The Battalion: The Dramatic Story of the 2nd Ranger Battalion in World War II

Front Cover
Stackpole Books, 2006 - 354 pages
  • Goes into exceptional detail on the D-Day assault of the gun positions at Pointe du Hoc, including how it almost ended in total failure and lists the names of the Rangers who fought in the 2nd Battalion
  • Unlike most books on the U.S. Army Rangers, this one also covers the many battles fought by the Rangers after D-Day
  • Based on original documents and interviews with the surviving veterans by the author

    With a centuries' old warrior heritage, American Rangers endured the most difficult training that man could devise to overcome the most difficult challenges of the enemy and nature. For more than fourteen months, the volunteers that made up the 2nd Ranger Battalion had been finely honed for combat. Now, on June 6, 1944--D-Day--their battle would begin. The payoff was at hand. As the ramps of the landing craft went down, rockets on the sides of the ship fired ropes and grapnels skyward toward the cliff top. Some ropes fell short, men stepped into water that was over their heads and, loaded with equipment weighing over a hundred pounds, sank like stones. Sound and fury combined with fear and determination. Some men thought of the words they had heard each time they were tempted to complain: "You volunteered."

  • From inside the book

    Contents

    I
    ix
    II
    1
    III
    19
    IV
    27
    V
    33
    VI
    47
    VII
    83
    VIII
    153
    XIII
    245
    XV
    265
    XVI
    285
    XVII
    289
    XVIII
    317
    XX
    327
    XXI
    334
    XXII
    336

    IX
    165
    X
    187
    XI
    205
    XII
    233
    XXIII
    341
    XXIV
    345
    Copyright

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    About the author (2006)

    Col. Robert W. Black, a highly decorated Ranger veteran of Korea and Vietnam, is a member of the Ranger Hall of Fame. He lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Port Charlotte, Florida.

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