The Battle at Pointe Du Hoc
American military forces were to invade France to repel German forces on June 6, 1944, which was called D-Day (Lane, 1). The battle at Pointe Du Hoc was critical to the success of the D-Day landings in Normandy (Zaloga, 4).
Pointe Du Hoc is a cliff in Normandy, France (O’Donnel, XII). Pointe Du Hoc was the hardest cliff to climb because of its height, and the structure of the cliff. It has a clay-like matrix (Zaloga, 34). The cliff of Pointe Du Hoc was about ninety feet tall (O’Donnel, XII). Pointe Du Hoc was heavily guarded by the German defense (Lane, 71). The landing at Pointe Du Hoc was delayed because of weather, which gave the Germans time to get ready for the assault (Zaloga, 31). The German soldiers would look down from the top of the cliff at the American soldiers and shoot and throw grenades at them (O’Donnel, XI). The height and the structure of the cliff, made Pointe Du Hoc the hardest to attack.
The operation of Pointe Du Hoc was called “Neptune” (O’Donnel, 40). There was a three-step process to the plan of Pointe Du Hoc (Zaloga, 15). The first was the bombardment from the air to weaken the German defense (Zaloga, 15-16). Second, the United States sent the Rangers on D-Day to climb the Pointe Du Hoc cliff (Zaloga, 15-16). Third, the Rangers were to destroy the gun batteries aimed at Omaha Beach, where the major landing of American soldiers was to be (Zaloga, 15-16). The Rangers were shocked to see that the guns had been moved (Zaloga, 17). The Allies had told the Rangers that the guns were there (Zaloga, 18). The Rangers were first to destroy the guns and then secure the road, but that changed when the guns were not there (Zaloga, 39-40). They secured the road and saw five gun batteries about two hundred and fifty yards inland (Zaloga, 39-40). Operation Neptune was hard and the causalities were heavy (O’Donnel, 39).
The term “Rangers” dates back hundreds of years when they were first commissioned...