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June 6, 2024 - Bannon's War Room
51:49
Episode 3664: WarRoom D-Day Special: 80 Years Later
Participants
Main voices
d
dave brat
05:41
p
patrick k odonnel
15:23
s
steve bannon
11:32
Appearances
r
ronald reagan
04:37
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, you are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months.
The eyes of the world are upon you.
The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine.
The elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one.
Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped, and battle-hardened.
He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944.
Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41.
The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats In open battle, man to man, our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground.
Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned.
The free men of the world are marching together to victory.
I have full confidence in your courage Devotion to duty and skill in battle, we will accept nothing less than full victory.
Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
video.
I'm going to show you how to get to the other side of the island.
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼
on the northern shore of France.
The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.
At dawn on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.
Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion, to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.
The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades.
And the American rangers began to climb.
They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up.
When one ranger fell, another would take his place.
When one rope was cut, a ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.
They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.
Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.
Two hundred and twenty-five came here.
After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs.
And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Puento Ho.
These are the men who took the cliffs.
The end.
These are the champions who helped free a continent, These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem.
You were men who in your, quote, lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor.
unidentified
My fellow Americans, last night when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the channel in another and greater operation.
It has come to pass with success thus far.
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer.
Almighty God, our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need thy blessings.
Their road will be long and hard.
For the enemy is strong.
He may hurl back our forces.
Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again.
And we know that by thy grace and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
The Star Spangled Banner The Star Spangled Banner
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
The Star Spangled Banner That's the moment of silence.
Thank you very much.
It is Thursday, 6 June, in the year of our Lord 2024.
I want to thank my own production team, of course, Real America's Voice.
End it there with the live commemoration today.
It's the 80th, and obviously, it'll be very difficult, if not impossible, to any of the veterans of the day.
One of the bloodiest days in American history.
We shouldn't lose sight of the others in the Pacific War, North Africa, Sicily.
Obviously the Civil War, 9-11, etc.
But the lesson from Normandy is next man up.
10,000 casualties.
I believe it's 10,000.
I think that's total Allied casualties.
4,400 dead.
Although the number's been very tough to ascertain.
Back in those days, they really wanted to downplay the number of casualties.
The reason there weren't more, in fact, the reason we even had a landing, And Dave Bratt joins me.
Dave, thank you so much.
Appreciate you being here.
Dave's going to be with us for the morning.
The reason that you can even make the landing, that the British eventually kind of signed
off on it with all the pressure getting from the Russians, was that the Russian army, the
Russian people, had literally taken the blunt of the Wehrmacht and essentially were destroying
the German army in places like today's Ukraine and other places.
It was even the ability to make sure that the German army wasn't at full strength on
the Western Front on the Atlantic wall that eventually allowed Churchill and company to
even agree to a landing because of the mass casualties of World War I in places like the
Somme and others.
The British public, although fighting for their life and had done such great work in
North Africa and Sicily, understood that to go back to Europe, to go back to a land war
in Europe was a different deal.
The heroes of D-Day, of June 6, 1944, the 80th commemoration day.
It's been three, Dave, I think it's been three years and six months, three years and five months from the 20th of January.
It was only about two and a half years.
I mean, they got to Normandy to the landings in two and a half years.
Remember the first part of it?
In 42, late in 42, I think in October, September, October, they finally, the American troops finally landed in North Africa, Operation Torch, and were able to relieve the British fight with the British and drive Rommel out of North Africa, save Egypt and Cairo, Alexandria eventually, then went to Sicily, then went to Italy, and kind of a, at least Italy's been always looked at maybe as a delaying action, so that our bombers could take care of the industrial strength of uh of um germany and remember it was that eighth air corps was the american bombers early in the war in the spring of 1942 90 days into the war 100 days into the war
virtually unprepared for what was going to hit them.
In fact, the British would only do nighttime precision bombing.
Daylight precision bombing was the only way to take out the German industrial strength, and it was the Americans that did that.
This is obviously one of the high holy days in American civic life.
