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Dec. 25, 2021 - Bannon's War Room
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Episode 1,512 - The Combat History Of Christmas Hour TwoEpisode 1,512 - The Combat History Of Christmas Hour Two
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patrick k odonnel
34:07
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steve bannon
06:54
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God
appear.
Rejoice!
Rejoice!
♪ Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel ♪ ♪ O come, thou Day-spring, come and cheer our spirits ♪ ♪ By thy power and bend them not, O Israel ♪
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night.
And death's dark shadows put to fight.
Rejoice!
Okay, welcome back to the War Room.
steve bannon
This is our Christmas special, the Combat History of Christmas.
We're now going to go to the Second World War.
I think many of our audience know about the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne, the relief of the 101st Airborne by Patton's Third Army, the kind of miracle that was pulled off there, but there's many other aspects of it.
I want to bring in Patrick K. O'Donnell, who's also an expert in this battle, and set the stage for this, because this was over the winter and the Christmas season.
Walk us through what happened, the Battle of the Bulge and the Hurricane Forest and all of it, Patrick.
patrick k odonnel
Sure.
At this point, Steve, it's 1944, and the Allies have broken out of Normandy, and the war has turned very poorly for the Germans.
Hitler realizes that what's needed is a massive counteroffensive to potentially change the course of the war.
And he denudes divisions, some of his finest divisions from the Russian Front, the Eastern Front, where the large portion of the German Army is battling the Russians.
And it's here that, you know, in many ways, the war is a very decisive theater.
He pulls his best units, the Waffen-SS, the entire SS Panzer Army, off the front, along with other units, and then positions them in what is considered a quiet sector of the Allied front, the Ardennes Forest, but also near the Hürtgen Forest.
And I wrote a book called Dog Company.
And Dog Company really, in many ways, captures the earliest part of the German counter-offensive And Dog Company is about the 2nd Ranger Battalion, and this is an elite force within the Allied Armies.
The 2nd Ranger Battalion took the cliffs, the guns at the top of Pointe du Hoc, which were in an apple orchard, arguably one of the most important objectives of D-Day.
They scaled a 90-foot cliff to take out these guns, which were hidden in an apple orchard, and disable them.
And they were also part of elite units, elite missions.
And one of those elite missions was in the Hürtgen Forest.
And the Hürtgen Forest was a meat grinder.
There were casualties in the Hürtgen Forest that rivaled all of our casualties during the Korean War.
And it was a forest that the Allies should have bypassed and moved around.
But the Allied generals insisted on taking the forest.
So they launched one headlong attack after another beginning of September.
And now we're at end of November, early December.
And it's a complete meat grinder.
Men are being ground up.
The Germans have defended every inch of this forest.
The most important hill is a place called Hill 400.
And the Allies see an opportunity to seize this high ground.
And the Germans don't want it seized because it overlooks the assembly areas of the Battle of the Bulge, where the Germans have amassed this massive Panzer Army and other forces.
So they have to hold it at all costs.
The task falls upon the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
On December 6th, they launch a bayonet attack across an open field, charging headlong into German machine guns.
They overwhelm the German defenders on Hill 400 and seize the high ground.
And there are reports that they see this massive Panzer Army coiling, but the intelligence is not relayed to the proper sources.
But anyways, The Rangers, against all odds, hold out for about three days.
I mean, I have an incident where one Ranger picks up two MP40 machine pistols in either hand and fights off a German counter-attack from his foxhole.
I mean, it's epic stuff.
But on December 16th, the Germans launched their surprise attack and overwhelmed many of the American defenders at the Ardennes Forest at the Battle of the Bulge.
And it's a disaster for the Allies.
They're caught by surprise.
I mean, elements of the intelligence are ignored.
They did things like remove the OSS from the army group that was there, did things that were just not wise.
And the Germans had complete surprise as they rolled in.
I interviewed not only American veterans, but I interviewed many members of the Waffen SS.
And that story's chilling as well.
I mean, these are hardened combat veterans from the Russian front that are equipped with some of the best German armor, you know, Royal Tigers, these are King Tiger tanks, Panther tanks, and they're rolling forward.
