Normandy - Hitlers Atlantic Wall - Construction and Destruction (Battleground Europe)

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Battleground series: S tamford Bridge & Hastings by Peter M arren Wars of the Roses - Wakefield/Towton by Philip A. Haigh Wars of the Roses - Barnet by David Clark Wars of the Roses - Tewkesbury by Steven Goodchild Wars of the Roses - The Battles of S t Albans by Peter Burley, M ichael Elliott & Harvey Wilson English Civil War - Naseby by M artin M arix Evans, Peter Burton and M ichael Westaway English Civil War - Marston Moor by David Clark War of the Spanish Succession - Blenheim 1704 by James Falkner War of the Spanish Succession - Ramillies 1706 by James Falkner Napoleonic - Hougoumont by Julian Paget and Derek Saunders Napoleonic - Waterloo by Andrew Uffindell and M ichael Corum Zulu War - Isandlwana by Ian Knight and Ian Castle Zulu War - Rorkes Drift by Ian Knight and Ian Castle Boer War - The Relief of Ladysmith by Lewis Childs Boer War - The S iege of Ladysmith by Lewis Childs Boer War - Kimberley by Lewis Childs Mons by Jack Horsfall and Nigel Cave Néry by Patrick Tackle Aisne 1914 by Jerry M urland Le Cateau by Nigel Cave and Jack Shelden Walking the S alient by Paul Reed Ypres - 1914 Messines by Jack Horsfall and Nigel Cave Ypres - 1914 Menin Road by Jack Horsfall and Nigel Cave Ypres - 1914 Langemark by Jack Horsfall and Nigel Cave Ypres - S anctuary Wood and Hooge by Nigel Cave Ypres - Hill 60 by Nigel Cave Ypres - Messines Ridge by Peter Oldham Ypres - Polygon Wood by Nigel Cave Ypres - Passchendaele by Nigel Cave Ypres - Airfields and Airmen by M ike O’Connor Ypres - S t Julien by Graham Keech Ypres - Boesinghe by Stephen M cGreal Walking the S omme by Paul Reed Somme - Gommecourt by Nigel Cave Somme - S erre by Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave Somme - Beaumont Hamel by Nigel Cave Somme - Thiepval by M ichael Stedman Somme - La Boisselle by M ichael Stedman Somme - Fricourt by M ichael Stedman Somme - Carnoy-Montauban by Graham M addocks Somme - Pozières by Graham Keech Somme - Courcelette by Paul Reed Somme - Boom Ravine by Trevor Pidgeon Somme - Mametz Wood by M ichael Renshaw Somme - Delville Wood by Nigel Cave Somme - Advance to Victory (North) 1918 by M ichael Stedman S omme - Flers by Trevor Pidgeon Somme - Bazentin Ridge by Edward Hancock Somme - Combles by Paul Reed Somme - Beaucourt by M ichael Renshaw Somme - Redan Ridge by M ichael Renshaw Somme - Hamel by Peter Pedersen Somme - Villers-Bretonneux by Peter Pedersen Somme - Airfields and Airmen by M ike O’Connor Airfields and Airmen of the Channel Coast by M ike O’Connor In the Footsteps of the Red Baron by M ike O’Connor Arras - Airfields and Airmen by M ike O’Connor Arras - The Battle for Vimy Ridge by Jack Sheldon & Nigel Cave Arras - Vimy Ridge by Nigel Cave Arras - Gavrelle by Trevor Tasker and Kyle Tallett Arras - Oppy Wood by David Bilton Arras - Bullecourt by Graham Keech Arras - Monchy le Preux by Colin Fox Walking Arras by Paul Reed Hindenburg Line by Peter Oldham Hindenburg Line - Epehy by Bill M itchinson Hindenburg Line - Riqueval by Bill M itchinson Hindenburg Line - Villers-Plouich by Bill M itchinson Hindenburg Line - Cambrai Right Hook by Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave Hindenburg Line - Cambrai Flesquières by Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave

Hindenburg Line - S aint Quentin by Helen M cPhail and Philip Guest Hindenburg Line - Bourlon Wood by Jack Horsfall & Nigel Cave Cambrai - Airfields and Airmen by M ike O’Connor Aubers Ridge by Edward Hancock La Bassée - Neuve Chapelle by Geoffrey Bridger Loos - Hohenzollern Redoubt by Andrew Rawson Loos - Hill 70 by Andrew Rawson Fromelles by Peter Pedersen The Battle of the Lys 1918 by Phil Tomaselli Accrington Pals Trail by William Turner Poets at War: Wilfred Owen by Helen M cPhail and Philip Guest Poets at War: Edmund Blunden by Helen M cPhail and Philip Guest Poets at War: Graves & S assoon by Helen M cPhail and Philip Guest Gallipoli by Nigel Steel Gallipoli - Gully Ravine by Stephen Chambers Gallipoli - Anzac Landing by Stephen Chambers Gallipoli - S uvla August Offensive by Stephen Chambers Gallipoli - Landings at Helles by Huw & Jill Rodge Walking the Italian Front by Francis M ackay Italy - Asiago by Francis M ackay Verdun: Fort Douamont by Christina Holstein Verdun: Fort Vaux by Christina Holstein Walking Verdun by Christina Holstein Zeebrugge & Ostend Raids 1918 by Stephen M cGreal Germans at Beaumont Hamel by Jack Sheldon Germans at Thiepval by Jack Sheldon S ECOND WORLD WAR Dunkirk by Patrick Wilson Calais by Jon Cooksey Boulogne by Jon Cooksey S aint-Nazaire by James Dorrian Walking D-Day by Paul Reed Atlantic Wall - Pas de Calais by Paul Williams Atlantic Wall - Normandy by Paul Williams Normandy - Pegasus Bridge by Carl Shilleto Normandy - Merville Battery by Carl Shilleto Normandy - Utah Beach by Carl Shilleto Normandy - Omaha Beach by Tim Kilvert-Jones Normandy - Gold Beach by Christopher Dunphie & Garry Johnson Normandy - Gold Beach Jig by Tim Saunders Normandy - Juno Beach by Tim Saunders Normandy - S word Beach by Tim Kilvert-Jones Normandy - Operation Bluecoat by Ian Daglish Normandy - Operation Goodwood by Ian Daglish Normandy - Epsom by Tim Saunders Normandy - Hill 112 by Tim Saunders Normandy - Mont Pinçon by Eric Hunt Normandy - Cherbourg by Andrew Rawson Normandy - Commandos & Rangers on D-Day by Tim Saunders Das Reich – Drive to Normandy by Philip Vickers Oradour by Philip Beck Market Garden - Nijmegen by Tim Saunders Market Garden - Hell’s Highway by Tim Saunders Market Garden - Arnhem, Oosterbeek by Frank Steer Market Garden - Arnhem, The Bridge by Frank Steer Market Garden - The Island by Tim Saunders Rhine Crossing – US 9th Army & 17th US Airborne by Andrew Rawson British Rhine Crossing – Operation Varsity by Tim Saunders British Rhine Crossing – Operation Plunder by Tim Saunders Battle of the Bulge – S t Vith by M ichael Tolhurst Battle of the Bulge – Bastogne by M ichael Tolhurst Channel Islands by George Forty Walcheren by Andrew Rawson Remagen Bridge by Andrew Rawson Cassino by Ian Blackwell Anzio by Ian Blackwell Dieppe by Tim Saunders Fort Eben Emael by Tim Saunders Crete – The Airborne Invasion by Tim Saunders Malta by Paul Williams Bruneval Raid by Paul Oldfield Cockleshell Raid by Paul Oldfield

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Pen & Sword Military an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Paul Williams 2013 PAPERBACK ISBN: 978-1-78303-058-3 PDF ISBN: 978-1-47382-923-7 EPUB ISBN: 978-1-47382-837-7 PRC ISBN: 978-1-47382-880-3 The right of Paul Williams to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Typeset in 10 pt Palatino by Factionpress Printed and bound in England by CPI (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

CONTENTS Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve

Introduction Glossary The Organisation Todt Atlantic Wall Bunker Construction The Founding of Hobart’s ‘Funnies’ The Canadian Perspective Disabling the Cotentin Batteries Merville – The Impossible They Did Longues sur Mer – Air and Navy Supremacy Western Coast of the Cotentin Peninsula On the Beaches Fortress Or Folly? Conclusions Recommended Tour How to Get There Acknowledgements

Feldmarschall Rommel is shown a new t ype of beach obst acle during his inspect ion of t he At lant ic Wall defences.

INTRODUCTION

T

HE ARCHAEOLOGISTS tell us that Iron Age man was constructing complex enclosure defences to protect his roundhouses and livestock long before history was recording the fact. Even in those days arable land was a valuable commodity and increasing competition for food and territory meant that tribal feuds and conflict became inevitable. It was Chinese Emperor Qin Shih Huang in approximately 221BC, however, who was to take fencebuilding to a new level. Qin was responsible for laying the first foundations of what was to become the Great Wall of China. His intention was to safeguard his dynasty for descendants in future generations, principally from the hsiong nu or Huns. Roman Emperor Hadrian, of course, left a similar legacy on the border between Scotland and England in an attempt to prevent raiders from the north causing disruption to trade. In both cases, strong points and garrisons were positioned at strategic points, a pattern that was to change little in concept throughout the generations with areas around natural sea harbours and river estuaries particularly important to trading nations. Hitler’s Atlantic Wall wasn’t, of course, really a wall as such but a string of impressive defensive bunkers, traps, obstacles and gun positions which stretched from Scandinavia in the north to Spain in the south. Their purpose, as the Second World War developed, became increasingly important as the shutters were put up on ‘Fortress Europe’ as the Allies began to flex their muscles in the air war. With Germany massing its troops on the Russian border, the Hitler-sponsored Organisation Todt undertook the monumental task of turning temporary gun positions into permanent fixtures on the Atlantic coast, while transportable armaments became largely static and an array of obstacless were deployed to combat possible Allied invasion plans. The German Navy, or from the creation of the Third Reich, called the Kriegsmarine, had been responsible for defending the shoreline of Germany and the countries it controlled since the late 1800s but, in the winter of 1943 with the threat of an Allied invasion increasing by the day, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, the famous Desert Fox, was appointed head of the new Army Group For Special Employment and, under the overall command of Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, ordered to strengthen the defences where he thought appropriate. For Rommel this, his final appointment, was to prove a poisoned chalice – in more ways than one. There are already several excellent books about the technical aspects of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall in Normandy, including D-Day Fortifications in Normandy by Steven J Zaloga (Osprey Publishing) but that is not what this book is solely about. I aim to tell a story, the story of how Organisation Todt used German construction workers and slave labour to construct the bunkers and fortifications of the Atlantic Wall. We explore the background and motivation of the men who controlled the weapons within, and read of the ingenuity and bravery of those tasked to destroy those guns on D-Day itself and in the months that followed. There were many accounts of courage and heroism along the Atlantic Wall in the days and weeks following 6 June 1944, and I make no apologies about including many references and stories from D-Day itself, to which the fate of the Atlantic Wall is intrinsically linked. Time and space only allows me to mention but a few. However, in tracing the path taken by the men of the US First and British Second Armies, including the Canadian First and Third Armies and the British 79th Armoured Division as well as the US Rangers, I hope I have managed to give an insight into an important episode in European history. Further, that others, perhaps another generation, will have their interest sufficiently arroused to travel across the Channel and see for themselves what remains of one of the most remarkable engineering

projects undertaken in the Twentieth Century.

A concret e casemat e under const ruct ion around a 406 mm Channel gun on Hit ler’s At lant ic Wall.

GLOSSARY ARK AVRE Bangalore BARV Buffalo Carrot Centaur Chindits Crab Crocodile DUKW Duplex Drive Eisenbahn Batterie Eiserne Hemmkurven Fascine Festung Festungspionier Korps Flail Flying Dustbin Gastarbeitnehmer Hafenkommandant Kampfgruppen Kangaroo Kriegsmarine Luftwaffe Landungsboot Sprengfallen Artilleriegranaten Oberkommando des Heeres Offene Bettung (OB) Ost Bataillone Panzerstellung Penny Packets Petard Pionier Landungsboot Regelbau Reichsarbeitsdienstmänner

Armoured Ramp Carrier Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers Explosive charge Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle Amphibious tracked carrier Small explosive charge Armoured bulldozer British Army units in Burma Sherman tank with mine-clearing flail Churchill tank with flame thrower Armoured amphibious carrier Propelling system for ‘swimming’ tanks Railway gun battery Curved anti-tank obstacle Tank-mounted bridging device Fortress Fortress engineering corps Tank-mounted mine-clearing chains Projectile filled with high explosive Guest employee – Slave labour Port Commander Hastily formed battle groups Personnel carrier converted from a tracked vehicle German Navy German Air Force Landing craft Booby-trapped artillery shells German Army High Command Open gun pit East Battalions – ex-Soviet POWs Concrete-ringed fixed tank turret position Small numbers Technical name for the Flying Dustbin Shallow keel landing craft as used by engineers Standard construction Conscripted civilian workers

Ringstände Sockellafetten Sonderkonstruktion Turm Verstärkt feldmässig (Vf) Wehrmacht

Tobruk or ring-stand open gun-pit Gun pedestal mount Special construction Tower or turret Reinforced open gun emplacement German armed forces

Chapter One ORGANISATION TODT

B

RITISH INTELLIGENCE reported in 1945 that in just over four and a half years Organisation Todt carried out the most impressive development and construction programme since the halcyon days of the Roman Empire. More than 1,400,000 men built bunkers, roads, blockhouses and bridges for the Wehrmacht but, though they wore predominantly black uniforms with swastika armbands, the majority of their number were neither soldiers nor members of a party organisation. Almost uniquely a Nazi body independent of party control, the Organisation Todt was the only organisation in the Third Reich, besides the Hitler Youth, to be allowed to bear the name of a member of the party elite. Ideally placed to garner the fruits of Hitler’s expansionism without carrying the stigma of what the Nazi’s stood for, the reactions it name provoked could vary from adoration to fear but it was still a remarkable product of one young engineer’s vision. Fritz Todt studied engineering at Karlsruhe before enrolling at the Technical College in Munich. The First World War was to bring a temporary halt to his education. He distinguished himself on the battlefield, winning the Iron Cross while attached to the infantry and later earning a mention in dispatches as an observer in the embryonic Luftwaffe. Following the cessation of hostilities, he returned to Munich to finish his studies before starting work with Grun & Bilfinger AG Mannheim, moving on to civil engineers Sager & Woerner in 1921. The defining moment in Todt’s life arguably came a year later when he decided the ideology of the new Nazi party was closest to his way of thinking. Rising quickly through the ranks, Fritz Todt was promoted to Oberführer (a rank roughly equivalent to a Brigadier General) in 1931. It was also around this time that he completed his doctorate Fehlerquellen bei der Konstruktion von Asphalt und Asphaltdeckschichten, which translates as, ‘Sources of defect in the construction of tarmac and asphalt road surfaces’. Two years later Hitler appointed him Inspector General of German Roadways and, following his supervision of Germany’s still impressive autobahn network, he was promoted again to General Commissioner for the Regulation of the Construction Industry in 1935 and given the military rank of Generalmajor in the Luftwaffe. Todt’s vision and engineering expertise hadn’t gone unnoticed abroad and in 1936 he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Science, though Hitler was to forbid his acceptance. Two years later, Organisation Todt was born. In 1938 Todt, by now indisputably Hitler’s chief architect and engineer, had been commissioned to complete the building of the West Wall on the German-French border without delay. To do this he brought in the gangs he had used to complete his newly-built autobahn system. Further, he had the authority to mobilize the RAD. The RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst Männer) were groups of civilian workers, often between 1,200- and 1,800-strong, who could be called upon to serve the state in times of need. They were equipped only with a spade and a bicycle but would often be ferried to where they were needed by those members of their party who had access to a truck or car. Between 1938 and 1940, 1.75 million Germans were conscripted into the RAD and the gangs were a familiar sight at the roadside, gathered together in the early morning light awaiting transport, their shovels (polished until they gleamed) shouldered like rifles. Most work parties had a political activist attached to remind them they were working for the good of Germany. Some would even have ‘troublemakers’ inserted to root out possible resistance to the Nazi doctrine. The RAD

was, after all, regarded as a valuable tool in the indoctrination of the masses.

Chief archit ect of t he T hird Reich, Frit z Todt , discussing a building project wit h Hit ler.

Throughout the war, sabotaging any form of engineering project was punishable by death, which acted as a particular deterrent to ‘guest workers’ (Gastarbeitnehmer), prisoners of war, concentration camp internees and civilian ‘volunteers’ who were used in increasing numbers after 1940. From 1942 until May 1945, it is estimated that Organisation Todt employed 1.4million labourers on projects directly connected to the war effort. Only one per cent were Germans, often those rejected for military service. Around the same amount was forced labour from concentration camps with the remainder prisoners of war or civilians from conquered countries. Whatever their nationality, all were treated as slaves. Most did not survive the war. In the latter stages of the Second World War, the RAD developed into an almost exclusively military faction, manning anti-aircraft guns and seeing action on the Eastern front as well as being used on the frontline as the Allies advanced across Europe in 1945. Todt also used the Heer construction battalions to build his defences, placing his trust in the principles of private enterprise, the art of innovation, and the triumph of technical rationale over bureaucracy. Under Todt’s supervision in 1938-39, almost half a million workers constructed concrete bunkers on a scale that had never before been contemplated, leaving the military to plan its invasion of Poland without the need to worry about interference from the French. Following the outbreak of war Todt, as a close confidante of the Führer, was given an ever increasing number of construction tasks vital to the war effort. The Organisation Todt followed the conquering Wehrmacht across Europe, repairing bridges, dams, road systems and bombed factories, and in the process playing a large role in exploiting the occupied countries.

In the Balkans, it was responsible for the mining of ores essential to the German war effort and their shipment to key manufacturing sites in the Ruhr valley; and the roads on which Hitler’s divisions marched to Yugoslavia and Greece were upgraded. In the west building gangs, often including local forced labour, were put to work from Norway to the Bay of Biscay via the Channel Island to construct the Atlantic Wall. The great U-boat pens in St Nazaire and elsewhere and the construction of airfields used in the bombardment of Allied convoys to Murmansk were also the work of Organisation Todt as, later, were the launching ramps for the V-1 ‘doodle bug’. After February 1940, when Fritz Todt became minister for weapons and munitions, he was given ever more responsibility for the war economy. The Organisation Todt expanded in consequence, recruiting large numbers of foreign workers. It was, however, attracting fewer Germans with most able-bodied men being conscripted into military service. Those employed after the summer of 1940 had an average age of fifty-three. A huge percentage of the Organisation Todt’s members were young non-Germans, however, with many of those who volunteered signing contracts they didn’t understand. But most foreign workers had no choice but to accept the terms of their employment. They were either slave labour, drafted in from concentration camps, or prisoners of war. They would be forced to work long hours on meagre rations and often had to sleep on the building sites themselves, under the close supervision of the SS. In June 1941, as Hitler ordered the invasion of the USSR, it was soon realised that German military construction battalions alone were not capable of providing the necessary engineering support required to ensure Operation Barbarossa didn’t stall. It was probably at this point that the Organisation Todt became an integral part of the Nazi machine, though its founder remained adamant that his organization wasn’t made an official arm of the Third Reich. Todt still had one eye on the future and thought that a closer affiliation to either the party or the armed forces would reflect badly on his organisation in the event Germany was to lose the war. Whether this stubborn refusal to be totally immersed in the German hierarchy was directly connected to Fritz Todt’s mysterious death in February 1942, nobody knows or can prove. But there was more than a suggestion of skulduggery. Todt was being flown back to Berlin from a meeting with Hitler at his Wolf’s Lair at Rastenburg (now in Poland), ironically a complex that Todt had designed and supervised the construction of. He had reportedly had a heated discussion with the Führer over the prospects of success on the Eastern Front. His Junkers 52 exploded in a fireball shortly after take-off; he was aged fifty. Fritz Todt was buried with full military honours in Berlin and became the first recipient, albeit posthumously, of the new German Order (Deutscher Orden). On the day of his funeral, Britain’s Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service recorded the following from the Federal Communications Commission (some of the text had to be assumed due to poor radio reception). It not only eulogised Todt’s contribution to the Nazi war machine but it also gave an insight into the thinking at that time as regards objectives; The whole German nation knows that the death of this man means an irreplaceable loss for us. It is not only the creative personality which was taken from us, but it is also the loyal man and unforgettable comrade, whose departure touches us so deeply. Dr. Todt was a National Socialist. He was that not only intellectually, but also with his whole heart. The first contact with the Party was in the year 1922, the first encounter with me personally had not only drawn this man inwardly to me, but also bound him outwardly to adhere to what he envisioned as the only possibility for a German renaissance. The combination of the national concept with the social concept did not appear to this technician and engineer, who at one time depended for his living on the labour of his own hands, as a problem to be solved or even as a question to be answered, but as the categorical obligation of the struggle for a real German re-arming, which had to be more than just a mere restoration of an external form of government.

As early as 1922 this man saw clearly that the aim of a German revival had to be, not a restoration of shattered old forms, but a revolution of the German spirit, of German thought, and hence of the German people in its inner social order. In 1919 he completed his studies and in the winter of 1920 passed his final examination at the School for Advanced Technical Studies in Munich. It is interesting to note that the subject of his doctor’s thesis at the School for Advanced Technical Studies in Munich is the following: “Disadvantages of Highway Construction using Tar and Asphalt.” On the 5 of January 1923, Dr. Engineer Fritz Todt of Pforzheim finally joined the National Socialists, namely in the local troop at Oetting in Bavaria. Immediately after the ban against the Party was lifted in November 1923, he became a full member and remained one until January 1925. In the meantime he was unswervingly active in the Party after various charges against him were finally quashed. In 1931, he joined the S.A. (Storm-Troopers) and to assert himself as a real National Socialist, began as a lowly trooper. He then becomes a squad leader and in the same year he advanced to standard bearer. By 1938, he had risen to Chief Leader, Brigade Leader, and finally Chief Brigade Leader. Only his activity in the Party is not all expended in the service of the Storm Troopers. In the beginning he was an associate of the Progressive League of German Architects and Engineers in Munich and, in addition, is Technical Consultant of highway construction in the then existent office for Economic coordination and Work Procurement of the N.S.D.A.P. (the National Socialist German Workers Party.) In 1932, he had already amalgamated the Construction Engineers and Countrymen League and the Progressive League of German Architects and Engineers with the Technical Bureau, resulting in the National Socialist German Technical Union under his leadership. After long discussions I entrusted him, on 30 June 1933, with the task of building the new Reich’s auto roads, and in connection with this, the general reform of the whole German highway construction system, as general director of construction for the German highway construction system. With that, this man had found a frame which he began to fill in a truly incomparable and imperishable way. The German Reich’s auto roads are, in the planning of their layout and the execution, the work of this quite unique technical and artistically talented man. We can no longer think of the German Reich without these roads. In the future also they will find their continuation as natural great communication lines in the whole European transportation region. But what has in addition been done in Germany in this same time in the broadening and improvement of roads, in the elimination of bad curves, in the construction of bridges is so incomprehensible in its scope, that only an exhaustive study will permit a comprehensive and just conception of the accomplishment in its entirety. Thus, it was only natural that this man was appointed chief administrator, first, for the regulation of all construction, and that then, in the Four Year Plan, he was given a special position as Inspector General for special projects. Meanwhile, the clouds of a more and more menacing war danger began to gather about Germany at that time already. When it could no longer be ignored, especially as a result of the unswervingly inciting speeches of Churchill and his following in England, that in view of the uncertain situation of the parliamentary democrats in those countries there might be a sad change of regime working against peace, I was obliged to make provision for the defense of the Reich on a large scale and as soon as possible. I had conceived the plan of erecting a fortification opposite the Maginot Line, but from different points of view, which was to protect the vitally important western portion of the Reich

against any attack, under any circumstances, even in the event that quite large German forces… in the East. There was only one man who was in a position to solve this technical engineering problem, unique in the history of the world, and to solve it, indeed, in the shortest possible time. When, on 28 May 1938, I made known my resolve to the army and the air force, I entrusted the Inspector General for Construction, Dr. Todt, at the same time with the responsibility and supervision of the construction of the largest part by far of this gigantic new work, in cooperation with the proper military authorities, with the provision that as early as September 1938, at the latest, at least 5,000 concrete and steel positions would have to be ready or usable. The whole programme was planned with a total of 12,000 units and half increased to about 23,000. The present war experiences have confirmed our conviction that no power in the world could succeed in breaking through this most gigantic defence zone of all time. This marvel is, in its technical plan of construction, in the purely organizational measures of its construction, as well as in the technical building itself for all time associated with the name of Dr. Todt. The war which broke out presented new… problems to this greatest organizer of modern times. A system of great roads for deploying troops had to be built up in those regions of the Reich in the shortest possible time, which previously had been very much neglected. Thousands and more thousands of kilometres of roads were either newly built or widened, provided with a hard surface and made dust proof. When the fighting finally began, units called into being by this unique talent for organization marched behind and forward with the troops, removed obstacles, rebuilt destroyed bridges, improved roads, erected everywhere new bridges over valleys, ravines, rivers and canals, and thus complemented in an indispensable way the engineering troops who were actively fighting. The victory in Norway, the victory in the West brought new tasks. After former party comrade Todt had been named to the Reich’s Ministership for Armaments and Munitions, and thereby had to organize and lead a new, truly formidable sphere, there came in addition the task of protecting German sovereign territory against enemy attacks through the construction of new, powerful fortifications. His work, including his service as Reich’s Minister for Armaments and Munitions, this man accomplished with a minimum of assistance. He was without doubt in this field the greatest organizer whom Germany, whom the German people, has produced up to now. He managed with the smallest conceivable staff of his own, and without any bureaucracy, to utilize all the agencies and forces which appeared useful towards the solution of his problems. Much of what the man has done can be made known to the German people or brought to the amazed attention of the world, only after the war. What this man has created is so unique that we all can not thank him enough for it. If, however, I spoke just now about the technician and organizer, Fritz Todt, I must also bear in mind the man, who has stood so near to us all. It is not possible to give any better characterization of his personality than in determining that this great director of work never has had an enemy either in the movement or among his coworkers. I myself must especially thank him for the fact that he has never lost or abandoned the ideological heritage of National Socialism, the aims of the movement, in the excess of his responsibilities, but on the contrary has been a co-creator of our world of ideas. And this applies particularly to his attitude toward social problems in life. The man, who himself has directed millions of workers, was not only understanding but above all in his heart a true Socialist. There was a time when fate forced him, the greatest construction engineer of all times, to earn his daily bread as a simple labourer, just as this has happened in my own case. Never for a moment was he ashamed of that fact. On the contrary, in later years it was for him a source of

proud and satisfying memories, when he, the greatest construction chief the world has ever known, had occasion to look at or to show to others a photograph of himself depicting him in his sober working attire, working on the road, covered with dust and dirt, or in front of a seething vat of tar. For this reason he especially took to his heart his German “road builders,” as he called them. It was his continuous desire to improve their social and often so trying living conditions, to replace their former miserable tents with modern… and shelters, to take away from the road worker’s camps the character of stagnant mass quarters, and especially to create within the labourer the feeling that road building, yes, the entire field of construction is a field of work of which anyone can always be proud, because it creates documents not only of the highest importance to mankind, but also of the greatest durability. Before Dr. Todt the work of the road worker was not regarded very highly. Today the 10,000 road builders are a proud fraternity fully aware of their great usefulness. In this way be has accomplished a basic national socialistic educational work, and for this we are today especially indebted to him. Just as every human progress has had its model, so the Organization Todt has created permanent social models and is on its way to develop them still further. Gradually not only a social injustice, but also a human, thoughtless folly, was to be eliminated, and eliminated, indeed, forever. Thus, whether this man had dealings with a working man, a Minister or a general, he always remained the same. An equally confident leader and solicitous friend of all decent national comrades. It was no wonder that this man, who so loved his people, was passionately attached to his family, his wife and his children. The creator of the greatest technical enterprises spent every free hour, whenever he could, among the great creations of Nature, in the little house beside the lake, in the midst of his beloved Bavarian peasants. When under the fire of enemy guns the West Wall was completed, while in Poland the columns of the Organization Todt for the first time joined the advancing armies and gave them assured supply lines, I had it in my mind to award him the Knight’s Cross, as one of the leading creators of German resistance. However, I changed my mind. Because this distinction, famous though it is, could never have done justice to the importance of this unique man. I had already made the decision, some time previously, to establish such a decoration, which, founded on the principles of our movement, is to honour, in several classes, the most valuable services that a German can perform for his people. After the conclusion of the campaign against France, I said to Dr. Todt that I proposed for him some day, as God wills the recognition of his unique service, that he will be the first to whom I shall award the highest class of the order. In his modesty at that time he did not want to know anything about it. So now today I confer for the first time, in the name of the German people and its National Socialist movement, the new order on our dear and unforgettable party comrade, Dr. Todt, the general inspector of our roads and builder of the West Wall, the organizer of armaments and munitions in the greatest battle of our people for their freedom and their future. I myself can add only a few words for myself. I have lost in this man one of my most faithful coworkers and friends. I regard his death as a contribution to the National Socialist movement, to the fight for freedom of our people.’

Hit ler at Todt ’s funeral service.

Admiral Dönet z inspect s t he const ruct ion work of t he (Reichsarbeitsdienst) RAD on t he At lant ic Wall.

Whatever, if any, Hitler’s role in Todt’s demise, such public praise from the Nazi Party leader was rare and Albert Speer faced no easy task in stepping into his boots as head of the Organisation Todt. Speer had no master plan: he merely continued the policies initiated by his predecessor, though he did contribute greatly to the co-ordination of industries crucial to the war effort and had a sufficient sense of selfpreservation to ensure all future plans were endorsed by Hitler himself. Speer had one big advantage over possible rivals in securing the personal backing of the Nazi dictator; he was able to bypass Germany’s military leaders and largely ignore the Nazi government’s much-maligned ‘Four Year Plan’, directly

agreeing policy with Hitler in regular ‘Führer Conferences’ held between the two men until 1944.

Albert Speer.

Speer was responsible for important administrative changes to improve war output. In April 1942 he had set up Central Planning, an executive board under his direction which decided on the allocation and distribution of raw materials and essential equipment on a national scale. He also set up an interlocking system of production committees for all crucial weaponry, each committee being responsible for all the firms involved in the production of a particular weapon type.

Hit ler wit h Speer.

The main committees became the focal point for planning and supervision of all military output, and the system led to massive improvements in efficiency, co-operation and, eventually, centralized control. Speer was also successful politically, pushing the armed forces out of their role in the war economy and reducing the level of military interference in industrial matters. At the same time he insisted on bringing industrialists and engineers into the war apparatus so that industrial production of was handled by the experts who had experience of attainable output targets. The principle of ‘industrial selfresponsibility’, as Speer called it, was to bring Germany rich dividends. In two years, and despite the effects of the Allied strategic air offensive, armaments production trebled and the output of military aircraft increased almost fourfold, the figures leaping from 11,000 to 39,000. Only intensive bombing from the summer of 1944 brought a gradual decline, leading to a sharp collapse as the Allies advanced on Berlin in the early months of 1945. Long before that, however, Speer’s influence had been on the wane. By 1944, he no longer enjoyed the complete backing of Hitler and the SS had been able to gain a greater say in running war production. Speer was officially in charge of aircraft production in 1944, though he needed the co-operation of Erhard Milch and no longer controlled labour supply, one of the critical limiting factors for the war economy. Hitler placed this under Fritz Sauckel, who refused to co-ordinate his plans with Speer’s strategy for raw materials and industrial rationalization.

The intensive bombing of Germany finally destroyed the rationalization plans by forcing the decentralization of production, disrupting the delicate infrastructure of distribution and sub-contracting set up by the committee system. When Hitler wanted to shift all production underground, Speer proved reticent. When the SS promised to complete the programme instead, this caused the rapid erosion of Speer’s standing and the rise of new SS economic leaders, Xavier Dorsch and Hans Kammler. By the end of the war, Speer was disillusioned with Hitler. He refused to implement his orders for a scorched earth policy as German forces retreated further into the Fatherland, leaving much of Germany’s new military industries to help with the post-war economic revival. At no time did the authorities succeed in welding the military and civilian construction units together. The Organisation Todt remained relatively independent, even when, in the autumn of 1944, it was renamed the Front-Organisation Todt. Those of its members who could be trusted were armed, and told to report to authorities to help in the defence of the Germany. Many of the structures it had created had been destroyed by this time and, after the German defeat, the Organisation Todt itself was disbanded and placed on a blacklist.

Speer on t rial at Nuremberg – sent enced t o t went y years.

Speer, as its last recorded leader when the war ended, was convicted at the Nuremberg trials of encouraging forced recruitment and employing slave labour. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Large parts of the Atlantic Wall remain as a monument to Todt’s ingenuity, however, and his role in the days when Germany threatened to rule Europe should not be underestimated.

