Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Point du Hoc

These pictures show the fortifications and bunkers at Point du Hoc, which was a high central pinnacle commanding the approaches to Utah and Omaha beaches. Small wonder the Germans planned installing heavy artillery there to thwart an allied attack.

A group of Rangers had the mission of scaling the cliffs and securing the gun emplacements. Landing at the bottom, they had pipe like devices that fired grappling hooks, some of which took hold on the high rim. From there they climbed vertically, up the sheer face, until reaching the top.

It's said that a fear of heights reaches it worst at about thirty-two (32) feet and from that point on, any incremental increases bring no additional anxiety. I've often wondered if that height is genetically tied to the terminal velocity of falling objects… i.e. they fall at 32 feet per second and no faster. Is that a coincidence or are the two somehow related? What I do know is that heights scare the heck out of me. I experience vertigo easily and my bung gets so tight I couldn’t get a broom straw up it. So, how must those Rangers have felt climbing those cliffs, knowing that at the top the Germans were waiting?

It turned out that while the cement bunkers had been built, the artillery was not installed. Imagine, after all that work and sweat, to discover that the Guns of Point du Hoc were nowhere to be seen. B-26 Bombers raided the site on the eve of the attack and there are bomb craters to be seen, still much in evidence.