 Take it away Tom. Hello. Thank you for coming to see us today talk about our book the last hill We thank the National Archives We thank any of you who are watching and listening to our talk and Where our latest book is called the last hill and it's a World War two story and before I turn it over to Bob to Give us some of his input on I want to give a general overview of the book And then we have some more specific points to discuss the last hill the title of the last hill refers to hill 400 and It's it's on the border of Germany and It's the book is about the second range of battalion and we we from the beginning I always thought of this book as kind of like a one of those World War two movies they made in the 1940s and early 50s where you take a unit and you take it from the very Beginning of its origin and the tough drill sergeant or captain whoever's in charge and the cast of characters that Work together to become a cohesive unit and take them on their adventures, and that's that's what we do in the last hill we take the second ranger battalion and While the climax of the book the main event of the book and of course why it's called the last hill is the attack On this particular hill 400 that's on the German border It's height in meters 1300 feet 1500 feet at all The reason why we we we get to that point or eventually get to that point is because we take the second ranger battalion from its origin in Camp in Tennessee and even before that actually and we'll talk about that in a little more detail a bit Oh, and by the way before I forget I'm Tom clave and my colleague that you see in the other screen there is Bob Drury We take it from its adventures When it first gets over to England and station there, there's the D-Day the the Point-du-Hoc guns that has to take out It's the battalion works its way east across occupied France Freeing up fighting the Germans along the way and when we get into the late fall Not quite winter yet, but the conditions of quite wintry already when we get into the late fall of 1944 the second ranger battalion encounters the hill hill 400 and Sometimes called Castle Hill And and its job is to try and take this hill as others have failed, but we'll get to that in a little bit I think what I want to do now is after I've given you a general overview of of a sort of like a a Journey that we take with the second ranger battalion through the book is let's go back to the beginning because I Can readily admit that I did not come up with the idea for this book as it originated with my co-author Bob Drury Well, it didn't originate with me as As as as Tom well knows as any non-fiction writer well knows You never know when the idea for a good book is going to sneak up in there smack you upside the head We've gotten our ideas from a variety of the park rangers It was a Marine historian at Quantico the US Marine Corps historian who suggested that we might want to look into the Sue warrior chief Red Cloud and Both of us were like who but and it turns out that Red Cloud are the protagonist of our book the heart of everything that is The book spent 25 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list all only because this Marine Corps historian an interest in the 19th America's 19th century Indian Wars, so be that as it may as it happened I Guess was what Tom about three years ago. It was we're putting the finishing touches on the Daniel Boone book blood and treasure Yeah, and I was yeah, so it'd be about three years ago I was out having a beer with a friend of mine Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and we were discussing and I've wracked my brain We were discussing some disaster of the day. It had to be before Ukraine I don't know might have an Isis it might it might have been the Russian incursion into Syria it might have been something in Afghanistan and He just want at one point. He threw up his hands and he said it reminds me of the debacle in the hurricane forest during World War two and I was like what now the huh? What farce is this and and as an aside and as Tom well knows My friend is a crusty old former artillery officer. He did not use the word debacle He in fact the phrase he used began with the word cluster if you catch my meeting But anyway at any rate, I'd never heard of the battle of the herd to forest so I called Tom that night I said, you know, maybe we should look into this. We have a few projects after the Boone book on the back burner. I said this might be worth a little cursory research and As it turns out We were rewarded man work we rewarded the story had everything Yeah, undaunted courage from American GIs from the Rangers that we write about personal sacrifice blood and gore a lot of blood and gore And the German defenders of the hurricane forest, which is Tom said was right on the Belgian German frontier They called the farce the gruna hella the green hell and they were not mistaking What did not have at least from our perspective at first glance didn't have a narrative didn't have a through line and so I pulled I got up I pulled the the U.S. Army War Department official history of the Siegfried line now this this Line the Siegfried line the Germans called it the vest ball the West wall That was German territory and they had pretty much put up bunkers all the way surrounding the German frontier and I pulled off the War Department's official history of the Siegfried line And yes, I am the kind of nerd that has the War Department's official history of the Siegfried line in 1944 on his bookshelf and The report was a real doorstop is a real doorstop. It was written by 1963 by the U.S. Army's chief historian Charles McDonald is his name was his name and Coincidentally Charles McDonald had fought through the Hurtken forest as a 21 year old infantry