D-Day At Pointe-Du-Hoc

>> Funding for this program provided by... Additional support provided by... >> This program was made possible by support from the Surface Navy Association, promoting recognition of the role of the Navy and surface forces in United States security.

>> Support for this program was also made possible by... >> The first troop communique, Allied forces have landed in Normandy.

>> Flash -- London, Eisenhower's headquarters announces Allies land in France.

Immediately afterwards... Bulletin -- Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary... [ Morse code beeping ] >> My fellow Americans, the troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation.

I ask you to join with me in prayer.

[ Static ] >> The invasion has begun with heavy sea and air bombardment.

Meanwhile, the underground resistance movement has been addressed by various exiled leaders speaking over the shortwave radio from Britain.

And General Eisenhower... [ Morse code beeping ] >> At dawn on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion -- to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.

The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades.

And the American Rangers began to climb.

They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up.

When one Ranger fell, another would take his place.

When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again.

They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.

Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land of the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe.

225 came here.

After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs.

And before me are the men who put them there.

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.

>> Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder led what many have called one of D-Day's most courageous missions.

10 years later, his then-14-year-old son Bud accompanied him back to France and the beaches of Normandy.

It was James Rudder's first time back since that day in 1944, when the names 2nd Ranger Battalion and Pointe du Hoc would become synonymous with D-Day and Operation Overlord.

>> We hired a small fishing boat that took us off the coast, and we came in to the Pointe as Dad had come into the Pointe, D-Day.

And when I saw it, I could not conceive that they had climbed those cliffs and -- and fought their way up those cliffs while being shot at.

Dropped grenades on their heads.

You know, the Germans weren't giving it up easily.

And that first sight of the cliff from that little 20-foot boat was -- was a real revelation.

>> Rudder saw that not much had changed since the Allies landed there a decade earlier.

That was especially true at Pointe du Hoc, where the bomb-cratered landscape still looked like the Moon and ruined German bunkers and artillery positions gave a timeless and destructive picture of the savage battle that raged there from the 6th to the 8th of June.

Before the landing, Allied invasion planners had labeled Pointe du Hoc "the most dangerous gun battery in France."

But the real story of the 2nd Ranger Battalion's mission on D-Day is how the operation was planned, why it soon began to fall apart, and the extraordinary bravery of the men who rescued the operation from total failure.

>> Just walk around with your mouth open and your eyes rolled back in your head and thinking, "How did Dad do this?"

You know, it was such a spectacular occasion to be able to see where he'd been and fought, and it was -- It's hard to describe it, but it was a really momentous time in my life.

>> Following Pearl Harbor, American military planners saw a need for a special unit of American soldiers.

They were to be a hit-and-run force modeled on the British commando units that were established in World War I and who were already hitting back hard at German forces.

This new American battalion began training in Scotland, in June of 1942.

They would be identified as the 1st Ranger Battalion.

They experienced their first action in North Africa and Italy in 1943.

This battalion was led by Lieutenant Colonel William O. Darby.

>> General Bradley discovered he'd had such wonderful, good results with the Rangers in North Africa and Sicily, Darby's Rangers.

>> Following the successes of the 1st Rangers, additional battalions were formed, including the 2nd and 5th.

The 2nd was led by Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, from Eden, Texas.

Rudder was a graduate of Texas A&M University and commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Reserves.

Before being called to active duty in 1941, Rudder taught high school and college.

At both levels, he coached football.

He was a natural leader.

Tough but fair.

Rudder knew the soldiers under his command had to be superior to the average G.I.

The missions to which they would be assigned would have them face challenges that would take them to their limits, both physically and mentally.

Lieutenant James Eikner was the communications officer for the 2nd Ranger Battalion, stationed at headquarters company.

>> You had to be tough, tough, tough mentally and physically.

And determined that nothing was gonna keep you back.

>> Like the 1st Rangers, the 2nd were made up of volunteers.

They trained in everything -- hand-to-hand combat, complete mastery of weapons, both their own and the enemy's, navigating rivers and scaling cliffs.

They became the best of the best in physical and mental toughness.