And it's in a headlong retreat in many cases, but there are isolated Americans that make some really epic stands.
steve bannon
But the problem...
Let me ask you in December, this is what I think many people, you see the hand of Providence in this and how we actually won it.
Just give us a moment, how were, given that we had run from Normandy in June all the way to, including Market Garden, right, the airborne assault in the Low Countries, We now had the Germans backpedaling, right?
And they were most concerned about the Russians taking Berlin.
How do you have, under Eisenhower and Montgomery and, you know, Omar Bradley, how are they caught so much by surprise for such a massive counter-strike?
Because Hitler actually thought It's like many other things in American history, such as Pearl Harbor, where people just didn't connect the dots, or they got lazy.
That's how much they had.
They were rolling the dice on this.
But how did we get caught so totally by surprise?
patrick k odonnel
It's like many other things in American history, such as Pearl Harbor, where people just didn't connect the dots or they got lazy.
They were just, you know, operational security.
The Germans recognized that they might have a problem.
So they literally went radio silence.
They didn't commute over, communicate over their radios.
They, um, changed, they didn't use their typical code machines, uh, that they normally would use.
And they positioned their stuff.
Uh, they moved all their equipment in the dead of night.
They never moved.
The trains would actually go into tunnels that had tanks and other equipment, uh, to avoid the prying eyes.
It starts on the 16th.
Walk us through the critical path after the 16th.
How quickly did they roll up the American army?
They walked through the 16th, and their goal is to get to Antwerp, which is a port in Belgium, and to hopefully divide the Allies and also cut off the Allied supply lines by seizing Antwerp.
But in order to do that, they have to cross a number of rivers, and they also have to deal with the American Army, which is there.
But the only real reserve that the Americans have, or the Allies have, is the 18th Airborne Corps.
And this consists of the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division, along with a lot of other sort of cats and dogs.
These are like the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment Combat Team, In others, and they're rushed to the front in trucks.
Many of these guys don't even have their full kits.
They don't have all their ammo that they need or their guns.
They're on leave in many cases, but they're quickly rushed to trucks and they move as quickly as they can to the bulge to stem the massive flow of the German offensive.
And they come to key road areas or junctions.
The 101st deploys At Bastogne, which is a place where many roads connect at Bastogne.
And they dig in there, along with other elements of the fleeing American army.
They dig in and they're quickly surrounded.
The 82nd moves up to the northern shoulder where the main German offensive, the SS, are rolling forward.
And they make some really epic stands, Steve.
I have a Saint Christopher Medal that I've worn since Fallujah that was given to me by Ernest Williams from the 509.
And the 509 went in with 900 men and they walked out with about 55 men.
That's how tough, you know, they ran into a German SS Panzer Grenadier regiment and they held them.
They held the line.
Amazing stuff.
steve bannon
Over the Christmas holidays, a German general offers the Americans to be saved at Bastogne, the 101st Airborne.
Offers terms, basically says you can surrender.
What day did that happen on, and what was the famous response by the Army General?
They're completely surrounded, they're cut off from everything, and they're paratroopers, so it's not like you can get other paratroopers to drop in.
These paratroopers have been turned to infantry, so there's nobody to save you.
Right.
They don't know about Patton.
patrick k odonnel
No one to save you.
steve bannon
And it's totally surrounded.
patrick k odonnel
And the airborne.
The airborne are used to being surrounded.
I mean, they parachute into enemy occupied territory and they have to hold to the ground.
And that's what they do at Bastogne, along with other elements.
There are some other ground up armor division units in there as well.
Some cats and dogs.
And these guys are the battling bastards of Bastogne.
They are holding out against some of the toughest German armor.
And they're dug in.
You know, all they have is, in some cases, just bazookas and grenades.
And they're holding off this German army armor.
And they're surrounded.
And the Germans, you know, they try to offer them surrender.
And the 2nd Division, Division 2nd in Command, General McAuliffe, who's in charge at this time, is given a surrender ultimatum.
And he says, he responds with one word.
