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D-DAY: Rangers Lead to Way at Pointe du Hoc
Townhall.com ^ | June 4, 2014 | Austin Bay

Posted on 06/04/2014 11:03:41 AM PDT by Kaslin

Pointe du Hoc on Normandy's northern coast was D-Day's "high ground."

The promontory's 30-meter high cliffs overlooked two long and relatively flat "beach zones" capable of handling large amphibious landing ships. The beach to the northwest is now best known by its D-Day code name, Utah. The beach due east -- which connects to the narrow shelf below Pointe du Hoc's cliffs -- Allied planners dubbed Omaha.

From the promontory, German guns could pummel landing crafts as they bobbed toward shore and then swing their barrels to rake the beaches with high explosives. Allied infantrymen would die in the sand.

German defenders understood Pointe du Hoc's geographic and military significance. In 1943, they placed heavy artillery on the position. In 1944 they added concrete gun casemates and observation bunkers.

Even if allied bombing raids and naval gunfire eliminated the big guns, professional soldiers understood that Pointe du Hoc was decisive operational terrain. German mobile artillery might occupy the position after the pre-invasion bombardment lifted. Allied and German planners also identified the hard-surfaced road cutting across the plateau's southern base as a vital communications and high-speed movement route for German forces operating on the exposed flanks of the beach zones.

On June 6, 1944, Pointe du Hoc had to be taken, and it then had to be held -- denied to German counter-attackers -- until relief forces arrived. The seize, destroy and hold mission demanded soldiers with crack combat skills, physical stamina and peerless discipline under enemy fire -- special operations soldiers capable of fighting alone, on limited rations and using enemy weapons, if need be.

That's why General Omar Bradley, overall commander of U.S. forces, gave the mission to the U.S. Army's Lt. Col. Earl Rudder and his elite 2nd Ranger Battalion. Under enemy fire, 2nd Ranger scaled the steep cliffs and destroyed key fortifications. Indeed, the Germans had moved the guns inland (to avoid the bombardment).

The Rangers found and destroyed five of the six heavy guns. The Rangers then held on until the morning of June 8, defeating German counter-attacks day and night, and frustrating German movement between the beach zones.

Second Ranger's tactical victory on the high ground between Omaha and Utah Beaches had operational effects (securing D-Day's success) and strategic significance (a major step in freeing Europe from Nazi tyranny). Their heroic action exacted a stiff price. By June 8, two-thirds of the original assault force was killed or wounded.

However, you wouldn't know too much about Pointe du Hoc if your historical sources were Cornelius Ryan's bestselling "The Longest Day" and the blockbuster movie of the same name directed by Daryl Zanuck.

In his well-documented biography of Ranger commander Earl Rudder -- "Rudder: From Leader to Legend" -- historian Thomas M. Hatfield excoriated Ryan for repeatedly sacrificing "facts for dramatic effect."

Scaling sea cliffs under fire is incomparably dramatic. However, the German guns were not in the casemates. "Sacrifice for nothing" became Ryan's ironic storyline.

It is historically inaccurate, to the point of falsehood.

In Hatfield's view, Ryan was not a professional historian but a man grinding out a book to meet a publication deadline. Ryan admitted he relied on one Ranger veteran for his entire D-Day account, a sergeant who manned an observation point over a mile from the most critical combat on Pointe du Hoc. Professional military historians seek multiple sources, to include after-action group interviews.

Earl Rudder, who later became president of Texas A&M University, was a superb special operations commander, but a man not given to grandiose language.

Ryan's interview of Rudder didn't produce the sizzle Ryan sought. Ryan asked Rudder where and when he arrived in Normandy. Rudder: "Omaha Beach, H-Hour." Ryan asked if Rudder had lost friends in the battle. Rudder: "Yes, many." Was Rudder wounded? "Yes, twice." Ryan appealed for a dramatic moment. Did any single incident stand out in Rudder's mind? "No."

One moment? The battle for and on and over Pointe du Hoc was two-and-a-half days of endless suffering, death, violence and chaotic hell, yet Rudder and his Rangers had succeeded in achieving their critical mission.

Hatfield noted that a man with solid Hollywood connections helped correct the record. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan held a ceremony at Pointe du Hoc. With Rudder's widow and 2nd Ranger vets at his side, Reagan said: "Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion, to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. ... These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the men who helped free a continent."


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: normandy; pointeduhoc; worldwarii
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1 posted on 06/04/2014 11:03:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

That speech by Reagan was truly inspired and is worth reading each year in early June.


2 posted on 06/04/2014 11:11:41 AM PDT by ArtDodger
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To: Kaslin

i had the honor of visiting Point du Hoc in 2000...no movie or TV scree does justice to the danger faced on 6/6/44...what the Americans did there was nothing less then amazing....