Chapter Two ATLANTIC WALL BUNKER CONSTRUCTION

D

ESIGN PLANS were to be rigidly conformed to, however, it is estimated that less than half of the casemates, bunkers and shelters that comprise the Atlantic Wall in France adhered to the blueprints laid down by the designers and engineers of the Festungspionere Korps (Fortress Engineering Corps). Fluctuations in terrain accounted for most deviations, particularly in the actual location of the various components of a battery or strongpoint. The shortage of essential materials also caused builders to compromise on the designated quality of bunkers as the war progressed. But, that said, the various types of concrete defences remaining to this day are, by and large, still recognisable as to the purpose for which they were intended. Tobruk or ringstand (ringstände) are among the most prolific as they were incorporated into virtually every fortification that could support them, including kitchens, stores and wash houses, while the R621 personnel bunker (Gruppenstand), and associated R501 are also numerous as are the H667 and H677. However, the most recognisable structure are the Sturm or reinforced casemates prevalent in the large shore batteries. The photograph of a German soldier stood alongside one of the massive guns of the Batterie Lindemann in the Pas de Calais enclosed in its three metre thick casemate is one of the iconic images of the Second World War and one used frequently by Nazi propagandists to convince both the German people and possible invaders that the Atlantic Wall was an impregnable barrier. But the true situation was that there remained many long-range guns, particularly those under the control of the army, and their crews on the Atlantic Wall, particularly around the landing beaches, that had minimal protection from attack on D-Day.

Propaganda image port raying t he invincibilit y of t he At lant ic Wall.

The Festunghäfe (fortress ports), Calais and Boulogne in the Pas de Calais, and Cherbourg, Le Havre and Dieppe in Normandy, were heavily fortified but the stretches of the Atlantic Wall in what were perceived as less strategically-vital areas were still a work in progress in the early months of 1944. The timeline for the construction of many casemates proves the point perfectly. Of the original brief to build 15,000 entirely encased bunkers by the summer of 1944, Organisation Todt had completed almost two thirds by D-Day. Unfortunately for Germany, work on those in Lower Normandy was running approximately seven weeks behind construction in the area around Calais and Boulogne, where Hitler had been led to believe the invasion would take place.

From 1937, plans for all buildings and emplacements in German field batteries were subject to standardisation and appointed design numbers in keeping with their aspect, purpose and the branch of the armed forces responsible for their operation. In simple terms, a gun emplacement with the prefix OB (Offene Bettung) meant that it was open to the elements while Vf (Verstärktfeldmässig) indicated a reinforced position. If a bunker design number was preceded by the letter H, it indicated that the army (Heer) oversaw its administration. An L (Luftwaffe) pointed to an air force bunker while an M meant the navy (Kriegsmarine) had control. Occasionally, more advanced fortifications were given a SK suffix indicating special design (Sonderkonstruktion); but standardised bunkers commonly had the prefix R (Regelbau) attached. Thus a Vf 600 could be recognised as a fortified gun emplacement, an H667 an antitank gun casemate operated by the army and an R501 a standard construction defendable command bunker and so forth. For further clarification, a glossary is included at the beginning of this book. It’s probably fair to say that serious construction of the Atlantic Wall didn’t really begin until the summer of 1942. There was once a theory that the ill-fated raid on Dieppe, which took place on 17 August 1942, was the catalyst which persuaded the Germans to begin fortifying the Western Front to a much greater degree but, in fact, Hitler had already issued a directive (Directive No. 40) in March of that year to lay the groundwork for the massive construction programme which would compliment the already established Westwall on Germany’s border with France. British commando raids, including one which caused substantial damage to the dry docks in St Nazaire, were highlighting weaknesses in defence along the French coast and the Dieppe fiasco occurred four days after Hitler had met Albert Speer, the new head of the Todt Organisation, and senior engineers to finalise building plans. The raid on Dieppe proved a dark point in history for the Allies but without the sacrifice of the British and Canadian forces involved, the Normandy landings may never have succeeded. Operation JUBILEE was the first ever attempt to land tanks in an amphibious assault but it was doomed to failure from the start. Though Royal Navy destroyers had laid down a barrage and five squadrons of Hurricanes had strafed defences, the British No. 4 Commando success in nullifying the western coastal battery overlooking the port, was the only successful aspect of the mission. No. 3 Commando’s landing craft were attacked by a German patrol with the result that they lacked the firepower to complete their objective on the eastern edge of the proposed landing area yet still the main attack force comprising the 14th Canadian Tank Battalion (Calgary Regiment), Royal Marine A Commando, the Essex Scottish Regiment, Mont-Royal Fusiliers and the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry continued on to the beaches of Dieppe while the Royal Regiment of Canada, the South Saskatchewan Regiment and the Cameron Highlanders moved on outlying targets.

St randed and dest royed Churchill t anks aft er t he failed Dieppe raid.

But of course the advantage of surprise had been lost and, though Dieppe wasn’t as heavily defended as other fortified ports, the Germans were still well prepared. Communication immediately broke down between the assault force and its Royal Navy escort as well as the two commando forces meant to be guarding their flanks. The majority of the Canadian Churchill tanks couldn’t get off the beaches because of tank traps and the sea walls in front of them and they began to sink into the unstable shingle. Those that scrambled on to solid ground were met by an anti-tank brigade that had been hurried to the coast by Dieppe’s Hafenkommandant (port commander). The Canadians, for whom this was their first taste of combat in Europe, were particularly hard hit. The first few waves of troops who made it on to the beach were cut down by enfilade fire from machine guns. Scattered infantry did manage to infiltrate the town but most were destined to be among the 4,000 Canadian and British troops killed, wounded or captured by German forces in Dieppe. It was a harsh lesson but one that the Allies were put to good use two years later. It was obvious the outright storming of a major French port could never succeed and the army, navy and air forces of the invasion forces also understood that the need for reliable intelligence and communication was paramount. The inability of the Churchill tanks to get past beach defences further highlighted the need for the development of more adaptable armour to protect a beachhead. Operation JUBILEE contributed to German arrogance over the capability of the Atlantic Wall. Prior to 1942, apart from the main ports, only the Channel Islands which, for some reason, Hitler did not want to risk falling back into British hands, had been heavily fortified. Coastal artillery on mainland France, therefore, was almost exclusively housed in cauldron gun emplacements prior to that date. The level of fortification on and around the D-Day beaches varied enormously between the heavily fortified ports and ordinary field entrenchments. While the defences on the coast of Lower Normandy (the Cote De Nacre) did have a significant number of concrete defences, the most common types were small, open Tobrukstände and gun pits, not the fully enclosed bunkers utilised in coastal batteries. CONS TRUCTION

Atlantic Wall bunkers were uniformly made from reinforced concrete, though construction quality suffered badly as the war progressed. After a site for a fortification had been surveyed and the ground levelled to specification, the floor was poured from concrete. In 1942 the aggregate, sand and cement, was imported from as far afield as Poland and Eastern Germany but by 1944, sand was being dug from the beaches of the French coast and instead of stone-rich aggregate, sea-shell fragments was being added to the mixture. In addition to a lack of basic ingredients at this time, it was not unknown for local forced labour to sabotage the concrete mixture with sugar, etc, supplied by partisans, though it meant summary execution for anyone caught in the act. The wooden moulds for the interior were constructed from beams and planks, and the reinforced concrete built up around them. Steel reinforcing bars (rebars) were spaced 25 cm apart, putting about 50 kg of steel into every cubic meter of bunker wall. Anything that had to be anchored into the concrete was put into place at the same time. Steel armour plates, firing ports, ventilation shafts and stove chimneys, for example.

Const ruct ing a casemat e – ready for t he pouring of concret e.

If the bunker was designed to have an emergency exit, as the R501 did, then that would be built in brick

and surrounded by a thin layer of concrete. As the emergency formed part of the bunker’s outer wall, this would also be installed at this time. The inside of the roof was also built together with the interior fittings, by placing steel I-beams at regular intervals across the shortest spacing or distance across the room for maximum strength and putting steel plates between them. Occasionally wooden planks were used if there was a shortage of steel but this wasn’t ideal due to the fire risk if the bunker took a hit from incendiaries. Once all this had been done, an outer mould was built around the reinforcements and the concrete poured in. This was done in a single, continuous operation that went on day and night, so as to create a bunker consisting of a single block of concrete without any seams or apparent weak points. Slave labour, armed with shovels, would help channel the concrete down chutes where it was then compacted with jack hammers. This meant that the whole process had to be carried out on site and traces of the manufacturing process can still be seen on some beaches, where coastal erosion has exposed bunker foundations. The Regelbau concept formed the backbone of the Atlantic Wall. Freely translated, Regelbau means, roughly translated, ‘Standard Build’, and standardization was truly the name of the game with close to 700 individual bunker types in the book at the end of the war, each with a specific task and identified by a unique number. This approach to fortifications allowed the contractor, Organisation Todt, to quickly adapt any stronghold or fortified area to meet local conditions (strategic, tactical and geographical) and to expand existing facilities without compromising their basic integrity. By far the most common bunker types in Normandy were the Tobrukstände. These were a family of small bunker designs so named after Italian fortifications used during the fighting around Tobruk in North Africa 1942. They were formally called Ringstände, since they were based around a single circular or hexagonal opening reminiscent of a ring mount. The Tobrukstände were most commonly used as machine-gun pits for a single machine-gun team, but were also used as a firing pit for 50 mm infantry mortars and some had searchlights mounted. While Tobrukstände offered better protection to troops than open field entrenchments (the machine guns usually had a armour plated shield which protected the gunner around its 360 degree traverse), they obviously still were not as well protected as the fully enclosed machine gun bunkers found in the Festunghäfe ports or on battery sites. Since their principal weapon was situated in a recess open to the elements, they could be disabled by straightforward direct hit during an infantry attack unlike the bunkers which could withstand everything except a close-quarter large calibre artillery strike through the embrasure. There were two basic types of machine gun Tobrukstände, the Vf58c and Vf58d, which differed slightly in construction details. The machine gun Tobrukstände was often armed with an armour-shielded MG34 or MG42 and also differed from the Vf61, which was designed for 50 mm mortars and had a small concrete platform in the centre for supporting the mortar. Generally, Tobrukstände offered a small shelter behind the ring opening to provide cover for the crew during attack, with a door in the side or rear of the structure which was usually reached by a couple of steps via the main bunker’s exterior passage. Tobrukstände were only protected to Class Bl standards in terms of concrete thickness, that is, 1.5 metres or less, so they were generally built flush to the ground so that the earth formed an additional layer of protection. In this situation, they presented a very difficult target for invading troops as they weren’t easily visible at either ground level or from an elevated viewpoint.

Machine gun Tobruk host ing a MG-42 wit h occupant posing for t he camera wit h ammunit ion belt and grenades t o hand.

Tobrukstände wit h armour plat e prot ect ion – not e t he range markings paint ed on t he shield. T he machine gun is a Czech LMG and t he ancest or t o t he Brit ish Bren.

T his Tobrukstände is incorporat ed int o a casemat e which is part of t he defences at Roscoff, Brit t any. T he defender is behind a MG-34.

In some cases, Tobrukstände were mounted along the seawall immediately along the water’s edge. In these cases, the preferred solution was to construct thicker walls than the Class BI standards, though there were many cases where the lesser standards were followed for the sake of economy. One version of the Tobrukstände commonly seen on the Normandy beaches was the Panzerstellung, equipped with a tank turret. These were usually based on the Vf67 but also included modified types, including a U-shaped Tobrukstände. These were most commonly salvaged gun turrets from captured French tanks and the two most common types in Normandy were the World War I Renault FT tank turrets and the later APX-R turret. The APX-R turret was developed by the Atelier de Puteaux in 1935 for the Renault firm, hence the APX-R designation. It was initially used on the Renault R-35 infantry tank and later fitted on the Hotchkiss H-35 and H-39 cavalry tank as well. It was also fitted with a PPLRX-180P armoured periscope in later models, which had a wider field of view. The long-barrelled 37mm version wasn’t common on the Atlantic Wall, however, being reserved largely for Renault and Hotchkiss tanks used by the Heer for fighting partisans in open countryside. While the two earlier types of turret with the short barrel were commonly used on the Tobrukstände, these tank turrets also had a coaxial machine gun and, in some cases, the Heer would modify the turret by cutting open the observation dome at the top and installing a split hatch in its place. Few of these domes remain today, most having been claimed as scrap metal post war, but there are still a few examples dotted along the French coast. The turret was manned by a single gunner but the leather strap seat that would be suspended below the

gun originally was gradually phased out and the gunner eventually had to stand while on duty. The standard practice was to man these turrets with at least two soldiers, the second man assisting the gunner by feeding ammunition. There was no room to stow ammunition in most Tobrukstände so it was usually kept in its actual shipping containers which, more often than not, was an elongated wooden crate. To get access to the turret you could use a hatch built into the back though this, of course, would be highly dangerous during a battle so operators would normally retreat into the bunker itself if forced to leave in a hurry. Needless to say, if the bunker itself had been overrun, there was little prospect of escape.

Tobrukstände for a capt ured French Hot chkiss H-35 t ank t urret . Not e t he precise const ruct ion det ails on t he plan.

As mentioned earlier, the strongpoints varied in layout to best exploit local terrain for increased protection. So, for example, the strongpoints on UTAH and OMAHA beaches were built in clusters behind the dunes across obvious paths leading off the beach in order to channel the Allied invaders into ‘killing’ zones. On SWORD and JUNO Beach in the British and Canadian sector, the defences were incorporated into seawalls and built into existing buildings which commonly ran all the way down to the edge of the beach or sea wall. The basic defensive concept for strongpoints was the so-called Igel, or hedgehog, philosophy with the bunkers, gun casemates and other positions arranged to provide

interlocking fire. Each position was assigned a sector of defence, and its weapons were also designed to cover the dead spaces of nearby positions. A typical strongpoint contained about five Tobrukstände armed mainly with machine guns plus a few mortars, two to four gun positions, and two or three personnel, storage or command bunkers. Within a line of company strongpoints, there would usually be one or more of the heavy anti-tank gun bunkers for interlocking enfilade fire along the whole beach. The most common larger gun to be used in strongpoints was the 50 mm. Largely obsolete 50 mm tank guns, principally the KwK 39 and KwK40 which were originally fitted to the German Panzerkampwagen III medium tank, and the 50 mm PaK38, an anti-tank gun used extensively on the Eastern front from 1941. The latter were remounted on pedestal mounts (sockellafetten) for use in emplacements and fitted with a armour shield – these were primarily intended for use against landing craft.

A 50 mm Pak38 in Vf600 concret e emplacement providing for a 360 degree field of fire.

The Pak38 were usually placed in Vf600 concrete emplacements for a 360 degree field of fire. These were octagonal concrete gun pits which were nominally more than 4 metre wide with recesses for ammunition in the front and side walls. The basic version had two access ways at the rear of the platform, but the modified Vf600 only had a single access way. In some cases, as at Crisbecq on the Cotentin Peninsula, target codes were painted on to the gun pit walls so crews could bring their weapons to bear in rapid time having been directed by the observation bunkers. Many of the H667 bunkers on the Atlantic Wall were positioned so they could provide enfilade fire along beaches rather than directly facing incoming forces. These bunkers required the excavation of about 150 cubic meters of soil and builders would have to pour around 380 cubic meters of concrete onto the 17 tonnes of steel rebar and 4.5 tonnes of other steel that made up the frame. Almost 150 bunkers of this type of were constructed on the Atlantic Wall in early 1944, with more than a third of in lower Normandy which was under the control of the Seventh Army. Those armed with the 88 mm and PaK 43 were particularly lethal.

Type 677 casmat e housing an 88 mm gun at Les Dunes-de-Varreville. T he concret e apron at t he front is t o prevent sand and dirt being t hrown up when t he gun is fired.

Construction of the H667 bunker was typical of the gun casemates found along the Normandy coast, basically a garage design with a large armoured access door in the rear and a large embrasure in the front to open a wide field of fire of around sixty degrees. The concrete walls were Category B, meaning they were two metres thick and were capable of resisting almost anything but a direct hit. That included most tank armament, though obviously a shell through the front embrasure would inevitably cause damage and inflict casualties as it ricocheted around the enclosed space. The armoured door to rear could also be destroyed with accurate fire. Most H677 bunkers had a concrete apron in front of the gun embrasure to prevent dirt being disturbed when the gun fired and thereby obscuring subsequent firing, but they were designed to be enclosed with earth on both sides, while at the rear of the bunker, further earthworks or a low protective concrete wall was erected to shield the rear armoured door. Generally, the roof was also covered with earth for camouflage purposes though the upper edge of the bunker had curved sections of steel rebar protruding that were used as hooks to attach camouflage nets. Generally, a camouflage net was extended over the entire front of the structure to hide the embrasure and protruding gun barrel. In some cases, the exposed concrete was also camouflage painted, though its location would often define whether or not that was necessary. In common with the H677, the R501, R502 and R621 personnel bunkers were also built in abundance along the length of the Atlantic Wall in France, with over 1,000 constructed up to 1944. The German R501 bunker was originally designed in 1939, as part of the planned Westwall defences against the French, the German response to the Maginot line. After construction of the Atlantic Wall was started in 1942, the R501 was built there as well, although it was later superseded by the type R621,

which was roughly the same size but had more modern fittings. At least 1,519 type 501 bunkers were built during the Second World War. All German bunkers tended to share features of the original Festungspionere design, such as the way the interior was laid out or the design of the ventilation system. As stated, the 500-series was originally developed for the Westwall but was easily adapted for use in the Atlantic Wall. The Regelbau (R) number designated the bunker’s purpose. In the case of the R501 it was einfacher Gruppenunterstand, which translates into single section housing in other words, a bunker in which one section of ten men could live. One aspect of the R501 that could differ was the angle of the corners. Often, the sides were simply built into a square shape along with the curved roof edges where they joined. The advantage of this was that they were fairly simple to put together as no specialised joints were needed. But, by the time the bigger R502 was developed, a more complex, round finish was being used. Here, the whole corner of the bunker wall was rounded and roof corners were built into a spherical shape. The moulds for this were much more labour intensive but research had proved that the rounded corner was much stronger than the square and most bunkers had it incorporated by the end of 1943.

T his H 501 shelt er has been convert ed t o a dressing st at ion t o deal wit h minor injuries.

The R501 bunker was designed to house a single section of ten troops, while the R502 could house double that amount of personnel. As such, its main room was simple and rectangular, but the need to allow the bunker to be defended against both attackers and chemical weapons made necessary an elaborate entrance that takes up a large amount of space. The R501 took up approximately ninety square metres of ground area, but only twenty square metres was for the use of the occupants, less than a quarter of the total area. The remainder of the site was taken up by the thick walls, entrance corridors, doorways and air locks.

T he ent rance t o t he 600 series of bunkers was set much higher t han t he floor level, wit h st eps leading down. T his simple feat ure ensured t hat t hose approaching were silhouet t ed against t he sky.

The bunker primarily consisted of an entrance corridor, also known as the close-combat room, located in the rear wall, ie the wall that faced away from the direction the enemy was most likely to come from. This prevented enemy fire from landing directly in it, unintentionally or not. If possible, the entrance was protected by a 90 degree corner and overlooked by an embrasure. This opening, lined with wood to minimise the risk of ricochets, was usually protected by an armoured steel plate and could be used to mount small arms fire. The corridor could be closed off by a metal bar door which prevented enemy troops from gaining access to the bunker but did not obstruct the firing ports set into the bunker wall. In later designs, gutters were fitted to the edge of the bunker entrance corridor, embrasures and air intakes which not only prevented rain water from collecting in doorways and on floors but also acted as a defence against flame throwers by diverting the inflammable fuel onto the walls. One of the major differences between the 500-type bunkers and its successor, the 600-series, was that the entrance was on the same level of the bunker in the R501 and R502 but in the R621, the entrance was set much higher than the floor level, with steps leading down. This not only helped disguise the bunker itself but would also silhouette would-be assailants against the sky in normal circumstances. There was a decontamination chamber in case of chemical weapon attack, where soldiers could decontaminate themselves before entering the actual air lock – it otherwise led to a dead end. A locker with equipment to offset the effect of chemical weapons could be set up in this part of the bunker. The air lock itself was a means to prevent gasses from chemical weapons from entering the bunker, by providing a place where the soldiers could be more thoroughly decontaminated before going into the main room. The air lock would also function as a defence against regular attacks, as it had a strong air-tight outer door made from three centmetre thick steel, with a rubber-sealed central firing port that also doubled as a viewing slot. This door was installed in two halves, weighing almost 250 kilograms each, allowing the top and bottom to be opened separately (though a lip on the lower half meant it couldn’t open any wider than the upper one). The logic behind this split opening was that any debris that might collected in the outside corridor might block the lower door but, unless it was a huge amount, the upper half could always be opened, allowing the bunker’s occupants to escape. The air lock featured a purification filter and a pressure valve which increased the air pressure inside the air lock, forcing any gas through external intakes which were fitted with steel grills to prevent attackers using them as an access point for grenades. The main barrack room was where the on-duty troops would spend what were normally twelve or fourteen hour shifts. Usually fitted out with bunk beds, a table and chairs, equipment lockers and a wood or coal-burning bunker stove for cooking and heating. Plus whatever personal touches the soldiers could smuggle in undetected. The stove had a pipe which ran into the wall and connected to a chimney on the bunker roof. The chimney was angled at ninety degrees so that, if an assailant managed to drop a grenade inside, the device would be trapped and explode with minimal damage. The room also had a bunker ventilator mounted on the wall to provide fresh air and also to create over-pressure inside the bunker during a gas attack. This was a hand-cranked device that drew air into the bunker and, if required, through a filter. The obligatory telephone to communicate with other bunkers inside the strongpoint or battery was next to the door in a protective wooden or metal casing alongside which was a voice pipe that usually led to the Tobrukstände. A common warning above the telephone read ‘Achtung – Feind hort mit!’ which roughly translates as ‘Attention – the enemy is listening!’ which was also the title of a popular German propaganda film released in 1940. In some crew rooms, a retractable periscope would allow soldiers to keep watch on their immediate surroundings without venturing outside and on rare occasions, wells were dug under the bunkers for fresh water though, more often than not, that had to be shipped in by tanker along with other supplies though some sites did have reinforced pits dug to form reservoirs. In the summer on the Atlantic Wall, these often doubled as swimming pools for the garrison. Toilet facilities were very basic for the rank and file, however. A covered bucket being the normal vessel of relief for all but those

in command bunkers, which had lavatories built into the design, though outside toilets or latrines were eventually installed in nearly all the strongpoints and batteries.

Air filt er pump room at Ouist reham.

The main room was separated from the gas lock by another steel door, but much thinner than the outer door. It was in one piece, and consisted of thin steel plates riveted to a frame, instead of from a massive slab of steel. To create a gas-tight seal, a rubber gasket ran along the inside of the door frame while a small, glazed, peep hole in the door itself gave a view into the gas lock. To defend against attack, nearly all German bunkers had a firing port built into an interior wall, giving a field of fire straight down the entrance corridor. It consisted of a steel plate, 3 cm thick, set into a hole in the concrete of the wall. The plate had a firing hole measuring 30 cm x 22 cm in size and closed, from the inside, by a sliding shutter also made from 3 cm thick steel plate. In case the gas lock’s outer door was completely blocked by debris, an escape tunnel was provided in the R501’s right side wall. This was only 60 cm wide and 80 cm high and sealed by a steel door on the inside. It opened into a brick shaft of two metre diameter built onto the outer wall. Steel rungs on the bunker wall inside the shaft allowed the escaping soldiers to climb up onto the bunker’s roof, though it’s difficult to understand how designers imagined that would be any safer should the bunker be under attack. The shaft itself was normally filled with gravel, to prevent its use by the enemy with two brick walls inside the escape tunnel prevented the gravel from spilling into the bunker. When the tunnel was to be

used, the soldiers would open the steel door, smash or pull down the brick walls, and let the gravel flood into the bunker. Contrary to popular belief, most bunkers were not left in their unpainted, grey concrete colour during their use. The fact that they have this colour today is because the original paint has worn off due to sixty years’ exposure to the weather. If the bunker was built in the open, a large part of it was covered by earth, to both blend it into the surrounding terrain and protect it from shellfire. The exposed concrete was then camouflaged with various coloured designs, the exact style depending on the surrounding area. The base colour was most likely dark yellow, as this colour can be seen on parts of surviving bunkers. Other colours used were darker with green and brown (similar to those used on vehicles) prominent. The yellow paint normally extended into the entrance corridor, in a triangle on the side walls from the top edge of the doorway down to the floor. The rest of the entrance corridor was painted like the interior.

On t he road t o Rouen occupying t he ground where t he police st at ion formerly st ood was t his bunker disguised

as a house.

Bunkers built in villages and towns, or near farms, were often disguised as civilian buildings. They received fake roofs and even chimneys made from wooden beams, planks and chicken wire, and had doors and windows painted onto their walls, often even with decorations such as curtains and flower vases visible inside. Although most of the fake roofs are quite apparent in contemporary photographs taken from ground level, they were very effective against aerial reconnaissance. On the inside, bunkers were painted what would nowadays be known as egg shell white. Often, members of the garrison would decorate the walls with slogans or the badge of their regiment. Grafitti is also common, much of it denouncing the Allies. The floor was often left as bare concrete, however, though some earlier bunkers did have brown asphalt tiles that acted as dampers to dull the effect of a nearby bomb blast. The internal walls would be lined with wood for the same reason with steel netting used in later constructions, including the gun casemates. Interior metal fittings were almost always a dark green colour, while handles on cabinets, etc. were painted black. Stencilled signs in black inside the bunker indicated the purposes of the various rooms, as well as bunker identification numbers and warning signs. On many surviving bunkers, many of these are still clearly visible. Construction of the R621 type, of which the R501 was the forerunner, began in January 1943 as the need to staff batteries and strongpoints around the clock against the threat of invasion became paramount. They typically required around 485 cubic metres of concrete, 23 tonnes of steel rebar and 3.7 tonnes of other steel. They were built with Standard B walls, ie two metres thick, and on flat ground if possible so that the entrance to any Tobrukstände, built on top of the structure, would be buried flush with the ground. There were a number of modifications of this design, however, including the R62la with a pair of Tobrukstände gun positions at either end of the bunker. The R62I was part of a family of similar personnel shelters, the related R622 Doppelgruppenstand being nearly identical in appearance except that it was large enough for two adjacent rooms to accommodate two groups of men, twenty in total. The R62I can be distinguished from the R622 in that it usually had four circular ventilation covers between the two entry ways while the R622 had six. These two types of bunkers made up nearly a third of all fortifications built for the army along the Atlantic Wall.

Communicat ions room at Calais, Bast ion II, liasoning wit h casemat e housing 194 mm ‘cross Channel’ gun.

At lant ic Wall Bunker Regelbau 622.

KRIEGS MARINE The initial role of the Kriegsmarine coastal artillery was to destroy the invasion force before it reached the shoreline. The navy had traditionally viewed shore-based defences as an extension of the fleet and so deployed the batteries along the coast where they could most easily engage attacking surface vessels. The gun casemates were connected by electric cable to an elaborate fire-control/observation post which possessed optical rangefinders and aiming systems that could plot trajectories against moving targets. Their presence didn’t comfort all interested parties, however. The Heer viewed the naval batteries as the battleships of the dunes and argued that their placement so close the shore made them immediately visible to enemy warships, and therefore in range of naval gunfire. In addition, the proximity to the shore also made the guns vulnerable to airborne or infantry attack in the event of an amphibious assault or concerted invasion. The army’s attitude to coastal batteries was based on the premise that they were located primarily to repulse an amphibious attack and not engage in a protracted exchange with heavy armour based at sea. As a result, the army tended to concentrate their batteries further inland unless there was a strategic need to arrange covering fire for particular sectors of the coast. An example of this was at Pointe du Hoc, an elevated promontory protected by cliffs with a clear line of sight to neighbouring beaches. The army’s control bunkers were commonly less complex than the naval bunkers. They did house rangefinders and targeting devices but could not engage with moving targets as easily as the naval batteries. The Heer big guns also placed more emphasis on radio connections with other army units, relying on artillery forward observers to assist in the direction of fire against targets that were not visible to the gunners themselves.

A 380 mm gun t urret from t he French First World War bat t leship Jean-Bart in a bat t ery near Le Havre in 1944.

It was not just in tactics that the Germany army and navy disagreed. The two branches of the armed forces had very different views on the technical aspects of coastal large calibre guns. The navy preferred an enclosed gun that could survive a prolonged engagement with naval forces and they even employed warship turrets, salvaged from damaged ships or spares, in locations where the bedrock was sufficient to support the weight. For example, the Kriegsmarine used a 380 mm gun turret from the French First World War Courbet class battleship Jean-Bart in a battery near Le Havre. Of course, it was impossible to build new turrets on the Atlantic Wall with the majority of the manufactured armour plate being used on tanks and ships. This led to the development of casemates as an alternative to protect the guns and their crews against everything but the most accurate shelling and bombing. During 1943, naval engineers began to experiment with a new mix of reinforced concrete using wire under stress instead of the usual steel bars. This promised to be significantly more flexible, sparking hopes that a fully traversable concrete turret could be developed. The limitations of traverse in casemates, which generally only offered a narrow firing window, was a major stumbling block and severely hampered a gun’s manoeuvrability. It also offered a distinct target to mortars and the petards of the AVRE tanks. But, though some experimental turrets were built behind the front lines in early 1944 and one near Fort Vert, Calais in April of that year, the innovation came too late to influence the war. Unlike the navy the army did not favour fixed guns and preferred to use conventional field artillery. This was based on the premise that the batteries could be easily moved from nonthreatened areas to reinforce the defences in sectors under attack. The army was basing its tactics on previous British amphibious assaults (there was no example of an American assault to study), such as at Gallipoli in the First World War, where the seaborne invasion developed into a protracted military campaign.

At first, the Heer used cauldron mounts based on the First World War gun pits, which were simply circular concrete-lined holes in the ground with recesses for charges and ammunition. The gun itself was completely exposed, but the gun pit was surrounded by protected crew shelters, ammunition bunkers and a fire-control bunker. As Allied air activity over the French coast increased in intensity, the vulnerability of these batteries to air attack became the subject of some concern. At face value, it appeared that the navy’s reinforced casemates offered better protection from air attack than the open kettle gun pits. But, the testimony of gun crews suggested this wasn’t necessarily the case and structural engineers backed up their claims that the casemates could concentrate the blast of any bomb or large shell that landed near the opening, proving deadly to those inside, while the guns in open pits were comparatively safe during an air raid except for the rare occasions when the gun and its crew took a direct hit. Following the Dieppe raid, however, the policy shifted to encase all army batteries in casemates. These resembled the navy casemates in almost all aspects except that they were generally built with a large garage-type door at the rear to allow removal of the gun inside for transfer to other sites in the sector if needed. There were several classifications of concrete thickness used in German bunkers, most of which had been drawn up by army fortification engineers during the construction of the Westwall programme. The highest level for tactical fortifications was class A, which used steel-reinforced concrete to a thickness of 3.5 metres. This was costly and time-consuming to produce so tended to be confined to large, highpriority structures such as the U-boat pens at St Nazaire and heavy gun batteries in the Pas-de-Calais. The latter category included Batterie Todt and Batterie Lindemann. But most fortifications which faced the Atlantic were built to the B standard, which meant walls were two metres thick. That, in theory, gave the bunkers protection from artillery shells up to 210 mm and bombs up to 500 kg in weight. Many minor bunkers, which often included those regarded as non-essential (crew shelters, stores, etc.) were built to the inferior Bl standard, though these were often at least partially buried to provide additional protection. As the war progressed and steel became more difficult to acquire, engineers would try to cut back on the amount needed and it wasn’t uncommon for internal doors to be made of wood. The basic construction method remained the same for the casemates as well as the bunkers, only on a grander scale. The type R685 casemate, for example, which was designed to house either a 210 mm or a 128 mm anti-aircraft gun, would still be built by the concrete being poured over steel rebars between planks or beams of wood arranged into its respective different quarters and levels. The type R685 consisted of a gun room with recesses for ammunition. Its walls were built to class A specification (3.5 metres thick), as was the roof – both were then covered with earth to a depth of, if possible, at least 60 cm. The embrasure, underneath the familiar stepped roof, allowed a traverse of sixty degrees and an elevation of forty-five degrees. A number of similar casemates had embrasures for a traverse of 90 degrees or even 120 degrees when it was realised that a restrictive angle of fire would make the casemate vulnerable to attack from the sides or rear but, on and after D-Day, these modifications proved largely a wasted effort. Most casemates, even those housing the massive guns in the Pas de Calais, were built using the same construction techniques, but the giants Türme in the batteries of the Pas de Calais were also built on several levels which meant incorporating both bunker and casemate design. For example, the four casemates at Batterie Todt (formerly Siegfried), which housed 380 mm Skoda C34 turreted guns, had foundations which began with the digging of exterior drains and interior ventilation shafts. Wooden boards or shutters were then put in place to form the outer shell of the ground floor which contained the diesel generator, billet rooms for eighteen men including an armoury, a canteen, workshops and a store for fuel. Ventilation shafts also played a vital role in a casemate as air inside the emplacement would be sucked out when the gun fired and had to be replenished. A lift shaft and stairwell connected the lower level to the ammunition room which contained the shells for the gun and an offset room for the

charge cartridges. Before the concrete was poured, an overhead pulley system was anchored into the rebars that was to form the ceiling of the shell room to allow for easier transportation of the armaments to the exterior railway track. This track, thought to be initially used to move concrete mixers into position above the site for pouring, ran inside the main casemate to the edge of the turntable on which sat the gun itself. The whole revolved around a giant driveshaft. The gun and its armoured turret were anchored to a steel chassis on the turntable, pivoting for firing on greased bearings on either side of the barrel. Both the chassis and barrel had to be transported from their place of manufacture and lifted into place via cranes attached to tall gantries which were rolled into position above the casemates. They had to be fitted and tested before the armour-plated embrasure cap could be bolted into place and the concrete poured which would form the ceiling and roof. Camouflage could then be applied, in the case of Batterie Todt that included the painting of houses and trees on the casemates as well as netting which was hung from the protruding end of the existing steel rebars. The disguise was surprisingly effective, especially from distance or from the air. Impressive in sight as these concrete monsters were, however, they were to prove just as vulnerable as the rest of the fortifications on the Atlantic Wall.