A majority of the recruits had to leave, as the training proved too demanding.

In the summer of 1943, James Eikner and the 2nd Rangers, while training in Tennessee, had no idea that their elite force would lead the way into Western Europe on D-Day.

It would be their first taste of combat.

Leading them into the battle would be Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder.

>> We had a good bunch of boys.

We were not average people at all.

There's nothing average about us.

We weren't your neighbor, rosy-cheeked teenagers, you see.

No, we were kind of wild and woolly, and we were -- as I say, we were different.

We were running towards combat.

We were anxious to get in there and do what needed to be done and just get this damn thing over with.

Then we can go back to our peacetime pursuits.

>> Frank South was a medic with the 2nd Rangers, trained to save lives.

As with all medics, if he had to fight, he was fully capable of picking up a weapon and killing.

>> We were trained -- the original group were trained in all of the firearms of the battalion.

We could all shoot anything very well.

But in actual combat, we rarely, rarely were armed.

>> Len "Bud" Lomell was a 1st Sergeant in D for Dog Company of the 2nd Rangers but was one of the most respected leaders in the battalion.

>> I was surrounded by the Rangers, and they're the best of the best.

>> Following their training in the United States, the 2nd Ranger Battalion, led by Colonel Rudder, left for England aboard the Queen Mary.

The battalion arrived in Bude, Cornwall, on the southwest coast of England.

It was early December of 1943.

The Rangers still didn't know what lay ahead for them, but their training along the Cornish coast gave them idea that their eventual mission would involve climbing high and rocky cliffs.

>> We had cliffs that were up to 200 and 300 feet high.

And we brought in a commando colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Trevor -- got to be a friend.

And he had been the 1st Commando commander.

And he was an authority on cliff-scaling.

>> Along the English coast and out on the Isle of Wight, Rudder put his Rangers through exhaustive drills with help from British Commando legend Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Trevor.

The Americans were taught how to climb cliffs using grappling hooks and rocket-fired ropes.

The famed English Special Operations officer knew his stuff.

>> He helped us with the actual techniques, you know?

And the Colonel supplied the discipline.

And the Colonel's discipline and Trevor's know-how, while we had these boys where they can run up and down those cliffs like monkeys, you know?

And we used rockets -- two up in front, two in the middle, two in the back.

The front rockets fired up smooth ropes about a half-inch in diameter.

Those in the middle fired up toggle ropes.

And then, the aft rockets fired up complete rope ladders.

We trained with all of this stuff, you know, and had a real big exercise.

In our training, we tried to select a piece of ground that would be geographically quite similar to Pointe du Hoc, you see?

>> Although by that time the name Pointe du Hoc was yet to be spoken, the repetitive cliff assaults continued.

>> We did this several times, you know?

Because we were going out on practice runs.

Going out to the ship, and the ship had -- and then we'd board the LCAs and come in to the cliffs.

>> Antonio "Tom" Ruggiero was a sergeant in D Company of the 2nd Ranger Battalion.

>> We climbed cliffs 300 feet.

And we had guys get hurt, and badly, you know?

We had a forced march one day.

There were 30 miles.

And we had to reach this point at a certain time to have a mock battle, mock pillbox, and I have the job of throwing a concussion grenade at that pillbox.

>> While in Cornwall, many of the men stayed with local families who had come out to welcome them when they returned from training and maneuvers.

>> The people were waiting for us.

And blistered feet, you know?

[ Laughs ] Oh, yeah.

They -- They waited for us to take us home, you know, where they lived, but everybody lived in a different place.

>> As the winter of 1943 turned into the spring of '44, preparation and instruction intensified.

2nd Ranger Len Lomell sensed something big was about to take place.

In mid May of 1944, the 2nd Rangers were told their actual objective -- Pointe du Hoc on the Normandy coast, halfway between the American landing beaches that were to be code-named Omaha and Utah.

Rudder's Rangers would, indeed, be climbing cliffs.

When they were briefed and shone maps, the objective was labeled Pointe du Hoe, not Pointe du Hoc, which proved at the time to be somewhat confusing.

