The rope was slick with blood and seawater, and 225 American Rangers were climbing straight into German machine gun fire.

The First Wave at Omaha: When Rangers Climbed Into Hell

The 2nd Ranger Battalion's Assault on Pointe du Hoc's Cliffs

225 Rangers scaled 100-foot cliffs under fire on D-Day to destroy guns threatening the invasion beaches.

The rope was slick with blood and seawater, and Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder's hands were already torn raw. Above him, German machine guns raked the cliff face, sending chunks of Norman limestone raining down on the 225 Rangers attempting the impossible: scaling a 100-foot sheer cliff while under direct fire.

It was 7:10 AM on June 6, 1944, and the assault on Pointe du Hoc was already behind schedule. The landing craft had drifted east in the heavy swells, costing the Rangers forty precious minutes and the element of surprise. As the boats ground onto the narrow beach beneath the cliffs, German defenders appeared at the rim, hurling grenades and firing directly down.

The Rangers had trained for this on the cliffs of the Isle of Wight, but nothing prepared them for the reality. Their rocket-propelled grappling hooks—many waterlogged and too heavy to reach the summit—fell short. Of the ropes that did catch, German soldiers cut several before climbers could ascend. Men fell silently into the surf below.

Yet some ropes held. Sergeant Leonard Lomell was among the first to reach the top, pulling himself over the edge with his .45 in his teeth. What he found there would prove m…

💡 The 155mm guns the Rangers were sent to destroy had been secretly moved inland—two sergeants found and destroyed them alone in an apple orchard.