It's been, and I don't want to politicize this too much, but it has been politicized,
and particularly now.
And I take great offense for the men who died at Normandy, that Zelensky's actually been
invited to some of these things.
And here's the reason, is that the, obviously Putin, he can't come.
I mean, they had some Russian leaders for a while.
You can't invite the KGB guys.
They're as bad as they get.
They're as bad as the Mullahs in the leadership over there, as bad as the Mullahs in Persia, and they're bad as the Chinese Communist Party.
They're all partners together.
But the Russian people were our great ally.
I hate to be brutally frank, but you look on that reviewing stand, 90% of the nations up there in the reviewing stand lost no men on D-Day.
It was the Canadians, It was the, and the Canadians have always been great.
Punched, always punched above their weight.
The British, the Americans, and you had I think a Polish, you had Polish paratroopers.
De Gaulle had, I think they threw together a division.
But most of the other nations, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, were either neutral, Norway and Quisling had already become a Nazi, a German partner.
The Irish, although a lot of Irishmen fought, particularly American Irishmen fought, Ireland was neutral at best.
And argued that maybe even gave sustenance to some of the submarine warfare.
So, here, and they're trying to make it so political, this about NATO, this about the strength of NATO, this about this new land war.
I think one of the lessons we should take is American sacrifice.
And not just treasure, but blood.
American blood and treasure.
It is, you know, time for the world's elite.
You're just not going to have America, because it shouldn't have to do this.
This was, I mean, we went in World War I, and we were the deciding factor.
We came in late, and we took massive casualties.
But the German, particularly the German army realized, if the Americans come in here with their industrial strength, unscathed by this war, and there's a lot of debate about, you know, the Zimmermann telegram to Mexico, the Lusitania, a lot of things Wilson did to get us in the war, because he was the first, you know, true globalist, and it hurts me to say, coming from the, he came from the Commonwealth of Virginia, But Dave, you know, we were at World War I, the peace treaty didn't solve the problems, it just made the problems worse of all these decayed, and one thing you see in World War I is all the decay, these empires run by these monarchs, I mean just absolutely
Horrific.
Didn't take care of the people.
The casualties in World War I, particularly the first two years, are so mind-numbing.
You go from absolute peace, really, they said, one of the most beautiful summers in 1914, in living memory, to absolute catastrophic war.
The problems were not solved.
And this gets back to what the founders told us.
You don't need to go over... Please don't go back to Europe looking for monsters to slay.
But we got into World War II.
A lot of people don't know the fact that after the Japanese bombed us, we declared war.
Actually, even in declaring war, Roosevelt went to Congress and said, we are in a state of war.
And now they voted.
We're in a state of war with Japan because they attacked us, you know, a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor.
We did not declare war on Germany, and that was a big debate behind the scenes.
We did not declare war on Germany.
Hitler declared war on us a couple of days later.
Hitler had a very bad, very bad 1941, going after the Russians in June, I think it was, and then taking on the Americans in December.
Those two nations, along with the Chinese people, Essentially broke the fascists back on this great land war.
But 80 years later the question is, what lessons have we learned?
And I have a problem with having Zelensky when they openly have the Azov battalions
and they have battalions of people that have fascist and Nazi roots that Boris Johnson
is taking pictures with and they got these ultra-nationalist Russians who thinks Putin
is too big a wuss that are fascist.
And you got to think back to the men that lost their lives on this day and it was horrific.
And we still don't know.
That's why Saving Private Ryan shocked people so much.
They didn't understand how bad those first wave.
And listen, the thing about those guys and the Bedford boys from down in Bedford, Virginia,
down in your neck of the woods now, the 29th Infantry Division, completely slaughtered.
They knew the first guys out.
In fact, we had Tommy Tuberville yesterday with one of these great stories.
The landing craft operators.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
So good.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
You know, they were taking incoming like crazy.
To go up there and let that tank off in just the five feet of water it would survive, a lot of people started rethinking their options and said, maybe I'll drop this off now, oh, and the water's 30 feet, but that tank can't flow, it's going to go right to the bottom.
