Episode 4151： A WarRoom Special 2024： Combat History of Christmas Cont.
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Summary
The Battle of Brooklyn, the Battle of Long Island, and the Battle at the Heights Iguanas are just a few of the epic battles that took place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the early morning hours of December 25th, 1776.
Transcript
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I'm Patrick K. O'Donnell and I'm hosting America's Christmas, Combat History of Christmas.
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And we're going to go back in time to our most important Christmas, the Christmas of 1776,
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where all could have been lost, but all was won in a series of crucial victories,
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10 crucial days that will change the course of history.
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Let's go back first to the summer of 1776, the Battle of Brooklyn, the Battle of Long Island,
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where a massive British force, most of the entire British Army and Navy,
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congregate in New York, over 35,000, along with their German allies, to crush the nascent United
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States, which is now only about a month, a little more than a month old after the signing of the
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Declaration of Independence. This wasn't a situation of negotiation. It was a situation of we were going
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to crush the Americans, as they had done in all the other empire's history. They had always won any
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kind of rebellion or revolution. And they planned, the British Empire had planned to do it again.
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And a massive and important hub was New York City, because of its strategic location and its ability
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to make, to sally forth from different parts to the various parts of the colony. It was one of the
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largest cities in the colonies at the time. And the British rolled up their entire fleet, or two-thirds
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of their fleet, and much of their army, along with thousands of German or Hessian volunteers.
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They land at Long Island, and it's the summer of 1776. It's August. And they make a sort of an epic attack.
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The American lines, half the army is in New York, and half is in Brooklyn or Long Island.
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And the army is arrayed where it's on a long spur called the Heights Iguanas. This is current-day
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Greenwood Cemetery. It's one of the greatest cemeteries in the United States, where many,
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many notables have their final resting place. But it's also the scene of an epic battle, the Battle of
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Brooklyn. And it's here on the night of August 27th, 26th, 1776, that the battle begins in a
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watermelon patch, where British skirmishers are out, and they encounter Edward Hans,
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Pennsylvania's rifleman, in a watermelon patch. The British want the melons for obvious reasons,
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and then a small battle occurs there in that patch. But it's really, it just touches off a much larger
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operation. The British are conducting a massive flanking maneuver around the Heights Iguanas with
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General Cornwallis in the lead, along with General Clinton and Lord Howe. And they flank the American
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lines, while another force approaches from the, from the, towards the Heights Iguanas to pin down the
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Americans. It's a classic hammer and anvil maneuver, where they're trying to smash the Americans.
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And the force that's the flanking maneuver maneuver is unseen. They attack, you know,
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they move out in the midnight hours of the 26th and 27th, and they move around. And it's that morning,
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though, that General Grant with the British attack, the main line of resistance at the Heights Iguanas.
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And it's here that the Washington's immortals earn immortal fame. I wrote this book, which is a
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multiple bestseller. It's been through about 12 reprintings. It's here that they conduct a rear
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guard that literally saves the United States. The British are attacking from the flank and the front,
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and it's near a stone house that they lead a series of charges that allow the American army
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to escape back to their entrenchments in Brooklyn Heights. And it's here that, you know, this,
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this epic stand, which is, as one historian at the time would say, it was an hour more important in
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our history than any other. They make the stand. It's a, it's in blood. And there's about 400 Marylanders.
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Nearly the entire force is annihilated or captured. And what drew me to this book, like all the other
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books I've written, is it found me. And I found a rusted old sign near that area that I mentioned,
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that battleground near that house, which says, here lie 276 Marylanders, Maryland heroes.
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And I wanted to know more. Where did they, you know, where are they buried? And the answer is,
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we don't know. They're buried in a mass grave in and around that area. And it's one of the great mysteries
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in American, in American history of where these men are located. Many of them were captured and put
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on prison ships and their bodies were never seen again because these prison ships were like literally
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floating concentration camps. And most of the men that went on the ships never survived. The, uh,
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fast forward a little bit and it's Washington has to make decision. Does he stand and fight
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or does he retreat? And he, he, he has a war council, you know, in the middle of a massive
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lightning storm and they decide to retreat. And it's here that the story of the marble headers
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relates directly to the, to Christmas 1776. It's here that their first epic, uh, evacuation occurs.
