Leonard Lomell - D-Day Morning

D-Day Morning

The initial mission of companies D, E and F of the 2nd Ranger Battalion was one of the most difficult of the entire invasion – scaling sheer cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, seizing control of its massively reinforced fortifications, and disabling five 155-millimeter cannons that allied intelligence reported had been emplaced there. Their landing was scheduled to coincide with the first landings on Omaha Beach.

At 24, First Sergeant Lomell was the acting commander for the Battalion's D Company. Due to heavy seas and the fog of battle, Lomell’s landing craft arrived thirty-five minutes late, away from its mark, and lost any element of surprise. Those who made it down the ramp or over the side had to swim inland about 20 feet. As Lomell was bringing in a box of rope and a hand-projector rocket, he was wounded in the side by a machine-gun bullet, but reached shore without pausing. First Sergeant Lomell reached the top of the cliff through the use of two ladders, and along with eleven other men from his landing craft, moved off of the edge of the cliff.

D Company's specific objectives were to take the three western gun emplacements, and to then assemble to the south edge of the fortified area to control the coastal road (so as to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the Omaha Beach area from the west). Aerial and naval bombardment of the Pointe du Hoc area, designed to destroy the guns, and their defenses and defenders, had turned the landscape into a moonscape of craters.

However, as the Army’s official account of the battle later stated, “one party after another reached its allotted emplacement, to make the same discovery … there was no sign of the guns or of artillery equipment. Evidently, the 155's had been removed from the Point before the period of major bombardments.”

The Hollywood account of the conquest of Pointe du Hoc, as presented in Darryl F. Zanuck's movie "The Longest Day," ends there, overlooking the successes that were soon to come.

After 1st Sgt Lomell’s company took up positions along both edges of the coastal highway to prepare for the expected German reinforcements, Lomell and Staff Sergeant Jack K. Kuhn formed a patrol to head south down a double-hedgerowed lane. Lomell saw markings in this sunken road that looked like something heavy had been over it.

Lomell and Kuhn found five of the missing 155s, concealed under camouflage in an orchard. In Lomell’s words, “it was pure luck.” The guns had been placed in a position to fire toward Utah Beach and were capable of being switched for use against Omaha Beach. With S/Sgt Kuhn covering him against possible defenders, First Sergeant Lomell went into the battery and set off silent thermite grenades in the mechanisms of two guns. Because the thermite grenades melted their gears in a moment, they effectively disabled them. After bashing in a third gun’s gunsights, Lomell went back for more grenades.

The official U.S. Army account of the episode reported that members of E Company “finished off the job” while Lomell was retrieving more thermite grenades from other members of his own company. Although E Company indisputably destroyed the ammunition cache set aside for the 155’s, more recent accounts of the episode give Lomell, and not E Company, the credit for disabling the rest of the guns. When the Pointe was taken, guns were disabled and coastal road was taken, the Second Battalion became the first American unit to accomplish its D-Day mission, and did so before 9:00 a.m.

The Battalion would successfully defend its victories for the next few days before it was finally relieved. Of the 225 Rangers who disembarked with 1st Sgt Lomell, only 90 were left standing at the end of the battle.