This is CBS Eye on the World.

Here's John Batchel.

Patrick C. O'Donnell, the author of Dog Company,

The Boys of Ponte Do Ok, the Rangers who accomplished G-Day's

toughest mission and led the way across Europe.

It is now late summer, 1944. The Rangers have been on

several trips in different directions, including being guards for German POWs, and taking what

you'd have to say is a break between their impossible mission on D-Day, and now another impossible mission given them by command.

If I understand Patrick's presentation correctly, the Allies needed a big port, and the Germans knew it,

so they were destroying what port facilities at Sherborg existed, and they were holding off at Khan. This will be a problem

for the Allies across 40, forward into 45, the long tail, and they need a big port.

That Brest, the port behind their lines, cut off now from reinforcements by Germany.

Brest is a fortress that Hitler orders to hold till the end at all costs.

The Rangers are part of a unit given the impossible task of assaulting minefields and heavy guns

and a dug-in garrison of good troops commanded by overall commanders who are in

communication with Germany, hold at all costs, destroy the facility. Again, the rangers know

that their mission here is unlikely, except we come to September 6th. There are some big gun units here, too.

The Graf's Spey guns, which can destroy ships at sea, so you can't get too close.

The Germans have prepared this to survive forever, and the Allies don't want to leave it behind their lines.

Patrick, Lieutenant Edlin, is a star.

He's a man with charm.

What is his mission that day against the fortress at Brest?

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