European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 11, 1947, Darmstadt, Hesse 1 had told colonel rudder that 1 would find it impossible to climb the rope lad Ders if s funny what you can do when you have s when he said yes to a second Glass of the wrong Man heard him and a few weeks later he was crossing the Channel on an assault Landing and he knew then they we rent years people had in telling me that in Day my big Mouth was going to get me 7jnto an awful lot of i didst know just How right they were until one Fine Spring Day in England when a Public relations officer of the first army asked me Over the Telephone if i would like to make the invasion of Europe with the second Ranger the Call reached me in the stars and stripes lounge in London sometimes known As the Lamb and Lark Public House just As Phil Bucknell was asking me if i wanted another i answered yes to Phil and heard the voice on the Telephone say i would certainly some Fine stories for stars and stripes and goodbye during the weeks of waiting for d other members of the staff consoled me by pointing out that the Good lord takes care of fools and drunks and i therefore had double its Nice to have three or four times Spring and Early correspondents were called together and hustled off to various parts of the United kingdom in an Effort to confuse German espionage so i figured it was just another dry run when told one Day late in May to report to a certain Headquarters in full Field still thought they were fooling when we journeyed to a Little town South of i still thought they were fooling when they sent us to the various units to which we had been i still thought they were fooling when they put us on ships at we had gone through All of this and at 0200 on june we scrambled into an assault Landing Craft and started Bobbing around in the Middle of the English Channel i thought they were carrying this game a Little too a Guy might get i had been told where the rangers were to what the Mission would be and what opposition was and when it finally soaked in that this was the real thing i was so scared i forgot to think of any reason for backing i regretted this oversight More than a during the next four Pointe do Hoe was the Pointe do Hoe is an about 1500 Square Yards containing one French at that six of the biggest coastal guns the germans could it Lay about seven Miles West of the main Omaha Beach Landing what made this a particularly Nasty place to therefore a task for the were the sheer 175foot Cliffs that stretched up from the Waters if i Ever have any grand children to Tell this Story those Cliffs Are going to be one thousand feet Pointe do Hoe was so important strategically that Allied invasion plans called it target number those six guns dominated both Omaha and Utah beaches and the German Crews would have a Field Day sinking Allied ships if they we rent knocked they were protected by sixteen feet of and the air forces had been unsuccessfully for months to take them out of since bombs do the trick the rangers had the germans figured that no one would be crazy enough to approach from the sea because of the so they built their defences facing Inland toward possible flank but colonel James rudder figured on decided a flank attack might be so Long delayed the invasion would and decided to do the item Headon from the one of the secret weapons hauled out by the allies on d Day was the method used in getting rope ladders up the face of the when the assault Craft touched Down rockets were sent Over the top of the Cliffs trailing rope attached to the rockets were three pronged grapple Hooks which bit into the ground when tension was the rangers were to scramble up these ladders with termite bombs and get the then they were to turn their attention to the naval bombardment started at 0500 and ended at just five minutes before the rangers were to come the idea was to drive the into their holes and give the rangers the advantage of it was a Fine it almost but High seas delayed the rangers and we didst touch Down until by this time the germans were out of their looking Down Over the Edge of the Cliffs and saying to themselves what in Hoelle goes Here As we came in the germans started shooting Down at us with every Small weapon they had and i was thinking How Nice it would be to be a wac recruiting continued on Page 22