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They, they, uh, they affect an American Dunkirk. They pull off the entire American army in, in
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extraordinary circumstances. The massive British army of 25,000 men is in the entire front of the,
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of Brooklyn defenses. They face this army. The British Navy is in the East, East river
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and about to sail behind the American defenses and crush it. It's here at this time that the United
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States, which is only 45 days old is in its greatest peril because Washington's army is
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potentially going to be destroyed. Washington would be, is about to be captured and a miracle
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needs to occur. And that's exactly what would God provides. Uh, they, the marble headers,
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the most experienced seamen or mariners in the continental army are given the task of bringing
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the army off 10,000 men along with his horses and cannon and somehow pull off the, uh, the impossible
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in the middle of the prying British eyes and loyalists and everybody else in that, in the middle of the
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night, the, um, Washington orders, the men that they are going to be attacking when in, in reality,
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they're moving back towards the boats. Glover is only given a few hours. They round up all the boats
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that they can, and they begin the task of bringing off the army somehow into, to New York City itself.
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And it doesn't go well at first. The water in the river is so treacherous. There's so many currents
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that they literally are not able to move the boats across and they have to abandon the operation.
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They try to find Washington to call it off and he can't be found. And miraculously, he can't be found
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because they, they, they move forward with the operation and it's, it's a race against time.
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They only have about six or seven hours to move 10,000 men across the river. And it's not just one time.
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They have to go back nearly a dozen times with these boats under the eyes of the entire,
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a large portion of the British Navy somehow, which is parked not far on the, on the East River.
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And they are doing that back and forth. The British army is about to pounce in front of them.
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The Navy is about to potentially be unleashed, but miraculously, the winds don't favor the Navy
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to, to move behind the fortifications. And they're able to, to move more men across,
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but daylight is coming. And it's here that the hand of God, as the men say,
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today shows itself in a fog, a miraculous fog sets in and screens the movement of the remaining boats.
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And they're able to evacuate the, the, the rest of the force back to New York City.
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And it's from there that the, the American army sustains one massive defeat after another.
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And it's, it's a situation of, of retreat and defeat. The, the, the greatest being at Fort Washington,
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where if you are familiar with the Fort Washington bridge, the, the base of that bridge was a portion
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of it was a massive fortification that stretched over a mile that were, it was a massive American
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fortification known as Fort Washington. And they had a number of redoubts and defensive areas. There
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was a star fort and it's here that the Americans make an epic stand, but what they don't know is that
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the adjutant, the second in command had deserted only a few days earlier and delivered the entire plans
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of the fort, all of its weak points and where the forces were positioned. So the British knew exactly
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where to attack. And, and that's exactly what they did in mid November. When they started to,
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to roll up the fort and roll up many of the men inside it, the Washington's immortals and the
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indispensables, which is the book about the marble headers is all based on original primary source
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documents. One being pension applications. And one of the great stories of this book,
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both books actually, is a pension application from an individual that was lucky enough to escape
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Fort Washington. And he talks about how the fort is being surrounded. They find a rowboat and they row
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across the Hudson River and they make their way to New Jersey where Washington is in a house overlooking
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the entire battle through his spyglass. And he, he sees Washington, distraught Washington.
