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Personal life 33rd Governor of California
40th President of the United States Legacy ![]() | ||
"The boys of Pointe du Hoc" was a speech delivered by President Ronald Reagan on the 40th anniversary of Normandy landings at Pointe du Hoc to a crowd of soldiers who fought at the battle. The speech was written by Peggy Noonan.
The speech is often viewed as one of the best remembrance speeches by a US president, and modern presidents are often compared to Reagan during their speeches on anniversary events of the Normandy landings.
Pointe du Hoc lies 6.5 km (4.0 mi) west of the center of Omaha Beach. [1] [2] During the Nazi occupation of France, as part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications, the prominent cliff top location was fortified by the Germans. At the end of the two-day action, the initial Ranger landing force of 225+ was reduced to about 90 fighting men. [3] [4]
Pointe du Hoc now features a memorial and museum dedicated to the battle. Many of the original fortifications have been left in place and the site remains speckled with a number of bomb craters. On 11 January 1979 this 13-hectare field was transferred to American control, and the American Battle Monuments Commission was made responsible for its maintenance. [5]
Reagan delivered the speech in front of the Pointe du Hoc memorial atop the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. In attendance were 62 survivors of the battle. [6] Reagan referred directly to them in his speech:
These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.
Noonan said she took the line "the boys of" from the title of the similarly named book about the Brooklyn Dodgers by Roger Kahn. [7]
The speech is often viewed as influential in raising approval of Reagan's foreign policy abilities [8] and seen as one of the best obituary or remembrance speeches by a US president. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]
The speech was commemorated by American author and historian Douglas Brinkley in his 2005 book The boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion. [14] [15]
Modern US presidents are often compared to Reagan when they give speeches on the anniversary of the Normandy landings. President Barack Obama was compared to Reagan in 2009 [11] and in 2024, President Joe Biden was said to have tried to evoke Reagan in his version of his Normandy address. [8] [16]
Omaha Beach was one of five beach landing sectors of the amphibious assault component of Operation Overlord during the Second World War.
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Noonan, is a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and contributor to NBC News and ABC News. She was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986 and has maintained a center-right leaning in her writings since leaving the Reagan administration. Five of Noonan's books have been New York Times bestsellers.
Colleville-sur-Mer is a commune in the Calvados department in Normandie region in northwestern France.
Cricqueville-en-Bessin is a commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region in northwestern France.
La Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 35-metre (110 ft) cliff overlooking the English Channel on the northwestern coast of Normandy in the Calvados department, France.
Saint-Pierre-du-Mont is a commune in the Calvados department in the Normandy region in northwestern France.
Vierville-sur-Mer is a commune in the Calvados department in Normandy region in northwestern France.
A grappling hook or grapnel is a device that typically has multiple hooks attached to a rope or cable; it is thrown, dropped, sunk, projected, or fastened directly by hand to where at least one hook may catch and hold on to objects. Generally, grappling hooks are used to temporarily secure one end of a rope. They may also be used to dredge for submerged objects.
James Earl Rudder was a United States Army major general. As a lieutenant colonel, he commanded the historic Pointe du Hoc battle during the Invasion of Normandy. He also commanded the US troops at the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, and led a series of delaying actions and ambushes during the Battle of the Bulge. General Rudder also at various times served as Texas Land Commissioner, the 16th president of Texas A&M University, third president of the Texas A&M University System, mayor of Brady, Texas, and a high school and college teacher and coach. He was a Freemason, and a member of Parsons Lodge No. 222 in downtown Austin, Texas.
USS Satterlee (DD-626) was a Gleaves-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She is the second Navy ship named for United States Coast Guard Captain Charles Satterlee.
The 2nd Ranger Battalion, currently based at Joint Base Lewis–McChord south of Seattle, Washington, United States, is the second of three ranger battalions belonging to the United States Army's 75th Ranger Regiment.
D-Day the Sixth of June is a 1956 American DeLuxe Color CinemaScope romance war film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Koster and produced by Charles Brackett from a screenplay by Ivan Moffat and Harry Brown, based on the 1955 novel, The Sixth of June by Lionel Shapiro. The film stars Robert Taylor, Richard Todd, Dana Wynter, and Edmond O'Brien.
Leonard G. "Bud" Lomell was a highly decorated former United States Army Ranger who served in World War II. He is best known for his actions in the first hours of D-Day at Pointe du Hoc on the coast of Normandy, France.
Gerald William Heaney served for nearly forty years as a United States Circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, from his appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1966 until his full retirement in August 2006.
Robert Lee "Bull" Wolverton was the commander of the American 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, from 1942 until his death at Saint-Côme-du-Mont, Normandy, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, during World War II.
The Provisional Ranger Group was a provisional regiment of U.S. Army Rangers that was formed for the D-Day landings in Normandy, France, in World War II.
Bently Thomas "Ben" Elliott is an American writer who served as President Ronald Reagan’s director of speechwriting from 1982 to 1986. In this capacity he directed better known speechwriters like Peggy Noonan and Peter Robinson, both of whom he hired.
The Maisy Battery is a group of World War II artillery batteries that was constructed in secret by the German Wehrmacht near the French village of Grandcamp-Maisy in Normandy.
The site, preserved since the war by the French Committee of the Pointe du Hoc, which erected an impressive granite monument at the edge of the cliff, was transferred to American control by formal agreement between the two governments on 11 January 1979 in Paris, with Ambassador Arthur A. Hartman signing for the United States and Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs Maurice Plantier signing for France.