captain and Even this official chronicle this official history Just painted a bleak picture a top-to-bottom catastrophe for the U.S. Army And I mean as I mentioned before the fight was a real meat grinder and McDonald pulled no punches and Describing how we were on our way. We need the allies to a catastrophic defeat in the Hurtken and What we didn't know at the time the army at the time once the D-day breakthrough occurred and we cleaned up pockets of German Resistance on the Brittany Peninsula where the you were the second Ranger battalion fought through heroically The army called a pursuit warfare as we were chasing the Germans back across France and back across Belgium And what nobody expected was that the Germans were going to stand and fight on the Siegfried line In fact Hitler had given orders to every unit manning that line. Let me make sure I get the quote, right You will fight to the last man and the law and the last cartridge you will stand or die so This Hurtken forest is right on the frontier and across this 70 square mile gloomy woodland It's wet. It's cold. It's dank. It's snowing a rainy freezing rain every day the battle of the Hurtken forest was Something right out of the imagination of the brothers grip only as I mentioned with more blood And the ultimate objective as Tom mentioned of the battle of the Hurtken forest was to take Hill 400 its height meters 1300 feet The last hill of course of our book title Now Hill 400 was the highest mini mountain Kind of straddling the eastern edge of the Hurtken forest and beyond Hill 400 was the opening into Germany's heartland and Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower He wanted to break through this opening into the heart of Germany before the end of 1944 that's where the same came from and the war in 44 Eisenhower believed he thought we were going to we once again He thought the allies were going to win the war, but he thought that he the Germans had time To regroup over that winter that that would extend the war another six to eight months with of course the concurrent casualties and and death and And so what he did was at the last minute the things were going so bad we had sent An unbeknownst I should I should point out here that unbeknownst to Eisenhower or any of his Intelligence officers or any of his commanders the one of the reasons the Germans were fighting so hard Along the Siegfried line particularly in the Hurtken forest was because behind Hill 400 Hitler was amassing 40 divisions for a massive counterattack a counterattack of course that became known as the battle of the Bulge and So from the top of this Hill 400 German artillery spotters could see the entire forest and they were directing massive continuous and murderous artillery fire at At the soldiers the GI the American GI's who entered this woodland and at some point over September October and November of 1944 disparate regiments from four separate U.S. Army divisions sent close to 50,000 men into this forest and they incurred 15,000 nearly a third were casualties and The Americans were not only facing this artillery garage. It was raining artillery But the Germans as they retreated to the Siegfried line that's through in the floor forest floor with Let me make sure I get the word right my German is not this wooden TNT pack shoots in dose of the meaning These were little mines that the GI's called them shoe mines because if you stepped on one They blow your boot off with your foot in it and and the Americans were also facing as they had through this forest Scores of bunkers manned by Thousands of Germans with 50 caliber machine guns I mean so the combined Siegfried Siegfried line defense shells mines bunkers Murder holes the GI's called these bunkers The they took down these 15,000 Americans and as the historian Charles McDonald I mean this line just stuck with me. I want to make sure I get this right, too Across a 20-mile front McDonald writes in his official history There was one man down for every three feet games Every three feet came to think about that you take a step. That's three feet one man down across a 20 mile front and So anyway, Tom and I got to talking. I know this is inside baseball, but it's funny The two questions that Tom and I get most there are how do you how do two people write one book and To where do you get your ideas from? So I'm gonna give you a little insight baseball here I already noticed your a beer in a bar with a former army Lieutenant Colonel led to the idea But as we looked further and further into it didn't more and more research and reporting We're saying thing ourselves. No wonder People haven't read about the patent was hurt in forest. I mean, it's certainly not the most uplifting of stories Frankly most historians and and authors who write About World War two they'd rather write about D-Day and maybe the liberation of Paris before the Battle of the Bulge I mean who's gonna want to read about this depressing story? But then but then We hit We hit on something See I kept reading in McDonald's official history and at one point almost as an aside a couple paragraphs at most He writes about this ragged Second Ranger Battalion by this point in the war. They're down to some four hundred officers Non-coms and enlisted men. They have performed heroically on the cliffs of point to Hawk and Omaha Beach at D-Day They are poor performed heroically during the Brittany campaign to clear the Germans out of the Brittany Peninsula And so Eisenhower decides Why don't we send these Rangers into the hurricane forest? As maybe they can turn the tide for us and as it turned out This small unit of special operators They actually ended up succeeding were thousands upon thousands of GIs before them had failed they succeeded in taking and for a time