The 4.Kompanie of Infanterie Regiment 919, 709.Infanterie Division, provides an example. This company was deployed along the Cotentin coast from St. Martin-de-Varreville to Ravenoville, a distance about 4km wide. This sector was a few kilometers to the north of Utah Beach on D-Day. Since German tactical doctrine recommended that a company defend a sector 400 to 1,000m wide, this sector was about four to ten times wider than would be assigned to an unfortified company in normal field conditions.
This company was commanded by Oberleutnant Werner, numbered about 170 men and deployed in three strongpoints, WN10, WN11 and StP 12. Of the three strongpoints, WN10 on the right flank was by far the largest and most amply equipped and it is shown in more detail on illustration on page 35.
The WN11 strongpoint in the center was primarily the company headquarters. It had minefields on either side and its principal bunkers facing the beach included two tobruks with 37mm French tank turrets, an artillery observation bunker, two machine-gun entrenchments and a 50mm gun in a Vf600 gun pit. Bunkers within the strongpoint included a mortar and a machine-gun tobruk, and five personnel and munitions bunkers. The northernmost strongpoint, StP 12, was small but heavily fortified and included four tobruks with 37mm French tank turrets, a H612 enfilade casement with 75mm gun, a modified H677 casemate with 50mm gun and a large H644 observation bunker with armored cupola.
As can be seen from this description, several types of bunkers were very common in these infantry strongpoints. By far the most common were the tobruks, which were not a single type of bunker but rather a generic term for a wide range of small defensive works characterized by a small circular fighting position, hence their official designation as Ringstand. They received their popular name from a type of Italian defensive position used during the Tobruk fighting in 1942 which had been constructed from a length of circular cement pipe buried vertically in the sand to create a protected firing pit. The German version was more elaborate since it generally included one or more compartments for the protection of the crew and for ammunition stowage. They were most often used to create a machine-gun position, but another common variant was a variety of mortar pit for either the battalion 81mm mortars, or company 50mm mortars. A third common application was to mount the turret from French Renault FT, Renault R-35 or Hotchkiss H39 tanks on the tobruk, all armed with a version of the short 37mm tank gun.
Besides its use in Vf600 open gun pits, the 50mm pedestal gun was also located in enfilade casements such as this H667, part of the St. Marcouf-les-Gougins strongpoint. (NARA)
One of the more elaborate mounts for the 50mm pedestal gun was the R600, which had the usual hexagonal gun pit on the top of the structure, but included an alert room and ammunition storage in a chamber below. Normally, this casemate would have been buried in the edge of a coastal dune, but this example on the beach at Wissant has been left stranded by coastal erosion since the war, exposing its interesting shape, including the pair of rear stairways to the gun pit above. (Author’s collection)
Another widely used fighting position was the Vf600 gun pit, typically fit with the 50mm anti-craft gun. This was a six-sided open concrete emplacement with semi-protected cavities for ammunition stowage around its inner perimeter. The 50mm anti-craft gun was an adaptation of the obsolete 50mm tank gun mounted on a simple pedestal with a shield added for crew protection. Both the short (KwK 38) and long (KwK 39) versions of the gun were used and a number of these guns were re-bored to fire 75mm ammunition. An interesting hybrid of the tobruk and Vf600 was the Michelmannstand, developed by Col. Kurt Michelmann, the commander of Festungs Pioneer Stab 27 responsible for fortifying Dieppe and upper Normandy. This was a prefabricated reinforced concrete machine-gun pit that could be rapidly emplaced on beaches or other areas in lieu of more conventional and time-consuming construction techniques. Although it resembled a shrunken Vf600, its tactical application was closer to that of a tobruk.
One of the most effective tactical beach defense bunkers was the H677 enfilade casemate for the 88mm PaK 43/41 anti-tank gun. This could control 3km or more of coastline and 116 were built along the Atlantic Wall in France. This shows the interior of one located in the Varreville strongpoint north of Utah Beach. (NARA)
THE LIVING SITES
The Atlantic Wall was manned by a variety of troops depending upon type of site and the branch of service. The army was the predominant branch responsible for army coastal artillery sites as well as the numerous smaller strongpoints. The Kreigsmarine was responsible for the navy coastal gun sites as well as supporting sites such as naval surveillance radars. The Luftwaffe was by far the smallest of the three services represented on the Atlantic Wall, taking care of coastal air surveillance radar sites as well as some Flak sites located close to the coast; there were some Luftwaffe field divisions along the Atlantic Wall, but their experiences were essentially the same as those of comparable army infantry divisions.
The army sites were manned by infantry divisions and not specialized fortress troops. There were two principal types of infantry divisions along the coast, static divisions and a smaller number of regular infantry divisions. The static divisions as their name implies were intended for positional defense and lacked the usual assortment of vehicular transport. The personnel in the static divisions were drawn from the bottom on the manpower reserves, typically older men, those with medical problems, and troops recovering from wounds suffered in Russia. The manpower situation became so bad in early 1943 that OB West was forced to adopt a policy of “dilution” of the static divisions under which each of the infantry regiments along the Atlantic Wall would have one Ost (East) battalion substituted for a German battalion in each regiment. The Ost battalions were made up of Soviet prisoners-of-war who “volunteered” for the Wehrmacht rather than starve to death in the camps. By the summer of 1943, the coastal defense divisions were combed out of their best troops, who were sent to the Russian Front. Even in the case of the nominally German battalions, the quality of troops continued to deteriorate with the growing induction of Volksdeutsche from eastern Europe—ethnic Germans who in many cases could not even speak German, as well as Poles drafted from the western Polish provinces incorporated into the Reich after 1939.
Some of the coastal batteries were barely completed before D-Day so there was not enough time to cover the sides with earth. This H650 casemate, armed with a 105mm K331(f) gun, was part of HKB Crasville of 5./HKAR.1261 on the Cotentin Peninsula near Videcosville. The rest of the battery used the smaller H671 casemates that lacked the rear ammunition rooms and crew accommodation. (NARA)
The daily routine for these troops was essentially the same as for other army troops on occupation duty in France with the usual pattern of reveille, inspection, tactical training and guard duty. As the possibility of an Allied invasion increased, tactical exercises became more common, especially surprise alerts and anti-paratrooper field exercises. For most troops, assignment to France was a relief compared to a posting on the Russian Front. Conditions in France varied considerably through the war, with troops assigned to the defenses in 1941–42 recalling ample food and relaxed work conditions, while troops assigned in the autumn of 1943 and early 1944 recalling the general scarcity of food and the increased amount of both training and construction work. The static divisions assigned to coastal defense were poorly equipped with vehicles and could barely manage to transport their own supplies. Fuel shortages after 1942 greatly restricted travel even by officers, and so troops often used horses or bicycles for routine transport.