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And he sees Washington with tears in his eyes as the fort has fallen. And many of his men
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are, are run through literally a gauntlet where British and German soldiers form a gauntlet. And
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they, the men are run through the gauntlet and they're kicked, beaten, in some cases, bayoneted
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and robbed of their personal possessions. This is just one of the defeats that Washington's
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army faces as they make their long retreat back through white plains where they make a stand as
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well. And eventually they, they cross over and make their way through New Jersey. And it's the
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British army that's never too far behind as they're felling trees and, and making their way towards
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the safety of elites, the relative safety, they think of the Delaware river in the, the farms of
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Pennsylvania. And it's here, um, that they're only just a little bit ahead of the British army that they
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escape across the Delaware. And they, they are making, um, they're making preparations. This is a
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situation where they escape one demise, but they now face another. And this is the most,
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this is known as the crisis. Some of the most crucial days in American history, because everything
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was collapsing. The enlistments for the men were about to expire. Washington was about to lose his
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entire army. Hyperinflation racked the colonies. Prices for food skyrocketed. The cause
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was about to be lost. Many Americans in New Jersey had in, in, in other areas had taken, um, a pardon from
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the King and we're now turning sides and everything was being lost. Uh, the potential for the entire war
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ending was very much in the, the month of December, 1776. And it's, it's here that Washington
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plans, the great, one of the greatest comebacks in military history, the crossing of the Delaware
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in the, that will change the course of the entire revolutionary war. It's a epic stand. It's an epic
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battle. One of the greatest battles in American history, the battle for Trenton.
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And it's appropriately, Washington's call sign or code words for that night were victory or death.
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Good morning and Merry Christmas. I'm Patrick K. O'Donnell, combat historian and best-selling author,
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hosting the Combat History of Christmas with the worm. Today, Steve is traveling, so I'm hosting it
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alone, but we're talking about the combat history of Christmas and our most important history
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of Christmas, which is the Christmas of 1776 in the counterattack at Trenton, which changes history
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in the world. It's in and around in Pennsylvania that Washington near Trenton on the Pennsylvania
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side decides to mount one of the greatest comebacks in military history, an attack on the garrison of
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Hessian troops. These are German mercenaries that are based in Trenton. He's got one problem,
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though. He somehow has to get across the Delaware River. This is a very difficult obstacle.
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Washington decides to launch the attack or the counterattack on Christmas Day. What they don't
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know is that there will be a raging nor'easter that day that will make it almost impassable.
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But days before the planning, he asks the most experienced mariner in the Continental Army,
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John Glover, who initially has the Marblehead Regiment with the Indispensables, he's now a brigade
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commander, if it's even possible to cross the river.
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You know, you have to make making an assault crossing on a river against an enemy force is one of the most
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difficult things imaginable in a military maneuver. And it was compounded by the climate that day. But they don't
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know at the time if it's even doable. So he asked Glover if it's possible. Glover says to General Washington,
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Washington, don't worry, my boys can handle it. And that's exactly what they do. They pull off the
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impossible. Washington, who's kind of known for complicated strategies, has three prongs of an
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attack that are to attack the Trenton garrison under the command of Johan Rahl. And Rahl is an extremely
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experienced commander that has been, you know, since his childhood, a soldier, and a very,
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very good one. He had, at White Plains, he had led the attack, and he even took, he led the attack
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at Fort Washington, which I mentioned earlier, and was, you know, incredibly important,
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played an important role in seizing the American garrison there. This man's an incredible war
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hero. He's also a very, very skilled commander and knows military strategy. But he's left with
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a very difficult task. He somehow has to defend this isolated garrison. New Jersey has a number
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of little, of smaller isolated garrisons that are tying down the British gains there. And he is,
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his 900 or so men are garrisoning the Trenton area. They're on constant alert for American attacks and
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raids. And he is given information by British intelligence. There's a spy in Washington's camp
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that General Grant has that they will attack on Christmas. So he's warned. His men
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are armed. They sleep in their arms and in their uniforms. This is not the Christmas story that,
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you know, many children's books have of these men being drunk on Christmas and not ready to do battle.
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It's just the opposite. They're very trained. They're ready to go. But they're also worn out
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because the Americans had raided them multiple times. And that night he's warned. He's given,
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it's really quite extraordinary story. He's given intelligence by a loyalist that the American
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Army had crossed the Delaware River. And the enslaved individual tried to see him multiple times.
