D-Day: Interview with Two U.S. 2nd Ranger Battalion Members Who Describe the Attack at Pointe-du-Hoc

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Lomell: I depended on Jack to give me cover to protect me. While I was in there I couldn’t see the Germans. By use of the thermite grenades I tried to weld moving parts, gears, cranks, hinges, breech blocks, anywhere I could find to place a couple of thermite grenades. Through their intense heat, they would weld moving parts together and render the guns inoperable. That moving, flowing molten metal, wherever it eventually got to, must have done the trick. I don’t think I spent 10 minutes, all told, destroying those guns. I was satisfied that I had done what I was trained to do. We never looked back. We didn’t waste a second.

WWII: Jack, what were you thinking while Len was damaging the guns?

Kuhn: It was a beautiful sight. I got to the point where I was starting to enjoy it in this respect: Hey, I’m watching these guys. They don’t know it. I was getting almost cocky, but I was afraid of being detected and hoping that nobody would look up. They wouldn’t have seen me, and I had this feeling that I had power over them. It was like, Hey, I got these guys where I want them. Then I realized: Wait a minute. If Len goes up there and these guys come toward us, I’ve got about three clips of ammo.

Lomell: We were nervous and fast. I was making my way back, and Jack said: Hurry up! Hurry up! Let’s get the hell out of here! I was doing the best I could, and going as fast as I could and I crawled up the embankment of that swale and an explosion went off that threw the both of us through the air into the sunken road. We couldn’t hear each other because of the ringing in our ears. All we knew was that we were running as fast as we could down that sunken road back to our Rangers’ roadblock. I felt so secure in the arms of those 10 guys. But what good were 10 guys against at least 150 Germans we had seen in the last half hour?

WWII: When the Rangers saw you running back, what was their reaction?

Kuhn: First of all, they didn’t know what we had done. They heard this explosion and…I remember Private Larry Johnson, I could have hugged him. He was all by himself there at the road intersection. He said, What the hell was that? I said, We don’t know but, Larry, the guns are inoperative. Unfortunately, Larry was killed on another day. I can’t understand why a German patrol wasn’t dispatched after that to see what the heck the explosion was and what was up there at the intersection.

WWII: Did you ever get to see the guns after you were relieved on D-plus-2?

Kuhn: I had every intention of getting back to see the guns. But I no sooner got back to the company than we moved out toward Isigny. I remember marching past the road and realizing that if I went down there a couple hundred yards and came back the Rangers would have been a mile down the road. I didn’t risk it.

While the D-Day mission had been accomplished, by Lomell and Kuhn and the other brave men of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, the battles and the war were far from over. Brest, Hill 400 and dozens of other nameless Ranger battles remained to be fought.

The Rangers weren’t relieved at Pointe-du-Hoc until June 8, after 2 1/2 days of mounting a continual defense against fierce counterattacks by elements of the German 914th Infantry Regiment. On the evening of June 6, 25 Rangers from the 5th Ranger Battalion joined the men at the Pointe after fighting their way overland from Omaha Beach.

After two days, only 90 of the original 225 Rangers who had led the assault on Pointe-du-Hoc were still able to man their positions when troops of the 116th Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, finally broke through from the west to relieve them. The Rangers had accomplished one of the first and most critical missions of D-Day, but at a terrible cost.

Len Lomell received the Distinguished Service Cross and Jack Kuhn the Silver Star for their actions. Before the war ended Lomell was wounded three times and received a battlefield commission. He returned home to complete law school and later established a successful practice in New Jersey.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II