Jocko Podcast 94 w/ Echo Charles - "Men at Arnhem", By Geoffrey Powell

2017-09-27T22:10:52Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles Get the book, "Men at Arnhem" here: http://amzn.to/2xXjtYV 0:00:00 - Opening 0:05:49 - Sometimes you lose.  Default Aggressive.  - "Men At Arnhem", by Geoffrey Powell. 2:07:29 - Real world take-aways and life comparisons.  2:20:07 - Support JockoStore stuff, Origin Brand Apparel, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.  2:40:25 - Closing Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

but if people in the group start saying you know what I'm not going to cover I'm going to run and now no one's covering and now you've got a bunch of people that are moving and no cover and that's when you're going to get slaughtered not only get slaughtered by people that are shooting at you but if you're not putting down cover fire the enemy maneuvers they don't just sit there I mean some of them will be shooting but they'll be shooting but other elements of them are going to move and they're going to be able to cut you off. Well, anything like, even like a, like a wasp or you know, like with these little things that are way smaller than you. yeah, when you grow up with that stuff, like those lizards are not scary, even if they're aggressive and some of them, they get pretty like big and bulky and they're like dang, a thing has some power to it, this little lizard, you know? Somebody just sent it to me and I gave it the little tests, what I kind of opened books up because people saw me a lot of books and I gave it the test, you know, I opened up by read a couple of sections and it immediately, you know, I'll give all open to a book in four or five different places to see what it reads like. And so it was like maybe two, three days later, I was like, well, I got to try that's the, you know, like, the 72 pound one. Do like, yeah, they're like, oh, you know, they're like, oh, wait, wait, no, grab it. And so you got to find someone like that that's in your team that you can say, man, this is this horrible, this is going wrong and someone's going to go, hey, you know, it's not that bad. And after a while, I was like, wait, I felt the same thing that you, you know, one time I told you, like, you're strong. I didn't look into like what exactly, you know, they're going to improve, but I know course strength and all this stuff, but there's all these little things they improve too. I don't know, you know, but then I just looked at the one that was like, it was like the first one I saw. They're actually walking down train tracks and they know 100% they know 100% that Germans are waiting for them and they're going to push down the strax and the way they're going to find the Germans is when the Germans start shooting at them. Pretty amazing book that, you know, like I said, I got this book six days ago or something. They've got basically ambushed and now they pulled back after, like I said, confirming where the Germans were back to the book to accomplish this, meaning to accomplish finding out where the Germans were to accomplish this had cost us Leslie Doyle and the absent Barfall Mill, while two men and Doyle's leading section were dead and the two scouts were missing probably either killed or made prisoner. Like, like the Jim Carrey, like, oh, yeah. Like, you don't know what that looks like until you get reading this book But when he calms down after I don't know, three, four minutes, you do that and he'll kill, keep kind of like, how do you lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen he'll always do that though, but he'll just be a lot less aggressive. Because I got this 90 pound one and I was like, I lifted it up and you know, okay, you know, this, the one hand boom, clean, what do you clean press? It was like when I was like testing like what website provider whatever. When all the men were recovered, and when you look at the actual battalion of the 156 pairs, you battalion, it looked like this, 313 men were captured, many of those were wounded. It's kind of like, you know, like an MMA fighter or something. And I think it's pretty clear that if you read a book like this, General Powell is still a source of inspiration as are the rest of these incredibly brave men and also a source of leadership lessons of what to do and what not to do, and it's also an incredible reminder of that heavy burden of command. Where if you would like, like, how you said in the book, just kept your head, you smash that lizard. Also, good way to support if you're going to get this book men at how do you pronounce good the place? And a lot of times I've found if you have someone like that or maybe a couple people like that and your team that you can talk to will guess what? So if I were to tell you, you're strong, it'd be kind of like, I like rebut, yeah. But, man, you definitely this book, like I said, I read, I don't know, 5% of it. Finally he walks it like more close to her and she kind of starts to turn around and he's like, oh, so now you pay attention. You know, when they know like that's your company. Further in these houses and for the first time you're going to hear the company commander start to realize he's got people at the breaking point back to the book. Because the, the field manual, like any field manual, like when you want to go refer to it, you don't want to be searching around.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocco podcast number 94.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening echo.
[00:00:08] Good evening.
[00:00:12] The black cloud of smoke exploded silently outside the open door of the decoda of
[00:00:17] scurrying for the moment my view of the geometrical Dutch landscape deserted, but for a few
[00:00:24] for Lauren cows.
[00:00:27] As soon as the sea had appeared below us, I started to think about the flag, and I knew that everyone
[00:00:32] else in the aircraft must be worrying as well.
[00:00:36] When we crossed the east Anglican coastline, that slight wave of movement had flickered down
[00:00:42] the aircraft as the men checked their watches, calculating the time it would take to fly
[00:00:47] over the sea and come within range of the now alerted German anti-aircraft guns.
[00:00:53] Below us, the air sea rescue launches of the RAF, dotting the water at precise intervals
[00:00:59] were pleasantly comforting.
[00:01:02] The narrow band of beach, which was the coast of Holland, had aroused us once again.
[00:01:08] As the flooded fields flashed into view, private harrisid had leaned across to point
[00:01:13] out the guns and the ground shooting up at the mast ranks of our aircraft.
[00:01:19] At the sound of my batman's voice, which had been silent for the past hour, the men near
[00:01:24] to the open doorway had creamed forward to see what they could, while the rest, anxious
[00:01:29] for the first indications of the enemy, had twisted their necks to peer through the small
[00:01:34] windows at their backs.
[00:01:37] At first I could see nothing, and I was stupidly aggravated that everyone but myself could
[00:01:45] spot gun flashes.
[00:01:48] When came that cloud of smoke producing an odd sense of satisfaction, a reaction which immediately
[00:01:54] shamed me.
[00:01:57] This was the behavior of a small boy.
[00:02:00] For all that, it was satisfying not to feel scared by it.
[00:02:04] Perhaps it was because the experience was not only novel, but in some way, impersonal.
[00:02:12] Looking down the dark tunnel of the aircraft at the double line of soldiers, it was a relief
[00:02:16] to see that all traces of nervousness had disappeared.
[00:02:21] We had been waiting a long time for this.
[00:02:29] So that is the opening of a book called Men at Arnim.
[00:02:36] It was actually sent to me by a guy by the name of James Fennelun and the book was originally
[00:02:44] published under the pseudonym Tom Angus.
[00:02:48] It was about this battle at this place called Arnim, which is in Holland.
[00:02:55] In the book, the units that are doing the fighting, they're not identified.
[00:02:59] They don't say what units they are, but shortly after the book was published, it became
[00:03:05] very clear and it was revealed that the author was an individual named Jeffrey Powell, a British
[00:03:13] Army officer, and that the unit that the book talks about was the 156th Parishute Battalion
[00:03:20] of the British Army, who fought against all odds.
[00:03:27] And really, with misfortune after misfortune for eight days during operation, market garden,
[00:03:37] which is a famous World War II operation, a bold and super aggressive plan, and also the
[00:03:46] largest airborne operation up until that point.
[00:03:50] And the goal was to isolate parts of the German forces and to cut off what's known as the
[00:04:01] road district, which is like the heart of German industry, and then open up a route going
[00:04:08] from through that whole area, take control of the roads in the bridges and be able to punch
[00:04:14] right into the heart of Germany.
[00:04:17] Over 40,000 airborne troops took part in the operation, including America's 80 second
[00:04:25] airborne and the 101st airborne divisions.
[00:04:28] But the deepest, those that jumped deepest into enemy territory were from the British First
[00:04:36] Airborne Division, and that included this battalion, the 156th Parishute Battalion.
[00:04:45] And if you know anything about Operation Market Garden, although it did achieve some beneficial
[00:04:54] things, overall, the mission was considered a failure because it didn't actually achieve
[00:05:01] the objectives that it wanted to achieve.
[00:05:03] And as you can imagine, those that were furthest out suffered some absolutely catastrophic
[00:05:11] casualties and people taking prisoner and people killed in action.
[00:05:18] And this is only an eight day.
[00:05:20] This is eight days long.
[00:05:21] So this is this period that we're about to cover is only eight days long, and you're
[00:05:25] going to see that it is vicious.
[00:05:29] And the names were changed in this book.
[00:05:34] But again, this is an account from one of the company commanders inside this battalion.
[00:05:48] So obviously the opening was them flying over to the English Channel and getting ready
[00:05:55] to jump in to Holland.
[00:05:57] And here we go back to the book.
[00:05:59] I braaced myself with the open door, the first man in the stick to jump, gripping the
[00:06:03] fuselage, in case a sudden jerk flung me out too soon.
[00:06:08] Leaning forward, the wind whipped my face, pouring over the details of the plastic Dutch
[00:06:13] landscape below, I could now see one or two cyclists dotting the otherwise deserted country
[00:06:19] side.
[00:06:20] The flicker of the red warning light near my face told me that there was one minute
[00:06:24] to go.
[00:06:26] A railway line flashed below.
[00:06:28] The pattern of the woods was familiar as the view of the stable yard from the office
[00:06:32] window.
[00:06:33] The air photographs and the briefing model of the ground had imprinted the shapes on
[00:06:38] my mind.
[00:06:40] The pilots were dead on target.
[00:06:43] More often than not, in the old days, we had been dropped to stray, but these yanks always
[00:06:48] learned from their mistakes.
[00:06:51] I never saw the red light turn to green.
[00:06:53] Harrison's hand slapped my shoulder.
[00:06:55] I was out of the door.
[00:06:57] The slipstream hit me, flicking me sideways and I fell away just catching a glimpse of
[00:07:02] Harrison in the air above me and the tail of the aircraft flashing out of sight.
[00:07:07] When I was floating suspended gently in mid air, my parachute can be high.
[00:07:15] I looked up at the sky, choked with hundreds of swaying parachutes, most of them patterned
[00:07:21] and green and brown camouflage, but other, others in a galaxy of colors, red and orange,
[00:07:26] purple, blue and yellow vivid against the scattered white clouds.
[00:07:32] Every moment more aircraft arrived to discord, their car goes into the crowded
[00:07:36] air.
[00:07:38] Then I noticed the humming.
[00:07:41] We were being shot at from the ground.
[00:07:44] There were both on the drop zone.
[00:07:47] Something was badly wrong and opposed landing with the enemy firing as we hung from our
[00:07:52] parachutes.
[00:07:53] Parachutes were tried to collect our weapons before we could gather into a cohesive force
[00:07:57] on the ground with something new for us in the British airborne forces.
[00:08:02] So as they're coming down, they're getting shot at. He uses this term throughout the book.
[00:08:07] He calls the German boche BOCHE and where it comes from from what I gathered.
[00:08:18] There's a French word that means it could mean head like Kabosh or something like that.
[00:08:26] It also can mean cabbage and so I guess their their their derogatory slang term was
[00:08:33] these big headed German big cabbage heads and he reduced that down to this term boche and
[00:08:39] it's a common one for them to use.
[00:08:41] They used it a lot in World War I and so this is a hangover from that, but you're
[00:08:46] going to hear it throughout the book.
[00:08:47] That's how he's referring to the Germans.
[00:08:50] Back to the book a sharp pain burned the knuckles of my left hand.
[00:08:54] Blood was seeping from my fingers, a bullet must have hit me, grazed me anyways.
[00:08:59] But now the Heathland was rushing up, raising my hands to lift the webs I pulled and then
[00:09:06] hit the and then the ground hit me with an uncomfortable jar, a bad landing.
[00:09:11] I lay in the sunken road listening to the bullets cracking overhead.
[00:09:19] And they're right, they get right into the mix.
[00:09:22] I mean it's immediately into the mix obviously they're getting shot out in the way down
[00:09:25] and then what soon does they hit the ground?
[00:09:27] It's on back to the book a man with bloodstained shell dressing wrapped around his throat
[00:09:32] walked around the corner of the wooding towards us just as preacher to who's the medic
[00:09:37] finished his work.
[00:09:38] Then came a couple of parties carrying stretchers, the occupant of one unconscious, the
[00:09:43] other with a cigarette between his gray tight lips.
[00:09:47] They were the first stream of wounded men from a variety of units, making their painful
[00:09:52] way towards the dressing station which had been set up in the wood behind us.
[00:09:57] So far sea company had been lucky.
[00:10:00] Only four men were missing and a fifth had turned up late smiling cheerfully despite
[00:10:04] a bullet through his bandaged arm.
[00:10:07] Another four or five were limping and hopping about on strained or twisted ankles, expressions
[00:10:12] of disgust in their faces, victims of the gusty wind on the dropping zone.
[00:10:18] All of them would have to be left behind.
[00:10:21] But then I thought again calculating the figures once more, perhaps we had not been so lucky
[00:10:25] after all, a tenth of the men who had implained that morning were already casualties.
[00:10:33] It had sounded as if all the fighting had happened on the far side of the dropping zone
[00:10:37] in the arm hem dirt direction.
[00:10:40] Now the noise of the battle began to ebb.
[00:10:42] The enemy posts had probably been overrun.
[00:10:46] Neither news nor orders had arrived from battalion headquarters.
[00:10:51] But I knew better than to obstruct the radio net with needless questions.
[00:10:55] So first of all, you're rolling into a situation where you're on your insert and you lose
[00:11:01] 10% of your men.
[00:11:03] That's just where you're starting to know.
[00:11:04] If I remember correctly, that is the standard kind of figure that when you're conducting
[00:11:12] a big airborne operation, like when the army conducts big airborne operations, that's
[00:11:16] what they figure.
[00:11:17] They're going to take for casualties on the drop zone.
[00:11:20] Obviously they usually do better than that.
[00:11:22] But for worst case scenarios, that's kind of what they figure.
[00:11:24] And that's where they're at.
[00:11:26] The other thing that I thought was cool is here he is.
[00:11:29] He hasn't heard any word from the battalion HQ yet, but he's not going to jump on the net
[00:11:32] and say, hey, boss, what do you want me to do?
[00:11:34] Hey, what's going on?
[00:11:35] Hey, where do you want me to be?
[00:11:36] Because there's other people that are trying to talk and he's got to just kind of figure
[00:11:40] things out at this point.
[00:11:45] Now he's talking about his own company.
[00:11:49] But here's the report on the rest of the battalion as he figures off.
[00:11:53] And as usual, obviously, I'm not reading the whole book.
[00:11:56] And I'm skipping through big chunks of combat situations.
[00:12:00] But at this point, he figures out what's going on with the battalion going back to the book.
[00:12:04] Casualties in the battalion had not been light.
[00:12:07] Two officers and a hundred men had failed to arrive, among them the plain load which we had
[00:12:13] seen shot down.
[00:12:16] Another load had probably been dropped in the wrong place.
[00:12:20] Ian Hampshire was one of the missing officers.
[00:12:22] Rumor had it that he was dead.
[00:12:25] The other was the intelligence officer whose job Jimmy Gray had now combined with his own.
[00:12:31] Jimmy could not explain the reason for the delay.
[00:12:35] No one seemed to know.
[00:12:37] And that's one of the parts that I didn't go over in the beginning of the book as they're
[00:12:41] flying in as they're seeing flack hit and explode around them.
[00:12:45] He's, you know, they see another one of their aircraft filled with their brothers go down.
[00:12:51] No shoots.
[00:12:55] Now they start getting some coherent input from the battalion and here's what they figured
[00:13:02] out coming back to the book.
[00:13:04] We would move as had already been planned in England.
[00:13:07] The leading company of the battalion with Leslie Doyle's platoon, number nine in the front,
[00:13:12] some 200 yards ahead followed by company headquarters, then Luke Tyler's eight platoon,
[00:13:19] then Douglas Thompson's seven platoon at the back.
[00:13:23] As I had expected, the company was ready to move by the time orders had been given out.
[00:13:29] Two minutes were all that was needed for the men to slide their entrenching tools into
[00:13:33] place, pick up their weapons and sort themselves out.
[00:13:36] No one had removed his equipment.
[00:13:38] It was a lesson which the Colonel had drummed into us.
[00:13:41] No man must ever remove his equipment when the enemy is anywhere near, no matter whether
[00:13:45] he was digging, sleeping, or defecating.
[00:13:49] Never time it may be, day or night, a soldier had only to reach for his weapon to be ready
[00:13:53] to fight or to march.
[00:13:56] Just once this day, just once each day, one man in three at a time was allowed to strip
[00:14:01] so that he could wash and shave and shave they must.
[00:14:06] The last man of nine platoon was disappearing round the corner of the sandy track which
[00:14:10] ran parallel with the railway, line to our nem, when I noticed the Colonel standing
[00:14:16] on the right next to the shell of a still smoking glider which partly blocked the battalion's
[00:14:22] path.
[00:14:23] There was parachuteers that came in, but other people came in on gliders.
[00:14:27] Just big gliders.
[00:14:29] No engine that would get towed by other planes, they're filled with men and they would just
[00:14:33] land these gliders in big open fields.
[00:14:40] The railway was up by the Colonel's side and behind them crouched a knot of radio operators and order
[00:14:45] leaves.
[00:14:46] It was the same as ever.
[00:14:48] The Colonel's eyes were still, but he never missed anything.
[00:14:53] The unfassened pouch from which a grenade or brand magazine could slip.
[00:14:57] The slack chin strap which would fail to hold a running man's steel helmet in place.
[00:15:02] Quietly, the Colonel would indicate the error to whichever passing officer or n-seal was
[00:15:08] responsible for the man.
[00:15:11] Nothing was ever ignored.
[00:15:14] Safely out of range the offender would mumble about the nitpicking old bastard, but the
[00:15:19] abuse was usually perfunctory and good natured.
[00:15:24] All of the new his ways and by now they had learned that his fads mattered.
[00:15:30] So the Colonel's running a tight ship.
[00:15:33] Hmm.
[00:15:34] That's what he's doing.
[00:15:35] Highly disciplined guy and he keeps his troops in check.
[00:15:39] And as you can see they're not offended by that.
[00:15:42] They complain about it a little bit, but they also know it's the right thing.
[00:15:50] Here we go back to the book.
[00:15:51] Although we were moving along our planned route, our role in the battle had been changed.
[00:15:56] Instead of making for the high ground north of Arnem, the whole of the brigade was now
[00:16:01] marching for the bridge to relieve the struggling remnants of the first brigade which
[00:16:05] had been fighting alone there for more than 24 hours.
[00:16:09] One thing was certain.
[00:16:11] So they're mission to change a little bit.
[00:16:13] There's a bridge and first brigade was at this bridge and taken the bridge, but now they're
[00:16:17] getting attacked at that bridge by the Germans.
[00:16:20] And now these guys get this brigade gets the orders to go and help them, go and relieve
[00:16:26] them.
[00:16:27] Back to the book.
[00:16:28] One was certain, parachute infantry were not the fast moving hard-hitting troops depicted
[00:16:33] by the daily press.
[00:16:35] With no more transport in a battalion than four lightly armored carriers and some half
[00:16:40] dozen jeeps nearly everything needed in battle either had to be carried on the backs of soldiers
[00:16:46] or dragged behind them.
[00:16:49] There were no trucks just behind the forward companies loaded with spare ammunition.
[00:16:53] Instead, extra band allures were strong around necks and light anti-tank mines swung from
[00:16:59] waste belts.
[00:17:02] Success came with surprise in this sort of fighting.
[00:17:05] The enemy must be caught unaware and crushed before they could recover.
[00:17:11] Inevitably we would run short of ammunition if the boat were allowed the chance of standing
[00:17:17] in fighting.
[00:17:19] This weary trudge toward the bridge and our necks along the endless tracks was a crazy
[00:17:24] way to use airborne troops.
[00:17:28] Surprise had been lost long ago.
[00:17:30] Before the operation started, I doubted the wisdom of dropping so far from the bridges.
[00:17:36] Now it was clear that it had been a mistake.
[00:17:40] So they're in a radically different situation.
[00:17:42] Instead of dropping in and holding some ground, now they're moving, they have to carry
[00:17:46] all their gear with them.
[00:17:49] It's not a good situation.
[00:17:53] These talking about some of the guys are carrying it as much as a hundred pounds, which
[00:17:58] is a ton of weight.
[00:18:00] And now they get word from the kernel.
[00:18:04] Back to the book, he was able to confirm that the first parachute brigade was still holding
[00:18:09] out the bridge where the casualties had been heavy on both sides.
