I have a question about Sword beach from D-day. I was wondering what kind of defences the Germans used on this beach. I read that the town that was on that beach was heavily fortified but with what?
There are several good books on this particular Beach. I have the one by Osprey and will check back on it tomorrow for more info. The beach it self was fairly flat and had several waterfront villages/structures that were fortified by the Germans in addition to purpose built bunkers. Very different topography than the American beaches.
ok, this is per Osprey’s Campaign book D-Day #3, Sword Beach & the British Airborne landings:
Riva-Bella Strongpoint (WN 18) six 15.5cm guns in open emplacements
Casino Riva-Bella Strongpoint (WN 18) casemated 7.5cm and 5cm guns, six casemated machineguns
La Breche Strongpoint (WN 20) casemated 8.8 cm gun, two casemated 5 cm guns
Lion-sur-Mer Strongpoint (WN 21) two casemated 5 cm guns
Colleville Strongpoint (WN 16) four casemated 10 cm guns
Colleville Strongpoint (WN 17) Underground HQ of 736th Inf Regt
Ouisterham Strongpoint (WN 14) HQ 1st Btn 736th Inf Regt
Ouisterham Strongpoint (WN 12) four casemated 15.5 cm guns
Wn’s 18, 20, and 21 were waterfront positions in front of local buildings fronted with stakes, dragon’s teeth, hedgehogs, barbed wire, minefields, mortar and “tobruk” pits. WN 18’s 15.5 cm guns also had an anti tank ditch to it’s rear.
WN’s 12 14 16 and 17 were primarily underground positions behind the waterfront villages.
WN is the German abbreviation for Wiederstandneste, followed by thier numerical designation.
Casemated cuns were usually emplaced to fire laterally along the length of the beach with protection to the seaward side from naval gunfire. The entire beach was covered by machine guns with interlocking fields of fire for mutual support. The beach itself was fairly narrow with only a low rise of dunes or a seawall separating the inland terrain.
i’ve been to normandy 1 month ago on holliday… i don’t have pic’s from sword beach… other than pegasus bridge… but i do have them from the other english beaches gold and juno i figure it’s about the same
i’ll upload some bunker and beach pic’s
first a bunker type i saw a lot on the brittish beaches with it’s back facing the sea and able to fire in the length of the beaches and inland. on the other side of town… or a couple of hundres yards to the right or left was a similar bunker with interlocking fire. and in between where “tobruk” bunkers… holes of concrete with either a mg or a mortar in it.
this is a tobruk bunker… they where in the dunes but also build in the seawall.
this one was at utah beach… i couldn’t find one quickly of the brittish beaches (have a lot of pic’s).
the roof of a bunker i think it was a mg bunkger at the town of arromanches (with my mom standing in front of it) on this pic you can see what a massacre it must have been… again with interlocking fire from the other side of town, on the right side about 4 or 5 bunkers with mg and “at” and artillary bunkers… on the left i counted 3 and in the middle 3 tobruk bunkers.
you can also see the typical town in that area… wit the flat beach and seawall
next a pillbox in the town of ouisterham… this one is now a monument for the french comando kiefer, but it stood on a bunker looking over the beach.
last is a diorama that is on display at the amerika-goldbeach museum it’s a small museum in two parts… one the airbridge of mail with amerika and the other part of gold beach it had the best diorama’s in all of normandy i think. it shows the invasion of the thown of la riviere i believe.
it’s in 1/72 scale
hope it helps
Aren’t those ramp obstacles set up backwards in the dio? I could be wrong, but I thought they were meant to “flip” a landing craft?
Great photos, BTW
Steve
jeah you’re right about the ramp obstakles… they are facing the wrong way…
but they weren’t ment to flip the landingcraft over… but there should be a mine on the top so the craft slides over the ramp… and hit’s the mine.
but they even got it wrong in some of the movies [8D]
Yeah, I heard that even Spielberg said “[censored] it”, after seeing his all facing the wrong way.
Rob, Great pics of the beach fortifications. The casemated gun appears to be a 5cm type. Sounds like from your visit to Normandy that you gained a real appreciation of the difficulties the assault troops faced.
yeah i did… but i think everybody who comes there feels that way… i visited all the beaches.
when i was at utah beach… it was low tide so i walket all the way to the water line. well at utah there are still allot of bunkers at the dunes edge so from the waterline seeing all those bunkers with visable interlocking fire… it just gave me the shivers or goose bumps (don’t know how to say in english). that kind of sight gives you a deep respect toward the allied soldier that day.
i’m making an online fotobook… when it’s finished i’ll post a link
Hey I just found a photo of those beach obstacles, check it out.
It appears that one for sure goes towards the water, but also another one infront is facing the “right” way. I think they put them both ways maybe.
And great photos Robbioo, thanks for posting them.
See what happens when you get cheap labor? They should have hired union![swg] That pic sure looks like a movie still though. Very clear image.
Im 99% sure its authentic, the look of the back ground being slightly blurry and stuff like that. Im no expert but it looks like old WW2 photos. Plus I think the site was full of WW2 photos also.
Check out what is on the web. Brittanica has a good section on the Normandy landings with multiple views of the beaches and what the Germans had and where. Links can take you to other good sights…there is no shortage. Wikipedia has a few “external” links that can help as well.
According to the Brittanica site they are definitely backwards.
John