But studying the aerial photos, sand tables, and plaster models of the Pointe told them all they needed to know.

The cliff was roughly nine stories high, and German defenders would be at the top.

It would be a tough climb, no matter what it was called.

>> It's kind of interesting today that it has become recognized as Pointe du H-O-C, and back then, it was, in all the Army maps and everything, it was Pointe du H-O-E. >> It used to be known then as Pointe du Hoe -- H-O-E.

But I think that was a mistake that was taken from carelessness of some printer in printing on the map, "Hoe" instead of "Hoc."

So, it now is known as Pointe du Hoc, but then, on D-Day, it was known as Pointe du Hoe.

>> The objective of the 225 men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion was to destroy the six German artillery pieces located at the top of the 100-foot-high rocky limestone cliffs.

The well-defended, French-made 155-millimeter guns captured and now utilized by the German military were strategically located between the infantry landing zones of Omaha and Utah Beaches.

The Germans would not be expecting the Allies to come from the sea to attack their gun positions at Pointe du Hoc.

They assumed any assault would have to come from inland.

German military commanders believed an attack from the English Channel on the Pointe would be far too difficult to execute.

>> It was one of the most unusual and one of the most dangerous assaults.

We were so well-trained and highly motivated, and we knew that we were experts in all of the weapons, even hand-to-hand -- I could kill you a half a dozen different ways, you know?

Knife fighting, bayonet fighting, grenades -- we were just a mean bunch of bastards, you see?

[ Laughs ] Our mission was to make sure that those damn guns would not fire a single round.

That's what we were challenged by General Bradley.

We had to be assured that those big guns couldn't fire on our beaches and to the ships out in the transport area.

Because not much shelling could've produced thousands of casualties.

>> On the 5th of June, the weather worsened.

D-Day was postponed until the 6th.

Several weeks prior to the Rangers being handed their assignment, everything and everyone was put on lockdown.

No coming or going was permitted from their secret encampment that was close to the coast in Southern England.

On the 5th of June, in spite of a deep feeling of foreboding for what lay ahead, every soldier hoped and prayed that he would be able to do his job the next day.

>> But they didn't spend much time worrying whether they're gonna be shot or not, our boys.

I thought we felt that we were so highly trained and so clever and, uh -- best shape of our life, I think the fellas were confident that we would prevail.

>> Most people, their greatest fear was not doing their job, of not living up to the responsibilities.

>> Tom Ruggiero of D Company did have one fear.

>> I said, "Dear God, don't let me drown.

I want to get in and do what I'm supposed to do."

>> On June the 5th, many soldiers of the 2nd Ranger Battalion were taken sick with food poisoning.

Despite this, they marched down the streets of the port city of Weymouth to where the British transport ship RMS Ben-my-Chree would take them the 90 miles across the English Channel to Normandy.

>> Well, when we came down to board on D-Day, it was not a big public thing at all.

>> In darkness, as the crossing was under way, the Rangers' commander, Lieutenant Colonel Rudder, asked D Company sergeant Tom Ruggiero, who was a singer and dancer before the war, along with another sergeant, Jack Kuhn, to break the tension.

>> Says, "Can't you and Jack Kuhn put on a little skit to get the morale back?"

"Sure!"

So, we put on a skit quick.

You know, one guy, I told you, could play the guitar.

And this Jack Kuhn could tell him that, and I sang and danced for them.

And it got them all laughing.

And I used to do imitations.

I'd imitate Hitler, I'd imitate Mussolini, you know?

Well, I got them all -- I got them in a good mood.

>> Other Rangers tried to keep busy on the trip across to France.

Before dawn for the trip to Pointe du Hoc, they would transfer from the Ben-my-Chree to smaller British landing craft assault boats, or LCAs.

Each Ranger prepared in his own way.

>> A leader -- and I've always been a leader -- are always thinking about the mission, what needs to be done to accomplish that mission and, above and beyond everything else, the welfare of your men that you have.

>> The plan was to board the British LCAs in the early morning hours of June 6th, with H-Hour, the landing at Pointe du Hoc, scheduled for 0630.