[00:18:14] The Germans having already lost two thousand men, although it was not clear who had counted
[00:18:19] them.
[00:18:23] Now as he gets done with that, he kind of gives some word.
[00:18:27] They're going to start moving down this track.
[00:18:30] So he's giving that order to this one of his officers, Doyle.
[00:18:35] Doyle's normally pretty fired up about what he's doing.
[00:18:40] He's a motivated guy.
[00:18:41] Here we go back to the book. Doyle was not at all his embellion self.
[00:18:46] The task of nine platoon was simple.
[00:18:48] He and his men had to walk straight down the track until they ran into the boge position.
[00:18:54] Their first warning of the enemy presence would be the rifle and machine gun fire tearing
[00:18:59] into them.
[00:19:01] Still less were the two scouts to be envied who would be moving out in front of the rest
[00:19:06] of the platoon.
[00:19:08] Who was almost inevitable that the first German rounds would hit one or both of them,
[00:19:14] unless the Germans were cunning enough to let them pass so as to kill more of the men
[00:19:19] behind.
[00:19:21] But without armor in front to draw the enemy fire and pinpoint their positions, there
[00:19:26] was no other way to advance.
[00:19:29] I had chosen Doyle to lead the advance because I was certain that I could rely on him.
[00:19:36] This was the penalty for being good at one's job.
[00:19:41] So there you go.
[00:19:43] They're actually walking down train tracks and they know 100% they know 100% that Germans
[00:19:50] are waiting for them and they're going to push down the strax and the way they're going
[00:19:54] to find the Germans is when the Germans start shooting at them.
[00:20:02] So they proceed down the tracks and now going back to the book, the expected happen.
[00:20:09] The calm of the night collapse in an explosion of light and noise.
[00:20:15] From a wide arc in front of nine platoon, streams of white red and yellow tracer bullets
[00:20:20] converged on the stretch of track where the men must have flung themselves to the ground.
[00:20:26] Every lights and parachute flares larger and brighter than anything carried by a swung down
[00:20:31] towards the earth, lighting the dark country shide to the shade of a gray November morning.
[00:20:38] A house burst into flames on the other side of the railway.
[00:20:42] It was too sudden for an accident.
[00:20:44] The configuration must have been planned.
[00:20:48] Anything which moved was now visible.
[00:20:51] Overall was the noise.
[00:20:54] The den of shells and mortars bursting both behind and ahead, merging with the harsh roar
[00:21:00] of the enemy spanned out light machine guns and the more sustained drumming of the heavier
[00:21:05] weapons.
[00:21:07] Now I could hear another sound.
[00:21:09] It was a slow rata tat of nine platoon's brain guns and the crack of British rifles
[00:21:14] were applying to the German fire.
[00:21:26] This is a well-planned ambush scenario.
[00:21:29] If you think about it, it sounds like they rigged this house to light up and be on fire
[00:21:35] and now that's backlighting and silhoueting all the friendly troops because it just makes
[00:21:41] you stand out because it's a fire behind you on top of that machine gun fire on top of
[00:21:46] that mortars shells are hitting you.
[00:21:52] Here we go back to the book as the major here as the company commander Jeffrey Powell is
[00:22:00] crouch down, waiting as all this is happening out ahead of him.
[00:22:04] He's not with that first platoon.
[00:22:06] He's behind them a little bit.
[00:22:08] Here we go back to the book, I saw a single crouched figure running up the track behind
[00:22:11] towards me.
[00:22:13] Then I recognize the broad bulk of Bartholomew, Leslie Doyle's platoon sergeant.
[00:22:20] This was quick, Leslie had wasted no timing sending back news.
[00:22:24] Only a little out of breath, sergeant Bartholomew sank down by my side and began to speak.
[00:22:30] His voice is calm and sensible as usual.
[00:22:34] His leading section had come under fire at a range of only some 20 or 30 yards.
[00:22:40] It appeared that the Germans had allowed the two scouts to pass unmolested but everyone
[00:22:44] else in the front section had been killed.
[00:22:48] There were several other casualties in the platoon as well including Mr. Doyle who had
[00:22:52] been hit badly in the thigh and was only semi-conscious.
[00:22:56] The survivors were pinned to the ground by fire which was coming from either side of the
[00:23:00] track.
[00:23:03] This was all wrong.
[00:23:06] With his platoon commander hit, sergeant Bartholomew, his place was with the platoon.
[00:23:12] There were plenty of other people to carry messages, not only that but Bartholomew could hardly
[00:23:16] have had time to verify the disastrous information about the leading section.
[00:23:21] It was far from likely that every man in it had been killed.
[00:23:27] So Bartholomew's nerve had broken in the first test.
[00:23:34] That's the situation.
[00:23:35] This guy ran and he comes back and reports in and says, hey everyone's dead and he realizes
[00:23:44] he realizes the company commander realizes that not true.
[00:23:49] Going back to the book perhaps the responsibility had been too much for him.
[00:23:52] However it was he was certainly scared despite his success in concealing the fact.
[00:23:58] The sergeant had run away leaving the platoon to its own devices.
[00:24:03] I was flabbergasted.
[00:24:05] Of all the NCOs I had judged this cool reserved man to be the most dependable.
[00:24:12] A hard taskmaster, too ruthless to be popular, sergeant Bartholomew had been an effective
[00:24:18] foiled to the easy going and friendly doil and the two men had formed a fine team.
[00:24:24] It was incredible that this should have happened.
[00:24:29] In the light of a flare I studied the sergeant's face there was nothing to be seen.
[00:24:34] Bartholomew returned my glaze with steady eyes.
[00:24:40] There could be no point in my further destroying the man's self-respect.
[00:24:44] It was possible that he might recover after this first shock.
[00:24:48] His pride taking charge to control his fear.
[00:24:53] So my review was restrained no more than a comment that Bartholomew should have sent private
[00:24:58] Jones back with the news and not come himself.
[00:25:02] Then I stood up once again, told Robert who had appeared by my side to take charge and
[00:25:06] started down the track toward the forward platoon, motioning Bartholomew to accompany me.
[00:25:12] There was no need to say anything to Harrison, who automatically rose to his feet.
[00:25:17] His stem cradled in his elbow ready to shoot.
[00:25:22] So interesting leadership dynamic there.
[00:25:25] Instead of saying, yo, you coward, you quit.
[00:25:28] He doesn't do that.
[00:25:29] Instead he really tones it back and says he should have said Jones instead.
[00:25:34] He's hoping that this guy will recover and this is a great line.
[00:25:38] It's pride taking charge to control his fear, meaning this guy just has no pride at this
[00:25:44] point.
[00:25:45] He's trying to keep it together.
[00:25:47] But hopefully the company commander is thinking that, okay, this guy will get it back
[00:25:55] together hopefully and will be able to utilize him as opposed to me just dropping the hammer
[00:25:59] on him right now in which case he might just completely break and be worthless.
[00:26:04] The other thing, I tried to include as much as I could of this guy, Harrison, that gets
[00:26:09] mentioned, who's sort of the the the company commander's right hand guy, but he's just
[00:26:15] always there, always ready, always stepping up and making things happen.
[00:26:26] Now eventually, as all that unfolds, we're going back to the book, Nez bit, which is one
[00:26:32] of the guys in that in that platoon.
[00:26:34] Nez bit had decided that it was time to leave and had used the wall to bring back the
[00:26:38] survivors of the platoon.
[00:26:40] Two men were dead while nothing was known of the fate of the two scouts.
[00:26:45] With Nez bit were five wounded men, two of whom including his officer were being carried.
[00:26:51] Leslie and shocking pain from a shattered thigh which Morphe had done little to help had
[00:26:57] fainted after a few yards and was still unconscious.
[00:27:01] A third of the platoon were casualties.
[00:27:03] It was bad, but not as quite as bad as pictured by our following you.
[00:27:08] I could not blame Nez bit for withdrawing without permission.
[00:27:12] Short of ammunition, with their officer wounded and the platoon sergeant unaccountably
[00:27:17] missing, the men had heard nothing of the troops behind them for the past hour and had
[00:27:21] concluded that the battalion must have pulled back.
[00:27:26] Nez bit had seen a lot of war as his DCM one in Crete testified.
[00:27:32] He understood its muddle.
[00:27:34] He knew it was rare for a battle to go as planned.
[00:27:39] His responsibility was to his men to rescue them from what seemed to be a mess.
[00:27:45] This he had done and his judgment had been correct.
[00:27:50] They were no place to be caught at daylight overlooked on a forward slope and unencumbered
[00:27:56] with wounded men.
[00:27:57] You see, decentralized command and action right there.
[00:28:00] Nez bit doesn't hear, doesn't know what's going on.
[00:28:02] He makes a decision.
[00:28:03] I'm getting these guys out of here.
[00:28:05] What's good is the company commander supports?
[00:28:07] Hey, he made a good call.
[00:28:09] That was the right thing to do.
[00:28:14] Now, at this point, they're moving back after they've confirmed, they pushed forward
[00:28:22] trying to find out where the Germans were and now they're moving back because they realize
[00:28:26] that the Germans are absolutely holding strong.
[00:28:29] They've done this push forward.
[00:28:30] They've got basically ambushed and now they pulled back after, like I said, confirming
[00:28:37] where the Germans were back to the book to accomplish this, meaning to accomplish finding
[00:28:43] out where the Germans were to accomplish this had cost us Leslie Doyle and the absent
[00:28:48] Barfall Mill, while two men and Doyle's leading section were dead and the two scouts were
[00:28:53] missing probably either killed or made prisoner.
[00:28:56] Seven other men had been wounded, including another sergeant.
[00:29:00] This is a total of 13 casualties with another nine men lost when we landed.
[00:29:06] With nothing at all accomplished, over 20 men had already been killed or injured and now the
[00:29:12] battalion was moving in the wrong direction back the way we had come.
[00:29:18] You're going to find them.
[00:29:21] What makes this story so devastating is that I talk about Murphy's Law and things go wrong.
[00:29:31] These guys are complete.
[00:29:32] It's just Murphy's Law over and over again.
[00:29:36] Most of the books that we read on here, there's triumph and there's victory at the end.
[00:29:42] And you can see right now already where this is heading.
[00:29:44] We got 20 guys wounded or killed and instead of moving forward, we're actually moving backward.
[00:29:54] Back to the book sooner than expected, we reached the battalion base.
[00:29:57] It had been sighted in an rectangular patch of wood about 20 acres inside lying just north
[00:30:03] of the railway.
[00:30:06] It was 230 AM, a horrible hour, especially so if one is time.
[00:30:12] I heard cold and hungry.
[00:30:15] Thank God it would be starting to get light in a couple of hours.
[00:30:19] What would happen tomorrow?
[00:30:22] Something had gone very wrong indeed.
[00:30:25] By now we should be dug in on the high ground north of our NEM, waiting for the Germans
[00:30:30] to counter attack the bridges instead.
[00:30:33] We were sitting here in the woods only a few miles from where we had dropped with strong
[00:30:38] enemy forces between ourselves and the city where the men of first brigade must be fighting
[00:30:43] for their lives.
[00:30:45] Wherever one turned they're seem to be German troops and good ones at that.
[00:30:50] The men who had stopped us had not behaved like rear area troops scraped together to put
[00:30:55] up some sort of resistance, but it fought with skill and tenacity.
[00:31:01] The slit trenches were dug and everyone except for the double centuries in each section
[00:31:05] and the officers and NCOs on duty was sound asleep.
[00:31:09] The men humped like dogs, some curled up with a companion for warmth, lying in their full
[00:31:15] equipment, their weapons tied to their wrists by the slings.
[00:31:20] I should be asleep too.
[00:31:22] Not sitting and worrying, feeling sorry for myself, but trying to get some rest and preparation
[00:31:27] for the coming day.
[00:31:31] Then to would be at 0, 4, 30 hours, half an hour before first light, when everyone would
[00:31:37] be awake and ready in this slit weapon poised for a possible dawn attack.
[00:31:48] So they're dug in and of course it's not looking good at this point.
[00:31:54] They're going to stand to it 0, 4, 30 which is pretty common.
[00:31:57] You're going to be up before the sun rise and you want to be up before the enemy as well.
[00:32:05] Now they get together and get some word.
[00:32:08] Here we go back to the book.
[00:32:09] It did not take long.
[00:32:10] It did not take the kernel long to give us our orders.
[00:32:13] The brigade was to renew its effort to reach the bridge and bring relief to the men still
[00:32:16] fighting there.
[00:32:17] So pretty simple straight forward goal.
[00:32:24] And in order to achieve this goal, they set up to do an attack on this little section
[00:32:30] of woods where they think there's a bunch of Germans and here we go back to the book.
[00:32:34] The leading sections plunged into the wood and disappeared.
[00:32:38] There were no enemy there at all.
[00:32:41] The information from brigade must have been wrong.
[00:32:43] We had attacked and taken an empty position.
[00:32:47] Never was there such an anti-climax, but never was an anti-climax.
[00:32:52] Now we get a little visit up on the front lines.
[00:33:00] Here we go back to the book.
[00:33:02] As the small spare figure stepped out of the first vehicle, I realized that it was the
[00:33:06] first time I had seen the Brigadier commander since we left England.
[00:33:11] He was just the same as ever, relaxed and smiling.
[00:33:15] Battle was nothing new to him.
[00:33:17] He had been through the worst of the desert war.
[00:33:20] Battle in no way disconcerted him at least not outwardly.
[00:33:25] It's interesting he uses the term model.
[00:33:28] He's talking about the fog of war.
[00:33:29] This model, when you don't really know what's happening, he talks about how the veterans
[00:33:32] are used to it and accustomed to it and they can deal with it.
[00:33:36] Model in no way disconcerted him at least not outwardly.
[00:33:40] He seemed to anticipate it, understanding how judgment and behavior was impaired by danger.
[00:33:47] Wherever he went, he inspired confidence with his gentle eyes in friendly manner.
[00:33:52] For regular cavalry officer, his background was unusual.
[00:33:56] He'd come to his regiment not from sandhurst, but from Oxford, with a double first and
[00:34:02] fluency in a half a dozen languages.
[00:34:06] And I love this line right here.
[00:34:07] He wore his learning light-need lightly as he did his decorations.
[00:34:13] This guy is highly educated and highly decorated, but you don't even know it.
[00:34:18] It was rare for soldiers to be aware of officers more senior than the kernels who commanded
[00:34:22] their battalions.
[00:34:24] But every man in the brigade would recognize, could recognize and name the brigadier.
[00:34:29] The two visitors did not stay long, but their appearance was atomic for all.
[00:34:33] It was a reminder that there were able men in charge, even though the battle was developing
[00:34:40] in a rather odd manner.
[00:34:46] Now as he continues in these situations, back to the book, suddenly my preoccupation, my
[00:34:53] preoccupation with the problems of others ceased.
[00:34:57] There was a familiar wine overhead, and I found myself propelled into the half-dog trench,
[00:35:02] all but on top of gall-braith and robber.
[00:35:05] The action had been a reflex.
[00:35:07] I knew that I had made no conscious decision to jump.
[00:35:11] As I lay there with my second in commands and trenching tool, carving into a ridge in my
[00:35:15] left buttock, the mortar bomb burst about eight feet to the right.
[00:35:20] The scream of the shards of jagged metal passing just overhead flailed my ears as earth
[00:35:25] and stones spattered down on top of us.
[00:35:29] The stench of high explosive filled my field the trench.
[00:35:34] My face I found was pressed into the coarse material of corporal gall-braith's battle
[00:35:38] trousers.
[00:35:40] Gingerly raising my head I peered over the low parapet.
[00:35:43] At the foot of the of a tree some 15 yards away lay a motionless heap, a green and
[00:35:49] khaki bundle which did not stir.
[00:35:53] Jumping out of the trench I ran across and turned over the limp body.
[00:35:57] The head fell back to show the open staring eyes of sergeant Hawks, one of the seven
[00:36:02] platoon section commanders, a bright young A.N.C.O. only just promoted who'd been with the
[00:36:08] battalion since the day it was raised.
[00:36:12] He was another old friend.
[00:36:14] At first I could see no sign of injury but then I noticed the small hole in the back of Hawks
[00:36:19] helmet and the thin stream of blood streaking the back of his neck.
[00:36:25] Lying by hugging side I seemed to count seven explosions all just a little further away
[00:36:30] than the first but still close enough to smell the hot gases.
[00:36:35] There was a short pause and then as if it were not afterthought an eighth bomb struck the branches
[00:36:40] of the tree just above us directing its hot metal splinters down to the trenches below.
[00:36:46] A half strangled, his cry of distress brought my head up just in time to see corporal
[00:36:51] preacher clamber out of his slit and reach across the towards the cry.
[00:36:56] His haversac of medical supplies marked with its red cross dangling from his hand.
[00:37:01] The pause lasted no more than a half a minute.
[00:37:04] Again the wine.
[00:37:05] Again I ducked.
[00:37:06] This was the covering fire for a counter attack or the was this the covering fire for
[00:37:11] a counter attack or were the boge merely harassing us spitefully.
[00:37:17] But when I raised my head from Higgins from Higgins boots to look around I was relieved
[00:37:21] to see one of the seven platoon brain gunners his helmet and eyes just above the level of
[00:37:26] the parapet gazing down the track towards his front.
[00:37:30] So the centuries were still doing their job.
[00:37:33] The fire was not forcing their heads down.
[00:37:36] If this was the covering fire for an attack we would not be caught on a wares.
[00:37:44] So that's the standard procedure right here for the Germans and really for anyone.
[00:37:48] It's covering move right.
[00:37:49] We put in big bonds we put in mortars we put our in artillery and while you're hiding
[00:37:53] and while you're ducking down so you don't get killed they maneuver in and then right
[00:37:58] it right when they get so close that they're in danger of their own artillery the artillery
[00:38:03] stops and then they proceed with the assault.
[00:38:06] Here we go.
[00:38:07] The low now there's a low the low provided a chance to finish digging.
[00:38:11] There was no longer any need to persuade the men to dig faster the lesson had really been
[00:38:15] driven home.
[00:38:17] We've been digging for no more than a few minutes when the sound of firing to the north
[00:38:20] slack and but the noise from the vehicles in front had increased the thought of guns
[00:38:26] only a few hundred yards away was punctuated by the hammering of brands.
[00:38:31] By the way, brands I don't think I've said this brands are sort of the weapon of British
[00:38:35] machine gun versus the the spanned out which is which is the German machine guns and
[00:38:42] the use the the brits in the Americans use the term spanned out to talk about basically
[00:38:48] heavy machine heavy your machine guns but but that's what they're talking about when
[00:38:54] they're talking about spanned out and then a brand is the Brit machine gun.
[00:38:59] Both Ford Patoons were in action and I had placed company headquarters too far back
[00:39:05] to be able to see what was happening.
[00:39:08] The walkie talkies were silent also I worried about the sitting of the cartoon some
[00:39:13] 300 yards apart each isolated in its own corner of the woods and unable to support the
[00:39:19] others against a determined attack.
[00:39:23] This is so important for tactical leaders out there think about these lessons and these are
[00:39:29] lessons that I talk about all the time and these are lessons that I used to have to teach
[00:39:33] all the time.
[00:39:34] So you've got your platoon's they're out there doing something.
[00:39:38] You need to be close enough that you have communications with them so that you actually
[00:39:42] understand what's happening and this is the same in the business work.
[00:39:44] If you put yourself in a position where you can't I will you don't understand what's
[00:39:48] happening in the field then you're not going to be able to help you're not going to
[00:39:52] be able to support you're not going to be able to to understand what's happening so you
[00:39:56] can make decisions.
[00:39:57] So in this point he's positioned himself too far away.
[00:40:01] On top of that he's positioned his platoon's too far apart from each other.
[00:40:08] So if you're too far apart from each other you can't cover for each other if you can't
[00:40:13] cover you can't move and if you can't move you can't win.
[00:40:17] So those are critical points.
[00:40:20] Make sure your command position is close enough not so close that you're getting in the
[00:40:25] fire fight note not so close that you're pin down but close enough so that you understand
[00:40:29] what is happening.
[00:40:31] And then if you have multiple elements in the field you get them close enough to each
[00:40:35] other that they can support each other.
[00:40:39] Always.
