CHAPTER 20
June 7
With the sun well over the horizon, its blinding rays reached Petty’s position deep in the shell crater, awakening him. Groggy and disoriented, L-Rod heard the murmur of voices coming from a nearby house. Glancing down at his watch, he noticed “it was well past eight” and thought that American forces would soon be advancing off Omaha Beach towards Pointe du Hoc. “Surely they will be arriving soon,” he reasoned. “Or maybe the invasion did not go well?”
He considered waiting until they arrived. Had the invasion been successful? Or had the Germans overrun the Pointe? Suddenly, to his horror, he realized that the voices coming from the house were German. Petty was lying dangerously close to a group of Germans who were forming a skirmish line to advance towards Pointe du Hoc.
As the Germans lined up for battle, he realized his Ranger brothers on the Pointe must be still alive. The urge to be with the other Rangers “was strong.” Casting caution aside “without hesitation,” Petty decided to risk running through the minefield. But as he advanced toward the Pointe, he spotted several more Germans soldiers forming up for the assault. “I hit the Germans from the rear. I ran through them, hip firing at random. They scattered and hit the dirt, but they were too startled to shoot back.”
As Petty neared Rudder’s perimeter, he felt the crack of bullets whizzing past him and realized his own men were firing at him. In the nick of time, he heard Winsch yell, “Stop shooting! It’s L-Rod!”
“When I reached the Ranger line, I slid into a bomb crater. It was as though I scored a winning touchdown, with much backslapping and handshakes.” One Ranger gave Petty a “rib-cracking hug” and blurted out, “I told those dumb shits you were too ornery to get killed. And besides, I knew with your balls you would make it.”
Just then, Petty came face to face with Big Stoop.
“My God, am I looking at a ghost?” Captain Masny asked. “Everybody thought you were dead or captured. I thought I was finally rid of my main chops-breaker.”
“No such luck for you,” the sergeant responded dryly.
Concerned, Big Stoop looked back at Petty. “L-Rod you look terrible. You’re shaking like a leaf!”
Masny then gave Petty half a chocolate bar. He said, “I hear you were great out there across the road. I knew from the beginning you would be. You surprised your lieutenant. You shook him a little too.”
Still trembling from the shock of his experience, Petty caught Big Stoop’s eye and said. “Tell that yellow son of a bitch to go fuck himself. I’ll tell him face to face if I get the chance. I know it will cost me my stripes, but it will be worth it.”
Reassuringly, Big Stoop told him, “Not while I’m the CO will you revert to private. We’ll handle that later. Right now, you’re a sick man, and I’m taking you to Doc Block.”
Petty said, “Yeah, thanks, but I don’t think Doc will be happy to see me. I threw a few cusswords at him at the foot of the cliffs.”
“That wouldn’t stop Doc from helping you. He’s a man of integrity and a fine doctor.”
Petty reported to Doc Block, who joked with him, “I see you finally did get up the cliffs, and I heard a few men speak of what you did when you did get to the top.”
Petty attempted to apologize to him, but Doc brushed it off. Describing his symptoms, L-Rod told him, “I feel as tight as a drum, and crazy as it sounds, I feel frightened and I don’t [know] of what. I didn’t feel frightened yesterday or last night when I guess I should have.” Doc diagnosed him with nervous exhaustion. Petty recalled, “[South] gave me a pill that I guess was relaxing. He then told me to lie down on one of the bunk beds for a while.” The pill worked quickly, and in a couple of hours, Petty was calm and his “tremors had ceased.”
In the early morning hours of June 7, the German’s attack ground to a halt after naval gunfire hit them as they were assembling to assault Rudder’s command post and perimeter. Meanwhile, what was left of E Company and F Company formed a hasty defensive line around gun emplacements three and five. With the German and American lines more or less solidified, skirmishing continued. For the time being, though, naval bombardment kept the Germans from wiping out Rudder’s men.
With ammunition running low, the Rangers scavenged the area for German weapons and pressed the walking wounded back into their line. Even medic Frank South joined his brothers on the line: “After taking care of a few men in the morning, I took off my Red Cross armband, and arming myself with a captured German Schmeisser machine pistol, volunteered to go out on perimeter defense. After about four hours, it was apparent I was no longer needed, and I returned to the aid station with a wounded man.”
The Rangers’ situation looked grim. Ammunition was running out. There were no reinforcements. And the Germans had just broken all the lines by the coastal road except the one held by Kerchner, Lomell, and Dog Company.
Through his communications officer, Lieutenant Eikner, Rudder was able to keep a steady stream of communications with the Navy. However, communication with Ranger Force B and Force C on Omaha Beach, as well as the Army’s 116th Infantry of the 29th Division, was non-existent. Rudder partially created this problem when he failed to appoint a liaison officer after he relieved Major Lytle and assumed command of Force A.
The Army also had problems of its own, as it held on to Omaha Beach. Elements of the 116th Infantry and the 5th Ranger Battalion attempted to battle towards the Pointe, but the Germans kept them at bay. Relief for the Rangers would have to wait. Compounding the matter, late in the afternoon of June 7, “an unidentified Ranger officer from the 5th Battalion [incorrectly] reported to V Corps (G-2) that the Germans had retaken the Pointe.” Fortunately, the 116th disregarded this erroneous information, but they still decided to wait until the morning of June 8 to push out from Grandcamp Les-Bains, a village near Omaha Beach, and link up with Rudder at the Pointe.
