Ronald Reagan made the 2nd Ranger Battalion famous with his 1984 “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” speech. There, he extolled the exploits of the Rangers who scaled those heights on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Ever since, many believe that the Rangers started and ended their World War II efforts on that day in June.
In fact, the battalion faced challenges throughout 1944. “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 just the start of the Battalion’s World War II combat.
Their greatest challenge came six months later, in December 1944, at the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. The battalion’s 512 men were ordered to take and hold Castle Hill, a 1,320-foot-tall, flat-topped mound that once held a medieval castle. The key to the Hurtgen battlefield was several Wehrmacht regiments defending the hill. Holding it was critical to Germany’s upcoming Ardennes offensive. The U.S. 28th Infantry Division, 30 times larger than the Ranger unit, had tried and failed to take it….