[00:40:43] He sees a guy running back and here we go back to the book it was Sergeant Prior one
[00:40:47] of Nezbitt's section commanders a rather sulky man able and well educated but with a
[00:40:51] grudge against authority.
[00:40:52] And his left hand prior grasp is stend in a grip so firm that the knuckle is showed
[00:40:58] blue under the sunburn.
[00:41:00] His right arm from which clothing had been cut away at the shoulder was thrust into the
[00:41:05] front of his smock.
[00:41:06] The elbow covered by a bloodstained dressing.
[00:41:10] His face was white with shock and taught with pain.
[00:41:14] A morphe injection was doing little to alleviate the agony of an elbow smashed by a bullet.
[00:41:21] The news prior brought was serious.
[00:41:23] The vehicles which we could hear were booch armor.
[00:41:28] Moving backwards and forward along the road and sweeping the front of nine platoon's position
[00:41:33] secure from retaliation.
[00:41:36] So far the armor had only claimed prior but Sergeant Avondale had been killed by a
[00:41:41] mortar fragment as he dashed across between a couple of trees to put some question to
[00:41:46] Nezbitt.
[00:41:48] This inexorable loss of skilled leaders was serious.
[00:41:53] In our parachute battalions unlike usual infantry units, section leaders ranked as sergeants
[00:41:58] not corpals.
[00:42:00] Nine platoon had now lost not only its officer but three of its four sergeants as well.
[00:42:07] Hawks was dead and one of seven platoon's section commanders had failed to appear at the
[00:42:11] rendezvous after the drop.
[00:42:14] Already nearly half the sergeants had become casualties.
[00:42:25] This is just a nightmare unfolding.
[00:42:33] Back to the book after we'd put the final touches on our slit trenches, time was found
[00:42:37] to scrape a shallow grave for sergeant Hawks.
[00:42:41] It was hard to suppress one's revoltsh in touching the body of someone I had known so
[00:42:45] well but just as I was stealing myself to do so, Huggin stepped forward, ripped open the
[00:42:51] dead man's smock and shirt and slipped one of the two identity discs over the blood
[00:42:56] stained head.
[00:42:59] The sergeant major then unbuckled his watch and searched the pockets for anything which
[00:43:03] might be useful, a morphiest syringe and a field dressing, a bar of chocolate and a couple
[00:43:09] of mills grenades, two packets of cigarettes and a box of matches, a couple of maps and
[00:43:14] a pocket knife.
[00:43:16] There was nothing personal except for a grubby envelope containing a half a dozen faded
[00:43:21] and dog-yared snapshots of the stout smiling girl holding a baby.
[00:43:27] Before buttoning the envelope into his breast pocket, Huggin slipped the identity disc
[00:43:32] between the photographs.
[00:43:35] I was helping Corporal Prychard shoveled the earth back over Hawks' body, listening with
[00:43:39] one ear to Huggin, sharing the dead man's ammunition and other possessions among the members
[00:43:44] of the company headquarters.
[00:43:45] When suddenly I became aware of Jimmy Gray standing beside me apparently anxious to speak
[00:43:51] but different, at interrupting.
[00:43:55] Telling Prychard to finish the job, I rose from my knees, glad to be able to put my mind
[00:43:59] to something else.
[00:44:02] When I turned to speak to Gray, I was disturbed by what I saw.
[00:44:07] The dirt of battle had exaggerated his usual scruffiness.
[00:44:12] His smock and trousers were coated with mud and dust and his right sleeve was stained
[00:44:17] from top to bottom with blood.
[00:44:19] Not his own, as he explained when he saw my eyes fixed on it.
[00:44:24] The front of his smock and the battle dress under it, neath had been torn by a large fragment
[00:44:29] of a mortar bomb.
[00:44:31] He had reached in some miraculous fashion and failed to even scratch him.
[00:44:35] Three inches to one side and it would have been set and it would have severed his head.
[00:44:41] But it was the eyes above the pallid unshaving cheeks which were frightening.
[00:44:48] They were empty of life.
[00:44:51] When he spoke, the words were loosed and well-chosen as ever, but the voice lacked expression.
[00:44:58] The phrases were cold.
[00:45:00] He was not as if he were describing events which he had himself witnessed, but something
[00:45:04] unreal, something half imagined.
[00:45:09] Be companyated attacked at 0800 hours.
[00:45:13] At the start, their advance through the woods had gone like the first attack of the morning
[00:45:17] a calm and steady progress against a seemingly non-existent enemy.
[00:45:22] Then some hundred yards short of the objective, a swath of fire had cut down the men
[00:45:27] of the two leading pletoons.
[00:45:30] The half-grown trees and the sparse undergrowth had neither hidden them nor shielded them
[00:45:35] from the inner locking arcs of the enemy weapons which covered every inch of ground.
[00:45:42] It was just possible that they might have been able to deal with the machine guns alone,
[00:45:47] but the armor was too much for them.
[00:45:49] Pumping shells into the men at near point blank range.
[00:45:55] Gray had seen it all happen.
[00:45:58] The Colonel had tried to stop the attack as soon as the full strength of the enemy position
[00:46:02] had become clear, but by then more than half the men of the two leading pletoons had
[00:46:08] been killed or wounded.
[00:46:11] Both sub-alterns were dead.
[00:46:13] The other officers and the CSM had all been wounded.
[00:46:20] The Colonel had tried to turn the German flank by sending a company around to the left,
[00:46:25] but there was no flank.
[00:46:27] The second attack had been a replica of the first.
[00:46:31] It too had collapsed, but not before some 40 more men were dead or maimed, including
[00:46:36] two of the four surviving officers.
[00:46:41] Harry Bates had been terribly wounded in the stomach and by now was probably dead.
[00:46:48] As Gray had pulled him behind some cover, his blood had soaked his sleeve.
[00:46:55] This was not the complete story.
[00:46:57] There was further bad news.
[00:47:00] Not only had our own attack been shattered, but the other battalion to our north had
[00:47:05] hit similar enemy positions and was making little progress in its efforts to get into
[00:47:11] our name along the main road.
[00:47:15] From somewhere or other, the boat should found enough troops of quality good enough to
[00:47:20] smash the brigade's attempt to reach the city.
[00:47:29] So we deserve a horrible situation unfolding.
[00:47:39] Back to the book, from far away in the distance came the drum of powerful airplane engines.
[00:47:45] As it was the first to spot the minute shapes, first circling and then diving out of the sun
[00:47:50] towards us, the noise changing to a shriek as the machine swept down towards the wood towards
[00:47:55] the woods.
[00:47:57] From a half a dozen different directions, a happy shout of spit fires rose from the trenches.
[00:48:03] At last some help had arrived from the outside world.
[00:48:07] The RAF had arrived to give us closer support.
[00:48:11] And that's, you know, we've had closer support saved the day many times in books that
[00:48:17] we've talked about on this podcast.
[00:48:21] As I gave up at the dozen spit screaming down to strafe the boat's positions on the
[00:48:26] sloping ridge head, Nesbitz voiced suddenly roared in my ear, shouting to everyone to
[00:48:31] get their heads down and hide their faces.
[00:48:35] As I ducked with the rest, I spotted the black crosses on the wings.
[00:48:41] The aircraft were not ours, but German mesher schmits.
[00:48:45] Our air superiority was so overwhelming that it never occurred to anyone that the machines
[00:48:51] might be hostile.
[00:48:54] They were not diving onto the enemy positions, but on to our own.
[00:49:00] I gazed, skywards, the mesher schmits was so close that I could see the pilots face.
[00:49:06] Two rockets detached themselves from the wings and swooped down to explode seconds later
[00:49:11] in the woods where the survivors of A and B companies were settling into their new positions.
[00:49:17] As I ducked once more, there was another scream of engines from behind, followed by the
[00:49:21] sound of a storm of bullets striking branches on the trees and the other side.
[00:49:26] Two aircraft which had discharged their rockets were now carrying out a second run strafing
[00:49:32] with their machine guns.
[00:49:34] As I squeezed even closer to the earth at the bottom of the shallow trench, the reverberations
[00:49:38] of an explosion, some 50 yards of waves, pounded my ear drums.
[00:49:43] It was another rocket.
[00:49:46] Suddenly it ended.
[00:49:48] The aircraft had vanished as quickly as they had arrived.
[00:49:54] Wow.
[00:49:55] Yeah, because at this point, the British and the Americans had almost total air domination,
[00:50:01] so everyone just completely assumed that of thank God here comes some Spitfires to
[00:50:05] come and save us and they were wrong.
[00:50:13] Now the air, we did have air domination for the most part and one of the things that they
[00:50:21] needed as you heard these airborne troops, they can only carry so much and so they're
[00:50:26] going to need resupplies.
[00:50:27] They need more ammunition.
[00:50:28] They need medical gear.
[00:50:29] They need water.
[00:50:31] They need stuff to be dropped to them.
[00:50:33] And so there was a plan in place for them to have gear and food and equipment and ammunition
[00:50:41] dropped to them at these locations where they were supposed to be.
[00:50:47] Because remember they were supposed to be making progress this whole time.
[00:50:49] They're not making progress, but they're supposed to be making progress.
[00:50:52] And since communication is so bad, they can't call back and say, hey, we're not we're
[00:50:57] supposed to be we're over here, drop the gear on us.
[00:51:02] But the gear gets dropped in the pre planned positions, which of course are enemy positions.
[00:51:10] But here's what it sounds like for them, or here's what they're thinking on the ground.
[00:51:15] Then to the south of us, I saw the familiar shape of a line of Dakota's approaching at about
[00:51:18] a thousand feet in a minute.
[00:51:20] The sky was crammed with them.
[00:51:22] Who's the first supply drop about which we had been told that the briefings, but the
[00:51:27] drop zone is a couple miles away over the other side of the hill right in the middle of
[00:51:32] enemy positions.
[00:51:35] By now, of course, the division should have captured the area, but the boat still held
[00:51:39] it.
[00:51:41] News of the progress of the battle could not have reached the RAF where the pilots would
[00:51:45] have diverted to drop their supplies elsewhere.
[00:51:51] Now, they can see this happening.
[00:51:55] And the people that are in the planes, they're called the RASC, the Royal Army Service
[00:52:02] Corps.
[00:52:03] They run basically the supply and the logistics and help re-supply and drop this equipment.
[00:52:11] So this is, he's as he's watching all these Dakotas, the Dakotas are these little transport
[00:52:17] planes.
[00:52:18] They had parachuted out of and now they're watching them drop this resupply.
[00:52:24] Back to the book, among the mass, a single Dakota just overhead caught my attention.
[00:52:30] It had already been hit and flames were creeping down from the starboard engine toward the
[00:52:35] cockpit.
[00:52:37] As it lost height, the khaki-clad RASC dispatchers were standing at the open doorway, pushing
[00:52:45] out the paniers of supplies, those of the bags of supplies.
[00:52:50] I could see their faces.
[00:52:53] The fire was on their side of the plane, the wing was burning before their eyes.
[00:52:59] The Dakotas was now little more than 300 feet above the ground.
[00:53:04] If the men at the door jump now, they might just save themselves.
[00:53:08] In a second or two more, the aircraft would be so low that their parachutes would not
[00:53:13] have time to open.
[00:53:17] This the men must have known, but they went on with their routine drill, pushing out the
[00:53:23] paniers regardless of what would happen to them.
[00:53:29] Then the starboard wing crumpled.
[00:53:31] The flaming plane disappeared beyond the trees, the paniers still falling from the open door.
[00:53:39] The sky was empty.
[00:53:42] The last plane had gone, but we still stood watching the place where the Dakotas had vanished,
[00:53:49] mourning the futility of the self-sacrifice we had just witnessed.
[00:54:01] Can't even imagine that.
[00:54:07] The sky is just continuing to do their job, knowing their fate.
[00:54:15] At their senior officers at this point, and their NCOs are starting to get hit pretty
[00:54:23] regular to be by snipers.
[00:54:27] So he decides to tell us his guys, hey, take your rank off your uniform, because I don't
[00:54:34] want the enemy to know, and he tells us to one of his leaders name Robert.
[00:54:41] And he says, as I watched, Robert slipped his captain stars off his shoulders and tucked
[00:54:45] them away in his pocket.
[00:54:47] I knew for certain that my second in command disapproved officers should show themselves
[00:54:53] as such.
[00:54:55] So one of his guys is thinking, no, we're officers.
[00:54:59] We need to stand out.
[00:55:05] I mentioned the American forces, the 80s, and the British forces, there was also a Polish
[00:55:15] parachute brigade that was coming in on this attack as well.
[00:55:20] And they were scheduled to come in a little bit later as reinforcements.
[00:55:25] And here we go, back to the Beckl book.
[00:55:27] Only then did I remember that the glider-born part of the Polish parachute brigade was
[00:55:31] due to land that afternoon upon the stretch of enemy, upon the stretch of open country
[00:55:36] below us, at the same time as the parachute battalions were dropped in the Polterland, south
[00:55:41] of Arnheim bridges.
[00:55:44] The landing zone was already a battlefield, and the wretched poles were about to land in the
[00:55:48] middle of it.
[00:55:50] First the gliders hit the ground.
[00:55:52] This massive weight tearing up chunks of stubbles that skated to a halt, lurking onto one
[00:55:57] wing as it did so.
[00:55:59] Men jumped out and rushed to the rear and released the tail unit so that the vehicles
[00:56:03] inside could be driven out.
[00:56:05] Two more gliders were now plowing across the ground.
[00:56:08] Another exploded in the air and a vast ball of yellow flame just as it was upon the
[00:56:11] point of touching down.
[00:56:13] Mortar bombs were bursting among the men struggling to release their loads while streams of
[00:56:18] chased tracer bysected the scene into oddly formal patterns.
[00:56:23] Another glider was on fire on the ground as still more swooped into land, adding to the
[00:56:29] chaos.
[00:56:30] The poles were now joining in the battle themselves, some firing toward the Germans,
[00:56:35] some towards the KOSB, which is a, the King's own Scottish borders.
[00:56:40] It's another British unit.
[00:56:43] This is some in the direction of our other battalion.
[00:56:47] It must be impossible for the poles to distinguish enemy from friend.
[00:56:51] They probably thought they had landed in a circle of both units all intent upon their
[00:56:55] destruction.
[00:56:57] In a few minutes it was all over, from the wrecked and flaming gliders which now littered
[00:57:01] the ground, small parties of poles were making their escape firing at anything they saw
[00:57:06] move.
[00:57:07] Two or three vehicles have been driven away but otherwise they had failed to drag their
[00:57:11] jeeps and guns from the gliders.
[00:57:13] The Polish anti-tank battery no longer existed as a fighting unit.
[00:57:18] It landed in the middle of a battle and been destroyed before it could fire a single shot.
[00:57:24] Waste!
[00:57:25] It was waste once again, waste like the supply drop, nothing seemed to go right.
[00:57:32] A knot of some eight poles charged towards us intent on seeking shelter either in the woods
[00:57:37] or behind the safety of a railway embankment.
[00:57:40] On thirty yards away one man slightly ahead of the other's must have noticed our camouflage
[00:57:44] steel helmets in the slit trenches ahead and shouted a warning.
[00:57:49] In a bunch they flung themselves into the undergrowth.
[00:57:53] Anticipating what would happen, I yelled to everyone to get their heads down just as a
[00:57:57] hail of bullets from the poles whistle over our heads, a few hitting the trench pair of
[00:58:01] pits but most striking the trees well above our heads as the excited men emptied their
[00:58:05] weapons in our direction.
[00:58:08] So long as we kept our heads down we were safe from the Polish fire but the worry was that
[00:58:11] some of them might creep closer and start to fling grenades around.
[00:58:17] However in a couple of minutes the firing slackened and then ceased.
[00:58:22] Possibly the poles since that something might be wrong when no one retaliated.
[00:58:26] The comparative silence provided the opportunity to shout a warning across the narrow
[00:58:30] stretch of ground which separated us.
[00:58:34] The crew is no reply and I shouted once again in faltering English a voice inquired
[00:58:38] who we were.
[00:58:40] Firmly the company sergeant major Huggins told them the poles seem to understand after
[00:58:46] a few seconds of audible consultation they rose through their feet and walked across.
[00:58:53] So you got a just a chaotic situation.
[00:58:57] The poles land they're getting attacked from all directions and sure enough they're shooting
[00:59:00] at the friendly forces blue on blue happening.
[00:59:05] Once he gets them settled down he's got some people.
[00:59:08] Some of these Polish folks that now have no leadership back to the but calling Douglas
[00:59:12] over I told him they need now had a fourth section in seven puttune and within a few minutes
[00:59:16] the poles were digging hard under the two to the edge of their corpal the only comprehensible
[00:59:20] part of whose name sounded like Peter.
[00:59:25] The digging had hardly started when a Jeep roared down the track in the direction from
[00:59:29] the direction of the battalion headquarters.
[00:59:32] As it break to stop and the cover of the trees Jimmy Gret jumped out and ran towards us.
[00:59:37] Gret's news was startling we were all to withdraw to wolf haze in 15 minutes time.
[00:59:46] One could not just stand up and walk away from an enemy right on one's heels.
[00:59:51] In daylight the only way to withdraw was to move by bounds with platoons and companies covering
[00:59:57] one another back.
[00:59:59] The other plan was madness things over in the north must be bad indeed for the kernel
[01:00:03] to be rushed in this way but grazing instructions were unshakable.
[01:00:07] So they're digging in they're getting ordered get out of here we're going to leave and
[01:00:11] he's saying okay that's fine but guess what even when you leave you still use the
[01:00:14] fundamental principle of cover move and that's what he's wanting to do.
[01:00:18] So now they're on the retreat and here we go back to the book the pace was far too
[01:00:24] quick some men were all but running to keep up.
[01:00:28] As I had expected little by little cohesion was starting to break down some of the men of
[01:00:32] the mortar platoon had overtaken us despite the weight of the loads and were mixed in
[01:00:36] among us.
[01:00:37] There were two small groups from another unit in the middle of seven platoon from somewhere
[01:00:41] in the front along way off a spandal spent sent its bullets flying harmless the overhead
[01:00:46] but men were looking apprehensive and flinching.
[01:00:50] We were now under fire from two different directions and any men at the bush would find
[01:00:54] the range and then the slaughter would begin.
[01:00:57] Who is no longer an orderly retreat that would draw is taking on the nature of a
[01:01:02] horde of men seeking safety.
[01:01:05] Soon discipline would crack and everyone would start to run.
[01:01:09] What a target we must be some 500 men from four to five different units rapidly coalescing
[01:01:16] into a solid moving mass.
[01:01:18] Yeah this is just a nightmare and you can imagine it's an individual thing and you're
[01:01:24] going to see some great leadership examples but it's an individual thing because
[01:01:27] if you can keep the teams working together covering and moving for each other that's good
[01:01:34] you're going to keep the enemies heads down but if people in the group start saying you
[01:01:38] know what I'm not going to cover I'm going to run and now no one's covering and now
[01:01:43] you've got a bunch of people that are moving and no cover and that's when you're going
[01:01:46] to get slaughtered not only get slaughtered by people that are shooting at you but if
[01:01:52] you're not putting down cover fire the enemy maneuvers they don't just sit there
[01:01:56] I mean some of them will be shooting but they'll be shooting but other elements of them
[01:01:59] are going to move and they're going to be able to cut you off.
[01:02:04] They finally do make it back and I get a little bit of luck here.
[01:02:08] Here we go back to the book we caught our breath in the wood so they get to a woods.
[01:02:12] David's men had disappeared and there was no sign of the Colonel or the battalion headquarters.
[01:02:17] No one had followed us.
[01:02:18] We were the last across but a quick check told me that only Robert Watson the CSM and
[01:02:23] three or four other men were missing in addition to seven but soon.
[01:02:27] Of the latter there was nothing to be seen and all there were still about 50 men with
[01:02:31] me not counting Peter and his seven poles still clinging to naciously to us.
[01:02:37] Perhaps I should try to get back across the bullet spattered embankment to find out what
[01:02:42] it happened to the others but the noise of the battle was getting louder.
[01:02:48] The boat must be closing in.
[01:02:49] The vital thing must be to rejoin the rest of the battalion with the 50 men I still had
[01:02:54] and not to leave them in loop Tyler's charge while I returned on what could be a fool
[01:02:59] hearty errand.
