Over 200 U.S. Army Rangers scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc on D-Day to destroy German long-range guns stationed at the top. Less than half remained standing after two days of fighting.
An aerial view of Pointe du Hoc, a clifftop in Cricqueville-en-Bessin, on the French western Norman coast, taken in October 2018.The 100-foot cliff juts out over the Omaha and Utah beaches, where thousands of U.S. troops landed on June 6, 1944, as Allied forces stormed the coast and, ultimately, turned the tide of World War II in their favor.
The site, located some 7 miles west of Normandy American Cemetery, has experienced erosion over time and even lost a chunk of its outcrop in aPointe du Hoc endures as a symbol of “tenacity, combat resilience, leadership, sacrifice teamwork”, in the words of Mike Bell, executive director of the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at the National WWII Museum.
After the Rangers reached the summit, they cleared out the bunkers and located the five guns, which Bell said had been pushed back into the trees as Germans sought to improve their position.“Kind of a claim to fame is this is the first unit on D-Day — major unit — that can report that it’s achieved its objectives,” Bell added. “Whereas the guys getting up Omaha Beach, it'll be hours before they're up over the bluffs and achieve their objectives.
There’s no exact count of how many U.S. lives the mission at Pointe du Hoc helped save, though Bell said there would have been nearly 5,000 ships in the range of the Germans’ artillery. He honored their valor and called on listeners to “continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.” He also spoke of American security and foreign policy — and about the Soviet Union, acknowledging the communist nation's contributions and losses in the war and expressing the U.S.’ hopes of reconciliation.
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