POINTE DU HOC
Sorry if itīs a bit of a mess but trying to gather a story here...
http://search.eb.com/normandy/week2/Pointe_du_Hoc.html
http://www.worldwar2history.info/D-D...te-Du-Hoc.html
Pointe du Hoc is a promontory situated between two landing beaches that were taken by American forces in the Normandy Invasion. Formally part of the Omaha Beach invasion area (assault sector Charlie), it was itself the object of a daring seaborne assault on D-Day by U.S. Army rangers, who scaled its cliffs with the aim of silencing artillery pieces placed on its heights.
It provided an elevated vantage point from which huge German guns with a range of 15 miles could deliver fire upon both of the American beaches. Allied intelligence and photoreconnaissance had identified five 155-millimetre guns emplaced in reinforced-concrete casemates on the Pointe, and Allied commanders had determined that the neutralization of these guns was the key to the fate of the Omaha and Utah landings. The area of the Pointe was defended by elements of the German 352nd Infantry Division.
The task of neutralizing the guns, and of cutting the road running behind the Pointe from Saint-Pierre-du-Mont to Grandcamp, fell to the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder.
The Allied bombardment of Pointe-du-Hoc had begun weeks before D-Day. Heavy bombers from the U.S. Eighth Air Force and British Bomber Command had repeatedly plastered the area, with a climax coming before dawn on June 6. Then the battleship Texas took up the action, sending dozens of 14-inch shells into the position.Texas lifted her fire at 0630, the moment the rangers were scheduled to touch down
Once landed, however, the rangers engaged the Germans on top of the cliffs in a heavy firefight, and within minutes the first man was up. In small groups the rangers fought their way to the casemates, only to find them empty of the big guns.Out of the original 225 rangers, only 90 were still in fighting condition when the position was taken. They moved forward and cut the road behind the Pointe, and then a two-man patrol went down a narrow road leading south and discovered the guns some 550 yards (500 metres) from the casements. The guns were zeroed in on Utah Beach, and a German force, totaling some 100 men, was assembled a short distance away. Using thermite grenades, the two rangers melted and destroyed the guns' elevating and traversing mechanisms, rendering the pieces immovable.
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There was a dirt road leading south (inland). It had heavy tracks. Sgts. Leonard Lomell and Jack Kuhn thought the missing guns might have made the tracks. They set out to investigate. At about 250 meters (one kilometer inland), Lomell abruptly stopped. He held his hand out to stop Kuhn, turned, and half whispered, "Jack, here they are. We've found 'em. Here are the goddamned guns."
Unbelievably, the well-camouflaged guns were set up in battery, ready to fire in the direction of Utah Beach, with piles of ammunition around them, but no Germans. Lomell spotted about a hundred Germans a hundred meters or so across an open field, apparently forming up. Evidently they had pulled back during the bombardment, for fear of a stray shell setting off the amunition dump, and were now preparing to man their guns, but they were in no hurry, for until their infantry drove off the rangers and reoccupied the observation post they could not fire with any accuracy.
Lomell never hesitated. "Give me your grenades, Jack," he said to Kuhn. "Cover me. I'm gonna fix 'em." He ran to the guns and set off thermite grenades in the recoil and traversing mechanisms of two of the guns, disabling them. He bashed in the sights of the third gun.
"Jack, we gotta get some more thermite grenades." He and Kuhn ran back to the highway, collected all of the thermite grenades from the rangers in the immediate area, returned to the battery, and disabled the other three guns.
And with that the rangers had completed their offensive mission. It was 0900. Just that quickly they were now on the defensive, isolated, with nothing heavier than 60mm mortars and BARS to defend themselves
