documents, managed to obtain them another way. about a year after the book came out, got something saying those documents don't exist. so, you know, i tend to find that a do a much better job getting them on my own than hoping that the government will be nice to me and let me have them. plus, i tend to find out that there are documents that i would never know to ask for. things that i don't now exist that i get by winning people's confidence. you know, being able to persuade them of the reasons why i should give them. for instance, i have the presidential daily brief from before the 9/11 attack. only one of those has ever been publicly released, and none of them will be released from foia except for the first one at this point. and so, i have more faith in my abilities to get things than in the government's ability to get

them to be. >> kurt eichenwald, his most recent book, "500 days: secrets and lies in the terror wars." >> military historian patrick o'donnell recounts the u.s. army's second ranger battalion's e. company, also known as dog company. the group was composed of 68 men whose military campaigns during world war ii, included landing on the beaches of normandy and the sense of pointe du hoc. it is about 40 minutes and starts now on booktv. >> thank you so much for having me here today. it's great to see so many of my friends here. this is a situation where things have come full circle in many ways. but today is the anniversary of the battle of falluja where i was embedded as a combat historian. on that day i will never forget

we went to an aid station that was an al qaeda aid station. there was blood on the floor. it was quite a situation that was interesting but i'll never forget to i like look on the side of the walls. the light had changed. it was obviously a person that was running next to me on the other side of the wall. i had a sense of foreboding. seconds later, a marine was killed, along with a member of the iraq forces that were accompanying us. and it was a very poignant moment, shot in the head. the battalion commander was right next to me, and about five minutes before that he said who are you? i sit on a combat the story here to gather your story. i had written several books on world war ii. interestingly enough, he said to me, he was a colonel of the battalion and he said, my father-in-law was a pilot in

world war ii. he fought on the eastern front. we had an immediate rapport. then within five minutes, we are engaged in combat. and what was so striking and interesting is, this young marine was killed. he got up and he said, gentlemen i want you to give them a symphony of fire. he quoted patton that day. fired down the block. about several years later, we came back and i was given the honor of taking the fifth marines, which he led at that time, the normandy. we toured the normandy battlefields with them in that i was in falluja with.

we went to pointe du hoc, which is the subject of this book, "dog company," which i'm going to talk about. the book i talked about earlier was called we were one. when we were at pointe du hoc on those windswept beaches, on that peninsula, it was a magical moment. it was with people i thought with in falluja, and went back in time to world war ii. let me take you back in time, june 6, 1944. d-day. 6 a.m., force a, which is most of the second ranger battalion, pointe du hoc had six guns that could reach omaha and utah beach as well as the naval ships l. out in the english channel. everything was done to

neutralize the guns at pointe du hoc. there were a thousand men, as far as rangers that were assigned to that objective. they also said nearly a dozen aerial bombardments, a thousand bombers. 100,000 ordnance were dropped on pointe du hoc. the place was turned into the surface of the moon. ashore was bombarded. but as the book that i'm going to talk about today, "dog company," to mend accomplish mission of a thousand men, a thousand bombers. it's an incredible story. at 6 a.m., landing craft a force they were heading towards pointe du hoc. very interesting though, a suspicious chain of events took place that changed the course of history. navigation error of the radar in the world -- royal navy was not

working at that time. they were headed for the wrong of jacket. it was a cliff on the other side of omaha beach. they were not going to pointe du hoc. all of the landing craft were headed in the wrong direction. at that exact time they're supposed to land at 6:30 a.m. the airport bomb pointe du hoc. if the rangers had landed at the time they were allocated, they would've all been killed by our own bombers. they were at the wrong point and they were headed towards a different point. the fifth ranger battalion which was assigned to the pointe du hoc, beef up the mission to about 1000 men, could not get in contact with the second ranger battalion at that time. every one of the radios didn't work. it went to their secondary

objective. they waited 10 minutes and they went to their secondary objective and they landed on omaha beach, exactly at the right time and place they were supposed to. they changed the course of events. because they were the only reserve force at the time. meanwhile, force a which was the second ranger battalion and d company, at pointe du hoc. they were vastly outnumbered by the germans that were on the top of the point and they were going to counter attack. this is a scene that was immortalized in president reagan's speech, these guys got out of the landing craft. some of them, the main character of my book landed in the shell hole and went underwater completely. he was simply submerged underwater. a massive shell hole that was created. he swam his way out and then they started climbing the slippery ropes but the roads were slippery and wet because of all the seawater that had hidden