Nuts!
And this drives the Germans crazy, because they don't understand what this means.
And nuts is basically go to hell.
And they continue to battle, and the Germans never crack Bastogne.
And eventually, Patton sees the opportunity and takes his entire army and positions it up and pushes it north towards Bastogne, where they eventually relieve the the 101st and other elements that are fighting in Bastogne and move forward.
steve bannon
You see in your writings in the Herculean Forest and with Dog Company and all of it, you see the hand of providence in all of this. Did some of these battles take place because they expect during the Christmas holiday season and particularly given the cold weather and the snow that there won't be many military movements? So Hitler and his senior staff plan to do it at this time of year just like Washington planned to do it at Trenton.
People just think that it's the time of year, it's more, you know, the weather's so bad you're not actually having winter campaigns?
patrick k odonnel
Undoubtedly.
There was a number of factors involved.
The Germans sensed that this was the so-called quiet front For the Allied Army and they would put in units or divisions that were ground up there to restoring fit It was also a place that Hitler Utilized the Ardennes forest in his great offensive Against France in 1940.
It's here that the German army broke through the French army So he had a sense of this is the place to do it.
It worked before let's do it again, and it was a On December 16th, it was shock and awe and the German army was rolling.
And it was, uh, you know, I remember, uh, interviewing some of the SS veterans and they were like, you know, they felt, I mean, these guys were exhilarated.
Uh, they saw their, their latest weapons.
They saw some jets flying overhead.
Um, and they, you know, I remember the guy told me, he's like, yeah, I felt like it was back.
And, uh, you know, that's how chilling that, that whole thing is.
And they're moving forward.
And, you know, but it's the men of the Airborne as well as other Americans that hold the line against great odds.
I wrote a book, my first book, Beyond Valor, which is an oral history of the Airborne Rangers, and many of their stories are there from the 101st, from the 82nd, from the 509, from the 551, men that make, you know, the ultimate sacrifice.
steve bannon
I tell you what, we will take a short commercial break.
unidentified
with the combat history of Christmas in the War Room in a moment.
Music playing.
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God
appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, thou day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by thy advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Welcome back.
steve bannon
You're in the War Room.
It is Christmas Day 2021.
I want to thank you for joining us and sharing some time.
I want to thank our sponsors, MyPillow.com.
Make sure you go to MyPillow.com, promo code WarRoom.
Mike Lindell and the entire team there wish you a Merry Christmas.
They've been incredibly supportive of this show and the entire War Room apparatus and posse.
I want to go back to Patrick O'Donnell.
Patrick, this is one of my favorites.
This is the Brenner situation.
We're still in World War II.
Walk us through this incredible story about the Christmas holidays and American heroes and patriots.
patrick k odonnel
Steve, I've interviewed close to 4,000 World War II vets.
30 years covering World War II.
This is my favorite World War II story.
And it was the hardest book that I probably ever wrote, in many ways.
It's a story of the OSS, and a story that has a focus on Christmas.
It's a story of a mission, in many cases a one-man mission, to disable the subpasses of the Brenner Pass.
And the reason why the Brenner Pass, it's called the Brenner Assignment, Is because in World War II, the Brenner Pass was the artery or the lifeline for the Third Reich from the Third Reich to Italy.
It's where they fed their men and supplies through the pass, through either trucks or rail.
But this was the most heavily defended pass in World War II.
It had anti-aircraft guns.
It was impossible to take out.
It was giving the Allies a constant headache.
And the setting of this book is a single American that tries to change the course of that history.
And he writes a letter on a train as he's coming home on leave.
He's an engineer.
He's in a regular engineer outfit in 1942, 1943.
And he's going home and he writes a letter to the OSS that he can somehow staunch the flow of these supplies if you drop him in by parachute.
He can disable these subpasses that feed the Brenner and maybe even take out a portion of the rail line.
And this is just an audacious plan by a guy who is a dropout from Harvard and Yale.
He was a circus shill in the fights.
He would like literally go in with Batman and get knocked out.
And it was a guy that his name is Stephen Hall that really conducts one of the great special operations spy missions of World War II.