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He was playing checkers at the time with another loyalist and later played cards. And eventually,
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after being pestered multiple times, he sees the man and then takes the message which says that the
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Americans are coming and puts it in his pocket and never reads it. And the Americans indeed are coming
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that night on Christmas night. And it's mission impossible, though, because John Glover and his
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men have to somehow cross a river, which is a raging torrent. There's pieces of ice. There is a nor'easter
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occurring where snow and sleet is pelting the men. And only the most experienced mariners in the
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in the Continental Army can do this task. They have to somehow transport over 2,500 men across the river
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about 12 miles north of Trenton. And they have to battle the different currents that are inside the
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river. If they if they fail, there's literally a there's a there's an eight foot waterfall on several
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hundred yards down the river that will capsize the boats and drown many of the men will die of
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hyperthermia if they're not successful. But they're able to somehow with their skills and in mariner skills,
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which they developed in the Grand Banks, which is off Nova Scotia, where they were fishermen,
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which are the most treacherous waters in the world, they're able to bring the men
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and the army across against all odds. For perspective, Washington had two other attacks
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that were trying to cross the river, two other forces that were trying to cross over. They failed
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because the water was too treacherous. It was only through the skilled hands of the marble
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hunters that they were able to cross the river, the Delaware that night. And they're using a variety
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of craft. There's a flat bottom boats. There's also something called a Durham boat. There's 25 to 40 of
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these boats which deliver iron to to a Durham, the iron foundry in your Durham, the Durham iron foundry.
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And these boats are used to bring the men across in this raging snowstorm. And I think what's so
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incredible is as the men get off the boats, there's snow on the ground and many of them don't have
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shoes. And there's many, many accounts of how they literally leave a trail of blood as they march in
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their wake because the men have no shoes. But somehow they have this Elan in the spirit that is
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extraordinary. One of the accounts in The Indispensables that chronicles the Marbleheader story
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talks about how they had a cheerfulness, despite the fact that they were facing
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the, this weather that was, that was beating down on them. And as they probe forward, they had to go
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through a ravine, which was very slippery. And many of the men were literally, some of the men were so
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exhausted that they, they, they almost fell asleep in the snow. One man almost did. And that would have
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been instant death. You would have died of hypothermia. And in this march, they, they move along
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and they meet a doctor whose, whose dog is barking on the, near his house. And they, they approach him.
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Anybody that, any, anybody that is, approaches the army is literally apprehended because they could,
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they could give away the great secret of the Revolutionary War that the, the, the Washington
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had landed his force and they were moving towards Trenton. They bring this doctor forward, who is a, a
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patriot. And he tells them that he will very gladly come. And they move down the road and they encounter
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a force under the command of a guy by the name of Wallace, who was authorized by Adam Steven to make a
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revenge raid. And Washington is in a tower of rage because you, he says to him, you, sir,
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have destroyed my entire plan. And it destroyed the element of surprise. And when in reality,
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it's, it's, it's, it's an unintended consequence that may have occurred. The raid may have alerted
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while, uh, Johan Rahl that the Americans had landed, but it was a small force and that this was indeed the
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force that British intelligence had warned him of. And he then went back to sleep. Johan Rahl went back to
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sleep and put the mess and never read the message that the Americans were coming. And the, the
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Marylanders who I chronicle Washington's immortals, there's a small force of Marylanders. There's the, the
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stalwart men that remained, including the Marblehead Mariners that marched towards Trenton, uh, as, as daylight
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approaches. And John Glover is marching on the long, the river road. That is the road that corresponds
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with the Delaware river. And without orders, he sees a bridge across the acid peak Creek and realizes
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that this is an absolutely important target. And he orders men to seize the bridge and attack the
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Hessian guards there and then move a number of cannon on the high ground at the bridge. And it's, uh, it's
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here that Johan Rahl alerts his men. Uh, the, the garrison in, in Trenton is, is alarmed and they attack,
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uh, Washington with a number of cannons. And, uh, he has three regiments of his disposal. Two of those
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regiments make a desperate attack on Washington, uh, to somehow break the grip of, of the American
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attack on Trenton. And it's, it fails. Johan Rahl is, is mortally wounded. The, the, the, the, the
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Glover's force at acid peak Creek basically seals one of the last escape routes for Johan Rahl's force at
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Trenton. And it becomes one of the greatest American victories in history. One of the great military
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victories in world history that will change the entire course of the revolutionary war. And it was
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part of 10 days of, of battles that would change the entire revolutionary war and world history.
