Pointe du Hoc, 6–8 June 1944

The battle, stage by stage

1. 6 June 1944, 05:50–07:05

   The run-in

   Pointe du Hoc, a cliff-bound headland about four miles west of Omaha Beach, holds a battery of six French-made 155 mm guns of the 2nd Battery, Army Coastal Artillery Battalion 1260 (2./HKAA 1260), able to reach both Omaha and Utah beaches; the Army's Small Unit Actions puts the garrison at about 125 infantry and 85 artillerymen. Lt. Col. James E. Rudder's Force A — Companies D, E and F of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, about 225 men in ten British LCAs — is to land at H-Hour, 06:30, climb the 85–100-foot cliffs and destroy the guns; the 5th Rangers and Companies A and B wait offshore for a success signal. USS Satterlee opens fire on the point at 05:48 and the battleship USS Texas joins the bombardment. In heavy seas LCA 860 swamps with Capt. Harold Slater and 20 men of Company D (all rescued), one supply craft sinks, and the guide craft leads the flotilla toward Pointe de la Percée, about three miles too far east. Rudder turns the column west; the run back along the coast under scattered fire costs more than 30 minutes, and one DUKW is hit by 20 mm fire. At the western end of Omaha, Company C of the 2nd Rangers goes in with the first wave at Charlie.

2. 07:08–07:40

   The climb

   The first craft touch down at about 07:08 (Small Unit Actions; the ABMC gives 07:10). Company D's craft cannot reach the west face, so all nine LCAs come in abreast along about 500 yards of narrow, cratered shingle on the east side. The rocket-fired grapnels drag wet ropes and many fall short; men go up toggle ropes, plain ropes and sections of steel extension ladder, often from mounds of cliff debris brought down by the bombardment, while Germans at the edge cut ropes and roll grenades down. The DUKWs' 100-foot fire-department ladders cannot reach the cliff across the cratered beach. USS Satterlee, about 2,500 yards off, and HMS Talybont, at about 2.7 miles, sweep the cliff top with gunfire; Satterlee's captain thought her fire decisive. The first Rangers are on top within about ten minutes, and by 07:40 most of the force is up.

3. 07:40–08:00

   The casemates are empty

   On top the Rangers find a field of craters in which their planned landmarks have vanished. The open emplacements are wrecked and the casemates unfinished — and the 155s are gone, removed before the heavy bombardment, with timbers left in their place; tracks lead inland. The one hard fight on the point itself is at the massive observation-post bunker on the tip, which parties from LCAs 861 and 862 attack with grenades and a bazooka; Pfc. George W. Mackey is killed there. Small groups reach Gun Nos. 1 and 2 on the east and Nos. 3 to 6 on the west. About 300 yards west of the tip, an antiaircraft gun on the cliff edge becomes the center of German resistance; ten Rangers under Sgt. Spleen are lost in an attack near No. 6, and only Pfc. Cruz comes back. Rudder sets up his command post at about 07:45 in a crater on the east cliff beside a wrecked flak bunker.

4. 08:15–09:30

   The guns in the lane

   As planned, most parties push about 1,000 yards south down the exit road and across the fields, past a ruined farm, to cut the coastal highway between Vierville and Grandcamp (today's D514). About 50 men from all three companies reach it at about 08:15; near the hamlet of Au Guay a machine gun is silenced and Sgt. Petty's party takes two prisoners, while Company D covers the west flank toward Grandcamp. At about 09:00 (the ABMC gives 09:30), following heavy tracks down a sunken lane between double hedgerows, 1st Sgt. Leonard Lomell and S/Sgt. Jack Kuhn of Company D find five of the missing guns camouflaged in an orchard about 250 yards south of the road, laid toward Utah Beach with ammunition stacked beside them and no crews in sight. While Kuhn covers him, Lomell puts thermite grenades into the recoil and traversing mechanisms and smashes the sights; a Company E patrol under S/Sgt. Rupinski adds more thermite, and the battery is out of action. A large ammunition dump farther south is also blown up. The 'mission accomplished' that Rudder signals at noon is this.

