Message #151397

[Jorden Virdana]

Despite initial setbacks because of weather and navigational problems, resulting in a 40-minute delay and loss of surprise, the cliffs were scaled and the strongpoint was assaulted successfully, with relatively light casualties. Fire support was provided during the attack by several nearby Allied destroyers. 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 moved out of position, possibly as a result of air attacks during the buildup to the invasion. It is said that German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel gave the order to move the battery since he had recently been placed in charge of the coastal defenses of Normandy. Removal of the guns had actually been completed on June 4, 1944, but poor weather conditions prior to the invasion limited a final reconnaissance effort which would have revealed the guns' removal. The Rangers regrouped at the top of the cliffs, and a small patrol went off in search of the guns. This patrol found the guns nearby and destroyed them with thermite grenades. The new battery location inland was sited solely for Utah beach.

The costliest part of the battle for the Rangers came after the cliff assault. Determined to hold the vital ground, yet isolated from other assault forces, they fended off several German counterattacks over the next two days, until reinforced from Omaha Beach. The original plans called for an additional, larger Ranger force of eight companies to follow the first attack, if successful. Flares from the clifftops were to signal this second wave to join the attack, but because of the delayed landing, the signal came too late, and the other Rangers, mostly of the U.S. 5th Ranger Battalion, landed on Omaha instead of Pointe du Hoc.

The added impetus these 500+ Rangers provided on the stalled Omaha Beach landing has been conjectured to have averted a disastrous failure there, since they carried the assault beyond the beach, into the overlooking bluffs and outflanked the German defenses. At the end of the 2-day action, the initial Ranger landing force of 225+ was reduced to about 90 men who could still fight. One of the battleships who helped the battalion was the USS Texas (BB-35).