This week on History Happy Hour: The Ranger attack on the German gun batteries at Pointe-du-Hoc in the early morning hours of D-Day is the stuff of legend.

In an encore episode, Chris and Rick welcome vaunted D-Day historian Stephen Zaloga to the show to talk about his new book, Smashing Hitler’s Guns: The Rangers at Pointe-du-Hoc D-Day 1944. We’ll walk through the legends, and the questions, and see what Zaloga has been able to unearth in this most recent account of the Rangers’ fateful mission.

Stephen Zaloga is an American historian, defense consultant, and author. He is the author of numerous books on military technology and military history, with an accent on the US Army in World War II. His grandfather landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, and his father landed a couple of weeks later, sparking a lifelong fascination with D-Day operations. He has worked as an analyst in the aerospace industry for more than three decades.