sets up this evacuation slash advance in another direction, as the Marines like to say, and they literally, they lined up the 1st Marine Division and they then advanced towards the sea. | ||
And it was, you know, quite a spectacular assault. | ||
OK, we got it. | ||
We're going to have to bounce, but I got to have the indispensables. | ||
We're going to get that up and make sure that people, you know, our audience is an audience of readers. | ||
We've got one of the biggest audiences in the world. | ||
Pre-order it. | ||
Tell us, when's the indispensable? | ||
Is it up on Amazon as of today? | ||
It is. | ||
You can pre-order it. | ||
We're going to be publishing in May, and I really look forward to talking to you about that book more when it comes out. | ||
It's a truly extraordinary story, like Washington's Immortals. | ||
It's a band of brothers on these men. | ||
It captures the main characters of that unit that really did change the course of the American Revolution. | ||
Listen, your books, Patrick K. O'Donnell, just go to Amazon, any book you order is going to be like a novel, you're not going to be able to put it down. | ||
Here's the reason, he goes in with these 5,000 interviews he's done, he builds these characters from their own words, and it's just absolutely incredible. | ||
From the Revolution, to World War II, to the Korean War, to the Battle of Fallujah, we are one. | ||
I made a film with Michael Pack about Fallujah, and his book, Patrick K. O'Donnell's book was incredible. | ||
So, Patrick, thank you. | ||
Merry Christmas. | ||
Thank you for doing it once again. | ||
The Combat History of Christmas. | ||
We want to thank the Real America's Voice team, John Fredericks, the guys in Denver that helped produce this, Dan Fluitt, the entire team, Jack, Merry Christmas, brother. | ||
Merry Christmas. | ||
Be not afraid, peeps. |