Chapter Three THE FOUNDING OF HOBART’S ‘FUNNIES’

P

ERCY CLEGHORN STANLEY HOBART was born in the Kumaon hill station of Naini Tal on 14 June 1885, where his father was a key figure in the Indian Civil Service. His birth was to set a trend for great military leaders to emanate from this remote outpost of the British Empire. Just two years later, 1887, General The Lord Ismay, Winston Churchill’s chief military advisor and subsequently the first Secretary General of NATO, also began his life in Naini Tal; in 1903 Orde Charles Wingate, famous for his creation of the Chindits and undercover operations against the Japanese in southeast Asia during the Second World War, was also born and spent his early life among the Himalayan foothills. After an education served at Clifton College Boarding School in Bristol, which in the late nineteenth century specialised in science, mathematics and engineering, Hobart followed in the footsteps of British Army Commander-in-Chief Douglas Haig by enrolling at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1904. In 1906 he was posted to India where he joined the Bengal Sappers and Miners. In January 1915 he went to France with the 1st Indian Expeditionary Force and won the MC at Neuve Chapelle, later being transferred to Mesopotamia in January 1916, where he was awarded the DSO. Hobart was a forward thinker with a strong personality and on more than one occasion these characteristics led him into trouble with his superiors, many of whom failed to appreciate that change he was advocating was inevitable and that future wars were unlikely to be fought on the same lines as in 1914-1918. Hobart – ‘Hobo’ to his military colleagues – returned to India in 1921 and, convinced by the belief that any future wars would be won by the tank, transferred to the Royal Tank Corps on its formation in 1923. After four years as an instructor at the Staff College in Quetta, he returned to England, initially as second in command of the 4th Battalion of the Tank Corps and later as CO of the 2nd Battalion. In 1934 he raised and commanded the 1st Tank Brigade and in four years, evolved new tactical methods based on mobility and speed, linked to new techniques for command and control. After a short spell at the War Office, ‘Hobo’ was appointed Director of Military Training and in 1938 was sent to Egypt to raise what was to become the 7th Armoured Division. But his advanced views on the use of armour did not find favour in all quarters and in 1939 he was ‘retired’ by chief critic Sir Archibald Wavell, at the age of fifty-four. Of course, the effectiveness of his methods and training were to be well illustrated by his protégés in subsequent years. However, his active military career was far from over and in 1941, after a short period as a corporal in the ranks of the Home Guard, he was recalled at the specific order of Winston Churchill and offered command of the 11th Armoured Division. Churchill had been influenced by the representations made by Hobart’s mentor, the highly-acclaimed military analyst Captain Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart, who then had to persuade a disillusioned Hobart to come out of ‘retirement’ and accept the post. After the ill-fated raid on Dieppe in 1942, the need for specialist armoured equipment became ever more obvious and, in April 1943, Hobart was given the task of raising, organising and training the 79th Armoured Division for the invasion of Europe in 1944. At the outbreak of war in 1939, the Royal Engineers had no armoured vehicles but it quickly became

clear that change was needed. As a first step, armoured scout cars were issued to field squadrons of armoured divisions and these were followed by armoured personnel carriers. But it was accepted that some form of engineer tank was required to enable Royal Engineers personnel to force routes through minefields and over or through defended anti-tank obstacles. At the outbreak of war, tanks were not available for experimental work but as a compromise for a particular operation, some were ‘lent’ to the Sappers so they could advance developments, though that was under the condition the tanks were returned to base in their original condition. Consequently fittings which could be mounted and removed in a matter of hours were the order of the day. 79TH ARMOURED DIVIS ION The formation of the 79th Armoured Division, under Hobart, with massive emphasis on a tank development programme was long overdue. With a brief to ‘co-ordinate the development of armoured assault techniques and equipment’, ‘Hobart’s Funnies’ were born. The development of the Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVREs) has been attributed to an original idea put forward by Lieutenant J. J. Denovan of the Royal Canadian Engineers, but attached to the Special Devices Branch of the Department of Tank Design. His plan was for a tank with as much of the standard internal equipment stripped, leaving storage space for the sapper’s equipment, tools and explosives. The Churchill was chosen because of its combination of a large interior, thick armour and a side access door, and a prototype was developed for the Department of Tank Design by the 1st Canadian Mechanical Engineer Company. Moreover the Churchill tank was a wise choice because its gasoline engine produced torque similar to a diesel engine, while its low gearing, its wide tracks and its ability to make a neutral turn all made it more capable of going in rough terrain compared with any other available vehicle. A demonstration on Hankley Common at Farnham in Surrey on 25 February, 1943 showed what the engineers had in mind. A Churchill tank with the internal ammunition storage removed and a new side door that unfolded to become an armoured screen was driven up to a concrete wall. The sappers emerged from the tank, placed and lit General Wade explosive charges on the wall, and then retreated, still undercover, into the tank. The resulting hole was large enough to drive the tank through. The 290 mm muzzle loading mortar, the ‘petard’ with which the Churchill AVRE were to become synonymous, was developed separately by Colonel Blacker, the designer of the Blacker Bombard, a spigot mortar built for the Home Guard. He was asked to design a version of the mortar that could be mounted on a tank, and produced a weapon that could fire a 40 lb high explosive shell known as the Flying Dustbin. A massive spring in the turret soaked up the twenty tons of recoil and used the energy to reset the mortar. At the Hankley Common demonstration, the mortar was mounted on a Churchill tank and, after using shells fused for air burst to clear a twenty-eight feet wide gap through a minefield, the mortar then fired twelve shells directly at a six feet thick concrete wall, again creating a gap wide enough for a tank.

The two designs were merged to create the AVRE. Around 700 were produced by converting Churchill Mk IIIs and IVs, of which 180 had been completed by the time of the Normandy landings, where they

were used by the 1st Assault Brigade of the 79th Armoured Division. The AVRE was given standard attachment points that could be used to carry a wide range of specialised equipment, including fascine carriers that could drop their brushwood bundles into ditches or at the base of barriers, a variety of mine sweeping devices, a Small Box Girder bridge, ‘Bobbin’ carpet laying tanks and the ‘Goat’ explosive device The AVRE played an important part in the success of the British and Canadian landings on D-Day, where their spigot mortar was especially valuable, destroying a number of German strong points including guns based at the sanatorium at Le Hamel which were targeting the Hampshire and Dorset regiments coming ashore on GOLD Beach. They continued to operate successfully during the campaign in north-western Europe, and later versions of the AVRE tank remained in use long after the Churchill had been retired. By the end of October 1943, various engineer units had been re-named and transferred into this division as 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers. This brigade comprised three Assault Regiments, each with four Assault Squadrons, plus an Assault Park Squadron. The structure was to remain undisturbed up to the Normandy landings in June 1944. The formation of the Funnies started with the need to create a series of modern siege engines to lead the assault on the beach defences of the French coast. A rapid sweeping away of the obstacles and defenders in the British sectors was deemed crucial as the Normandy terrain lent itself to a rapid counterattack by German armour. Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke made the decision in 1943 to create these new units and responsibility for the conversion of vehicles and the training of crews to use them was given to armoured warfare expert Percy Hobart. It’s a misunderstanding to presume all of the Funnies equipment was a product of the Royal Engineers’ imagination, however. Many of the ideas had already been tried, tested or were in experimental development both by Britain and other nations. For example, the Scorpion flail tank (a modified Matilda tank) had already been used during the North African campaign to clear paths through German minefields. Some of the Soviet Union’s T-34 tanks had been modified with mine-rollers. Closesupport tanks, bridge-layers and fascine carriers had also been developed elsewhere. However, the Funnies easily possessed the most comprehensive and wide-ranging assortment of engineering oddities. By early 1944, Hobart could demonstrate to Eisenhower and Montgomery (Hobart’s brother-in-law) a brigade each of swimming Duplex Drive tanks (DD), Crab mine clearers, and AVRE (Engineer) tanks along with Crocodile flame-throwing tanks. Montgomery considered that the US forces should use them, and offered them a half-share of all the vehicles available, but the take-up was minimal. Eisenhower was in favour of the amphibious tanks but passed on the decision to take up option on the others to General Bradley, who delegated it to his staff officers. In the end, US forces didn’t order any of the adapted armour because it was thought that their operation would require specialised training and a support regiment, though there were also rumours at the time that Bradley didn’t believe they’d be effective under battleground conditions.

General Bradley remained unimpressed by t he specialised armour on offer.

The designs incorporated by the British were all used on modified forms of the Churchill or the Sherman tank. By 1943, both were available in large numbers. The Churchill offered a solid, if unspectacular, cross-country performance, heavy armour and a roomy interior for its crew, while the American Sherman was renowned for its mechanical reliability. Among the many specialist vehicles and their attachments, the most well-known were: The AVRE, or Assault Vehicle, Royal Engineers. This was

a Churchill tank adapted to attack German defensive fortifications and, therefore, pivotal in the destruction of the Atlantic Wall. The crew included two Royal Engineers who could easily leave and enter the tank through its armoured side hatches, which provided cover while they laid charges. As described earlier, the AVRE had its main gun replaced by a Spigot Mortar which fired a high explosivefilled projectile 150 yards (137 metres). It was specifically designed to destroy obstacles such as roadblocks and bunkers and proved highly successful in the wake of D-Day, but it did have its drawbacks. For example, the weapon had to be reloaded externally, by opening a hatch and sliding a round into the mortar tube from the hull and the weapon’s relative short-range meant that crews were vulnerable unless they withdrew some distance to reload in relative safety. Any enemy weapon could inflict harm on the exposed crewman, and the AVRE’s inferior armour compared with the Churchill Mk VII made it just as vulnerable to anti-tank weapons as the Sherman, which had thinner but better sloped frontal hull armour and thicker turret front armour, giving better protection. The AVREs role was not solely as an attack weapon, however. They were also used to carry and operate equipment such as the Bobbin, a reel of ten foot (three metre) wide canvas cloth reinforced with steel poles carried in front of the tank and able to be unrolled across the ground to form a path, so that following vehicles (and the AVRE itself) would not sink into the soft ground of the beaches during an amphibious landing. Then there was the fascine, a bundle of wooden poles or rough brushwood lashed together with wires and carried in front of the tank that could be released to fill a ditch or form a step. Metal pipes in the centre of the fascine allowed drainage so that the temporary plug would not become waterlogged. The AVRE could also carry a small box girder that became an instant assault bridge. Also held in place in front of the tank, the box girder could be dropped to span a gap of up to thirty feet (9.1 metres) in thirty seconds ensuring an invasion force would not lose momentum due to uneven terrain.

Ingenious solut ions t o deal wit h t he At lant ic Wall defences: 1. Pat hlaying Bobbin for soft sand. 2. AVRE Bridge. 3. Fascine carrier t o fill ant i-t ank dit ches. 4. Met hod for overcoming a sea wall using a Churchill ARK.

a flame-t hrowing ‘Crocodile’.

Above: t wo solut ions t o overcome mine fields – t he Bullshorn and Crab.

The Bullshorn plough excavated the ground in front of the tank, exposing and rendering harmless land mines, while a further adaptation was known as the Double Onion. This comprised two large demolition charges on a metal frame that could be placed against a concrete wall and detonated once the AVRE had retired a safe distance. Why the unusual nickname? Typical army humour, its single charge predecessor was known as ‘the Carrot’. The Crocodile was a Churchill tank modified by the fitting of a flame-thrower in place of the standard hull machine gun. An armoured trailer, towed behind the tank, carried 400 gallons (1,800 litres) of fuel. The flame-thrower had a range of over 120 yards (110 metres) and was largely used to clear bunkers and buildings where opposition troops were holed up. The ARK was a rough abbreviation of Armoured Ramp Carrier. This, again, was a Churchill but unrecognisable as such, the turret having been removed so that extendable ramps could be fitted on each side of the tank; following vehicles could then drive up the ramps and over the ARK to scale obstacles or embankments.

T he ‘swimming’ t ank wit h propellors for powering across wat er, showing (respect ively) t he flot at ion screen raised and lowered.

Moving on to the Sherman tanks, there was the Crab which was equipped with a mine flail, a rapidlyrotating cylinder of weighted chains that exploded mines in the path of the tank and the DD tank, short for Duplex Drive, which had a transmission that could be adapted for use on water as well as land and was able to ‘swim’ after being launched from a landing craft several miles from the beach. DUPLEX DRIVE DD Hungarian Nicholas Straussler was the engineer credited with the development of the DD tank used by Allied forces during the Second World War. Between 1928 and 1933, Straussler headed a company called Folding Boats and Structures Ltd, patenting a number of flotation devices. He became a British citizen in 1933 and throughout the 1930s worked with Alvis Cars and armoured vehicle manufacturers VickersArmstrong as well as various Hungarian companies. His work for Alvis also involved designing armoured cars such as the Alvis Straussler AC2 and the Alvis Straussler AC3 as well as bomb trolleys for the RAF. His most important work was for Vickers-Armstrong, which included the design of accessories for tanks. The engineering solutions he produced tended to be innovative, though sometimes arguably lacking in practicability. He adapted his flotation device to develop collapsible floats that could be used to either construct a pontoon bridge or make a light tank amphibious. Trials conducted by the War Office showed that an adapted tank, propelled by an outboard motor, ‘swam’ to some degree but the floats needed to float a tank were almost the same size of the tank itself and would never have been practical to transport in an amphibious assault. Indeed, such floats made a tank too wide to launch itself into the sea from an off-shore landing craft. Undeterred, Straussler devised an alternative, the flotation screen. This was a folding canvas screen, supported by metal hoops with rubber tubes filled with compressed air providing the buoyancy. The screen covered the top half of the tank and, when collapsed, was designed to leave the tank’s mobility and combat effectiveness unimpaired. Straussler was given a Tetrarch tank for trials and it was fitted with a screen together with a marine propeller that took its drive from the tank’s engine. The two forms of propulsion – propeller and tracks – gave rise to the term Duplex Drive or DD. The first trial of the DD Tetrarch took place in June 1941 in Hendon Reservoir in North London, with General Alan Brooke attending on behalf of the Army. Sea trials of the Tetrarch, near Hayling Island in

Hampshire, followed and the go-ahead was given to develop a production DD tank based on the VickersArmstrong Valentine tank. This version never saw combat in North-West Europe, but some saw service in Italy to replace severe Sherman DD losses. Straussler continued to work on adapting the DD system to other British vehicles, including the Churchill, the Cromwell and the Centurion but none of these went into production and post-war tanks were generally too heavy to be made amphibious with a flotation screen. After the war, he oversaw a variety of projects although many were still connected in some way with amphibious vehicles. They included the Lypsoid Tyre, a very low-pressure, run-flat tyre that saw some use with military and construction vehicles. He continued working into his old age, filing the last of his thirty patents in 1964, just two years before his death. Other tank derivations included the BARV (Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle) which was adapted from a Sherman M4A2 tank which had been waterproofed and had the turret replaced by a tall armoured superstructure. Able to operate in 9 feet (2.7 metres) of deep water, the BARV was designed to remove vehicles that had become broken-down or swamped in the surf and were blocking access to the beaches. They were also used to re-float small landing craft that had ‘beached’ in low water. Strictly speaking, BARV’s were not ‘Funnies’ in the strictest sense of the meaning as they were developed and operated by the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and not the 79th Armoured Division but they are included in this chapter for ease of summation. The 79th Armoured Division also operated the American LVT4, known as the Buffalo, which was an armoured amphibious landing vehicle and armoured bulldozer, a conventional caterpillar bulldozer fitted with armour to protect the driver and engine. The bulldozers’ main function was to clear the invasion beaches of obstacles and to make roads accessible by clearing rubble and filling in bomb craters. All the conversions were carried out by a Caterpillar importer Jack Olding & Company Ltd of Hatfield.

BARV (Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle).

Olding, a veteran of the First World War, was a huge supporter of the British war effort. A former

dealer in luxury cars, he adapted his Hertfordshire factory to produce a variety of bespoke military heavy plant machinery including graders and scrapers which were used to build roads, bases and fortifications as well as creating a channel so that large sections of Mulberry harbour could be floated across to France to aid the invasion.

Cent aur Bulldozer.

Olding also sponsored a school to train military personnel in the use of Caterpillar equipment and this developed into the RAF Airfield Construction training establishment at what was to become RAF Mill Green. The armoured bulldozer’s contribution to the Allied war effort can not be overemphasised, with even Dwight D Eisenhower in his book Crusade in Europe pointing out, ‘Four other pieces of equipment that most senior officers came to regard as among the most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2.5 ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously, none of these is designed for combat.’ The Centaur Bulldozer was a Centaur tank with the turret removed and fitted with a winch-operated bulldozer blade. Again these were produced because of a need for a obstacle-clearing vehicle but, unlike a conventional bulldozer, was also fast enough to keep up with tank formations and had enough armour to withstand sustained combat conditions. However, they hadn’t been fully developed by D-Day and weren’t issued to the 79th Armoured Division until the latter part of 1944, where they were used in the liberation of Belgium. Another piece of heavy equipment that came into operation in the latter months of the war was the Canal Defence Light. This was a powerful carbon-arc searchlight carried on several types of tank inside a modified turret. The name of the device was deliberate misnomer, however, as its true purpose was to blind defenders during a night attack. The light was concentrated through a small slit in the armour, meaning the chance of damage by enemy fire was minimal. It was to come into its own in support of the Sherwood Yeoman Rangers and US 333rd Infantry Division during the attack on Geilenkirchen in November 1944. Much of the 79th Armoured Division landed in Normandy, more of which later, early on the morning of 6 June 1944 as a special assault team in support of the three infantry divisions on the British/Canadian sector. This assault support role, under the continuing command of Hobart, was maintained until the end of the war. By May 1945, the 79th Armoured Division found itself in the Hamburg area. By August, the division was being disbanded though did enjoy a brief re-incarnation in Suffolk as the Specialised Armour Development Establishment (SADE), with Hobart at the helm. There was, of course, a new enemy at the door in the shape of the Soviet Bloc but the role of armour in any new conflict had changed and March 1946 saw Percy Hobart put out to grass again for the second

time at the age of sixty. ‘Hobo’ still wasn’t ready for retirement, however, and with brother-in-law Field Marshal Montgomery as the new Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Hobart was appointed Lieutenant Governor of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. In 1947 he was appointed a Colonel Commandant of The Royal Armoured Corps. He left Chelsea in 1953 but two years later fell ill. It was to prove one battle too many for the old warhorse, whom US 9th Army commander General William H. Simpson described as; ‘The outstanding British officer of high rank that I met during the war.’ Percy Hobart died 19 February 1957, aged seventy-one. Monty did not always see eye-to-eye with Hobart but he was fulsome in his praise of ‘Hobo’ in his obituary in the Times and Liddell Hart also paid tribute to Major General Sir Percy Hobart KBE, CB, DSO, MC on his death: He was one of the few soldiers I have known who could be rightly termed a military genius.

Hobo and Mont y at t he Oxford t est ing area examine t he ground aft er a Bullshorn plough has t ackled clearing ‘mines’.

Chapter Four THE CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

O

N THE SIXTH DAY OF JUNE, 1944, five divisions of Allied troops from three different nations landed on the German-held coast of Lower Normandy, and three other divisions, in which the same nations were all represented, came down upon this region from the air. This was the beginning of what may well be called the most momentous military enterprise in modern history; for these eight divisions were only the vanguard of a tremendous armament and the events of that day led directly to another day, eleven months later, which saw the unconditional surrender of the once proud armies that had subjugated Western Europe for Adolf Hitler. In war, successes such as this are the dividend of many months of arduous preparation. In one sense, indeed, the preparation for Operation OVERLORD began immediately after the British Army was driven from the soil of France at Calais and Dunkerque in June 1940, for when the Government and people of Britain set about the re-equipment and reorganization of their military forces, they thought in terms not only of the defence of their island but also of the day when the British Army could resume the offensive in Europe, re-cross the Channel and fight towards the borders of Germany. At least as early as the summer of 1941, British military planners were specifically contemplating an invasion of Western Europe; for the German attack on Russia had suddenly made such an operation infinitely more likely than it had been when the two powerful dictatorships of Stalin and Hitler had been in alliance. Then in December 1941, Japan, followed immediately by Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States. GIs began to appear in the British Isles soon after, and the prospect of great American armies being available for the assault on the continent brought it still closer to realisation. Nevertheless, that so-called Second Front was being considerably delayed for there was much to be organised before the day of liberation dawned for France. During 1942, Allied leaders were continually in conference concerning the times and places where forces might be most effectively deployed. However, by the end of July, the push to drive Rommel out of North Africa had begun and this meant that any large-scale operations in Europe would have to be put on hold. It was necessary, however, to keep the German high command in constant doubt as to the Allies’ intentions with regard to an invasion. It was no less vital to offer all possible assistance to Russia in her attempts to repel German advances on the Eastern Front, while intelligence units needed time to compile and analyse information regarding German defences in northern France – and the best method of breaking them down. It was with these objectives in mind that the ill-fated raid against Dieppe was launched by a military force of which almost ninety per cent was Canadian, on 19 August 1942. Moreover, in a sense, it was that raid which marked the beginning of the real preparation that led directly to the commencement of Operation OVERLORD almost two years later. On 2 August 1944, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, looking back upon the successful assault in Normandy and the long train of events preceding it, told the House of Commons; I was opposed to making this great invasion across the Channel in 1942, and, thereafter, it was plainly impossible in 1943, owing to our having chosen the Mediterranean and to our amphibious resources all being concentrated there … I do not believe myself that this vast enterprise could have been executed earlier. We had not the experience; we had not the tackle.

By the spring of 1944, however, things were very different; the enemy had been cleared out of Africa and Sicily and slowly pushed halfway up the Italian Peninsula; the lessons of Dieppe had been learned and five successful opposed landings in the Mediterranean had taken place. Specialised landing craft and armour had been developed by the British and been tested in these operations so it was now available for work in the Channel.

Prime Minist er, Winst on Churchill, addressing t he House of Commons.

Throughout 1943, while success followed success in the Mediterranean, Allied statesmen and officers

had been planning in increasing detail the still greater enterprise ahead. Intensive planning began in London in April under the direction of a British officer, Lieutenant-General F.E. Morgan, who was designated as COSSAC – Chief of Staff to a Supreme Allied Commander – who had not yet been appointed. By July, an outline plan for the invasion of the Continent was in existence. This plan recommended breaking into Europe by way of that part of the coast of Lower Normandy near Caen and was approved by the Allied leaders during their historic conference at Quebec in August 1943.

F.E. Morgan.

On Christmas Eve, 1943, London and Washington announced the appointment, as Supreme Allied Commander, of the American officer who in a similar appointment in the Mediterranean had shown himself to have a remarkable talent for the coordination of the efforts of Allies. General (now General of the Army) Dwight D. Eisenhower, was to oversee Operation Overlord, while Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder would serve as his deputy. It was also made known that General (now Field Marshal) Sir Bernard Montgomery, the commander of the victorious Eighth Army in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, would command the British armies in the invasion of Europe. Only after the invasion had begun was it announced that Monty was also to direct all the ground forces engaged. The Allied Naval Commander, Expeditonary Force (ANCXF) was to be Admiral Sir Bertam Ramsay; and Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory was appointed Air Commander-in-Chief, Allied Expeditionary Air Force.

Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Sir Art hur Tedder.

Sir Bernard Mont gomery.

Sir Bert am Ramsay.

General Montgomery arrived in England from Italy in the first week of 1944. Thereafter, the COSSAC outline plan was amended, the attack front widened to include the lower part of the Cherbourg, or Cotentin, peninsula, and the number of troops to be employed in the first assault was increased. By February 1944, the naval, ground and air commanders had completed an Initial Joint Plan, which provided the basis on which planning by subordinate commanders proceeded, and included all the essential features of the assault as finally carried out.

Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory.

Canadian military forces had begun to arrive in the United Kingdom in 1939, and from that year onwards they had grown steadily in numbers and in efficiency. The decision to declare war on Germany had not been an easy one for the Canadian government, which was struggling with widespread poverty at home and would need to invest considerable monies to bring their armed forces to fighting strength. But, after waiting until 10 September, 1939, to declare war on Germany, prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was merely establishing Canada’s autonomy from the UK as public opinion was very much in favour of joining the conflict. The French surrender in 1940 resulted in Canadian forces finding themselves confined to a role which, however important, was too benign for the proud Canadians – a defensive role in Britain against an invasion which never materialised. So it was no surprise that they looked more and more to the coming assault on Fortress Europe as the fulfilment of their destiny – and in this most deadly of ventures, they were set to play no minor part.

William Lyon Mackenzie King.

CANADIAN ORGANIS ATION The Canadian Army which had taken up residence in the United Kingdom by 1943 consisted of an Army HQ, two Corps Headquarters, three infantry divisions, two armoured divisions, two independent armoured brigades and a number of miscellaneous Corps and communications units. For a long time, it had been anticipated that this force would operate as a national strike force when the time came to invade the continent. During 1943, however, a considerable part of the force was despatched to the Mediterranean. The 1st Canadian Division and 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade played a significant part in the Sicilian campaign, and, subsequently, the 5th Canadian Armoured Division and the Headquarters and Corps Troops of the 1st Canadian Corps, then commanded by Lieutenant-General H.D.G. Crerar, joined them for the 1944 campaign on the Italian mainland. The consequence was that the approach of Operation Overlord found the Canadian force in the United Kingdom reduced to the Headquarters of the First Canadian Army, the Headquarters of the 2nd Canadian Corps, the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade and a large force of ancillary troops. Since Canada had contributed one Corps of her Army for service in Italy, where it now formed a large proportion of the Eighth British Army, the British War Office would have to find the reserve troops to take its place under the Canadian Army in Overlord.

Henry Duncan Graham Crerar.

The command of the Anglo-Canadian force preparing for action in the United Kingdom was to be split between the Second British Army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Miles Dempsey, and the First Canadian Army, commanded in the beginning by Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton and, after the latter’s retirement, by General Crerar who returned from Italy to the United Kingdom and assumed command of the Army 16 March, 1944.

Sir Miles Dempsey.

So, while the Canadian troops were usually under General Crerar’s command, Canadian formations frequently fought under General Dempsey, and throughout the campaign (until the return of the 1st Canadian Corps from Italy in the early spring of 1945) about fifty per cent of the divisions of the First Canadian Army were normally British or Allied. But the composition of both Armies changed constantly in line with the operational situation and for a time in February 1945, Canadian General Crerar actually had under his command almost every British division on the Western Front, a fact that went unreported by the media of that time. One of the regiments whose history was destined to be intertwined with the Atlantic Wall was the North Shore. Raised in the untamed coastal province of New Brunswick, the North Shore could trace its origins back to 1793 but their arrival in England proved a shock to the system of the soldiers. Sailing up the Mersey on the approach to Liverpool docks, the regiment were greeted with the sight of bombed-out ships, now no more than partly submerged wrecks, and devastation along the water front. The issue of rations cards and respirators were other reminders that they were now in a country that was firmly in the grip of war.

At an early date, it had been decided that, as far as the Anglo-Canadian forces were concerned, the Second Army would have the task of establishing the bridgehead on the continent, while the role of the First Canadian Army would be the break-out and advance from the bridgehead. This had been settled even before Exercise Spartan, the extensive army manoeuvres overseen by Montgomery himself and staged between 28 February and 14 March in southern and central England. In that exercise, the First Canadian Army, with a compliment of six divisions, three of which were British, rehearsed fulfilling the objective to which it had already been assigned. In Exercise Spartan, the Canadian Army were to break out from a theoretical bridgehead on England’s south coast and advance north to encounter the ‘hostile’ forces that had been placed to meet it. Although this designated role deprived the Canadian Army as a whole of a leading share in the earliest phase of operations, Canada was, nevertheless, still to be well represented in the first attack on Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. It was decided about a year before OVERLORD was launched that one Canadian division should participate in the assault and on 3 July 1943, General McNaughton wrote to the Commander of the 1st Canadian Corps, formally advising him that the 3rd Canadian Division had been selected for assault training with a view to taking part in the initial assault. AS S AULT DIVIS ION TRAINING The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, commanded by Major-General R.F.L. Keller, had never seen action before. The first stage of its assault training was directed by the 1st Canadian Corps, but from 1 December 1943 it passed for operational direction under the 1st British Corps, which was to command it in the actual assault on Normandy. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1943, the Division, along with the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, were in intensive training. In the latter part of May, troops took part in another exercise on battalion level called Breach, which consisted of breaching a strong field defensive position with Bangalore torpedoes used under cover of mortar fire. A month later, Exercise Smashex saw the Division practice breaking through a heavily mined field defence to reach a target roughly twenty-five miles away. The North Shore Regiment left the breached minefield at seven in the morning and fought their way for twenty-four miles, arriving at their objective at one the following

morning only to find they had to dig trenches in hard chalk to protect themselves against tank attack.

Rodney Frederick Leopold Keller.

A period of preliminary and elementary combined operations training was followed by more advanced training at Combined Training Centres in Scotland. Exercises here, such as those staged in the grounds of Inveraray Castle, were receiving more of an assault training flavour with one officer called Airedale, for example, demanding that ‘All personnel will march, walk or run five miles per day, four times per week’.

Rehearsing t o breach Hit ler’s At lant ic Wall.

By the autumn, however, the Division was back on the Channel coast ready to carry out large-scale assault exercises in conjunction with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Exercise Pirate was designed to train the assault troops in establishing and defending a bridgehead. Held at Studland Bay on the coast of Dorset, Pirate applied in practice, for the first time on any large scale, the new technique that was being developed. The assault brigade (the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade) went ashore under cover of supporting fire form all three services. Destroyers (representing much heavier ships that would be available on D Day) brought down a heavy bombardment, and in addition, the Navy provided a rocket barrage fired by armoured landing craft. The RAF bombing attack, which was an integral part of the plan, had to be cancelled owing to unfavourable weather, but fighter-bombers still attacked with cannons. The army itself helped clear the way for its own assault with self-propelled field artillery firing on the beaches from Centaur tanks in landing craft. When the exercise was over, experts analysing the results decided that this combined fire plan had proved both workable and feasible, though many of the finer details remained unresolved. A basis had been found for the operation, however, and the tremendous bombardment by land, sea and air which struck the Germans on the coast of Normandy 6 June, 1944 was undoubtedly devolved from tactics first tried on a grand scale at Studland Bay nine months earlier. The 2nd Canadian Division, which was involved on that ill-fated raid on Dieppe, had gained the hard-won experience on which the plan was based and the 3rd Canadian Division served the Allies as guinea pigs on which the invasions plans were worked out in detail. Further exercises came thick and fast. Can-Opener coordinated the anti-tank platoons, Ozone, which

determined the capability of medical orderlies to treat casualties from landing craft, was swiftly followed by Turtle II, an exercise in signals communications, and Cordage which co-ordinated the fire plan of all the services together. Soda Mint, Flash, Gold Braid, Savvy and Trousers, training for the Division was relentless, all of it now implemented from the new advanced HQ at Brockenhurst in the New Forest, where it was to remain until April 1944 when moved a short distance to the outskirts of Winchester. Changes in organization suitable to the assault role also remained ongoing, the most telling being the addition to the Division of a fourth regiment of field artillery armed with Priest 105-millimetre selfpropelled guns. At this juncture it should be pointed out that neither the Canadians, nor indeed the British or American troops in the invasion fleet, had any real concept of what would be required to breach the Atlantic Wall in the various sectors. The one major Allied enterprise against the French coast, the raid on Dieppe, had failed to achieve its short-term objectives and had cost many hundreds of casualties and it was known that the Germans had further strengthened their defences in the intervening two years.

Priest 105-millimet re self-propelled gun reproduced from t he vehicle manual. Named ‘Priest ’ because of t he pulpit -like t urret .

The lessons of 1942, however, had been learned. Not least the need for the development of overwhelming fire support in the earliest stage of an amphibious assault operation against fortified coastal defences. In the last week of July 1943, the 1st Canadian Corps held a Combined Operations Study Period, based upon a hypothetical renewal of the attack on Dieppe, in the course of which the whole problem was intensively examined; and at the end of the sessions General Crerar summed up in an address on fire support which foreshadowed in detail the principles followed in the assault on Normandy.

The final full-scale rehearsal, known to the Canadians as Fabius III, took place at Bracklesham Bay, east of Portsmouth, 4 May. Chosen for its similarity to the Cote de Nacre in Normandy, where the Canadians were to launch their initial attack, the exercise was considerably hampered by bad weather and was initially postponed for twenty-four hours as the result of rough seas. When it was finally held, the sea was still so rough that the Royal Navy were soon forced to put a stop to disembarkation with the fear that casualties would ensue. For nearly eight months prior to the assault on Normandy, the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade had worked as part of the 3rd Canadian Division, and its three armoured regiments carried out intensive amphibious training in conjunction with the infantry brigades to which they were attached. That meant further intensive training on the Duplex Drive tanks, amphibious Shermans capable of leaving tank landing craft a considerable distance from the coast and ‘swimming’ ashore under their own power. These were to form the first wave of the assault, going in five minutes before the actual H Hour--the moment at which the first wave of landing craft hit the beach. As May drew to a close, General Keller’s force was a in a full state of readiness. New equipment was distributed by quartermasters, including a redesigned steel helmet which gave additional protection to the back of the head.

Training wit h t he Duplex Drive amphibious Sherman t anks.

Canadian t roops wearing t he new st eel helmet . Compared wit h (inset ) t he former shape which had remained unchanged from t he Great War 1914-18.