[01:03:02] But it was difficult to avoid the thought that perhaps I was reluctant to climb back
[01:03:08] over the top of that embankment.
[01:03:11] So he does make it to this woods but he doesn't have everybody with him and he's questioning
[01:03:16] himself.
[01:03:17] Back over there and risk it or not and part of his part of his rationalizing you know
[01:03:23] I had the best thing to do is get back with the rest of the battalion but part of him
[01:03:26] is saying you're rationalizing this and you're just you're just not you're being
[01:03:30] a coward.
[01:03:32] But he does he proceeds on with the time he knows you're going to get killed if he goes
[01:03:35] over that he can hear the enemy coming.
[01:03:38] So back to the book 10 minutes later we found the remnants of the battalion.
[01:03:42] Half of a company the mortars and what was left of the machine guns were still missing
[01:03:48] as well as our own 7-platoon.
[01:03:50] More than one third of the men who had withdrawn from the woods had failed to cross the railway
[01:03:56] we were now down to no more than a couple of hundred men.
[01:04:03] So we're going we're down to a couple of hundred men from five or six hundred men in the
[01:04:09] battalion.
[01:04:10] Maybe even a little bit more maybe there might have been 700 men in the battalion.
[01:04:16] They get word once again.
[01:04:19] Here's what's going to happen tomorrow at first light the brigade would move on to
[01:04:22] Usterbeek to join the rest of the division.
[01:04:26] But unless ammunition together with Aaron artillery support was forthcoming the prospects
[01:04:31] were far from good.
[01:04:33] We were it seemed not opposed by a few third line troops elements of three SS Panzer
[01:04:41] divisions had been identified in the battle.
[01:04:44] The Germans seemed to have moved quickly or else something had gone wrong with the intelligence.
[01:04:49] It was not surprising that the days fighting had been so very bitter.
[01:04:53] So they're pointing out that they weren't going against you know third rate troops.
[01:04:56] They were going against SS Panzer divisions, the best of the German soldiers.
[01:05:03] And talking with Sergeant Major Bauer and Sergeant Nesbitt before I reached Tyler's
[01:05:11] platoon I had done my best to be as cheerful as possible but it was plain that the two
[01:05:16] NCOs realized that I was making the best of things.
[01:05:20] With Luke Tyler it was different.
[01:05:22] I could not insult him by trying to disguise our straits.
[01:05:28] I just told him the facts as I had received them from the Colonel possibly it was a mistake.
[01:05:34] Quite suddenly the failure of it all oppressed me.
[01:05:38] In less than 36 hours, two thirds of the battalion had gone.
[01:05:43] Fifteen rifle company officers had landed only two were left.
[01:05:49] Ten for certain had either been killed or wounded.
[01:05:53] The chances of surviving another day were small, fatigue and hunger had drained me.
[01:05:58] There was a need to unburden myself.
[01:06:01] Luke was junior in my rank but equal in years and in any case it was easier to confide
[01:06:06] in someone who was in many ways a stranger.
[01:06:11] Even as I spoke I was ashamed of this weakness.
[01:06:16] But there was no stopping.
[01:06:18] Quietly Luke gave me the reassurance I needed.
[01:06:22] The iron needed to sustain oneself through such a day was easily expended and I felt
[01:06:27] that I had perloined some of Luke's share.
[01:06:34] So he basically unloads to one of his guys or to another officer below him in rank.
[01:06:41] But what I think is interesting about this is he needed someone to talk to.
[01:06:48] He was holding it all inside and wasn't saying anything and trying to look positive.
[01:06:52] Even he's looking at his guys as he's telling them don't worry, Jens we're going to be
[01:06:54] okay.
[01:06:55] His guys are looking at him like, hey, no.
[01:06:57] We don't believe you.
[01:06:58] And so he has to, he feels the need to unload on someone and that's why I just think
[01:07:03] from my perspective.
[01:07:05] We always talk about relationships that you have on your team and for sure in your
[01:07:10] platoon or in your team it's really good to have someone that you can just kind of unload
[01:07:15] on that you know as professional enough to bolster you up without getting dragged down
[01:07:19] into your negativity.
[01:07:21] And a lot of times I've found if you have someone like that or maybe a couple people
[01:07:26] like that and your team that you can talk to will guess what?
[01:07:30] Sometimes they're going to be bolstering your attitude and sometimes you're going to
[01:07:34] be bolstering their attitude.
[01:07:36] And so you got to find someone like that that's in your team that you can say, man, this
[01:07:41] is this horrible, this is going wrong and someone's going to go, hey, you know, it's not
[01:07:45] that bad.
[01:07:46] We're going to get through it.
[01:07:47] And then two or three days later he might come into you and say, hey, this is a horrible
[01:07:49] situation.
[01:07:50] I can't believe this and you're going to say, no man, we're going to be all right.
[01:07:53] So I think it's important and that's again, we're building relationships, but that's
[01:07:57] one of the reasons we build relationships.
[01:08:02] They get into a hold-up position back to the book.
[01:08:05] On stand two rounds, I found the Polish trenches empty except for Peter, their corporal,
[01:08:10] crouched grimly behind his brain.
[01:08:13] The rest of the party had vanished in the early hours, sensing perhaps the data attached
[01:08:17] themselves to an unlucky unit.
[01:08:21] You're explained nothing, but his embarrassment was clear.
[01:08:24] It was both unfair and pointless to press him for details when either pride or sense of duty
[01:08:29] had kept him there to fight among strangers.
[01:08:34] The thought of what would have happened if the enemy had attacked from this direction
[01:08:37] against the position held by one solitary man was chilling.
[01:08:42] It was a mistake to trust strangers.
[01:08:46] I had learned yet another lesson, rely on only those you knew.
[01:08:54] Again, it's interesting how he sometimes backs off instead of pressing where your guys
[01:08:59] he knows is like, what point is that?
[01:09:01] When Bartholomew was running away, he didn't press him super hard.
[01:09:06] And you're going to get to a point where he does press people.
[01:09:09] But here he's deciding he's not going to do it.
[01:09:11] And the other interesting thing is here it says, I learned another lesson to rely, not
[01:09:15] to stress strangers, rely on only those you know.
[01:09:18] What you have to do in those situations is you have to put someone that you do trust
[01:09:23] in bed with these units that you don't know.
[01:09:27] If you were to take and he gave that section to one of his puttsoon commanders and said,
[01:09:32] hey, you got another section now, but maybe in bed one more guy or two more guys in there
[01:09:37] or split these guys up even more.
[01:09:38] So instead of seven and one big bulk, you put two or three there, two or three there,
[01:09:42] two or three there.
[01:09:43] And you can have better control over them.
[01:09:47] It's weird.
[01:09:48] There's this opportunity to desert though, and these guys took the opportunity.
[01:09:56] Now the fighting rages on and obviously I have to fast forward through some of it.
[01:10:05] And they eventually get into a little village, a little small village and they've taken
[01:10:11] down.
[01:10:12] And there's a lot of buildings.
[01:10:14] And here we go, there are these buildings back to the book we were in a mess.
[01:10:21] The boat was on the other side of the valley outnumbered and outgunned us.
[01:10:27] There was not the slightest hope of reaching the back of the breed line this way and
[01:10:31] to stay here on this forward slope was impossible.
[01:10:34] At this rate we would all be dead or wounded soon.
[01:10:40] Somehow I had to get the survivors back up the hill, but it was near, but it was a near,
[01:10:45] insuperable problem with the men scattered down among the houses, lawns and shrubberies
[01:10:50] shot at every time they moved.
[01:10:53] Someone called from the side of the house, as I turned and looked private Gregory darted
[01:10:57] across to throw himself down beside me.
[01:11:01] Under the dirt and two days scrub of beard, his face was grayish white.
[01:11:07] He seemed about to vomit.
[01:11:10] As Gregory stammered out, his platoon commander's name, I knew what had happened.
[01:11:16] Lieutenant Tyler was dead.
[01:11:20] It must have happened just after we parted.
[01:11:22] Luke had been killed on the steep garden path which led from the house down the road.
[01:11:27] He'd been hit by a sniper, killed outright by a bullet through the heart.
[01:11:31] We had a couple yards of the place where Gregory was lying.
[01:11:35] Possibly, Luke had been careless because he was still dazed, but he had to get back to
[01:11:39] his platoon and the path was his only route.
[01:11:42] So they had been together and they'd been hit by some kind of artillery in the house and
[01:11:48] it rattled them and then Luke had gone out to get back to his platoon and when he left
[01:11:53] he got shot by a sniper.
[01:11:56] Back to the book, this was how officers and NCOs were killed just doing their routine job.
[01:12:02] This was why casualties among the leaders were so high.
[01:12:05] All the time that they were moving about, checking here, encouraging their backwards and
[01:12:10] forwards.
[01:12:11] Now besides myself and only the quartermaster sergeant, bower and sergeant, whiner were
[01:12:19] left.
[01:12:21] All the rest of the officers and sergeants in the company had gone.
[01:12:26] One problem however had been solved, the remnants of Tyler's two forward sections had
[01:12:30] managed to extricate themselves without waiting for orders.
[01:12:35] Since last night, private Gregory had been in charge of one of the other sections, both
[01:12:39] the NCOs having been hit the day before.
[01:12:43] During that last mortar, stonk, a bomb and fallen right on top of the corpel who is commanding
[01:12:48] the other section, blowing him and his brain gunner have to pieces.
[01:12:53] Common sense had told the survivors to quit and there had been no one to stop them
[01:12:58] except Gregory, who for the moment was shaken by the sight of what had happened to his
[01:13:02] friends and who in any case lacked the authority to hold them there.
[01:13:07] No one else had been hit and scrambled back and the survivors were now sheltering in
[01:13:11] the house.
[01:13:22] Further in these houses and for the first time you're going to hear the company commander
[01:13:27] start to realize he's got people at the breaking point back to the book.
[01:13:32] The others were as uneasy as I was.
[01:13:35] For the first time I was unhappy about them.
[01:13:38] Until now they had endured the success of disasters but the events of the morning had
[01:13:43] tried them too far.
[01:13:46] It had been yesterday once again yet another failure, failure against an enemy who was far
[01:13:51] too strong for us.
[01:13:54] Men were looking jittery, some could be well near their breaking point.
[01:14:00] As I gaze down the slope trying to spot some activity among the bush, a movement to the
[01:14:04] right caught my eye.
[01:14:06] About 20 yards away two of Kelly's men were moving diagonally behind me, sheltered on the
[01:14:11] far side of the ridge.
[01:14:14] These are these are diserters.
[01:14:17] My shout made them hesitate and then stop after two or three more steps.
[01:14:22] For getting the enemy I stood up and strode down towards them.
[01:14:26] No explanation was necessary.
[01:14:28] The surly guilt on their faces was enough.
[01:14:32] Deliberately choosing words for effect, I cursed them in language rarely used by officers
[01:14:37] towards their shoulders.
[01:14:40] It was enough.
[01:14:42] The two men turned back towards their platoon.
[01:14:48] So like I said, sometimes they're dropping the hammer.
[01:14:52] These two guys are trying to deser and he drops the hammer on them and gets them back
[01:14:57] with their platoon.
[01:14:58] Back to the book and this mood the men would never stand up to an enemy attack.
[01:15:03] Even a mortar stunk could break them.
[01:15:06] I could see it happening.
[01:15:08] Each one or two men would slip away like the two I had just stopped and then a rush would
[01:15:12] follow.
[01:15:14] Something drastic had to be done.
[01:15:17] No more than the occasional rifle bullet was now coming over.
[01:15:20] In fact, no one had been hit since we took our positions along this ridge.
[01:15:24] It seemed safe enough.
[01:15:27] Standing up, I began to walk along the path towards the left of our position.
[01:15:33] For the first few steps I felt wretchedly vulnerable.
[01:15:37] But then an odd exorlation seized me.
[01:15:42] For the first few steps I felt wretchedly vulnerable.
[01:15:47] But then an odd exorlation seized me.
[01:15:50] Not too slowly and not too quickly.
[01:15:52] I strode deliberately toward the first group of men.
[01:15:56] Grating down at Lance Corporal Williams, I made some anept remark about it being the wrong
[01:16:00] place for a company clerk.
[01:16:04] If I were to be hit, it would happen anyway.
[01:16:08] Now seemed to be as good a time as ever.
[01:16:11] Stopping at each group of men, I checked their firing positions and made necessary changes.
[01:16:15] Then I was at the end of Kelly's line and I started back conscious that everyone was
[01:16:19] watching.
[01:16:20] There was a burst of machine gunfire.
[01:16:22] Well, why do of us, but I managed to avoid flinching at it?
[01:16:26] Suddenly, Sergeant Wee Winner's voice harsh with concern was yelling at me to get down,
[01:16:32] and landing angrily what I was playing at.
[01:16:36] The spell broke.
[01:16:37] I was grateful for the excuse to lower myself down beside him very relieved that it was over.
[01:16:43] The rage and winers face dissolved into an unacustomed grin.
[01:16:48] The corny, dramatic, were over, but they had served their purpose.
[01:16:52] The men had got a grip on themselves.
[01:16:55] So he basically stood up and walked around and talked to everyone and made himself visible
[01:17:03] and made himself appear to not be scared to get the guys heads back in the game until his
[01:17:09] sergeant, Weiner, yells at him and says, hey, dude, get down.
[01:17:14] When these guys are like the desert, what do they go?
[01:17:18] So they can head back towards towards the areas that have been secured.
[01:17:23] So as this beach edge, we landed D-Day, June 6th, this is now in September.
[01:17:29] So coalition forces or sort of allied forces had pushed into France.
[01:17:34] So if you could walk back, you could eventually get to friendly lines.
[01:17:38] Yeah.
[01:17:39] And that's what their plan was.
[01:17:40] And then what, when you get there, don't they know, hey, you deserted me?
[01:17:44] Well, you tell, you know, you say, oh, I got separated from my chiefs when I perished
[01:17:49] you today and I couldn't find my people or whatever you make up your lie.
[01:17:52] You deal with it later with the winder.
[01:17:55] Because right now you're thinking, I'm not going to make it.
[01:17:57] Yes, we want that.
[01:17:59] It was clear why nothing, we had heard nothing from battalion headquarters for the past
[01:18:05] two hours.
[01:18:06] Everyone else, the signalers, orderlies and clerks had been fighting for their own survival.
[01:18:11] The Germans were all around them and had been pressing them hard throughout the morning.
[01:18:15] So they're not getting any information about what's happening.
[01:18:21] This is interesting.
[01:18:23] He goes back to get, they end up with a little extra ammunition and he goes back to get
[01:18:27] some ammunition from the battalion.
[01:18:29] They have got it like stage in the battalion headquarters and as he's doing this, the
[01:18:35] ammunition was in a Jeep.
[01:18:37] And so he goes to the Jeep.
[01:18:39] He finds the Jeep and he's with one of his other guys and they're the regimental sergeant
[01:18:44] major is sitting basically on top of the Jeep on top of the ammunition.
[01:18:49] And he kind of is looking at the guy saying, hey, I'm here.
[01:18:55] I'm an officer.
[01:18:56] I got a platoon's out there and a company out there.
[01:18:58] I got to get the ammunition and he doesn't really move.
[01:19:00] He just kind of sits there.
[01:19:03] And so finally, here he was.
[01:19:07] But here the regimental sergeant major was in the middle of battle sitting on his
[01:19:11] arse and taking his ease while the company commander hunted for ammunition.
[01:19:16] Rangers are not in the habit of rebuking regimental sergeant majors, but this was too much.
[01:19:21] The tensions of the morning had snapped myself for restraint and in a couple of succinct
[01:19:25] sentences, I told the regimental sergeant major what I thought of him.
[01:19:32] Then the regimental sergeant major apologized, but he did not move.
[01:19:38] Without any trace of irony or annoyance in his voice, he quietly explained that he could
[01:19:42] not stand up because he had been shot through both legs.
[01:19:46] I had not noticed the airborne smock with which someone had covered his outstretched
[01:19:51] and bandaged legs.
[01:19:57] Think before you act.
[01:20:01] Now they're on their way.
[01:20:03] They're heading finally to this area of Usterbeek.
[01:20:07] They're on their patrol.
[01:20:08] And here we go.
[01:20:09] Back to the book, a spandail opening up ahead sent us all to the ground men diving for
[01:20:14] cover just a little too quickly.
[01:20:17] A moment later a second gun fired on us from the right, but it was the ominous rattle
[01:20:23] of the tracked vehicles which chilled.
[01:20:26] The first one, then another, then two more, quite close and in front, their engine clatter
[01:20:32] rising above the den of the machine gun and rifles.
[01:20:35] Then some 70 yards away, I saw the first of the SP guns.
[01:20:40] It's stubby weeping traversing slowly towards us.
[01:20:44] They're kind of like tanks.
[01:20:46] It's self-propelled guns.
[01:20:47] They're like artillery pieces with tracks on them.
[01:20:52] The flash from its stout, from its snout was one of the explosion of the bursting shell.
[01:20:58] Just to the right, a half-grown tree shattered into jagged splinters, a second shot falling
[01:21:03] hard on the first one, covered Harrison and me with earth.
[01:21:07] We were swamped by the noise.
[01:21:09] Every sort of weapon seemed to be firing.
[01:21:11] Grenades were exploding, but the distinct above the rest was the clank and the throaty
[01:21:15] cough of the armored guns.
[01:21:18] Caught like this in the open, we were helpless.
[01:21:21] Tanks plowing among, about among us, could have been no worse.
[01:21:26] There was no way of fighting back, no one to seem to have even a peot, which is like their
[01:21:30] bazooka, anti-ironed weapon.
[01:21:32] And we could not get close enough to use the gammon bombs, the bags of plastic explosive.
[01:21:38] They're very for use against armor.
[01:21:40] So that's another little big bag of explosives that you can put on an armor vehicle to destroy.
[01:21:47] They call them gammon bombs.
[01:21:50] The men in front were moving again.
[01:21:52] I stood up and signal those behind.
[01:21:55] To follow.
[01:21:56] We were doubling now, but there was still some sort of control.
[01:21:58] We were not running away, but making for somewhere where I did not know.
[01:22:08] Then about a hundred yards away, I caught a glimpse through the trees of a German half-track.
[01:22:14] It stopped and helmeted shapes jumped from its sides.
[01:22:17] How many more of them were there?
[01:22:19] This could be the start of another attack, which could only end it all.
[01:22:24] Our will to fight back was all but broken.
[01:22:28] Then I heard the brigadier telling me to clear the enemy out of the hollow, after which
[01:22:34] the survivors of the brigade would join us there.
[01:22:37] The Z company it seemed was the last organized body of troops.
[01:22:42] They're looking at this area, this open area, whether it's some enemy, but it looks like
[01:22:46] it's a good position.
[01:22:48] Of course, their will to fight is just about broken.
[01:22:51] You hear the brigadier saying, hey, take your company and clear out that hollow.
[01:22:57] Go.
[01:22:59] Back to the book.
[01:23:00] For a moment, I was so dumbfounded that I hardly heard the brigadier going on to say
[01:23:04] that the brigade major was dead as well, killed about five minutes ago.
[01:23:08] Another friend was gone, but I hardly listened.
[01:23:11] What was the brigadier ordering us to do in his quiet and determined fashion?
[01:23:15] It was absurd.
[01:23:17] The men were finished, only a few minutes ago I had realized that they were past defending
[01:23:21] themselves.
[01:23:23] Now we were being told to assault that bogey position.
[01:23:27] The brigadiers look was both quizzicle and encouraging.
[01:23:32] The confounded man could see what was passing through my mind.
[01:23:36] Then I was away, dodging back and through the bushes towards the men in the ditch even
[01:23:41] more aware than ever before of the bullets singing overhead.
[01:23:46] With my back to a broad tree which hid me from the enemy front, I looked down at the
[01:23:49] upturn faces.
[01:23:51] There was no point in wasting at all in wasting time on details.
[01:23:58] The orders I had to give them were quite simple, devoid of any complications such as who
[01:24:02] would provide covering fire.
[01:24:04] It was time for play acting again.
[01:24:07] My naturally loud voice, carrying down the line of men among the above the sound of battles,
[01:24:12] I balled at them to follow me, adding the comment that is better to be killed going for
[01:24:17] the bastards than lying in that bloody ditch.
[01:24:22] No one hesitated.
