Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
5th und 9th./ 736 I.R. Hauptmann Rudolf Gruter.
Fi.W.16 W.F.. (Luftwaffe detachment)
2 x Nr.1697 Ringstand.
1 x Peilstand for batterie 7./1716.
1 x Pilz/Unterstand.
2 x Vf/MG
2 x Vf58c Tobruk
2 x Vf69 Tobruk
2 x 5cm KwK L/60 Pak.
2 x 81mm Gr.W.278(f)Mortars.
2 x 2cm Flak 30 on roof of house.
1 x Flu.Ko. Nr60
Vf69 Mortar Tobruk
Covered ringstand for a 5cm KwK L/60.
Vf58c Tobruk.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Google Maps
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Google
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer plan
Details
Most of the Wn Widerstandsnest defences along this coast.
5cm KwK L/60.
A defended house along the D-Day coast..
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
IGN 1947 plan
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer plan
Plan
Details
Peilstand ------- Lookout.
Pilz -------------- M.G. pillbox.
Soute ----------- bunker.
Unterstand ---- larger than Soute.
Tobruk --------- M.G. open emplacement.
Bf.69 ----------- Mortar Tobruk.
Infermerie ----- Small hospital/casualty clearing station.
House with the 2cm Flak on roof.
The Allied Bigot map shows two Flak on roof.
2cm Flak 30.
2cm magazines.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
DEFE 2/433
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
DEFE 2/433
Details
Details found around the 22nd June 1944.
DEFE 2/433 file.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer east
The beach
Details
From Wn27 to the east.
Pilz.
How the beach may have looked.
Belgian gate.
The thick lines are a minefield with Mf.49 west, Mf.51 east and Mf.50 inland.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer east
The beach
Details
From Wn27 to the east.
Defended house.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer Code names
Plan
Details
I believe these are code names of defended houses along the sea front and the quantity of mines and types.
Coded names are :-
Bär, Dachs, Marder, Schneeglöckchen, Georgine - to the west.
And Gladiole, DruckBohlen 1, Primel, Esche, Rose, DruckBohlen 2,Dahlie, Tulip, Eiche, Aster, Linds, Nelke, Löwe, Wolf, Jltis, DruckBohlen 3, Hase & DruckBohlen 4 to the east.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
WO 252/149
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
WO 252/149
Details
Intelligence document.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
WO 252/149
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
WO 252-149
Details
A Machine gun position that is the sort that may have been built along the coast.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Centre and east
Details
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
D-Day
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Centre and east
Details
This could be the above view on D-Day.
Roughly speaking the Canadian front of assault extended from Vaux to St. Aubin. The infantry opposition encountered on the 6th June was furnished in the main by the 2nd Bn. 736th Inf. Regt. of the 716th Inf. Div. ( Historic Section (G.S.) Army HQ Ottawa).
Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer west Saint-Aubin
Roman fort
Details
Wn27 main defence was around the old Saint-Aubin Roman fort, a structure now I believe completely removed and to the right of the flags.
A Roman soldier.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Map
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Plan
Details
Plan of the defences and trench system.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
1945
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Air photo just after D-Day
Details
An air photo showing many houses removed and a full trench system. These trench systems became very useful to the Germans as they could infiltrate around attackers and attack their rear.
The USAAF Thunderbolt and the Sherman tank on the beach.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Nr.1697 Ringstand covered emplacement. Usually an open emplacement but as it would face an attack directly from the sea, a shield has been built up around its seaward side and a cap to give some cover from above.
Plan.
Nr.1697 covered emplacement.
5cm KwK gun.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Nr.1697 Ringstand covered emplacement. This shows how the gun and crew are covered by the thick concrete outer wall and the lid.
Below the children there was a slit in the half round wall and this MAY have been a machine gun position??
Plan.
Gun and ringstand.
5cm KwK gun.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
DERE 2/487
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
A plan made for Allied intelligence.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Nr.1697 Ringstand covered emplacement as seen from the sea. I believe the small extension to its left may have been a flanking machine gun pill box??
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Nr.1697 Ringstand covered emplacement showing the original Nr.1694 ringstand and the extension behind. Unfortunately this emplacement was attacked on D-Day not from the sea but from the landward side, exactly as the makers did not envisage. Note the direct hits to the right side and on the lip of the emplacement.
Plan.
Nr.1694 ringstand for the 5cm KwK L/60 gun with lid.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Nr.1697 Ringstand covered emplacement showing the built in camouflage on the roof. Odd pieces of wood set into the concrete as it was being poured and then removed when the shuttering came down.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Nr.1697 Ringstand covered emplacement the view down the beach'
This gun could fire down each flank and also Rue Canet where there was an anti-tank wall made of large tree trunks set into the road.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Post Card
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
P-47 Thunderbolt
Details
A very common photo of Post War France with the detritus of allied equipment washed up on the shore, a crashed USAAF Mustang and behind it a Sherman tank. On the wall hanging over is barbed wire entanglements..
