U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards’ press conference announcing the reopening of Pointe du Hoc, Normandy, France



U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards hosts a conference call heralding the reopening of Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, France, where Lt. Col. Earl Rudder, a future president of Texas A&M, led “Rudder’s Rangers” as they scaled 90-foot cliffs and battled German forces on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

The Center for Heritage Conservation was part of an interdisciplinary team from Texas A&M that worked to restore the site, closed since 2001, due to concerns about the instability of its cliffs.

Joining Edwards for the conference call, which took place at the Langford Architecture Center at Texas A&M, were Robert Warden, director of the CHC and David Woodcock, director emeritus of the CHC. Max Cleland, secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission, which operates the site, joined the three by phone.

A memorial on the battlefield, built to honor the achievement of Rudder’s Rangers, had been closed to the public since 2001 because of fears it could fall into the sea; it sits on unstable cliffs, laced with caverns, that receive a daily pounding by wind and waves from the English Channel.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas A&M former student who championed the effort to save the endangered battlefield memorial, secured funding for the research team to analyze the site, identify problems and make recommendations.

The two-phase study, led by Robert Warden, CHC director and professor of architecture, Jean-Louis Briaud, professor of civil engineering, and Mark Everett, professor of geology and geophysics, provided details that enabled engineers to stabilize the cliffs and rescue the ranger memorial.

The plight of the ranger memorial was initially identified by Texas A&M researchers in 2004, when a team from the College of Architecture’s Historic Resources Imaging Laboratory, which later became the CHC, began documenting the site to gain a better understanding of the historic battle in a study funded by the National Center for Preservation Technology.

For more about the CHC’s efforts at Pointe du Hoc, visit http://archone.tamu.edu/college/news/newsletters/spring2010/stories/CHCpointeduhoc.html.

Photos, videos and news of the project restoration are online at http://travaux-pointeduhoc.com/.

An interactive multimedia narrative of the historic battle at Pointe du Hoc, which was characterized by Allied forces as “the single German defense position most dangerous to their invasion plans,” is available at http://media.oaktreesys.com/abmc/pointeduhoc/popup.html.

See a previous archone. story with photos detailing the CHC’s 2008 research trip to Pointe du Hoc at http://archone.tamu.edu/college/news/newsletters/spring2008/stories/duHocSpring.html.

Congressman Edwards references president Ronald Reagan’s Pointe du Hoc address commemorating D-Day’s 40th anniversary in 1984. To see Reagan’s address, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEIqdcHbc8I.

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