The guns had to be taken out by 0700 that morning, according to the plan.

>> We had to get up and have a real early breakfast.

Yeah, I slept all right until -- In fact, the boys were up there shooting craps and playing cards.

>> And we were alerted to come and have breakfast and eventually were then called on deck, and the line -- the order went out, "Rangers, man your craft.

Man your boats."

>> Both the American and Royal Air Forces had been dropping bombs on the Pointe in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to the D-Day landings.

[ Deck guns firing ] On the early morning of the 6 June, as the 2nd Rangers boarded their LCAs, United States Navy ships, including the battleship USS Texas, began shelling Pointe du Hoc.

The objective is to soften up the target by driving the Germans underground and away from the edge of the cliff, where their machine guns were positioned.

>> It was a cataclysmic sound of these big guns, of firing.

>> And we had a couple battleships backing us up.

And we had our air force flying over, dropping bombs, and then more noise.

>> And, of course, we were lowered away into rather quite choppy waters.

>> The pre-landing bombardment had one unintended consequence.

It left the sand tables models and detailed maps of the Pointe the troops had seen back in England almost unrecognizable.

The 2nd Rangers in their LCAs had to remain on schedule for the operation to be a success.

They needed to reach the beach at the base of Pointe du Hoc by 0630, climb the 100-foot cliffs, and have the six 155-millimeter guns taken out in 30 minutes.

If a message indicating success was not sent out by 0700, the 2nd and 5th Ranger reserve companies that were waiting offshore as reinforcements would be diverted to land at Omaha Beach.

These Ranger battalions would then have to fight their way to the Pointe by way of Normandy's inland roads.

>> They went off in the ships, circled for rendezvous, then headed in.

And we were following a Royal Navy lead boat who was supposed to guide us.

But their navigation system was faulty, went out for some reason or other.

And so, the lead boat tried to use dead reckoning, but the dead reckoning was way off.

He didn't account for set and drift properly.

And we were headed towards Pointe de la Perce instead of Pointe du Hoc.

Rudder noticed the air and ordered them to correct the heading, and that meant that, through these rough seas, we would have to go alongside the cliffs of the Channel.

And on the way in, then we picked up small-arm fire, machine guns and such.

>> Pointe de la Perce was 3 miles to the east of Pointe du Hoc.

The Rangers' task had started off badly.

Timing was the key to the whole success of the mission.

>> Dad noticed kind of late that they were headed for the wrong landmark and had them turn and head for Pointe du Hoc.

By that time, shelling and the bombardment and everything had lifted, and the Germans were able to come out of their bunkers and go look over the cliffs and see these boats full of Rangers coming.

>> And so we had to flank right and parallel the coast then.

So, about another 3 or 4 miles on down to Pointe du Hoc.

We had lost the element of surprise.

>> Because we were late because of the navigational error, we were crowded together, so we all came together, crowded into this one area.

>> Because the water was so rough, some of the boys were already upchucking, you see?

So you'd be baling water and puke and dodging bullets all at the same time.

We would've been justified in canceling the operation once we had lost the element of surprise due to the bad navigation.

But we would have none of that.

Hell, we were trained and ready to go.

And, of course, the enemy was shooting at us all along, like ducks in a pond.

>> The Rangers were now almost 40 minutes late landing at the beach below Pointe du Hoc.

The code word "tilt," a message that needed to be sent out to alert the 500 reserve Rangers to come ashore, had now missed it 0700 target.

The other 2nd and 5th Ranger companies waited offshore well past the initial deadline.

Not receiving the code word "tilt," they were diverted to the far western end of Omaha Beach.

>> The first thing about the beach that you notice is there are dead men all over it.

And the few that are still quivering are bleeding badly.

>> Colonel Rudder's 225 2nd Rangers were on their own, as communications officer James Eikner was in charge of getting the radio signal "tilt" out.

But there was not much he could do.

>> My concern was that we had lost the element of time, and we had messages -- coded messages to get out.

>> Making matters worse, Tom Ruggiero's premonition had come true.

His LCA, filled with D Company, was sinking.