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I'm Patrick K. O'Donnell. Merry Christmas. I'm hosting the combat history of Christmas today. It's our
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annual tradition with Stephen K. Bannon. And what we, we like to do is we go back in time and look at the,
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the inflection points in history, which often revolve around Christmas. But there are also stories
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about individuals and their agency that change the course of events in one way or another.
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And that is certainly the case with the next story that I'm going to tell, which is a Christmas story
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set in World War II. It's set in the, um, in the mountains, the Dolomite mountains of Northern Italy,
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where a raging guerrilla war was taking place against the SS, against the Germans. It's a situation where
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small groups of OSS men, otherwise the first special forces, small groups of teams that were arming the
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resistance behind the lines would, would do some extraordinary things in or the complete with the
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hallmarks of today's special operations forces. And that story begins and has some really key points
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at Christmas. For me, it's a, it's a special story. It found me, um, many years ago, over 15 years ago,
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where I was contemplating going back overseas with embedding with, uh, another combat unit in
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Afghanistan. And it was my, uh, my great friend whose nickname was the brain, who was an operations
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officer with the OSS that ran the special ops missions deep into Northern Italy said to me, Pat,
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don't go. It's, it's too dangerous. Um, and I, I, I, I said that, okay. He's like, I want you to tell
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the story. I want you to tell Howard's story, Howard Chapel story, the Tacoma mission. I said that,
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that's great. But, uh, Howard never will never talk. Um, I spent years trying to get
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arguably one of the greatest World War II veterans I ever interviewed to talk and he would never talk.
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Uh, he would always, I would always call him up and he'd say, well, Pat, you know,
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you need to come out here and, and, and, and maybe interview me. And it was always a throwaway line
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because I did go out a couple of times and try to interview him and it never succeeded. But finally,
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I got the brain to, to basically triangulate and pressure Howard to letting me talk to him.
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And he said to me, I landed in San Francisco and I called him up and I expected sort of the usual
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treatment and said, he said, Pat, meet me at the gas station at spyglass road at Pismo beach at noon
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tomorrow. And I was there, I was there five, you know, 10 minutes ahead of time. And I'll never forget,
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this big Lincoln kind of rolled up and he had sunglasses on and he looks over at me. He goes,
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follow me. And I went back to his house and Howard Chappell was six foot two kind of built like
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Schwarzenegger and, and still kind of had that frame and physique. And he immediately tried to
00:31:56.580
intimidate me to intimidate me. And I, I'll never forget. I tried to enter to bring him back in time.
00:32:02.820
And he said to me, um, you know, Pat, um, he starts to open up his mail
00:32:11.060
with his Fairburn Sykes fighting knife right in front of me to sort of intimidate me. And then he
00:32:17.140
started to like sharpen his fingernails. It's like, you know, you need to use the bathroom
00:32:21.700
or anything. I'm like, no, I'm fine, Howard. And then I said to him, well, let's go back in time
00:32:27.460
to when you, you killed the German officer with your bare hands with a ski pole.
00:32:34.020
And that was like the opening that I needed. And he went back in time and told me how
00:32:40.020
he killed, he was running for his life from what was known as an SS for Stalamento behind the lines
00:32:48.260
where his entire team was captured. Going back a little bit, that team was set behind the lines
00:32:56.980
on Christmas day, 1944. And they, they dropped at a place called Valmoral, which is nestled in the
00:33:05.540
Dolomite mountains on the side of a mountain. The place is something you can visit today. It's,
00:33:10.980
there's a grappa bar there on the drop zone. And I went back like I always do to the places that I
00:33:18.100
write about. And I visited Valmoral. I visited San Antonio, which is nearby. And I interviewed all of
00:33:26.260
the old partisans that were with the Tacoma team. And I'll never forget my, my, my first,
00:33:36.500
one of the first and most important people that I interviewed was an old man who was a mayor of,
00:33:41.860
of a town. And I was there with, with one of the partisans relatives that had died in combat on,
00:33:51.540
on, on, on Chappell's team. And we went from house to house to interview the old partisans.