But that's human preservation.
Those guys in the first wave, in the first couple waves, and as we do here, and we'll do it now, I think Paris fell in the middle of August.
But the Battle of Normandy went up to like mid to late July.
We'll cover it every couple of days and give you an update.
But the Battle of Normandy overall is one of the most horrific battles in American history.
And one of the reasons?
They spent so much time training in combined arms to get on the beach, take the beach, and then get a beachhead.
And none of the D-Day objectives, according to the planners, were actually achieved on D-Day.
Right?
You get more men in the next day, was able to push through, get off the beach.
But the objectives in them were not taken.
But the heroism is also that whole battle that took place.
And if Patton, they hadn't brought Patton in a month or two into this thing for Tommy Tuberville's dad, we'd never gotten there.
Your thoughts?
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, well yesterday, just a great show with Senator Tuberville.
He's one of my favorites guys in the universe.
And your show with him just spoke to it.
And the joy, you could see, right?
It's interesting how God works in the world through decimation and suffering of World War II, but the greatness, right?
And then Tuberville comes out and says a couple interesting things.
One, after all the suffering, Uh, his dad's tank mate shot the Arc de Triomphe or something like that, right, by, you know, and they said, why'd you do that?
He said, we were so happy.
We're celebrating, right?
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Boys from Arkansas.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
So this is the basic American spirit.
When we were great, and then the people that put down nationalism and the American great, this is what you're putting down, right?
And so, Tuberville also noted, The improbability of being able to have land forces like that today, the army willing to fight.
So what's changed is the attack on God and country and all the higher elements that make America so great.
Right? And that's the change. And you look at...
It used to be a simpler world in some ways, right?
It was kinetic wars.
And you could see the death and mutilation, etc.
Now the neo-Marxists, it's a war of the intellect and of the soul.
The Marxists are crushing the soul of this country.
And that's what the new fight is.
And if somebody punches your kid in the face, you wouldn't have five seconds of it.
But if they punch your kid and they ruin his intellect, and they ruin your kid's mind, and they ruin your soul, you better learn to stand up and fight.
That's what this is about today.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Let's take it not just from Dave Brat, let's hear from one of the greatest generations.
We've got a short clip on that.
unidentified
The real truth?
Yeah.
I feel like a foreigner in my own country lots of times.
And I don't like it.
It makes my heart real heavy.
And I just hope we can pull out of this.
There's too much Hollywood going on in Washington all the time.
The important subjects they don't cover.
So the thing is, I hope all the guys will rally up and we'll go back and straighten it all out.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Right there, you hear from the greatest generation.
He feels like a foreigner.
All those guys in the first wave, if they were back here today and seeing what's happened in the schools, to see what happened, the lack of respect, to see the lack of patriotism, to have the neo-Marxists in charge of the universities, in charge of culture, in charge of pop culture.
up here in Capitol Hill to see what's happening in this country.
They'd be repulsed by it, wouldn't they?
That's the people that, they talk about the greatest generation and Mattis, you say the
greatest generation's greatest gift is the post-war international rules-based order.
Well, it's the elites that use that to game the system, to extract wealth for themselves,
to make the Chinese Communist Party a partner in, and to basically cut out the core of this
The men that died that day would never envision a strong industrial America with great workers, great jobs.
That is actually, at the end of the day, the thing that empowered us.
The reason we had so few casualties.
I think under a million casualties in World War II.
And the reason was, or under a million dead, the reason was our great industrial strength.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, that's right.
And one of our great congressmen, Byron Donalds, is taking it on the chops for comments or whatever.
But this all goes back, right?
If you look at the general decay of the United States of America, it starts in the 60s, right?
And if you look at the African-American family, the white family, the divorce rates, the breakdown of education in this country, the breakdown of the economy, the beginning of the loss in productivity.
Everything is on a downhill descent after we rose so high and we're at our peak.
steve bannon ▲ ● ▼
Well, we're going to get back to that.
That's MAGA.