>> And when we started off, it was rough.

The water was rough, and it was cold.

>> As everyone knows, the waters are terribly, terribly choppy.

>> We could almost see the guys trying to get up the cliff when we went down.

The boat just went like that.

>> Our boats containing our captain and some officers went down with their men, sunk.

>> After two hours, a Navy gunboat, which is not too big, was coming right -- We could see it heading towards us.

And we all -- we started screaming, you know?

And we kept drifting, drifting.

But this gunboat was coming closer and closer.

And we got there -- close enough, they spotted us, and they start picking us up.

It was 11 of us that they picked up.

The rest were gone.

My mother got the telegram that I was missing.

And you know what that did to them.

>> The first LCAs full of Rangers landed at the base of Pointe du Hoc 40 minutes behind schedule.

The word "tilt" was finally sent at 0725.

This was too late to bring in the additional Ranger reinforcements.

As the Rangers' attack officially began, the Germans on Pointe du Hoc were now totally aware of what was happening.

[ Deck guns firing ] But due to the shelling by the American destroyer USS Satterlee and the heavy, drifting smoke, they were kept back from the edge of the Pointe.

>> When we got to Pointe du Hoc and landed and our ramps went down, we made our way to the bottom of the cliffs, where we had fired our ropes up over the top of the cliffs, and they were draped down the front of the cliffs, and it's 100 feet straight up.

We had to run to that rope and climb that rope, ordeal and all, and being shot at at the same time by the Germans along the top of their cliffs.

And they were dropping grenades on us and trying in every way possible to keep us from successfully climbing that cliff and getting up there and battling it out with them.

>> We had concern, and in our minds, we had already considered the fact that we're gonna have a lot of casualties for this type of operation.

But the main thing was accomplishing that objective.

And that was gonna be done, come hell or high water.

And if your buddy falls down there, step over him.

Pour the blood out of your boots and go right on, see?

No praying.

None of this.

>> So, the climbing went up very rapidly.

There was a good chance we might even be wiped out.

>> I got ahold of the rope right in front of me, started up.

And I got about 2/3 of the way up, and then, this hellish explosion.

Last thing I heard was that big bang, and the last thing that I saw was all of this mud, dirt, and rock coming down the cliff.

And then I was knocked out.

And the next thing that I recall was pain in my legs.

And I looked around, and I was buried up to about my waist.

and I looked up, and I could see this German up there, and looking down like that.

And he could've shot me right there if he wanted to, but I guess he figured I was gone, you know?

>> With the element of surprise gone, the German gunners now held the advantage, and they were on the high ground, looking directly down on Rudders Rangers.

That was until the Navy once again became involved.

The destroyer USS Satterlee sailed within 400 yards of the Pointe.

Satterlee fired its 5-inch guns at German machine-gun positions where German troops were now firing at and dropping grenades on the Rangers who were valiantly trying to get up the cliff.

>> We used everything we had.

>> And the old Satterlee was assigned to us down there.

And we could've gotten up the cliffs without her help 'cause she was pumping her 5-inch shells in to give us protection.

>> The fighting at the base of the cliff at Pointe du Hoc began at 0710.

By 0740, thanks to the accuracy of the shelling by the Satterlee and Texas, most of the 2nd Rangers had made it to the top of Pointe du Hoc.

There they faced an enemy entrenched in machine-gun positions all over the bomb-cratered Pointe.

>> We had wounded on the beach, at the base cliff.

And one of us had to tend them.

And I was elected to take care of any new wounded on the beach.

>> And I spied the little cave down under the Pointe, and I noticed a fellow in there with a radio.

Immediately, I needed to get at the radio so I could send messages, see?

I knew that the 30-minute allowance for us to get our job done was a crucial point, so we were late getting the code signal out, "tilt."

And I decided to relocate up into the big shell hole that eventually became our command post.

I put up all the antennae I could and had my boys working the generator.

I was ducking dodging.

I was in the command post doing my duty back there and keeping things going, support-wise, flagging down ships, trying to get food and water, ammunition.

