The Real Heroes of Pointe du Hoc: Saga of the Guns on the Mound (Real Heroes of Omaha Beach Book Three)

Seven breaches were made in Hitler’s Atlantic Wall on D-Day. This is the story of the seventh – the one that had to be scaled straight up a 100-foot cliff under enemy fire.At first light on 6 June 1944, while the slaughter unfolded on Omaha Beach, a small force of U.S. Army Rangers turned their landing craft toward one of the most heavily fortified positions in Normandy: Pointe du Hoc. Their mission was simple to state and nearly impossible to survive. Climb the sheer rock face. Find the six massive 155mm German guns that could rain destruction on both Omaha and Utah Beaches. Destroy them before they can fire.Then they reached the top and discovered the guns were gone.In this gripping third installment of the Real Heroes of Omaha Beach trilogy, military historian Dennis H. Busch reconstructs the harrowing three-day ordeal atop the mound, hour by hour and man by man. From the desperate ascent under Lieutenant Colonel James Rudder, to the frantic hunt for the missing artillery, to the long dreadful night of relentless German counterattacks, this is combat history told with the precision of a battlefield map and the urgency of a first-hand account.These were not supermen. They were farmers, clerks, and schoolteachers in uniform, ordinary Americans who did something extraordinary and were then very nearly forgotten. Busch’s mission is to make sure they never are.Meticulously researched, vividly told, and illustrated with maps and photographs, The Real Heroes of Pointe du Hoc stands on its own as a complete account, while rewarding readers of the first two volumes with the conclusion of one of the most remarkable episodes of the Second World War.Turn the page and climb the cliff with the men who changed the course of history.