them. many of the grout those didn't work when they tried to fire them. and on top of that, the germans were on top of the cliff started cutting the ropes. cutting the ropes is sort of the lease of the problems. they started firing down on the rangers with machine guns that can fire at a rate of 1500 ground or many. one of the first books that has the germans side of pointe du hoc. these german machine gunners on top of the cliff changed out their barrels because they're getting so hot and they were warping. they fired down the rounds at the range, many of them were hit. there were 68 men and dog company. 27 were killed on d-day the next couple of days. as they climbed the top of the cliff the germans were throwing grenades. then the cliff was rained with ivs. they took old french artillery

shells, suspend them on wires around the cliff and as these men climbed up, the climb wasn't even the hardest part. on top of the cliff was practically a guns of navajo situation. there were tunnels of ever. there were bunkers. they were minefields, barbed wire. men had to fight through all that. the main character of my book was shot to the side as he climbed up the top of the cliff. got to the top, he took out a machine gun bunker. and they moved forward. every one of these rangers had an objective. they were six guns at pointe du hoc. the movie the longest day in actually depicts the guns were not there. reality is they were towed about 800 yards inland to an apple orchard. the main guns were not in the position that were fortified. there were telephone poles there. he fought his way through with

small groups and the assembled them into the largest government on top of pointe du hoc. they found some tire tracks and they moved inland. these men had trained for six months prior to defeat the argument some of the greatest and most trained men of the invasion. they trained for six months, without safety harnesses. cliffs that were 100-300 feet tied with full equipment. with gas mask, grenades, the whole nine yards, a skilled those cliffs and they did that for six months. to be a little more combat simulator they fired over their heads as they climbed the cliffs for six months. the men were ready. as he got up to the top of a small group he saw some tire tracks, and an old french road and he started to pursue what he

saw as tracks. he thought maybe those were the germans. he walked down the country road. they were germans all over the place, patrols and everything else. they avoided them, and then miraculously, they split up into groups. they were in a barn, a firefight there. they split up into groups, and they found against the i am never expression he said to me. my god, there they are. he looked up and saw five of the guns that were ready to go. they were positioned to fire up on utah beach. most of the rangers were equipped with something called thermite grenade which burns at a very high temperature, over 1000 degrees. it melts the metal parts. they pulled out the grenades and they welded each one of the gun parts, the moving parts of the gun solid so they couldn't be used. so he then took his thompson submachine gun and smashed the

sites of all the guns so they couldn't be used. meanwhile, what's most amazing is literally no more than 100 yards from there, about 120 germans were assembling, ready to go on the guns. they were ready to fire up on omaha beach. somehow miraculously they were able to destroy these guns. before those men were there. this isn't a story that was just told to me by him, document extensively in national archives, a lot of the oral history, i found a number of these oral histories in the wrong box that were taking too much -- two months after the events i a legendary historian when he interviewed these men. but that's not the end of the story. hardly. dog company as the other cold war from pointe du hoc all the way through germany. when the even lead to patton's

army at one point. let me just go from there. what's next is a story, part of the story i didn't really know about until i started researching it. these men, men accomplish their secondary objective which is to set up a roadblock that would cut the road that connected omaha beach in utah beach. it ran across the top of pointe du hoc. they set up in an l-shaped line for the next two days, the germans counterattacked relentless. and tired platoons were taken up by the germans to they broke through party line. only dog company held in his l-shaped line. the germans had reinforcements. this was a very, very close knit type thing. one of the men that was attacked

of the second ranger battalion, a girl who was the number one commander had fought in north africa, and one of the most poignant things he had was, i had never come so close being either killed or captured that my. he was convinced that that was what was going to happen. the germans will relentlessly counter attacking. from pointe du hoc, the men of dog company held. they been thought through the rest of europe. and as they fought through europe, the next place they were at was a place called brett. there was a coastal fort, a major port. allies needed to resupply their forces. they needed a harbor. the only problem was there was another gun position. and like pointe du hoc, it was a suicide mission. something called the locust battery. the locust battery had massive