>> The main objective of the Rangers was to locate the six big guns and eliminate them before they could do damage to Allied forces on Utah and Omaha.

But the amphibious landings had already begun at both.

D Company's Len Lomell reached the first gun emplacement only to find that the big French gun wasn't there.

None of the guns were there.

Prior to D-Day, the Germans had apparently moved the mobile artillery pieces away from the Pointe.

This was no doubt as a result of the continued Allied air attacks in the weeks leading up to the invasion.

>> They weren't guns at all.

What appeared to be their barrels were telephone poles.

Very dark and maybe stained or painted black or whatever.

And from an aerial photograph -- I don't know how high they took it at -- it looked like the guns were in these particular positions.

Well, they weren't there.

What was there were these phony poles making it look from the air as if the guns were in those positions, so we couldn't find any guns to destroy or put out of action at that point in time.

So, we went along with the rest of the mission.

The Free French people said they had notified our intelligence that the guns had been removed and that was just fake guns that they had in the position to mislead us.

I wasn't angry at all.

War is war.

You expect them to be clever.

We expect ourselves to be clever.

And we knew the Germans were good soldiers.

Nothing about it surprised me or my men, to my knowledge.

>> It was imperative to find where the guns had gone.

They probably hadn't been taken too far away.

>> When we found no guns, we headed for the road to establish a roadblock.

I only had 12 men, so I told 10 of them with their sergeants, "Now you guys go ahead, set up a roadblock, and make sure no Germans get through here to keep contact.

And, Jack, you come with me," my platoon sergeant.

I said, "You and I are gonna go find those guns.

They gotta be here because we know that artillery men have alternate positions.

And that's too valuable equipment to leave unattended or to not protect or move to safety."

Well, Jack and I could only remember this one sunken road that went to the rear.

And we saw what looked to be the wagon-wheel tracks on the dirt.

So, as Jack and I leapfrog down that road to find out if possibly these tracks could be made by the howitzers, these coastal guns, when they were moved.

And we didn't know.

Became my turn to make the next 100 feet I was gonna leapfrog, and I came to a hedgerow, I look over and into an apple orchard, a sunken apple orchard.

And there, lo and behold, are the guns of Pointe du Hoc -- only five of them.

There were supposed to be six.

The five were in position, and they're aimed at Utah beach, and they had their shells all orderly set up, ready to fire.

There wasn't a shell-marked crater or anything near those guns.

They were set up there in a plan that the Germans had to come into fire.

Remember, this is all a surprise.

And remember further that the Germans never believed anybody would be crazy enough to come up to those cliffs at them, so they didn't have them very heavily guarded.

But in any event, there was this position of five guns, all at the ready with their shells all at the ready, also, and there's a hundred or so -- 75 to 100 -- German men.

This is 8: 00 in the morning.

Coming from all directions, putting on their jackets.

The invasion was a complete surprise to them, particularly in this part of the world, atop these cliffs.

And so, I said, "Jack, you get up on that high hedgerow.

Keep an eye on those 100 guys, and I'll see what I can do in the -- in among those guns."

So, he did, he got up there and watched those guys, and they were organizing.

There were no guards down on the guns that I saw.

But I went in, and I had his grenade, a thermite grenade, and my thermite grenade, so I used that to weld together the traversing mechanisms and the elevation mechanism of the tubes of the barrels of these guns.

See, we were limited because, climbing the cliffs, we couldn't have too much on us.

So, we each carried one of those.

So, then I took my field jacket off, I wrapped that around my submachine gun stock, and I smashed the sights of all five guns.

So I destroyed the sights of the five guns so they couldn't sight it.

I destroyed two of the guns with the thermite grenade, and I said, "Jack, we gotta run back," which was only about 100 yards to the other side where we had left our roadblock being formed, and get the other guys' thermite grenades.

So we did that, and we ran as fast as we could, got them, in a sunken road -- nobody could see us -- and we did not get shot at, nobody did see us.

This is 8: 00 in the morning, out in farmlands.

We got our jackets full of these thermite grenades, went back to the position.

Jack took his position high on the hedgerow to watch over these hundred guys to alert me as to whether they were coming at me or not.

