Georgia Geo Institute October 2024 Meeting

Bio: John R. Wolosick is Senior Advisor for Keller North America Inc., Atlanta, Georgia. From this home base, he works on projects across the USA. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has 45 years of experience in geotechnical engineering and contracting and is the author of more than 35 technical papers. Mr. Wolosick is the recipient of the 2008 ASCE Geo-Institute Martin S. Kapp Foundation Engineering Award. He is the Past-President of the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI – 2014-2016). Mr. Wolosick was named the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers ‘Engineer of the Year – Industry’ in 2017 and awarded the George F. Sowers Piedmont Award by the Georgia Geo-Institute in 2019.

Abstract: During World War II, after the occupation of France, the German army set up a ‘Ragelbau’ Observation Post (OP) and large, long range 155 mm guns at Pointe du Hoc near Omaha Beach along the coast of Normandy. The guns were installed to ward off Allied ships and to rebuff any Allied invasion from the northern coast of France.

On D-day, June 6, 1944, an Army Ranger battalion led by Colonel James Earl Rudder was tasked with taking Point du Hoc. It was a tough battle, with about 100 Rangers losing their lives while scaling the cliff and capturing the remaining Germans. The site is now a highly visited landmark, with about 750,000 people visiting per year.

However, due to the harsh weather and rough seas in this area, the cliffs have receded about 10 meters since 1944. This erosion threatened the stability of the Observation Post, which had to be closed to the public due to the danger of its immediate proximity to the precipice. A team led by Texas A&M University and Dr. Jean-Luis Briaud was charged by the site owner, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), to investigate the stability of the cliffs and the OP. Texas A&M has a close association with the site, since Colonel Rudder was later the President of the University from 1959 until his death in 1970.

The team performed geotechnical and geological investigations, recommended fixes with cost estimates and established instrumentation to monitor the OP and the cliff. The presentation presents the history of the site along with the results of the investigation, repair recommendations and the final construction which was designed and performed by French engineers and contractors. The repairs implemented included rock bolting with stainless steel netting, tieback anchors, micropiles, a few horizontal drains and special stone masonry. A reinforced concrete grade beam was built around the OP to transfer the stabilizing forces from the tiebacks and the micropiles into the cliff.

Host or Publisher Georgia Geo-Institute Chapter of ASCE