According to bestselling author Douglas Brinkley, Col. Robert W. Black “is the dean of Ranger history,” and Black proves it in this history of the U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion in World War II. Based on original documents from Allied and German sources, after-action reports, and interviews with surviving veterans, The Battalion follows this elite unit of Rangers through eleven months of almost constant action: scaling the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc on D-Day (depicted in the movie Saving Private Ryan), battling through the hedgerows of Normandy, slogging through the Hürtgen Forest, fighting at the Battle of the Bulge, and racing to the Rhine and into Germany.

Nearly a thousand men saw combat with the 2nd Rangers: 158 were killed, and 758 received Purple Hearts. From the four-man patrol that captured a German garrison of more than 800 men to the innovative combined-arms tactics that paired the Rangers with the charging metal steeds of a U.S. cavalry unit, the battalion trained, fought, and in many cases gave their lives while upholding the Ranger credo of“Rangers lead the way!”