holding the 400 and it was not without many casualties of their own of course so we were Tom and I were kind of cognizant You know, we both grow. Oh, I grew up on movies like Merrill Merrill's Marauders and Jeff Chandler I think played Frank Merrill, you know operating as clandestine guerrilla warfare guerrilla warriors and in Burma and even Darby's Rangers they were named after they were the named after their commander William O Darby That was the first Ranger against to see action in World War two. They were uh, they Operated behind the lines in North Africa blowing up fuel dumps and whatnot belonging to the Desert Fox general or when Rommel the famed commander of Germany's Africa Corps And but these lightning strike in and out battles. They were looked down upon by the regular army the regular army looking at Special operators special forces like the Rangers cowboys. We don't need cowboys. They'll just get in our way Let's just subscribe to the us grant Ulysses Grant will grind Germany Under our military might our armaments our Our air our army air force at the time our our tanks But it didn't work that way in the forest and what happened was is general the General George C. Marshall he liked the idea of these special operators and So he set up several of the Regiments and battalions who first went into north Africa and then later went into Went into went into france during d-day now How do I put this tom and I I we have nothing against her. I have nothing against the great man theory of warfare. I mean, I'll read a book about Peter the great or Uh, well, William Tecumseh Sherman or Napoleon or George Patton, but that's not the Kind of stories we write we like to write about ordinary men Who rise to extraordinary circumstances in combat? and these rangers It looks like they might fill the bill for us so In order to find out the answer Uh to that famed question posed by butch Cassie in the Sundance kid. Who are these guys? We started doing a little digging and we started and To our good fortune The second range of battalions commander lieutenant colonel James Earl rudder big jim rudder his men called him behind his back, of course His papers we started with his papers at the university of texas now rudder Was old school. He had anchored texas a and m's offensive line as a center. He was an all-american center Uh in the era when they played with leather helmets and no face masks And so we started going through rudder's papers. Tom and I have always found That two words kind of Sum up what what makes our narratives Contemporaneous writings and to our great good fortune rudder was uh and his papers, of course He had official after action reports and unit biographies and unit newsletters But he also was an inherent letter writer to his wife margaret chick was her nickname dear chick We kept coming across dear chick dear chick dear chick. I've got at one point I thought we might call the book dear chick but tom talking out of it Uh And it was from these personal letters That we got or we said we were beginning to feel that we're getting what we need here Uh at one point Uh rudder wrote to chick about uh one of his lieutenants bob edlin the full lieutenant Was his nickname because once the second ranger battalion Uh got overseas edlin volunteered for so many behind enemy lines patrols that they just started looking at him Said this man's a fool. He's a fool and as it turns out during the war Edlin or a rudder came to consider bob edlin kind of like a surrogate son And in his letters we discovered that uh, he had exhorted edlin that when the war was over put your memories down on paper And sure enough that's what edlin did and tom finds these two elderly sisters in minnesota Who had transcribed edlin's memories his personal memories? I mean this is gold mine kind of stuff. They're in another letter. Uh, we were kind of surprised Lieutenant colonel rudder wrote to his wife dear chick He wanted to put uh one of his platoon sergeants sergeant when lamell He wanted to put him up for the medal of honor for his actions during the June 6, uh 1944 invasion of france Now lamell had talked rudder out of this Because lamell was aware that any medal of honor recipient was immediately pulled from a combat posting The war department was not going to risk a medal of honor recipient Being killed or wars yet being captured by the enemy and paraded around so I mean we're Len lamell he said no Well, he didn't quite say no, but he said please don't please don't please don't and instead he was awarded the Distinguished service cross, which is our nation's second highest uh military award so I got to curious about this guy Len lamell Looked into him as it turns out he grew up And after the war came home to practice law in a community That is four towns away from me here in the jersey shore so, uh So I went and I started nosing around the library and it turns out I found out about this Another now Len lamell had was long dead. He died in 211 at the age of 91 But there was a a form another retired lieutenant colonel army lieutenant colonel Who had Affected a posthumous campaign to get Len lamell the To be awarded the medal of honor Get this though not for his actions at normandy beach for his actions at top hill 400 I'm saying to myself Here's someone that people deemed medal of honor worthy in two separate fights I could I could find out about this guy. So I called the uh the Uh Retired lieutenant colonel. Paul zygote was his name good man And agreed that he agreed to meet me for coffee and when he walked into the coffee shop with this giant suitcase It pulled out papers like this I knew we hit the mud alone. I said this is it and not only had uh, paul zygote kind of colonel paul zygote collected Testimonials about Len lamell's actions at