The missing guns at Point du Hoc
With reference to the questions being asked about the Guns at Pointe du Hoc I put forward the following for discussion.
The following is a direct quote below taken from a widely reported interview with Mr Lommel when describing the guns he destroyed in the fields behind Pointe du Hoc:-
Now, when you camouflage five big howitzers, 5-inch guns, these are not
ordinary, run-of-the-mill artillery that you cart around behind jeeps. These
had stabilizers and everything on them. The wheels went up over our heads.
Their muzzles went way the hell into the air, above our reach. People say we
took them out with fragmentation grenades. That's not so. We couldn't even
reach the muzzles. Where they protruded out of the orchard they had netting
over them. That's why the aerial photographs never indicated that they were
there. They were about a mile inland from the Pointe and the cliffs' edge.
The guns being described were 155mm Field Howitzers (FH414(f) probably). A howitzer is capable of lobbing a shell from inland, where the gun would be hidden, and its shell would arc onto a target. This model of howitzer was commonly either the French WWI Schneider model or the 150mm German variation.
They all have larger wheels - metal or wooden spoked - normally similar to the size of a man if he stands next to it. Exactly as described in Lommel's account.
However, if one looks at the propaganda films of Rommel's PR visit to Pointe du Hoc before D-day and the aerial photographs of Pointe du Hoc - the guns in the open emplacements were all cannons with a long barrel and not
howitzers.
The cannons have a much smaller set of wheels on the 155mm canons and would not be described as being anywhere near the size of a man. The guns are clearly not the same ones which were in the Pointe du Hoc emplacements.
The 1/716th infantry Division had 2 x 5 gun mobile batteries (no I and II) with 5 x 155mm mobile Howitzers - they were destroyed behind Omaha Beach on D-day - this is in their order of battle for 1944. A concidence perhaps.....
Compare the 155mm Cannon shown here with the 155mm Howitzer (shown on the right) you will see the wheel size difference. The wheels described in the account could not be from a 155mm cannon but could well be a howitzer.
Read about the Maisy Battery here
Email: gary@armourer.co.uk