He's given his wish.
Which is a death wish in many ways, to parachute behind the lines into this most heavily defended region of the Black Reich.
And this isn't a situation where they have, like, teams of men that plan his mission.
He plans it himself.
He organizes all the ammo that he needs, the sniper rifle that he needs, everything down to, you know, like, rope and the first aid kit, to mapping out where he's gonna go, and plans the whole thing, and drops in, With a couple other Americans initially in the late fall of 1944.
And Stephen Hall is a total fish out of water, Steve.
He's dropped in and he's greeted by communist partisans.
Most of northern Italy was like, in many ways, like Iraq.
You have all these rival factions of communists, nationalists, You have guys that are still aligned with the regime, then there's also the places swarming with the SS, and it's also the most formidable terrain on Earth.
They drop into an area of northern Italy, which is the Alps of Italy, which is absolutely breathtaking, but it is the most treacherous terrain in the world.
Steve Hall happens to also be a mountain climber.
And he is climbing these mountains and avoiding the SS at the same time and then somehow trying to deal with a political situation.
You got a guy that's kind of a wasp that went to Harvard and Yale that somehow has to blend in with communist partisans from Northern Italy.
And that segue is really one of the great characters of the Brenner assignment.
It's a double agent who's a countess who works for the Nazis as a mayor.
But she actually is a French, we suspect, we could figure it out, is a French agent that's working for France to sort of keep tabs on the area.
Because this is where the so-called knife in the back came from France in 1940 from Italy.
And he falls in love with this woman.
And this all sounds like pure fantasy, but I used about 10,000 documents to put this story together.
And it's very cinematically told.
I've had about, I've had three movie deals that I've turned down because I haven't had the right person do it.
It's an amazing story.
And Steve Hall has, you know, is battling the mountains.
He's battling the cold.
He's battling these partisans in some cases that he has to ally with.
And then he has to find out how to conduct his mission.
But he also has another problem.
He doesn't have a radio.
And if you're a special operator behind the lines in Nazi Germany, a radio is your lifeline.
And they send in, the plan is to send in a commando team to bring him a radio.
And that is really one of the most amazing people that I have ever interviewed, Steve.
I've interviewed 4,000 World War II vets, and Howard Chappell, who's the guy that led that commando team, is the most amazing veteran I've ever met.
He's now deceased, but Chappell never would tell his story to anyone.
And I was able to get him to tell it.
And he killed men with his bare hands.
That's how tough this guy was.
And, um, I'll never forget.
I would always call him up and say, Hey, can I, can I talk to you about the mission?
He's like, well, you have to come out here.
And I offered to come out a couple of times, never said no.
And finally I just went out there.
And then I had his counterintelligence, the guy in charge of him, his handler during the war column.
And, uh, we met at high noon at Spyglass road at Pismo beach, because he actually fought the mafia after the war.
So he had all the OPSEC.
He was never, he never talked to anybody.
Brought me back to his house.
He had the Fairburn Sykes fighting knife that he carried in the war.
He was using it to open mail, but he was sharpening his fingernails.
He looked like Count Dracula.
This guy's 89, but 6'3".
And he's trying to intimidate me.
And he brought me back to his war.
And I would tell him stuff.
And he's like, well, I don't remember if I killed that guy with a ski pole or a log.
And all of this stuff was true because I found the documents.
But he was trying to find Hall to bring him the radio, and he did all kinds of amazing things to get there.
But Hall set out on his own on Christmas Day, that's why this is a Christmas story, to blow up a rail station that was critical to the Brenner assignment, that had a transformer, it was an electric rail station.
Sets off on skis in the middle of a snowstorm after being with the Countess that night, and sets off alone with explosives in his backpack.
In a raging snowstorm to blow up this, uh, this, uh, train station transformer and, uh, is caught, uh, you know, after, you know, going avoiding the SS for two days is eventually caught.
And, um, he's, he thinks he's, he goes to a church.
Um, but that, the, the, the, the, the, the priest that there is actually aligned with the Nazis and turns him in and, um, he's tortured.