normandy Uh in the hurricane forest at top hill 400 But he had also In these letters from lamell's battalion mates They'd naturally described what they went through whether it was when they were standing up in training in tennessee at camp bed for forest whether it was climbing the uh Practicing on the cliffs of dover for the cliffs of normandy beach Whether it was the britney peninsula campaign or whether of course whether it was the uh the hurricane forest campaign itself So i'm thinking we we've hit the motherload here. So I called tom that night. I'm almost giddy But the stuff I have about len lamell and he hits me with a one two punch. He said listen to this The communications officer ike lieutenant ike james eichner eich eichner, of course was his nickname Of the second ranger battalion after the war he decided to become Uh kind of an unofficial historian of the ranger battalion And he and ike eichner was also a pack rat and before he died he donated his papers six linear feet of boxes to the army war college in carlyle pennsylvania And um, I said to tom well, we've both been down there researching before i'll get down there this week But I said a one two punch. He said wait, wait. I got more tom had also tracked down the only living son of the battalion's uh chief surgeon Dr. Walter e block doc block, of course, they called him and jeffrey block his only living son Had his father's hand written combat tiring I mean This now we've truly hit the motherload and this led us we're tom and i are now like Hansel and gretel collecting breadcrumbs. We found all these unpublished memoirs that the second ranger battalion rangers had written right after the war and And we found a kind of lewd and rybald Eyes only unofficial unit newsletter. That was the true stuff. This was not meant to be read by anybody else Rangers in the battalion. So now we're amassing all this All this research contemporaneous writing once again those two words And we know we have a book here. We we know that there's a narrative This is not to of course our book is informed by official after action reports and s2 summaries military intelligence summaries and biographies and autobiographies But it's the personal stuff the journals the diaries The letters home dear chick. That's the stuff that we feel Elevates the ordinary men we write about to the to the extraordinary circumstances which they reach So that's my inside baseball now Now if there's questions after nobody has to ask us about inside baseball because now you pretty much know how we came to this story And uh, that's that tom. What do you got? What do you pick it up? Well, I wanted to mention that one of the things that makes a jerry clavin book so enjoyable for me to to work on Is the element of surprise? We we start in one place. We have a pretty decent idea of where we're going But as we as we take that journey We Find things that surprise us and this has been the case. I think with with every book that we've done I'm thinking back to uh, when we worked on the heart of everything that is which is about the, uh, suit chief red cloud that you alluded to earlier Just some things that you come up with that we were we're surprising to us and that we were appreciated by the readers I'm thinking of at one point we We figured out and we included in the book that at the at the height of his power red cloud and his Tribe as his allies and his his his suit tribe and the allies Controlled about 20 of the lower 40 of the united states. That's a pretty remarkable You know, we're talking about the height of his power in the 1850s That was a very surprising piece of information for us and it really I think You know for most people Maybe i'm generalizing but for most people if if you would ask them Uh, you know from having taken their social studies classes in america maybe american history Who were the top two or three or four? Great indian native american leaders in the united states Red cloud not would have necessarily made that list. They would have had Geronimo sitting bull crazy horse the chief joseph maybe a couple of others in there The comesa. Yeah, so we had we had when working on that book all these these things that came across to us That was a surprise to us When we worked on our most recent book Excuse me before uh the last tale which is called blood and treasure You know the story was about yes We had daniel boone as our protagonist and the story is about the basically the first great mass migration of of white settlers across the Appalachians and the adirondacks and Through the cumberland gap and into what became kentucky in missouri and and the ohio valley and places like that But We're we're we're finding out things about daniel boone and about his time period that we never really I don't think most people ever knew about i mean i'm just one example was that Uh in a battle in 1850s 1755 radix folly. It was called You essentially had uh a young daniel boone and a young george washington fighting side by side either one of them could have been killed at any moment during that battle in which Something like a thousand british soldiers were reduced to maybe a couple of hundred left because of this enormous massacre that took place So imagine that daniel boone george washington two mythical figures Basically fighting side by side for their own survival at any moment that could have ended their lives We did not realize that i mean we knew that daniel boone had lived through the years of the american revolution We was a enormous surprise to us and we think helped to book enormously To find out how important he was a figure in the american revolution You know most of us think of the american revolution taking place on the eastern seaboard, which of course much of it did In virginia and