And they didn't, fortunately, and I was able to take those grenades and put one each on the remaining three guns and repeat what I had done before, thus putting all five guns out of action so they could not be used.

That was our mission.

That accomplished our mission.

And I said, "Listen, I need a couple runners to get back to the Colonel to tell him mission accomplished.

>> The sixth and final gun was found by another company of the 2nd Rangers.

This, too, was destroyed.

>> Lomell, from D Company, sent a couple runners back with the information that the guns had been put out of commission.

And I told the Colonel.

He said, "Well, good.

And that's a good thing to know."

And about 30 minutes later, here comes another two runners, and they were from E Company.

And they said that they wanted to report that their guns had been destroyed.

I said, "Well, hell, a few minutes ago, we had a couple fellas from D Company said they had destroyed a gun."

These boys looked surprised, like they didn't know anything about it.

So I told the Colonel.

He says, "Well, now we can be sure they are no longer a problem since we've had reports from two different companies."

>> The mission was now a success.

The six cannons were destroyed, then the main German ammunition dump at the top of Pointe du Hoc.

But the battle was not over.

In fact, it was just beginning on the top of the Pointe du Hoc.

The Rangers expected and almost immediately faced German counterattacks by day and by night.

The original tenants on June the 6th wanted Pointe du Hoc back, and they were determined to retake it.

Time and time again over the next 48 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Rudder's men held off everything the Germans threw at them, but casualties were mounting.

To curtail any friendly fire, Rudder laid out a large American flag at his command post so the Allied naval gunners would know the Rangers still controlled Pointe du Hoc.

>> We were being counterattacked, we're taking casualties.

Yeah, we were worried.

>> The thing that damn near did us in was the counterattack overnight from D-Day.

Starting in about 11: 00 -- 11:00, 11:30 -- we had the first attack.

Now, these were troops that they brought in from some miles away.

Tough guys that were used to night fighting and so forth.

And the first attack we beat off pretty well.

And they were really attracting our fire to locate where we were.

And they were smart boys.

You see, they've been in this wartime game a long time.

And so the second attack was somewhat worse.

The third one wiped out a bunch of our guys.

And the remnant had to withdraw back toward the Pointe and reinforce the defensive position we had around the Pointe proper.

>> However, we were successful for the next couple of days in beating off attacks by the Germans.

We accomplished the mission of D-Day, and we were relieved, D-plus 2, and our wounded were taken care of, and our dead guys were taken care of.

And why I say that is because there weren't very many left of us after that battle of D-Day at that point in time.

>> We didn't retreat.

We didn't give up.

We just fight.

>> The fighting on D-Day and throughout the next two days reduced what was once a force of 225 Rangers down to 90 who were still fit for combat.

Medic Frank South did all he could on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of June.

>> When you hear the cry of "Medic!"

there's no choice.

You don't think -- You don't think about anything except you have to go.

There's no choice.

Regardless of what's happening.

You tended him and took care of him if he was -- if possible.

Um...

If he was dead, you went on to the next guy.

>> Despite suffering 70% casualties, on the morning of the 8th of June, the 2nd Rangers finally received help.

The 2nd and 5th Rangers who were diverted on D-Day to Omaha Beach, along with units from the 29th Infantry Division, were able to break through to Pointe du Hoc and reinforce what was left of Rudder's men.

>> We were wondering when they would get there -- not if they would get there but when they would get there.

Because after a while, we were getting a little hungry.

The only thing we had to eat was one of those little god-awful D ration bars.

We were limited in water.

We were a little concerned about it.

The other thing that was happening is that we were running out of ammunition.

That was one of the problems, that the guys were using captured Mauser rifles and German ammunition.

And this caused us a problem when the guys from the 5th started arriving.

They would hear our Mauser fire, and you can recognize the sound -- it's a different sound from the our M1s.

And so they thought these were Germans, and so a minor firefight broke out, and two of the -- I think it was two of the 5th Rangers were killed by friendly fire.

And the word went out that they were here, which was a big morale boost.

And, of course, later on, when the rest of the 2nd showed up, it was a big relief.