By another great character in this book, a guy by the name of August Shipper, who's an SS counterintelligence officer that is just brutal.
He rounds people up.
He tortures them.
He tortured Stephen Hall, who didn't really break, even though he's tortured relentlessly.
And Shipper conducts what is known as a restalamento on Chappell's team, which is in a safe house.
And they pull an SS battalion off the line, and they literally have a manhunt to hunt his guys down.
And the story is epic, Steve.
They fight their way out of the house, surrounded by, you know, nearly 100 SS guards.
And, you know, one of the men has a BAR, and he's cut down.
I actually interviewed the partisans that were there and their family members.
I found these guys.
And my experience with the first one was, When I said the word chapel, the guy's jaw dropped and he said, that's, he's like Rambo.
That's what he said to me.
That's how much respect they had for chapel.
But they run from the SS and it's a scene right out of a movie.
They literally run down a river bank and some of these guys cover themselves in mud in the cubby holes on the side of the river as the SS are pursuing them.
And one of the men literally kills an SS soldier with, you know, with his, um, that tries to take him out with a knife.
Chappell is captured eventually and escapes.
He uses something called a Stinger pistol, which is a 22 caliber ballpoint pen.
And the German guard, who's an SS, hardened SS guy, looks at him with this Stinger pistol.
unidentified
And this, you know, like, there's no way that this is a gun.
Patrick, why don't you hang on one second.
steve bannon
We'll take a short commercial break.
where we return with the combat history of Christmas in a moment.
unidentified
Foom, foom, foom, foom, foom, foom, God will send us days of feasting.
Foom, foom, foom, foom, foom, God will send us days of feasting.
Foom, foom, foom, But the man that sent it Ho, ho, young man, ho, ho, young man, ho!
There is heaven for all these foom, And we're singing God's glory.
Foom, foom, foom.
O come, O come, Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel Rejoice!
Rejoice!
♪ Where that morn's inaugural he e'er shall be ♪ ♪ Until the sun of God appear ♪ ♪ Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee ♪ ♪ For he is Lord of all ♪
♪ O come, thou day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by thy birth ♪
and death's dark shadows move to fight, rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
steve bannon
Welcome back to War Room, the combat history of Christmas.
We're on Christmas night, what is it, 1943, I think, in World War II in the Italian Alps.
Hall is captured, turned in by a priest that's actually sympathetic or empathetic to the Italian fascists and to the Germans.
How does this story end?
And obviously you've got this Rambo-American commando Howard Chappell, you've got Stephen Hall.
These are heroes right out of movies.
How does this all end?
patrick k odonnel
Yeah, we're talking about the Brenner Assignment, and Stephen Hall is captured shortly after Christmas and brought into someplace called the Corpo di Mata, and this is the Gestapo headquarters that still exists in Bolzano.
And this is the nerve center for the German Army at the time, and their Gestapo network.
That is basically rounding up, torturing, executing partisans.
And Stephen Hall is brought to this place called the Machine Room and is tortured relentlessly by August Schiffer.
And they conduct what's known as Restalamento.
They basically take out Chappell's safe house.
He's on the run.
Most of his team, they're captured by August Schiffer.
And Howard Chappell is just so resourceful and so tough.
He's captured, but somehow he reforms the partisans that Hall had assembled.
And he has to get to them.
And the story of getting there is epic in and of itself.
He tried to use a coffin.
He tried to go up with, you know, part of his team going up in a coffin in a funeral where he would hide in the coffin.
Eventually decides to ride up in a truck in the back with a box.
And the guy that drove the truck, I literally interviewed him.
And they make their way up to Bolzano, and the war is coming to a close.
But Howard Chappell reforms these partisans, and they cut off the part of the Brenner.
They take a very high ground, and it's called the Balmoral.
It's a gorge.
And they fired down upon the SS, which are retreating, as well as a burned out, the 504 Tiger Tank Battalion.
They have a Tiger tank and some other heavy weapons, and they're trying to escape towards Germany.
And they hold them off at this pass.
And the SS come out, the main character of this book comes out, who had been hunting Chapel.