the caroline is in new york and new jersey But the the boones borough outpost in kentucky that that it survived repeated assaults in 1778 Made a big difference to the western Front of the war and which if it had been lost would have had an impact on the eastern front of the war too With washington had forced to fight a two-front war so it's interesting that they they survived fighting side by side And then they also because i'm kind of connected to years later And i think with the last hill we found you know some surprises along the way here that we found What's your commensurate surprise? What jumps out at you is? Yeah, a couple of things immediately one is that we take for granted now that Um, uh special forces in our military, you know the the the seals the navy seals the green berets other special forces units Uh, the the creation of rangers now, of course as we explained in the book There had been rangers in american history before there was you know roberts rogers rangers and and uh during the french and indian war and and and uh as as a as a precedent for a ranger unit or a concept in american military but uh the the the uh special forces idea concept was an alien one to the american military in the 19 19 late 30s 19 late 30s and 19 early 40s They they thought it was kind of i mean the british employed it the british of course entered the war in 1939 when they they in germany declared war on each other the uh the the special forces that the british employed went behind enemy lines They committed the espionage Acts They uh the demolition they did everything they could to disrupt rail lines. They they tried to capture Uh prisoners so they can interrogate them and the americans at first a lot of the american military brass were kind of put off by that because they thought well I mean it was an expression like it was ungentleman the gentlemen don't read each other's mail It was like it was kind of the spy craft that that the british were employing and the demolition work was Was kind of like an unfair way to fight a war you fought a war as bob mentioned before the ulysses grant way of doing things where you just You you kept pounding away until your your enemy wore out or submitted Uh, but this is war was different war was changing. There was not you couldn't really afford that world war one You know no bless or bleach kind of uh mentality anymore in world war two so I think to find out that the american military uh and thanks to george c marshal who saw the the I mean church was a big proponent of it and and marshal listened So I think to find out that the rangers were A new concept that had to be almost the the military american military had been dragged kicking and screaming into creating The first ranger battalion which bob referenced before is darby's rangers And then the second ranger battalion which is our protagonist our our main unit throughout the book I think another surprise. I don't want to give away too many surprises of the book because I find I think they're in every chapter but the the uh The rangers had been written about before I mean douglas brinkley for example had written a book called the poise boys of pointe du hacke About the rangers activities on d-day Uh, and that book was written for the 40th anniversary. I believe in 1884 Excuse me 1984 when president ronald reagan went over to normandy to give a speech about d-day And and was especially honoring the rangers um that uh But what was not written about was what happened after d-day to the rangers As they plotted away with the other allied forces across france Uh to where we get to our climactic moment and I think One of the big surprises to me and you you referenced before bob edlin who is our full lieutenant Is that the britney peninsula the campaign that they waged there, uh included this I mean I I still find I know it's in our book we researched that we wrote it I still find it rather unbelievable Uh the story of the The the the fortress that that fell Uh and how it came about I don't want to give away too many details because I think it's a fascinating aspect of the story of the entire story The second rangers, but uh, let me put it this way You had bob edlin and three of his comrades who were known as the fabulous four Because of their exploits behind enemy lines and in assertion at parties and scouting parties and And and missions that they undertook basically ad hoc. I mean the colonel rudder Knew they were taking place, but he sort of like turned a blind eye to them Like I don't really want to know what you guys are doing, but just come back. Just don't get killed Because it's having amazing results we're getting intel from what you guys are doing And they came to this fortress, uh that, uh, uh that housed 800 german soldiers And without going into too many details these four guys forced a fortress of 800 german soldiers to surrender to them And that was an enormous surprise and as as as luck would have it uh lewis gannett Uh who was one of the more, uh active and celebrated reporters, uh more correspondence for the america american newspaper industry in in world war two Uh, he was there, uh as reports were coming in about this fortress being captured By four american rangers He was there and actually filed a story So as bob was referring to contemporaneous accounts That story was one of the bases of being able to report about this fortress. That was that was uh, that was dropped Uh, I think that was caught. I think that one of the things that surprised me too is that We have a uh again refer going back to something bob mentioned before, you know The movies of the of hollywood maryles marauders things like that a walk in the sun some of those celebrated Uh movies about american soldiers that were made even during the war