Among the standard issue for Canadian infantry in WWII was the Number 4, Mark 1 Lee Enfield. The Short Magazine Lee Enfield No.1 was used up until November 1942 when the Number 4 was issued. In June 1943, the Canadians started using the Number 4 made in Canada (designated the Mark I). With a box-type magazine, extending through the bottom of the stock forward of the trigger guard, it carried two 5-round clips of .303 ammunition. The Lee Enfield was the fastest operating bolt-action rifle in the world and a trained rifleman could fire between fifteen and thirty aimed rounds a minute and be effective up to 900 yards. Various sights could be fitted and it could also launch a grenade from a cup adapter or

discharger. Canada was to manufacture almost a million Lee Enfields between 1939 and 1945. Other weapons carried included the Vickers .303 Machine Gun, which could be fired at high or low angles from a tripod. It operated on a simple gas-assisted, water-cooled recoil system and was fed by 250 round cloth belts of .303 ammunition and fired in full automatic bursts of 10 to 20 rounds. Able to be fired at sixty shots per minute (rated as slow fire) or at a rate of 250 rounds per minute (rapid fire), the gun was accurate up to 1,100 yards and was fired by grasping both traversing handles and depressing the trigger with both thumbs.

Above: Canadian manufact ured Lee Enfield rifle and below Canadian t roops t raining wit h t he Vickers Machine Gun.

T he 3-inch mort ar was t he st andard mort ar used by Canadian infant ry bat t alions.

The 3-inch mortar was the standard heavy mortar used by the Canadian infantry battalions and could propel shells into enemy positions from a high angle and hit targets with a 10lb shell from as close as 125 yards to a maximum of 2,800 yards. It was carried in three separate parts (the smooth bore barrel, the base plate and the mounting which supported the barrel providing elevating and transverse adjustments). This mortar had a poor range compared with German and other mortars, all of which, including the 3-inch mortar, were actually of 81 mm calibre. There was also the PIAT (Projector Infantry, Anti-Tank), a cross between an anti-tank rifle and a bazooka which fired an anti-tank grenade up to one hundred yards, and the Bangalore Torpedo. This was a simple explosive device, first used extensively on D-Day by Allied troops to clear the barricades, mines and barbed wire that comprised elements of the Atlantic Wall. The torpedo consisted of three different sections, a nose section for penetrating obstacles, an explosive section filled with TNT or C4, and hollow lengths of pipe to build the device up to the required size. Up to 4 sections, each 3 inches wide by 6 feet long, could be connected by metal collars and it was designed so that as few as two men could make it battle-effective. The elongated tube was placed on the ground and then pushed forward below bunkers, tank traps, barbed wire entanglements or into mine fields and then detonated with either a

remote-controlled electric detonator or a blasting cap with delayed-action fuse.

T he Project or, Infant ry, Ant i Tank (PIAT ).

T he Bangalore Torpedo, designed for blowing gaps in barbed wire defences.

The Armoured Brigade also finally received its full complement of Sherman tanks after the men of the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers had ensured all were in the right shape for the rigours of the battlefield and they were supported by the Priest self-propelled guns. While the Canadian assault troops were making their final preparations in Hampshire, the second wave that were to follow them into France were busy elsewhere. Spring had found the HQ of the 2nd Canadian Corps located at Three Bridges in Sussex, but in April it moved to Eastling Wood, just north of Dover. Sections also moved into East Kent, as did the 2nd Canadian Division, which established its headquarters in Dover itself. As D-Day drew near, the camps of the Canadian assault force, lying between Winchester and Southampton, were sealed with all contact with the outside world cut off. Similar restrictions were put in place in Kent and Hampshire. Special precautions were put in place to guard against an attack of German airborne troops and anti-aircraft guns concentrated in case of air attack. There were also fears that Hitler would target his new vengeance weapons, the V1, on the south coast if he realized an invasion force was massed. British authorities were still reluctant to acknowledge the existence of these new weapons, despite several attacks on London. Canadian antiaircraft units had been briefed on the characteristics of the flying bomb in case they were targeted but the Germans were obviously oblivious to the threat gathering across the English Channel and made no effort to disrupt Allied troop movements on the run-up to D-Day, apart from the normal night bombing of the naval shipyards in the Portsmouth area. Indeed, it was to be more than a week after the bridgehead had been established in Normandy before the Germans thought to try and target a V1 on the Channel ports and, by that time, the die had already been cast.

T he 40 mm Bofors ant i-aircraft gun.

One of Hit ler’s vengeance weapons – t he V1.

During the final few weeks prior to the assault, the nerves of the troops confined to base were undoubtedly being stretched to breaking point. Fear of the unknown and a desire to get on with the job caused an outbreak of ‘Channel Fever’, with a few men ‘invalided’ out of the invasion force having suffered a form of mental breakdown. It was arguably worse for the officers, who had the most operational knowledge of the task in hand. The secrets were kept, however, and it appeared German high command remained completely in the dark about D-Day plans to the moment the guns of the Crisbecq Battery at St Marcouf on the Cotentin Peninsula first fired a salvo just before 5.35 am on 6 June 1944. Careful consideration had been given to selecting the date for the assault. The target date was fixed in the Initial Joint Plan and that date ‘in respect of which all preparations will be completed’ was 31 May

1944. It had been decided to attack in daylight as half an hour of good light was essential to ensure the greatest possible accuracy for the preliminary naval bombardment, and would also enable landing craft to land the troops with much greater certainty at the desired points of entry. The flotillas, accordingly, would cross the Channel under cover of darkness and assault soon after dawn had broken. The first wave of landing craft were to hit the beaches about three hours before high tide, hopefully meaning that the depth of water would allow the craft to float over submerged beach obstacles yet still be shallow enough to enable the troops to wade ashore with their equipment (each man would be carrying a pack weighing between 60lb and 72lb). The date of the assault was therefore planned for a morning when this state of tide would exist half an hour after the beginning of clear daylight. From the point of view of the airborne forces, moreover, it was desirable that the night preceding D-Day should be lit by a near full moon so gliders and transport planes carrying paratroopers could identify landmarks and target areas for disembarkation. All these conditions were due to synchronise towards the end of the first week in June. On the 8 May 1944, the momentous decision was taken to designate 5 June as D-Day, with postponement acceptable if necessary to either of the following two days. Unfortunately as 5 June approached the weather, always the most uncertain factor in the joint plan, suddenly took a turn for the worse. Conditions in the Channel in early summer can deteriorate rapidly and a light squall had developed into a fullblown storm. Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower had a decision to make. Hopeful reports of calm seas had given way to forecasts of high winds and twenty foot waves by the morning of 4 June, by which time US landing craft were already on the move from the south west. Ordering them to retreat to port, Eisenhower postponed D-Day for twenty-four hours as his advisors studied the weather charts. Waiting for the next suitable tide would mean a delay of almost a fortnight and cause planners a logistical nightmare. Some troops had already been on board their cramped ships for several days, feeding and subsequently re-embarking the force efficiently would be next to impossible. Moreover, every day’s delay increased the risk of a security breech and lessened the possibility of surprising the German forces in Normandy. Lieutenant Bernard McElwaine was a pioneer officer with the North Shore Regiment, and a journalist in civvy street. During his service with the regiment, he contributed a diary (censored, naturally) for an English newspaper, and his chronicle covering the 6 June 1944 read, The deck of this glorified tin can provides a spot for the long letter I’ve promised. When you get it is a toss-up. For three weeks now we have been more rigorously secluded from contact with the outside world than any debutante, monk or cloistered nun. After the last 24 the lid went down, no pubs, no visits outside. We used to watch the locals going into that rarity, an uncrowded pub from our unhappy post inside the wire compound. Our gum-chewing American friends provided the guard. How the boys burned when they saw them chatting with passing girls. Any girl who passed the camp received a tremendous ovation of whistles, sighs and invitations to come in none came. Then there was the final packing up someone somewhere some time worked out the load carrying capacity in relation to weight of all beasts of burden. Man topped the list. This curious fact inspired the powers that be to prove it. Amazing what can be draped on a man. When I was a kid I used to feel sorry for Atlas not now. He had a soft touch, just had to hold up the world. I’ve got to carry my mountain up umpteen yards of beach and hence inland. When we left camp it was in penny packets – each to his own particular niche in the giant jigsaw. I went off with a bunch of carriers. Made a first brew of tea with the boys and away. Next day to the clicking of movie cameras we marched off our carriers for the short jaunt to the ship – a ride to remember. People thronged the streets and windows because the whole procession had the real McCoy look about it. On every road there were long lines of M.T., trucks, tanks, jeeps,

bulldozers, guns, ducks and other devices of a secret nature that I’ve never seen before. Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg must have collaborated to design them. If I should see a vehicle take wings and fly, then burrow underground like a mole or go into a chorus girl routine I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve seen everything now. Then we hit the ‘hards’ from which we embarked, but only after surrendering myriad pink forms, tickets, nominal rolls, etc. Then the jaws of the craft snapped shut and we puttered around a while and formed an armada of our own. Then we anchored – no invasion that day! A decision had been made, however, and at 11 pm on the night of 4 June, the Allied Supreme Commander issued orders to the effect that, subject to verification on the following day, D-Day would be 6 June. Operation OVERLORD was given the green light, but the weather was a long way from being ideal. The total of landing ships and craft required to carry the troops and vehicles of the initial assault and second phase numbered 2,154. In the operation as a whole, 6,483 ships and craft of all types were deployed from England. Of the naval vessels, a large number were provided by the Royal Canadian Navy which most of these assigned to Force J. As well as two medium-sized Canadian Infantry Landing Ships, HMC Prince Henry and Prince David were included in the force as were two flotillas of large Canadian Landing Craft, while a third flotilla of the Royal Canadian Navy were assigned to an adjacent force landing British troops. A total of sixteen Canadian minesweepers helped sweep a clear passage into French coastal waters and Tribal Class destroyers flanked several Escort Groups composed of Canadian frigates and corvettes. Fleet Class destroyers, HMC Algonquin and Sioux were also elements of the squadron attached to Force J that was detailed to bombard German batteries and strongpoints along JUNO, SWORD and GOLD Beach.

Canadians of J Troop embarking at Port smout h.

Brit ish t roops of Force S aboard t heir t ransport at Gosport .

The long wait was over. The next twenty-four hours were to prove pivotal in world history, just as Rommel had predicted when addressing his generals a few months earlier on a stretch of the Atlantic Wall. Just look at it, gentlemen. How calm… how peaceful it is. A strip of water between England and the continent… between the Allies and us. But beyond that peaceful horizon… a monster waits. A coiled spring of men, ships, and planes… straining to be released against us. But, gentlemen, not a single Allied soldier shall reach the shore. Whenever and wherever this invasion may come, gentlemen… I shall destroy the enemy there, at the water’s edge. Believe me, gentlemen, the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive. For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day… The longest day. During 5 June, landing ships and craft and their escorts slipped their moorings in harbours and ports from Suffolk to Cornwall. The Americans, due to land on the most westerly beaches, had embarked from ports like Poole and Plymouth while the British and Canadians departed from the areas around Portsmouth and Southampton, though several of the reserve battalions came from as far afield as Felixstowe. The waiting troops had gazed in astonishment at the seemingly endless expanse of vessels. ‘The concentration of shipping in Southampton and the Solent has to be seen to be believed’, wrote one unit diarist. By the time darkness had fallen on 5 June, the men of the 3rd Canadian Division and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade were beyond the Isle of Wight and being tossed around on the Channel, with

the winds and waves still battering their landing craft. In a typical case of understatement, the regimental diaries of the Regina Rifles described the weather as ‘cool and cloudy. The invasion was underway.

Rommel was det ermined t o st op t he Allies whilst t hey were st ill at sea and comment ed: ‘For t he Allies as well as t he Germans, it will be t he longest day.’

On the eve of D-Day, General Crerar had sent a personal message to all Canadian servicemen poised to go into battle, many of them experiencing combat for the first time. It is not possible for me to speak to each one of you, but by means of this personal message, I want all ranks of the Canadian Army to know what is in my mind, as the hour approaches when we go forward into battle. I have completed confidence in our ability to meet the tests which lie ahead. We are excellently trained and equipped. The quality of both senior and junior leadership is of the highest. As Canadians, we inherit military characteristics which were feared by the enemy in the last Great War. They will be still more feared before this war terminates. The Canadian formations in the assault landing will have a vital part to play. The plans, the preparations, the methods and the technique, which will be employed, are based on knowledge and experience, bought and paid for by 2 Canadian Division at Dieppe. The contribution of that hazardous operation cannot be overestimated. It will prove to have been the essential prelude to our forthcoming and final success. We enter into this decisive phase of the war with full faith in our cause, with calm confidence in our abilities and with grim determination to finish quickly and unmistakably this job we came overseas to do. As in 1918, the Canadians, in Italy and in North West Europe, will hit the enemy again and again, until at some not distant time, the converging Allied Armies link together and we will be rejoined, in Victory, with our comrades of I Canadian Corps. The Canadian’s main objective was JUNO Beach. Five miles wide, it stretched on either side of Courseulles-sur-Mer incorporating the resorts of Bernieres-sur-mer and Graye-sur-mer with La Riviere to the west and St Aubin-sur-mer to the east. The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division with the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade landed in two brigade groups and each Brigade had three Infantry Battalions and an armoured regiment in support. Two artillery field regiments, combat engineer companies and extra units from the 79th Armoured Division, Hobart’s Funnies, also accompanied the first wave launched from LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) and the smaller LCA (Landing Craft Assault) with the armoured support carried to the beach on board LCT (Landing Craft Tank) which could accommodate up to four Sherman tanks. Other duplex drive tanks ‘swam’ ashore from transport in deeper water. The Fort Garry Horse tanks (10th Armoured Regiment) supported the 7th brigade landing on the eastern flank and the 1st Hussars supported the landing on the western edge. The 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade was kept in reserve and landed later that day and advanced through the lead brigades with the tanks of the Sherbrooke Fusiliers (27th Armoured Regiment) providing tank support. The initial assault was carried out by the North Shore Regiment on the east at St. Aubin (Nan Red beach) with the Queen’s Own Rifles in the centre at Bernières (Nan White beach). The Regina Rifles landed at Courseulles (Nan Green beach) alongside the Royal Winnipeg Rifles on the western edge of Courseulles (Mike Red and Mike Green beaches).

Canadian 6t h Armoured Regiment landing on Nan Green Beach. Ninet een DD t anks ‘swam’ t owards shore, fourt een made it .

The units had been stripped to ‘assault scales’, meaning no men were to be landed on D-Day who did not have urgent jobs associated with the actual invasion. The force embarked under General Keller’s command for the actual assault amounted to just over 15,000 Canadians, with over 9,000 British troops attached. Included among the latter were the 4th Special Service (Commando) Brigade but the 15,000 Canadians did not include the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, who were attached to the 6th British Airborne Division and were the Canadian Army’s spearhead in the invasion of North-West Europe. This was D-Day where all five beachheads were established, thus becoming a pivotal event in the Second World War. However, there was another landing, although far smaller than the main beach landings, was considered even more dangerous. It took place at Pointe du Hoc.

Chapter Five DISABLING THE COTENTIN BATTERIES

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N THE WEST of the Cote de Nacre, between Grandcamp les Bains and Vierville sur Mer, a rocky promontory called Pointe du Hoc (originally known as Pointe du Hoe) emerges out of the cliffs, tall stacks and crumbling arches extending out into the foaming sea. Even today the site remains isolated and, was it not for the signposts and modern visitors’ centre and memorial, a place that would be easy to miss from the main road. When Germany was building its Atlantic Wall defences against Allied invasion in 1943 and 1944, they chose Pointe du Hoc, with its rock-strewn slopes, tiny shingle beach and views of the adjacent coastline, to build a defensive strongpoint. POINTE DU HOC – THE SIXTH D-DAY LANDING According to Allied intelligence reports and data supplied by the local French Resistance (one of whom was a blind pianotuner who was allowed to walk the cliffs unhindered and paced the gaps between defensive elements such as barbed wire) six 155 mm guns (reputed to be French long-range 1917 Puteaux guns), artillery which could hit positions several miles away, were encased in thick concrete casemates and connected by underground bunkers. That intelligence proved not to be wholly accurate but the site did contain concrete observation posts, gun emplacements and a maze of trenches and armoured bunkers, and was regarded as being among the best-defended positions on the Nazi’s Western front. So how would the Allies set about ensuring the Pointe du Hoc wasn’t the rock on which the invasion foundered? The beaches guarded by the Pointe du Hoc strongpoint had been chosen as the two American D-Day landing points, UTAH and OMAHA. Therefore, with the capability to cause untold damage to invading forces, the guns had to be neutralized as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the thick concrete infrastructure prevented Allied bombers from achieving a guaranteed success. Although the RAF and USAF, in combination with US navy warships, dropped explosives equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb (approximately five megatons) upon the fortifications and surrounding countryside of the Pointe du Hoc; Allied infantry would still have to attack the strongpoint on D-Day – but at least one thing was in their favour. The Germans had placed the majority of their defences and men, estimated around 200 in total, to guard against an attack from inland, believing the 100ft cliffs formed an impregnable barrier from the beaches below.

Point e du Hoc showing t he amount of at t ent ion given t his bat t ery posit ion by t he Allied air forces prior t o t he assault on it by t he US Rangers.

The mission to neutralise Pointe du Hoc was assigned to the 2nd and 5th battalions US Rangers, the American version of the more established British commando units. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Earl Rudder, D, E and F companies of the 2nd Battalion would form the first wave, beaching at the cliff base and attacking the sheer rock face with grappling hooks and ladders at first light

(approximately 6.30 am) 6 June. Company D would move in from the west, E and F from the east. When a route was open the remaining force, A and B companies as well as the whole of 5th Battalion, would follow. If the initial attack failed and no signal had been given by 07:00 am, the remaining force would follow the alternate plan, landing to the west of OMAHA Beach and attacking the Pointe from inland, though this ran the risk of suffering heavy casualties with German defences massed on that side as well as along major routes. Meanwhile, Company C of 2nd Battalion would make a similar assault on Pointe de la Percée, between Pointe du Hoc and OMAHA beach. From here Company C would head overland across the cliff tops to Pointe du Hoc. Lieutenant Colonel Rudder was the ideal man to lead the Rangers’ assault. A former college football coach, he was a stickler for preparation and believed the men under his command should be as physically fit as possible and able to act on their own initiative. Forced marches in doublequick time, exercises in demolition using live explosives and survival courses with minimum rations were all part of a Ranger’s training under Rudder. They completed preparations for Normandy on the cliffs of Cornwall and the Isle of Wight.

Lieut enant Colonel James E. Rudder (right ) 2nd US Ranger Bat t alion was given t he t ask of planning and neut ralising t he gun bat t ery on t he Point e du Hoc

The primary target was the six French-made 155 mm howitzers, but the Rangers were also briefed to neutralise the position and seize a main road which ran past the Pointe and along the coast, severing the

German connection between Grandcamp Les Bains and Vierville sur Mer, and thus between UTAH and OMAHA beaches. This position was to be held until troops from OMAHA were able to link up with the Rangers, hopefully at around midday. As 6.30 am (H-Hour) approached, D, E and F companies approached the Normandy coast in a flotilla of twelve landing craft. There were nine LCAs (Landing Craft Assault) carrying the Rangers and three DUKWs (armoured amphibious transports) carrying supplies including pre-fabricated ladders, ropes and grapple hooks. The tenth LCA, with Company D’s Captain Slater and twenty men, had sunk shortly after embarking, and the rough seas also capsized a fourth DUKW soon after, though Slater and his men were rescued later that morning. At H-Hour the guns of USS Texas ceased pounding the Pointe du Hoc and the Rangers headed for shore. Unfortunately, a combination of strong tides and navigational errors, which were to combine to the benefit of invading forces on UTAH beach, had pushed the Rangers’ craft off course: and they found themselves adjacent to Pointe de la Percée further to the east. Rudder quickly realised and ordered the flotilla west along the coast, but the delay cost the Rangers thirty-five minutes. They reached the Pointe at 7.05 am, five minutes after the deadline to signal the remainder of their force. Divisional commanders, fearing the attack had been a total failure, ordered 5th Battalion – accompanied by A and B companies from 2nd Battalion – to move towards OMAHA beach instead. Rudder had been left with only three companies to take Pointe du Hoc.

Rangers on t heir way.

The mistake had other consequences. As the Rangers’ flotilla sailed to the Pointe they moved parallel to several miles of defended coastline and came under attack from shore-based machine guns, mortars and artillery. Despite the efforts of USS Satterlee and HMS Talybont, whose captains realised the situation and began firing at the coast, forcing the Germans to take cover, another DUKW was hit several times and sunk. In addition, those inside the Pointe Du Hoc strongpoint who had been under heavy fire from the guns of USS Texas, had begun to return to their positions as they realised the bombardment had ceased. All three companies therefore approached from the East, with the remnants of Company D coming in from the same direction as they fought to regain lost time. As the men leapt from the LCAs into the waves, they scrambled for footing on the slippery and uneven shingle beach. Some were killed or wounded by a partly concealed machine-gun post on cliff tops to the left of the landing party, but most made it safely to the base of the cliffs despite several stepping into craters beneath the surf and having to rely on their Mae West lifejackets and more fortunate comrades to keep heads above water. Quickly, the Rangers began climbing the cliff face via toggle ropes, rope ladders and grappling hooks, fired by special rocket propelled launchers from the landing craft. However, soaked by the sea water and intermittent rain, some of the ropes were now too heavy to reach the cliff top. There was another problem as the DUKWs weren’t able to land on the shingle for fear of being stranded and their ladders couldn’t be used. In addition, German defenders were firing down from the cliffs with rifles

and lowering grenades on cord over the precipice so they exploded alongside the climbers. Others defenders hacked through some of the ropes, which were now greasy with rain and difficult to grip. Amidst all this, the Rangers followed their training and took advantage of what luck they had. Allied bombing and the bombardment from USS Texas had caused part of the cliff to collapse, creating a muddy hillock which the Rangers could clamber up, or hide behind for cover. The grappling hooks had lit fuses on top, designed for no other reason than scaring German troops away with the threat of explosion, while US ships continued to give what supporting fire they could without endangering the climbers. One soldier even gave his colleagues covering fire from the extended ladder of a DUKW, spraying the cliff edge with bullets as he was swinging back and forth in midair as the waves buffeted the wallowing transport. Remarkably, the Rangers’ intensive training paid off and, inside five minutes of landing, the first wave had crawled over the precipice and opened fire on nearby tobruks. In the heat of battle, some still retained their sense of humour. Sergeant Gene Elder was heard to tell his men, ‘Boys, keep your heads down, because headquarters has fouled up again and has issued the enemy live ammunition’, (from The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of World War II by Stephen Ambrose) Once on top of the Pointe, the Rangers divided themselves into platoons and went after their assigned guns. By this time the landscape, which had been heavily cratered by aerial and naval bombardment, meant that their maps were largely useless. But the huge craters did provide cover from the intermittent rifle fire and machine-gun Tobrukstände, of which many had already been put out of action by the bombs and lay at oblique angles to the field they, were built to defend. The Rangers were able to form up and move quickly between the huge holes with far less casualties than over a level surface and quickly captured ground. An anti-aircraft gun had been lowered and begun firing from the right (western flank) and the Germans had reorganised and fallen back into trenches and tunnels. Nevertheless, the Rangers soon reached the gun emplacements where Allied intelligence had said they’d find the guns – but they were wrong.

Cliff brought down by allied bombing and shell fire from ships.

The six Vf 600 concrete gun emplacements were in their described locations, though most had suffered some degree of blast damage, as were the interlinking trenches, but there were far fewer German troops than had been anticipated and more importantly, no guns. Instead, telegraph poles had been put in place to look like guns and been covered with camouflage netting. Tracks leading inland revealed that the Ranger’s targets had been moved. As a medical post was established in an abandoned armoured bunker on top of the Pointe du Hoc Colonel Rudder, who’d been wounded in the leg by a sniper, moved his forward command post from a crater on the cliff face to higher ground. A stray rangefinder shell from HMS Glasgow had landed in his original position, killing Captain Jonathan Harwood who had been directing the naval artillery, and Rudder decided his officers would be of more use and safer nearer the front line. In the meantime, Ranger groups moved along the access towards the main road, their secondary target. This involved moving through the Pointe’s heavily defended perimeter; not an easy task as Lieutenant Kerchner described,

I remember landing in this zigzag trench. It was the deepest trench I’d ever seen. It was a narrow communications trench, two feet wide but eight feet deep. About every twenty-five yards it would go off on another angle. I was by myself and I never felt so lonesome before or since, because every time I came to an angle I didn’t know whether I was going to come face-to-face with a German or not. While the minefields, bunkers, machine guns and barbed wire had been designed to repel attacks from the opposite direction, the defences were still time-consuming and dangerous to clear and most were occupied by a full compliment of German troops. When Company D reached the road they only had twenty fully functioning men still standing. By 8.15 am, around thirty-five of the Rangers had created a roadblock, achieving the secondary objective. However, the situation across the Pointe was still chaotic, as fighting broke out sporadically, usually when opposing sides took shelter in the same building, trench or crater. A machine gun to the west was still firing at anyone who put his head above ground level but fortunately Lieutenant James Eikner was carrying a First World War signalling lamp in case the mission’s artillery spotters were incapacitated. He was able to send a message via Morse Code to the command post, who contacted USS Satterlee and directed gunfire onto the machine gun – its position was obliterated by a five inch shell. Unaware of the situation at Pointe du Hoc, a large German armoured column passed along the main road, forcing the Rangers to temporarily lift their roadblock, but men were still searching for the missing guns, aware that the Rangers still had not achieved their primary objective. Among them were Sergeants Leonard Lomell and Jack Kuhn, who followed a dirt road inland to where it met a tree-lined lane, where they had an extraordinary piece of luck. Sergeant Lomell tells the story, We didn’t know where we were going, it was the only road there and we saw the marks, like wheel marks. We thought, let’s go see. There, half a mile inland, in an apple orchard separated from the road by a hedgerow and hidden beneath a swathe of camouflage netting which rendered them invisible to Allied spotter planes, were the five 155 mm guns, spaced out and ready to fire upon UTAH beach once communication with the Pointe’s observation bunker had been re-established. In a later interview, Lomell describes what happened next, We just lucked upon them, there was nobody guarding them. We looked around cautiously and over about a hundred yards away in a corner of a field was a vehicle with what looked like an officer talking to his men. We decided, let’s take a chance. I said “Jack, you get up on a hedgerow with your .45, and you protect me. If I hear you open fire, I’ll know they saw me” All I had was two thermite grenades – his and mine. I went in and put the thermite grenades in the traversing mechanism and that knocked two of them out because that melted their gears in a moment. Then I broke their sights. We ran back to the road and got all the other thermites from the remainder of my guys manning the roadblock and rushed back and put the grenades in traversing mechanisms, elevation mechanisms, and banged the sights. There was no noise to that. There is no noise to a thermite grenade, so no one saw us.

Tot ally wrecked gun posit ion.

(From Remembering D-Day, Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes by Martin Bowman and the History Channel’s ‘Battlefield Detectives’.) At around the same time the patrol from Company E had discovered the German guns’ ammunition dump, also undefended. Under the command of Sergeant Rupinski, the Rangers blew up the dump, creating a huge fireball that rained debris on the retreating Lomell and Kuhn. Rudder’s command post relayed the message to the USS Satterlee; the guns had been destroyed, the primary objective achieved – it was not yet 9.00 am. But the Rangers’ job still was not over. They had to hold off a German counter-attack until help arrived. According to the original plan, troops from OMAHA would meet up with the Pointe du Hoc force at around mid-day. Unfortunately things had gone badly wrong on the beach and many of the US soldiers who had made it off the beach were short of their inland targets. The elements of 5th and 2nd Ranger Battalions which diverted away from the Pointe, landing at 7 am, had made little progress because they had also been involved in the struggle to secure OMAHA. This meant Rudder and his men needed to hold the Pointe for much longer than expected. Only two platoons of Rangers had made it from OMAHA, one platoon on the evening of the 6th and a second on the afternoon of the 7th, though three US paratroopers who’d been dropped outside their landing zone surprised everyone by fighting through German lines to join Rudder and his men. Ultimately, the Rangers held onto their Pointe du Hoc foothold until they were relieved late on the morning of 8 June. Throughout the intervening period they suffered five major counter attacks by German troops from 1st Battalion, 914 Regiment, who had recovered from their confusion, regrouped and made a

determined effort to recapture lost ground. The Rangers, however, were now being aided by the fort’s own defences, which had been set-up to repel just the kind of landward attack the Germans were attempting. Supporting fire from the USS Satterlee, as well as USS Barton and USS Thompson also did much to dissuade continuous attack though, on occasion, the Rangers were pushed close back to the cliffs.

Capt ured Polish conscript s under guard near OMAHA Beach.

‘They really rolled over on a lot of our fellas there,’ said Lieutenant Eikner, ‘and we lost some fellas captured and killed or wounded. The remnants, we retreated back to the point and reinforced the defence we had around the point proper.’ This period was the darkest for the men of D, E and F companies, but had the Germans retaken the Pointe, they might have brought replacement artillery up and shelled the fragile hold on OMAHA beach.

Casemat e for an ant i-t ank gun, OMAHA BEACH.

From a casemat e overlooking t he Cot ent ine Peninsula

By the evening of 8 June, Rudder’s original force of 225 Rangers from D, E and F companies had suffered 135 killed, wounded or missing, with around eighty dead. Had the five 155 mm guns fired upon the Allied landings, casualties would almost certainly have been far worse. It turned out that the missing sixth gun from the Pointe du Hoc had been taken away for repair having been damaged in a bombardment prior to D-Day. A, B and C companies of the US Rangers suffered equally with half of the first two units were mown down after landing on OMAHA beach. Company C lost thirty-eight out of sixty-four men trying to reach Pointe du Hoc across the cliffs. The 2nd Battalion was the first unit to complete their assigned D-Day mission and received a Presidential Unit Citation as well as the French Croix de Guerre. Colonel Rudder and Lieutenant Lomell were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, while Lieutenant Kuhn received the Silver Star. The first significant battle on the Atlantic Wall had been decided but and, up and down the Normandy coast, similar stories were unfolding. CRISBECQ – NO SURRENDER

The battery of St Marcouf/Crisbecq was built to be the main strongpoint of the Cotentin peninsula’s east coast, but only two casemates had been completed out of the four planned by D-Day. By the time measures were taken to ensure the Crisbecq battery at St Marcouf was fully garrisoned at the beginning of May, 1944, the Germans had lowered the conscription age to seventeen, but many of those on duty on the Atlantic Wall in Normandy were even younger. Some of those had papers which assigned them to the Azeville battery, but construction was well behind schedule at Crisbecq, a few kilometres nearer the coast, and resources were being diverted to bring defences there up to speed. Oberleutnant Walter Ohmsen had taken command of Crisbecq, also known as Marine Küsten Batterie ‘Marcouf (Naval Coastal Battery Marcouf) or Seeziel Batterie ‘Marcouf’ (Sea Target Battery Marcouf), on 1 February 1944. His command, including himself, consisted of three officers, twenty-four noncommissioned officers and 287 men of the Kriegsmarine. The unit was responsible to the MarineArtillerie-Abteilung 260 – MAA 260 (260th Naval Coastal Artillery Battalion) and the battery’s personnel was further augmented by members of 6 Grenadier-Regiment 919 (6th Company, 919th Grenadier Regiment) of the 709th Infanterie-Division (709th Infantry Division) which brought the estimated compliment to around 400 men. Ohmsen was born in 1911 in Elmshorn and joined the Reichsmarine in 1929. He became a Matrosengefreiter (seaman 2nd class) in 1933 and a Bootsmannmaat (coxswain) a year later. He was then to serve time at sea on the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, the training vessel Gorch Fock, the training ship Carl-Zeiss, the torpedo boat T-153 and the cruiser Königsberg, attaining the rank of Oberstabsbootsmann (chief boatswain) in 1940 and being awarded the War Merit Cross 2nd class in April, 1941. Assigned to the Naval Artillery School, Ohmsen became a Leutnant zur See (Second Lieutenant – Naval Artillery) in January 1942 and an Oberleutnant (MA) (First Lieutenant) shortly after but, in February 1944 he inherited a shambolic command at Crisbecq. In contrast to Azeville, which was a model battery and commanded by an ‘old school’ officer in the shape of Hauptmann Treiber. Crisbecq had a reputation for indiscipline and was regarded as a punishment posting where lower ranks were bullied by officers who had failed elsewhere. Ohmsen could also be harsh with his men but he was determined to turn around his new command.

Oberleutnant Walt er Ohmsen.

It didn’t help that conditions at Crisbecq were cramped and claustrophobic with up to twenty men on duty billeted in each of the R502 personnel bunkers. Ohmsen favoured addressing his troops from a huge circular concrete platform in the heart of the battery, the base of what was intended to be the third casemate. Work was to continue on the site day and night in the spring of 1944, but it was never completed.

Diagram for const ruct ing t he t ype of casemat e at Crisbecq.

Ohmsen did his utmost to maintain morale at Crisbecq, congratulating new recruits on arriving just in time to fight a real war and not the phoney one the garrison had been engaged in for six months. To many

of the regular soldiers who were accustomed to officers who threatened and bullied to maintain discipline, Ohmsen didn’t seem so bad but he still governed with a rod of iron and men were often seen lugging bags of cement around the perimeter as punishment duty.

Casemat e manned by t he Kriegsmarine at St Marcouf/Crisbecq a few weeks before t he invasion.

