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

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History is rife with misconceptions, and World War II is no exception. As a result of an error in Cornelius Ryan’s book The Longest Day, more than 55 years after its famous attack up a sheer 100-foot cliff, the heroic 2nd Ranger Battalion is still fighting–this time to get the truth out about what took place at Pointe-du-Hoc in Normandy.

Ryan implied that the Ranger mission to destroy the German gun battery at Pointe-du-Hoc was a wasted effort. In fact, 1st Sgt. Leonard Lomell of Toms River, N.J., and Staff Sgt. Jack Kuhn of Altoona, Pa., personally saw to it that the Ranger mission was accomplished early on the morning of June 6, 1944. Supported by their comrades in D, E and F companies of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, Lomell and Kuhn, who were members of the 2nd Platoon, Company D, pushed ahead of the roadblock they had established and completed what then Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley later described as the most difficult mission he had ever given any soldier in his command.

The objective of every one of the 225 Rangers who assaulted Pointe-du-Hoc during the early morning hours of D-Day was to eliminate a battery of six 155mm guns of the 726th Infantry Regiment. The German artillery, which had a 10-mile range, had the potential to wreak havoc on two of the Allied invasion beaches, Utah and Omaha, by plastering the landing areas with high explosives and shrapnel. Using incredible stealth, Lomell and Kuhn located the battery, unguarded but ready for use, in the heavy foliage of a swale between two hedgerows on an old Norman farm track. They destroyed the guns, accomplishing the Rangers’ mission.

Despite the fact that Kuhn and Lomell survived to tell their story, the notion that the Pointe-du-Hoc assault was a failure has persisted. After an examination of what took place during the early morning hours of D-Day, the only logical conclusion is that the Rangers did not fight and die in vain. Kuhn and Lomell told their story in an interview for World War II Magazine.

World War II: Gentlemen, let’s begin from the moment you disembarked from the troop ship Amsterdam.

Kuhn: We disembarked about 4 o’clock in the morning from Amsterdam. It was about a 10-mile trip in to the beach.

Lomell: Amsterdam was a Channel steamer, a regular steamer. We had private rooms. The flotilla of about 5,000 ships was 11 or 12 miles off the beach. We went to sleep and, God, before we knew it, we had to be up and on deck at 4 o’clock. The weather was bad. We were on an English ship and got into LCAs [landing craft, assault] manned by Royal Navy men. To go 12 miles in those heavy seas and stormy weather took quite a while. Just about an hour before H-hour they ceased bombing with aircraft. That’s when [the battleship] USS Texas hit the Pointe with her shelling. Mind you, we all believed that there were guns on the cliff top as we had been taught. We had studied the Pointe and saw the positions from aerial photographs, but later found that they were telephone poles and not gun barrels.

We were watching the assault like a bunch of country boys at a fair or something. It was exciting, believe me. Waves were breaking over our LCA, and the guys had to take their helmets and bail because the pumps on the boat couldn’t take the water out of it. Jack and I were up in the bow of our boat, number 668. We saw that we were heading for something that looked strange to us. We suddenly became aware that we weren’t heading for Pointe-du-Hoc. It must have been Pointe-de-la-Percée. I didn’t know where the hell it was, but it sure didn’t look like Pointe-du-Hoc. Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder [the commanding officer of the 2nd Ranger Battalion] saw it at the same time and brought about a correction with the coxswains. We took an abrupt right and proceeded about three miles along the coast, about 300 yards offshore, parallel to the cliffs of Pointe-de-la-Percée, where C Company of the 2nd Battalion was landing. As we made our way the Germans were popping up along the top of the cliffs shooting at us with anything they could–machine guns, rifles and mortars, et cetera.

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