Rangers Storm Pointe du Hoc Normandy, France, D-Day, 6 June 1944

“First one, and then another, and then a few more, made it to the top, all within a period of maybe five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Time was fluid and passed in erratic leaps.”

– Sergeant Frank E. South, Medic, Headquarters Company, 2d Ranger Battalion

In Larry Selman’s 2006 painting, The Pointe, Sergeant Leonard Lomell (holding a Thompson submachine gun), BAR gunner Robert Rubin, and radioman Robert Fruling struggle to the top of Pointe du Hoc while under fire from German defenders. (Image courtesy of Larry Selman)