Pointe du Hoc
Republished almost every year;
Rangers Mission for D-Day, 6 June 1944
The Ranger Group, attached to the 116th Infantry and commanded by Lt. Col. James E. Rudder, was given the mission to capture Pointe du Hoc and destroy the guns. The Ranger Group was made up of two battalions: the 2d Rangers, under direct command of Col. Rudder, and the 5th Rangers, under Lt. Col. Max F. Schneider. Three companies (D, E, and F) of the 2d Battalion (Task Force A) were to land from the sea at H-Hour and assault the cliff position at Pointe du Hoc. The main Ranger force (5th Battalion and Companies A and B of the 2d, comprising Task Force B) would wait off shore for a signal of success, then land at the Point. The Ranger Group would then move inland, cut the coastal highway connecting Grandcamp and Vierville, and await the arrival of the 116th Infantry from Vierville before pushing west toward Grandcamp and Maisy.
One DUKW was hit and sunk by 20-mm fire from a cliff position near the Point. The nine surviving LCAs came in and managed to land in parallel on a 400-yard front on the east side of Point du Hoc, landing about 0705. Allied naval fire had been lifted since H-Hour, giving the Germans above the cliff time to recover. Scattered small-arms fire and automatic fire from a flanking machine-gun position hammered the LCAs, causing about fifteen casualties as the Rangers debarked on the heavily cratered strip of beach. The grapnel rockets were fired immediately on touchdown. Some of the water-soaked ropes failed to carry over the cliff, but only one craft failed to get at least one grapnel to the edge. In one or two cases, the demountable extension ladders were used. The DUKWs came in but could not get across the cratered beach, and from the water’s edge their extension ladders would not reach the top of the cliff.
Despite all difficulties, the Rangers used the ropes and ladders to scramble up the cliff. The German defenders were shocked by the bombardment and improbable assault, but quickly responded by cutting as many ropes as they could. They rushed to the cliff edge and poured direct rifle and machine gun fire on the Rangers, augmented by grenades tossed down the slope. The Rangers never broke, continuing to climb amidst the fire as Ranger BAR men picked off any exposed Germans. The destroyer USS Satterlee (DD-626) observed the Rangers’ precarious position, closed to 1500 yards and took the cliff top under direct fire from all guns, a considerable assist at a crucial time.
Within ten minutes of the landing the first Americans reached the top of the cliffs.
I may just watch “The Longest Day” tonight. “What does ‘bitte, bitte’ mean?”
Category: Historical
Good Lord, what men we had. I think that growing up in the depression hardened these men to be able to take a keen edge when preparing for and conducting that war. I have served with many great people during my time in the Marine Corps over the last 22 years, but I think that the “greatest generation” was made that way due to the hardships that almost everyone had endured at that time. We have a great generation of military men and women now (and always have had), but I wonder if we could mobilize the ENTIRE country as they did in the 40s. My guess is it would be a whole hell of a lot harder.
Ordinary men who did great things, and to whom we are all indebted.
An incredible feat. I took the fam to the site a couple years back, and looking up those cliffs really brings the enormity of the task and the individual valor home. Rangers lead the way!
“Bitte, bitte” means “please, please”, as in “mercy, please!”
The greatest struggle between good and true evil in the history of mankind.
When you look back at what could truly be called a clusterfuck of an operation and the things that looked to be true screw ups turned out to be the very things that helped the invasion succeed you have to thank a loving God for his help on that day.
He truly works in mysterious ways.
Had we not had the men of that day our world would be a much colder, harder place.
Harden up, harden the fuck up…
The assault on Pointe du Hoc. An outstanding feat of arms under the most severe of conditions.
‘Rangers lead the way!’ is so much more than just a slogan or a bumper sticker.
Semper Fidelis, Rangers.
Anyone who hasn’t listened to them (or hasn’t listened to them in a while) should listen to Ronald Reagan’s speeches from 1984. Both “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech and the speech he gave on Omaha Beach later that day.
Brave men called upon to do what was thought of as being impossible… to liberate a continent.
So humbling to read about their sheer brass ballness. These men and the rest of the Greatest Generation who liberated Europe saved my mother’s family from a living hell. My grandfather spent several years in Dachau (and no he wasn’t Jewish, he was Roman Catholic). He was liberated by the Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division. His fondest wish before he died was to be able to visit the US. He came over in 1974 and died in 1975.
Truly an incredible day and incredible men to remember.
I wonder how many of those WWII Rangers, if they could see the socialist, American hating, muslim appeasers of today’s Europe, would think it was worth even one Rangers life…
I look at those cliffs and I still ask ‘How they hell did they do it?’
Things were a little tough back in 67-68 but nothing, NOTHING like what these fine men faced on 6 June.
God Bless them all!
My Grandfather, all 5ft of Frenchman went ashore at Omaha. Never talked about it like most who did
Here’s something written on June 6, 1949 by the legendary AP correspondent Hal Boyle:
“It is D-Day plus five years, soldier, on this sandy coast where the world hinged on what you did.
Because you did well here your world at home is as good as it is, and if it isn’t any better, why they’ll just have to blame someone else. There are some things you can do with a gun and there are other things you can’t.
What’s it like here now, soldier, five years after you landed and put the first torch to Adolf Hitler’s Western wall?
Well, the best answer might come from Pvt. Anthony R. Calif, or his neighbor, Pfc. Marvin C. Garness, or his neighbor, Lt. George W. Phillips, who has become a buddy of Staff Sgt. Miles S. Lewis.
They have all settled here together, and they are quiet men.
But, they wouldn’t be interested so much in telling you what it’s like now.
They’d rather ask you: “What’s it like now at home? And, my folks – are they well and happy?
For they came here to stay, silent citizens of a silent American city on foreign soil. They rest with 9,523 other soldiers in the U.S. military cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach.”
Perry, I just read this a few minutes ago….if it doesn’t put a lump in your throat nothing will.
Beautiful post.
God bless all those brave men who never came home from the invasion. May we remember them always.