The dramatic story of Pointe du Hoc, the backdrop to Biden's D-Day anniversary speech

[sl8]

https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4993494/pointe-du-hoc-dday-biden-normandy-speech

The dramatic story of Pointe du Hoc, the backdrop to Biden's D-Day anniversary speech

JUNE 7, 2024 5:00 AM ET
By Rachel Treisman



An aerial view of Pointe du Hoc, a clifftop in Cricqueville-en-Bessin, on the French western Norman coast, taken in October 2018.
Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images

President Biden’s itinerary for commemorating D-Day’s 80th anniversary in France includes giving a speech on Friday at a Normandy site called Pointe du Hoc.

[...]

Pointe du Hoc didn’t only overlook the historic landings and battles happening on shore. Its craggy edges were themselves the site of one of the invasion’s most daring operations.

The occupying German forces had established a defensive position atop the cliff, stationing several long-range guns that posed a major threat to the Allied troops coming ashore.

A group of 225 U.S. Army Rangers — led by then-Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder — was tasked with destroying those guns. But they had to scale the cliff to get to them.

[...]

[captain queeg]

1. It is a dramatic story, "story" is the key word. It really made a heroic tale and the part about scaling the cliffs

Is true and dramatic. Not finding the guns when they got to the top is true but it wasn’t like they found them near by. I can’t remember now but I’m not sure they even did find them. The story usually goes they found them in a nearby orchard which wasn’t really true, I think they found prepared in placements. There’s a lot more that has come out recently and nothing detracts from the truly heroic efforts of the rangers.

[Botany]

2. The #s are brutal. Thank you for posting.

“By the time they were relieved by troops from Omaha Beach on June 8, Bell said, only 90 of the original 225 were “still able to bear arms.” All told, 77 were killed and 152 wounded.“