Photo, above: Pointe du Hoc: a cliff scaled under almost impossible circumstances by some of the bravest young men in American history.  Pointe du Hoc is on the coast of Normandy in the north of France. In 1944 it was part of the biggest sea invasion in history. During the World War 2 planning of the assault on Nazi-captured France; Allied commanders noticed the massive coastal guns at Pointe du Hoc. There were six 155mm cannons in heavily armoured bunkers that could be very dangerous to Allied ships. See: Hour Two, Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc--the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way... by Patrick K. O'Donnell 

Pointe du Hoc was bombed during air raids by Allied planes flying from English airstrips. The heavy artillery guns were barely damaged by the bombs. Pointe du Hoc was surrounded by steep cliffs that dropped down into the sea. Only at a certain part of the day a very narrow beach would appear at the bottom of the cliffs.

The U.S. 2nd and 5th Ranger divisions had been training with the British commandos for about five months and had been climbing the British coastal cliffs for training. To get to the French coastal cliffs they were using LCA and LCVP's or Higgins boats (both were flat bottomed landing crafts made to carry troops onto the beach) manned by British navy sailors. The boats were lowered into the sea a few kilometers out to sea. The British had added some extra armour to the sides of the landing crafts, exchanging speed and manoeuverability for protection for the men that were to assault the French coast.

The nearly 100m-high cliff was attacked by the American 2nd and 5th Army Ranger Divisions. Colonel James Earl Rudder led the attack. The attack started at 06.30am when the battleship USS Texas, stopped bombarding Pointe du Hoc. Due to harsh weather conditions, the Rangers drifted off course and spent an extra half hour in reaching the beach. By then the Germans had come out of their bunkers and set up defensive positions along the ridge of the cliff. The landing craft doors were opened and the men of the two divisions ran up the beach to the cliffs. The soldiers used ropes attached to rocket propelled grappling hooks to climb the cliffs. The ropes and grappling hooks were carried in a wooden box held by two soldiers. The soldiers also used ladders that were attached to landing crafts and grappling hooks that were shot up from the boats.

When the Rangers reached the top, small groups of soldiers attacked the German positions. After reaching the gun emplacement bunkers, the Rangers found that they were no longer there. The guns were later found and destroyed in a field a bit inland.

At the end of the attack, the Rangers were forced to defend Pointe Du Hoc from constant counterattacks until they were relieved by the 5th Army Corps coming from a neighboring beach. Out of the 225 original attackers only 90 remained.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-host: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board

Hour One

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, & Gene Countryman, KNSS Wichita, in re:  AP radio clip of beginning of invasion.  At the Somme estuary, Germans are fighting back; Germans have been deceived into thinking that the invasion will begin at Le Havre and the Somme when in fact it was well to the south at Normandy.   The VA scandal reached Wichita, sadly and hugely. Wichita Eagle: half a dozen Middle Western/heartland states, also.  There are 37 whistleblower cases; OSC (Office of Special Counsel) Carolyn Lerner: egregious cases  of people taking revenge on whistleblowers. Closed PR office.  Congressional investigations in progress; chairs and ranking committee members are collaborating. Gene is enrolled at he VA; I was noting all the progress they've made in the twelve years I've been there, so this is disappointing.  MK: Crises washing over us in waves – Bergdahl, VA, many.  FR: VA is certainly not on any kind of holiday. 

..  ..  ..

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is currently investigating allegations of whistleblower reprisal from 37 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employees. The complaints, from employees at VA facilities in 19 states, include allegations of retaliation for disclosing improper scheduling practices and other threats to patient care.

Recently, OSC blocked disciplinary actions against three VA employees after they disclosed wrongdoing. At OSC’s request, the VA agreed to stay the proposed discipline to allow OSC to further investigate the reprisal claims. In the last fiscal year, OSC has obtained 14 corrective actions on behalf of VA employees, and will continue to seek relief and protection for VA whistleblowers where the facts and circumstances support their claims.

“OSC appreciates the VA’s cooperation in providing interim relief to these employees,” stated Special Counsel Carolyn Lerner. “Receiving candid information about harmful practices from employees will be critical to the VA’s efforts to identify problems and find solutions. However, employees will not come forward if they fear retaliation.”

..  ..  ..

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  LouAnn Hammond, DrivingtheNation.com, in re:  from 2014 to 1944.   Everybody in Washington is awake – racing around but not sure if the invasion has started; listening to German shortwave: "Early Tuesday morning landing craft . . . were observed around the estuary f he Somme . . . The harbor of Le Havre is being bombarded . . . the long-expected Anglo-America invasion appears to have begun." They didn’t awaken Hitler till early the next morning; he was sure that Normandy was a feint, that Pas de Calais was the real location.  The fleet is assembled invisibly because it was still dark; the mist will lift at 6AM GMT+1.    In the US: GM under Mary Barra is doing all it can to recall broken materials and repair them. First time in years that GM has had [a comparably effective] CEO.