purple heart. I think was another one um e ojima About the pacific theater It's that you have this uh great combination of unique personalities that are our privates our corporals our sergeants our officers and You know bob referred to lenlo mel and we refer to uh the full lieutenant bob enland, but You know, I think bob might want to talk just a little bit about the Uh other men that were part of the second ranger battalion Who are really kind of unique indelible characters you get to know them They're sort of another version of the there are band of brothers There are some similarities to the band of brother's story to the second rangers because if they're they're they're repeated involvement All these actions across europe in 1944 And and and how we came we came to research them in their backgrounds in some cases their families Uh, we were able to get sometimes they wrote these personal little memoirs not even intended for to be published as books They were done sometimes with their families. I think raff gorenston did one um And we got to know these guys and what we want readers to hope that they're going to enjoy we think in the last hill Is they get to know them too? They get to become friends with these guys and they want to find out what's going to happen to these guys At the end of the story, which ones are still going to be part of our battalion? So bob just a couple of your favorite characters in this book. Uh, I you know, I'm thinking Let me interject first off while you were talking about uh George marshal kind of battling the uh high bound army thinking We don't need any clandestine operators. We don't need special operators Uh, it was then major general Dwight D. Eisenhower still working uh, uh at a stateside post in the war department's planning office who wrote to uh to marshal to say Let's not call these because church was in love his beloved commandos And it was Eisenhower who came up with the ideas. Let's not call them commandos That's a little too british. How about if we name them after robert rogers is ranger? so i'm glad you mentioned robert rogers in the french and indian war and uh And they and you also mentioned band of brothers. I was thinking this is uh band of brothers He meets the dirty dozen. I mean we've mentioned, uh Len Lamel But you know, he's got a mouser rifle bullet in his side Uh climbing the cliffs and maybe just perhaps I mean there was a reason rudder wanted to put him in for the Medal of honor perhaps maybe saving the entire uh D-day invasion with his quick thinking and his bravery Uh, and then doing it again a top hill 400 Uh, we mentioned eich eichner the comms officer Uh, he's a character. He was the pack rat after the war, but a scrounger during the war He was we needed telephone wire eich eichner would find it somewhere. We needed socks eich eichner would find it somewhere uh, i'm thinking of uh The fool lieutenant, of course in that looks later All the duke the physically He was the commander of Dog company Harold the dukes later. I mean even his names his nickname swagger the duke Uh, he if the duke was blown off his his uh landing craft was sunk a half mile from omah beach and He was presumed dead The water the english channel was frigid so several days later after the breakthrough off the beach The rangers of bibwacht and I remember the story well how they would go through each other's uh, battalion bags barracks bags And refold stuff to send to the survivors back home usually moms and dads, but sometimes wives and children and just to If they found risque playing cards or condoms or pin-up photos They're not going to send that back home that would get spread out among the uh the company and in duke's later's barracks bag They found They found an unopened bottle of white horse scotch And so of course they opened the scotch whiskey and they passed it all around they all took a swig in duke's memory And three weeks later when duke's shoot up showed up at their duke After being treated for hypothermia. He had survived floating for hours in the english channel And he wanted to know where a scotch was you wouldn't believe how how fast people all of a sudden had other assignments Oh, I got I'm on patrol. Sorry. I gotta go. I'm on mess tent duty. I'm sorry Uh, I mean, how about the daring trek? I mean here's an Captain otto mazny a fox company big stoop. They called and that was his nickname everybody had a nickname Eichner lenn bud lamell big stoop mazny He he was captured by the germans and he escaped and made a thousand mile trek By foot to the black sea where he hooked up with an australian freighter I'm thinking oh tom. I mean we got to mention herman bub bubby stein a real new yorka a new yorka in the ranger battalion I mean he was such an adept and natural climber Uh, in fact a lot of the rangers thought he might have been A second story man in the jewish mob back in new york before the war And he stampered up the cliffs of point to hawk on june 6 1944 Despite the fact that halfway up his maywest life preserver inflated it almost knocked him over But he made it to the top and then 40 years later Uh at a 40th anniversary commemorative ceremony The french government had flown several rangers over among them bubby stein and bubby stein is now in his mid 60s and he did it again Uh, I'm I'm thinking of us Yeah, and don't forget tony regirio who are our tap dancing Tap a tap dancer from boston who was wounded, you know, I don't want to give too much away So, uh, let's just say we'll give one thing away. He could never tap dance again But as tom put it he became a fireman after the war So he danced up and down ladders putting out fires and of course, uh tom mentioned lieutenant, uh, easy companies lieutenant ralph garrison before on oma ha beach garrison finally