The Battle Of Pointe Du Hoc

Introduction-
The Battle of Normandy, code named Operation Overlord, was a pivotal event during the Second World War and marked the start of the liberation of Western Europe from German forces. The Operation included the amphibious landing of troops on five major beaches and allied paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines in the Normandy area of France. A key piece of terrain, known as Pointe Du Hoc a peninsula with 100 foot cliffs on three sides was used by Germans as a battery location and observation platform. Pointe Du Huc was located between the two of the beach landing sites, Omaha and Utah, which posed a challenge for Allied forces. Two days before Operation Overlord started, the Allies were informed the battery at Pointe Du Hoc was
Operation Overlord was initiated to open a new front in the European theater to relieve pressure off the Russians fighting on the Eastern front and eventually led to the liberation of German occupied countries closely followed by the defeat of Germany. The location selected for the operation was Normandy France. Normandy was selected because the German High Command was misled by Allies into thinking the invasion would occur further north of Normandy at an area where France and England were closest. This misconception led the Germans into concentrating their forces away from Normandy leaving a much smaller and manageable force in the Normandy area. Operation Overlord forces included 1.4 million allied forces conducting beach landings at five different locations along with three divisions of paratroopers dropped behind enemy
These unpredictable events prevented a majority of the Rangers from participating in the assault. One of the assault boats sank and a supply boat was swamped and lost. The loss of two boats delayed the assault by 40 minutes and cut the force size in half. Once the Rangers reached the beach and began to scale the 100 foot cliff two Allied destroyers provided fire support to prevent German defenders from firing directly on the Rangers climbing the cliff according toGawne (2011). Once on top of the cliff, the Rangers defeated the German defenses and shortly discovered their primary objective, the battery of six guns, was not there. The Rangers quickly regrouped and sent out patrols to find the guns, ultimately finding five of them and destroyed them with thermite grenades. (The Battle of Pointe Du Hoc, 2011) The guns were offline and were being fixed. The remaining Rangers set up hasty defenses and held off two days of German counter attacks until they were relieved by the 116th INF REG. Immediately following their relief the Rangers pushed 11 kilometers south-east and attacked Maisy Battery, a fortified German position with 10 cannons, anti-tank cannons, twelve 88-mm anti-aircraft guns and protected by 450 German military