[01:24:24] The men rose to their feet at the moment I stepped out in the open from behind the shelter
[01:24:28] of the tree.
[01:24:30] Clancing to my right I was exhilarated by the sight of David unwins solid bulk running parallel
[01:24:35] to me and half a dozen of his men following.
[01:24:39] David shouted something to the effect that they were coming as well and I waved my
[01:24:43] stand gun and acknowledgement.
[01:24:46] Behind me, Sergeant Wyner broke into a scream of rage, harsh and furious.
[01:24:52] The yellow spread down the line, too heavily laden and too tired to sprint, we lumbered
[01:24:58] forward towards the enemy in a sort of jogged trot.
[01:25:02] Now I was careless of everything.
[01:25:05] We did not stand a chance, but this was the right way to go.
[01:25:10] This was the proper way to finish it all.
[01:25:13] Nearly hysterical now with rage and excitement I heard my own voice join in the screaming.
[01:25:20] The Germans were shooting at us.
[01:25:21] I could see flashes of their weapons springing out of the gloom of the trees.
[01:25:25] There was no need to look back to confirm that the line of men was still following.
[01:25:29] The noise told me they were there.
[01:25:32] Now the boats were no more than 50 yards away.
[01:25:35] As I brought my stand down to hit level to press the trigger, it flashed through my mind
[01:25:39] that it was the first time I had fired my weapons since the battle started.
[01:25:43] My four fingers squeezed the metal.
[01:25:45] Nothing happened.
[01:25:46] It had jammed.
[01:25:48] Here I was running toward the enemy with a useless piece of metal in my hands.
[01:25:54] There were figures moving among the trees.
[01:25:56] First a couple, then a half dozen dark shapes were outlined against the green background.
[01:26:01] Men sprinting away, men disappearing through the trees.
[01:26:03] The boat were running away.
[01:26:06] We had done it.
[01:26:08] We had driven the enemy out at the point of bayonet.
[01:26:12] This was the ultimate in war.
[01:26:15] The sight of the savage, screaming, parachutes, streaming towards them.
[01:26:20] It had been too much for the Germans.
[01:26:22] Even though they had to do nothing more than keep their heads and shoot straight.
[01:26:32] Yeah.
[01:26:33] So there you go.
[01:26:35] Surrounded, broken.
[01:26:36] And I think key point here, when you're think you're broken, do something and do something
[01:26:43] aggressive.
[01:26:44] That's the, this is 100% de-falte aggressive.
[01:26:48] That's what this is.
[01:26:49] You know what?
[01:26:50] We're being defensive.
[01:26:51] We're hiding in our slit trenches.
[01:26:52] Okay, you know what we're going to do?
[01:26:54] We're going to attack.
[01:26:55] We're going to attack full force.
[01:26:57] Yeah.
[01:26:58] Back to the book, the sight of David on the right added to my delight.
[01:27:03] Shouting to him to hold the right of the hollow, I directed Sergeant Weiner round to the
[01:27:07] left.
[01:27:08] There was no need to tell anyone to hurry.
[01:27:10] They all knew that the Germans would not delay in mounting a counterattack.
[01:27:15] A moan of terror distracted me.
[01:27:17] I turned to the wounded German.
[01:27:19] The man's features were contorted into a rickness of despair.
[01:27:24] Above him stood Sergeant Major Kelly, red, eyed and panting, his band at raised above
[01:27:31] the soldier's stomach.
[01:27:34] But Kelly did not strike.
[01:27:35] He was relishing the moment, snatching maximum pleasure from the wounded man's anguish
[01:27:40] before he slifed it, sliced into the soft belly.
[01:27:45] As my newly found mouser knocked the bayonet to one side, the Sergeant Major snalled
[01:27:50] at me in an unspoken protest at such silly scruples.
[01:27:55] Then he seemed to shake himself.
[01:27:57] The blood lust has passed.
[01:27:59] Then he came to his senses, gathering his men to the defenses.
[01:28:05] So again, he could this guy go from the pure fury and rage of this incredible bayonet
[01:28:12] assault.
[01:28:13] And then he immediately just puts his one of his Sergeant Major's in check, who's about
[01:28:18] to, you know, rit ruthlessly killed this wounded guy.
[01:28:23] Very interesting dichotomy there.
[01:28:28] Back to the book, something had been snatched back from the disasters in the day.
[01:28:32] The remnants of the brigade headquarters together with a few stragglers from other units
[01:28:35] had now all arrived.
[01:28:37] In all there seemed to be about 150 men with a half a dozen officers, as well as the brigadier
[01:28:42] David and myself, there was Jimmy Gray.
[01:28:45] The latter brought news that the Colonel was probably dead, although he could not be sure
[01:28:50] as they'd become separated during a scrimmage within SP gun.
[01:28:55] Of the rest of the officers who had jumped with a battalion, Captain John Simmons, the
[01:29:00] gunner for an observer was the only left one left.
[01:29:12] Continuing, after about 15 minutes a low-enshooting suggested that I might now be able
[01:29:17] to get round to visit the Battalion positions.
[01:29:20] The Battalion, for the first time it struck me that I was now in command of what was left
[01:29:25] of it.
[01:29:26] The beautiful remnants, but they are still fighting.
[01:29:30] The brigadier had allotted the south and west sides of the perimeter to us.
[01:29:35] The first pit held sergeant whiner with seven or eight men.
[01:29:40] At the bottom his eyes shut, lay a gray face to motionless private Gregory, shot through
[01:29:45] his stomach.
[01:29:48] Corporal Pritured had bandaged him up and given a shot of Morphea, but because his airborne
[01:29:53] smock had been pulled down over his bloodstained dressing to keep his warmest possible, he
[01:29:57] laid there with no outward sign of injury, looking as a man might do who had collapsed
[01:30:02] with exhaustion.
[01:30:05] Gregory's eyes opened.
[01:30:07] When he saw who is standing over him, he asked for the favor.
[01:30:12] His voice was quiet, his words measured and coherent, his proposal quite logical.
[01:30:18] But here, without the help of a doctor, he was going to die in any case and he could
[01:30:24] stand the pain no longer.
[01:30:27] Which someone please put a bullet through his head.
[01:30:32] For the moment my grip tightened on the mouser.
[01:30:35] In Gregory's state, I probably would have been asking for the same release.
[01:30:41] If it did happen, I hope that someone would have the guts to give it to me.
[01:30:46] And I caught winers eye, and he knew that I could not do it.
[01:30:52] The only way to help Gregory was to give him a further shot of Morphea dangerous though
[01:30:57] it would be to do so.
[01:30:59] As I reach for my own ampule, in the breast pocket of my smock, I was ashamed by my reluctance.
[01:31:06] The reason was purely selfish.
[01:31:08] Sooner or later I might want to use it on myself wounded and alone behind a bush with
[01:31:12] no one about to help me.
[01:31:15] But Sergeant Winer came to the rescue.
[01:31:17] He had scrounge to couple a supply of ampules from somewhere or another.
[01:31:23] Opening the small black tin, he bared Gregory's arm and pressed the needle home.
[01:31:31] The words of sympathy and encouragement sounded pitifully trite, as I pressed Gregory's
[01:31:36] shoulder.
[01:31:39] Nervous of any reproach which I might see.
[01:31:42] I turned and walked away without looking at the wounded man's face.
[01:32:00] My name was being called.
[01:32:03] It was private Jones.
[01:32:05] Slythering towards me down the opposite slope of the hollowed Jones told me quickly.
[01:32:09] It was major unwinn, killed by a sniper.
[01:32:13] Shot through the forehead as he was peering over the rim of the hollow, trying to locate
[01:32:17] the wearabouts of a spando machine gun.
[01:32:21] He had died instantly.
[01:32:23] Jones was adamant there was no doubt that he was dead.
[01:32:26] His brain had been blown out.
[01:32:29] Jones was urging me to come see his body, but I could not bring myself to do so.
[01:32:36] They if it could not be dead.
[01:32:38] They could not have killed David.
[01:32:41] Everyone else, yes, one after another friends had died, but I never believed that this
[01:32:46] could happen in David so vast, so indestructible, the humorous, gentle David.
[01:32:55] The brigadier was beside me.
[01:32:58] He had also heard the news.
[01:33:01] More nearly two years, he had known us both and it was playing that he understood the anguish.
[01:33:09] But there were other things to think about.
[01:33:14] As we knew, only two well, the brigadier told us, our ammunition was nearly finished.
[01:33:19] And as our own fire slackened, the enemy snipers were becoming bolder and more men were
[01:33:24] being hit.
[01:33:26] Soon we would be forced to surrender, so we had decided to take the initiative.
[01:33:31] We would break out towards Usterbeek, charging through the enemy and solid mass, trusting
[01:33:36] our numbers and impetus to get through.
[01:33:41] It was an extraordinary plan.
[01:33:43] For the second time that day, the brigadier was ordering us to do what seemed impossible.
[01:33:50] But our trust in the brigadier's judgment was now implicit.
[01:33:53] It was a gamble, but one which offered at least a chance of success.
[01:33:58] The stay here would only win one way.
[01:34:04] 15 minutes later, we were ready.
[01:34:07] It could have been the start of a race.
[01:34:09] The brigadier asked whether we were ready, then at his shout, the hundred of us rose to
[01:34:13] our feet and exploded in a solid mass over the lip of the hollow.
[01:34:18] In front was the brigadier himself, leading the way.
[01:34:22] Behind came the yelling, screaming men, filthy and bloodstained, weapons in their hands,
[01:34:27] and that dull and menacing a fearful sight to anyone in our path.
[01:34:33] The German fire now seemed to be coming from every direction, but I saw no one hit.
[01:34:38] We were rushing downhill along a lane, a solid human battering ram.
[01:34:45] The first wild plate, paced, slacking the firing stopped.
[01:34:50] We had done it.
[01:34:52] We were through the enemy and out of the forest.
[01:34:55] We were the second time that day boldness had saved us.
[01:35:04] Once again, some default to aggressive activity.
[01:35:10] Obviously, I want to make it clear that both these situations, it wasn't a call of
[01:35:19] hey, there's a objective we want to reach, charge it.
[01:35:27] It can either sit here and do nothing and die or we can attack.
[01:35:33] That's the big, I don't want anyone out there thinking, okay, I'm just going to every
[01:35:37] time default the aggressive.
[01:35:38] I'm going to run and we're going to attack.
[01:35:40] No, these are situations where the alternative to attacking is being defensive laying down
[01:35:46] and dying and continuing to get picked off and snipers until you get overrun.
[01:35:52] Now they meet up with, finally, they meet up with these other British troops.
[01:35:59] Back to the book, someone was leading us into a garden of a large house.
[01:36:02] The men dropped to the ground as they halted the conscious that they were now safe with
[01:36:05] houses and other British troops around them.
[01:36:09] Others after a swig from a water bottle, lay supine unconscious in instant sleep.
[01:36:15] I counted them.
[01:36:16] Jimmy Gray, John Simmons, and Sergeant Winer were there.
[01:36:21] Sergeant Major Kelly was missing, someone had seen him fall in the rush.
[01:36:25] There were just 49 other men about half from sea company.
[01:36:30] Last night there had been 200, the night before 500.
[01:36:42] Other in these positions.
[01:36:45] And they're about to get attacked just below in the garden, but out of sight another
[01:36:50] Bren opened up.
[01:36:51] It was Jimmy Gray's century at the garden gate.
[01:36:54] There was a glimpse of a camouflage figure running through the trees opposite.
[01:36:58] No more than 100 yards away diagonally across our front towards the air landing troops.
[01:37:03] Then a couple more.
[01:37:04] Jimmy's Bren fired again and one of the figures pitched forward rolling over, carried on
[01:37:09] by its own momentum.
[01:37:10] We would have to fight, and this is their talking, talking about the fact that they're
[01:37:18] in the houses now in this village.
[01:37:22] We would have to fight from the house itself, not from the trenches in the garden.
[01:37:27] It was a sturdy building with thick solid walls, and in any case the garden was too small
[01:37:31] for the purpose.
[01:37:32] From these upper windows, we would have an extra range and observation to fire diagonally
[01:37:37] down the road in front of the houses held by units to the left and right.
[01:37:42] 15 minutes later, the trim Dutch house had been wrecked.
[01:37:47] Every pain of glass had been smashed, and every picture and mirror knock from the walls
[01:37:51] there was no time to be careful.
[01:37:53] In the center of each room barricades had been built, well back from the windows out of sight
[01:37:57] of the bush, but sighted so that every scrap of ground outside was covered.
[01:38:02] Sideboards and chests of drawer stuff with books are bedding, made the barricades, contents
[01:38:07] of the furniture flung and heaps into corners of the rooms.
[01:38:11] Matchuses were rolled down into the basement ready for use if needed by wounded men.
[01:38:16] More books crammed into drawers, were blocking those windows, not required for shooting
[01:38:20] through.
[01:38:21] Fortunately, the owner of the house possessed a fine library from its content seemed
[01:38:26] a-whose a doctor.
[01:38:28] With gray, I walked around the house for a final check before leaving to return to my own
[01:38:33] headquarters at the rear.
[01:38:35] Like vandals might have swept through it, some woman's life work ruined in the time it
[01:38:40] took to drink a cup of coffee.
[01:38:49] An explosion from above followed by the clatter of tiles falling from the roof drowned
[01:38:54] out the noise from the gun.
[01:38:55] Another bomb burst in the garden just outside the window sending a couple fragments whistling
[01:38:59] into the room.
[01:39:00] Now the bush were hitting us with mortars as well.
[01:39:05] A bullet splintered of the empty frame behind me and buried itself in the ceiling, a warning
[01:39:11] that I was far too close to the back bedroom window.
[01:39:15] There was a sniper behind us as well as the spandle.
[01:39:19] A quick movement in the garden of the house caught my eye.
[01:39:22] Then two figures in the wrong sort of camouflaged darted from behind a bush into the shelter
[01:39:26] of a wall.
[01:39:27] They were bush, not British.
[01:39:29] So now the enemy was indeed all around us.
[01:39:32] There was no doubt about it now.
[01:39:35] John Simmons and his men were in the houses where they had been left that morning.
[01:39:39] John had made strong points out of a couple of houses, smaller but just as robust as the
[01:39:44] ones held by gray.
[01:39:46] The two groups had been working closely together largely I felt certain because of John's
[01:39:51] charm of manner and determination.
[01:39:54] This young gunner had done very well.
[01:39:56] It hardly seemed possible that most of his men hardly knew him by sight yesterday.
[01:40:01] Today he has welded the survivors of four different companies of a unit into of another
[01:40:06] arm into a tight knit entity.
[01:40:10] Well capable of carrying on the fight.
[01:40:13] All day they had held firm, killing and wounding quite a lot of enemy, losing only one
[01:40:17] man themselves, a corpile of a company whose hand had been blown in half by a flying
[01:40:22] mortar splinter.
[01:40:25] Mind and filthy though his face was eyes red rimmed and chin stained with three days worth
[01:40:32] of fair fuzzy down.
[01:40:34] John still moved briskly, a reminder to all of us that we could still keep going.
[01:40:41] So he's got guys that are stepping up big time.
[01:40:45] Inside the houses we felt reasonably safe from the shells and bullets but there was always
[01:40:49] some cause for the officers and senior NCOs to move about and open from one building to
[01:40:53] another.
[01:40:54] It was the same as it had been in the woods.
[01:40:56] The officers and sergeants sort of straighter, greater chance of being killed or wounded
[01:41:00] as their men.
[01:41:02] All the same, it was easier for an officer.
[01:41:05] With so much to do, he had little time to worry about his own safety.
[01:41:09] Also he always had to try and act the part to set an example to the others.
[01:41:14] An officer had to exude confidence however hard it might be.
[01:41:19] But because he always had to try to keep a grip on himself, it helped him forget the danger.
[01:41:24] Very true.
[01:41:27] Very true.
[01:41:28] Got a lot of things on your mind.
[01:41:34] They get a massive bombardment in these positions that they're in.
[01:41:42] Back to the book, the Germans must be softening us up in preparation for something more
[01:41:45] serious.
[01:41:46] Their ammunition seemed unlimited.
[01:41:49] The bombardment ended quite suddenly, rather as it had started.
[01:41:53] This would be it.
[01:41:55] Nudging Williams to get his head up from behind the barricade, I shouted a warning to the
[01:41:59] others.
[01:42:00] Elkins and bow were in the next room and the two signulars who had moved up to the bedroom
[01:42:03] at the back.
[01:42:05] The stutter of the bread gun cut across the woods.
[01:42:09] Bowers rifle-footed next door and then Williams was firing a succession of bursts from
[01:42:13] his bread gun.
[01:42:15] In the orchard opposite, Germans were running through the trees towards us, several dropped.
[01:42:21] This could only be the start of an attack.
[01:42:24] Now from either flank, the sound of rifles and machine guns reached us, accompanied by
[01:42:29] the thought of exploding grenades.
[01:42:30] The attack was coming in all along our front.
[01:42:35] Some of the Germans among the fruit trees were firing back, a couple of rifle bullets splintered
[01:42:39] the front of the wardrobe.
[01:42:42] And more gray figures were lumbering towards us through the trees, some fell, others ducked
[01:42:46] behind the puny trees.
[01:42:49] They didn't stand a chance.
[01:42:51] It was like shooting targets on the practice range.
[01:42:55] The Germans and the mortars had been forced to stop because their troops were so close.
[01:43:02] So it was possible to fire slow, carefully aimed shots with little or no distraction.
[01:43:10] The only way out of the orchard was through the single gap in the high fence, but the enemy
[01:43:15] soldiers never got within 20 yards of it.
[01:43:19] A tall German officer was standing in the middle of the drive, out in the open clear of
[01:43:24] the trees, waving his arms to the men behind him.
[01:43:29] No more than 50 yards away, every detail of his face and uniform was clearly visible.
[01:43:35] He was a handsome young man, fair-haired and smartly turned out.
[01:43:41] Already he'd been standing there for about five seconds, encouraging his men to advance.
[01:43:47] As I leveled my sights on the German officer, I knew that I was looking at someone
[01:43:51] who was just about to die.
[01:43:54] It seemed a pity.
[01:43:57] He was such a courageous boy, just the sort.
[01:44:01] As the sort one would like to have had as a platoon commander.
[01:44:06] My fingers started to squeeze the trigger, but it was too late.
[01:44:10] Someone else had fired.
[01:44:12] The German fell, spread-eagled and lay still.
[01:44:17] At least he died quickly.
[01:44:20] The death of the young officer marked the end of the attack.
[01:44:25] Now no one moved in the orchard except for a single wounded man squirming his way back through
[01:44:31] the trees.
[01:44:35] So it's interesting when you take the leader and the leader goes down and the attacks over.
[01:44:43] Now also it's important to note that although the leader stood up and encouraged the attack
[01:44:50] by taking that risk of being out there in front of everyone, in this case it didn't
[01:44:54] work out well because he got shot, killed, and the attack faltered.
[01:45:00] Perhaps if he could have found a little bit better of a position to do that from, then
[01:45:04] maybe he would have been able to encourage his troops and stay alive.
[01:45:12] Back to the book, but we had won no more than a temporary respite.
[01:45:17] 15 minutes later we could hear the unnerving noise once again.
[01:45:21] Those were clattering towards us.
[01:45:24] So I don't know why I haven't talked about this yet, but here you have these airborne
[01:45:29] troops on the ground and their biggest fear is tanks and you've heard me talk many times
[01:45:37] about my love for tanks and how effective and awesome they are as tools and as weapons
[01:45:46] and the way that the tankers utilize them, they're just they're just awesome machines.
[01:45:53] But here you have the tables turned and the good guys don't have any effective way of
[01:46:02] stopping these tanks.
[01:46:03] You can shoot a machine gun all day long at a panzer tank and it's not going to do a damn
[01:46:09] thing.
[01:46:11] And so it can just, and by the way you hide and build and cool, a tank will go right through
[01:46:15] a building.
[01:46:16] They go right through buildings.
[01:46:18] They will go right through a building.
[01:46:20] Like it looks like a construction piece of heavy equipment.
[01:46:23] That's what it looks like.
[01:46:24] It'll go right through a building like it's nothing.
[01:46:26] So these guys are absolutely horrified of the tank showing up.
[01:46:31] That's their fear.
