La Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 35-metre (110 ft) cliff overlooking the English Channel on the northwestern coast of Normandy in the Calvados department, France. In World War II, Pointe du Hoc was the location of a series of German bunkers and machine gun posts. Prior to the invasion of Normandy, the German army fortified the area with concrete casemates and gun pits.
Pointe du Hoc (Normandy, France)
Pointe du Hoc (Normandía, Francia)
Pointe du Hoc lies 6.5 km (4.0 mi) west of the center of Omaha Beach. As part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications, the prominent cliff top location was fortified by the Germans. The battery was initially built in 1943 to house six captured French First World War vintage GPF 155mm K418(f) guns positioned in open concrete gun pits. The battery was garrisoned by the 2nd Battery of Army Coastal Artillery Battalion 1260 (Heeres-Küsten-Artillerie-Abteilung 1260 or 2/HKAA.1260). To defend the promontory from attack, elements of the 352nd Infantry Division were also stationed at the battery. To provide increased defensive capability, the Germans began to improve the defenses of the battery in the spring of 1944, with enclosed H671 concrete casemates being started and the older 155mm guns displaced. The plan was to build six casemates but two were unfinished when the location was attacked. The casemates were built over and in front of the circular gun pits, which housed the 155mm guns. Also built was a H636 observation bunker and L409a mounts for 20mm Flak 30 anti-aircraft guns. The 155mm guns would have threatened the Allied landings on Omaha and Utah beaches when finished, risking heavy casualties to the landing forces.
Pointe du Hoc (Normandie, Frankreich)
بوانت دو هوك (نورماندي، فرنسا)
In the months before D-Day the Germans were recorded by Allied Intelligence removing their guns one by one as they re-developed the site with the final aim of 4 casemates facing Utah Beach and the possibility of 2 x 155mm guns in open emplacements. During the preparation for Operation Overlord it was determined by Lt Col. James Earl Rudder that Pointe du Hoc should be attacked by ground forces, to prevent the Germans using the casemates. Rudder knew prior to landing that the casemates were unfinished and only two were actually structurally close to being ready. The U.S. 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions were given the task of assaulting the strong point early on D-Day. Elements of the 2nd Battalion went in to attack Pointe du Hoc but delays meant the remainder of the 2nd Battalion and the complete 5th Battalion landed at Omaha Beach as their secondary landing position. Though the Germans had removed the main armament from Pointe du Hoc, the beachheads were shelled by field artillery from the nearby Maisy battery, on the fire support plan of heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins. The rediscovery of the battery at Maisy has shown that it was responsible for firing on the Allied beachheads until 9 June 1944.
奥克角（法国诺曼底）
Pointe du Hoc (Normandie, France)
The assault force was carried in ten landing craft, with another two carrying supplies and four DUKW amphibious trucks carrying the 100-foot (30 m) ladders requisitioned from the London Fire Brigade. One landing craft carrying troops sank, drowning all but one of its occupants; another was swamped. One supply craft sank and the other put the stores overboard to stay afloat. German fire sank one of the DUKWs. Once within a mile of the shore, German mortars and machine guns fired on the craft. These initial setbacks resulted in a 40-minute delay in landing at the base of the cliffs, but British landing craft carrying the Rangers finally reached the base of the cliffs at 7:10 am with approximately half the force it started out with. The landing craft were fitted with rocket launchers to fire grapnels and ropes up the cliffs. As the Rangers scaled the cliffs, the Allied ships USS Texas (BB-35), USS Satterlee (DD-626), USS Ellyson (DD-454), and HMS Talybont (L18) provided them with fire support and ensured that the German defenders above could not fire down on the assaulting troops. The cliffs proved to be higher than the ladders could reach.
Pointe du Hoc (Normandia, Francja)
Пуэнт-дю-Хок (Нормандия, Франция)
When the Rangers made it to the top at Pointe du Hoc, they had sustained 15 casualties. “Ranger casualties on the beach totalled about 15, most of them from the raking fire to their left”. The force also found that their radios were ineffective. Upon reaching the fortifications, most of the Rangers learned for the first time that the main objective of the assault, the artillery battery, had been removed. The Rangers regrouped at the top of the cliffs, and a small patrol went off in search of the guns. Two different patrols found five of the six guns nearby (the sixth was being fixed elsewhere) and destroyed their firing mechanisms with thermite grenades. Leonard Lomell of the 2nd Ranger Battalion maintained that he and Ranger Jack Kuhn found the guns completely by accident after walking down a tree-lined lane, whilst on patrol. Once captured, Pointe du Hoc did not result in any observational disadvantage for the German Army as they already used the taller Chateau, houses and churches in the area. At the end of the two-day action, the initial Ranger landing force of 225+ was reduced to about 90 fighting men. In the aftermath of the battle, some Rangers became convinced that French civilians had taken part in the fighting on the German side. A number of French civilians accused of shooting at US forces or of serving as artillery observers for the Germans were executed.
프앙테 뒤 오크 (프랑스 노르망디)
Pointe du Hoc (Normandië, Frankrijk)
- Timeline
- 6 June 1944
- 06.39 – H-Hour – D, E and F companies of 2nd Ranger Battalion approach the Normandy coast in a flotilla of twelve craft.
- 07.05 – Strong tides and navigation errors mean the initial assault arrives late and the 5th Ranger Battalion as well A and B companies from 2nd Battalion move to Omaha Beach instead.
- 07.30 – Rangers fight their way up the cliff and reach the top and start engaging the Germans across the battery. Rangers discover the casemates are empty.
- 08.15 – Approximately 35 Rangers reach the road and create a roadblock.
- 09.00 – Five German guns are located and destroyed using thermite grenades. For the rest of the day the Rangers repel several German counter-attacks. During the evening, one patrol from the 5th Rangers that landed at Omaha beach make it through to join the Rangers at Pointe du Hoc.
- 7 June 1944
- The Rangers continue to defend an even smaller area on Pointe du Hoc against German counter-attacks. In the afternoon a platoon of Rangers arrives on an LST, with wounded removed.
- 8 June 1944
- Morning – The Rangers are relieved by troops arriving from Omaha Beach.
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