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The Rangers After Point Du Hoc
Ronald Reagan made the Second Ranger Battalion famous with his 1984 “Boys of Point Du Hoc” speech. There he extolled the exploits of the Rangers who scaled those heights on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Ever since then, many believe the Rangers started and ended their World War II efforts on that day in June.
“The Last Hill: The Epic Story of a Ranger Battalion and the Battle That Defined WWII,” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin shows that D-Day was the start of the Battalion’s World War II combat. They faced other challenges throughout 1944.
Activated in Georgia on January 28, 1942, the Eighth Air Force was stationed out of Britain through most of World War II. Although other Air Forces assisted, the Eighth was the chief instrument in the Army Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany.
Colditz was a World War II prisoner-of-war camp run by Germany. It was the place incorrigible escapers and special political prisoners were sent. It is one of the best-known German POW camps, thanks to one escapee, P. R. Reid. Postwar, he wrote a book about his exploits, giving birth to a genre of escape literature about Colditz castle.
There are few things as repugnant as the Mob. Except maybe Nazis. It kind of makes sense that Jewish mobsters once took an opportunity to improve their image by punching Nazis.
James Hornfischer exploded on the naval history scene in 2005 with his book “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.” It was an account of the Battle off Samar when a collection of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers fought Japan’s main surface battle force to a standstill. Over the next dozen years he wrote four more books, three focused on the Pacific War. All were excellent. In 2021 he died.
If North Korea starts another major war or major conflict then it seems we have every reason to agree with Douglas MacArthur that we should have gone in against the Chinese and settled things permanently. I’m not belittling the risks with that nor do I know enough to authoritatively criticize what the leaders were up against but I really do think that the Chinese Communists couldn’t stand up to us and Mao needed to be slapped down. It’s clear also that the Soviets were behind the whole thing, too — that definitely makes one wonder what to do. However, giving Mao a defeat and uniting Korea into a western-oriented government could well have been better.
Princes at War: The Bitter Battle Inside Britain’s Royal Family in the Darkest Days of World War II, by Deborah Cadbury, PublicAffairs, 2015, 400 pages, $28.99 (Hardcover)
Operation Barbarossa was the name given to Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 22, 1941. The battle aims of the German forces under the command of Adolf Hitler were the following: the complete annihilation of the Soviet Union’s armed forces, the collapse of communism, and primarily the conquest of lebensraum (living space) for the Third Reich and its people.