00:33:57.620
And this mayor, former mayor was sitting there watching TV and his door was kind of open and I
00:34:03.220
knocked on the door and he looked up at me and he said, what do you want? And I said,
00:34:10.580
one thing I said, I just said, Howard Chappell. And this man's jaw literally dropped as I said that.
00:34:18.100
And he said to me, Rambo, and that's what Chappell, that's how tough, that's how much of a badass
00:34:26.660
and illegitimately Howard Chappell was. And I'll start to tell you that story of
00:34:32.580
the Brenner assignment. And these men drop in on Christmas day and it's almost immediately hot.
00:34:39.700
The, uh, the entire area is, is, uh, there's a very active SS presence there that, um,
00:34:51.460
they hunt partisans and they, and it's not a, uh, it's not a pleasant thing at all. If you're found
00:34:58.180
to be aiding the Americans or in a resistance group, you're hung from a meat hook. And many of the squares
00:35:05.540
of the small towns in and around this area, there were dozens of men that were hung from meat hooks
00:35:11.380
for helping the Americans or just being part of the partisan group or just being, you know,
00:35:16.500
in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that's how brutal and ruthless the SS were. And it's
00:35:22.420
this environment, the chapel had to operate in his primary mission was to find another main
00:35:32.020
character in my book, a guy by the name of Stephen Hall and Stephen Hall in his story is epic and
00:35:39.540
extraordinary. He dropped in August, 1944, and he would be part of a single one man mission to somehow
00:35:48.500
destroy the sub passes that were part of the Brenner pass. And he wrote a letter to the OSS
00:35:55.060
command months earlier, um, as he was going back to Corvallis, Oregon on a troop train. He was an
00:36:03.540
engineer, combat engineer that knew how to blow things up, but he's also an expert skier. He was
00:36:10.420
a mountaineer. He was a rich kid that went to Harvard and Yale dropped out of both and then sort of traveled
00:36:18.420
the world. He went to Cortina, which is in the Dolmite mountains, a ski area. And he, he, he hiked
00:36:26.100
and skied all the mountains for six months. And he wrote in a letter in 1944 to the OSS, if they dropped
00:36:36.020
the man with explosives and, you know, the proper equipment, he could destroy the passes that led into
00:36:43.700
the Brenner pass. And why is the Brenner pass important at this time? It was the lifeline or the
00:36:49.220
artery where the German army was, was bringing their supplies and their men into Northern Italy
00:36:56.340
and Italy from Germany and Austria. And it was bombed relentlessly by the Allied Air Corps, but it
00:37:04.020
was so heavily fortified that every, the troop trains and everything else were getting through.
00:37:08.660
So they had to look at an alternative means, a special operation to arm the resistance in the area
00:37:15.780
and then potentially take out the sub passes. And this is Stephen Hall's mission. And he drops in
00:37:23.940
with a, uh, uh, another team initially guy by the name of Lloyd Smith. And I interviewed all of these
00:37:31.380
men that were alive at Smith nickname was Smitty was epic legendary. He was a rising star within the OSS at
00:37:38.180
the time because he had rescued, um, a bunch of nurses that had crashed in a C 47 behind the lines
00:37:44.340
in Albania. He went in with a three 57 Magnum alone and had to navigate all these partisan groups with a,
00:37:51.940
with a letter from president Roosevelt saying that don't harm me. He somehow gets out these men along
00:37:58.500
with Sterling Hayden, who's the famous movie star later. And then also Jack Taylor, who was a main
00:38:04.180
character in my book for seals, but Smitty then is given, uh, the task of bringing in, uh, Stephen Hall.