By June 1944, the landscape in and around the tiny village of St Marcouf was pockmarked with craters, scorched remnants of gorse barely tufting above ground level. Allied air supremacy meant Spitfires and Mosquitos could reconnoitre the Normandy coastline unopposed and an artillery battery the size of Crisbecq was mapped immediately initial test-firing took place. The first of the new Czech Skoda K52 guns fired their first rounds on 19 April, and the very next day the Allied bombing of Crisbecq began. The K52s had a calibre of 210 millimetres and built to launch 135 kilogram shells at 40 second intervals up to thirty kilometres but, of course, they were an easily identifiable target. By mid-May, more than 800 bombs had fallen on the battery and its immediate vicinity. After a particularly heavy air raid, Ohmsen even suspended firing from the battery. None of the guns had been damaged, but it was useful to make the enemy believe they had succeeded in disabling some or all of them. Unwittingly or not, the self-obssessed Ohmsen had managed to protect his guns from the worst of the bombing. The Oberleutenant hadn’t placed his guns where he was told to. They were, for example, not at the highest point of the promontory where regulations demanded and so the enemy could not get an easy fix on them. The foundations of the casemates were dug nearly four metres deeper than planned, and as a result were finished late. But the depth meant that there was a steady downhill slope from the munitions

stores, deep inside covered tunnels and trenches, and those guns were still fed with shells even though the ground above was blasted and reshaped out of all recognition. Both the Crisbecq casemates took many direct hits from naval guns, but they kept firing. Ohmsen had been vilified for taking additional time to build heavy duty submarine nets into the roof, but they contained tonnes of falling masonry and probably saved many lives. Ohmsen regarded the security of Cribecq as a personal quest. An example of that fastidiousness came only a week before the Americans landed. Seeking out the smallest man in the garrison, he walked him to the edge of a cliff to the north of the battery where there was a sewage outfall that served all the bunkers. Bombing had exposed a concrete sluice going down into the ground. The unfortunate soldier was lowered by rope into the slime and told to report back what he finds. When he told his commander there was a steel grille blocking the shaft about twenty metres down he said, ‘Good, then nobody’s going to be able to get behind us that way’. For the ordinary troops, the days on the run-up to the invasion at Crisbecq were spent labouring on casemate construction, interspersed with some training in handling munitions and small firearms practice. Ohmsen realised his battery would be probably besieged if the Allies forced their way off the beaches in his sector though, of course, he had no way of knowing Crisbecq would be at the sharp end of D-Day operations. In early firing, one of the problems the gun crews at Crisbecq had discovered with the K52s was that they couldn’t be loaded with the barrel inclined upwards, in the attitude for long-range firing. The gun had to be brought nearly horizontal before the heavy shells could be pushed up the slope into the chamber meaning that the guns had to be retargeted every time they were fired. Marks had been painted on the walls to help crews restore the gun to its desired firing position but the system was still only approximate and unreliable as a ranging tool. Defences at Crisbecq were being refined right up to D-Day as the garrison desperately tried to make up for time lost through earlier indiscipline. An attack on the battery from the south or east necessitated the scaling of steep cliffs so they were classed as low priority but, from the north and west, the approach was over level ground. Rommel had personally inspected the area and specified the construction of a minefield, as usual Ohmsen supervised the work himself and made sure his men did a thorough job. There was only a single road through the minefield but this was still cut through by a deep trench, which itself was mined. A steel bridge spanned the gap but was pivoted and only controlled from the Crisbecq side and could be winched upright to create a wall. The minefield itself was the widest on the whole of the Cotentin peninsula. It ran between two prominently-marked fences, around 200 metres apart. There was a dispute with the officers at nearby Azeville, who protested that Crisbecq was using the mines intended for use in their own minefield so Ohmsen was forced to lay his share only along the outer perimeter, leaving the remainder to the imagination of the enemy. On Monday 5 June, the weather in the English Channel had turned stormy but all of the local garrisons had been set at battle stations because of the possible implications of a forecast high tide at dawn. Ohmsen refused to have his men sat around in full combat gear, however, deciding the guns needed further firing practice and the range-boat was sent out into the bay. The trials went well, but before nightfall the air raid sirens were sounding again and for the next eight hours, waves of American bombers pounded the Cherbourg peninsula and around 600 tons of high explosive fell on Crisbecq and Azeville. Several explosions rocked the battery but didn’t cause any real damage to the guns, though dust and rubble had partly blocked the casemates. Crews were still digging out fallen masonry when, almost as soon as the all-clear had sounded, the sirens began to wail again. This time, though, it was a call to battle stations. D-Day had begun. Nobody at Crisbecq knew it, but the battery stood at the western extremity of a sixty-mile chain of planned beach-heads. Ten miles to the East, the US Army encountered disaster and carnage on OMAHA

Beach but the stretch of sand that extended eastwards right below the Crisbecq promontory was codenamed UTAH, and there the American invasion was proving far more successful. For the first few hours, none of this held any interest for Oberleutnant Walter Ohmsen. His pre-defined targets were out in the bay and his three main guns were still intact, including the one in the half-built third casemate which was open to the sky. Crisbecq had the distinction of being the first major battery to identify the invading forces (at around 5.10 am) but it still took Ohmsen almost an hour to gain permission to open fire. By around 6.00 am, all three Skoda K52s had been cleared of debris resulting from the night’s bombardment and each was testfired at longer range targets over the course of the next few minutes. Among several warships in close proximity within the western end of the Bay of Seine was one already firing at the battery itself. From his elevated observation bunker a little south of the battery, Ohmsen identified it as a light cruiser, though in fact the USS Corry was a destroyer.

USS Corry.

Just after 6.30 am, all three K52s at his disposal fired on the ship at under four miles range – point blank in artillery terms given the size of the guns. A salvo of three shells hit the Corry midships almost simultaneously, breaking its back in a violent explosion. It sank within minutes, with the loss of twentyfour of its crew and was to be the only sinking of a warship connected to D-Day itself. But the Allies were determined not to acknowledge the threat posed by a battery like Crisbecq for fear of affecting the morale of invading troops. After initially reporting that the Corry had been struck by shell fire, the commanding officer apparently changed his mind and told his superiors that the ship had struck a mine. The first day of fighting, D-Day itself, saw a relentless bombardment of Crisbecq and, for the large part, the garrison was almost powerless to fight back. The sinking of the USS Corry had taught the Allied

naval commanders a lesson and the larger ships now stood off the coast, outside the angle of fire of the battery’s K52s. Casemate construction meant that the guns could be manoeuvred through approximately 120 degrees, while the K52 operating in the unfinished emplacement could pivot on its base through more than 150 degrees but trying to push the boundaries further could lead to disaster. At one point, the crew of the No.2 gun had their barrel tight against the edge of the opening but when fired, a huge chunk of concrete broke off and rebounded around the casemate – the tactic wasn’t tried again. Ohmsen redirected fire towards UTAH Beach, trying to stem the flood of Americans from the 4th Infantry Division that were already pushing over the dunes toward the strongpoint at La Madeleine. But Crisbecq’s guns were constantly overshooting their targets. On that first day, it was mainly the guns from Azeville that bombarded the landing area but, by the time they had been brought into action, the first waves had cleared the beach and were plotting to work their way towards a join-up with the remnants of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, which had established a command post in the village of Ste Mere Eglise after a bloody street battle with outlying sections of the German 91st Infantry Division and attached Austrian antiaircraft gun crews. The machine gun nests on the bluffs surrounding Crisbecq were keeping the advancing Americans pinned down, however, and garrison morale was lifted by radio reports of an American massacre in the east towards to Vierville. As far as the Germans were aware, the invasion had been repulsed though they heard nothing about the fighting further east still or the fact that the British and Canadians were already pouring inland around Arromanches. They just had no concept of the width of the invasion front in Normandy or how massive the Allied force now in France was.

Shells hit t ing UTAH Beach.

Those commanding the 4th Infantry Division had confidently expected to overrun the Crisbecq/St Marcouf battery before nightfall on D-Day but the most advanced units had barely cleared UTAH beach and were concentrated two kilometres east of their intended position after the tide had dragged them north of their intended landing position. The eventual breakthrough at UTAH only came about when the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions pushed toward St Martin de Varreville from Ste Mere Eglise, though the first round of engagements in the Crisbecq vicinity saw the 101st sustain severe losses. UTAH Beach was by no means as bloody for the Americans as OMAHA but casualties were still a lot higher than on either of the British beaches or the Canadian one, and the progress was slower too. Crisbecq, too, was to suffer on D-Day itself. At around 4.30 pm, the No.3 gun in its partly-built casemate took a direct hit from either the USS Quincy or the USS Nevada. Most of its crew were killed and the gun disabled. Walter Ohmsen was to suffer a severe shrapnel injury to his left arm around this time, though it was never confirmed that he was in the vicinity of the gun when it was hit. As dusk began to gather, the Americans finally started to move away from UTAH beach. Pre-ordained ‘Exit 2’ had been cleared of obstacles, meaning the invasion force could land their tanks and armoured

half-tracks and move onto pre-planned targets in the Western sector. The Germans were being kept at comparative arm’s length as the Allies enjoyed near-total air supremacy and with the Allies making rapid progress further east, the speed of advance of the Americans was no longer critical. The US navy therefore began to target artillery field pieces in the area. Two 105 mm guns stationed beside a road junction between Azeville and Crisbecq were destroyed and so were all but one of the six local antiaircraft emplacements to prevent them using their 37 mm guns on the advancing troops and tanks. The only real threat to the relentless push inland was the artillery of the St Marcouf battery. Crisbecq and Azeville had always been major strategic targets for the Allies and the garrisons now had to prepare themselves for a siege. A sense of bewilderment had descended over the Crisbecq battery. Every few minutes, the ground shook as the fourteen inch guns of USS Nevada rained shells down from her position anchored in the bay. The men just carried on with their duties, taking shells from their boxes and manhandling them onto the small cart on rails that carried them the hundred feet or so to the No.1 blockhouse, anytime expecting a shell to land on the ammunition bunker and wipe out the garrison. But Ohmsen, arm bandaged and in a sling, was calmness personified and made sure his men didn’t have time to dwell on what would happen should the Nevada find her range. He ordered the men to remove all the shells from their boxes and then had them smash the wooden crates with crowbars and axes, stacking the resultant timber alongside bunker walls. Given something to do, men almost forgot about the bombardment. By the morning, 7 June, Ohmsen felt confident enough of the immediate security of Crisbecq’s perimeter that he sent second-in-command, Leutnant Grieg out onto the road between the battery and Azeville on a fact-finding mission. He was given a hundred men to reconnoitre beyond the minefields, but hardly encountered any American infantry. Grieg’s men did, however, capture some lost paratroopers after they came across a downed American airman carrying a hand-held clicker being used for identification purposes. Grieg guessed its use and spent the late morning sending out dummy calls rounding up paratroopers who answered. The sudden need to oversee twenty prisoners of war didn’t go down well with Ohmsen. however, there were no facilities in which to guarantee their security or any means with which to feed them so, after collecting their names and numbers and confiscating their boots, he locked them in the battery’s strongroom with a supply of bread and water, a couple of chamber pots and a pack of playing cards. It is said the last-named was a rare act of compassion shown by Ohmsen but, after some of the prisoners were abusive, he theatrically removed one of the playing cards and slipped it into his pocket before tossing them the pack. The armoured door was then bolted and padlocked the behind him.

fourt een inch guns of USS Nevada bringing down fire on t he German bat t eries shelling UTAH Beach.

At just before noon, 7 June, orders were given to the gun crews to begin firing until further notice. No.1 gun was to aim at the beach area around the WN5 strongpoint at St Martin de Varreville at ten minute intervals, day and night, while No.2 gun was to fire on offshore targets every twenty minutes as long as daylight permitted. Ten minutes was about the fastest firing rate of a K52 before the barrel would become overheated. If Ohmsen’s men could keep up the firing rate, the Crisbecq battery would run out of ammunition some time in the early hours of 11 June. By then, Ohmsen reasoned, the battle would be over one way or another. Firing to a strict schedule was typical of the discipline Ohmsen inflicted on his men and twofold in its reasoning. He endeavoured to, not only, concentrate the minds of the garrison on the task in hand but also to convince the enemy that the sustained barrage against the Crisbecq battery was having no effect whatsoever. He only half-succeeded, however. The Americans had begun to pick up the pace once clear of the beaches and now closed to within hailing distance of Crisbecq – a first direct ground assault being launched as night fell 7 June. A British Sherman Crab equipped with flails came crashing through the remains of the wood behind the battery and ploughed a path some fifty metres beyond the outer perimeter fence before being disabled by a mine exploding underneath one of its tracks. The tank crew were unaware of a 37 mm anti-aircraft cannon that had been trained on them throughout their advance. It was hidden under a mound of barbed wire that encircled the No.1 casemate, inside a hastily-constructed pyramid of surplus steel plate. Grieg had ordered the gunner to hold fire until the tank cleared the mined area so the vehicle’s crew were able to escape via the floor hatch and retreat in a

crouch along the path they had cleared. Ohmsen convinced himself that the Americans would not try the same tactic again as the flail hadn’t got halfway across the minefield but the truth was the tank had only been disabled by the very last mine in its path and Crisbecq battery now lay defenceless in that area. The following morning, the Americans tried a different route. Rope ladders were put in place and men began scaling the cliff directly below the No.1 casemate. But Ohmsen had foreseen the possibility of a direct frontal assault and positioned a heavy machine gun inside the casemate at the sea-facing end of the aperture. It was even fitted with a periscope so the gunner didn’t have to expose himself to return fire. A combination of barbed wire and mines had also been dug into the coastal path running beneath the casemate to deter attack from the flank. The first wave of infantry attacked just before dawn, seconds after the gun had recoiled from firing down onto the beach. But the gun crew were under instruction to be on their guard while the barrel was being raised in preparation for reloading. At any sign of movement in the scrub at the edge of the cliff, the barrel was to be raised again to negate the possibility of a grenade being thrown down the barrel. The American troops charged from the cover of the bushes but those in the front rank were cut down by the machine gun before they’d barely covered a quarter of the 100 metres to the casemate itself and those in the second wave turned tail and threw themselves back into the scrub. About twenty minutes later, however, they came again and though dozens were killed or wounded by the machine gun and others became entangled in the barbed wire, some got through and climbed onto the roof of the casemate. A Bangalore torpedo was forced through an aperture, causing a large explosion inside the gun control room at one end of the blockhouse. Ohmsen’s reaction was to become folk-lore in German military history. Picking up the telephone, he said a pre-agreed codeword and one of the World War One 105mm Schneider cannons at the Azeville battery fired a shell into the casemate. The Americans scurrying across the top the battery never stood a chance and those still moving forward were too dazed to put up much resistance when Grieg’s Grenadiers, backed by a further contingent from Azeville under the command of Leutenant Geissler, emerged from the blockhouse. The Germans lost three men themselves in firing on their own battery, burned to death in the control room, and several more injured. The damage can still be seen today at what is now the Crisbecq museum. But the Americans losses were much greater and they were forced to rethink their strategy in how to capture the battery. Ohmsen achieved something remarkable during the siege of Crisbecq. It could be argued that he was always in a no-win situation. The battery was ill-disciplined when he arrived and none of his superiors would have been surprised had it continued that way. Crisbecq was going to fall sooner or later once the Americans had established a beachhead, and resistance only meant prolonged hardship for the garrison, and mounting casualties. Ohmsen wasn’t even an attractive or particularly endearing character. He was described as aloof and was often derogatory according to his men and, though he liked to supervise projects personally, was never known to get his hands dirty. But he made up for much of that with an almost uncanny ability to second guess the enemy. He appeared to anticipate every eventuality and was unflappable under pressure, and his men were prepared to trust him because of it. Even when the two intact casemates were little more than blackened shells, surrounded by scorched earth and charred bodies, men still believed he would get them out alive – and some he did. In the early hours of 9 June, Ohmsen gave orders for his men to use the shell-boxes they’d been systematically breaking apart to make two metre-wide bridges capable of supporting half a tonne in weight, one five metres long and the other two. They were meticulously designed, with abutments positioned to engage with the casemate masonry. As well as the bridges, the men in the casemates were told to send a sealed drum of gasoline, with the strap handle prised open so that it could accommodate a stick grenade. Finally, Ohmsen wanted the grenade itself and some cloth that could be used to wedge it in

place under the handle. The first shorter bridge was to span the gap between the gun base and the lip of the casemate aperture, while the longer bridge overhung the aperture and stretched beyond the barbed wire in front of the casemate. It only took a short time to put everything in place and everything was achieved under cover of darkness so the American snipers, suspected of observing from an adjacent field, couldn’t disrupt operations. The grenade was fitted to the fuel drum before it was rolled out over the first bridge. Poised at the aperture mouth, Ohmsen pulled the pin himself and two men pushed the drum over the edge. Everyone dived for cover as Ohmsen watched through the periscope of the machine gun. The improvised explosive device did its job. The drum picked up speed as the ramp slope increased, flattening the barbed wire. It rolled quickly down the hill, now devoid of any foliage, and plunged out of sight over the ridge. A moment later, there was a huge blast and a sheet of flame lit the night, followed by screams in the darkness. Ohmsen calmly told everyone to be on their guard in case the Americans attempted another dawn raid, and gave the command to resume the firing cycle but he did allow some of his men to grab some sleep for the first time in more than 48 hours. Thursday had been a bad day for the US 4th Infantry at Crisbecq and the gasoline drum blast had begun the Friday badly as well. No surprise, then, that for the remainder of the 9th the Americans concentrated the bulk of their operations against the Azeville battery. Azeville’s commander was Hauptmann Hugo Treiber, a good soldier but not one that pursued his duty to the Nazis with the same zeal as Ohmsen. The Americans also had detailed plans of the defences of the Azeville battery because the French Resistance had men in the adjoining village and had visited the site on several occasions. There were no submarine nets on the casemates and only token road blocks on the approach roads. Crisbecq had the advantage of location as well – Azeville had no cliffs to protect it. The Americans still could not believe that Crisbecq’s commander had ordered a strike on his own battery but they redoubled their efforts to force the garrison to surrender. On Saturday 10 June, they bombarded the site throughout the night causing the partial collapse of the roof of No.2 casemate. The submarine nets prevented most of the masonry from falling in but the gun was still buried and barely functioning. There were only a dozen shells left in its bunker in any case.

Layout of t he bat t ery at Azeville.

The No. 1 gun was still firing on the beach around the clock, but the Americans were now swarming forward in waves up the cliffs on the east side of the battery. The mines on the path had been cleared and the barbed wire cut away. They had now fought their way into the trenches of Crisbecq and were systematically clearing the personnel bunkers with flamethrowers. The Germans fought back with small arms fire, the machine gun Tobrukstände having been evacuated or destroyed. Ohmsen, himself, was hit by a rifle round in the same arm that was already wounded. It’s estimated that more than 150 men on both sides lost their lives in the fierce close-quarter fire fight that ensued but the Americans were again forced to withdraw as night fell. After nightfall, Ohmsen gathered his surviving men around him. The mood was very sombre – barely a fifth of the original garrison of more than 400 men were left standing. Leutenant Grieg was particularly morose and had retreated into a bottle of brandy intended as a birthday present for Ohmsen. Hardly any of

his men from 919 Grenadier-Regiment had survived yet he had emerged virtually unscathed from the carnage. The smell of death was everywhere – the stench of rotting corpses and cordite settling in the ruins of the bunkers. The ammunition available for No. 1 gun was virtually spent. But as daylight broke, it appeared the Americans classed the taking of Crisbecq among their priorities. Ohmsen would probably have surrendered had they attacked but Allied forces were now pouring ashore without serious opposition up and down the Normandy coast. German forces in the Cherbourg peninsula had been effectively cut off and there was now no need to risk further high casualties in operations against heavily defended sites without strategic importance. Ohmsen’s left arm was now a mess. The bullet had gone through his palm and exited close to his elbow but only two corpsmen remained, the doctor and medical orderly for St Marcouf having been killed on the road between Crisbecq and Azeville in the 24 hours after D-Day. The shrapnel wound of a few days earlier was also infected but there was little morphine left so Ohmsen poured iodine over the wound and asked his men to bandage the entire arm. Admiral Hennecke, to whom Ohmsen had reported the initial sighting of the Allied invasion fleet on DDay, telephoned Crisbecq’s commandant during the afternoon of 11 June. The Supreme Commander of Marine Command at Cherbourg offered his congratulations for a heroic defence but ordered Ohmsen to gather his men together and abandon the battery. Ohmsen didn’t protest, he knew it was the right decision. No. 1 gun was down to its last few shells and he saw no point in sacrificing his men to a lost cause. At about 2.00 am in the morning 12 June, seventy-nine survivors walked out of the Crisbecq battery and followed Ohmsen through the minefield to the north west, clambering over the abandoned British Sherman Crab and following its tracks into the wood beyond. They were unmolested as the Allies thought the route impassable so hadn’t posed any sentries. They carried their wounded on hastily-constructed stretchers, using shell-boxes, flags and bed sheets. Just before dawn, almost three hours later, they reached the German lines and the headquarters of 26 Artillery Regiment near La Pernelle. It was Ohmsen’s last act in command of the Crisbecq battery and probably his most compassionate.

Aft er t he capt ure of t he Crisbecq bat t ery.

German soldiers killed in bat t le were brought int o t he firing chamber of one of t he casemat es.

The Americans entered the trenches of the Crisbecq battery later that morning in eerie silence. They found twenty of their countrymen locked in the strong room and cable snaking all over the site. The site was immediately evacuated again and it took sappers more than a week before they realised the cables were nothing more than yet another ploy to delay the Allied advance. Ohmsen and his men hadn’t wasted their final hours at Crisbecq. According to several accounts, a note was found attached to the breech of the now-silent No.1 gun. It read as follows: Dearest Enemies, You know that these are fine guns. Please care for them. Heil Hitler and Adieu. Walter Ohmsen received the Knights Cross for his organisation of the defence of the Crisbecq battery. He insisted on rejoining the front line, despite the injuries to his left arm, but was finally captured by American forces at Quineville, south of Cherbourg, almost three weeks after D-Day. Ohmsen survived the war in captivity and, following his release, worked as a employee of the Schleswig-Holstein agricultural ministry. He ran for public office in 1954 but was still facing his

adversaries head-on, criticising his boss during an election speech and finding himself out of a job. He joined up again in March 1956 as a Kapitänleutnant of the Bundesmarine and was promoted to Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) in November 1957 and Fregattenkapitän (Frigate Captain) in August 1965. He retired in September 1967. Between 1968 and 1978, Ohmsen became a key figure in international sailing events, helping to organise the Munich Olympics in 1972. He also served as a member of the consultative council of the city of Kiel and helped channel support for war victims for which he was to receive the Freiherrvon-Stein commemorative medal and Federal Cross of Merit 2nd Class. Walter Ohmsen died in Kiel, 19 February, 1988, aged 77. AZEVILLE – A TRIUMPH FOR PERSISTENCE If Crisbecq’s capture was one episode in the history of the Second World War that the Americans would rather have brushed under the carpet, the assault on nearby Azeville - Stützpunkt 133 – will hold more positive memories. In common with most of the installations on the Atlantic Wall, the battery was constructed by the Todt Organisation and the majority of the 300 construction workers were ‘guest’ workers from other nations. In Azeville’s case, mostly from Poland, Russia and Italy. The Italians were paid and also received rations but the Poles had to steal supplies or barter on the black market to live from day-to-day. The Russians’ plight was even worse as they often had to work long hours on meagre rations and many died from exhaustion and malnutrition. In contrast to the hi-tech construction sites in the Pas-de-Calais, Azeville was completed mostly by hand and shovel and any heavy materials had to be moved by horse and cart. Concrete mixers were on site but they couldn’t keep up with the rate of construction so most of the concrete had to be mixed by hand. The first weaponry installed was a 37 mm anti-aircraft gun, installed on top of casemate No. 1 to protect the site in case of air-attack. But it wasn’t fired in anger until 1944. Azeville had a garrison of 170 men and, completed in 1941, had been one of the first constructions on the Atlantic Wall in Normandy. The battery was one of ten on the Cotentin peninsula staffed by Heeres Küsten Artillerie Regiment 1261 regiment. Unlike most German coastal batteries, Azeville didn’t have a direct view of the sea and had to rely on an observation bunker and ranging post attached to Crisbecq which was nearer the sea and on marginally lower ground than Azeville. The fire control post, built on the hill overlooking the tiny village of St Marcouf, should have been equipped with a telemeter. But these were in short supply and, because the Cotentin peninsula was regarded as a low-risk zone, none were supplied and the men stationed there had to make their own improvised devices. A telemeter is a device like a wide pair of binoculars that plot both the distance and direction of long-range targets, normally out at sea. But the scarcity of both men and equipment at Azeville was evident from the start. During construction of the battery, there were no trucks available for transporting materials and local farmers had to be press-ganged into fetching and carrying machine parts and supplies from the railway station by horse and cart. The cannons installed at Azeville were captured French Schnieder 105 mm guns of First World War vintage. The Germans were never averse to adapting captured weapons for their own use – it saved money and also freed up newer weaponry for more vital areas. But the guns were undoubtedly less accurate and more cumbersome to operate because of their age having been built in 1913. The casemates at Azeville were all H650 bunkers, the later ones having rounded corners which had been proved to help deflect incoming shells. As mentioned before, the senior officer at Azeville on D-Day was Hauptmann Hugo Treiber. But he spent most of his time on duty at the ranging post next to the Crisbecq battery, directing fire on UTAH beach, so the actual operation and security of the battery was left to his second-incommand Leutenant Kattnig. Treiber knew that if he fostered good relations with the local population that the garrison at Azeville

was likely to benefit. Most of the troops lived in the adjoining village with more than twenty men billeted on some of the area’s bigger farms. A few of the Germans would share their food allowance with their hosts but pilfering was more common, with eggs particularly prone to ‘disappearance’ from French henhouses though the population of Azeville, on the whole, was undoubtedly better treated than some of their fellow countrymen. The Germans also constructed a small theatre at the rear of the battery to relieve the tedium of a posting in an isolated section of Festung Europa. The theatre was, in reality, little more than a wooden hut near the kitchens, adjacent to the road and setback from the gun casemates. It had at least one piano and a bar, however, and even a small stage at one end with red velvet curtains. Dubbed as ‘The Casino’ by those allowed access, the theatre would frequently import dancers and singers from Cherbourg and there were even ‘girls of ill-repute’ shipped in on special occasions to entertain the officers.

Hauptmann Hugo Treiber.

Azeville was initially staffed by battle-hardened army veterans who had been fighting on the Russian front. In common with other similar locations on the French coast, the men would use the reservoir, fed by an artesian well which took water away from the villagers, as an impromptu swimming pool in fine weather during the summer and even went to the extent of painting a seaside fresco on surrounding walls. But when the situation deteriorated in the east at the end of 1943, these men were largely replaced by

younger conscripts attached to the 709 Static Infantry Division. Just after first light 6 June, 1944, many of these conscripts were to see their first action. Azeville’s 105 mm guns lacked the range of those at Crisbecq so attacking American ships out at sea was beyond them. They could just about reach the strongpoint at La Madeleine, ten kilometres to the south east, and thus hamper the landings on UTAH beach. The guns may have lacked precision at their maximum range but such was the volume of men and machinery coming ashore that even those shells which landed off-target tended to strike the invasion force. There wasn’t a tremendous amount of ammunition at Azeville, however, and Leutenant Kattnig was forced to limit regular firing onto the beach to conserve stocks. But the firing continued throughout the whole of D-Day and, by the evening of 7 June, the 4th American Infantry Division was still pinned down on the coast road and adjoining fields.

How t he bat t le began t o develop following t he landings at UTAH Beach.

Fight ing around t he t wo gun bat t eries.

On the morning of the 7th, the Americans finally managed to launch their first frontal attack on Azeville, Members of the 4th Infantry Division, supported by Sherman 75 mm tanks, approached casemates 3 and 4 from the south east, getting to within eighty metres of the casemates before they were confronted. One of the Shermans managed to inflict minor damage on the cannon in No 2 bunker but the Shermans were comprehensively outgunned and, after two were knocked out in quick succession, US forces quickly retreated leaving several dead and wounded. Some of the inexperienced garrison, caught out in the open, had also paid the ultimate price. With Crisbecq’s capture deemed more of a priority by American commanders, Azeville was spared a further assault that day and sporadic shelling by the USS Nevada tended to overshoot the battery and land

in the adjoining village. Fortunately, Treiber had warned the villagers that they would be in danger if they stayed in their homes and all had fled into the woods or to outlying farms to take shelter. The 8 June saw the renewing of hostilities around Azeville, however, with the Americans attacking from several directions to negate the impact of the battery’s big guns. The Germans still had their antiaircraft guns fully operational however and, mounted on the top of casemates 1 and 4, these fired on the tanks approaching from the west. The FlaK gun on casemate No 4 had been damaged in an earlier attack but was working again by the time and the machine guns in strategic-placed Tobrukstände were also able to offer full support. Also suffering losses through anti-tank mines, once more, the Americans were forced to retreat. It was during this attack that Walter Ohmsen at Crisbecq ordered one of the Azeville 105 mm guns to fire on his own battery. The Americans were beginning to accept the storming of Azeville was going to prove more difficult than intelligence had led them to believe. So, during the night of the 8th and 9th of June, they called up the USS Nevada again to start shelling the position. Now better placed to relay coordinates to the ship, which had effectively been firing blind with the battery not visible from the coast, infantry observers could now direct the battleship’s fire more accurately, though gunners can hardly have planned for the stroke of good fortune they had in hitting casemate 1. In quick succession, a first shell struck the right flank of the casemate, directly beneath a machine gun Tobrukstände. The crew were killed and the position disabled, a large section crumbling away from the main part of the casemate. A second shell entered the gun aperture. It didn’t explode but the impact concussion killed the gun crew of five immediately before it entered the plotting room. The two men in there also died instantaneously and the shell continued until hitting the rear exterior wall of the casemate, leaving a huge hole. It wasn’t uncovered until some fifty years later when munitions experts destroyed it in a controlled explosion. The incident rocked the garrison at Azeville and Kattnig in particular and the fight had gone out of the Germans when the Americans attacked again during the morning 9 June. The Azeville mission had now been assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 22nd Infantry, which had again moved inland from Ravenoville. Forming up around one kilometre south east of Azeville, it crossed to the south west of the village at about 11 am with one company moved west in a wide arc in order to enter the village from the opposite side and capture any reserves the enemy might have to the rear of the fort. Five assault sections moved north and advanced through fields to approach the fort from its right rear under the cover of a bombardment from the 44th Field Artillery Battalion. By noon, the Americans had crossed the outer minefield and cut the barbed wire to begin crawling their way through the fields and orchards. Less than an hour later, they were in a position to attack the casemates. The Germans had failed to cover an approach from the south west and the outlying smaller bunkers had been deserted.

Casemat e Turm 1 smashed by fire from t he guns of t he USS Arizona.

The first assault took place with bazookas and a lone Sherman which had braved the anti-tank mines but the attack accomplished little other than chip the reinforced concrete. There was still little sign of resistance, however, so a team of sappers was then sent in to blow a hole in the rear entrance with explosives. A flame thrower was then tried, followed by a pack charge. But this still had no effect on the massive structure, nor did a second or third attempt with a still heavier satchel charge. Becoming increasingly desperate as the Germans finally woke up to the fact that the Americans were now right under their noses, Private Ralph G. Riley finally decided enough was enough and said he was going to run to the bunker ‘give it a few more squirts’. With the last flame thrower on his back, he ran seventy-five yards under enemy fire and dropped into a shell hole for cover. The flame thrower had, at this point, decided it wasn’t going to work, however. Undeterred, Riley opened the valve, held a lighted match to the nozzle, and trained the stream of fire on the base of the steel door. Suddenly, he heard a popping sound, followed by muffled explosions within the blockhouse. The enemy’s ammunition had been ignited by the dying jets of the flame thrower. Almost immediately, Kattnig emerged with a white flag raised and the rear door of the bunker swung open to reveal an American parachute officer, captured on D-Day, followed by two more German officers. They formally surrendered on behalf of all 169 men remaining. The way was now clear for the advance towards Cherbourg. FORT ROULE – THE LAST BASTION OF CHERBOURG Some of the toughest fighting during the first week of the invasion took place on the north flank of the US VII Corps where the 4th Division, together with the 505th Parachute Infantry, struggled to achieve their D-

Day objective and clear a line from the small port of Quinéville to the Merderet River. Defenders in this area had the advantage of higher ground which rises gradually to the outskirts of Quinéville, and the Germans didn’t hesitate to making maximum use of the countless hedgerows along major routes to ambush American columns. The tortuous grind to flush out the enemy is outside the remit of this volume but that in no way is meant to cheapen the commitment or the sacrifice undertaken by the men of the US VII Corps in the course of their duty. But with the effectively marooned German defenders on the Cotentin peninsula now being severely hampered by a shortage of ammunition and their plight being compounded by the fact that they were being subjected to almost constant Allied naval bombardment and air attacks, by the evening of 21 June, the vanguard of the American forces were within sight of the vital port of Cherbourg and ready for the final assault.

Railway bat t ery ‘Kurze Bruno’ E701, t hree 280 mm guns in Cherbourg in 1942.