[01:46:35] Tracks were clattering toward us, a gun footage and the dark red house opposite began
[01:46:41] to fall apart as round after round crashed into it.
[01:46:45] Also flashes from the far side of the orchard revealed the position of the attacker, but
[01:46:49] there was nothing we could do.
[01:46:52] At least the men were not waiting in the house, but slipping one after another out the door
[01:46:57] back across the road to the headquarters house.
[01:47:01] On either side, the guns were firing.
[01:47:05] Now it was our turn.
[01:47:10] The tank wrecks some of the houses and then it the tank leaves.
[01:47:18] So here we go.
[01:47:19] It was time to strike back.
[01:47:21] The tanks had gone and as yet the bush did not appear to have occupied the houses.
[01:47:26] Lying out there in the rear gardens overlooked from the windows, we were vulnerable indeed.
[01:47:32] Soon the morgering would start again.
[01:47:34] Then we would be safe for back in the ruin buildings.
[01:47:38] John Simmons listened to the instructions, the young captain's manner was as relaxed
[01:47:43] as ever.
[01:47:45] Calm and outwardly self-confident.
[01:47:47] He somehow managed to give the impression that he was almost enjoying the morning's
[01:47:51] work.
[01:47:52] Possibly he was making that a point.
[01:47:54] Subconsciously perhaps that a gunner could always take charge of 30 infantrymen.
[01:48:00] But there were undoubtedly immense reserves of strength hidden behind that cool exterior.
[01:48:07] As he lay behind the bed of half dead pea plants scanning the houses for any sign of
[01:48:12] German occupants, there was no trace of disquiet in his voice as he discussed his orders
[01:48:16] to counter attack and clear the street of the enemy.
[01:48:21] 15 minutes after John had gone, I was still in the same place in the vegetable patch watching
[01:48:26] the second hand of my watch creep towards the top of the dial.
[01:48:31] Then graze weapon opened up on the right, firing back into the rooms of the houses
[01:48:36] more in the hope of distracting the enemy than providing covering fire.
[01:48:41] The danger to John's men lay on the other side, the front of the houses.
[01:48:46] Now John's three-bremned guns were firing as well on the left.
[01:48:52] The assault party would soon be moving into the street.
[01:48:57] It came.
[01:48:59] The sustained rattle of a spandown gun.
[01:49:03] Just one, then a second.
[01:49:06] After that there was silence, except for one or two rifle shots.
[01:49:12] I waited, lying in the vegetable patch almost to straw with worry.
[01:49:19] Something was badly wrong.
[01:49:20] Nothing could be seen from here, but I had to resist the temptation of going to find out
[01:49:24] for myself what had happened.
[01:49:26] I must avoid getting involved in the skirmish.
[01:49:31] Then corporal day, now John's second in command was running through the flower beds toward
[01:49:35] me.
[01:49:37] Days face said everything, even before he started to speak.
[01:49:43] The attack had failed.
[01:49:45] It had failed the moment John had been killed, out there in the middle of the street, and
[01:49:49] ten yards in front of day, and the rest of the assault party John had died in just the same
[01:49:55] way as that young German officer this morning.
[01:50:00] And he had finished it.
[01:50:02] The rest of them, including day, had turned and run, but in some extraordinary way no one
[01:50:09] else had been hit.
[01:50:12] Day made no excuse, no attempt to excuse himself, telling the story factually and not trying
[01:50:18] to put a gloss on the incident.
[01:50:21] The implication was clear they had been asked to do too much.
[01:50:29] So now I had been responsible for killing John as well.
[01:50:34] It had been so simple.
[01:50:36] I had issued the orders, and then John had walked out into the middle of that road to
[01:50:39] be shot down by the machine gun.
[01:50:45] I should not have done it.
[01:50:48] The counterattacks should never have been attempted.
[01:50:51] The men were no longer capable of making such an effort.
[01:50:56] They could still hang onto their positions, fighting from behind cover, but after six days
[01:51:00] of continuous battle, they lacked the will to get to their feet and go for the enemy.
[01:51:07] In the woods, it had just been possible to urge them forward in one last surge of willpower,
[01:51:12] but since then, they'd endured a further 48 hours of death, starvation, thirst, and fatigue.
[01:51:22] In the woods, it was men from my own company, today it had been different.
[01:51:27] Today a mixture of men, survivors of four different companies, had been left to follow a gunner
[01:51:32] officer whom they hardly knew.
[01:51:36] There was a limit to what soldiers could be asked to do, and I had gone beyond those
[01:51:41] limits.
[01:51:44] And so John Simmons had died.
[01:52:03] That's the burden of command.
[01:52:10] Back to the book.
[01:52:12] It was impossible to understand why the Germans were not using their armor to support this
[01:52:16] infiltration by their infantry.
[01:52:19] If they had done so, all resistance would have collapsed long ago, and the tanks would
[01:52:23] have been on the lawns.
[01:52:27] The crushing news that the brigadier had been badly wounded came through on the telephone
[01:52:31] just before the line went dead once again.
[01:52:34] The bush were now among the houses and gardens, which the glider pilots had been holding,
[01:52:39] and gray had reported that he was being shot at from two sides at the same time.
[01:52:46] The quartermaster had also sent word that the enemy were behind him, and that he had
[01:52:52] long ago lost all contact with the rekiyon as left.
[01:53:04] They are just in a wretched state, and he goes to meet with the colonel in one of the
[01:53:11] buildings.
[01:53:12] The colonel seemed to be trying to break something to us gently.
[01:53:16] Then it came out.
[01:53:18] It was hard to believe, harder still to understand.
[01:53:22] The division was to be withdrawn over the line that night.
[01:53:27] It was all over.
[01:53:30] It had been. It had only been possible to ferry about 250 men of the door sits over the
[01:53:35] river before dawn, a profitless addition to the perimeter garrison.
[01:53:40] The second army had overreached itself and trying to get to us, and although the troops
[01:53:44] were purporting northward, they lacked the strength across the river and continued the
[01:53:48] advance into Germany.
[01:53:51] Already the bush were hammering from the flanks at their narrow lines of communication.
[01:53:59] The operation had failed.
[01:54:03] Everything had been in vain.
[01:54:06] It was all a waste.
[01:54:10] Listening to the outline of what had to be done that night, it was hard to concentrate
[01:54:13] on the details.
[01:54:16] The first emotion was grief.
[01:54:19] And then utter disappointment.
[01:54:33] The battalion had been destroyed to no purpose.
[01:54:34] And that's it.
[01:54:35] They get the order.
[01:54:37] That night to leave.
[01:54:40] And they come up with a plan.
[01:54:43] They actually follow rope.
[01:54:45] They put rope at night down towards the river where they're going to get extracted.
[01:54:49] And at night they attempt to follow that rope down there.
[01:54:53] And of course, along the way, they lose more men.
[01:54:56] Men get separated.
[01:54:57] Men don't hang on.
[01:54:58] They get lost.
[01:54:59] And they lose even more men as they're trying to make it to their extraction point.
[01:55:04] But he does end up with a small group of people at this extraction point.
[01:55:08] There's Canadian boats there to bring them across the Rhine River.
[01:55:14] Back to the book, the Canadians were already pulling the last men into the boat.
[01:55:17] And I was standing with Harrison, alone in the river.
[01:55:21] When I heard a winers' voice, harshly insisting that no one would be left behind.
[01:55:27] The young cockson needed no further urging but importers to be careful as the boat was
[01:55:31] grossly overloaded.
[01:55:33] Then Harrison pushed me up over the side and the two of us flopped down behind the cockson
[01:55:38] as the engine went into gear and the boat moved towards midstream.
[01:55:42] So now they get across the river, they get dropped off and to answer your question earlier.
[01:55:50] Once they get dropped off on the other side, they're on the western side of the Rhine River,
[01:55:55] it's basically secure area.
[01:55:58] Even though it was only several hundred yards away, it was relatively secure.
[01:56:04] And now what they have to do is they have to march back about five miles to get to even
[01:56:10] more secure base.
[01:56:12] Here we go back to the book.
[01:56:13] As we reach the track, which after a few hundred yards led us to the road, when I stopped
[01:56:19] the men flopped to the ground empty and lifeless, lacking any wish to go on.
[01:56:25] More parties have men appeared through the darkness, shambling in the exhaustion of relief,
[01:56:30] alter-ended, devoid of the willpower needed to summon up further effort.
[01:56:36] There's only one way to make the two mile march bearable and old fashioned remedy.
[01:56:42] I called the Sergeant Weiner to fall the men in threes.
[01:56:47] The discipline bark bounced back to me as Weiner pulled himself to his feet shouting
[01:56:51] to the men to fall in.
[01:56:53] There is no trace of query or surprise in Weiner's voice and the men shuffled to their feet.
[01:57:01] That's your route training right there.
[01:57:04] You're exhausted after eight days of continuous combat.
[01:57:07] You're just done and the Sergeant says, all right, on your feet, form a column of threes
[01:57:14] and you do it.
[01:57:18] There get close to the end.
[01:57:20] I'm now that I can see the camp and I halted them.
[01:57:24] There was only one way to end such a march.
[01:57:27] It was pointless perhaps, but I decided to make the final gesture.
[01:57:31] Knowing them to attention, I ordered them to slope arms and to march by the left to attention.
[01:57:38] I sensed their appreciation as their shoulders went back.
[01:57:42] This was the way they always returned to camp.
[01:57:45] This was the way they always finished.
[01:57:48] As they stepped off for the last 50 yards, they were even squinging their arms.
[01:57:55] They marched back into this camp once they get into this camp, they get loaded up into
[01:58:00] a vehicle, a big military transport vehicle that's going to take them further to the rear
[01:58:05] where they can get some treatment and they're loaded into that vehicle.
[01:58:12] Here we go back to the book, the canopy of the truck now sheltered us, but my shivering
[01:58:16] became uncontrollable.
[01:58:19] I knew I was becoming light headed and could hear myself grieving aloud for those that
[01:58:24] we had left behind, particularly for those who had been lost during the withdrawal down
[01:58:28] the riverbank.
[01:58:31] There was silence in the truck.
[01:58:34] Then I heard, as if from a long way off, the voice of Sergeant Weiner, Client, Calm
[01:58:39] and Flat, saying that none of them would have got back if it had not been for me.
[01:58:46] It was true to say that I would never have got back if it hadn't been for them, but
[01:58:51] I shall always be grateful to Weiner for having said it.
[01:58:58] The next thing I remember was Weiner and Harrison, half carrying me into what seemed to
[01:59:03] be a hospital.
[01:59:06] Someone was stripping off my clothes and dressing me in pajamas, then I felt the prick of
[01:59:12] a needle in my arm.
[01:59:17] I was awake.
[01:59:20] The sun shining into the windows of the ward.
[01:59:25] And orderly brought tea and food on a tray, I lay between the clean sheets, looking at
[01:59:29] the torn and filthy garments on the chair by the side of the bed.
[01:59:35] There was nothing wrong with me now.
[01:59:38] I saw that my hand was wrapped in a clean bandage.
[01:59:42] When the nursing orderly came to remove the tray, he brought me the message that a soldier
[01:59:46] was waiting in the corridor to see me.
[01:59:50] As soon as the orderly left, the room I slipped out of bed and put on my clothes and went
[01:59:54] out in the corridor.
[01:59:58] Waiting there was Harrison, a broad smile on his face, telling me that Captain Gray
[02:00:02] and Mr. Elkins and turned up with aid to the missing men.
[02:00:06] Another 20 stragglers had also arrived from somewhere or another.
[02:00:12] But that was the lot.
[02:00:15] That was the battalion.
[02:00:18] Three officers and 43 soldiers.
[02:00:25] We walked out the door of the hospital side, side by side.
[02:00:33] The week's September sun shone down on the battered buildings.
[02:00:39] Away in the distance, the dull rumble of the battle still rolled down from the north.
[02:00:48] And once all the men were recovered, and that's the end of the book.
[02:01:07] When all the men were recovered, and when you look at the actual battalion of the 156 pairs,
[02:01:12] you battalion, it looked like this, 313 men were captured, many of those were wounded.
[02:01:18] There was 98 killed in action, and there was a total of 68 from the battalion that
[02:01:24] made it across the Rhine safely.
[02:01:28] And those 68 men, if they could heal up, were then sent to the other battalions inside
[02:01:36] the first parabirdade.
[02:01:39] And the 156th parachute battalion was actually disbanded.
[02:01:46] It ceased to exist.
[02:01:51] Jeffree Powell went on to retire from the Army, the British Army in 1964.
[02:02:00] He retired as a major general.
[02:02:02] He was awarded the military cross, which is Britain's third highest award for valor.
[02:02:10] And this is what his citation reads.
[02:02:14] At Arnum after his commanding officer had become a casualty, major pal took command of the remnants
[02:02:19] of the battalion.
[02:02:21] Up to this time, he conducted himself with the greatest gallantry.
[02:02:24] For the remaining six days, he retained control of his unit, and also of the men of other
[02:02:30] units in the area under the most difficult conditions.
[02:02:35] Heavy fire for mortars artillery and self-propelled guns never stopped his activity in
[02:02:40] getting round his section of the perimeter and encouraging his men to greater efforts.
[02:02:48] Throughout the whole period of the Arnum battle, in spite of being wounded, this officer showed
[02:02:54] himself to be a gallant leader of men and the most capable fighter and one whose bravery
[02:02:59] was a source of inspiration to the men under his command and to all those around him.
[02:03:13] And I think it's pretty clear that if you read a book like this, General Powell is still
[02:03:22] a source of inspiration as are the rest of these incredibly brave men and also a source
[02:03:32] of leadership lessons of what to do and what not to do, and it's also an incredible reminder
[02:03:46] of that heavy burden of command.
[02:03:53] And the fact of the matter is when you lead you own every decision and every action not only
[02:04:00] of yourself but of your men.
[02:04:08] And with that burden, you owe it to them to be as well prepared, to be as tactically
[02:04:18] sound and to be as physically and mentally strong as you can possibly be.
[02:04:29] And that goes for any leadership position when you are a leader, be as prepared as you
[02:04:35] possibly can.
[02:04:40] And then you go out and you lead and you lead with courage and you lead with resolution
[02:04:46] and you lead with boldness.
[02:04:54] Boldness like Jeffrey Bell, then the officers in the men of the 156th Parishute Battalion.
[02:05:05] Pretty amazing book that, you know, like I said, I got this book six days ago or something.
[02:05:20] Somebody just sent it to me and I gave it the little tests, what I kind of opened books
[02:05:26] up because people saw me a lot of books and I gave it the test, you know, I opened
[02:05:31] up by read a couple of sections and it immediately, you know, I'll give all open to a book
[02:05:36] in four or five different places to see what it reads like.
[02:05:41] And this, you know, within the first page, the first page that I read is that, oh, we
[02:05:46] it looks like we have a winner here.
[02:05:48] This one's going to be on the podcast because it's just impactful and the account now.
[02:05:57] In the back of the book, he talks about the, the individuals and it just reads some
[02:06:04] of them off here.
[02:06:05] The Brigadier was General John Hackett.
[02:06:12] The Colonel was Dickie DeVo of the Grenadier Guards.
[02:06:19] His fellow Grenadier was Surgeon Major Dennis Gay.
[02:06:26] His Batman, the guy that he talks about Harrison throughout the book, the guy that's
[02:06:29] there from the beginning to the end, always by the side that was actually a guy named Fred
[02:06:33] Tracy.
[02:06:34] The guy named David N. unwitting the book is the character in the book.
[02:06:38] The real guy was named Michael Page who had been Powell's best man and who's son, Jeffrey
[02:06:47] born posthumously had another son named Michael and Luke Tyler and Sergeant Wyner and
[02:06:57] Jones and Johnson as these were all real people.
[02:07:01] So, you know, this is another guy that very similar to Major John Glover who said he had
[02:07:08] a hard time writing about himself in the first person.
[02:07:11] You know, I did this and I did that.
[02:07:12] That's the same thing that Powell said.
[02:07:14] You know, he had a hard time writing until he just made it about some other, he put made
[02:07:18] some other character in his hand and wrote from that perspective.
[02:07:22] But, man, you definitely this book, like I said, I read, I don't know, 5% of it.
[02:07:31] It's not a huge book though, actually.
[02:07:33] It's only a couple hundred pages long and it's a very fast read.
[02:07:37] Did you find it to give you this weird stressful feeling reading, no?
[02:07:42] Absolutely.
[02:07:43] It's interesting too, it's like just more stressful.
[02:07:45] It is stressful.
[02:07:46] It is.
[02:07:47] And I was debating when to tell you and when to tell everyone that this is not a good, that
[02:07:53] this is a good story, right?
[02:07:55] This isn't a positive thing.
[02:07:57] And I kind of just, I don't know, when I actually said that, hey, they're not going to
[02:08:02] win.
[02:08:03] I mean, I said that the operation market garden was a failure.
[02:08:06] But, you know, what does that really look like?
[02:08:08] You know what I mean?
[02:08:09] Like, you don't know what that looks like until you get reading this book and then you
[02:08:12] start to feel what it feels like.
[02:08:13] It absolutely.
[02:08:14] And when you read the whole book, man, it is just coming apart.
[02:08:19] It's just a little misfortune, a little misfortune, they're just coming and they don't
[02:08:23] stop.
[02:08:24] They just don't stop.
[02:08:26] It's a nightmare scenario.
[02:08:29] And yeah, and there's tons of great lessons learned.
[02:08:32] It's so amazing.
[02:08:33] Because I never read this book before.
[02:08:34] I just got it.
[02:08:35] But it's amazing.
[02:08:37] Covered move.
[02:08:38] Yeah.
[02:08:39] Decentualized command.
[02:08:40] Yeah.
[02:08:41] That's cute.
[02:08:42] Even that part when you're keeping it simple.
[02:08:44] Everything that we learned, I should have learned this years ago.
[02:08:52] And when I think about, you know, I was, you look back at your life, right?
[02:08:57] And you say to yourself, what could I have done better?
[02:08:59] What could I do different?
[02:09:00] And, you know, everyone in the SEAL teams, like basically you get one shot at each
[02:09:04] job.
[02:09:05] Other than just being a shooter and a platoon, that you can do three or four times.
[02:09:10] If you're lucky.
[02:09:12] But then once you get into a leadership position, you're like you're an assistant platoon
[02:09:16] commander.
[02:09:17] You do that one time.
[02:09:18] Then you're a platoon commander.
[02:09:19] You do that one time.
[02:09:21] Then you're a task unit commander.
[02:09:22] You do that one time.
[02:09:23] Generally, sometimes the guys rarely guys do more than one of those.
[02:09:28] Same thing on the enlisted side.
[02:09:29] Guy gets to do an a leading pedigoster.
[02:09:32] Does that one time?
[02:09:33] Chief pedigoster of a platoon.
[02:09:34] Platoon chief does that one time.
[02:09:37] You don't get to repeat the jobs.
[02:09:42] And so basically when you're finally getting good at your job, you're done.
[02:09:46] And now you've got to go get the next job up the chain of command.
[02:09:49] So for me, it was always, and now looking back and even talking to my SEAL buddies now,
[02:09:56] like how can we prepare them better?
[02:09:58] So they know what we had to learn during the job.
[02:10:03] It's a hard thing to do because a lot of stuff you actually have to learn from
[02:10:07] experience.
[02:10:08] Yeah.
[02:10:09] And actually we talked about that at the last master, which is that was a big part that
[02:10:14] we talked about.
[02:10:15] If you're going to get good at something, you have two choices.
[02:10:18] Experience or training.
[02:10:20] And training is a way to condense experience down and distill it.
[02:10:24] That's what was great about when I was running training on the West Coast.
[02:10:28] We got to really condense that experience.
[02:10:31] Sure.
[02:10:32] I mean, guys went through, guys went through hellacious training.
[02:10:36] And we provide total chaos for them.
[02:10:39] That most guys wouldn't experience that kind of chaos in their whole career or in 10 careers.
[02:10:44] But they would get it and they would get pushed to the parts that when they got out of
[02:10:47] the battlefield, they were ready for the chaos that was out there.
[02:10:51] Because we trained them and we pushed them further and harder during training.
[02:10:55] Then we hoped they would get pushed on the battlefield.
[02:10:58] Yeah.
[02:10:59] It's crazy.