battleship sized guns that were buried mostly the entire fortress buried underground. picture a four-story building, fortress, that had been buried underground. there were elevators going down this thing. .. >> the men described to me how

the shells came over like freight trains. the shells could destroy an spire hedge row, a small mound of earth, and bury men alive. and that's exactly what happened. they fought for several weeks many this place -- in this place x then what's amazing is a small team of four men led by lieutenant bob evland, they were known as the fabulous father. the fabulous four found a bunker and a small path that had been worn out. it looked like it had been utilized. the entire lotus battery has been surrounded by hundreds of thousands of minds and barbed wire, machine gun nests, it was extremely heavily fortified, but they found a well-worn path, and they decided to go down it. as they went down the path, they found a small pill box, they broke through the door, and they

captured all the men in the pill box. remarkably, a lieutenant was educated in the united states, and he said, basically, i'm ready to surrender or. lieutenant evland said to him, take me to the commander of the fort, and that's exactly what he did. with his tommy gun at his side, the fabulous four went through the lotus battery. they went down an elevator, they went through an amphitheater that looked like a football field, and they went through the depths of this guns of-and-a-half roan type situation, and they got to the commanding officer's office. evland decided to breakthrough the door x at that point the commanding officer just looked at him and said, what do you want? and he said, we'd like you to surrender the fort. the commanding officer, his name was colonel first, he was

incredulous. he said, look, you're only four men as he picked up the field telephone, and he said, look, you're my prisoner x. at that point, robert evland had probably one of the greatest bluffs or ballsy moves of world war ii, and he pulled out a hand grenade and said you're going to surrender the lotus battery. and at that point 800 men surrendered after he broadcast that over the loud speaker. completely documented in the national archives. for his efforts, robert evland was going to receive the bronze star. [laughter] colonel rudder put him in for the medal of honor. he eventually received the distinguished service cross for the actions. but it's typical of many of the rangers out there, they never -- there's never been a ranger in world war ii that received the medal of honor. and after the campaign the men

moved in boxcars that could take 40 men or eight horses, 0 -- 40 and 8. they moved up to the factory of death. it was a six month campaign. it was a battle, the longest battle of world war ii or that never needed to take place. the forest was -- the allies were convinced the forest was going to be an assembly area that if it wasn't neutralized, the allied armies would be attacked from the flanks. the germans recognized the forest as a natural defensive place. they spent several days in the forest, and i've severe every single -- there were, the place was preregistered, there were bunkers, it was a death trap. there were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of mines strewn

across the forest floor, there were conifer trees that blocked the sunlight. it was very hard to seat at times. and dog company and the second ranger pal onwas placed in the -- battalion was placed in the forest as a reserve unit. and it was there that they were -- their task was special operations missions. many of them never took place. but all the men have universeally said one thing to me: pat, our longest day was not, d-day, it was december 7, 1944. let me take you now to what the second ranger battalion had as one of their greatest battles. in many ways it's an untold story. practically an entire army regiment, a tank regiment, was tasked with seizing berkesteven,

sort of the further at that time, first penetration into germany. the tank regiment was practically destroyed trying to take bergstein. the only people that were left in reserve for corps reserve was the second ranger battalion and dog company. after bergstein was seized, it became a miniature stalingrad. men with -- germans with -- [inaudible] moved around the burned-out houses, the germans sent whatever armor they had in there and tank troyers anding -- destroyers and took out literally 30 or 40 shermans. it was a very, very tough battle. as one g.i. described it, if daylight didn't come within 30 minutes, we would have ross the town. -- lost the town. at that point corps ordered the second ranger battalion dog

company to seize the high ground at hill 400, and the reason why hill 400 is important is because it basically, it was a window into hitler's greatest secret of the war at the time which was the battle of the bulge. nine days later on december 16, hitler would launch the battle of the bulge. the bulge assembly areas, there was a perfect view of them on top of hill 400. the germans knew that that high ground had to be held at all costs or seized. and the rangers wanted it also because it had very good artillery positions. and that morning on december 7th they were ordered to clear the rest of bergstein. as they moved out, they were in cellars that were filled with water that was waist deep, and they were told that they had to take hill 400. and it's an incredible story. as today moved through

