Normandy - Pointe-du-Hoc

Pointe-du-Hoc is a German coastal artillery battery on a cliff near Omaha Beach. The Germans knew there was a possibility of an Allied landing at Omaha beach, and put six guns at the edge of Pointe-du-Hoc. They thought the 100 ft cliffs were impossible to conquer. The Americans gave it top priority to take Pointe-du-Hoc by aerial and naval bombardment, followed by a risky head-on infantry raid. The Allies needed this so they had a link between the two landings at Omaha and Utah Beaches and an observation point. 

This is a picture I found of an aerial view showing the point
and the cliffs that the US Army Rangers had to scale.

Many thought this was a suicide mission, but the job was given to the Army's elite 2nd Ranger Battalion. These 225 men were trained for this mission to go straight up the cliffs into German defenses.  Over a month before D-Day they started bombing by planes and this eliminated half of the battery and forced the Germans to move the guns away for safety. Then the Germans camouflaged the bunkers and put telephone poles in the casemates to mimic guns. Therefore, the Americans bombed even more and when we visited you can see the results. The landscape is just full of craters and rubble. We could not believe how big and deep the craters were. Then on D-Day the Rangers hit the beaches. 

Aerial view of all the craters from the bombs

You can see in this picture how deep the crater is

Pointe-du-Hoc

Machine gun nest that would have three soldiers in here - a commander, a gun loader, and the gunner. 

When they Rangers scaled the cliffs and reached the German bunkers the resistance was lighter then expected, this was due to the casualties from the bombardment. However, the Rangers experienced high casualties as they moved towards the guns. When they did finally make it to the artillery battery, they discovered the guns were gone. The Rangers searched for the missing guns and they eventually found them over a mile away, unguarded, and unmanned. The Rangers disabled them and completed their mission.

 This is one of the German bunkers. Only about 5% of them were destroyed because of the thick walls that were heavily reinforced. Multiple direct hits were needed to destroy these bunkers. 

The children could not believe how big these craters were from bombs

There were lots of rooms in this bunker

Communication Center

The memorial symbolizes the Ranger "Dagger"

Only a third of the Rangers survived the assault. This high ground had to be captured for its value as an observation point. I felt bad for these Rangers who had fought and died right here. Just seeing these cliffs here really gave a sense of how difficult it would have been to climb. I'm sure most of you have seen Saving Private Ryan, when the Rangers hit the beaches. Now imagine if they had to scale a 100ft cliff to get to the Germans…wow my respect goes out to the Rangers and their courage under fire. 

This was part of Reagan's speech he gave here on the 40th anniversary of D-Day

This was our last stop for our D-Day sights. Everything closes at 5pm so we headed back to Bayeux for the night.