And they said that they took all the civilians in the area and they put them in the church.
And they said, they blow the church up if Chapel didn't let them pass.
Chapel, with balls of steel, goes down with only a .45 on his hip and a white flag in one of his teammates.
And they say, look, he confronts the SS commanders.
Look, we have a parachute battalion that just recently land.
You are surrounded.
You better surrender or else we'll take you out.
And it was like the bluff of the war.
And it succeeds.
And they capture about 4,500 Germans, including August One of the men that hunted him, the SS Major.
And he pleads with him before that and says, look, will you at least treat me like I treated your men?
And Chapel spoke German perfectly and said, yes, I'll treat you exactly how you treated my men.
And that SS Major was shot trying to escape.
And the story doesn't end there.
Stephen Hall recorded his story behind the lines in a diary that he recorded on cigarette paper, and he hid it in a wine bottle on the side of a house, and Chappell found the bottle.
And then he started to go after anybody that went after Stephen Hall.
And he eventually returns the diary to Stephen Hall's dad.
That's how powerful the story is.
It comes full circle.
steve bannon
Wow.
Incredible.
And Howard Chappell passed away when?
patrick k odonnel
He passed away about 10 years ago.
There's a movie called The Gangster Squad.
And there's a loose, it's a reference to Chapel when there's, there's one scene in that movie says, Oh, you were with the SS and you received the Silver Star.
And that's Howard Chapel.
He went after Mickey Spillane and the LA Mafia after the war.
I mean, he really brutal, just a tough guy, a tough American that is just epic.
He would go in, you know, at night and go after the, you know, the Mickey Cohen's good guys and just show up with a with a Thompson submachine gun at their house.
I mean, he was just this guy was just absolutely fearless.
steve bannon
Unbelievable.
You interviewed, I'm sure people understand this, we're going to move to Korea, but you've interviewed, because you're a specialist in oral histories, you've interviewed 4,000, before they passed away, 4,000 World War II veterans?
patrick k odonnel
It was, it was, I should say, I should caveat that as World War II.
It was the Great War.
I've interviewed some men from the Great War before they passed.
It was Korea and Vietnam.
So yeah, I've interviewed about 4,000 veterans and I've recorded their oral histories beginning right when I got out of college, when nobody else was doing it in, uh, in 19, wow, 80, 89, uh, 1991 or 92.
Yeah.
And that's my, my whole goal was to preserve and share these stories.
And I was doing it before really many, many others were and, uh, have amassed an enormous archive.
Of material on the elite units of American history as well as elite other units too, but you know, the Marine Raiders, the OSS, the Airborne, all of these guys.
steve bannon
I want to turn, let's turn now to the Korean War and the Chosin Reservoir and the attack or the, I guess, the counterattack of the Chinese, essentially the Chinese army.
It was in what is now North Korea, but a really unprepared American force up near the Chinese border in the Korean War.
Tell us about, I think the book was Give Me Tomorrow, but tell me about Chosin Reservoir over December and the Christmas holidays and into January.
patrick k odonnel
This is a special book, and it's a book that, like all many of the others, all of the others really, have found me.
And what I mean by that is I was in Fallujah with 3-1 Marines, and I came home, and I told my parents not to come out to California.
I came home to war alone, and that's a powerful experience in and of itself.
But when I got to Camp Pendleton, Um, I was greeted by these older men that were wearing, you know, red and gold windbreakers from the Korean War.
They asked me who I was and I told them, they're like, well, you, you carried our battle guide on in Fallujah.
And the next thing I know, they, I didn't have a ride to the train station.
I said, would you like us to take you?
And, and I said, absolutely.
And they took me to lunch and they said, Oh, by the way, we were a small company that held off a Chinese regiment.
And I'm like, at the Chosin Reservoir.
And I was immediately amazed and intrigued.
How could a company of men, 200 strong, hold off a regiment of 2,000 of Chinese soldiers?
And that's the beginning of Give Me Tomorrow.
And the beginning of Give Me Tomorrow, for them and America, was in the summer of 1950, when we were totally unprepared for the Korean War.