bergstein, they went through a cemetery that was, the graves were actually overturned because it had been shelled so many times bilal lied and we are man artillery. they were being hit by our artillery and german artillery x. they moved up towards the sunk l road. and the sunken road overlooking, was in front of them was a large open field that was the size of a football field. looming in front of them was hill 400. somehow they had to get across that field and seize the hill. and this is one of the most incredible stories of the war, and it was also one of the few times where there was a bayonet charge. the men were behind the sunken road, and they were preparing to assault hill 400. and as they were doing that,

german artillery was falling behind them, large amounts of artillery. mortars, everything else. and then in front of them was our artillery. and the two fields of artillery were converging, and they were getting closer and closer to the rangers behind the sunken road. and they were about to be turned into hamburger meat. at that point a very odd thing happened. one of the ranger officers who was inexperienced said send out a scout. he was, obviously, foolhardy. every ranger that was in combat knew that there was no point to that. this man was going to die. they said, don't do it. don't do it. the command -- the officer said send out the scout. it's an order. they said, fuck you, don't send out the scout, don't let him go.

they tried to hold the man back, and he followed his orders. and he went across the field, and he was shot in the stomach. thirty seconds before the charge was supposed to take place, the men then got up. one of the men took his machine gun, his thompson, and he said let's get the bastards. they fixed bayonets, and they charged across the field. and they yelled the rebel yell right out of the civil war. and one of the rangers said it was one of the most glorious moments to be a ranger. as they charged across the field, it was like the perfect time. the artillery was now falling on the germans rather than the field or the sunken road. it was the perfect window of opportunity, and today seized the pill boxes in front of hill 400, and they went up the hill. and what happens next is unbelievable. with hardly any men, they started out with roughly 120

men, they lost many men in the charge, they lost men going through bergstein. they ran up the hill -- and i've been to this place, i toured it with german veterans, actually. they ran up the hill, and today took the pill box that was on top of the hill which was the main center of gravity, if you will, for the hill. because it offered protection. and the protection it offered was from the artillery. as one man said to me, pat, picture a rainstorm, but instead of rain drops, it was shrapnel and tree splinters. it payment unbearable. -- it became unbearable. on top of that, within a half hour or 45 minutes the germans, according to their doctrine,

began a power attack. they hit it with company strength or more, sometimes even a battalion. the 2 72nd and later -- [inaudible] started storming the hill. this happened five times. one of the most poignant scenes is from ed who was in a foxhole that was sort of obscured by a rock. and as they charged up the hill, they were about to overrun the rangers on top near the pill box. there were several german bodies that were in front of the foxhole, and he -- it's almost like out of a scene out of the movie where eagles dare. he picked up two mg-42 machine pistols, and with both hands fired into the oncoming germans and stopped the entire attack.

and that's not an anecdote that was given to me if an oral history, that was in the official after-action report, and it was later confirmed by about six or seven other rangers tarp right next to him. but that's the kind of courage these men had. things got so dicey that lamel considered evacuating the hill. they were ordered, though, to hold at all costs, even though reinforcements weren't coming. and that's exactly what t for two days. these men held hill 400 against all odds, against every one of these german assaults and somehow held the hill. remarkably on the 8th of december they left the hill, and it remained in allied hands. there was intelligence reported back about german troop movements only 10 miles or 12 miles away. but none of that information

ever got to the right place. the dots were never connected, and on december 16th the battle of the bulge took place to the surprise of all allies. from there dog company, 68 men, reduced to about 20 men. there was hardly anyone left, but they continued to fight on. replacements came in here and there bringing it back up to strength, but they fought through the rest of germany. and it was here they acted as a reconnaissance force for general patton and his armies as they pushed through into the rhine. they crossed the rhine river, and they pushed deeper and deeper into germany, eventually ending up in czechoslovakia. one ranger said to me -- they asked the ranger, sydney solomon, who was a very good

friend of mine, they said did you just land on d-day? he's like, no. it was a very long walk from normandy all the way to czechoslovakia. and that's what these men did. they led the way across europe. thank you very much. i'll take your questions at this point. [applause] sir. >> did they encounter any of the camps on their travels? >> yes, they did. several of the men encountered camps along the way, and those stories are sort of -- many of the men in headquarters companies, actually, encountered the camps, and they talked about seeing these human skeletons inside of the camp. and it became -- it crystallized everything that they were fighting for. they had saw firsthand exactly what the third like had done to

