The German Defender Who Watched Pointe du Hoc Happen Lived to Write About It

On the morning of June 6, 1944, a 19-year-old German machine gunner named Wilhelm Kirchhoff watched American Rangers do something he had been told was impossible. They climbed his cliff. He fired 10,000 rounds at them. They came over the lip anyway, walked inland, and found the five 155mm guns the Germans had hidden in an apple orchard. Sixty years later, Kirchhoff sat down with an American historian and described what he saw. This is the story of the 2nd Ranger Battalion's assault on Pointe du Hoc, told from the position of the man who watched it happen and lived to write about it. The navigation error that cost 35 minutes. The cliff climb under grenades and cut ropes. First Sergeant Leonard Lomell and Staff Sergeant Jack Kuhn finding the guns in the orchard. The friendly-fire round that nearly killed Lt. Col. Rudder. Three nights of German counterattacks. And the price: of 225 Rangers who landed at the base of the cliff, about 90 were still able to bear arms when relief arrived on the morning of June 8. What "The Longest Day" never showed. What "Saving Private Ryan" never depicted. What Reagan's 1984 speech left out. — SOURCES Patrick K. O'Donnell, "Dog Company: The Boys of Pointe du Hoc" (Da Capo Press, 2012) — the source of the Wilhelm Kirchhoff and Rudolf Karl interviews Joanna M. McDonald, "The Liberation of Pointe Du Hoc: The 2d Rangers at Normandy, June 6-8, 1944" Robert W. Black, "Rangers in World War II" Helmut Konrad von Keusgen, "Pointe du Hoc — Rätsel um einen deutschen Stützpunkt" (German-language monograph on the position, drawn from interviews with surviving members of the German garrison) Vince Milano and Bruce Conner, "Normandiefront: D-Day to Saint-Lô Through German Eyes" Douglas Brinkley, "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion" Stephen E. Ambrose, "D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II" (used with the methodology caveats acknowledged in the script) Cornelius Ryan, "The Longest Day" Gary Sterne, "Cover Up at Omaha Beach: Maisy Battery and the US Rangers" (cited for the Maisy controversy; strongest revisionist claims rejected by mainstream Ranger historians) — PRIMARY SOURCES Provisional Ranger Group, After-Action Report, Operation Neptune, 6-8 June 1944 (Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder, July 1944) "Small Unit Actions: France: 2d Ranger Battalion at Pointe-du-Hoc" — U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1946 2nd Ranger Battalion S-3 Journal, 6-8 June 1944, NARA RG 407 352nd Infantry Division Tagesmeldungen and Oberstleutnant Fritz Ziegelmann's "Bericht über die Invasionsschlacht" (Foreign Military Studies series, FMS B-432) Eisenhower Center for American Studies, University of New Orleans — oral histories of Lomell, Kerchner, Eikner, Vermeer, South, and others Library of Congress Veterans History Project — 2nd Ranger Battalion interviews, including James Eikner Drop Zone Oral History Project (Patrick K. O'Donnell) — German-side interviews including Wilhelm Kirchhoff and Rudolf Karl President Ronald Reagan, "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc," remarks at the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, Pointe du Hoc, France, June 6, 1984 (text held at the Reagan Presidential Library) — If your father, grandfather, or uncle served in the 2nd or 5th Ranger Battalion, drop their name and rank in the comments. We honor them by remembering them. #WWII #DDay #PointeDuHoc #Rangers #WorldWarII #MilitaryHistory #Normandy #ForgedInWar