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover, in re: Third announcement of invasion seventy years ago, always with caveats that it’s only German radio reporting – the White House and War Dept keep lights off rather than look as though there was an invasion. German-controlled Calais Radio: "This is D-Day. We shall now play music for the Allies as they invade." D-Day was the largest amphibious invasion of Europe since Xerxes. From Normandy Beach to Berlin is roughly he same distance as from Moscow to Berlin.  There was no confidence that the Allies would succeed – huge landscape and enormous supply chains.   A storm later destroyed their mulberry harbor; didn't get to Antwerp till late September.  Didn’t know that just beyond Normandy beach was a huge bocage - disastrous hedgerows; 80,000 dead. 

in 1979: we're repeating Jimmy Carter, who was sure that his Utopian view would prevail, but China went into Vietnam, Russia into Afghanistan, Venezuela "blew up"; countries have now decided that Pres Obama is weak and it’s time to cash in chips.  I see Obama as more of an ideologue and a narcissist, whereas Carter was spectacularly naïve. Obama seems to think that the US is the 1% worldwide, wield too much power, and so offloads stature and power to other nations. Unfortunately all the outreaches have failed – Iran. Russia, Syria, Taliban in Afghanistan.  Now I guess we'll get into the heavy stuff; China thinks that if it damages Japan, the US wouldn’t be there; eke Russia and the Baltics; and especially Iran: a Shi'a crescent into Israel. We'll see some dramatic things we haven’t seen in our lifetime.   . . .  Bergdahl release in exchange for major terrorists – it’s embarrassing as they try to draw a comparison to Israel, but no one trades critical prisoners for a deserter. Susan Rice: "Bergdahl served with distinction" – egad, not.  And the presser with Bergdahl's parents was a [dog's breakfast].  Pres Obama trusted that the New York Post, WaPo, CBS, would always support him.  . . .  I don't think that the president thinks he's done anything wrong.

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 1, Block D:  Reza Kahlili, author, A Time to Betray, in re:  A US delegation of 30 religious leaders and scholars travelling at the behest of the White House to meet not only religious leaders but also political leaders.  It entered two weeks ago, meeting with Rouhani, the clerics  in Qom, the leaders of Isfahan; delegation includes "Pres Obama's spiritual advisor"!  Also honchos from ht auto industry meeting industrialists in Iran – an economic delegation sent by the Obama Administration, which has official permission even though the US is supposedly committed to sanctions Europeans have been warned not to do this.  Scary.  Also: Valerie Jarrett and a team of young people travelled to Teheran two years ago.  When the John Batchelor Show reported this at the time, the White House denied it, then later affirmed the report.  Pres Obama's profound wish is to be welcomed in Teheran on a red carpet, shake hands with Khamenei.  The ayatollahs love to belittle America, truly believe that America is evil, that they can defeat it, that no harm can be done to Iran, and that they’re guaranteed victory in Syria and Lebanon. 

Hour Two

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc--the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way... by Patrick K. O'Donnell  (1 of 4)

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc--the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way... by Patrick K. O'Donnell  (2 of 4)

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc--the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way... by Patrick K. O'Donnell  (3 of 4)

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc--the Rangers Who Accomplished D-Day's Toughest Mission and Led the Way... by Patrick K. O'Donnell  (4 of 4) 

Hour Three

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  US and Palestinian officials confirmed that the Obama Administration has been negotiating with Hamas for years. In Gaza, Palestinian Authority paid 70,000 employees for seven years to be idle.  Now Hamas unemployed are demanding pay.  in the Hamas-PA "marriage," huge danger in that Hamas has thousands of missiles and other arms; will use this agreement to resuscitate their terrorist activities in Gaza and the West Bank. The role they'll play will be similar to that of Hezbollah; Kerry's visit today to Lebanon underscores that.  Policy is inverse to US security.  Death knell to any peace process: Hamas was about to cease, now has ballots and bullets. 

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  Lebanon. Kerry in Lebanon enshrines Hezbollah and Hamas, which claims to model itself after Hezbollah.  John Kerry in Lebanon, meeting the new prime minister – partially controlled by Hezbollah - also endorses Lebanese government's handling of Hezbollah.  Journalists puzzled. 