made it across This charnel house and his back is up against the seawall. They're ready to go over the seawall and if staff sergeant says to him Lieutenant you've been hit And garrison starts to look at he's got a bullet in his canteen. He's got a bullet in his backpack He's got a bullet in the stock of his m1 rifle And he's got bullet holes in his in his leggings and in his Combat jack seven all together, but none of them found flesh. In fact, it was tom hanks who admitted that he based his character Uh, his ranger captain's character and saving private ryan Lieutenant ralph garrison and and I got I know we're going a little long here But I got to mention one more time one of our favorites or at least one of my favorites The bar man, uh, el rod petty el rod petty. Yes, of course And the arson toothless toothless el rod perry perry browning automatic rifle and rudder the lieutenant curvil rudder. He was kind of a stickler for The cut of a man's chip And el rod petty had grown up in the piney woods the red clay of southern georgia He was kind of a hillbilly And he was a street fighter and he played football and all his front teeth top and bottom had been knocked out And the army of course had issued him dentures, but el rod just never liked them. They didn't fit well They heard him and whenever lieutenant colonel rudder saw uh, el rod petty It just bugged him That he he didn't look like a squared away ranger with his no fun teeth and his sunken cheeks and He would go to his uh rudder would go to Uh Petty's commanding officer big stoop masney to listen. I got to transfer this guy out back to his old unit He just he doesn't look like a squared away ranger to me and Petty's officer. So he's our best b8 our man He and and as it turns out el rod petty would go on to become as one of one ranger called the heart and soul A fox company But at one point before they shipped off for him one and eventually to the european theater of operations Rudder just had enough he couldn't he saw petty and he said no no he called him into his offices I'm sorry sergeant petty, but i'm transferring you back to your old outfit Uh, it just it's it's the teeth and uh, so petty said may I make my case sir? And rudder said go ahead son and he said Petty explained to him how he had grown up in a broken home His father had beaten him and he said to the colonel. He said the rangers have become my family I love being a ranger. I can't imagine what I would do in this war if I weren't a ranger But it was probably his last sentence that Convinced rudder to keep him because petty opened his mouth Showed the missing teeth the gums and he said at any rate lieutenant colonel I ain't planning on biting no nazis to death And rudder said okay, you've convinced me you can stay and then Uh, el rod petty would have on to play a massive part in the both the d-day invasion and the hill 400 Uh tom I should I wrap it up you want anything to add before I maybe wrap it up. What do you think? No, I think you can wrap it up. I think uh, I I think what you said before is very important that the the We we we lead up to the last hill and its strategic and psychological importance You know the the germans had to hold this hill the rangers had to take this hill you had these two Opposing forces of the most elite troops that either side could put up against each other And that's why I think when people get to that climactic battle It's the you really don't know what's going to happen. And we're certainly I I will not do that to give it away. I'm going to turn it over to you. I hope you're not going to give it away well, no, I'll just So we lead into the hurtkin forest and Uh rudder's rangers are fighting their way through the hurtkin forest and they and they they make it to the to the base of hill 400 And as half of what's left of the battalion spreads out to keep covering fire on the slopes on December 6th 1944 In fact, Len Lamel said some people think June 6th 1944 was their longest day December 6th 1944 was my longest day and my battalion makes longest day on that morning at dawn 130 rangers 130 men prepare to ascend hill 400 One ranger described it as trying to climb Uh, he said it looked like an upside down ice cream cone. It was a 45 degree angle And one ranger described it as trying to climb a uh a children's playground slide Slippery with snow and ice While german riflemen and machine gunners are pouring bullets And potato masher hand grenades down the slope at them So about a hundred men Make it to the top of hill 400 And after vicious hand hand fighting neither side had time to reload They're killing them wounding each other They're killing each other with their entrenching tools with their trench knives or k-bars With their helmets people men are fighting with their helmets They managed the rangers managed to secure a small perimeter And as that day and night wore on They were stood five counterattacks Uh Heinrich Himmler had promised any unit that can take back hill 400 every man in the unit would Receive an iron cross first class That's how bad the germans wanted this hill back because they were preparing for the battle of the bulge Not far to the east And but the rangers Withstood these attacks And amid these attacks were a continuous battering of artillery A rain of artillery falling on them day and night by the uh By the next morning They did a head count and those hundred men who had made it to the top of the hill they're down to 50 Two more german counterattacks and by noon Lieutenant lend lemel he had received a field promotion from sergeant Lieutenant lend lemel the only officer the only ranger officer left standing at the top of hill 400 He does a head count Got 22 effectives left and these include several men who had crawled out of this makeshift aid