people -- reich had done to people, and they realized, it became very self-evident what this whole war was about. yes, sir. >> patrick, you've written a lot about the incredible courage, particularly with a slant on the personal. what are some of the more compelling stories that you experienced as a result of your research and the work you've done? >> well, it's an honor to have you here, congressman longly. for me one that comes to mind very, that occurred literally a couple days ago was with a veteran named renee who was a veteran of the oss. i've interviewed almost 5,000 world war ii veterans, and renee's story was exceptional. he dropped into occupied france in may 1944, hit his radio --

hid his radio in a box of green beans on a train that was occupied by the gestapo. they set up a safehouse in france, and then they transmitted some of the most important intelligence of any oss agent for the sussex team, for a sussex team on troop movements, oil refineries, called in airstrikes. it's incredible. he also was able to rescue hundreds of downed airmen. about three months ago i got a call that rene was, add passed away. i had interviewed him at his house in 2002, and can's the first person -- and he was the first person that he had ever told this store about. his wife with was kind enough to give me some keach, and it was an incredible interview as he brought me pack in time.

his son told me something very striking, that arlington had denied their request for burial, because at the time of the war he was a french citizen even though general eisenhower had personally given him the distinguished service cross. and he was in uniform, in american uniform, and after the or war he became an american citizen as well as a world-renowned heart doctor that had done incredible things for america. to make a long story short, sent general petraeus ap e-mail, in ten minutes he got back to me, and we had for the next three months so-com, general petraeus, people had basically gone in and worked -- had written, the letters had been written to basically create a justification, an exception. three days ago rene will be laid

to rest in arlington. [applause] yes, bob. >> dog company, do you see any proper recognition for what they did if. >> you know, i'm so pleased that many of the family and people that i know very perm hi are here -- personally are here. bob, you were a member of george company 3-1 in the chosen reservoir. part of a book i wrote called "give me a tomorrow," and you were a a machine gunner and it's really an honor to have you here, like george company for the most part dog company hasn't received as much recognition as they deserve. they received a presidential unit citation for their actions, but hill 400 remains an open issue. they deserve the presidential unit citation for that action. they charged that hill, and they

held it against all odds. len lamel's last letter to tom riggerio who's one of my main characters in this book was to get the presidential citation for dog company, and that's now in progress. i think of all the units in the european theater of operation, this is one that really needs to be looked at again. dog company's actions at hill 900 definitely -- 400 definitely merit the presidential unit citation, and with hopefully a little bit of luck, we'll get the powers to be to look at it again. >> why has it taken so long? >> it's like everything. >> [inaudible] >> no, i don't know about that. it's just pure rock si -- bureaucracy. it works in a very slow way, and i just hope that the veterans of dog company receive the honor that they deserve.

yes. >> you write about amazing companies in dog company, larger than life real-life characters, and i was wondering what are some of the characters that stand out to you that are most memorable in terms of their actions and their stories? >> well, first of all, thanks for being here, dawn. you were, you helped me in many ways with this book selflessly, so i really appreciate that. and people have said that this has sort of got a dirty dozen feel in some ways. these characters are right out of the movie script. for instance, the commanding officer of dog company looks and has a sort of demeanor of lee marvin from "the dirty dozen." captain slater. the other characters are also very memorable. for instance, tom rigerrio who's one of the five men of dog

company that are still alive -- there's 68 that started, there's only 5, sadly, left -- his nickname before the war was tommy knighting because he was a tap dancer, he was a professional tap dancer that was 5-3. and tommy knight was able to burn up the dance floor all across the united states, but his claim to fame in world war ii was he was also a dead eye, and he was a great sniper for dog company. he was also one of the funniest men that i've ever met and a great interview. but during the war he was an incredible person. and remains sort of larger than life. another individual in the book that i love because he sort of captures the humanity of war, the feelings and emotions of war was arguably one of the great rangers of the book bill, william elrod petty.