The swift capture of Cherbourg became a priority after a violent storm blew up suddenly over the English Channel on 19 June. With the beachhead finally established on OMAHA beach, supplies had begun to flood ashore via an artificial MULBERRY Harbour offshore. But the storm lashed the Normandy coast, breeching a line of decommissioned ships that had been sunk to provide an outer breakwater to shelter the giant metal structures. Two of these ships had in fact been sunk by German coastal batteries but as they settled in virtually their assigned position, the American Navy simply worked around them and the breakwater was completed on 13 June. However, huge waves battered the piers, roadways and pontoons

and put the artificial harbour out of action and the Allies realised that they needed to secure a major port (some supplies were being brought ashore at the fishing ports of Grancamp-les-Bains, Isigny-sur-mer and Port-en-Bessin) as quickly as possible if the invasion wasn’t to stall, though the MULBERRY Harbour at Arromanches in the British sector had avoided serious damage and was still operational. There was one bonus, however, as enemy air activity was proving much less troublesome than expected. The storm inconvenienced German aircraft fortunate enough to get as far as the beaches and shipping lanes, as much as the British and Americans. The storm was also battering Cherbourg but General Collins, overall commander of VII Corps, decided that he could wait no longer and, on 21 June, issued orders for the attack on Cherbourg. Collins began the assault by calling in a massive bombing raid on the port, probably more to demoralize the Germans than for any strategic reason. The raid used the entire 9th Bomber Command as well as large numbers of US and British fighter-bombers – it was launched on the morning of 22 June. Four squadrons of Typhoons from the RAF’s 2nd Tactical Air Force attacked anti-aircraft positions around the massive inner harbour and in the north of the city, followed in by six squadrons of Britishflown Mustangs. Waves of fighter-bombers from the US Ninth Air Force then bombed and strafed enemy strong points at five-minute intervals. Translators were then brought in to broadcast to German positions in German, Russian, Polish and French, pointing out the impossible position the defenders were in and demanding the immediate surrender of Cherbourg. Generalleutenant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, the fortress commandant, was given until 9.00 am the following morning to comply. But the ultimatum expired without response so preparations for the assault went ahead. The attack on key installations in Cherbourg was to be made primarily by the 9th and 79th Divisions, while the 4th Division was tasked with sealing off the city from the east. The 79th Division’s main objective was to capture the high ground to the south including the strategically important Fort Roule, which overlooked the city and had command of a gun battery in the hillside beneath. All three divisions made slow advances during the day. The 9th Division attacked with the 60th Infantry on the left, and the 47th Infantry and the 39th Infantry on the right. The 79th Division formed the central prong of the attack but met strong resistance along the main road from Valognes to Cherbourg and, as darkness fell, actually bypassed a German communications bunker which was in direct contact with Generalleutentant von Schlieben in Cherbourg. The bunker wasn’t discovered until the following afternoon and continued to pass on information on US troop movements until the occupants were forced to surrender. By the night of 22 June, VII Corps were beginning to flush out the Cherbourg defences. The Americans were encountering German infantry units comprising engineers, MPs and remnants of naval artillery personnel that had fled north when their strongpoints had been over-run further down the Cotentin peninsula. Schlieben was ready to throw in the towel but Hitler himself demanded that, Even if worst comes to worst, it is your duty to defend the last bunker and leave to the enemy not a harbour but a field of ruins. The German people and the whole world are watching your fight; on it depends the conduct and result of operations to smash the beachheads, and the honour of the German Army and of your own name. Schlieben pleaded with Rommel to provide reinforcements, knowing that Cherbourg’s garrison had neither the equipment, the numbers nor the will to continue their resistance. But Rommel had no way of getting extra men into Cherbourg even if he’d wanted to. The Allies commanded the skies and charges had already been laid in and around the harbour in preparation for its destruction. On the morning of the 24th, with the Americans now clearing the suburbs, one house at a time, Schlieben accepted that his position was impossible. He’d committed the last of his reserves, poorly

armed conscripts in the main, and gave orders for his men to fight to the last bullet. ‘We are lost. The only question is whether it is possible to postpone it for a few days.’ he told his senior officers. Supported by P-47 fighter-bombers of the Ninth US Air Force, the Americans advanced steadily toward Fort du Roule, finding opposition disintegrated when forced into close-quarter confrontation. Several attempts to break through to the actual fort were halted by shelling from the hill battery itself, however. Elsewhere, the entire Cherbourg defence plan was falling apart though some pockets of stiff resistance remained. Using anti-aircraft guns and mortars, the Germans were still inflicting heavy casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Simmons and Lieutenant Colonel John W. Merrill were among those who lost the lives. The 12th Infantry were to take 800 German prisoners in their push, however. The day of the 25 June commenced with a US naval bombardment of Cherbourg. Three battleships, four cruisers, and several destroyers put down a creeping barrage to shield the men of VII Corps as they advanced toward the heart of the city. Resistance at a coastal battery north of Tourlaville collapsed and the garrison of 400 men threw their arms down and surrendered, leaving the battery’s three 20 mm guns intact. Another 350 Germans surrendered at a coastal battery east of the Fort des Flamands when the tanks were brought in. In the early afternoon, Schlieben reported to Rommel, In addition to superiority in materiel and artillery, air force and tanks, heavy fire from the sea has started, directed by spotter planes. I must state in the line of duty that further sacrifices cannot alter anything. To this Rommel responded, ‘You will continue to fight until the last bullet in accordance with the order from the Führer.’ The garrison of Fort du Roule took Rommel at his word. The coastal artillery divisions and remnants of the German 709 Static Infantry tasked with defending Cherbourg included a number of Ostlegionen, units of conscripts or volunteers predominantly from the occupied countries of eastern Europe. But those ensconced in the caverns and galleries of Mont Roule, beneath the walls of Fort du Roule, were largely German and most had some form of combat experience even though many were still teenagers or in their early twenties. The fort had always been the principal objective of the US 79th Division in Cherbourg as, built into the face of a rocky cliff above the city, it housed coastal guns commanding the entire harbour complex, main coastal road and rail terminal. The guns were in lower levels under the edge of the cliff while the upper ramparts were dotted with concrete machine-gun tobruks and adapted mortar emplacements, and protected by an anti-tank ditch. Below this upper level were a series of galleries, caves and underground passages linking the four outer-facing R671 casemates which housed Skoda 105 mm guns. Cherbourg was a base for S-boats. The lower tunnels were largely empty at this time but had been used to store torpedos for the S-boats between 1940 and 1943 and is shown as Stp255 on contemporary maps Fort du Roule was attacked on the morning of 25 June by the 314th Infantry, after a bombardment by a squadron of P-47s. The bombs missed their targets, however, so the defences were still intact even after a short bombardment by the guns of the 311th Field Artillery Battalion. Opposing forces traded machine-gun and small arms fire as the infantry approached from the rear but the Americans found themselves largely pinned down until Corporal John D Kelly took matters into his own hands. Under fire, he crawled up the muddy slope and fixed a pole charge to the rear door of a machine-gun bunker. With the door blown of its hinges, Kelly than began to hurl hand grenades inside until the survivors stumbled out into the open and surrendered. Lieutenant Carlos C Ogden, who had just taken over the 3rd battalion from its wounded commander, was also distinguishing himself. Armed only with a rifle and hand grenades, he advanced alone under fire toward the enemy emplacements.

Corporal John D Kelly.

Despite being wounded, Ogden got close enough to an antiaircraft emplacement to fire a rifle grenade, putting the 88 mm gun out of action. He then knocked out accompanying machine guns with his hand grenades, despite receiving a second wound, enabling his men to swarm inside the upper fort. The Germans, realising that further resistance was now futile, began to surrender their weapons. Inside Mont Roule, the fighting continued. The earlier shelling had forced most of the defenders deeper inside the mountain but they now awaited an attack, crouched in dark recesses and sheltering behind overturned bunks and ammunition crates. Some Americans entered via an emergency exit door on the lower levels but Staff Sergeant Paul Hurst and other engineers were lowered into the open gun emplacements from above after charges had been dropped into the caverns. Others scrambled around the cliff face as anti-tank fire from below peppered the slope. The fighting inside the mountain was ferocious. Fearful of small arms fire sparking explosions among the large cache of German arms and munitions, both sides resorted to hand-to-hand fighting with knives and bayonets and the casualty rate quickly mounted. It was inevitable, however, that American numbers would eventually prevail, though there was thought to be less than thirty Germans still standing when they finally surrendered.

T he moment of surrender. Generalleutenant Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben faces t he vict orious Americans.

With virtually all resistance in Cherbourg now at an end, Generalleutenant Schlieben was finally found in an underground shelter at St. Sauveur on the southern outskirts of the city on the 26 June. He had destroyed all of the documents and codes from his headquarters and was discovered alongside Admiral Hennecke, the Naval Commander of Normandy. Schlieben surrendered to General Eddy on behalf of the 800 men, many of them staff officers, in his bunker. His second in command, General Sattler, followed suit the following day with a further 400 men. Cherbourg had finally fallen, though a last stand was made at Cap de la Hague. An advance party of the 1056th Engineer Port Construction and Repair Group had arrived in Cherbourg by the 27 June and begun efforts to reopen the harbour to traffic. The first cargo was landed by DUKW on a nearby beach 16 July and, further east, the British and Canadians were also making significant inroads into Fortress Europe.

Cherbourg. General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, t he fort ress Kommandant , having just surrendered.

Chapter Six MERVILLE – THE IMPOSSIBLE, THEY DID

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ERMAN Kriegsmarine and Heer gun batteries were spread fairly evenly behind the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy but the fortified strongpoints were more concentrated on the eastern flank, where the coastline was more accessible. UTAH Beach, for example, was only defended by strongpoint designated WN105 and WN103 at La Madeleine and WN104 at La Grande Dune. On GOLD Beach, there were almost a dozen fixed fortified positions including H612, H679, H669, H677 and H667 bunkers and open Vf600 gun emplacements at WN38 St Come-de-Fresne and WN36 Cabane des Douanes. There were H612, H604 and H677 bunkers on JUNO Beach, as well as a Vf600 emplacement at WN27 St Aubin-sur-Mer. But the Germans relied heavily on minefields and beach obstructions/anti-tank deterrents on this relatively flat stretch of the Normandy coast and also reinforced a number of the bigger houses that sat on or just behind the promenade, particularly at Courseulles-sur-Mer. SWORD Beach had most protection, however, as this included the port of Ouistreham that not only guarded the entrance to the Orne River and, hence, access to the major objective of Caen. But also the battalion headquarters of the 736 Grenadier Regiment. There were four 155 mm guns and an H669 bunker at WN12 Ouistreham, as well as field artillery and armoured FlaK emplacements that could be used against aircraft and tanks. There were also four 100 mm guns at WN16 Colleville-Plage, while six 155 mm guns were installed in gun pits at Riva Bella, behind Ouistreham’s harbour. A multi-story observation post dominated the skyline in Riva Bella and now houses the Atlantic Wall Museum. Two 50 mm guns occupied Vf600 emplacements at WN21 Lion-sur-Mer and H677 bunkers housed 88 mm guns at WN20 La Breche and WN19 at Hermanville-La-Breche, where a concrete casemate and a Vf600 pit also housed a further three 50 mm guns. From their HQ at Colleville (code-named Hillman by the Allies) and a billet at St Aubin, men from the 736 Grenadier Regiment patrolled this key area. The 716 Infantry Division, under Generalleutenant Willem Richter, had its headquarters in Caen and also supplied the 1716 Artillery Regiment, who staffed Merville. In reserve, the 642 Ost-Battalion, made-up of Russian conscripts from the eastern territories, was a little inland but within sight of the Orne estuary.

Turm 2 Merville Bat t ery.

So it was vital that the Allies, or more specifically the British 3rd Infantry Division, achieved their objectives on D-Day and breached the Atlantic wall defences so a pincer movement on Caen could be initiated in conjunction with the Canadians who, hopefully, would be pressing inland from JUNO Beach. But, of course, there were complications. Not least the batteries at Longues-sur-Mer and, more significantly, Merville. The Todt Organisation had sub-contracted the building of Merville to Rittmans, a local construction company based in nearby Houlgate. But, as elsewhere on the Atlantic Wall, slave and forced labour (drawn largely from the French Service Travail Obligatoire) was used to ensure building was completed near enough on schedule. The first casemate on the site was an H611, with three H669s following. In addition, a command bunker and personnel bunker were constructed with individual machine-gun Tobrukstände, bomb shelters and a kitchen. The latter was also the base for an anti-aircraft gun platform. By May 1944, all the defences had been completed apart from the antitank ditch which was supposed to run around the entire perimeter of the battery but only covered a one-hundred metre stretch directly in front of the casemates. Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway and the 9th Battalion, 3rd Parachute Brigade, was given the task of destroying the coastal battery at Merville before the seaborne invasion began at dawn 6 June, and afterwards of occupying a key feature of the heavily invested defence perimeter on the Allies’ eastern flank. Terence Brandram Hastings Otway was born in Cairo 15 June, 1914 and educated at Dover College. After attending Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the Royal Ulster Rifles in 1934 and served with the 2nd Battalion before being deployed in Hong Kong the following year.

Two years later, he was sent to India before being posted to the North-West Frontier. Not a week passed, he recalled afterwards, without a skirmish with the local tribesmen, often hand-to-hand with swords and knives.

Lieut enant Colonel Ot way.

Otway returned to England and attended Staff College, where he passed out fourth among a class of 200. After a staff job at the War Office, he returned to the Royal Ulster Rifles in 1943 as a company commander. He transferred to the Parachute Regiment shortly afterwards and, in March 1944, was promoted lieutenant-colonel on taking command of 9th Parachute Battalion. Merville Battery, situated on the eastern bank of the River Orne, was believed to be equipped with four 150 mm calibre guns capable of laying down fire on SWORD Beach, the planned landing area for the British 3rd Infantry Division. Intelligence had revealed Merville, whose guns were guided by a forward observation bunker on the edge of the Orne estuary and could also be linked to the area’s main observation bunker in Riva Bella, was guarded by a garrison of between 130 and 160 men. It was surrounded by a two-metre high barbed wire fence and minefields which fanned out in all directions for 100 metres. Aerial reconnaissance had picked out various open gun emplacements, including 20mm antiaircraft guns and several machine gun tobruks, as well as the four large casemates and there were also isolated minefields laid across all likely approaches. In addition, an anti-tank ditch had been dug on the north-west side of the battery where it faced the small seaside commune of Franceville. The airborne assault, supported by three gliders with orders to crash-land directly on the battery, was to go in at 4.30 am, thus allowing the battalion an hour to destroy the guns before the assault-craft landed on SWORD Beach as close as three miles from the battery. Otway was a meticulous planner and had mock-ups made of battery’s casemates, taking his men through planned assault routines time after time. He divided his force into eleven groups, each with its own specific task. Among them was a reconnaissance party, minefield pathfinders, a breaching unit and the

actual assault group. All of the aircraft assigned to the assault took off on time but, just four minutes before reaching the drop zone, the assault group’s Dakota troop carriers ran into intensive anti-aircraft fire and were forced to take evasive action. Given the demands of D-Day, there was a shortage of experienced fliers and Otway’s force was relying on inexperienced pilots to drop them in the right spot. Unfortunately, several of the transporters’ air crews became disorientated in low cloud and as a result, instead of being dropped in a concentrated area, the battalion was spread over fifty square miles. There were even reports that some of the paratroopers had to threaten the air crew, who wanted to abandon the mission and turn for home, to force them back over the drop zone. With FlaK bursting all around, a shell exploded close to Otway’s aircraft and a tracer bullet went through his parachute as he was about to jump. He landed safely, however, alongside his batman Corporal Wilson, though both touched down close to a farmhouse which turned out to be a local German headquarters. Unfortunately, Wilson fell through the roof of a greenhouse which immediately attracted fire from a German sentry. But Otway’s corporal was nothing if not resourceful and picked up a loose brick and threw it through one of the farmhouse windows. The Germans mistook it for a grenade and dived for cover, allowing Otway, Wilson and a companion vital seconds to escape into the darkness. Taking time to re-gather his thoughts, Otway realised that something had gone badly wrong with the parachute drop. Smoke from an earlier bombing raid by RAF Halifax and Lancaster bombers still hung in the air and, as a result, few of the pilots had seen the beacons that had been lit by an advance party and there were parachutists who had missed the drop zone by up to thirty miles. Many had landed chest high in fields that had been flooded by the damming the River Dives on the direct orders of Rommel to deter airborne assaults and, weighed down by their 60lb kitbags, were drowned. Otway and Wilson themselves tried to rescue one unfortunate they came across but were powerless to prevent the man being sucked into the clawing mud. On reaching the rendezvous, the operation’s commander discovered that he had no transport, sappers, mortars, anti-tank guns, radio sets that worked and only a few medical orderlies. More importantly, less than a quarter of his original 650 men were in attendance. Five of the gliders accompanying the assault had disappeared over the English Channel, taking men and most of Otway’s specialised equipment with them. Otway was left in a quandary; he knew his mission was vital to safeguard the British landings on SWORD Beach but realised that his resources were barely adequate for the task in hand. His decision to proceed with the attack was made easier, however, when he discovered that the advanced reconnaissance party had penetrated the outer minefields at Merville. The minefield clearance team then also arrived at the rendezvous, albeit without tapes or mine-detectors. But Sergeant Major Miller, in charge of the advance party, convinced Otway that they could still mark a route through the minefields by scratching marks in the dust with their boot heels. The original plan had had to be torn up and thrown away, with the men from B Company now divided into two smaller breaching teams. The assault was to be made by the remnants of A and C companies, comprising about fifty men under the command of Major Alan Parry. It was 2.50 am and the battalion were less than two miles from their objective. By 4.00 am, with dawn beginning to emerge from a cloudladen horizon, the attack formations began to form up. The assault group’s only surviving Vickers machine gun, manned by Sergeant McKeever, was positioned to cover the left flank of the battery, giving Major Parry and his team a fighting chance of reaching the main gate unmolested but, just as the order to advance was about to be given, two Horsa gliders swooped low over the battery from the north, a third having been cast-off over England when its tow rope snapped. The gliders were supposed to have been guided to the battery by the troops on the ground using Eureka beacons. However, none had been recovered from the parachute drop and the spares had disappeared

over the Channel so the remaining glider pilots were flying almost blind, their view obscured further by low clouds and smoke from the earlier RAF bombing raid. One of the gliders mistook a village two miles away for their objective, fooled by a fire in a barn. Gonneville had also mistaken for Merville by the RAF and bombed. The second glider, however, found the battery and was making its final approach when it was spotted and fired upon by the Germans’ 20 mm anti-aircraft gun, wounding four of the men inside and forcing pilot Lieutenant Hugh Pond to take evasive action so he landed almost half-a-mile away from his target, in an orchard on the perimeter of the battery. Several of the troops were injured in the crash and they immediately ran into a small number of Germans who were on their way to the battery to report for duty. But Sergeant Major Miller and his men rushed to their aid as Otway decided he could wait no longer and gave the order to attack. Major Parry blew his whistle and Bangalore torpedoes were detonated to clear away the remaining barbed wire between the four assault groups and the battery. In the gloom, the marked paths were not clearly visible and some men strayed from the path and stepped on mines while the German machine guns began to cut loose. But these were being engaged by the battalion’s Bren guns and snipers, who also ensured the remainder of the battery’s garrison kept their heads down. The paratroopers charged on towards the first of the casemates with Otway to the fore screaming, ‘Get in! Get in! Get in!’. Initially taken by surprise, the German garrison had quickly organised themselves. Alarms were sounding across the site and flares lit up the sky. Leutnant Raimund Steiner, the battery’s commander, was at a forward observation bunker overlooking the coast but immediately in communication with his men at Merville by telephone as the assault commenced. Steiner had been placed in charge at Merville following the death of Hauptmann Karl-Heinrich Wolter in April 1944 while visiting his mistress during an air raid. Sergeant-Major Johannes Buskotte was the senior NCO at the battery at the time of the attack and Steiner felt he had to do something to help, directing fire from a battery at nearby Cabourg onto British troops still picking their way through the outer minefield. But the men of the Parachute Regiment were now in the ascendancy, Otway ordered the last of his men in reserve to join forces with Lieutenant Pond and those from the shot-down glider and they silenced the last of the German machine guns, allowing A and C companies to enter the casemates and force the gun crews to surrender by tossing grenades through the firing aperture, clearing the rooms of the massive concrete structures one by one. The guns were intended to be destroyed with specialist explosives, but they had gone missing in the flooded fields so the paratroops had to improvise, using high-explosive antitank Gammon Bombs which disabled the gun’s gearing and aiming mechanisms but were insufficient to destroy the barrel. Major Parry, despite wounds in both a leg and arm, personally supervised the placing of the charges in each casemate while Otway ran from one building to the next assessing the condition of his remaining men and the state of the guns.

Turm 3, Merville Bat t ery.

By 5.00 am, the fighting began to die down as the garrison’s survivors surrendered. Inside and around the battery, dead and wounded on both sides lay all around. Of the German garrison, only six remained unscathed. The 9th Battalion had sixty-five men either dead or wounded within the battery’s perimeter. Uppermost in Otway’s mind, however, was that he had to get a message to the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Arethusa, which had been ordered to turn her six 6-inch guns on Merville had the 9th Battalion’s assault been unsuccessful. Otway, of course, had no radio so was forced to rely on flares and a carrier pigeon to stop a potential barrage. As a precaution, he ordered an immediate evacuation of the area in case the message had not got through – it had. As a final irony, it was discovered that the guns which were regarded as such a threat to the landings were found to be largely nigh-ineffective 100 mm 1916 Skoda FH 14/19s. The assault upon the Merville Battery by a depleted and wholly ill-equipped force is still regarded as one of the most outstanding achievements in the history of the Parachute Regiment, however, and was to earn Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway, DSO, the Legion d’Honneur in 2001. That wasn’t the end of the story of Merville Battery. Otway and his men had further objectives on DDay and, after securing their prisoners, advanced towards the Orne estuary. But by 8 June the Germans, some of whom had hidden in the many tunnels beneath the battery, had re-occupied the site and, according to some reports, repaired two of the guns sufficiently so they could fire on the invasion forces as they moved off Sword Beach, albeit blindly with their forward observation post disabled and communication outlines cut. At this point, one has to stress that the guns were reportedly repaired. Many, especially survivors of the 9th Battalion and 3 Commando Royal Marines who were ordered to re-take the battery on

the 8th June, insist that the guns were in no state to fire after the initial capture of Merville – most remain bitter that a second attack was to cost the lives of so many men. Major John Pooley, in charge of the RM detachment and a man much admired by those who knew him, was one such casualty. Shot by a sniper lying atop number one casemate as he led the attack – his death was not to go unavenged.

Turm 1, Merville Bat t ery. Now housing t he museum.

A more detailed account of the episode can be read in Neil Barber’s The Day The Devils Dropped In (Pen & Sword) but for the critical few hours the Merville battery appeared silent and deserted and the landing on SWORD Beach was relatively unopposed. After taking the Merville Battery, the 9th Battalion pushed into Le Plein, where they encountered stiffening resistance and, despite their depleted numbers, took the Chateau St Côme on the ridge. Two days later, while making a routine tour of his positions, a stray shell landed close to Otway. He was diagnosed with severe concussion and internal injuries and subsequently evacuated, then graded unfit for a return to active service. In May 1945, Otway took command of the 1st/5th King’s Regiment in India with instructions to convert it into an airborne battalion. He was made divisional chief of staff in September and, in 1946, he was again posted to the War Office. There he wrote the official history of Airborne Forces, which became available to the public in 1990. Disillusioned with the post-war Army, Otway resigned his commission in 1948 and joined the Colonial Development Corporation, for which he worked in the Gambia and Nyasaland. Failing health brought him back to England the following year and he became general manager of the Empire News, eventually ending up with a career in the life insurance industry at Scotia Investments. On retirement in 1979, he remained to the fore in promoting the welfare of the former soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and their widows. For almost 30 years, he pursued a claim that he was being deprived of his full pension rights as a disabled officer, which was eventually acknowledged. “Colonel X” (as Otway became known in legal circles) had won a final battle for his men.

Otway was to meet Leutnant Steiner, the Merville commander, at the battery in 1993. He admitted that he did not have the bad grace to refuse a proferred handshake but said afterwards that he would never forget how some of his men had been shot by the Germans as they hung, trapped helpless in their parachute harnesses, in trees. He sparked further controversy by chasing away snacking day-trippers from the battery, which is now a memorial and museum. ‘I don’t like people eating and drinking where my men died,’ Otway exclaimed. In 1997, Otway unveiled a bronze bust of himself at the site and in 2001, was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French government – he passed away in July 2006, aged 92.

Rest ored DC3 at Merville Bat t ery Museum.

Chapter Seven LONGUES SUR MER – AIR AND NAVY SUPREMACY

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ONGUES SUR MER, WN48, was built three miles west of Arromanches on a cliff top sixty metres above sea level. It’s four M272 casemates housed 152mm Krupp Tbts KC36 cannons. Cast in 1928, each gun had a range of approximately twenty kilometres and could fire six rounds per minute. They were directed by an M262 command bunker further down the cliff which was reached by a service road, on either side of which were storage bunkers and water reservoirs surrounded by minefields. The M262 contained an observation room, a telemeter post, a firing co-ordination chamber and a communications post joined to the battery by an underground armoured telephone cable. Begun in 1942 and only completed (albeit hurriedly) in April 1944, the Longues Sur Mer battery also featured personnel and ammunition bunkers and several machine gun and mortar Tobrukstände. In total, the battery’s garrison numbered 184 when fully staffed, as it was when the Allies launched a massive bombing raid on the site 5 June, 1944.

Casemat e and gun number four, Longues sur Mer.

Longues Sur Mer had been the target for several raids in early 1944 but the bombing intensified in the week before the planned landings. Around 1,500 tons of explosives was dropped on the battery and surrounding fields, Allied commanders fully aware that ‘Le Chaos’ offered a very real threat to troops coming ashore on UTAH and GOLD Beach, and on D-Day itself, its guns were engaged by the French, American and British navies. Just before 5.40 am on 6 June, the French light cruiser Georges Leygues opened fire on Longues Sur Mer, swiftly followed by the USS Arkansas. The battery itself finally responded at 6.05 pm when the garrison realised they were in the midst of an invasion and not just another raid, but they were at a severe disadvantage. All communication lines to the reinforced observation post further down the cliff had been destroyed by the bombing so the gunners in the four casemates had to guess the distance to the ships in the bay. They still managed to turn their guns on the destroyer USS Emmons, however, then forced the frigate HMS Bulolo, headquarters ship of the forces attacking GOLD Beach, to weigh anchor and withdraw into deeper waters. But HMS Ajax, a veteran of the evacuation of Crete and the Malta convoys, and HMS Argonaut, who were also part of Force K, had been detailed to deal with the threat of the battery should it open fire and now joined in battle.

Remains of gun dest royed by eit her HMS Ajax or French ship Georges Leygues.

Remains of a gun at Longues sur Mer. Not e splint er damage t o shield.

There is some dispute over what happened next. The British maintain that a shell from one of the sixinch guns HMS Ajax went straight down the barrel of the number three gun at Longues Sur Mer, disintegrating it and destroying the inside of the casemate. The crew, of course, all died instantly. Evidence on the ground and the surrounding area, even to this day, suggests there was a massive explosion of some kind as parts of the barrel remain buried in the ground and fragments of the barrel and its mechanism is strewn all around. But locals claim that number three casemate was, in fact, being used as an ammunition bunker as the gun was inoperable. The only threat it carried was as a platform for an antiaircraft gun. The French military, meanwhile, say that the casemate was actually struck by the Georges Leygues, resulting in the explosion. Whatever the true story within twenty minutes number three casemate, or Turm (Tower) 3, had been destroyed having taken a direct hit through its embrasure. By 8.45 am on D-Day, the guns of Longues Sur Mer had fallen silent. The two remaining guns did resume firing later in the afternoon but, this time, the Georges Leygues had an accurate bearing on them and both were quickly put out of action for the final

time. By the time the 2nd battalion, Devonshire Regiment, part of 231 Infantry Brigade, had made its way up from GOLD Beach to approach Longues sur Mer battery, sixty-four of the garrison’s compliment of 184 men had been killed. The remainder surrendered without resistance. Today, Longues Sur Mer remains one of the best preserved parts of the Atlantic Wall. Two of its original guns remain in Türme 1 and 2 and are a remarkable example of the type of armament facing Allied forces on 6 June, 1944. The observation bunker is also still in remarkable condition. Securing the flanks of the intended landing zone was a primary objective on D-Day, without nullifying the potential for response from the key strongpoints along the Atlantic Wall in Normandy, it would have been impossible for the Allied forces to secure beachheads, relatively safe in the knowledge that they or those following wouldn’t be blown out of the water or slaughtered before they’d had the chance to move inland. Of course, it’s impossible to include reference to every battery but here are brief details of other fortifications that had to be subdued on D-Day.

Observat ion bunker at Longues sur Mer.

OTHER NOTABLE BATTERIES AND STRONGPOINTS LA RUE D’OZOUVILLE Early in the occupation of Normandy by the Germans, four captured 1916 Skoda 100 mm cannons were dragged into place at La Rue D’Ozouville by horse-drawn carriages, installed to cover the western approach to Cherbourg. The guns when new only had a range of ten kilometres and were three kilometres from the coast. The Germans must have known that their usefulness would be limited and it’s more likely they were little

more than a stop gap until bigger guns could be placed at nearby Castel Vendon to the west and Amfreville to the east. The four guns at La Rue D’Ozouville were manned by the 1709 Artillery Regiment but only two were inside R669 casemates, the other two being out in the open. GATTEVILLE Gatteville, near the picturesque fishing port of Barfleur, featured H679 casemates housing four Krupps 420 155-mm guns, a range-finding post and half a dozen shelters and ammunition stores including H134, H607 and H502 bunkers. As its guns were pointing northwards, however, they posed no threat to the American forces due to land on the east coast of the Cotentin Peninsula at UTAH Beach. LA PERNELLE I AND LA PERNELLE II The village of La Pernelle boasted two gun batteries (WN144 and WN 149) and a radar station. The second battery (Pernelle II), built on the edge on higher ground overlooking woods, was equipped with three fairly modern Krupps 170 mm guns but they were exposed to the elements in open emplacements. The guns were supposed to be housed in H679 casemates but these hadn’t been constructed by D-day. The other battery (Pernelle I), known as ‘La Pinoterie’, had been built much earlier and already had six 105 mm 1916 Schneider guns in place when the Allied assault began. The guns were housed in H650 and H671 casemates, but subsequent reports suggested they were mounted on carriages after D-Day and moved inland to prevent them falling into Americans hands. There was also a H608 command bunker among others but, unfortunately, most of the battery has been swallowed up by a quarry since the 1950s and the Fire Control Post, the last remaining blockhouse surviving, is now too close to the edge to allow visits. The guns of the Pernelle I battery faced out to sea and the angle of the openings in the casemates meant it quickly became redundant on D-Day. But Pernelle 2, codenamed Essen, could target UTAH Beach and offshore landing craft. The Germans, however, had never got around to installing a rangefinder at the newer battery so the damage it inflicted was minimal in the grand scheme of things and its impact was reduced further by the fact that one of its guns had been taken to Cherbourg for repairs after suffering damage in a bombing raid – it never returned. With the garrison thought to be on the verge of being overrun and no transport available to move them Pernelle II’s guns, having already been manhandled into ditches behind a thick hedgerow, were eventually disabled by the men of the 1261 Artillerie Regiment to prevent them being of any use to the Americans. However, some survivors did manage to requisition some obsolete WWI Russian guns en route from Carteret after D-Day and briefly helped slow the American advance up the Cotentin Peninsula. MAISY – LES PERRUQUES The Germans also installed two batteries at Grandcamp-les-Bains and Maisy, nowadays a commune under joint administration but, in those days, two separate villages. The first battery, known as La Martine, was manned by the 1716 Artillerie Regiment. They were equipped with four Czech FH14/19 type 100 mm guns, with a range of just under ten kilometres. Three were housed in H669 casemates but the fourth was still in the open at the time of D-Day. The second position, La Perruques, five hundred metres further east, was manned by 1716 Artillery Regiment, and had six French 155 mm cannons, dating from the end of the First World War. Four had been placed in Vf600 concrete emplacements but the remainder were left in the open. Along with the guns, there were two H622 personnel bunkers on the site and an H502 command centre bunker as well as anti-

aircraft emplacements. The guns at La Perruques had a range of eleven kilometres and were added to shortly before D-day by two more 150 mm German howitzers.

HMS Hawkins.