Make America Great Again.
I have a previously scheduled event that I'm going to have to punch out to.
Five to seven o'clock tonight, Natalie Winters and I will be back to take the deck in the con and to conclude.
We're going to have more commemoration then.
We've got a lot more stuff going on, but more commemoration then.
Dave Brat is going to stand in for us.
He's going to take the deck in the con.
Patrick K. O'Donnell is going to join us.
Then later you're going to have some discussion on your favorite topic.
Besides theology, and that would be economics in the current state of America.
I will be back here from five to seven.
I want to leave you, the theme today is Next Man Up.
This is what, remember, with 10,000 casualties on day one of Normandy, somebody had to step up to the plate.
Those are those great enlisted men, great junior officers, non-commissioned officers, all of it to make sure we went forward.
It hasn't changed in our current war.
I'm going to leave you with my favorite clip from my favorite war movie, 12 o'clock high.
This is to lay out exactly what task and purpose is.
unidentified
I'll be back this afternoon at 5 o'clock.
That's right, practice.
I've been sent down here to take over what has come to be known as a hard luck group.
Well, I don't believe in hard luck.
So we're going to find out what the trouble is.
Maybe part of it's your flying, so we're going back to fundamentals.
But I can tell you now one reason I think you've been having hard luck.
I saw it in your faces last night.
I can see it there now.
You've been looking at a lot of air lately.
You think you ought to have a rest.
In short, you're sorry for yourselves.
Now, I don't have a lot of patience with this what-are-we-fighting-for stuff.
We're in a war, a shooting war.
We've got to fight.
And some of us have got to die.
I'm not trying to tell you not to be afraid.
Fear is normal.
But stop worrying about it.
And about yourselves.
Stop making plans.
Forget about going home.
Consider yourselves already dead.
Once you accept that idea, it won't be so tough.
Now, if any man here can't buy that, if he rates himself as something special, with a special kind of hide to be saved, he'd better make up his mind about it right now.
Because I don't want him in this group.
I'll be in my office in five minutes.
You can see me there.
I'll take Colonel Babb before any day!
ronald reagan ▲ ● ▼
Me too!
On a lonely windswept point, on the northern shore of France.
The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.
At dawn on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.
Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion, to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.
The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.
The rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades.
And the American rangers began to climb.
They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up.
When one ranger fell, another would take his place.
When one rope was cut, a ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.
They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.
Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.
Two hundred and twenty-five came here.
After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.
Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs.
And before me are the men who put them there.
These are the boys of Puento Ho.
These are the men who took the cliffs.
Yes.
These are the champions who helped free a continent These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem.
You were men who in your, quote, lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
Honored to be back in the War Room with Stephen K. Bannon, and great honor to bring in one of our great friends, Patrick K. O'Donnell.
And before we get there, Reagan's speech, just hugely inspirational always,
lifting our souls up, lifting everything up to the heavens, to God, to America,
to what made this country great in the first place.
The men who made this country great in the first place, calling special attention to the men who climbed the cliff,
put their hooks in the cliff, seized the cliff, seized the land.
And that's a metaphor for what Bannon et al here at the war room are calling all of us to do.
Seize this land, take this land back for God, country, family, to restore it,
make America great again in all of the highest senses of the word,
and to seize this continent, and to end all the wars that are going on right now
in the world we currently live in.
No better person to give us a summary of World War II and the meaning of it for Americans
than our special friend, Patrick K. O'Donnell, who's no stranger to this show.
Welcome, Patrick, why don't you lead us on a summary of the major remarks you wanna make
linking all these ideas together.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
Dave, it's a pleasure and an honor to be here once again with you.
In the war room, the posse.
Past is present.
You know, many of the things that are going on today are inextricably linked to the past.
You know, I'm just honored by the fact that many of those boys of Pointe du Hoc were my closest friends.
And I started interviewing the boys of Pointe du Hoc and World War II Rangers and special operations forces from World War II in 1992.
And I've literally thousands of men that I've interviewed Only one Ranger officer is still alive from D-Day that I know, close friend, General John Rahn.