>> The 2nd Rangers had accomplished their assigned D-Day mission, but the cost was very high and very personal.

>> I came to the area where they were gathering the bodies of the men in the battle.

And lo and behold, they had all my guys lined up, laid out, along the roadside, on the shoulder of the road with a name tag on them and who they were.

And preparatory to taking them to a cemetery or a morgue or something somewhere.

Then, the grave-registration guys, they were just doing their job, getting all the bodies up, but they had all D Company together, and here, for the first time, I was seeing, uh... what happens in war.

Right here, I've just been through these battles I've just tried to relay to you, and I'm seeing for the first time all my guys dead and along the roadside.

And so, I carefully looked at each face, and that tore me up because, for the first time, I was thinking of all the other things and not of this sort of thing or myself personally.

>> They're stuck in time and place and turned cold.

These were living... human beings, warm, some of them a little nutty, some of them irritating, but all of them were real.

And the sacrifices of all these characteristics, all of this personality... all of the futures...gone... all of that... All of the futures gone.

You know, that's the sacrifice.

>> This monument at the top of Pointe du Hoc was dedicated by the French in 1960.

It is symbolized by the many Ranger daggers that were thrust into the cliffs during the bloody climb.

The memorial is about 8 miles west of the American cemetery in Normandy.

Many 2nd Rangers killed on the 6th, 7th, and 8th of June are buried there under white crosses and stars of David.

>> You do what you have to do, what you're trained to do, and, fortunately, I was with men who were well-trained, knew what to do, and we did the best we could under the circumstances.

Some survived, some did not.

I had brothers in real life, but I don't think my own blood brothers or any brother meant more to me than my fellow Ranger buddy.

>> My intent is to make sure that history correctly notes what we accomplished.

We were a different bunch of people, not average.

If you're average, you wouldn't go volunteering for something that's sort of suicidal, you know?

[ Laughs ] >> In 1954, 10 years after D-Day, young Bud Rudder's return to Normandy and Pointe du Hoc allowed him to see a different side of his father, the amazing man who led the 2nd Rangers.

Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder would go down as one of World War II's most respected military leaders and a hero to the French people.

Rudder was handed a perilous mission, and he led his men to victory, overcoming numerous obstacles and tremendous casualties.

James Earl Rudder understands the price that was paid at Pointe du Hoc on D-Day.

His son, Bud, does, as well.

>> Dad had an emotional side to him that, uh... he didn't often show, but I remember seeing him tear up more than once on this trip just often silently as he thought about what he had seen and done and those who had sacrificed to get the thing done, get the job done.

This letter I found in my mother's belongings after she died.

It was a carbon copy of a letter Dad had sent to the mother of one of his Rangers who was killed D-Day.

I transcribed it so I could print it, and it reads as follows.

"Headquarters, 2nd Ranger Infantry Battalion, APO, New York, New York.

France, 13 July 1944.

Re: Corporal Willie C.

Caperton."

And it gives his serial number.

"Dear Mrs. Caperton, No Commanding Officer can ever find words to adequately express his deep sympathy with those whose sons, husbands, or brothers finish their earthly tour of duty while under his command.

The soldiers who formed the Ranger battalion were the best, all volunteers.

The mission of the Rangers was successfully accomplished, but as with all worthwhile things, the cost was great -- so great, indeed, that it cost the life you cherished and lost us a comrade and a friend.

A country must be great to call for the sacrifice of such men, but America will always be great just because such men have fallen in order that the principles expressed in our Constitution might endure.

Every public honor will be accorded his memory.

His President has already proclaimed him a hero.

A grateful Congress will erect a monument to his name.

The people of America will realize what that gold star means to those who loved him and will resolve to keep America worthy of such men.

So, our comrade has gone, and we realize that there is a void in your heart which neither your country's gratitude nor our sympathy can fill.

We, with whom he shared his life, ask only now to share his memory, that it may inspire us all to the gaining of an early victory and the making of a lasting peace.

With deepest sympathy, James E. Rudder, Lieutenant Colonel Infantry, Commanding."

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