00:38:12.340
And, uh, you know, I connected immediately with him because I was a division one wrestler in college.
00:38:18.180
And so was he, and we had this immediate rapport and I'll never forget. He pulled out the three 57
00:38:23.700
Magnum that he had behind the lines in Albania. And then also in Northern Italy and showed it to me.
00:38:28.980
And he talked about how Hall was a, uh, a unique character that in many ways was trying to find
00:38:35.780
himself. This, this is an incredible movie. It's been optioned a few times of, of him trying to find
00:38:42.580
himself, but also to accomplish mission impossible. They, they jump in to an area, um, known as the
00:38:50.900
Fraioli, which is further away from the Dolomites. And he has to, to, he goes in with Smith and then he goes
00:38:57.860
alone to the Dolomites area where his mission will take place. And he has to march, climb and ski
00:39:07.700
for days, weeks alone in the mountains, in some of the most treacherous terrain in the world,
00:39:16.500
as he is being hunted by the SS. And he's blowing up bridges. He's working with the resistance to some
00:39:24.180
degree because, but he's a fish out of water because he is a, I mean, he's kind of this white
1.00
00:39:31.060
Anglo-Saxon, um, guy that went to Harvard and Yale and he's dealing with partisans in many cases who are
00:39:37.780
communists. He has nothing in common with them. And he is, he is able to thwart, um, you know, several
00:39:44.100
attempts on his life, but he makes his way towards the mission area. And it's here, you know, like
00:39:52.020
every great story. This is, I think, in my opinion, I've, I've interviewed thousands of World War II
00:39:58.740
veterans. I've written seven or eight books on World War II. This is one of the greatest World War II
00:40:03.780
stories of all time. It also has a love story with it. And it's here that he's making his way towards
00:40:11.140
Cortina that he encounters a woman that will change his life. A countess who is also a French agent,
00:40:20.500
but he's also working for the Germans. And she is a mayor of a small town in their interest. They're,
00:40:26.820
his entree to this woman, the countess de obligato and her, her mansion, her small home in a place called
00:40:34.820
Morrison still exists. All of these places still exist. And oh, by the way, the World War II museum
00:40:42.900
is planning on doing a epic tour of the Brenner assignment in this mission. And it's one for,
00:40:50.980
it's such a special place. It's a, it's a, it's a story that is not known of World War II.
00:40:57.220
And it's also, as I mentioned, a love story. And it's here that he encounters her in a, in a strange
00:41:03.700
way. He receives a book, the Scarlet Pimpernel, which is a sort of her call sign for him to meet her.
00:41:12.100
And she has a specific code. She leaves a pine branch at the windowsill of her home
00:41:21.700
out if the Germans are not in the house. And as it's a, it's a, it's a wintery night in, in November,
0.67
00:41:30.900
1944. And he, along with a partisan leader is making their way to Mars on and they see the pine branch
00:41:40.020
near the window. And he goes into the countess's house and encounters a woman, which will change his
00:41:48.500
life. And, uh, she's sort of seated on a, uh, a sofa rather seductively. And it's, it's there that,
00:42:05.460
I'm Patrick K O'Donnell and I'm hosting the Comet History of Christmas for the War Room,
00:42:27.140
our annual tradition. I'm taking you back behind the lines in the Brenner assignment. It's Christmas
00:42:34.580
day, 1944. And Stephen K Hall is in the house of the Countess, who's a double agent. She works for
00:42:43.460
France, but also Germany, but she is a, she's also a sympathizer with the resistance and a resistance
00:42:50.180
leader in and of herself. It's here that Stephen K Hall is given sort of, sort of the mission impossible
00:42:57.780
to destroy a small light railroad and a transformer that is, that is about 10 miles away.
00:43:05.460
Hall spends the night Christmas Eve with the Countess. And what's extraordinary is he records
00:43:12.580
his story on cigarette paper and buries his diary in wine bottles in and around various homes.