Australia: forbids using "occupied" to describe East Jerusalem. The govt will describe areas of negotiations in a less-judgmental manner.  MLA (and Rolling Stones's enormous audience in Israel):  the MLA had a resolution introduced critical of Israel. calling for a boycott and asking State Dept to  [stir things up]; 6.5% voted in favor, needed 10% to carry the motion.  Data were using complete distortions of facts on the ground.    Reza Khalili reported that there's a delegation inn Teheran endorsed by the Obama Administration. Khamenei, on the anniversary of Khomeini's death, announced that the US has removed the option of military action in Iran.  Massive banner onstage attacking the US. Iranians speak of 142 battalions and vast numbers of trained, armed men to fight against Americans, Sunni Islam, the Zionists.

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Joshua Green, Bloomberg, in re: TANKCHAIR: A LOVE STORY   An Army vet's quest to give paraplegics their life back.   The Incredible Stair-Climbing, Self-Parking, Amphibious Wheelchair. On the morning of Jan. 6, 2007, U.S. Marine Corporal Joshua Hoffman and his platoon were notified of possible insurgent activity near their station in Fallujah, Iraq. When they arrived and began a sweep of an alley, Hoffman, a tall, strapping former wrestler with a passion for muscle cars, stood out. A sniper perched in a building behind him fired a single 7.62-millimeter round that tore through his neck, shattered his upper spine, and knocked him to the ground, paralyzed and unable to breathe. In the scramble to save him, a trachea tube inserted to prevent asphyxiation severed his vocal cords, depriving him, on top of everything else, of the ability to speak.

Hoffman’s rehabilitation was lengthy and grueling, both physically and psychologically. At one point he became so frustrated that he stopped communicating with his doctors and a parent had to assume power of attorney for him. “It was a really long road,” says his caretaker, Brenda Johncock. After two years in veterans hospitals, he returned home to Middleville, Mich., where volunteers built him a wheelchair-friendly home with an extrawide doorway to the garage and his Mustang. He could no longer drive it—any movement required help—but just going out to look at it made him happy.

One evening at a fireworks show, an American Legion member told him about an amazing contraption she’d seen: a modified wheelchair with tanklike treads that could climb stairs and ford a stream. A veterans group, the Independence Fund, was raising money to buy them for wounded soldiers and marines. Was he interested?  That’s how Hoffman came to know Brad Soden. Soden is the inventor of the Tankchair, which is a wheelchair in the same sense that an aircraft carrier is a boat. His fearsome-looking machine can traverse rugged hillsides, sandy beaches, snowy embankments, and, with a top speed approaching 30 miles per hour, keep up with traffic on a typical city street. Its brain is built by a company that designs Apache helicopter control systems, so the chair can elevate to a standing position or fully recline to aid blood flow. Some versions have gun mounts and fishing reels. Some have roll bars. A few glow in the dark. One chair Soden built for a paralyzed Phoenix police officer has a . . . [more]            Here's a video of his Tankchair.

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 3, Block D:   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Senator Richard Shelby’s poison pill in the Senate NASA budget bill that will double the cost of manned commercial space.  Essentially, Shelby wants to require the commercial companies to follow the older paperwork requirements used by NASA in the past. Currently, the contract arrangements NASA has been using for these new companies have been efficient and relatively paperwork-free, allowing them to build their cargo freighters (Dragon and Cygnus) and their manned spacecraft (Dragon V2, CST-100, and Dream Chaser) for relatively little.  The older contract rules are what NASA has used for Constellation and SLS as well as all past attempts to replace the shuttle. In every case, the costs were so high the replacement was never finished. In the case of SLS, the costs will be so high it will never accomplish anything.

Why has Shelby (R-Alabama) inserted this language? He wants pork, and SLS is the way to get it. Rather than cut the cost of SLS to make it more competitive (which would also reduce the pork in his state) Shelby instead wants to make the new commercial companies more costly, thus making SLS appear more competitive. It will still cost too much and will not accomplish anything, but this way he will be able to argue for it better in congressional negotiations.

Shelby illustrates clearly that the desire to waste the taxpayers’ money is not confined to the spendthrifts in the Democratic Party. Republicans can do it, too!

The competition heats up: SpaceX plans to boost production of its rockets to 2 per month by year’s end.  They need to do this to prove they can launch their backlog of contracts of commercial satellites. And I'll say this again: I see nothing in their history to suggest that they won’t succeed.

Hour Four

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: The Lions of Carentan: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (1 of 4)

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: The Lions of Carentan: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (2 of 4)

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: The Lions of Carentan: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (3 of 4)

Thursday  5 June  2014 / Hour4, Block D:  The Lions of Carentan: Fallschirmjager Regiment 6, 1943-1945 by Volker Griesser (4 of 4)

..  ..  ..