Much of our force of 12 million Americans, one of the largest militaries in the world, mightiest military in the world, had demobilized after World War II and had gone down to a peacetime army.
And in the summer of 1950, the North Koreans attacked and quickly overran most of South Korea.
There was a perimeter, a small pocket of men at Pusan, and it's here that You know, we started to feed Americans into that vortex of battle to hold the line.
And General MacArthur comes up with a plan at Incheon to land behind the rear amphibiously, which changes the course of the history.
It's an incredibly risky operation.
They land behind the rear and suddenly the North Koreans are in full flight.
And it's here that George Company first lands on the first wave at Incheon.
They were there, 3-1.
They were fighting in Seoul, and then moving up towards the Chinese border, part of what's known as X-10 Corps.
And, you know, MacArthur does something which many people criticize him for.
He divides his army.
There's X-10 Corps, which is close to the Japan side of Korea, and his Eighth Army is in the middle, and they're both pushing north.
Towards the Yalu River in China.
And you know, Mao Zedong isn't having it.
You know, the CCP had only a year earlier really consolidated power and taken China.
And they are now sending their armies across the Yalu River from the north in China and positioning themselves against the Eighth Army As well as the X Corps, which includes, X Corps includes really, if the bulk of that is the 1st Marine Division, at a place called the Chosin Reservoir, as they're moving north.
And the Chinese are doing it in a manner that's very stealthful.
They move across at night.
And MacArthur is sort of intoxicated with victory fever.
He believes that the war will be over by Christmas.
Tells everybody that.
And he just denies reports, even though reports are coming in that the Chinese are everywhere, continually denies reports that they're there, that they're not even an issue, that they're there in small numbers, and that the American army and the armies under the UN, if you will, are moving north towards the Yalu, which they think is victory by Christmas, when, you know, at the end of December, the Chinese strike a massive
and their armies nearly encircle and destroy the Eighth Army.
It's called the Great Bugout.
It's one of the great defeats in American history.
They push, they quickly retreat.
And at the Chosin though, it's different.
The First Marine Division is surrounded by over 12 Chinese divisions.
It's outnumbered in many cases, 10, in some cases, 20 to one by this massive Chinese force.
And that force, these are very tough men.
In many cases, they had been a part of Mao's Long March, but also, in many cases, they had been American allies that had fought with Chiang Kai-shek.
And Mao sent them there to die, basically.
Many cases, they were not properly equipped.
They did not have winter uniforms.
Some cases, they didn't even have weapons.
But the strategy there was to fight, and the guy next to you died, pick up the weapon.
steve bannon
P-P-P-P- Patrick, hang on for one second.
We're going to talk about this.
and come back and talk about Chosin Reservoir, as we return to our Christmas special in the War Room in just a moment.
unidentified
🎶 Music 🎶
steve bannon
🎶 Music 🎶 Okay, welcome back to War Room.
It's our Christmas special.
Gosh, we didn't need to cut that off like that.
That's okay, guys.
I went to Patrick K. O'Donnell.
We're in Korea, Chosun Reservoir.
We've got limited time here, Patrick, but walk us through.
This is one of the most heroic battles in all of American history.
Really outgunned, outmanned, and kind of sent over there and forgotten.
And they're fighting, you bring the point, they're fighting people that many of these Chinese were actually our allies in World War II on mainland China.
Mao had sent the Chiang Kai-sheks, the remainder of the Nationalist Army, the ones that actually flipped to his side and betrayed Chiang Kai-shek.
He sent them up there to die because he never trusted them.
So take us to the Chosin Reservoir.
patrick k odonnel
Yeah, the first Marine Division is surrounded, Steve.
And let me also set the stage here.
This is not only a war against overwhelming odds, 20 to 1, 10 to 1 in some cases, but it's also a war against the environment.
These men went through absolute hell, 30 to 40 below zero, no supplies.
Most of their uniforms were crap that was from the Battle of the Bulge that was no good.
Almost every one of these men had tranche foot or frozen feet.
Many froze to death.