Not only were the Germans pressing on the Pointe’s perimeter, the German’s western flak guns were still active. Even the observation bunker at the tip of Pointe du Hoc remained in enemy hands. Rudder spent the day consolidating his position and attempting to remove these threats within his own perimeter.
The concrete observation post at the tip of the Pointe served as the eyes of Pointe du Hoc. From there, one could see most of the Cherbourg peninsula, and it also had a commanding view of Omaha Beach.
Rudder assigned Lieutenant Elmer Vermeer, a demolitions officer, with the task of eliminating the Germans still holding the observation bunker. “When the colonel asked me to blow the Pointe, I again called on my friend, Eberle, who had gone with me earlier on D-Day toward the machine gun nest. We found a twenty-pound sack of C-2 explosives and took about five other men from other companies who were at the command post with us to blow the Pointe. We stayed together and went from shell hole to shell hole until we came to the open ground. Then we moved as rapidly as possible and into position right behind the observation post. Eberle and I set the charge at the back door of the concrete bunker, and I hardly remember getting around the corner. We used a very short fuse, and I think the explosion probably lifted us right off the ground.”
Not long after Vermeer and the men blew the doors off the bunker, eight Germans piled out shouting “Kamerad!” However, one of the Germans foolishly pointed a gun at Vermeer. Three or four rounds of rifle fire from the Rangers instantly cut him down.
The Germans’ 37 mm flak gun, which continued to hit the Rangers, seemed to have an endless supply of ammunition. Big Stoop noticed Germans going in and out of a small hut located well behind their lines. He ascertained that the hut was an ammunition depot, and it was likely feeding the gun. Rudder once again tasked Vermeer and a crew of volunteers—including Petty, Sundby, and Fox Company Ranger Bill Anderson—with blowing something up—this time it was the ammunition depot.
Vermeer remembered: “We moved out very rapidly, and Lieutenant Wintz, who was holding the area that we went through, gave us a lot of fire cover so we could get to the ammo dump.” One of the Dog Company men, Sigurd Sundby, who had been temporarily reassigned to Captain Masny and F Company and had volunteered to destroy the ammunition depot with Vermeer, gave him covering fire. “We gave cover fire for him, and then the Navy dropped some shells up along that area,” Sundby remembers.
As they approached their target, the men could hear moaning. It came from George Schneller, who had a massive gaping wound on his back. Sundby thought to himself, “There is no way this guy can be alive.” As the men attempted to pull his foot, Schneller suddenly sprung to his feet, astonishing everyone. For nearly two days, the Ranger had played dead while countless Germans passed him. The experience turned Schneller’s chestnut-brown hair gray, but at least he was alive. Like Schneller, Sergeant Morris Webb, who had been bayoneted in the thigh near no man’s land on D-Day, was also found by his Ranger comrades and brought back to the command post that night.
When the group of Rangers reached the ammo dump, which was really nothing more than a shed made of planks and tin, they all passed their Bangalore torpedoes to Anderson, who, as one Ranger recalled, was “even cockier than L-Rod Petty.” He crawled towards the entrance and attempted to light the Bangalores’ fuse.
According to Petty, “It seemed like it was taking an eternity to arm the torpedoes.” Bullets filled the air around the men. Almost hysterical, Petty screamed down at Anderson, “Get the God damn things armed and let’s get out of here. What the hell is the hold up?”
Anderson finished placing the charge and finally ignited the fuse.
German fire rained down on their position. Petty’s adrenaline was pumping as he charged, once again firing from the hip. Anderson yelled, “Drop, L-Rod, drop! It’s going to blow!”
Before Petty could react, Anderson tackled him to the ground.
BOOM! The ammo depot exploded. Steel, tin, wood and shells fell from the sky all around the men as they made their way back toward Ranger lines. The men returned to the command post and reported that the mission was accomplished.
17That afternoon, the Navy finally re-supplied Pointe du Hoc. Several LCAs brought in Ranger reinforcements, badly needed supplies, and ammunition. Vermeer remembers the first food that he had eaten in more than two days: “They also brought some bread, and Doc Block issued out jam sandwiches.” The LCAs returned to the ships with German prisoners and many of the wounded Rangers.
As dawn crept across the Dog’s defensive position near the coastal highway, Kerchner woke up to hear rustling in a nearby ditch. “I was scared. I figured it was the Germans digging us out. I was all set to try and defend myself when I realized they were Americans—two Americans from E Company that had been left behind.… So we weren’t the only ones out there in this field. I think there were fifteen of us. These two men from E Company came in and joined us. They got in the hole with me.”
For the rest of the morning, the battleship Texas opened up its 14-inch guns on the field surrounding Dog Company. The ship’s guns were targeting areas where the Germans assembled their men to launch a strike on Rudder’s command post. Since there had been no word from Kerchner, Lomell, and their men, Rudder assumed that Dog Company had been entirely wiped out or captured. Huge shells from the Texas ripped open the fields around Dog Company. According to Kerchner, “a shell would land within fifty yards from where we were; it would dig a hole fifteen to twenty feet in diameter and four to five feet deep. You can imagine what a noise it made when it went off. And of course, you didn’t know where the next one was going to land either. . . . I can say that I had a prayer book in my pocket. I’m a Roman Catholic. I did a tremendous amount of praying when I was in that ditch. I read that prayer book through from cover to cover, I suppose, half a dozen times, and I prayed very sincerely for protection. And actually, it’s not apropos, since then I feel so guilty in all the things I asked for on D-Day and what I asked for the Lord to do for me, which was primarily to get me out of there alive. I’ve been so ashamed to ask for anything since then. I figure I used up all I had coming to me on D-Day.”