But it's those stories that are so powerful in that generation that did so much for us.
And, you know, I think what's important to note is in 1941 and in 1940, the United States did not possess a single special operations forces or even the concept of special operations.
It would be in 1940, That while Bill Donovan, Colonel Donovan at the time, who was an ambassador to President Roosevelt, recognized the absolute need for special forces and special operations forces, which would have a crucial, would play an absolutely decisive and crucial role on D-Day, which I'll get to in a minute.
But he writes a letter to President Roosevelt that is compelling and powerful.
America needs guerrilla bands of bold and daring men organized to sew the dragon's teeth behind the lines.
Men calculatingly reckless, with discipline daring, who are trained for aggressive action.
It will mean a return to our old tradition of the Scouts, Raiders, and Rangers.
And that's part of the story that I tell in the book, The Unvanquished.
They had no template in 1941 and 1940.
So they had to look back at our first modern war, which is the American Civil War.
And they look back at the Jesse Scouts, Mosby's Rangers and the Confederate Secret Service for a template on how to put these men together.
And they stumble and fall.
I mean, the bureaucracy of the Army doesn't want anything to do with Special Operations Forces.
They create something called the Special Activities Section or branch, which then morphs into the Special Operations Branch within the Coordinator of Information or OSS, which then changes.
Even the President's son is with General Donovan or Colonel Donovan at the time.
And he breaks off to be the executive officer of the 2nd Raider Battalion for the U.S.
Marine Corps.
And then the Rangers are formed in 1942 with, you know, under the direction of then-Colonel Lucian Truscott.
And it's these Rangers that will play a key role at D-Day.
Let me take you and the audience back in time, Dave.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
Hey Patrick, let me pull a Bannon on you.
You said past is present.
Before you make that transition to D-Day, you just said there was no special operations back at this point in history.
Just a quick question for you.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
There's a book by Gannon I think called National Security and the Double Government.
uh... which contrasts the uh... the uh... truman nights the three-letter
agencies uh... with this naive people who believe in the a madisonian
government separation of powers
uh... now the debate is the three-letter agencies in special organ special
operations folks have taken over the government uh... you any any short commentary there before you go on
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
to be day well i mean the united states is that a very rich history
of a regular warfare since the beginning of our country even prior to it
in the sixteen hundreds of term ranger I mean, America had, you know, basically pioneered a new form of warfare.
And it's part of our tradition.
It's how we defeated the British in the Revolutionary War.
You know, the question you have is a good one.
I mean, unfortunately, some of this legacy does translate into, you know, what we have today.
Which is unfortunately an encroachment, in some cases, of the Constitution and what the Founders envisioned.
It's the American Revolution in our founding which is so important today.
It's about freedom and liberty, but it's also about the dispersion of power, which is incredibly important.
Many operators today follow the Constitution and are true patriots.
But on D-Day, this is a situation where America needed these brave men, and they play a very, very critical role, Dave.
Let's go back in time to June 6, 1944.
Where, you know, these men are disembarking from the motherships that they have that are out in the English Channel.
It's roughly 6 a.m.
in the morning, and the seas are stormy.
They're climbing down these rope ladders.
I mean, it's a perilous climb.
They gotta go about 30 feet down into the landing craft.
If you slip and fall on these wet ropes, you could literally die by, you know, just breaking your neck.
They get into the landing craft, and they make their way towards They make their way towards Pointe du Hoc.
And why it's important is this is a rocky peninsula that is basically between Omaha and Utah Beach.
In a top, you know, Pointe du Hoc are six big guns.
At least they think they're there in the casements.
And the Rangers are broken down into three task forces and Things go wrong immediately at the beginning.
The major force, which is Group A, Ranger Force A, which is under the command of Colonel Rudder, is suddenly going in the wrong direction to a place called Pointe de la Poisse, which is on the extreme flank of Omaha Beach.
And this is a very fortuitous mistake, because what happens is they're put off course And they're delayed by about 40 minutes.