station wounded men Grabbed their guns and just said if i'm gonna die i'm gonna die on the line So lend lemel calls the only four non comms who are still effective left standing and he says i know US army is not a democracy But um just this once i'm gonna change the rules We're going to take a vote We can retreat back down the west slope fill 400 Maybe regroup with whatever rangers are still standing down there and retake the hill again Or we could stand and fight I'm gonna let you men vote and i'm gonna vote with you But before you did that he nodded down to the eastern slope and at the base of hill 400 Not only can the american see that the germans are regrouping for a final counterattack But they've been reinforced by a company of elite german paratroops uh balsam yager small balsam yager they were called so Lemel looks down and he says we're going to take this vote now gentlemen And staff sergeant vote technical sergeant vote platoon sergeant vote Sergeant vote you have a vote and my vote That vote was Well, if you want to know what that vote was you're going to have to read the damn book, right time I think that's fair Get the book and you can let us know what you think Yes Thank you again to the national archives. Yes. Thank you very much everybody anybody out there listening and uh Or viewing uh, we really appreciate uh, you're taking some time out of your data To uh, listen to a couple of gemokes like us go on and on about our last book Any questions or open to them? okay I don't see any i'm looking at my bar, but I guess uh So you thought I was going to get the end of the book away, didn't you? I was I was about to start singing a song to cover Blot out what you were saying Question coming through hold. Let's hold on for a second. I see that I see that Commando's a little too british. Let's call them rangers. Yeah In the rat I should have mentioned the rat pack. I remember watching the rat pack and uh, How did replacements get assigned to the battalion tom take it away? Well the replacements, uh, they they I they had to be trained pretty much on the spot It once wherever they they joined the second ranger battalion because even though they had got the replacement Undergone very rigorous training to become rangers in the first place Back in the states and they was when they were sent overseas They were being incorporated into a into a unit that had seen quite a bit of combat Especially more combat as the months went on july august september october november and uh, they they They they had they the replacements really feel kind of sorry for them. They were kind of at a disadvantage because they were Asked to be work fight side by side with guys who had survived some of the worst conditions and some of the worst battles of the war so Specifically, how did a particular ranger get assigned to the second ranger battalion? Then I couldn't answer it was probably just a matter of you know They had to as many replacements they can come up with because the the repo depots. Remember, uh Rutter would scour after an engagement and he's down a hundred men He would scour what they call the repo depots and that's where these Just regular army gis who were coming over would be stationed And rudder would choose the best he could and putting put them through training And I remember at one point there was a figure for every two men who Applied to become a ranger replacement who or who rudder plucked out of a repo depot Uh, for every three men only one would make it right let's say no no You just you're not up to our physical standards. I'm sending you back. No, I'm sorry son You know it's nothing personal, but you're just not ranger material. Yeah, it's not like they were bad soldiers It's just that they were not ranger material just that expression I mean you really had to be the best of the best and and It must have been a sorry thing for some of these fellows to be sent back to the units because they must have felt like Failures and they were not they were they were probably terrific soldiers They just weren't terrific plus one and I remember as the war ground on Someone wrote in his diary Uh, how we didn't even I saw several references to this. We hadn't even learned this guy's name Yeah before he was killed And bagged and tagged and shipped out. Yeah, they'd find him in a hawks in a foxhole Uh, you know, there'd be six germans dead around the foxhole and he'd be dead himself I remember that specifically And also during the battle of the bulge there were several replacements rushed in and they were all killed within the first week Of right, right your deployment. Yeah. Yeah All right. Well, thank you for that question. We're open to another one if there is one available No more. Okay I guess I guess we could say thank you very much. We'll say thank you again to the national archives the folks behind the scenes We'll put this together. Thank you for inviting us. Thank you for your patience and attention We're really excited about the last hill. Uh, it's it's gotten some great reviews We know that people are Really getting immersed in the story and as I said something I mentioned before You really get I think you really get to know these these these rangers and you care about what happens to them and and My comments I've gotten so far as when you get to the end of the book You really felt like you've experienced some of what they experienced and And you're glad for the ones to survive. You feel bad for the ones who didn't and it's a real It's a story with a lot of ups and downs and I think ultimately it's a rather uplifting story I do too. Thanks to the contemporaneous writings the diaries the journals the letters home dear chick I think we didn't pick that as a title. Yes me too. All right. Thanks everybody. Thank you