Pointe du Hoc has been cleaned up an opened to the public as a memorial to the Rangers who stormed it on D-day. The site was a complex of bunkers with fields of fire extending over both Omaha & Utah beaches.
The first pic looks west and Utah beach is about 15km away across the bay in that direction, but too misty to see this day.
The airforces bombed the crap out of it before D-day. Then on the day the navy took over, including USS Texas with 14" guns. As a result the dominant feature of the site is not, as one would expect, the bunkers, but the craters. The site is large and it almost covered by interlocking craters 12m in diameter and 5m deep - and that's after 66 years of erosion.
All the monuments laud the yanks who attacked it, but what about the Germans who took this bombardment and were still able to put up a damn good fight in a hopeless situation ?
The main observation post on the point. It has been substantially repaired.
A Machine gun nest. Note the steel ring for mounting the mg for all round fire.
Typical gun bunker. Most of the bunkers I saw followed a standard design as you would expect. The gun postion with the overhanging roof, 2 ammo store rooms behind, then a protected exit at the rear covered by an mg port.
A bit of battle damage.
I assume this is what happens to a bunker when the USS Texas gets the range and fires salvoes of ten 1500 lb 14" shells.
All the monuments laud the yanks who attacked it, but what about the Germans who took this bombardment and were still able to put up a damn good fight in a hopeless situation ?
1 comment:
This is a great series of posts and pictures. I am SO jealous...
I'll get there one day.
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