The entire Chinese companies and battalions froze to death also because they were poorly equipped for this incredibly brutal arctic-like weather that these men are fighting in.
And George Company plays an amazingly important role.
They're in the back.
They had just not, there was not enough trucks to bring them up to the, into the Chosen Reservoir, so they had to be rushed into the reservoir, and they had to fight their way in from a place called Coterie, where Chesty Polar is holding the line.
They assemble, George Company, along with a tank company and other important reinforcements that have to make their way to a place called Hagererie, and they assemble this, cooks and anybody, bakers, anybody they think could run, assemble, in something called Task Force Drysdale.
And they had to roll up 11 miles of road in a place called Hellfire Valley against two Chinese divisions, massively outnumbered.
They had to fight their way up the road.
And the main character of my book is a guy by the name of Master Sergeant Rocco Zullo.
And Rocco Zullo is a World War II silver star recipient from the Battle of Peleliu.
He whips these guys into shape.
Most of them had a George company.
We're reservists.
They never went to boot camp, Steve.
They had only minimal training in the summer of 1950 and completely rushed into the service that do an extraordinary job as Americans.
They're fighting up Hellfire Valley, surrounded by the Chinese.
They make their way into a place called Hager Re, and they have to hold the most important high ground, East Hill, which overlooks Hager Re, which is here that the 1st Marine Division reassembled.
But they're also building an airfield to bring out the wounded, also bring in supplies.
It's all about time and holding the high ground.
And they break through.
But at that point, the main character of my book, Rocco Zullo, is shot through by several Chinese rounds.
His entire stomach is blown out.
He is left for dead.
He's piled on a set of bodies that are about eight feet high and left for dead.
Another unit finds him the next day, barely alive.
Every one of the men in George Company thought he died.
They hold the hill against all odds, against Chinese attacks of 20 to 1 odds.
I mean, the human wave assaults where the guns that they have, machine guns that hold the line, literally glow
steve bannon
White because they so many rounds passed through the barrels of those guns and Patrick just for just for our audience as we wrap up here And this shows you the heroism that happens over the holidays the most sacred one of the most sacred times Advent and Christmas You know equivalent to Lent and Good Friday But you know you have these heroes and these Patriots tell real quickly What was the weather like at Chosin Reservoir that the 1st Marine Division had to had to put up with?
patrick k odonnel
20 30 below zero sometimes 40 with the windchill it could go down to 60 in some cases 70 below zero Steve.
Men were literally if they they were wounded they would fall asleep and they would die.
I mean that's how this is the entire Chinese units literally were found frozen.
This is how treacherous and deadly it was.
steve bannon
Walk our audience through what provisions were given to them for winter gear.
What type of gear did these guys have?
patrick k odonnel
They didn't have proper winter clothing.
They didn't have the proper shoe pecks.
Most of the stuff that they had was horrendous.
They literally were starving, too.
Most of these men, all they had was Tootsie Roll Pops.
And that was their only source of supply along with snow.
That's what they ate. They were called Bloody George. The thing behind me is a scarf because it was parachute silk they were given.
The men gave me that parachute silk, made me an honorary member of George company. But they wore these red scarves around them and they were called Bloody George because they held that hill, you know, against all odds.
steve bannon
Real quick, how do people get to all your books?
I want to thank you for joining us for wrapping up now our Christmas special, The Combat History.
unidentified
How do people get to all the books?
patrick k odonnel
I'm on Gitter, at Combat Historian, on Twitter, on the same handle.
Give Me Tomorrow, all these books are at Barnes & Noble, or best to go online, buy them on, buy the Kindle version, or the audiobook version, because a lot of times it's a little bit harder to get that book.
All the books are on Amazon as well, and in Barnes & Noble.
steve bannon
Patrick K. O'Donnell, Merry Christmas.
Thank you for joining us, and to all our audience, Merry Christmas.
I want to thank you for joining us here in the Combat History of Christmas.
Enjoy the rest of your Christmas day with you and your family.
unidentified
Merry Christmas!
All aboard the Newport and Ray Baird!
All aboard!
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