At the time that the Rangers are supposed to hit the cliffs, a massive aerial bombardment from hundreds of bombers plastered Pointe du Hoc.
And they would have been, as the Rangers were getting off on the prescribed schedule, they would have been killed by the bombs of these bombers, our own men, by our own bombs.
But they're delayed.
And then they redirect, because the rudder understands that they're going in the wrong direction.
They get back on course, and they're about 40 minutes behind schedule, and they start to climb.
They get off the landing craft, and it's like, you know, Saving Private Ryan.
There's one scene where they jump off the craft, and they literally go underwater, under their heads.
You know, the water goes over their helmets, because the bombers had created massive shell holes in the front of the point.
And they go underwater, many of these guys, and then they start to scale a cliff.
And they're peppered by MG42 machine guns.
These things can put out about 1,200 to 1,500 rounds.
Many of them are hit in the craft.
It's a, you know, bloodbath.
And they're being, you know, grenades are being thrown down upon them.
And then the side of the cliff, the Germans have actually put IEDs or improvised explosive devices, which are shell that are 155 millimeter rounds of artillery that are suspended that can be detonated remotely.
And so they have to go through this entire gauntlet to get to the top.
And my main character in the book I wrote, Dog Company, which captures this story, is Leonard LaMelle.
He was one of my closest friends.
And he is he is hit on the side by a machine gun bullet as he's climbing.
And this guy just shrugs it off and keeps pushing.
Many of his men and dog company aren't even able to make it to the cliff.
One landing craft literally capsizes by an artillery shell that lands near it.
And they make their way to the top.
And what they see on top of Pointe du Hoc, Dave, is a maze of Bunkers and tunnels and trenches.
And the Germans are dug in.
They have a anti-aircraft gun that is firing, you know, 20 millimeter shells directly at these Rangers.
They're hit by machine gun fire, but they still press on.
And they get up to the top and the casements themselves are empty because they have telephone poles that are, they're dummy guns that are put there because the Germans knew That the Allies would plaster Pointe du Hoc with, you know, the greatest amount of ordnance.
It would be, you know, thousands of bombers would hit the point.
There was, you know, naval artillery that shelled it.
But it would be one man, or two men, really, that would take out D-Day's toughest objective.
They get to the top, and then they start to fight through this maze of bunkers.
And Len Lomel is leading with his small group of men, including Jack Kuhn, And they find a set of tire tracks, which they think may have been, you know, the guns themselves that had been moved.
And they follow these tracks for about five or six hundred yards, and they come upon the guns, which are in an apple orchard that are under nets.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
Patrick K. O'Donnell, let me hold you right there and we'll finish the rest of the story after 30 seconds to one minute break.
Glad to have you on The War Room.
unidentified
Right back with me. Here's your host Stephen K Bannon.
Great to be with you all this morning.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
The War Room sitting in for Stephen K Bannon and one of our favorites is with us.
You've been hearing from him.
He's got much more to teach us, and with that, I'll turn you all back to Patrick K. O'Donnell, one of the foremost combat historians in our country, a great patriot, and someone who can teach us about how we can restore America.
By going back to what our heroes at World War II have taught us.
And so with that, Patrick, take us back to your story.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
We left off with Len LaMelle and Jack Kuhn, this small group of rangers following a set of tire tracks.
And they make their way about 500 yards to an apple orchard.
And they find Five of the guns under a canopy of nets.
Nearby is a group of artillerymen that are manning those guns, and they're in attention.
But they're ready to go and ready to fire.
And LeMel, you know, without orders of any kind, does, he accomplishes the omission of all of those bombers, thousands of bombers that try to plaster Pointe d'Arc, the Navy bombardment, One man will change the course of history by disabling the guns.
They have something called a thermite grenade.
And this is a grenade that produces hot molten metal, you know, almost 2000 degrees.
And he places the grenades on the gears and working systems of the guns.
And it doesn't make noise, but it melts the gears and renders them inoperable.