3 posted on 06/04/2014 11:20:25 AM PDT by God luvs America (63.5 million pay no income tax and vote for DemoKrats...)
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To: God luvs America

Well said. I’ve been there several times...to stand on the beach and look up, and imagine what they were thinking as they began the attack..my admiration for those Rangers is impossible to put into words..


4 posted on 06/04/2014 11:23:27 AM PDT by ken5050 ("One useless man is a shame, two are a law firm, three or more are a Congress".. John Adams)
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To: Kaslin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Lomell

A true hero of Pointe du Hoc.


5 posted on 06/04/2014 11:26:22 AM PDT by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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To: ArtDodger

Last part: “these were the boys of Pont du Hoc” always makes me a little misty. General Rudder gave me my diploma from Texas A&M back in 1962. He was always on campus and very accessible and friendly but had his standards. I can imagine his reaction to today’s political correctness and progressive ideology that pervades higher education and the weak leadership that permits it. He was a great leader of the type that regrettably no longer exists. It is sad to see how far we have fallen.


6 posted on 06/04/2014 11:29:24 AM PDT by yetidog
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To: Kaslin

Vincent Wai's military art
2nd Rangers at Pointe du Hoc, Normandy 1944

7 posted on 06/04/2014 11:29:40 AM PDT by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Kaslin

If I recall, every detail about scaling the cliffs was covered.

Except the fact the grappling hook lines were soggy wet and now heavy, minimizing how high they could be tossed.

And still the Rangers pressed on.

Amazing.


8 posted on 06/04/2014 11:32:31 AM PDT by llevrok (Straight. Since 1950.)
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To: llevrok
They truly were the Greatest Generation.
9 posted on 06/04/2014 11:37:35 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Rip it out by the roots.)
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To: exit82

Leonard Lomell’s obituary:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/leonard_lomell_d-day_hero_from.html

Thermite grenades melted the gears in the traversing and elevating mechanisms of the guns. Excellent!


10 posted on 06/04/2014 11:38:11 AM PDT by Deo volente (God willing, America shall survive this Obamanation.)
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To: Deo volente

Someone once said “Where do we get such men?”

I used to see Bud Lomell at the Veterans’ Day ceremonies and Memorial Day ceremonies in Toms River, NJ.

I did not know of his role in D-Day until much later.

The fate of millions of people, both present and future in 1944, rested on the actions of a handful of men on June 6, 1944.

Bud Lomell was at the the head of that handful.


11 posted on 06/04/2014 11:47:06 AM PDT by exit82 ("The Taliban is on the inside of the building" E. Nordstrom 10-10-12)
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To: Kaslin
Ryan's interview of Rudder didn't produce the sizzle Ryan sought.

Life is that way. If you don't blow your own horn, nobody else will.

12 posted on 06/04/2014 12:24:07 PM PDT by Last Dakotan
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To: ArtDodger

You are so right. Gives me goosebumps just reading the two sentences here. Lordy, I miss Reagan.


13 posted on 06/04/2014 12:39:06 PM PDT by Bigg Red (1 Pt 1: As he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct.)
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To: ken5050

Just visiting the D-Day Memorial in Virginia fills me with awe at their accomplishment — awe and humility.


14 posted on 06/04/2014 12:40:43 PM PDT by Bigg Red (1 Pt 1: As he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct.)
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To: Kaslin; All

There must have been some good reason why we landed right into the teeth of the Nazi defense - what was it?


15 posted on 06/04/2014 12:41:30 PM PDT by ex-snook (God forgives and forgets.)
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To: God luvs America

all those guys died—and there were no cannons—the Germans had wisely pulled them back. So it was all for naught.


16 posted on 06/04/2014 1:07:59 PM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: Kaslin

“Ryan asked Rudder where and when he arrived in Normandy. Rudder: “Omaha Beach, H-Hour.” Ryan asked if Rudder had lost friends in the battle. Rudder: “Yes, many.” Was Rudder wounded? “Yes, twice.” Ryan appealed for a dramatic moment. Did any single incident stand out in Rudder’s mind? “No.”

That wasn’t just Rudder, that was the entire generation. Down-playing the way those who made it out of the murderous lunacy that was WWII HONORED those who did not.


17 posted on 06/04/2014 1:09:31 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: ex-snook

Because that is where Europe began.

Actually we had mitigated the reception by causing the NAZI’s to believe we had plans to come ashore elsewhere.


18 posted on 06/04/2014 1:14:27 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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To: TalBlack

It’s funny. All my dad’s friends were WW2 combat vets. But they were all envious of my dad’s service record.

Dad was a clerk in WW2. He never shot at anyone or had anyone shoot at him. The worst thing that happened to him was the lone Jap bomber that attacked every night on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. All his memories of WW2 were good.

Our next door neighbor watched his own brother get killed.


19 posted on 06/04/2014 1:17:08 PM PDT by AppyPappy
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To: TalBlack

Down-playing WAS the way...We need an edit feature!


20 posted on 06/04/2014 1:28:02 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job.)
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