Amazingly, it’s only in recent years that the true extent of the La Perruques site has been appreciated. It’s thought that the 7.5 inch guns of the heavy cruiser HMS Hawkins silenced the battery between 6 June and 8 June, 1944, but its failure to contribute significantly to the defence of UTAH Beach remains a comparative mystery even though it is known that the site was extensively bombed by the RAF at the end of May, 1944 and again forty-eight hours before the launch of the invasion (some 600 tonnes of explosives in total). Some reports state that the battery was bombarded from several sources out at sea on D-Day itself but the site isn’t as badly damaged as one would expect if that were the case. Now a museum, albeit still under renovation and development, La Perruque’s two and half miles of trenches and tunnels are still largely intact and link an impressive collection of office buildings, storerooms, and ammunition bunkers, There is even an underground hospital as well as two additional first aid centres. Both Grandcamp-Maisy batteries were eventually overrun by the US Rangers, who’d made their way along the coast after securing the Pointe Du Hoc. La Martiniere suffering relatively little damage, but instead of destroying Les Perruques the Americans chose to fill in the trenches and cover the gun emplacements in earth – it was more than fifty years before the site began to give up its secrets. CRASVILLE Crasville was equipped with four 105-mm guns installed in casemates. Due to their insufficient range, they were unable to play any role at all during the landing of American troops on UTAH Beach. MONT-COQUEREL Mont-Coquerel, above the village of Quinéville, had four French First World War Schneider 105-mm

guns housed in casemates, which had their walls painted to look like houses. They also had considerable amounts of earth banked above and around them to provide extra protection from incoming fire. Though Mont-Coquerel was targeted by the 8-inch guns of the USS Tuscaloosa on D-Day, most of the damage to the casemates was suffered after they were captured by the 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry after a protracted ground battle on 14 June. The Americans planted explosives in the ammunition store and the guns were later removed for scrap. A small fire control post was also on the site along with two smaller type 667 and 612 casemates, which probably contained 88 mm or 75 mm anti-tank guns at the time of the invasion. VERS – MONTFLEURY/MAREFONTAINE There were two German batteries at Ver sur Mer. Montfleury had four 122 mm K390/2 Russian guns which had been captured on the Eastern Front, two of which were meant to be housed in H669 casemates. By D-Day, however, work was still a long way from being completed and only one gun was protected, the other two were supposed to be in newer H669 casemates but these were never completed. On 6 June the battery was shelled by HMS Belfast, her 6-inch guns pounding defences for over two hours. The garrison of Montfleury never responded and were to surrender, without much of fight, to the Green Howard’s later in the day. Much of that was down to CSM Stan Hollis, who ran towards the one completed casemate firing his sten gun. When he reached the bunker, he threw a grenade into the aperture, killing two of the defenders and injuring several others. The rest of the garrison threw down their weapons almost immediately. Marefountain battery had four Czech Skoda 14/19 100 mm guns housed in H669 casemates but suffered a similar fate to its neighbour. On 6 June, 1944, it was severely damaged by the guns of HMS Belfast and its garrison, comprising men of the 1716 Artillery Regiment, suffered heavy casualties in the shelling. They surrendered without a fight to advancing British troops before darkness fell on D-Day. COLLEVILLE The Colleville battery, situated north of the Hillman strongpoint and west of Riva Bella, had four Skoda 100 mm light field howitzers allocated. These were originally on carriages drawn by teams of horses but were eventually installed in open emplacements before being given the protection of H669 casemates in early 1944. The position, manned by Ostbattallion conscripts and codenamed Morris by the Allies, was quickly over-run by the 1st Sussex Regiment in the early afternoon of 6 June. RIVA BELLA Riva Bella, close to the harbour at Ouistreham, was begun in the spring of 1942. The site was supplied with six 155 mm K420 cannons placed in open concrete emplacements. With a range of twenty kilometres, the gunners’ main task was to control the mouth of the River Orne and its canal but because of a vulnerability to air attacks, and the fact that construction of the H679 casemates intended to protect the battery was behind schedule, the guns were removed from their emplacements in May 1944 and transported inland. Riva Bella, therefore, played no significant role on D-Day and the battery’s bunkers were among the first to be dismantled after the war. The five-storey range-finding post still towers above the area, however, and has now been turned into the Atlantic Wall Museum. There is an interesting story behind the observation tower. It was attacked, along with other neighbouring German defences on D Day but the attack was repulsed with machine guns and grenades. In the confusion that followed, the Allies overlooked the fact that more than 50 armed Germans were inside the range-finding post and still relaying information about troop movements until the Royal Engineers

tried to gain access on June 9th.

Range finding st at ion at Riva Bella, Oust reham.

Lieutenant Bob Orrell had been tipped off by locals about the Germans’ continued occupation and, after several attempts, he and three colleagues managed to blow an armoured door off its hinges and gain entry to the ground floor. In faltering English, a voice shouted from above, ‘It is OK Tommy, you can come up!’ ‘Not bloody likely!’ replied Orrell, ‘You come down!’ Imagine the British amazement when the entire garrison, many of them the worse for drink, filed down the stairs with arms raised. Orrell was to receive the Military Cross for his action but his wartime experiences had a profound effect on him and he became an active member of such organisations as CND

and Veterans For Peace in later life. OUISTREHAM In the spring of 1944, a second artillery battery was under construction close to the port of Ouistreham. Further inland than Riva Bella, there were plans to place another four 155 mm guns in casemates, but only three of these had been completed by D-Day and the site was quickly over-run by Allied forces which included the Commando Français, whose principal target on D Day had been the fortified Casino in Ouistreham. The action was immortalised in the film The Longest Day but you can not always believe what you see in the movies. The Casino actually used in the scene was at Port-En-Bassin, the giveaway being the fact that the film showed the area to be hilly whereas Ouistreham is completely flat. HOULGATE The Battery de Tournebride at Houlgate had six 155 mm K420 cannons, installed in concrete pits, a range-finding post and several underground stores and bunkers linked by tunnels. There were plans to place all the French First World War guns in H679 casemates but, by D Day, only two casemates had been built. The site was on a 100 metre-high cliff with a height and designed to protect the west entrance to the river Seine but it had been a target for the British since November 1941, when a raid by ninety men of 9 Commando attempted to destroy the battery in an operation codenamed SUNSTAR. Two weeks before the D-Day landings, the battery was targeted by US B-26 Marauders who destroyed two of its guns. The RAF attacked again on the evening of 5 June and Houlgate was then targeted by the 15-inch guns of HMS Roberts and HMS Erebus. The battery remained operative until late June, however, when it finally stopped shelling SWORD Beach and its surviving guns were permanently moved inland to avoid destruction. MOUNT CANISY Mount Canisy dominated the skyline above Benerville-sur-Mer and oversaw the vital port of Le Havre. In 1935 the French Navy had installed a battery of four Grande Puissance Filloux 138 mm guns to protect the local beaches but the German Army quickly extended the site following the French surrender, putting three French 155 mm guns in H679 casemates on the site and a further one in an open emplacement in front. The Germans also built an extensive network of underground tunnels and galleries over 250 metres long and 15 metres deep for the safe storage and handling of the munitions, and constructed two fire control posts on the surface as well as numerous armoured bunkers as protection for both men and armaments. The entrance to the site was guarded by a fixed type R35 tank turret. During D-Day, along with the rest of the coastal defences on the Cote Fleurie, Mount Canisy was a priority target for British battleships HMS Warspite and HMS Ramillies while the RAF also launched several bombing raids. The battery traded fire with the battleships for several hours and continued to fire sporadically at the invasion fleet until August 1944, when it was finally abandoned. HENNEQUEVILLE The German Army had just completed the Manoir Normande battery above Hennequeville before D-Day but the four French K331 105 mm guns were too far from the landing beaches to make a significant impact on the invading forces. VILLERVILLE/LES BREYERES

Villerville, in the village of Les Bruyères, was a key component in the defence of the lower half of the Seine Estuary and housed six K420 155 mm guns. The guns were intended to be protected in H679 casemates but only one had been completed before the battery was extensively damaged by bombing and the Allied naval bombardment. Its range-finding post, located in a former farmhouse, was also badly damaged meaning Villerville was to play no part in the D-Day actions.

Chapter Eight WESTERN COAST OF THE COTENTIN PENINSULA

H

ITLER WAS OBSESSED with defending the Channel Islands against possible attack and, as well as heavily fortifying Jersey, Guernsey and Sark, built massive defences on the coast facing the islands. Of course, with the invasion launched elsewhere, these defences were quickly made redundant and their garrisons could only await the inevitable attack from inland. Most were to surrender without a fight once surrounded and many, often ageing or inexperienced troops, fled before the invading forces arrived. But the Allies were shocked to discover how impressive the fortifications were and mindful of the damage they could have inflicted had the Americans landed further west. ST REMY DES LANDES St Remy des Landes lies to the south of Denneville and stands at the mouth of the ancient port of Havre se Surville although, by the time of the occupation, this natural port had mostly silted up and was of no real military or commercial use. The Atlantic Wall in this part of Normandy was almost non existent with no heavy gun emplacements between Carteret and Granville owing to the fact that any naval units would have had to sail under the massive guns on Jersey. But the Germans still took the precaution of installing a strongpoint at this and many other locations along this stretch of coastline. No two were exactly the same, however, and the site at St Remy Des Landes comprised of two machine gun tobruks serviced by small ammunition bunkers and connected by zig-zag trenches. Plans uncovered suggest there were also antiaircraft guns protecting the strongpoint at one time, though these were probably removed before D-Day. GRANVILLE Two batteries protected the important port of Granville. Both were manned by the MAA 608 Regiment and housed French Schneider guns of First World War vintage. The larger 120 mm guns were situated in M158 casemates at Pointe du Roc. Manufactured in Belgium in 1917, from where they were captured, the guns were housed alongside a M162 Fire Control Post and a type 621 personnel bunker. Nowadays, the site is used by the French Coastguard as a look-out tower (they’ve added an extra floor) and the four casemates have had doors fitted and are used as garages. The battery also boasted several anti-aircraft guns and numerous machine gun posts and there are still remnants of these and the main guns scattered around the site. Haut Forneau, which protected the port and was near the quayside, had four 105 mm guns but only one H612 casemate and a H667 command post bunker remain intact. One interesting fact surrounding Granville is that the Germans mounted an audacious counter-attack on Guernsey in the last days of the war in Europe which briefly caused panic in the Channel Islands. Of course, it failed. GRANVILLE SOUTH The beach which runs south from Granville skirts St Pair, Kairon Plage, Jullouville and Carolles Plage so three casemates were built to provide enfilade cover, though it appeared a strange decision to position all three facing north. There remains a type 667 casemate just north of Kairon Plage which was thought to house a 50 mm cannon, though some in this area were also armed with 88 mm PaK 43 anti-tank guns. At

the southern end of the beach at Carolles Plage, the coast rises to cliffs which are topped by two type 612 casemates which often housed 75mm FK 38 field guns. A type 622 personnel bunker was built further back from the edge, with a small storage bunker attached. The latter was thought to contain a generator for the use of the Germans as the site was some distance from the nearest village and its sub-station. ST GERMAIN SUR AY A strongpoint was built at St Germain sur Ay, regarded as an obvious landing point had the Allies opted to launch an invasion from the Channel Islands. Overlooking the Le Havre du Lessay inlet and protecting a natural harbour in a direct line of sight from Jersey, the strongpoint was situated to the south of another large garrison at Barneville. Along this stretch of coast, beach defences tended to be much more sparse so troop concentrations were often greater. Unfortunately, the sea has now claimed most of the German fortifications on this site but there are still remains of a type 667 casemate which housed 50 mm cannon as well as a couple of Tobrukstände, one of which still features the octagonal mount used for a Gr36 81 mm mortar. BARNEVILLE The beach defences here were built to complement those at nearby Carteret but much of the site is slowly sinking into the sea. Barneville, Carteret and nearby Baubigny, along with the garrisons on Jersey and Guernsey, were all on high alert on the morning of D-Day as the Dakotas carrying the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions flew overhead en route to the eastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula. Barneville, staffed by remnants of the 206 Panzer Regiment, was among the last coastal batteries in Normandy to surrender on 18 June, 1944. CARTERET Just after the Germans originally occupied the Cotentin Peninsula on June, 1940, they positioned two K5 railway guns in Carteret. These were the same massive guns which later saw service in the Pas-de-Calais and frequently shelled the Kent coast. The guns were only fired once in Normandy, however, and resulted in all the windows of a nearby church being blown out. The strongpoint at Carteret was somewhat unconventional in that there was no obvious protection at ground level for the big guns. An assortment of anti-aircraft guns, mortars and machine gun posts were built but were some way distant from the armament they were meant to protect, namely Russian K390/2 guns that had been captured on the Eastern Front in 1942. Plans for the construction of R669 casemates had been drawn up but the Allied landings caused two of the guns to be redirected to Quineville, north of UTAH beach, and the remainder are thought to have been destroyed by the advancing Americans. On the headland at Carteret, there was also a Seekat Fume H27 radar station, together with an antiaircraft battery. It was here, at the start of June, 1944, that a member of the British secret service set up a radio beacon that guided the airborne forces to the drop zones around St Mere L’Eglise. HATAINVILLE The Fire Control Post at Hatainville is unique among Atlantic Wall defences. Built to keep watch over the channel between Carteret and Baubigny, there was only room for one sentry and it was constructed using disused railway track as a grid for the concrete roof. While operational, it was probably fitted with a searchlight but it is unclear how the lone sentry would have directed this without climbing on the roof. Nowadays, the post is a popular stopping off point on the coastal footpath. HEAUVILLE PLAGE

A centre of communication in the port of Dielette as well as a strongpoint, Heauville contained two modified H676 bunkers fitted with periscopes to keep watch on one of only two deep-water harbours on the Cotentin Peninsula. Stützpunkt (defensive point) 318 had 47 mm Skoda anti-tank guns built into the front wall of its bunkers which were protected by a shield in front of the casemate that could be raised and lowered from inside the gun room in times of action. There was also an escape hatch built into the gun room which led to a ladder and eventually onto the roof. Though why anyone would want to risk climbing into the line of fire of the enemy is open to debate. A Renault tank turret and two machine gun nests completed the defences and there also ammunition bunker to the rear. BIVILLE Petit Thot took its name from the village above which it is perched. Four 1917 Schneider 105 mm cannons comprised its main armour and, as in the First World War, they were on carriages that had to be wheeled into their firing position. Restraining hooks are still visible in the R671 casemates where they were attached. Originally, the battery didn’t have a fire control post and one had to be built close to the most southerly casemate after the rest of the site had been finished, though how effective during action that would have been is less certain. There were a large set of barracks to the rear of the battery and many of the walls still have fading images painted by the troops stationed there. A guard house and several small ammunition bunkers are also still intact, though the casemates are now largely inaccessible after being filled with concrete by local farmers. BIVILLE PLAGE The Germans employed an unusual method of protecting the long beach at Biville Plage, building a SK667 casemate with back-to-back embrasures that housed a 50 mm KwK cannon. This enabled the gun to be used to cover two stretches of the beach with enfilade fire. An improvised Panzer IV-type turret often provided the defence for this type of casemate but access to this was an awkward and often painful experience for the crew. The entrance was via the gun room through a small entrance which would have meant crawling on all fours and ducking beneath the lowered hatch. Once inside the crew could close a small fortified door. The area overlooking the beach is dotted with several bunkers but most have now crumbled or capsized due to coastal erosion.

Tank t urret from a German Panzerkampfwagen MkIV, wit h a short 75 mm KwK 37 L/24 gun, set on t op of a concret e bunker.

VAUVILLE Dominated by an R612 casemate housing a First World War 75 mm field gun, WN315 at Vauville only protected a small beach but the Germans regarded it as a potentially important site situated, as it was, directly opposite the Channel Islands. Two 47 mm anti-tank guns in R676 casemates would have protected the beach along with several anti-aircraft and machine gun Tobrukstände, including a rare double Tobrukstände. In the latter days of the war, there were several V1 launching sites and radar stations in the area. SAINT CROIX Four rare captured French 105 mm Courtmle cannons were installed at Saint Croix, comparatively modern in comparison to many of the captured guns used on the Atlantic Wall. These had only been manufactured in 1935 and were the only ones of their type in Normandy. The R669 casemates on this site had a very small embrasure which meant the guns only had a sixty degree traverse, though the crews were

virtually unreachable once the casemate’s armoured door had been sealed. 47 mm PaK 36 antitank guns, guarded the main guns but they were never fired in anger. AUDERVILLE LAYE Auderville had a railway battery but unique in the fact that the site wasn’t even linked to a branch line, meaning its 203 mm Kanone E (Eisenbahn – railway) guns had to be transported by road from Cherbourg and hoisted on to the rails at the battery. The guns were mounted on wagons which would fire from standard 35 metre diameter turntables to allow for the excessive traverse. There were several open gun emplacements surrounding the turntables, six of them were for FlaK positions while others housed ammunition which were on the opposite side of the site to the two H502 personnel bunkers. There was even a two-storey H661 hospital bunker and, across an access road, quarters for up to 300 men. But, of course, none of it ever saw meaningful action. LAYE Nearby, the small village of Laye partly conceals a long tunnel that dates from 1940. Apart from a couple of semi-circular emplacements quarried out of the rock there are few remaining traces of any defensive works. Evidence supporting the reason for their construction is thin on the ground but locals say the original plan was to build an anti-aircraft battery on the cliffs to protect the battery at Auderville and the tunnels were to allow the FlaK batteries to be manned without disruption from falling bombs. From the tunnel entrance, you can make out Sark and Alderney across the Baie D’Eclagrain but they would have been well out of range of any guns. The tunnel has two large galleries for storage and it’s feasible these could have been used for ammunition and as living quarters. There was fierce ground fighting in this area in 1944 and both the retreating Germans and local villagers made use of the tunnel at different times. GOURY Goury (Stp 351) was the most northerly battery on the western coast of the Cotentin Peninsula and housed four 105 mm French 1917 St Chamond guns. Three of them were protected by R679 casemates built in 1943 which had metal shutters that could be drawn across the embrasure if the battery was under attack. The other was in an open Vf600 emplacement along with three 88 mm anti-tank guns. An R636 Fire Control Post sat on the cliff edge partly hidden by an earth bank and several machine gun Tobrukstände, including one built into the cliff face, protected the site along with a number of anti-aircraft guns. There was also a radar installation on the rocks overlooking the bay. Goury was bombed by the RAF on several occasions before and after D-Day but it was the American 60th Infantry which eventually captured the battery 26 June, 1944. They took 300 prisoners in the area as the operation to close off Cherbourg and liberate the Cap De La Hague neared its conclusion. URVILLE Urville was a typical beach defence HQ with two H667 casemates which most likely housed 50 mm antitank guns and a machine gun Tobrukstände with a zig-zag trench leading to an ammunition bunker and the main personnel bunker. As with all coastal defences, however, it was almost defenceless against attack from inland and quickly succumbed to advancing forces in the summer of 1944.

Chapter Nine ON THE BEACHES

A

NY BOOK ABOUT the Atlantic Wall has to pay due deference to the D-Day landings and this author is anxious to acknowledge the part played by both the Canadians and the British 79th Armoured Division in both the breaching and destruction of key installations around the coast of Northern France. The North Shore Regiment was one of the first Canadian units to land on JUNO Beach on D-Day. The Regiment was divided into sections with individual attack plans which were intended to dovetail with one another and produce a concerted push inland. B Company had what was regarded as the hardest task, landing on the shore at St Aubin-sur-Mer. A strongpoint overlooked the beach and intelligence reports indicated it had and estimated garrison of forty men of differing ranks largely consisting of Ost troops of Russian or Polish origin.

On reaching the beach, B Company was to reorganize and move immediately south of the strongpoint, leaving the beach via a boat launching ramp and following the main lateral road to take up a position to assault the strong point from the rear. Most of the following is taken from an account of the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment by Will R Bird and Scarlet Dawn by Major RM Hickey. Lieutenant ‘Bones’ McCann was the commander of the No. 6 platoon. ‘Our run-in was not bad,’ he said, ‘except for a few of the lads suffering from mal-de-mer.’ On landing, they came under small arms fire depressed to ground level but the advance remained on schedule. Among the few wounded, the first officer casualty was No. 5 platoon leader Lieutenant GV Moran. ‘Bones’ was unaware of the extent of his injury at the time but soon after found himself in charge of two platoons instead of one.

No.6 platoon didn’t fare as well as their comrades and casualties soon mounted. The enemy were only firing sporadically but making their bullets count. One of the first to be hit was Corporal Falls, who suffered a nasty cheek wound. Fortunately, medical orderlies dressed his wound quickly and he was able to stay with his men.

Canadian t roops on t he way in t o JUNO Beach, 6 June 1944.

No. 4 platoon was commanded by Lieutenant CF Richardson: ‘Tracer bullets from German anti-aircraft guns seemed to fill the air as we came in,’ he said, ‘but everyone in our boat seemed to take it as just another scheme. In fact the morale was never higher and the platoon was merrily singing ‘Roll Me Over, Lay Me Down’ as we approached the shore.’ The Germans held fire until we were fairly close in. Our first casualty was when an armourpiercing bullet came through the LCA and struck Private P White a stunning blow in the forehead. Once we were out of the boat everyone acted mechanically, heading for the beach and the cover of the beach wall. We were fortunate in that we did not lose a man as we made for the high bank ahead, used our

bangalore torpedo with good effect and were at close quarters with the enemy after traversing through what we later discovered was a mine field. The Germans were back of it and behind concrete and we were without armoured support. Soon the sniping became the most demoralizing aspect of the day as we began to lose one man after another. Around ten o’clock some tanks got ashore and word was sent to Major Forbes about the position of our platoon as we were pinned down by mortar and machine-gun fire and could neither advance nor withdraw. Blakely had to cross an open area swept by fire but he made it, and then returned through the same peril with word that help was on the way, and immediately began helping move the wounded to a safer area. Major Forbes was able to get the tanks into action for us and none too soon as we had lost seventeen men, dead and wounded, from the sniping and shelling. Captain Bill Harvey was second in command of B Company and as he jumped into the surf found the sand like coarse salt, slippery under foot: Just in front of me, a man was hit. Our first-aider immediately took care of him and the next man up automatically grabbed the gun and ammo and carried them on. Then we saw a low wire entanglement and the lads swung into action. The fuse was set, there was an explosion and as the smoke cleared the men rushed through to their respective stations. The defenders had all the approaches covered with machine-gun fire and had positioned snipers in trenches so they could move from one point to another without breaking cover. The North Shores were having a difficult time and some sections had been entirely wiped out. CSM Don Murray was doing everything possible to maintain morale but the situation was quickly deteriorating without armoured support. The tanks were eventually landed, however, and B Company began the attack on the strongpoint. White flags were quickly raised but the defenders opened fire again when the Canadians broke cover, causing more casualties. This only caused the North Shores to attack with more vigour and when the white flags went up again they were cut to pieces by grenades and rifle fire. Few of the strongpoint’s garrison survived. It took two hours to thoroughly inspect the main gun positions and clear the tunnels and trenches. Four officers and seventy-five other ranks were taken prisoner and another fifty had been killed or wounded. A Company, on the right meanwhile, had been tasked to clear the beaches and occupy buildings to the west. On landing, the Company had immediately come under machine gun and mortar fire. An 88 mm gun was also firing air burst shells and, in clearing the beachhead, had sustained fairly heavy casualties from mines including Lieutenant Keith and Private Elles, who were killed when they set off a mine with their Bangalore torpedo. The majority, however, still achieved their objective in joining up with the Queen’s Own Rifles on the right and the joint forces began clearing houses along the promenade in which some of the Germans had set up firing posts. As A and B companies advanced, C and D Companies landed and took their turn at racing across the clawing sand. ‘We did not have too many casualties,’ said Captain Hector LeBlanc, second in command of C Company, ‘because we had made plans to get from there as quickly as possible.’ He continued, I made a gap with my own wire-cutters along a wall and after making a reconnaissance I told the platoons to follow me. We met Major Daughney’s platoon where we should have and then all started working our way towards the church and cemetery supported by two troops of Fort Garry amphibious tanks. The tanks gave us good support so we kept slowly moving ahead.

Canadians landing on JUNO.

The plan of assault for the Fort Garry tanks incorporated B Squadron, supporting the Queen’s Own Rifles and landing at Bernières-sur-Mer, while C Squadron, supported the North Shore Regiment and would land at St. Aubin-sur-Mer. A and the HQ Squadrons with La Regiment de la Chaudière were to be kept in reserve to land where they were needed most. The swimming tanks of B and C Squadrons were intended to land ahead of the Infantry but due to heavy seas had to be launched close to the shore landing later than planned. B Squadron landed at Bernières-sur-Mer but were unable to scale the sea wall for over an hour until specialised Engineer bridge laying tanks from the British 79th Armoured Division arrived. By 9.00 am, the town had been nearly cleared and A Squadron and the Chaudières landed there. To the East, C Squadron landed at St Aubin-sur-Mer, losing three tanks to enemy fire. As there was no breach in the sea wall, the Squadron had to force its way through a minefield losing another three tanks in the process. The initial appearance of the tanks had thrown the Germans into a panic. Captain Gammon, who commanded the Support Company reported: Lieutenant-Colonel Buell asked me for an anti-tank gun to clear out a pillbox. The pillbox was in the middle of a field 100 yards inshore and the Germans must have been quite frantic as they were

throwing stick grenades over the top and none of our fellows were within 100 yards of them. One shot from an anti-tank gun finished them. By the end of the day, the North Shores had liberated St Aubin-sur-Mer and begun to move to Taillevile, their next objective. The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa was primarily a machine gun battalion under the command of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. The Battalion was organized into A, B and C Companies as machine gun companies while D Company was armed with heavy mortars. Each machine gun platoon supported an infantry battalion with the exception of No. 7 Platoon, which was under the direct command of the North Shore Regiment. The Camerons were equipped with Vickers .303 machine guns, a medium-range weapon fed by 250 round cloth belts of .303 ammunition and fired in full automatic bursts of ten to twenty rounds.

Canadian reserves arriving at JUNO Beach.

Advance reconnaissance parties landed with the infantry and the machine gun platoons followed as soon as the beaches were cleared to allow vehicles to come ashore. The three machine gun companies landed without a single fatality and took up position with their Brigades. A Company, with their Vickers .303 machine guns, supported 7 Brigade in its objectives, while B Company landed with 8 Brigade. No. 7 Platoon, under Lieutenant Sharp, took up position near the railway station at St Aubin-Sur-Mer and

covered the advance of the North Shores onto Tailleville. No. 6 Platoon under Lieutenant Woodward, meanwhile, landed at St Aubin-sur-Mer and cleared the lateral road to Bernieres-Sur-Mer to join up with the Queen’s Own Rifles. The Regiment de la Chaudiere and Queen’s Own Rifles were being targeted by German snipers and an 88 mm anti-tank gun which blocked the approach toward Beny-Sur-Mer. As dusk fell, Major Carson commanding B Company finally managed to orchestrate an infantry attack against the anti-tank gun and disable it. The Cameron Highlanders were then able to push on with the infantry and followed the tanks into Beny-Sur-Mer and Anguerny and darkness saw them astride the main road into Villons-les-Buisson. The Regimental Diary of the Regina Rifles reported that the 1st Battalion landed at Courseulles-surMer at five past eight on the morning at D-Day. The last of four companies hit the beach fifty minutes later after two of their landing craft struck mines and were sunk, forcing the survivors to swim 250 yards to shore – their colleagues were already under heavy fire. At 11.00 am, A Company was still exchanging fire with Germans dug in on sandy waste ground between seafront houses and the main road as it became obvious that the huge bombing raids of recent weeks had not had the impact anticipated. But civilians were already out in the streets to welcome the Canadians, many carrying bunches of flowers or bottles of wine that they’d hidden away for just such a day and, by early afternoon, the small seaside town had been taken and more than 100 Germans had been taken prisoner. Nearby Reviers was reached by 3.00 pm and the Regina Rifles began to fortify their positions, expecting a counter-attack at any moment after reports Panther tanks and a battalion of infantry had been spotted on a road leading to the coast – the 1st Battalion were to spend an uneasy night as they awaited the arrival of their own heavy armour. The Story of the 79th Armoured Division relates how 7 Brigade landed at Coursuelles-sur-Mer behind four assault teams formed from 22 Dragoons and 26 Assault Squadron Royal Engineers. The landing craft were thirty-five minutes behind schedule in hitting the beach and tank crews found that the Duplex Drive Shermans of the 6th Canadian Armoured Regiment had already silenced many of the beach defences, though sniper fire and mortar rounds were still incoming from the sand dunes. Two Crabs cleared a lane up to and over the sand dunes,’ reports the journal, ‘then broke both tracks, striking mines while turning. A third Crab passed and managed to flail a single track clear of the beach and 150 yards inland, as far as a flooded crater sixty feet wide and twelve feet deep caused by a demolished culvert. Its gun remained in action but the tank was well and truly bogged. The tank commander, Lieutenant PD Barraclough, 22 Dragoons, later from his watery resting place shattered the Graye-sur-Mer church tower – an observation post. It was slow progress and often a tank commander would venture inland on foot to see if the tanks could safely cross terrain. There was also the problem of mines. The four teams were separated by the River Suelles and the only bridge had to be given the all-clear before mopping up operations could be completed in Graye-sur-Mer and La Valette. BRITIS H BEACHES To the west, elements of the 79th Armoured Division were also landing on GOLD Beach and, further east SWORD Beach. GOLD Beach lay in the area assigned to the 50th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General Douglas, and the 8th Armoured Brigade, part of Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey’s British Second Army. The beach, between Le Hamel and Ver sur Mer, was defended by the German 716 Static Infantrie Division and units of the veteran I Battalion of the 916 Infantrie Regiment of the 352 Division. They were largely concentrated in fortified beach houses along the coast. The central stretch of the beach was marshy and defended only by 441 Ost Battalion, composed mainly of Russian conscripts.

Defences comprised mainly of light 50 mm guns in concrete emplacements and 75 mm antitank weapons inside pillboxes, though the area was in range of the big guns at Longues-sur-Mer. The flail tanks of Hobart’s Funnies proved invaluable in crossing minefields as the British made good progress inland from GOLD Beach, The also laid fascines across the marshy ground leading off from the beach allowing reserves to land and quickly seek cover from German snipers. By nightfall, Le Hamel and Arromanches had been captured and Port-en-Bassin had fallen by the evening of 8 June after the British joined forces with the Canadians advancing from JUNO Beach but casualties were being taken and some far from the fiercest fighting. Lieutenant Hornby of the Royal Engineers was crushed between a tank and a bulldozer while directing traffic and both Lance Corporal Fairlie and Sergeant Myhil died trying to adjust windsock markers. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the Royal Engineers’ sappers more often than not had to leave the comparative safety of their vehicles to make the beaches and lanes of Normandy safe and the heroism of such as Sapper Glancy, who shinned up ten-foot high stakes under fire to disarm Teller mines on the beach, is sometimes difficult to appreciate. If anything, the 79th Armoured Division were even more involved on SWORD Beach between Lionsur-Mer and Ouistreham. One of their assault groups formed from the 22nd Dragoons, Westminster Dragoons and the 5th Assault Regiment of the Royal Engineers, came ashore at Lion-sur-Mer. One team used Crabs to flail up the beach and over high sand dunes but came under fire from snipers further inland. At Hermanville, one of their AVREs was hit by an anti-tank gun and the crew had to evacuate their tank and head inland on foot where they were later to rout a group of Germans hiding in a farmhouse. Three more AVREs were to be put out of action in quick succession and a Crab was disabled when a track ran over a mine. A bulldozer then suffered a similar fate and a landing craft had to reverse off the beach having only managed to land a single Crab after shellfire badly damaged its landing ramp. The beaches at Ouistreham and La Breche were expected to be among the best defended in Normandy as they were both within the range of guns on the Le Havre promontory so, even if British paratroops had managed to nullify the threat of the battery at Merville, the British could still be vulnerable to shelling. Those fears certainly looked like being realised as the first two Crabs ashore came under heavy fire. A path was cleared off the beach by the flails but a first attempt to lay a box-girder bridge across the dunes was wide of the mark. Sappers resorted to diffusing mines by hand as a second lane was cleared. A second bridge was released early when it was hit by mortar fire and, in the end, Captain Desanges of the Royal Engineers, aided by Sappers Price and Darrington, had to place charges by hand in the sand bank. Unfortunately, the captain was killed by small arms fire as he tried to light the fuses and a bulldozer had to be called forward before a gap could be made. Nearby, Crabs were trying to clear a further path so an SBG (box-girder bridge) could be laid but one of the first DD (duplex-drive) tanks to use it as an exit point off the beach misjudged its course and toppled over the side, blocking the track. A second gap was forged by a bulldozer and a log carpet was laid to aid progress but another DD tank then struck a mine and sappers were forced to clear a path around it by hand to open up the route again. There is no doubt that Hobart’s Funnies had proved their worth. Valuable time was saved by the flails of the Crabs and the laying of box-girder bridges and fascines had allowed the heavy armour to move through areas that the Germans must have though inaccessible to tanks. The petards of the AVREs had also proved invaluable in breaking open concrete gun emplacements and forcing out defenders into the open. Conditions had been against the DD tanks but other specialised equipment had been able to hold its own until reinforcements had arrived and the initial beachheads had been reinforced up and down the coast. The D-Day landings had punched many holes in the Atlantic Wall and it was already beginning to crumble – the Allies had much hard work ahead but were soon in position to take it apart brick by brick.

Moving inland from SWORD Beach, Sherman DDs wit h flot at ion screens lowered and infant ry pass ruined buildings, dest royed by Allied at t acks.

OPERATION AS TONIA The Allies could now begin mopping up German resistance in towns and cities north of the Normandy beaches and the key port of Le Havre was soon within striking distance. The second of four key ports on this stretch of the coast, the Allies arrived on its outskirts sooner than expected after Dieppe fell into Canadian hands with barely a shot fired in anger. This was ironic, given that so many Canadians had lost their lives or being captured in the ill-fated Dieppe raid of two years earlier. Dieppe wasn’t typical, however, and all of the ports up to the Belgian border, labelled Festungen or fortresses by Adolf Hitler himself in several different directives, had orders to defend to the last man if necessary. The Festungskommandant knew he risked a death sentence if he failed to comply. The Festungskommandant in Le Havre’s case was Oberst Eberhard Wildermuth, who wasn’t optimistic about his garrison’s chances of holding out for long against overwhelming numbers. Captured documentation suggested Wildermuth thought the port would be lucky to withstand a concerted Allied attack for more than seventy-two hours and clearly wasn’t eager to sacrifice his men needlessly on the orders of the Führer, safe in Berlin more than 700 miles away. Hermann Eberhard Wildermuth, a veteran of the First World War, had been a suspect in Operation Valkyrie, the plot to kill Hitler but that was partly because he was often a critic of Nazi ideology. Having survived two years on the Eastern Front it was a surprise, therefore, when he arrived from Italy 14 August, 1944 to take charge of the fortress port of Le Havre, replacing Major-General Hans Sauerbray, former commander of the 4 Field Division who was moved to oversee the defence of Trieste.

Herman Eberhard Wildermut h.

