President Reagan's speech at Point du hoc - June 6, 1984

In 1984 President Ronald Reagan and allied leaders attending the G-7 Economic Summit left London and gathered in Normandy to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, the difficult but eventually successful battle that turned the tide of the war in Europe.

President Reagan gave two extraordinarily moving speeches that day, one at Omaha Beach with President Francois Mitterand, and another, more remembered, at Point du Hoc--the cliffs the Rangers scaled in the face of German artillery firing directly down on them. This was a U.S. only ceremony, and many of the Rangers who were in that assault were on hand to hear the President that day.