and petty was very entering as a character. interesting as a character. he was always, quote, a pain in the ass to authority, would challenge authority, but he also kind of waddled like a duck because he broke both legs in a parachute training operation, and he lost both front teeth. and he was initially disqualified for his, for not having his teeth, being sort of the instigator or person that didn't want to -- bucked authority, he wasn't going to take to for an answer. so he went right to colonel rudder and said, you know, i want to be a ranger. what's the deal? they're like, well, you don't have your front teeth. he's like, well, i'm not here to bite the germans, i'm here to fight the germans! [laughter] they're like, fine, you're in. and he became one of the great rangers of dog company. and the man killed 30germans on

d-day. desperate rear guard that he held with his bar. but heroics aside, really captured the feelings and emotions of dog company like no other ranger that i ever interviewed. and that that's sort of the theme that runs through many of my books. it's sort of a hidden war that these men felt, their feelings and emotions and petty definitely captured that. yes. >> what has been the response from the families when they heard you were writing this? >> the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and that's, for me, the greatest thing that anybody could ever say. in some cases they've said that the book provided closure. and that, i mean, and we were one, for instance, that's --

that was the greatest complement that i could ever receive, that somehow my small efforts provided a little bit of closure to to the families of either veterans that died or that never talked about the war. and i sort of, it's one of the reasons why i've done the things that i've done as far as the -- for the last 20 years, this day kind of marks 20 years that i've been gathering the oral histories of america's combat veterans all the way from world war i through the current conflicts in afghanistan. and for me when people have said to me that what i've done provided some level of closure in some small way, that's probably the greatest compliment that anybody could ever give me. yes, sir. >> the battle of the hill of 400, what was the highest battle casualty rate for dog company anywhere else in. >> the highest casualty rate

probably was at pointahawk where there's a picture in the book of a handwritten note by len lamel of the number of killed and wounded in dog company, and every single one of the men practically, every single one with the exception of a few, they were all wounded. and there were 27 men that were killed from june 6th to june 8th, in d-day. >> follow-up question, what were the casualty -- [inaudible] >> they, they inflicted a number of casualties. the primary -- besides disabling the guns, pointahawk also sigh on sigh -- siphoned off hundreds of troops that could have been deployed to ohm ma beach. -- omaha beach. these men killed many, many

germans that otherwise could have been manning machine gun positions on omaha beach, and who knows what could have happened there if those men had been demied to ohm -- deployed to omaha beach. >> i know what i'm going to be reading this veterans day weekend. i hope some of you will join me down in the lobby, i want to get my copy signed. thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's web site, patrick patrickko'donnell.com. >> well, for news watchers, a familiar face is on your screen. yes, that's chris wallace, host of fox news sunday, but he's joined by lorraine wallace today, and we're at the national press club where they have a book. chris wallace, did you ever think you'd be hocking a cookbook? >> well, i'm hocking it, my wife lorraine wrote it, and the story

is that the first sunday that i started doing fox news sunday, lorraine said, what would you like? i said, chicken, which is my go-to food. is the second week went well, he said what do you like? and i said chicken. >> 150 recipes with vegetarian sides, and i said, you know, i've got to step up my chicken. chicken is the most versatile ingredient you can use in a kitchen. you can do anything to it, it's amazing. >> lorraine wallace, are these your own recipes? >> all of my recipes, and it's what i love to do. >> and i'm the test err. i haven't cooked any of them, but i've eaten every one, every one. >> and each chapter has family stories and family photographs, and each recipe has like a little family tidbit about it. >> can you give us a little background on you too, how long

have you been married, how many kids, etc. if. >> well, we have six children. we've been together for 16 years -- >> yeah, but i have to say it's the old-fashioned way. i had four, she had two, so it's -- >> it's a wallace gang. anyway, and so getting your family around the table and trying to figure out everybody's schedule and their needs including your husband who has 5:00 in the morning get-ups on sunday is a amazing. so that's, this is a great book the help you do that. >> so what time do you eat the chicken on sunday? >> we eat it saturday night. >> saturday night. soup is on sunday. >> hence the name, saturday night chicken. [laughter] >> you'd think i would have caught that. mr. sunday's saturday night chicken. it's lorraine wallace's book. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you've been watching booktv, 48 hours of book programming beginning saturday morning at 8 eastern through