5. 6 June, 11:00–21:00

   Holding on

   Rudder's noon message — 'Located Pointe du Hoe — mission accomplished — need ammunition and reinforcements — many casualties' — brings the reply 'No reinforcements available': the 5th Rangers and Companies A and B have gone in at Omaha instead. The western flak position holds out; two attacks by Capt. Masny's group, bracketed by artillery, cost 15 to 20 casualties. Rudder, wounded in the thigh, works with the destroyers by signal lamp once radio draws artillery fire; salvos at about 11:00–12:00 silence the gun on the east cliff, and by 17:23 Satterlee has fired 164 salvos, about 70 percent of her ammunition, with Barton and Thompson also on call. Company F, in the hedgerows southeast of the point, beats off an attack across the fields from Saint-Pierre-du-Mont and another near Gun No. 1 after 16:00, in which Lt. Hill is killed. At the highway more than 60 men hold four fields, take about 40 prisoners, and let about 50 Germans pass through an orchard without revealing themselves. At about 21:00 Lt. Charles Parker arrives with 23 men of Company A, 5th Rangers, who have fought their way across country from Omaha.

6. Night of 6–7 June, 23:30–about 03:00

   The night attack

   About 85 Rangers hold the highway position at nightfall, short of grenades, mortar rounds and BAR ammunition. Company D's 20 men face west along a hedgerow running south from the road; Company E's 30 hold the hedgerow running back toward the CP; where the two meet, an angle looks down an orchard slope into the dark. At about 23:30 the Germans — most accounts name the 914th Grenadier Regiment of the 352nd Division — strike out of the orchards with whistles, shouts and heavy fire, probably a probe. At about 01:00 a stronger attack from the south and southwest gets within 50 yards before opening fire, and the angle is probably lost. A further attack before dawn (the 'finale' of Small Unit Actions) breaks the position: part of Companies D and E is overrun and a number of Rangers are captured, and the rest fall back to the point. Small Unit Actions, written from interviews soon after, admits that what happened at the angle is uncertain.

7. 7 June 1944

   The shrunken point

   Through 7 June the survivors — with Parker's men and a few misdropped paratroopers — hold a perimeter only about 200 meters deep on the cliff top around the command post, under fire from the south and west; an American flag is spread out to mark the position for friendly ships and troops. In the afternoon, by Stephen Ambrose's account, Maj. Jack Street brings a landing craft in under the cliff, takes off wounded and prisoners, and returns with about 20 men of the 5th Rangers; boats from USS Texas bring food and ammunition. The relief column from Vierville — Lt. Col. Max Schneider's 5th Rangers, Lt. Col. John Metcalfe's 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry, and about ten Shermans of B Company, 743rd Tank Battalion — reaches the eastern edge of Saint-Pierre-du-Mont at about 11:00 but, under mortar fire on the coastal road, falls back into the village for the night with about 40 men lost (D-Day Overlord). Company C of the 2nd Rangers, after climbing the bluff west of the Vierville draw on D-Day, has taken the German positions toward Pointe et Raz de la Percée.

8. 8 June 1944

   Relief

   On the morning of 8 June the relief force breaks through along the coastal road behind the 743rd's tanks and reaches Rudder's men between about 10:00 and noon (accounts differ). Of about 225 Rangers who landed on 6 June, about 90 can still bear arms (ABMC); the Army's special operations history counts only 70 still fighting by the afternoon of D-Day, and losses of about 135 killed, wounded and missing are most often given, though totals differ between sources. No Medal of Honor was awarded for Pointe du Hoc; Rudder and Lomell each received the Distinguished Service Cross, and the battalion later received the Presidential Unit Citation. The 116th's other battalions push on west toward Grandcamp, where T/Sgt. Frank D. Peregory of Company K, 116th Infantry, earns the Medal of Honor the same day. The ground the Rangers held, still pitted with craters, is maintained today by the American Battle Monuments Commission.