Ranger Assault Force

The Ranger Assault 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.

On 2 April 1944, two elite American units, the 2nd Ranger Battalion and the 5th Ranger Battalion were ordered to make their way to the U.S. Assault Training Center in Braunton, England. When the two battalions arrived, the men learned that the commander of the 5th Battalion had been reassigned.

Lieutenant Colonel Max Schneider took command of the unit. Schneider and Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, the commander of the 2nd Battalion, were soon briefed on the upcoming mission.

On 5 June 1944, a provisional Ranger Assault Group, would take part in the amphibious landings in Normandy. Force A, commanded by Rudder, would capture Pointe du Hoc, destroy the guns, and seize a German observation post.

Force B, commanded by Captain Ralph Goranson, would land on Omaha Dog Green Beach. Force C, commanded by Schneider, would join Force A at the Pointe if Rudder signaled that his men had scaled the cliffs there. If not, Force C would land at Omaha Beach.

When the D-Day landings were rescheduled for 5 June, the Rangers and all the rest of the Allied troops ready for combat had to wait. 5 June was a miserable day with severe storms. That night, 5 June, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, ordered the landings to begin on the morning of 6 June. Before 5:00 A.M. on the morning of 6 June, the men of the Ranger Assault Group got into their landing crafts and prepared for battle. At 6:36 am, Company A of the 116th Infantry Regiment landed on Omaha Dog Green, along with Company B of the 743rd Tank Battalion. Omaha Dog Green soon became the opposite of what the planners expected. Men and tanks were blasted by artillery and machine-gun fire. When Captain Goranson's C Company (Force B) of the 2nd Rangers landed, many of the men preceding them in the landings lay dead or maimed. Almost always, the first Rangers out of each boat were mowed down. The men following them flung themselves over the sides of the crafts, hoping to swim ashore. Some men drowned and even more were shot to death by the German guns above. The survivors swam or waded ashore and got into the battle.

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