And, you know, this is where I think the great story here is how Personal agency, how a single person can change the outcome, potentially of an entire evasion.
I mean, this is a, the history of the books that I've written are all about a small group of men or women that can change history by their actions or their agency.
And this is a case with Lamel.
Um, and he is, he's able to disable the guns.
Another group of Rangers take out the six gun.
But this is the beginning of their war on top of Pointe du Hoc.
There are still hundreds of Germans in these bunkers and tunnels that they are, you know, desperately fighting the Rangers to try to repel them from the cliff.
And they also have to set up their secondary objective, which is to cut the coastal road atop Pointe du Hoc, which links Omaha and Utah Beach.
This is crucial because If that road is accessible, the Germans can ferry reinforcements to either beach.
So they set up in sort of an L-shaped set of foxholes atop Pointe du Hoc, and they wait.
And in true German fashion, Germans attack and counterattack.
Hundreds of men are hitting Dog Company and the men of LaMelle's platoon what's left of it.
As well as E and F companies, which are part of this assault force.
There's something else that's really important about this operation that is absolutely crucial.
And it has to do with a mistake.
Because the 5th Ranger Battalion was to follow on, along with A and B Company, the 2nd Ranger Battalion.
Once the men in LaMelle's group, these three companies, the assault force, the 225 that President Reagan talked about, Captured the point.
What happens, though, is as they scale the cliffs and secure the top, they send a radio message to the secondary force, the 5th Ranger Battalion.
It's never received, Dave.
It's a mystery to this day why.
And what happens is instead of reinforcing Lamel and the other Rangers in the 225, they proceed to their secondary objective, which is Omaha Beach.
And they are.
This is an amazing moment because it roughly 645 a.m.
Omaha Beach is a charnel house.
It is.
It is a bloodbath.
There's an entire there's elements of a German division there that are dug in and they are repelling The 1st Division, the 29th Division, and there's a small, there's one company of Rangers on the, at Pointe de la Proce, but the invasion at Omaha Beach is going nowhere, and there's actually talk about taking the men off the beach and coming back to the boats.
It's at this point in time that, you know, at the exact point in time in history, an inflection point, that the 5th Ranger Battalion and A and B Company are landing.
And they will change the course of the war.
The A&B company, it's hit on Omaha, Doug Green.
This is the scene from Saving Private Ryan where it's a bloodbath.
Ray Ulm, one of the men that I interviewed, a good friend from Chicago, said that the water was dark red because there were so many casualties and bodies floating around.
It's at this point, Max Schneider, the commander of the 5th Ranger Battalion, orders the landing craft to go a little bit over to the left to Dog White Beach, and here they change the course of history.
A ranger battalion is at exactly the right time and place to alter the invasion and Omaha Beach, and they lead the breakout.
And this is an extraordinary moment in time.
dave brat ▲ ● ▼
Hey Patrick, let me ask you on that.
Past is present.
Individuals can change history by their own actions.
How do you see that at play?
I'm going to hold you over the break after 11 as well, but I just want to give people some hope right now how their own individual actions in the military or otherwise Can change history what what lessons have you gleaned from all of your writing all your work?
And if you want to throw in how the hand of God is also at work in these individuals giving them hope and courage Light it up for us a little bit there, and then I'll take you through the break, and we'll start up again Our history as a nation is replete our history as a nation is replete with individuals That change the course of history small groups of individuals The American Revolution is a classic example of that.
patrick k odonnel ▲ ● ▼
In The Indispensables, for instance, Dave, this is the story about the Marblehead Regiment during the American Revolution.
And all seems to be lost at the Battle of Long Island.
But a small group of men from Marblehead have the impossible task of saving an army of 10,000 men.
And it's in the summer of 17 76, where the British have overwhelmed most of our defenses and Washington is determined to somehow save the army.
And they gather up all the boats that they can, and it's an American Dunkirk.
And this is a situation where it's quite extraordinary that, you know, they have to somehow cross a mile of river.
I'm gonna hold you right there, Patrick.
We're gonna come back for that close.
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