Pointe du Hoc France

Legendary

View the stronghold where American forces scaled the cliffs to capture the highest point between Utah and Omaha beaches.

Photo by FaceMePLS

Before the Rangers went up the cliff, a Navy officer said three old women with brooms could stop them. The men climbed anyway, on wet ropes, while German soldiers above cut the lines and dropped grenades.

Within five minutes, the first Ranger was on top. Within fifteen, most of them were.

Pointe du Hoc is a headland of 100-foot cliffs on the coast of Normandy, France. It sits between two of the D-Day landing beaches, Omaha to the east and Utah to the west.

That location was the problem. German soldiers had six big guns on top, each able to fire about 25 kilometers, which put both beaches in range.

Allied planners called it the most dangerous German position on the whole coast. Bombers hit it for weeks, but the bunkers were too strong.

So the job went to 225 men of the United States Army's 2nd Ranger Battalion, led by Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder. Their orders were to land at the base of the cliff, climb it, and destroy the guns.

On the morning of June 6, 1944, their boats drifted off course and arrived 40 minutes late. As they approached, the Rangers fired rockets that shot grappling hooks and ropes up the cliff.

Many ropes were too wet and heavy to reach the top. The Rangers climbed the ones that did, using ladders and their hands where they had to.

Only about 15 men were killed or wounded in the climb itself. At the top, they found the gun bunkers empty.

The Germans had moved the guns days earlier and replaced them with telephone poles to fool Allied planes. A two-man patrol found the real guns hidden in an orchard about 500 meters inland and blew them up with grenades.

Then the Rangers had to hold on. German counterattacks came for two days, and when help finally arrived on June 8, only about 90 of the original 225 could still fight.

Walk among the bomb craters, some deep enough to swallow a car, still scattered across the grass 80 years later. Climb into the concrete bunkers, where you can see the shell damage on the walls. Stand at the cliff edge and look down, then imagine going up it with someone shooting at you.