Photo : Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Pointe du Hoc
The Pointe du Hoc is a small promontory on the Normandy coast, in Calvados, bordered by a cliff 25 to 30 metres high. On 6 June 1944, American Rangers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder attacked it as part of the D-Day landings, because it was thought that an artillery battery there threatened the neighbouring Utah and Omaha beaches.
On the spot, the Rangers found that the gun emplacements contained wooden decoys. The Germans had moved the real guns 1,300 metres inland, and the Rangers destroyed them with incendiary grenades. Of 225 men committed, only 90 were still fit to fight after the initial assault, and Rudder himself was wounded twice.
The site has been managed since 1979 by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Bomb craters and concrete blockhouses are still visible and give an idea of the intensity of the fighting. About 500,000 people come every year. The cliff is fragile: a collapse due to erosion damaged the rocky outcrop in May 2022, and some areas may therefore be closed to access.