[02:11:00] Even that cover and move even when they're retreating.
[02:11:02] It's like it showed like how you got to keep that discipline with that.
[02:11:06] It's kind of like, you know, like an MMA fighter or something.
[02:11:10] And the guy starts getting hit on the inside and rather than still covering up a little
[02:11:16] bit while he goes back, he runs away or turns his back or something like that.
[02:11:19] Turn your back a bit.
[02:11:20] Yeah.
[02:11:21] Turn your back and your done.
[02:11:24] But great book.
[02:11:25] I definitely recommend it for your beating list.
[02:11:28] Yeah.
[02:11:29] There was that part in there that the guy came up to.
[02:11:33] I think reload ammo or something.
[02:11:35] And the guy's sitting there.
[02:11:37] Yeah.
[02:11:38] And he's doing.
[02:11:39] So he gets like scolded or whatever.
[02:11:41] He turns out he's wounded or he's injured.
[02:11:43] That was an interesting little lesson there.
[02:11:46] You just don't know.
[02:11:47] So you can't just start going off.
[02:11:49] Totally true.
[02:11:50] And I don't know if you remember somebody asked us a question one time about how do I
[02:11:56] these people that have had everything given to them.
[02:11:59] And I've had a, I grew up in a tough neighborhood.
[02:12:02] I was like, oh, you actually don't know what that person's been through.
[02:12:05] And we had that whole discussion.
[02:12:06] Yeah.
[02:12:07] That's the same thing true on a day to day basis with every other human being that you're
[02:12:10] dealing with.
[02:12:11] You don't know what they're going through.
[02:12:12] You don't know what triumphs and tragedies they've had in their life.
[02:12:15] You don't know what just happened to them this morning.
[02:12:18] So the recommended course of action is you give someone a little bit of slack when we don't
[02:12:23] know them.
[02:12:24] You know?
[02:12:25] Yeah.
[02:12:26] You've seen that at St. Philippe when he goes to talk to the girl.
[02:12:29] Come on.
[02:12:30] He's actually, he was pretty much this, but just on science field.
[02:12:33] So he goes to talk to the screen.
[02:12:34] He's like, I got to talk to that girl.
[02:12:36] She's hot or whatever.
[02:12:38] He goes up, turn you and he's like, hey, hello.
[02:12:40] Excuse me.
[02:12:41] Her back is kind of turned.
[02:12:42] He's like, excuse me.
[02:12:44] Hello, hello.
[02:12:45] Like, getting any starts to get real mad that she's not listening to him.
[02:12:48] Finally he walks it like more close to her and she kind of starts to turn around and
[02:12:52] he's like, oh, so now you pay attention.
[02:12:54] What do you deaf?
[02:12:55] And she's like, bingo like science tool.
[02:12:57] Oh.
[02:12:58] She is deaf.
[02:12:59] Yeah.
[02:13:00] You know, they got to chill out.
[02:13:01] Yeah.
[02:13:02] Find out about people first.
[02:13:03] Free start.
[02:13:04] Make sure they make sure the regimental sergeant major isn't wounded in both legs before
[02:13:09] you start dressing him down.
[02:13:10] I know.
[02:13:11] Yeah, man.
[02:13:12] That's a good thing.
[02:13:15] He put that in this book.
[02:13:16] You know, that's pretty humble.
[02:13:17] Yeah.
[02:13:18] Firm to put this in this book.
[02:13:19] You know what I mean?
[02:13:20] Yep.
[02:13:21] And that other part where they were all what, like tired and stuff, right?
[02:13:27] Or they're defeated, essentially.
[02:13:29] They were actually, you mean when they were basically broken men?
[02:13:32] Yeah.
[02:13:33] And then they got up and they just started charging getting into it.
[02:13:36] Yeah.
[02:13:37] Default aggressive.
[02:13:38] Default aggressive part.
[02:13:40] That's like, like, in why there's big synopids.
[02:13:45] 10.
[02:13:46] They're like, they're kind of bigger than like a few long.
[02:13:50] No, no.
[02:13:51] They're bigger than like synopids that I've seen here.
[02:13:53] Okay.
[02:13:54] Give me a figure.
[02:13:55] Like six inches.
[02:13:56] It's like six is like a normal big synopids.
[02:14:00] Okay.
[02:14:01] And they still get bigger.
[02:14:03] Anyway, they're, I mean compared to you, you know, that they're, they're little
[02:14:07] bucks, they're little whatever.
[02:14:08] And you just step on it.
[02:14:10] But like when you start messing with it and it starts to get nuts, it's super
[02:14:13] entertaining.
[02:14:14] I'm just saying that they're cheating like that.
[02:14:17] I don't know, but they can chase you out of your room.
[02:14:20] You got chased out of your room by a certain thing.
[02:14:21] Well, anything like, even like a, like a wasp or you know, like with these little things
[02:14:25] that are way smaller than you.
[02:14:27] And they just get nuts.
[02:14:28] And then, like you don't want to mess with it.
[02:14:29] You know, so life, life was over my house as a while ago, a couple of years ago.
[02:14:34] And there was a lizard in my house.
[02:14:37] Like about a, yeah, thought a nine inch lizard.
[02:14:41] And so my son and life are going to try and catch this lizard.
[02:14:46] And they're being weak.
[02:14:48] Do like, yeah, they're like, oh, you know,
[02:14:50] they're like, oh, wait, wait, no, grab it.
[02:14:52] Get a box on it and all.
[02:14:53] So I come in, Mr. Tuff guy.
[02:14:55] You know, I come in reached, I go, just grab that thing.
[02:14:59] You will seize reach down.
[02:15:01] I reached down a grab this thing.
[02:15:02] This thing turns its head and bites.
[02:15:05] Yeah, so it's a nice screen.
[02:15:08] Like, like the Jim Carrey, like, oh, yeah.
[02:15:12] And I flipped my hand.
[02:15:13] It was, it was absolutely hilarious because I went from being a big tough guy to screaming.
[02:15:18] Oh, and having a lizard bit onto my finger.
[02:15:22] Good blood. By the way, yeah, this thing drew blood.
[02:15:25] Yeah, on my thumb.
[02:15:27] So yeah, I was default aggressive, but it didn't work out.
[02:15:30] The lizard was more default aggressive than I was.
[02:15:33] Yeah, see, and that is funny.
[02:15:35] That's a funny story for a couple of reasons, in my opinion.
[02:15:37] But that is the exact same concept, though.
[02:15:40] Where if you would like, like, how you said in the book,
[02:15:43] just kept your head, you smash that lizard.
[02:15:45] That is what if I wanted to catch a live,
[02:15:47] I wasn't trying to kill it.
[02:15:48] Yeah.
[02:15:49] But still, I should have been more aggressive.
[02:15:50] The bite didn't even hurt, right?
[02:15:53] I just shocked me.
[02:15:54] Yeah, it just shocked me.
[02:15:55] That was pretty broad.
[02:15:56] Yeah, I wasn't ready for the, the gnashing of the teeth.
[02:15:59] Getting nuts, man.
[02:16:00] Yeah, those lizards, we have a lot of those.
[02:16:02] Especially when it gets hot, I mean, I'm assuming it's the same kind.
[02:16:06] There are these, but here's the thing, growing up on quite a disease thing.
[02:16:09] They call them, we call them convenience, but they're like,
[02:16:12] a null, a null, a, and a, oh,
[02:16:14] L, E, that's what you spent, spell it.
[02:16:16] They turn green or brown or whatever.
[02:16:18] When they get, they get pretty big and they're super aggressive.
[02:16:22] Like, when you grab them, oh, that's the first red thing comes out of their neck
[02:16:25] and they start biting you.
[02:16:27] And you get them to it when you hold them after a while they start to calm down.
[02:16:31] And I think they just start to get sick and stuff.
[02:16:34] I don't know, I don't know, but they calm down.
[02:16:36] So you can do this thing where basically it can.
[02:16:38] If you have a lizard's head, you go like this and he'll go like,
[02:16:40] they'll try to bite you.
[02:16:42] So what you do is when he calms down and I'm like,
[02:16:43] what a ray when you grab him, he's trying to kill you.
[02:16:46] But when he calms down after I don't know, three, four minutes, you do that
[02:16:49] and he'll kill, keep kind of like, how do you lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen lessen
[02:16:53] he'll always do that though, but he'll just be a lot less aggressive.
[02:16:56] And then if you put your finger in his mouth, he'll bite you and he won't let go.
[02:17:00] So you got to kind of drag your finger out and yeah,
[02:17:03] it'll, it can cause blood or whatever.
[02:17:05] But what we do is, and you can proceed, let picture the,
[02:17:09] we do that and we put it on, put the lizard on our ears.
[02:17:12] So the lizard would be unhearing.
[02:17:14] And yeah, biting areas you'd have two lizards hanging down.
[02:17:17] But anyway, the point there being,
[02:17:21] fucking, so if you can keep your, yeah, when you grow up with that stuff,
[02:17:25] like those lizards are not scary, even if they're aggressive and some of them,
[02:17:28] they get pretty like big and bulky and they're like dang,
[02:17:31] a thing has some power to it, this little lizard, you know?
[02:17:34] And but even here, one, one, I grab them, they're like, oh no,
[02:17:39] I wouldn't scream like you, well, yeah, I'm just saying experience.
[02:17:42] And lizard got me dude, it was awful.
[02:17:46] It was awful. Well, being prepared, I guess is what we're talking about being aggressive.
[02:17:51] Once you get default aggressive with letting anybody know if they want to support this podcast,
[02:17:56] maybe how they could do it.
[02:17:57] Also support Jockel's traumatizing experience with lizards.
[02:18:01] With lizards.
[02:18:02] So bite it.
[02:18:03] It's fingers and him screaming.
[02:18:04] Oh, what's it, laughing?
[02:18:06] It was laughing my son.
[02:18:07] Yeah, did they lose respect for you that time?
[02:18:10] Well, it's actually funny because life always talks about, you know, me being calm.
[02:18:16] And that's why he laughed so hard.
[02:18:18] We were driving one time, we almost got into car wreck.
[02:18:21] He was driving actually.
[02:18:22] And I'll have him tell the story, but we hit mud and we hit, we were out in the desert.
[02:18:28] We were going for 65 miles an hour on a back road, back by all these farms.
[02:18:33] And it was two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, something like that.
[02:18:36] And normally these roads are completely dry there in the desert.
[02:18:40] And we're hauling and life's driving, I think he's driving his truck.
[02:18:44] Yeah, he was driving his truck.
[02:18:45] We're hauling and all of a sudden out of nowhere, we see, we see a big 18 wheeler on the side of the road,
[02:18:53] on the opposite side of the road, but it's an arrow road.
[02:18:55] Yeah, yeah.
[02:18:55] And as we're hauling all of a sudden, we hit a water.
[02:19:01] Like a water probably a couple inches deep of water.
[02:19:05] Yeah, mud because it's what happened.
[02:19:07] Somewhere irrigation from all this farmland had broken and there was this flood.
[02:19:13] And so we hit this thing and we're immediately hydropel.
[02:19:16] And and life is from Texas.
[02:19:18] Life is from Texas.
[02:19:20] So he did not use to driving in the snow.
[02:19:22] I grew up driving in the snow in New England.
[02:19:23] You know, you just deal with it.
[02:19:25] Everyone's like a rally driver up there.
[02:19:26] Yeah, yeah, that's the thing.
[02:19:27] And so and so life, he's not really used to this.
[02:19:31] And he starts to oversteer the car, which is really, really bad.
[02:19:35] Yeah.
[02:19:36] And you know, I'm sitting there and we're going 65 miles an hour.
[02:19:37] He he he he he's Floody would he tells the story too.
[02:19:40] Because he's like we we thought we were going to die.
[02:19:42] He thought he's like we were definitely going to die.
[02:19:44] Yeah.
[02:19:45] And I'm sitting there in the passenger seat and I say, uh, don't oversteer.
[02:19:48] Don't oversteer.
[02:19:49] No breaks.
[02:19:50] No breaks.
[02:19:51] All right, you're good.
[02:19:52] Because that's the other thing mistake you can make.
[02:19:53] If you jam on the brakes.
[02:19:54] Yeah.
[02:19:55] You're going to lock it up and you're going to slide.
[02:19:56] You're going to lose control.
[02:19:58] So I just don't don't oversteer.
[02:19:59] Don't oversteer.
[02:20:00] No breaks.
[02:20:01] No breaks.
[02:20:02] All right, you're good.
[02:20:04] So that was not my reaction when I got down the phone by the lizard.
[02:20:07] Ah.
[02:20:08] It was hilarious.
[02:20:10] Yeah.
[02:20:11] Thank you.
[02:20:12] It's all good.
[02:20:14] But hey, man, you know, if you want to support this podcast, I will just talk about that.
[02:20:22] Impossible.
[02:20:23] Do it.
[02:20:24] So one good way and support this is the, well, okay, this is what it is.
[02:20:27] Origin right, origin the brand.
[02:20:30] Origin main.com.
[02:20:31] That's what I've said.
[02:20:32] A lot of cool stuff.
[02:20:34] One of the cool items actually there's a bunch of our keys for GJ2.
[02:20:39] I remember back when, um, kind of won't be for a started this thing.
[02:20:44] That would be the main question about GJ2.
[02:20:46] Oh, yeah.
[02:20:47] And I mean, I've been like, oh, yeah, there's these and I give them the three.
[02:20:51] The top actually there was four of them.
[02:20:53] And it was shortly after where you recommended these origin ones.
[02:20:59] And then when I went there, I was like, oh, shoot, this is kind of expensive.
[02:21:02] I don't know, you know, but then I just looked at the one that was like, it was like the
[02:21:06] first one I saw.
[02:21:07] But there are many varying prices of keys.
[02:21:14] And they're all good, by the way.
[02:21:15] I know this because I have some.
[02:21:18] Nonetheless, if you're still wondering what kind of key to get origin G, 100% you have, um,
[02:21:26] options, you know, as far as pricing and stuff like that.
[02:21:29] If you want to T-Lock's one versus the more basic one, but they're all dope.
[02:21:32] And here's the thing about them.
[02:21:35] They're all made in America and not in the sense where they're just kind of assembled
[02:21:40] in America, but the, you know, the materials of source somewhere else, the materials are
[02:21:46] sourced.
[02:21:47] Would you call them sourced?
[02:21:48] Because the raw material comes from the sea, or the sea, or the sea, or the sea, or the sea,
[02:21:53] or the sea, or the sea, or the sea.
[02:21:54] So I'm wearing it.
[02:21:55] Here America.
[02:21:56] I know that.
[02:21:57] America.
[02:21:58] It's brought over to Maine, assembled, or wouldn't not loom.
[02:22:04] Yeah, that's not appropriate.
[02:22:05] Yeah, woven on a loom, boom into this outstanding material, moisture.
[02:22:12] What do you call it?
[02:22:13] Weakling, weakling.
[02:22:14] That's when it kind of like helps with moisture.
[02:22:18] I didn't know all this by the way.
[02:22:19] I'm like being educated on it.
[02:22:21] And there's lots to know, by the way.
[02:22:23] And I, and time microbial, that's a big deal.
[02:22:28] Anyway, or do you mean dot com?
[02:22:30] That's where you get school stuff.
[02:22:31] There's other stuff too, like rashguards.
[02:22:33] And even like clothes, regular clothes, athletic wear.
[02:22:36] It's dope.
[02:22:37] Anyway, all made America in America, boom.
[02:22:40] Also, for some legitimate fitness care on it.
[02:22:45] Dot com slash jockel.
[02:22:47] I just got the, I know, I'm into kettlebells.
[02:22:49] I know I said that before.
[02:22:50] I'm going to say it again.
[02:22:52] What is yours?
[02:22:53] What is your heaviest kettlebell?
[02:22:54] I don't even have 40 kilograms.
[02:22:56] Right.
[02:22:57] So 88 pounds.
[02:22:58] Okay.
[02:22:59] Mine's 90.
[02:23:00] By the way.
[02:23:01] I have two of them.
[02:23:03] Do you only have one?
[02:23:04] I only have one.
[02:23:05] I only have one currently.
[02:23:06] I have, all right.
[02:23:07] Well, she would, I guess, you know, it's clear what I got to do.
[02:23:10] Maybe I'll get another one.
[02:23:11] Step it up.
[02:23:12] But, um, she was, I talking to you about it.
[02:23:15] Oh, yeah, more again.
[02:23:16] You know, more again.
[02:23:17] Yeah.
[02:23:18] Right.
[02:23:19] We're talking about kettlebell.
[02:23:20] Or against the Morgan's feeling strong.
[02:23:21] I told him that yesterday.
[02:23:22] Yeah.
[02:23:23] Not just because that's.
[02:23:24] It's kind of an insult in G.J.2.
[02:23:27] Yeah.
[02:23:28] Right.
[02:23:29] It's like, hey, you feel really strong.
[02:23:30] It's an insult.
[02:23:31] Yeah.
[02:23:32] But I, I made it perfectly clear yesterday.
[02:23:34] I was like, hey, you feel jujitsu strong.
[02:23:37] I said, it's not, I'm not trying to say you feel strong.
[02:23:40] Like, hey, you're a meathead.
[02:23:42] Right.
[02:23:43] But you feel strong in a positive way.
[02:23:45] Because, and I said, here's the deal.
[02:23:47] If it was just you being strong, then five years ago, when I started training
[02:23:51] here, I'm like, oh, you feel strong.
[02:23:52] I didn't say it then because didn't feel strong.
[02:23:54] You feel strong now that you're jujitsu is getting.
[02:23:56] Yeah.
[02:23:57] Get it better and you're getting more skills.
[02:23:59] Yeah.
[02:24:00] I feel like we got to come up with a different expression or maybe just a modified expression.
[02:24:05] Because some people, yeah, like, they'll, people tell me I'm strong or whatever.
[02:24:10] And after a while, I was like, wait, I felt the same thing that you, you know, one time
[02:24:14] I told you, like, you're strong.
[02:24:16] I thought it was kind of maybe subconsciously.
[02:24:18] I thought it was kind of established that, okay, look, you're really good at jujitsu.
[02:24:23] Yeah.
[02:24:24] I was kind of a given. So if I were to tell you, you're strong, it'd be kind of like,
[02:24:28] I like rebut, yeah.
[02:24:29] Was I like, oh yeah.
[02:24:30] I was like, we're like, no, my technique.
[02:24:32] You're like, no, my technique.
[02:24:33] I was like, yeah, no, no, I know that.
[02:24:34] I know your technique is outstanding.
[02:24:36] I got to sense it.
[02:24:37] Yeah, a little bit, not in an angry way or nothing like that.
[02:24:39] But yeah, yeah, I'm falling in actually.
[02:24:41] I'm surprised that I wasn't a little bit more sarcastic about it.
[02:24:45] See, okay, which means, I got surprised.
[02:24:47] I didn't say, yeah, I'm glad I'm so strong.
[02:24:50] Yeah.
[02:24:51] That I can just, you know what I straight away you like that.
[02:24:53] I know people don't mean it.
[02:24:54] I know they don't mean that.
[02:24:55] You know what, how we take it, kind of like, you're strong.
[02:24:58] Yeah.
[02:24:59] It's your physical strength, not your jujitsu technique.
[02:25:01] That's what we take it as.
[02:25:03] Yeah.
[02:25:03] And they're just throwing it in like, how, essentially, how I did with you is kind of like,
[02:25:07] look, you're better than jujitsu than me.
[02:25:09] You beat me up all the time.
[02:25:10] But in the disadvantage.
[02:25:11] You're pretty strong too.
[02:25:13] Yeah, that's probably what people are saying most of the time.
[02:25:17] But so when people be like, dang, you're strong.
[02:25:20] You're great.
[02:25:21] You, when they say you're strong, I say, yeah, I lift a lot of weight.
[02:25:24] So it kind of gives them the impression kind of like, yeah, I might weight lifting basically beats your jujitsu kind of thing.
[02:25:29] And that's a more of an insult, you know, kind of thing.
[02:25:31] Oh, brother.
[02:25:32] It's, it's a joke, really.
[02:25:34] No.
[02:25:35] Nonetheless.
[02:25:36] So, yes, Morgan, he's strong.
[02:25:39] Jujitsu strong.
[02:25:40] Jujitsu strong.
[02:25:41] So he's technique is strong.
