Near Pointe du Hoc, the landing craft flotilla carrying Force A made a wrong turn. By the time the force got back on track, Colonel Rudder knew that he would never be able to signal Force C by 7:00. That meant no reinforcements. Companies D, E, and F of the 2nd would have to do their best without help until Force C could get across four miles of enemy territory and join up with them. When the landing crafts hit a narrow, pebbled beach near a cliff, German machine-gunners opened up on the Rangers. Some of them were killed, but the rest of them got to the bottom of the cliff and used miniature rockets to fire grappling ropes up to the top. Once the hooks caught on barbed wire or bushes, the Rangers climbed up. Some Germans unhooked the ropes and sent the men on them plummeting to their deaths. However, Rudder and most of his men reached the top of the cliff and engaged in a battle with a force of Germans in bunkers. Tossing grenades and blasting their way into the bunkers, Rudder's Rangers killed many Germans but found wooden posts instead of heavy artillery inside. The guns had been moved away to a more secure location some months before D-day to facilitate the installation of casemented deck guns. Some of the Rangers were able to locate a battery of mobile guns inland and destroy them. The men at the cliff set up a makeshift headquarters and prepared for a counterattack. Throughout their battle for Pointe du Hoc, the Rangers were under fire from the nearby coastal gun battery at Maisy. (Maisy was a Rangers objective – taken on 9 June 1944).