00:43:21.620
This book that I'm talking about, this story is in a book called the Brenner assignments,
00:43:28.980
bestselling book. It's made up of over thousands, tens of thousands of documents,
00:43:35.460
including Stephen K Hall's, uh, diary that was on cigarette paper, but also the mission reports
00:43:43.780
from Howard Chappell and the Tacoma team and Hall's mission reports. There's a, a radio messages.
00:43:50.740
It's a, it's thousands of, of documents, tens of thousands of documents to assemble a narrative,
00:43:56.740
which is extraordinary. It's here. He's given this, this impossible mission on Christmas day,
00:44:02.700
and he sets out on skis in the middle of a snowstorm to blow up the, the rail station and the,
00:44:10.080
the transformer because it's a mercury condenser. It's something that has to come from Germany.
00:44:15.360
It would, it would disable the line for months or weeks and sets off in the middle of this raging
00:44:21.360
snow storm, trying to destroy this, this rails, uh, light rail station, which is a artery towards
00:44:29.360
the Brenner pass and moving troops and supplies. And he's disoriented after several hours of skiing.
00:44:37.600
And, um, um, he basically collapses not far from this rail station, which is his mission.
00:44:44.480
And he's, he's captured by a forest forester who's, who's sympathetic to Germany. And he's brought to a
00:44:52.640
priest and it's, uh, it's here that he is, he's arrested and he's, he's very tragically tortured,
00:45:01.520
uh, tortured to death, uh, by the SS. And what this book is about is a, an epic story of the SS
00:45:13.040
against Howard Chappell in the, in the partisans and resistance behind the lines. This is the first
00:45:18.400
special operations team. These were known as operational groups. And he had the German operational
00:45:23.920
group. If you've ever seen the movie and glorious bastards at the beginning, this is the, his group.
00:45:29.680
It's, it's, he was a German, uh, speaking, uh, guy that was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger
00:45:36.000
that went behind the lines and, and then accomplishes Stephen Hall's mission. And
00:45:42.720
it's amazing. Uh, Hall's is captured and he's killed by the SS. And then Chappell has to somehow
00:45:52.000
get towards Hall. He doesn't know he's killed and he reforms Stephen, uh, Hall's partisans.
00:46:00.320
And they set up what is really one of the great ambushes of the war. They seal a portion of the
00:46:10.000
Brenner pass as the SS are escaping, including the 504 heavy tiger tank battalion, which has one
00:46:16.880
operational tiger tank as they're making their way to the Brenner pass. They, they blow up a bridge
00:46:23.600
before the pass. And then they, they, they capture the high ground above it and they fire upon the SS
00:46:30.240
and the SS thinks that they have chapel in a checkmate. They, they tell him under a white
00:46:36.640
flag that they will blow up the church, which contains all the civilians in the small town of
1.00
00:46:42.640
Caprilli and chapel, um, takes the, they basically calls their bluff goes down to the, the, the, uh,
00:46:52.720
the, the area of Caprilli on a motorcycle with his, with one of his men. He's only armed with a 45
00:46:59.920
and he confronts the SS and says, it is you that are surrounded. You are cut off. And we,
00:47:06.800
there's a parachute battalion that has landed nearby and you must surrender.
00:47:10.960
And he does, he provides, he does the impossible. The SS surrenders 3,500 men, including the payroll
00:47:20.320
for the German army to Howard chapel, single man, how a single person with agency changes the course
00:47:27.120
of an entire campaign in Northern Italy. And, you know, Steven K Bannon, who's my favorite host of
00:47:35.920
this show, always asked me, where do you find, where do you get these books, uh, Pat, or where do
00:47:42.160
you, where, where can the audience find them? You can go to my website, patrickkodonald.com.
00:47:48.080
You can go to at a combat historian, which is not get her or Twitter. And the book, uh, the unvanquished
00:47:56.160
is at the front of the store at Barnes and Noble nationwide. But what is it about? It's about
00:48:03.280
agency. It's about you are responsible. You, the individual can change the course of history.
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