Pointe du Hoc (Part III)

This is what remains of one of the two completed casemates for the guns at the top of Pointe du Hoc. More of the story after the picture...

When the Rangers got to the casemates, they were empty, with telephone poles placed to look like gun tubes. Some have claimed that the brass knew the guns had been moved recently, I don't really know the truth of that, but the troops didn't know until they got to the top. Some enterprising Rangers observed heavy tire tracks in the mud and followed them back to find the guns, a kilometer or so back from the bluffs, set up and ready to shoot, but idle. They disabled them and returned to the point, where the Rangers had to hold out for a couple of days until troops from the Omaha Beach to the east linked up with them.
The casemates were constructed in an unusual manner. Instead of buildling wooden forms and pouring concrete, they built cinderblock walls around the outside and inside, then poured concrete in between and in the holes in the cinderblocks. This apparently got the bunkers built quicker.
Errata: One source gives the size of the French guns as 155s, not 75s as I said in my first post on the subject. It may be correct.