Wildermuth did not have much time to stamp his authority on the garrison before the Allies attacked, but he did have in his favour the fact that Le Havre already had formidable man-made and naturally formed defences. It was regarded as one of the strongest points on the Atlantic Wall. On the southern side, the city was protected by the Seine estuary, on the western side was the English Channel and to the east lay the valley of the Lezarde River, which had already been flooded by the Germans creating an artificial ten mile long lake. The remaining north side of the perimeter was defended by the more disciplined troops of the garrison itself and barriers including barbed wire, minefields and concrete bunkers dotted with machine gun and anti-tank emplacements. An anti-tank ditch, seven metres deep and three metres wide, stretched along the whole of the northern flank and was the first obstacle attackers would have to overcome. There were also twenty-eight separate artillery positions within the city itself, though the majority of them were pointing seawards and would be useless against a land-borne attack. Road blocks, pillboxes, fortified houses and concrete bomb shelters were dotted across the city to protect the garrison, estimated to be in the region of between 9,000 and 12,000 men in August 1944. These were made up of more than 4,000 artillery, 1,300 naval personnel and 4,500 infantry of varying ability. The élite troops were a battalion of 36 Grenadier Regiment of the 245 Infanterie Division but they lacked experienced support as the remainder, largely parts of the 5 Sicherungs [Security] Regiment and the 81 Festungabteilung, were not renowned for their fighting qualities. The assault was timed to start on 10 September 1944 with German defences set to be pounded by a naval artillery barrage from the 15-inch guns of HMS Warspite and HMS Erebus. In addition, six medium and two heavy artillery regiments were to launch counter fire against German flak batteries during three days of bombing raids by the RAF and USAAF. Almost 2,000 Allied bombers were to drop more than 8,000 tons of HE (High Explosive) bombs on Le Havre at the start of the attack. While they did not cause many German casualties, they killed over 3,500 French civilians – controversially – as the British refused to allow them to be evacuated. Communication lines were severely disrupted which would later cause

confusion during the infantry assault. This was a poorly judged episode on the part of the British command. The British I Corps was charged with the capture of Le Havre and the assault was to be executed in two distinctive stages. The aim during the first phase was to make holes in the German defences with the specialised armour of the 49th and 51st Divisions to the fore. Under the command of Brigadier Duncan, HQ 30th Armoured Brigade, the Crabs of 22 Dragoons and 1st Lothians & Border Yeomanry, the Crocodiles of the 141st Royal Artillery Corps and the AVREs of 222, 617, 16 and 284 Assault Squadrons Royal Engineers were to span the anti-tank ditch with fascines, flail a path through the minefields and disable as many of the immediate concrete gun emplacements as possible. There had been a lot of rain prior to 10 September but the day itself dawned fine. A drying east wind started to bake the heavy clay soil and it was decided that it would prove hard enough to support the weight of the tanks. French civilians had turned out in force to watch the British advance and The Story of the 79th Armoured Division describes how children played hide-and-seek around gun positions and tank assembly areas. But they scattered as RAF Typhoons screamed overhead to begin a rocket attack on German positions as a pre-cursor to the main assault. A heavily artillery barrage followed before, at 5.45 pm, the leading tanks accelerated toward the heavily defended northern approach to the port. A Squadron, 22 Dragoons, began to flail three breaches through minefield; two were halfcompleted when, owing to ‘heavy going’ and consequent loss of flailing power, Crabs started to blow up on mines. In the right hand breach, four were disabled in this way; the fifth Crab in the group completed and widened the gap to 20 feet. The centre lane was cleared to 24 feet with the loss of three Crabs and the left lane with the loss of two. One other Crab was hit by shell fire and brewed up. Much credit to Captain Barraclough [22 Dragoons] for the completion of these lanes. Six flame-throwing Crocodiles managed to follow the surviving Crabs into the breach and they overcame the most forward defensive position inside eleven minutes. An 88 mm anti-tank gun, firing from higher ground at Mont Trotins to the west, took out a following AVRE, however, while another was disabled by a mine and a third became marooned when trapped between an abandoned tank and an armoured troop carrier. However, one of the three remaining operable tanks was able to destroy the 88 mm position. As well as losing assault armour, the Allies were also suffering heavy infantry losses but, by 10.40 pm, two more central defensive positions had been overrun and forty Germans prisoners taken. But the vanguard of Crocodiles and AVREs then had to halt and wait for support as the right-hand breach had ground to a halt when the laid SBG (small box girder) bridge was hit and destroyed. It took sappers, working under fire, twenty minutes to winch a replacement into place. The road to the main bridge over the River Fontaine was theoretically now clear but that proved not to be the case when a Churchill bridge-layer, known as a ‘Jumbo’, lost its track to a mine that the flails had failed to locate. An AVRE tried to tow it out of the way but it, too, struck a deep-sown mine and was brought to a halt. It was decided to wait until daylight to clear them out of the way. On the left flank, the advance was also faltering. Five Crabs were knocked out in quick succession when they ran over a minefield hidden under corn. The SBG bridge over the anti-tank ditch was then damaged by mortar fire and three more Crabs were blown up as they tried to advance toward their first objective. At 7.00 pm, the infantry was still pinned down by frantic defensive small arms fire but Crocodiles finally to flame a path through the German lines and resistance melted away. By 8.35 pm, the left flank was clear and the British had captured a small chateau which overlooked the main road from the village of Montivilliers and the River Lezarde, making redundant two road blocks that the Germans had constructed out of felled tree trunks. AVREs, meanwhile, were enjoying some success on the right flank. The Germans had two 105 mm field guns and three 88 mm anti-tank guns situated at Mont Trotins, though only three of the guns were in

concrete bunkers. It was one of these an AVRE took out with a direct hit from its petard. In addition to the specialized armour, the British also had Ram Kangaroo armoured personnel carriers of the 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment, which utilised the chassis of the Canadian Ram tank design with the turret removed. They had first been used in the initial breakout from Caen and were a great help to the attacking infantry formations, but progress was still slow. Armoured bulldozers had to be called up to fill in bomb craters and Crabs were still being disabled by mines. The main strongpoint on the right flank finally fell, however, and a bridge was seized alongside the church at Pontaine-la-Mallet opening the way for a direct attack on the battery at Mont Totins. The advance was progressing more quickly than the Germans anticipated, a fact reinforced when a Scottish company commander, using a captured ground position as a temporary shelter, heard the telephone ring. It was the German battalion HQ giving out its latest orders. He politely asked them if they wished to surrender while they were on the line. They refused, but it was later discovered that other positions had been listening in and took up the Scot’s invitation! The Crabs of the 1st Lothian and Border Yeomanry were now making significant inroads in the German minefields and accompanying infantry quickly overran the troublesome gun positions at Mont Trotins on the second day of the assault, allowing more attention to be focused on the southern plateau. There had been some resistance in the orchards to the east of the flooded River Lizarde but flame-throwing Crocodiles of the Royal Armoured Corps quickly quelled any thoughts of a counter-attack and, by the middle of the afternoon, infantry were massed on the Route Nationale, the main route into Le Havre itself. Forces were also beginning to move on the port of Harfleur on the Seine estuary, the scene of a similar siege by Henry V some six hundred years earlier, though the Germans still held a hill among trees to the east which had been given the code name ‘Oscar’ and AVREs attempting to encircle the position had come under heavy shelling and mortar fire from inside the dock region of Le Havre itself. With ‘Wade’ charges destroying the remaining road blocks, however, the defenders were eventually outnumbered and outgunned and forced to surrender. Prisoners were now becoming a problem for the British, with Germans waving the white flag in growing numbers and having to be moved back through the lines to the north under armed guard. On the morning of the 12 September, the Allies quickly secured Harfleur as more prisoners-of-war were taken. An AVRE used a ‘dustbin’ to demolish another road block but the Germans were still resisting. The crew of another AVRE lost their lives when an 88 mm anti-tank gun scored a direct hit but that position quickly surrendered when surrounded. Another 300 prisoners were captured as a French Resistance patrol led attackers to a German barracks, where the remaining garrison had gone into hiding. Advancing on both sides of the Canal Vauban, the 51st (Highland) and the 49th (West Riding) Divisions finally managed to secure the docks though they had been rendered virtually unusable to all but small craft, and took out the last remaining pockets of resistance as well as capturing wounded garrison commander Eberhard Wildermuth, together with his artillery commander. The Allied casualties numbered five hundred killed and wounded for the whole period since the containment of Le Havre, while the Germans lost several hundred killed and 11,300 captured. It was testament to the bravery of the German defenders that they failed to immediately surrender in the face of extensive use of the flame-throwing Crocodiles, which one German officer described as ‘unfair and very un-British’. Field Marshal Montgomery later commented in his memoirs (Normandy to the Baltic) that: Le Havre constituted one of the strongest fortresses of the Atlantic Wall and had been provided with most elaborate concrete defences, extensive minefields and other obstacles, but it had been reduced after forty-eight hours’ fighting. Le Havre had been all but levelled. Over 100,000 of its population had been killed in RAF raids,

executed or sent to concentration camps in four years of occupation and more than 15,000 of its buildings either destroyed or damaged. The port had twelve miles of quays and docks destroyed with 350 shipwrecks submerged or partly submerged in the harbour and it played no further part in the war.

Chapter Ten FORTRESS OR FOLLY? CONCLUSIONS

I

T IS ALMOST CERTAIN that the Atlantic Wall was intended to mitigate German military weakness in the West and ostensibly deter an Allied invasion rather than form an impenetrable barrier. Ultimately, Hitler and his generals knew that once the Wall was breached, little stood in the way of an Allied advance to the German border. There might have been a chance of repulsing the Normandy invasion had the 1st Panzer Korps, based approximately 100 miles from Caen, and mobile heavy artillery been better situated or given permission to advance earlier. But a centralised and over-complex German communication structure and the fact that none of their senior commanders were in the vicinity lost the only chance the Nazi regime had to drive the Allies back into the sea and the window of opportunity was quickly closed. In researching this book, I read somewhere that the Atlantic Wall ‘took two years to build and two hours to breach. And once breached, the rest of it largely became redundant’. That is grossly oversimplifying both the construction of the Wall in France and the reasoning behind it. Putting aside politics, Germany’s high command were not fools and, though under the control of what history accepts was a tyrant, they never intended that the Atlantic Wall would have the capability of repulsing the invasion on its own, merely that it bought time for Panzer reserves to move up from positions in the Seine valley and launch a co-ordinated counterattack. That plan may well have worked had Hitler, Rommel and von Runstedt not been trying to outmanoeuvre each other. After all the US forces were penned down for several hours on OMAHA Beach and it was only the failure of the German armour to respond quickly enough that eventually allowed the Americans to move inland. It also should not be forgotten that most of the troops on the Atlantic Wall were either second-rate soldiers or Ost Bataillone conscripted from Eastern Europe. The Russian Front had tied up most of Germany’s elite fighting force.

Could the Germans have created more Panzer divisions with the steel used to reinforce strongpoints and battery bunkers on the Atlantic Wall? Probably, but would not those tanks have been sent east, where the immediate need was greatest, or west on the off-chance an invasion fleet would land somewhere along a largely indefensible coastline? Without the Atlantic Wall, the Allied invasion probably would have achieved all of its D-Day objectives with ease. The advance across France and into Germany was delayed much longer than anyone had envisaged by the courage and tenacity of those Germans left behind to defend the fortified Channel ports. They knew there was no hope of escape once surrounded but it took a prolonged campaign to finally open the likes of Calais and Dunkerque to Allied shipping.

It could be argued, therefore, that Germany made the most of the resources it had at its disposal. Captured armaments were recycled as a matter of routine and slave labour and concrete was plentiful and cheap. Had German strategy complemented the fortifications and more responsive tactics been employed, there may well have been a different outcome, as Feldmarschal von Rundstedt reflected on his capture. He lamented: Had I been able to move the armoured divisions which I had behind the coast, I am convinced that the invasion would not have succeeded. The absence of the Luftwaffe to protect the skies and constant counter-productive interference from higher levels, certainly played major roles in the defeat of the German Army after the Normandy invasion, according to von Rundstedt. But the former German commander-in-chief on the Western Front also admitted that he and his senior officers and been outsmarted by the Allies and took several decisions that were to compound their plight.

Von Rundst edt discusses what might have been if it had not been for… wit h his American capt ors.

Von Rundstedt had surmised that the landings on OMAHA and UTAH and subsequent push up into the Cotentin Peninsula were merely a feint to distract from landings on either the Belgian coast or in the Pas De Calais farther west. By the time he and his subordinates realised that the 6 June invasion wasn’t a

false front, it was too late to save anything but the main reserve force of the German Army in France. It was also alleged that interference from Berlin had wrecked earlier plans for the defence of France against invasion. Von Rundstedt knew there were not enough troops to cover the possible areas of invasion and also faced a constant battle to prevent those he had under his command being allocated to duties elsewhere. When he was finally given carte blanche, it was too late as the RAF and USAF had such overwhelming air superiority that they quickly reduced his reinforcements to tatters, cutting communications and destroying logistics and established defensive positions. The position on the ground immediately prior to D-Day was a shambles, Von Rundstedt admitted. He and former Chief of Staff, General Blumentritt, highlighted several basic weaknesses in the German defences. There was an inadequate number of troops to cover stretches of exposed coastline with gaps in the Atlantic Wall of up to thirty miles in places. The Wall itself was ‘anything but a wall, just a bit of cheap bluff’ according to von Rundstedt, and there was no organised reserve under central command to counterattack where the invasion came. Von Rundstedt, like many other high-ranking German generals, said he did not have access to his country’s most proficient troops. He complained bitterly that many of his best units had been sent on a ‘fool’s errand’ to Italy, and throughout his command and after, he maintained the notion that it was, Madness to continue the war in Italy that way. That frightful ‘boot’ of a country should have been evacuated. Mussolini should have been left where he was and we should have held a decent front with a few divisions on the Alpine frontier. They should not have taken away the best divisions from me in the West in order to send them to Italy. Of course, he knew that German High Command was running out of troops on all fronts. ‘Had I been able to move the armoured divisions which I had behind the coast, I am convinced that the invasion would not have succeeded.’ he told the Americans, ‘If I had been able to move the troops, then my air force would also have been in a position to attack hostile ships.’ Von Rundstedt revealed that his original plan would have been to ensure that the Allies would not have been able to sail their battleships close to shore so that they could engage the coastal batteries and forces would have sustained prohibitive losses during landing operations. To some extent, that happened at OMAHA but the British were able to come ashore with relative impunity on SWORD and the Canadians also made rapid inroads from JUNO. ‘That was all a question of air force, air force, and again air force,’ he commented. Von Rundstedt wanted the landing beaches to resemble the disastrous Dieppe raid, only on a much larger scale, and remained adamant that the Allies would have had a much rougher ride had he been able to control his armoured divisions as he desired, ‘We would certainly have been better off if a good many things had been different as regards the distribution of forces.’ he reflected. As for the Atlantic Wall itself, Von Rundstedt admitted it was a gamble that didn’t pay off, ‘The enemy probably knew more about it than we did ourselves,’ he confessed, proclaiming the only wall that mattered in the Second World War was the one that ran from the Scheldt in Antwerp to the Seine in Paris, ‘But further than that – one has only to look at it for one’s self in Normandy to see what rubbish it was.’ With the exception of the fortress port of Cherbourg the Atlantic Wall in northern France, according to Von Rundstedt, merely consisted of a few pillboxes in holes in the sand so far apart that ‘you needed field glasses to see the next one’. It was simply propaganda, he said, but admitted that the German people had believed it. He thought, however, that the Allies would have easily worked out its weaknesses because of their extensive air reconnaissance and the help of the local French Resistance. Reflecting on the subject of German coastal batteries and artillery, the Kriegsmarine policy of mounting coastal guns as if they were on ships came in for particularly heavy criticism. It was undoubtedly a major design fault that the vast majority could fire only out to sea. Subsequently, they were

of no use to land forces once encircled and the fact that most coastal batteries incorporated mainly captured guns meant it became increasingly difficult to keep them supplied with the correct ammunition. Finally, von Rundstedt confessed that the Americans had totally caught him and his staff off guard by using the Cotentin Peninsula, and ultimately Cherbourg, as a giant beachhead. None of the German hierarchy could believe that the landings in Normandy were aimed primarily at securing a harbour. The route to the interior of France, after all, was three times as long from Cherbourg. Even as the Allies poured into the Cotentin Peminsula, most Germans still believed the major thrust would come through either Dunkerque or Antwerp and toward the Ruhr, which was why the troop concentrations were more compact in that sector and the fortifications more robustly constructed. The Cotentin, the German navy had assured field commanders, was only accessible at high tide and even then rocks and reefs below the water would wreak havoc on troop ships and landing craft. Of course, the Allies were to gain a further advantage by landing at low tide. ‘We probably didn’t know about the floating harbours.’ Von Rundstedt admitted in explaining that the Germans had not considered Normandy as a likely landing area. ‘I, at least, didn’t. Whether the Navy knew of them I don’t know.’ In June 1944, there were six or seven Panzer divisions in reserve but they were well spread out behind the front line in the west. Two were immediately available when the invasion started and two others were able to join the fray on the first day. Another one came from Belgium and a sixth was due to arrive from southern France. 2 SS Panzerdivision Das Reich arrived late, however, due to the action of the Resistance. ‘The defensive role played by the armoured divisions near Caen during July and August was a great mistake,’ Von Rundstedt confessed, ‘but it was done on the orders of higher authority. We wanted to relieve the armoured divisions by infantry, but it was impossible in the bulge in front of Caen where they were also under fire from ships’ guns. You can’t relieve any troops then.’ Von Rundstedt’s plan, which was rejected by Hitler, was to withdraw the armoured forces behind the River Orne to the east of Ouistreham, form up the reserve infantry and field artillery there, and then use the tanks as mobile units to attack the British and Canadian forces on the flanks. This option was backed up by the senior tank commander, General Geyr von Schweppenburg, but the armoured divisions were left where they were on the Führer’s personal orders. In conclusion, two vital factors led to the breaching of the Atlantic Wall and subsequently the success of the D-Day landings. Firstly, there was the smashing of the main lines of military communication and transport, particularly the railway junctions. Available reserves couldn’t be moved to the threatened areas and made the resupply of armaments to batteries and strongpoints near impossible. The second factor was the attacks on road links and marching columns. This made it extremely difficult to move anything during daylight hours, and created bottlenecks of fuel and ammunition which could then be targeted by carpet bombing. Senior Allied commanders were divided over the impact of this on German defences but Von Rundstedt said it had a profound effect on troops stationed on the Atlantic Wall in northern France. It also demoralized those reserves held in the rear. German planes by this time were outnumbered ten to one and any long-range reconnaissance had become ‘absolutely nonexistent’. He was also scathing over the impact of ‘Rommel’s asparagus’ which was planted with much fanfare as an effective defence against airborne invasion, but in many places was either covered by drifting sand or washed away by high tides. So did the Atlantic Wall in Normandy and the Pas de Calais do what it was designed to do? On many levels, I believe the answer was in the affirmative. As a tool of propaganda, it reassured the German civil population that the Western Front was well protected. Likewise, it forced the Allies to take special measures to breach it. Concrete consumption on the Atlantic Wall actually declined in the months prior to D-Day as the RAF cut supply lines so one could argue it would have formed an even more imposing

barrier had all the defences planned been carried through to completion and most of those with the authority to order reserves into action had not been absent or unwilling to act on D-Day.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundst edt , overseeing plans of t he At lant ic Wall Const ruct ion.

A Propaganda post er in Dut ch and t he coast al fort ificat ion is depict ed as a cont inuous line. It declares t hat 1943 will not be like 1918 when t he Second Reich was forced t o sign an armist ice.

But the fact remains that once most sites had been circumvented and the allies had crossed the Seine, the game was more or less up as far as the defenders were concerned and thousands of German troops were sacrificed in the Festunghäfe ports with no hope of rescue. There is probably some substance to the theory, therefore, that it wasn’t the Atlantic Wall that failed, but those German generals who planned around it.

Rommel wat ches a firing excercise t ake t ake place on t he At lant ic Wall.

Chapter Eleven RECOMMENDED TOUR NORMANDY FORT DE ROULE/GALERIE 117 – CHERBOURG Perched on the top of Mont Roule, the Second Empire fortress enjoys a commanding view over the city and surrounding area of Cherbourg and was a key strongpoint for a French Defence as the Germans advanced in 1940. Then again Fort de Roule was the scene of fierce fighting in 1944 as it sat above a gun battery and armoury enclosed within the hillside. The Liberation Museum was created within the fort in 1954. A themed route leads visitors through the story of the Occupation and the battle for the Cotentin Peninsula but Galerie 117, a more recent Second World War museum contained within the hill and providing tours of the German battery and associated caverns, was closed in January 2011 having being placed into receivership. I found it the more interesting of the two museums but, at the time of writing, it remains to be seen if it will re-open.

Wat ching for t he invaders.

A Royal Navy diver prepares t o inspect t he damage in Cherbourg Harbour.

Quai Alexandre, Cherbourg, short ly aft er t he German surrender.

AZEVILLE - UTAH BEACH Built by the Todt Organization between 1941 and 1944, close to Ste Mère Eglise, the Azeville Battery staffed by the 1261 Heeres Küsten Artillerie Regiment was considered a vital part of the Atlantic Wall. Equipped with a complete defence system and impressive underground complex, it was one of the Allies’ prime objectives on 6 June 1944. It saw some of the first action of the Landings and bombarded UTAH Beach for the first three days. It was finally taken after fierce fighting 9 June.

Turm 3, Azeville.

There is plenty of material about the history of the Azeville Battery, its construction, camouflage and the daily life of a garrison in the heart of a Normandy village, not to mention the battery’s role in the events of June 1944. The site has an amazing underground network and many of the buildings, including two H671 and two H650 casemates, are still intact. An audioguided tour is available in several languages and allows you to see it all in your own time. Directions: From Ste Mere Eglise, take the D15 and turn left at the fork heading for Azeville which is on the D269.

Machine gun Ringstand dest royed by t he US Naval shelling.

Camouflaged casemat e at Azeville wit h paint ed arches, veranda and villa st one walls, all int ended t o confuse t he enemy.

Ent rance t o personnel shelt er, Crisbecq.

CRIS BECQ BATTERY – UTAH BEACH The battery of Crisbecq was built to be the main strongpoint of the Cotentin Peninsula’s east coast, but only two casemates were completed out of four by D-Day. Located in the village of Saint-Marcouf, several of the naval battery’s bunkers have been restored and the damage inflicted by American battleships and shelling by its sister battery at Azeville can still be seen on the surviving H683 casemates and adjoining bunkers.

Ent rance t o underground complex.

Damage caused by shell fired from Azeville Bat t ery.

Open emplacement and Turm 1, Crisbecq Bat t ery.

Directions: From Ste Mere Eglise, take the D15 coast road for Ravenoville. Turn left onto the D14 and the battery is north of the village of Saint-Marcouf after a sign for the Ferme La Perette.

T he village of Saint e-Mère-Église played an import ant role in t he Normandy landings as it st ood in t he middle of rout e N13, which t he Germans would have most likely used on any count erat t ack for t he t roops landing on UTAH and OMAHA Beaches. In t he early morning of 6 June 1944 mixed unit s of t he U.S. 82nd Airborne and U.S. 101st Airborne Divisions parachut ed direct ly on t op of t he t own and were immediat ely engaged by t he defending

Germans. Serving t o commemorat e t he import ant event is t he model of one parat rooper dangling from t he church t ower. T his unique memorial depict s parat rooper John St eele of t he 505t h PIR, whose parachut e caught up on t he spire of t he village church. From his elevat ed posit ion he was able t o observe t he fight ing t o capt ure t he square and t own. He was suspended t here for t wo hours, pret ending t o be dead, before t he Germans pulled him in and t ook him prisoner. St eele lat er escaped and rejoined his division. T he 505 Parachut e Infant ry Regiment at t acked t he village, capt uring t hirt y Germans and killing anot her eleven.

POINTE DU HOC – OMAHA BEACH La Pointe du Hoc was a major strategic objective on D-Day. The Germans built there a major coastal battery that could threaten both UTAH and OMAHA Beaches but only two of six planned casemates had been built when Colonel Rudder’s 2nd US Rangers stormed the battery in the early hours of 6 June, 1944. The site is now under US administration and several areas are undergoing renovation to prevent surviving bunkers and gun emplacements slipping over the cliffs. Pointe Du Hoc is memorable for the huge bomb craters that litter the area a considerable way inland and there is a walkway from which the lunar-type landscape can be viewed. Overall, however, there is a feeling that the site is a tourist attraction rather than a war memorial and the museum/shop at the entrance is sadly lacking in information.

Point du Hoc – a popular t ourist at t ract ion.

Ammunit ion st orage at Pont e du Hoc wit h connect ing t unnels and passages.

Directions: Signposted from the D514 coast road between Grancamp-Maisy and Vierville-sur-mer. GRANCAMP-MAIS Y – OMAHA BEACH Recently unearthed site now thought to have been integral to the Germans’ Atlantic Wall defences. The battery had four 105 mm howitzers, three in casemates, and six 150 mm howitzers in open emplacements

as well as numerous field guns, 50mm antitank weapons and two Renault tank turrets mounted on bunkers. The site also had a large communication bunker and hospital. A small shop and office is at the museum entrance along with a large car park. Directions: From the town of Grancamp-Maisy, follow the D514 (Avenue Emile Damecour) and the signs for Isigny-sur-Mer. Continue through the village of Maisy and take the Route des Perruques on the right. The Maisy Battery is 200 metres down on the left.

Camouflage net t ing over emplacement at Maisy (gun not original). Not e t he damage t o t he gun barrel.

Foundat ions of t he st rongpoint medical quart ers at Maisy.

Casemat e overlooking OMAHA Beach.

COLLEVILLE-S UR-MER – OMAHA BEACH Strongpoint with good views along OMAHA Beach. The garrison here kept US troops pinned down on the beach for several hours on D-Day there are two surviving H689 casemates which housed 75mm anttank guns. There are also mortar and machine-gun Tobrukstände and the skeletons of personnel bunkers. Directions: Signposted from the D514 (Route d’OMAHA Beach) between the villages of Saint-Laurensur-mer and Cabourg.

American Cemet ery and memorial above t he beaches.

LONGUES -S UR-MER – OMAHA BEACH Arguably the most iconic and most-photographed battery in Normandy and a setting for the film The Longest Day. All four of its casemates are still standing and three still contain the battery’s original 150 mm guns inside their steel turrets. There is free access to the site and a small shop and visitors can also walk through former minefields to the intact observation bunker with views across a huge expanse of coastline. Directions: Signposted from the D514 between Arromanches and Port-en-Bessin. Plenty of off-road parking but it can get a little muddy after heavy rain.

One of t he remarkably int act casemat es wit h t he original gun st ill in place at Longues sur Mer.

Canada House 1944 and as it appears present -day.

BERNIERE-S UR-MER – JUNO BEACH Seaside town which was the site of fierce fighting on D-Day. There are several monuments on the seafront to Canadian regiments including ‘Canada House’, which can be seen on much of the Allied footage of the D-Day landings, on which there is a plaque commemorating the sacrifice of the men of the Queen’s Own Rifles. Directions: Can be found straddling the D514 between Coursuelles-sur-mer and St Aubin-sur-mer. COURS EULLES -S UR-MER – JUNO BEACH The JUNO Beach Visitor Centre is alongside the western quay of the harbour and the Suelles River which splits Courseulles in two. Staffed by Canadian students, there are interactive displays inside covering both the Second World War and a timeline of life in Canada plus a well-stocked shop. During the summer months, there are frequent tours including a look inside a nearby personnel bunker and a description of the route taken by Canadian troops from the beach on D-Day.

Sherman t ank monument , Coursuelles sur Mer.

One Charlie – recovered Churchil AVRE, ext erior rest ored paint ed and displayed on a concret e base.

The eastern quay features a restored Canadian Sherman DD tank that was salvaged in the 1990s. The former station building also saw fierce fighting on D-Day and there are several plaques along the seafront and promenade. Directions: Can be reached on the D12 from Banville or on the D514 from Bernieres-sur-Mer. ARROMANCHES -LES -BAINS – GOLD BEACH The D-Day Museum at Arromanches is appropriately located in the Place de 6 Juin. It principally commemorates the construction of ‘Port Winston’, the British Mulberry Harbour which was the gateway to Europe for thousands of Allied troops in 1944. Remnants of the artificial harbour can still be seen offshore and the museum has a scaled reconstruction as one of its exhibits as well as archive footage of the D-Day landings. A guided tour in English is available if booked in advance. Arromanches 360 is a nine-screen circular cinema which describes the Normandy landings through archive and newsreel footage of the time. The film has little of real note for those particularly interested in the Atlantic Wall and I found it overpriced, particularly when combined with the car park charge.

Directions: The 360 museum is on the main D514 above the actual town, to visit the D-Day Museum you must descend into the town itself either from the 360 museum or via the Rue Charles Laurent. There is a one-way system in operation in Arromanches as many of the streets are quite narrow. ATLANTIC WALL MUS EUM – SWORD BEACH Housed in the five-storey former observation post which overlooked Ouistreham and Riva Bella, the museum has several reconstructions of typical life inside a German Second World War bunker and views across the harbour and out to sea can still be seen through the original rangefinder on the top floor. There are also several rooms containing wartime photographs and memorabilia from the area, and Second World War armour, transportation and beach obstacles surround the building. Directions: Follow the signs for the Ferry terminal on the D84 into Ouistreham then follow the road around the harbour for Riva Bella. The museum is signposted but down a side road onto a housing estate and a one-way system is in operation. Alternately, approaching from the west, take the D514 from Lionsur-mer and watch out for the signs for Riva Bella after passing through Colleville-Montgomery-Plage. Street parking is available.

St aff living quart ers, Ouist reham.

MERVILLE BATTERY – SWORD BEACH A huge site that’s been well preserved and features a command bunker, gun emplacements and ten other bunkers, including four H611 casemates designed to place enfilade fire on what would become SWORD

Beach. The number one bunker has been turned into a sound and vision experience which effectively replicates conditions when the battery was attacked by British paratroops in the early hours of D-Day. Other bunkers include memorials and tributes to other Allied servicemen who gave their lives to liberate the battery on consecutive days in June, 1944 and there is also a restored Dakota DC3 open to the public which was the principal transport of the Allied parachute troops in the Second World War. Directions: Accessible via the D223 or the D514, the museum can be found off the Avenue Alexandre de Lavergne on the way to Descanneville from Merville.

Merville Bat t ery.

Chapter Twelve HOW TO GET THERE Normandy is well served by crossings with Brittany Ferries (http://www.brittany-ferries.com” http://www.brittany-ferries.com) sailing from Portsmouth to Caen and Cherbourg. Both ports were key to the Allied invasion of France and still bear the scars of conflict. The former is the best option for those wishing to tour the landing beaches of SWORD, GOLD, JUNO and OMAHA as you actually come ashore in Ouistreham, opposite the Atlantic Wall Museum, and immediately find yourself on the D514 which runs parallel to many points of interest concerning the Atlantic Wall. Brittany Ferries also operate an overnight service between Poole and Cherbourg, which is ideal for touring the Cotentin Peninsula and the sites associated with UTAH Beach. From 2011, LD Lines (www.ldlines.co.uk) is also beginning a twice-daily service between Portsmouth and Le Havre, which is quicker. Currently, there are no regular daily flights to Normandy from the UK though CityJet (www.cityjet.com) runs a service on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays between London City Airport and Deauville and Flybe (www.cityjet.com) flies three times a week during summer between Southampton and Cherbourg. There is every conceivable type of accommodation available in Lower Normandy which is a popular holiday destination. I found www.normandie-tourisme.fr to be a useful source of information, while there are several specialist tour operators for those wishing to visit the main Atlantic Wall sites. Details of Leger Coach Holidays can be found at the web site www.visitbattlefields.co.uk, while there are different itineraries to be found at battlefield-breaks.com. Battlefield Tours also run guided tours to the Normandy Landing Beaches every year www.battlefieldtours.co.uk When seeking more precise information about locations, eating places, etc. I’ve always found the local Office du Tourisme to be tremendously helpful. They are usually signposted and found on or near the high street and the larger towns usually have an English speaker on the staff.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Without the help, direction and encouragement of the following, writing this book would not have been possible. Firstly my wife Maria, who is responsible for much of the original photography in this volume, spent many hours translating documents and books for me and didn’t complain about having to spend her summer holidays in museums or scrambling around ruined gun emplacements in northern France. Thanks also to Simon for his original sketches, and the following individuals, institutions and points of reference for their previous research on Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and associated sites as well as the military hardware of the Second World War. In no particular order: www.one35th.com The Pill Box Study Group The Tanks by Captain Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart The Little-Known Story of Percy Hobart by Trevor J. Constable The Victors: Eisenhower And His Boys: Men Of World War II by Stephen Ambrose Remembering D-Day, Personal Histories of Everyday Heroes by Martin Bowman History Channel www.worldwar2history.info Bundesarchiv subterraneanhistory.co.uk atlantikwall.tk Canadian War Museum The North Shore Regiment Juno Beach Centre, Courseulles-sur-Mer Smashing The Atlantic Wall by Patrick Delaforce (Pen & Sword) The Atlantic Wall by Steven J Zaloga (Osprey Publishing) D-Day Fortifications in Normandy by Steven J Zaloga (Osprey Publishing) Cotentin Tourisme The Story of the 79th Armoured Division Anon The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II by Chris Bishop (Sterling Publishing Company) Royal Engineers Museum, Gillingham Bovington Tank Museum Normandy To The Baltic by Bernard Law Montgomery Dieppe by Major Tim Saunders (Pen & Sword)