Pointe du Hoc was my favorite place we have gone to so far on our study abroad. Pointe du Hoc is a 90-foot cliff near Omaha Beach at Normandy that the American Rangers climbed to take out Nazi artillery emplacements. These cannons had up to an 18-mile firing range and could have been used against American forces landing at Omaha Beach. Fortunately, after the Rangers took the cliff, they realized the guns had been replaced with telephone poles to trick Allied reconnaissance.
The cliff the Rangers climbed at Pointe du Hoc
This past semester I studied Nazi defenses and the creation of the Atlantic Wall. While learning about the Atlantic Wall it was difficult to imagine the scale the Nazi’s fortifications. The Atlantic Wall was a series of bunkers, offshore obstacles, and machine-gun nests along the 2,800-mile Atlantic coastline the Nazis occupied. To this day mines are still being found which were part of Nazi coastal fortifications. This territory stretched from the Spanish-French border to the top of Norway and along the French-Mediterranean Sea border.
Pointe du Hoc is one of the best sites left from the war that exhibits the Atlantic Wall, with many almost complete bunkers and fortifications left alone since the 1945. My experience visiting Pointe du Hoc allowed me to comprehend the magnitude of the Nazi’s Atlantic defenses by witnessing the remnants in person. After seeing the vast distance which makes up the stretch of Norman coastline the Allies landed at – not only by viewing it from afar but by driving the distances to each beach – it is mind-boggling that the Nazis believed they could have had the manpower to defend so many beachheads. The construction of the wall to me was first a political display of power and second a defense mechanism.
A Nazi fortification
The first thing I noticed when we arrived at Pointe du Hoc – besides the numerous French school children running around – were the extremely large and sometimes steep craters that made up the landscape. I walked along the paths above and in-between the craters while observing my surroundings at Pointe du Hoc. It took me a while to piece together that this landscape was created by Allied pre-invasion bombing. One might not notice at first that the landscape is man-made because grass and brush have grown abundantly over the craters making them look natural. It is truly incredible to see the long-term destruction one 500lb bomb will leave on a landscape, let alone several hundreds of them.
Me standing at the top of a crater on remnants of a Nazi bunker
The bunkers had no lights inside, and I had to use my iPhone for a flashlight. Most of the bunkers had bent and rusted metal exposed through the concrete due to deterioration over the years. It was amazing to think that men day-in and day-out guarded their post here throughout the war, just waiting for an Allied attack. When you see the size and number of walls alone at Pointe du Hoc, it is amazing to think how much work was put into laying the amount of concrete needed to fortify all of the bunkers of the Atlantic coastlines with 10ft ceilings and 6.5ft walls.
The artillery used to defend the Atlantic Wall
My final observations are that it was interesting that the site of Pointe du Hoc had no acknowledgements of the Atlantic Wall and its significance. It was significant because it made up the whole landscape and environment of Pointe du Hoc where the Rangers landed. The site felt more like an American memorial because of all the quotes from American leaders and plaques commemorating the Americans who died at Pointe du Hoc. Part of the reason I think they don’t speak much of the Atlantic Wall is due to the fact that the Vichy Régime in France collaborated with the Nazis, using French construction companies as well as slave labor to help build the fortifications. The Atlantic Wall in France used to be called the “food wall” because if French families wanted a job under the Nazis, they had to work building the fortifications. In the end, seeing the Atlantic Wall in person was an amazing experience that shows the remnants of history and how the French culture interprets and displays it for the public.
The landscape of Pointe du Hoc