Another paradox. La Pointe du Hoc, Normandy

Here we have a wonderful example of how priorities can change and indeed become completely reversed. La Pointe du Hoc, the memorable location in Normandy where the 225 men of Companies C D and E of the 2nd Rangers Battalion led by Col. James Earl Rudder stormed and climbed the cliffs at La Pointe du Hoc to attack and destroy a German battery which threatened the D-Day Landings further along the coast in both directions at Utah Beach and Omaha Beach.

The story is well known. Rudder’s Rangers successfully climbed the formidable cliffs at La Pointe du Hoc using London Fire Brigade ladders and rocket propelled grappling hooks that had rope ladders attached to engage the enemy and destroy the guns. Except, after all the effort, there were no guns there to destroy. In the face of heavy and accurate aerial bombardment (because the geographical shape of the Pointe made it an easy target) the Germans, fearing the valuable guns would be destroyed, had moved them to the rear for safety.

Sergeant Lomell found the guns in a field a couple of kilometres distant from the site and destroyed them using thermite grenades.

The fire control bunker at La Pointe du Hoc has been closed for many years because of cliff erosion which threatens its stability. Many superb memorial tablets are contained therein and it has been a considerable time since I last saw them. It was clear something needed to be done, and urgently, if the bunker was to be saved. 2010 has seen the arrival of a huge crane, a concrete mixing plant and material and many workers to stabilise the bunker, shutting off a huge chunk of access to La Pointe du Hoc in the process.

Undoubtedly the project will cost millions of Dollars of US tax payers money and there is no question as to the validity of the project. But the irony, the superb paradox is that of the fact that what the US spent millions of Dollars trying to destroy in 1944, is now the subject of spending a fortune in trying to restore.

It is so ironical as to be almost hypocritical.