Also on this date June 6,1755 Nathan Hale was born.
I repeat: "Praise the Lord"
The Rangers took the Point, but the guns had never been installed.
Still, the mission wasn't for naught. Two enterprising Rangers, patrolling further inland, found a German artillery battery that was unguarded. They used their thermite grenades to destroy those guns
Roger that, John. The story I linked to details this fact. However, the discovery of the guns inland and their destruction was key b/c this greatly reduced the risks to allied personnel in the event of a counter-attack.
That's true, John, but the Germans had put in telephone poles, so that recon thought they had the guns there.
And that other battery wasn't exactly unguarded. It was that the guards were forming up at the other end of an apple orchard, and didn't see either one of the trips the rangers made to destroy the aiming/firing mechanism of the guns (They were far too large for a thermite grenade to destroy; the rangers did the approximate equivalent of melting the steering wheel column of a car).
I think a thermite grenade WOULD do a job on a 155mm. Not melt the entire gun down, of course, but ruin its utility. As I recall, on the bigger guns it tended to chew up the rifling as it went down, and if you closed the breech block the molten iron from the thermite would weld it shut from the inside.
In college during the late 70's I worked summers in a paper mill. One of the guys on our team was with the Rangers that day. He never gave details, but said at the end of the day on June 6th he vowed NEVER to complain about anything ever again.
Michael,
Great point. And in lieu of grumbling, the rest of us can just be thankful.
Re: how the guns were taken out, per the linked militaryhistoryonline.com article ...
"Acting quickly, Lomell ran up to a pair of the guns and placed two thermite grenades into the traversing mechanisms. The silent grenades melted the gears of the guns, knocking them out of action. The sergeant broke the sites on the remaining three artillery pieces, assuming that the Germans would not be able to accurately range their fire should they retake the position and eventually re-crew the massive guns. Lomell and his two comrades raced back to the road and collected all the other incendiary grenades from the Rangers manning the roadblock. Rushing back to the trio of remaining guns, the Americans placed these grenades in the traversing and elevating mechanisms, and soon rendered them inoperable as well. They banged on the sites, destroying them."
David,
That was what I was trying to convey. When I read the word 'destroy', I envision passerby having to ask the question 'what was that?' because whatever it was that got destroyed is now completely unrecognizeable. They still looked like 155mm big guns; they were just completely useless by the time the Rangers were finished with them. Which was the entire idea.
We posted about D-day today as well, we should NEVER forget the sacrifices of those that defend us. Great post.
Frank
http://www.team-swap.com/wordpre...05/06/06/d-day/
I don't know if anything I have ever done or any place I have ever been
moved me as much as Pointe Du Hoc. The plaque on the site tells the story of 225 men who climbed the cliff, when they were relieved after 3 days 90 survived and of those 90, 60 were wounded. I like to think I'm a pretty tough guy, but that day I cried like a baby. Every American should go there and to Omaha Beach and to Sainte Mer Egliese. You won't see the world the same way ever again
Thanks, Glenn. God willing, I will make it there some day.
Don't wait. Planes fly every day, and the citizens of Normandy, especially the older ones, will for the most part welcome you with open arms. I'm fortunate to have friends who, as children, went through the invasion. I get hugs and thank yous everywhere we go. And the Calvados is wonderful.
Astounded and awe-inspired, I stand free, amazed at the courage and moral clarity of the young men who moved straight into that hail of hatred, bigotry and lead, to clean the human world of a disease-state we called national-socialism!
There are several comments I could make about how screwed up things are today in comparison of the media and such but this is not the right day to be making those comparisons. This is a day to reflect on the determination, drive and heart of those rangers on the beach that day.
Praise the Lord.
If these thermite grenades are of the same nature as the magnesium burn blocks then they have the capability of burning through a five drawer NSA approved safe, through the deck plate underneath, and the one after that and potentially through the bottom of the hull of the ship. I think the only vessel two vessels out there that they won't go through the hull on is a battleship and a carrier...and I'm not so sure about the carrier. I would guess they could do some damage to an gun on the market.
Commenting by HaloScan