[02:25:42] So that means his technique is getting better and it reveals.
[02:25:45] Right.
[02:25:46] It can deliver the strength in the proper way.
[02:25:48] Yeah.
[02:25:49] Yeah.
[02:25:49] That's good job.
[02:25:50] Morgan.
[02:25:50] But we were talking about kettlebells.
[02:25:51] Yeah.
[02:25:52] And he was like, bro, kettlebells are hard.
[02:25:53] So I started to feel kind of good.
[02:25:55] Because I got this 90 pound one and I was like, I lifted it up and you know, okay, you know,
[02:25:59] this, the one hand boom, clean, what do you clean press?
[02:26:02] Is there if you use your legs?
[02:26:05] If you use your legs to snap it up there a little bit.
[02:26:07] Yes, that's the cleaner jerk.
[02:26:08] Okay.
[02:26:09] You didn't want to ask.
[02:26:10] If you just do, if you don't use any legs and you just power it up smoothly, that's a press.
[02:26:14] Okay.
[02:26:15] So my, it's clean and jerk.
[02:26:16] Yeah.
[02:26:16] I just use the whole kind of body, whatever.
[02:26:19] So my met cons they do when I got the wearable funds, those are like 62 pounds.
[02:26:25] I do two at a time.
[02:26:26] Boom.
[02:26:27] Okay.
[02:26:28] Easy.
[02:26:29] And you do reps, you know, it's a whole thing.
[02:26:31] So I got this, the gorilla one, 72 pounds.
[02:26:34] And I could do that one.
[02:26:36] Just as you get strong, you know.
[02:26:37] So I get the 90 pound one and I'm like, I only got one too.
[02:26:40] So I don't know.
[02:26:41] Do you think two at one time is easier?
[02:26:42] Because of the balance, right?
[02:26:43] No, it's not easier.
[02:26:44] Just, I mean, you're using more energy for sure.
[02:26:47] But as far as like doing the balance, it's like not easier.
[02:26:50] Yeah. Okay.
[02:26:51] Well, so one is easier.
[02:26:53] One is for sure.
[02:26:54] Okay.
[02:26:55] Well, okay.
[02:26:56] Gotcha.
[02:26:57] So I got one big foot that's 90 pounds.
[02:26:59] And I lifted that up.
[02:27:00] I was like, man, I'm not.
[02:27:02] Okay.
[02:27:03] Okay.
[02:27:04] And so it was like maybe two, three days later, I was like, well, I got to try that's the, you know, like, the 72 pound one. I can do that.
[02:27:12] You know, a bunch of times actually.
[02:27:14] But so I just warmed up a bunch and just, first time I did it, like, I straight up failed. I couldn't do it.
[02:27:20] And I was like, all right, all right, I know how it feels now and all this stuff.
[02:27:23] And then I could do it.
[02:27:24] Boom, both sides.
[02:27:25] So you're good.
[02:27:26] It's boom.
[02:27:26] Yeah.
[02:27:27] That's good.
[02:27:27] So I'll let.
[02:27:28] Glad we all know that now.
[02:27:30] Yep.
[02:27:30] Hey, hey, got, you know, it's relevant.
[02:27:32] Just say actually, which is actually what makes kettlebells kind of fun to do is because it does require legitimate technique.
[02:27:40] Yeah.
[02:27:41] You can't say it like it's hard. It's like a dumbbell or a barbell or a machine. Well, if you're doing barbell snatches, it takes a hell of a ton of time.
[02:27:50] And that's really the spectrum.
[02:27:52] You know, so if you go like kettlebell and dumb, because dumbbells are straight up balanced.
[02:27:56] I mean, they're not, but they're not like a pretty, but they have a handle both sides of the handle equal amount of weight.
[02:28:01] You know, boom, you just have to balance your body and then after you get that balance down is pretty easy.
[02:28:06] Or a bell even less because you don't have two sides got to be balanced. It's just one long thing. Then two sides of that is balanced.
[02:28:12] Then you go machine, you don't even need balance. You just need this strength to push. So it's that spectrum to the kettlebell.
[02:28:18] It's a way on this side of the spectrum where it kind of, there's the game within the game, you know, this will make some more fun.
[02:28:24] I think you see progress in both areas technique and strength.
[02:28:29] Anyway, we'll leave it at that.
[02:28:31] If you want the cool kettlebells on it dot com slash chuckle or jump ropes battle maces.
[02:28:39] The way, do you call them battle maces or just maces?
[02:28:42] Yeah, those are going to clubs.
[02:28:44] Yeah, though, you can get some cool workouts with that and they do like your forearms get.
[02:28:50] I didn't look into like what exactly, you know, they're going to improve, but I know course strength and all this stuff, but there's all these little things they improve too.
[02:29:00] How's Danny's stuff?
[02:29:02] Also, good way to support if you're going to get this book men at how do you pronounce good the place?
[02:29:10] Or name, or name, or name, or name, or name, or name, Jeffrey Powell.
[02:29:15] That's how I pronounce it anyway.
[02:29:16] Some of apologize to anyone that's from Holland.
[02:29:19] Yeah.
[02:29:20] And pronounce it a different way.
[02:29:21] I looked at it on YouTube and how they said it.
[02:29:23] And it was like, they say, oh, how do pronounce our name?
[02:29:26] And there's 14 different ways to say it. So I just rolled the dice and picked one that sounded easiest for me to say.
[02:29:33] So sorry if I'm saying it wrong.
[02:29:36] Yeah, man, no, all good.
[02:29:38] But if you want to get that book or any other book that jokery using the website, just go to jokopodcast.com.
[02:29:48] On the top menu there, click on books from episodes.
[02:29:52] All the books are listed there by episode.
[02:29:55] Along with the few other things, but mainly just the books,
[02:29:58] by episode you click through their boom, takes you to Amazon.
[02:30:01] Get those books there. That's a good way to support.
[02:30:04] That's the Amazon click through.
[02:30:06] Or if you're doing the other shopping, if you're getting a tripod or a video camera or dotting or whatever.
[02:30:13] Click through their boom. That's a good way to support. Great way to support.
[02:30:17] Also, a little addition there.
[02:30:19] You know how we had the website, jokopodcast2.com.
[02:30:24] That's a long story. I think I went into it.
[02:30:26] It was like when I was like testing like what website provider whatever.
[02:30:30] I was like let me get this one because what if I'm attached it and it's a long story.
[02:30:34] And then, so we ended up getting jokopodcast.com and they're both kind of there.
[02:30:39] But jokopodcast2 is kind of the primary one.
[02:30:43] It's not the primary one anymore.
[02:30:46] Jokopodcast.
[02:30:47] It's jokopodcast.com.
[02:30:49] Okay.
[02:30:50] So that's the website.
[02:30:51] And that was actually a trooper that straight up got us jokopodcast.
[02:30:54] You know, you're looking out for us.
[02:30:56] Yeah.
[02:30:56] Because in then that's a big deal.
[02:30:57] Sound of New York.
[02:30:58] Good dude.
[02:30:59] Yeah.
[02:30:59] That's a huge deal because like, do you have your own name?
[02:31:04] Yeah.
[02:31:05] Okay.
[02:31:05] So people will be like, oh, this guy's blowing up.
[02:31:08] They'll go and they'll buy the domain name either.
[02:31:10] Hold onto it or immediately go to you and be like, hey, you want to buy this for me?
[02:31:14] Yeah.
[02:31:15] They told it a hostage.
[02:31:16] Yeah.
[02:31:16] In fact, I think there might be like a legal like defense against it.
[02:31:20] Like if someone gets your name or your your kids name and you're kind of a public for your
[02:31:25] I think I'm not sure.
[02:31:27] But yeah, that's what people do meant.
[02:31:28] They'll or they'll buy a bunch of domain names that sound cool.
[02:31:31] Yeah.
[02:31:32] They'll be like, yeah.
[02:31:34] You can buy this for me.
[02:31:35] Kind of thing.
[02:31:36] It's super whack when they do it with like Euro.
[02:31:38] You know, when they know like that's your company.
[02:31:40] You have to be had for a long time.
[02:31:42] They, I don't know what they've paid for.
[02:31:44] Eventually paid for UFC dot com.
[02:31:46] But for a long time, they were like UFC dot TV and all these.
[02:31:49] Yeah.
[02:31:50] They had to step up.
[02:31:51] I bet you they bet somebody made a lot of money off that one.
[02:31:54] Yeah.
[02:31:55] You see, especially the three letters.
[02:31:57] Yes.
[02:31:58] Like if you get the last letter.
[02:31:59] That's a lot of money.
[02:32:00] Crazy Tom.
[02:32:01] Nonetheless, but yeah, jacobadcast dot com.
[02:32:03] That's the main website.
[02:32:04] No.
[02:32:05] If you were going to jacobadcast too dot com, it's it's not that anymore.
[02:32:09] Does that send you the over?
[02:32:10] It does did.
[02:32:12] But while I'm switching, I'm doing this thing.
[02:32:14] It will eventually.
[02:32:15] It will eventually.
[02:32:16] But if you run into that, that's why people have been hitting me up.
[02:32:21] And rightly so.
[02:32:23] Thanks for that.
[02:32:24] So yeah, nonetheless, back to the point, if you want to support and by getting these books
[02:32:28] go through the website and click through there, it's a good way to support.
[02:32:32] Smoo action.
[02:32:33] Huge reaction.
[02:32:34] Small.
[02:32:35] Huge.
[02:32:36] That's what it works.
[02:32:37] Also subscribe to the podcast.
[02:32:39] iTunes.
[02:32:40] If you haven't already.
[02:32:42] Stitcher.
[02:32:43] If you don't use IOS.
[02:32:45] Google play.
[02:32:47] Any anywhere they will where they provide podcasts.
[02:32:50] Boom, we're on there.
[02:32:51] So subscribe.
[02:32:52] That's a good way.
[02:32:53] Also YouTube.
[02:32:54] Yes, I put some excerpts on there.
[02:32:56] More excerpts.
[02:32:57] I'm going to continue to do so.
[02:32:59] Shareable excerpts.
[02:33:00] Try to keep them under four minutes.
[02:33:02] That's cool right?
[02:33:03] Yeah.
[02:33:04] Might be a little long.
[02:33:05] But everyone's in a while.
[02:33:06] You get it like a good like 10 minute one.
[02:33:08] Pressure thing.
[02:33:09] Yeah.
[02:33:10] But they're more sure better than two.
[02:33:11] That's a long thing.
[02:33:12] Think about the videos that you want to get compression three minutes four minutes tops.
[02:33:17] Yeah.
[02:33:18] And it depends on the, you should edit them maybe.
[02:33:20] Like make them shorter.
[02:33:22] Yeah.
[02:33:23] Yeah.
[02:33:24] I mean, if it's appropriate because sometimes you don't want it.
[02:33:28] Sometimes it's just you saying like a whole thing.
[02:33:31] And it's like, okay, that's solid.
[02:33:33] And sometimes it's you.
[02:33:34] And then my rebuttal to kind of kind of bolster the point your point because you'll
[02:33:39] clarify it because I, you know.
[02:33:41] And it's all it's, it makes sense.
[02:33:43] So sometimes if you edit certain things out, maybe the message isn't there.
[02:33:47] Sure.
[02:33:48] Much as much as you should be.
[02:33:49] Not all the time.
[02:33:50] Not all the time.
[02:33:51] But most of the time.
[02:33:52] Nonetheless, I'll look into it about that.
[02:33:54] Ideally, if a video and this goes along with like people's typical attention span,
[02:34:02] it should be what?
[02:34:04] Like about a minute and a half.
[02:34:06] I don't know about my attention span.
[02:34:07] It's getting tested right now.
[02:34:09] But I support you.
[02:34:11] Just saying, this is important stuff we need to go over this.
[02:34:15] So we can come to the best conclusion on how to conduct ourselves in regards to YouTube
[02:34:21] excerpts and other things.
[02:34:23] Nonetheless, subscribe to YouTube channel.
[02:34:25] It's good.
[02:34:26] We're going to provide value.
[02:34:28] How about that?
[02:34:29] No.
[02:34:30] Also, if you're into the video version because some people are.
[02:34:35] Some people are into more the video version of the podcast.
[02:34:38] Yeah.
[02:34:39] You know, boom, subscribe.
[02:34:40] If you haven't already.
[02:34:41] YouTube.
[02:34:42] Also, jockelas is a store.
[02:34:45] It's called jockels store.
[02:34:47] Jockels.com.
[02:34:48] If you didn't already know, on there we got some cool stuff.
[02:34:51] Shirts mainly.
[02:34:52] Some rashguards.
[02:34:53] I just made an order for hoodies.
[02:34:55] Thicker.
[02:34:56] Have here.
[02:34:57] Fall is coming.
[02:34:59] Are we in fall right now?
[02:35:00] The first day of fall is like the other day.
[02:35:03] We're in fall.
[02:35:04] Yeah.
[02:35:05] So we got some not that we're doing a whole seasonal thing.
[02:35:07] I'm just saying it's fall now getting cool.
[02:35:11] Getting cooler.
[02:35:12] Check.
[02:35:13] Got some hoodies on there.
[02:35:14] Got some rashguards on there.
[02:35:16] I think I'm going to do a warrior kid rashguard.
[02:35:20] I have one.
[02:35:21] Yeah.
[02:35:22] No.
[02:35:23] But it's not in production.
[02:35:25] Yeah.
[02:35:26] And it's not.
[02:35:27] I'm going to change it a little bit.
[02:35:28] Some coloring stuff and whatever.
[02:35:30] But it is pretty cool.
[02:35:31] Good.
[02:35:32] Good little.
[02:35:33] Pre-response.
[02:35:34] Also hats on there.
[02:35:36] And some other cool stuff.
[02:35:37] I'm not saying get something.
[02:35:38] I'm saying go on there.
[02:35:40] Check it out.
[02:35:42] If you want to support and you want to get something, you think something is cool.
[02:35:47] For yourself or for your, you know, friend, girlfriend, neighbor, whoever.
[02:35:53] Then get something.
[02:35:54] Good way to support.
[02:35:55] Actually, great way to support.
[02:35:57] Also psychological warfare.
[02:35:59] Okay.
[02:36:00] What psychological warfare is if you don't know, it's an album with jockel tracks.
[02:36:05] So basically, if you're on your campaign against weakness and you have a moment of weakness,
[02:36:13] this is like a little spot.
[02:36:14] So basically, you put on these audio tracks to let you know, hey, pragmatically, don't skip this
[02:36:22] work out today.
[02:36:23] Hey, don't slip on this diet today.
[02:36:25] Hey, your procrastination isn't working.
[02:36:28] And here's why.
[02:36:29] But it's jockel telling you.
[02:36:30] So it's kind of like more effective way more effective.
[02:36:34] 100% success rate in my experience.
[02:36:38] 100%
[02:36:39] Best legit.
[02:36:40] Hey, also jockel,
[02:36:43] why, if you want it, you can get that on Amazon.
[02:36:44] It tastes good and it makes you feel good.
[02:36:47] Also, on originmain.com, you can get jocco, super curl.
[02:36:53] Criollo, that will make you feel good.
[02:36:56] And on top of that, you can get jocco joint warfare, which is awesome.
[02:37:02] What's in that, by the way?
[02:37:04] It's glucosamine,
[02:37:07] control goes the main, the main, but then we put some additional things in there.
[02:37:12] Yeah, and it's it's been rocking.
[02:37:14] It's it's it's awesome.
[02:37:17] You've got books or I've got some books.
[02:37:20] If you want to read them, one is called Way the Warrior Kid.
[02:37:23] One is called Extreme Ownership.
[02:37:25] The Warrior Kid book is for kids.
[02:37:27] Extreme ownership is for people and leadership positions or people that want to be in leadership positions.
[02:37:31] There's also a new book coming out called Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual.
[02:37:35] It actually comes out October 17th.
[02:37:37] And at one point, many months ago, October 17th seemed like it was a long way as a way,
[02:37:42] but it's not anymore.
[02:37:44] It's here.
[02:37:45] So you can order that one.
[02:37:46] It is unlike any book that you have ever seen or read.
[02:37:50] Also, what's interesting about this book is people keep asking me if it's going to be unaudible.
[02:37:54] It's not going to be unaudible.
[02:37:56] Instead of being unaudible, it is going to be un iTunes.
[02:37:59] It's going to be on Amazon MP3.
[02:38:02] It's going to be on Google Play.
[02:38:05] It's going to be where you can find MP3 tracks.
[02:38:09] There's a reason for this.
[02:38:10] If you do it through audible, you get this one big, long book.
[02:38:15] And what the book is, the way the book is written, it's written to be chunked up.
[02:38:20] And you're going to want to take parts of it and play it at certain times.
[02:38:24] More like you would do with the psychological warfare album.
[02:38:27] So people are asking for more psychological warfare.
[02:38:30] That's what we're doing.
[02:38:31] Discipline and go to freedom field manual.
[02:38:32] It's going to be available as an album that you can buy.
[02:38:35] And then you can do what you want with the track.
[02:38:37] You can make them your alarm ringtone.
[02:38:39] You can listen to them out of order in any order.
[02:38:41] You can put them in a mix.
[02:38:43] You can do a lot more stuff with them.
[02:38:44] That's why we're doing it as an album with tracks instead of as an audible book.
[02:38:51] So you know what?
[02:38:52] We might, you know, people might have a little challenge finding it or realizing,
[02:38:56] you know, when they go on an Amazon or they go on a Barnes and Noble,
[02:38:59] they won't see that it's available.
[02:39:01] They'll be looking for the audible and you won't be able to find it.
[02:39:04] I'm sorry.
[02:39:05] We'll just in the audible, I think that's where they won't find it.
[02:39:08] You don't be able to find it in the audible platform.
[02:39:10] Right.
[02:39:11] We're not being there.
[02:39:12] But it'll be on Amazon just a little bit on Amazon.
[02:39:13] But you, I don't think it'll be linked in to the same thing where you go,
[02:39:18] oh, here it is.
[02:39:19] I think it's going to be hidden.
[02:39:20] It's going to be hard to find.
[02:39:21] Kind of like a tart to find on iTunes.
[02:39:22] It's hard to find psychological warfare.
[02:39:24] But the question is, do you want to do, did I want to do something right or just do something easy?
[02:39:29] Yeah, that's true.
[02:39:30] Because the, the field manual, like any field manual, like when you want to go refer to it,
[02:39:35] you don't want to be searching around.
[02:39:37] Yeah, it's really not.
[02:39:38] Yeah, it's really not.
[02:39:39] You mean like, okay, what is that one part, you know, that deals with this and you,
[02:39:42] boom, you can just go to the, you just look for a track name in there.
[02:39:45] So like I said, we could have done the easy thing and, and whatever,
[02:39:49] you know, had everyone just be able to click on it really easy.
[02:39:51] I'm, I apologize, but if you want the right way, then that's what I had to do.
[02:39:55] So that's that book.
[02:39:57] And then echelon front, that's the leadership consulting company that I have with
[02:40:04] Lave Babin, with JB to know, Dave Burke.
[02:40:07] If you want to have us come and work with your business,
[02:40:10] contact info at echelonfront.com.
[02:40:14] And if you have any questions or if you have any answers,
[02:40:19] or if you just want to continue this conversation,
[02:40:23] you can find us on the interwebs on Twitter,
[02:40:27] on Instagram and on the Facebook.
[02:40:30] Echo is at echelon chart and I am at Jocca Willink and finally thanks to everyone
[02:40:37] out there for making this podcast possible.
[02:40:41] To those of you in the military, especially those right now on the
[02:40:47] front, the first and the second and the third of the four line of our own troops,
[02:40:50] facing evil every day.
[02:40:52] Thank you for providing this freedom that we enjoy and to the first responders in law
[02:40:58] enforcement, and fire, and EMS.
[02:41:00] Thank you for taking care of us while we are here at home.
[02:41:05] And the rest of you that are out there, that are working and building and
[02:41:12] creating and creating and leading.
[02:41:18] Keep leading.
[02:41:20] Keep stepping up, keep taking on challenges and keep striving to do more and to
[02:41:28] be more, keep picking up the pace and keep pushing harder and no matter what the odds
[02:41:37] or what the probabilities.
[02:41:41] Keep getting after it.
[02:41:45] So, until next time, this is Echo and Jocco.
[02:41:51] Thank you.