A few miles east of the small fishing port of Grandcamp, the cliffs form a sheer promontory towering thirty metres above a narrow pebble beach. This is Pointe du Hoc. On this particularly favourable site, the Germans had built a heavy artillery battery capable of raking a wide stretch of coastline. It represented a formidable threat to the two beaches where American troops were going to land: Utah Beach to the west and Omaha Beach to the east.
The decision was taken to attack the position at dawn on D-Day, sending US Army Rangers by sea to scale the cliff using ropes and ladders.
Carried to the beach by barges, the men of Companies D, E and F managed the incredible exploit of reaching the clifftop within a matter of minutes, despite the slippery rock face, ropes sodden with seawater and firing from the defenders. At the top, in what resembled a lunar landscape, pockmarked with craters, fierce fighting ensued, which resulted in more loss of life than the actual ascent had done.
They soon discovered that huge timber beams had been substituted for the guns. To keep them safe, the latter had been taken from their emplacements in April and moved inland. They were subsequently discovered by an American patrol, which put them out of action by sabotaging their breeches with explosives.
Surrounded on Pointe du Hoc without reinforcements, and subjected to German counter-attacks from all sides, the Rangers were finally relieved on June 8th, at around midday, by troops advancing from Omaha.
Of the 225 Rangers who had embarked on this insane adventure, only 90 were still able to fight, and nearly 80 of their comrades had lost their lives in this tiny corner of Normandy. |
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