[Legends]

biggrin: Kuhn: “We were shot at as we climbed, but it was possible to get some cover by climbing behind chunks of cliff dislodged by the shelling.”
The Rangers, to their surprise and chagrin, found the battered emplacements on Pointe du Hoc empty of the expected coastal artillery.
Kuhn: “The terrain was in total disarray. Since their were no guns, we headed towards D Company’s second objective, to fight through the highway three-quarters of a mile directly ahead and set up road-blocks against the German troops.”
The Rangers were running from shell hole to shell hole to the exit road.
Kuhn: “We split into two groups to make our way to the road. Heading up the highway, we walked up the road, scanning it and the hedgerows to our sides. Just then, we came abreast of the battered remains of an old French farm building.”
Ranger Len Lomell recalls: “Because we couldn’t stop to reach the coast road, we had to move fast. We then set up our roadblocks. I then saw some wheel tracks in a sunken road between two high hedgerows. We followed them and about two hundred yards from the highway, I found five 155mm guns in a draw or vale of an orchard. They were all in place, pointed and ready to fire at Utah Beach, but not with a soul around them, not with a single guard that we could see near the position.”
Lomell: “Another two hundred yards off, in a field, were a bunch of Germans forming up, putting on their jackets, starting their vehicles. I think they were the gun crews getting organized.”
Lt. George Kerchner: “When I headed towards the point of the Hoc where the guns were supposed to be, the Germans began shelling us from inland. I kept going in the direction of the emplacements, because most of the shells were falling near the cliff edge.”
Lt. George Kerchner: “I began picking up men, some were from my own company and others were from different ones. You could jump into these craters 25 feet wide and there might be one or two Rangers there. As soon as a shell had landed, you would get out of your hole, run, and jump in the next one. The faster you moved the safer you felt.”
“I crawled through a communications trench to a house. The men took off in small groups. I followed, and as I crossed the Pointe du Hoc I dropped into a communications ditch two feet wide and eight feet deep. My first impression was, I’m safe from artillery fire, but the trench zigzagged every twenty-five yards.”
“Pointe du Hoc was a self-contained fort. On the land side it was surrounded by minefields, barbed wire, and machine gun emplacements, all to protect it from a land attack.”

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