Details about the plane WW2TV.
Assigned to 386FS, 365FBG, 9AF USAAF. Failed to Return (FTR) area patrol of Cherbourg peninsula 10-Jun-44; Hit by flak, pilot 2lt John A Weese attempted belly landing on Juno beach, Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, France. Killed in Action (KIA)
The Sherman tank. It may have been a DD tank.
DD Sherman entering the water showing the floatation skirt erected.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
02 July 1944
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
P-47 Thunderbolt
Details
The aircraft was flown by 2nd Lieutentant John Alfred Weese who crash landed into the sea off St Aubin sur Mer on 10th June 1944. Sadly Weese was killed in the attempt. Weese’s body was recovered that day, whilst the aircraft was recovered the day afterwards and dragged to the high tide mark by an RAF Beach Party. Weese was buried in a temporary grave at nearby Berniers sur Mer before being repatriated back to the United States. He is now buried at the Bethlehem Cemetery, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Based at RAF Beaulieu, Hampshire (USAAF Station AAF 408).
Second Lieutenant John Alfred Weese was initially buried in a temporary grave in Normandy
5th Emergency Rescue Squadron USAAF.
RAF Bealieu, Hampshire.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
5cm KwK L/60 Pak in reasonable condition considering it went through a war. Two niches can be see where ready munition was stored, the rest of the ammunition would have been man handled down the trench and handed into the gunners as needed.
Not damage to the roof where I feel an armoured piercing solid shot fired from a tank, ricochet from the lip of the emplacement and off the inside of the roof??
Details2
Sherman DD tank.
5cm KwK ammunition.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
IWM Handford (Lt) Photographer No 5 Army Film & Photographic Unit
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
Canadian troops of “B” Company, North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, take cover behind steel girders and logs guarding the approach to the German strong-point WN-27 in Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, 6 June 1944.
D-Day around mid day, the men here had to fight off the beach, continue inland along the coast road and down the Rue Carnet. Here were several steel stakes set into the road surface and covered in tree trunks. Tanks helping the soldiers blasting the trees out of the way and then engaged the 5cm gun where the evidence of that battle can still be seen today.
Sherman Tank.
Canadian officers in a trench.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
75mm round from a Sherman tank fired down the Rue Carnet.
Sherman Tank.
75mm stacks of Sherman shells.
Sherman’s re arming.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 1944
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
A Sherman DD tank waddling its way down the Rue Carnot.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
09 March 2015
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
Looking back down Rue Carnot today a nice peaceful street today where the tanks and Canadian troops came.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
1944
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
How the gun emplacement looked soon after capture, the shell from the Sherman can be seen with very fresh marks. Another shell ricocheted off the rim and up into the roof and a mark can still be seen today. But as these I think were armoured piercing solid shot rounds, they did not burst.
5cm L/60 in an open emplacement.
5cm L/60.
5cm ammunition.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Artist watercolour by Capt. O.N. Fisher.
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
With tank support ´B´ Company neutralise the gun emplacement.
By the time ´B´ Company secured their area of the beach seventeen North Shore men are dead and wounded from sniping and shelling. The gun has also taken out an estimated 6 Canadian tanks.
Tank fire brings out white flags from the German soldiers but as troops move towards them they open fire again. More casualties but nothing could stop North Shore now. Their response when the German army wave white flags again is bombs and gunfire. With the support of Carrier Company they begin to clear the town and thoroughly inspect the tunnels and bunkers of Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer. By the time they have finished four enemy officers and 75 other ranks are taken prisoner. Fifty of the enemy have been killed or wounded. (From Normandy Then and Now).
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
00-00-00
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Muzzle Break
Details
The muzzle brake is damaged (twisted) probably after receiving a shell of 75mm Sherman that definitely has prevented it from continuing to shoot towards the beach.
The gun fired 70 shells. The shell cases were counted. The three guns crew were killed in the bunker, either by a Sherman shell? or small arms fire from Canadian soldiers? We do not really know ! Their bodies remained in the bunker for three days, according to some civilian witnesses.
Canadians who "cleaned up" WN 27 used a flame thrower in an underground bunker and burned seven particularly vindictive infantry men who refused to surrender. It seems, moreover, that there were few survivors of WN 27. The 75 prisoners said to have been captured in Saint-Aubin include, in addition, WN soldiers from 28 and 23, is most likely. Canadians were not very willing to spare the enemy after the big losses on the beach. And we can understand them. They had themselves 96 killed at St Aubin.
There were also 16 civilian deaths in the population of St Aubin, mainly due to the bombing preceded the landing ...
Thank you very much Jean-Pierre
for your detailed local knowledge.
Where a tank round may have hit the Muzzle Break.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Post card
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Pilz
Details
Pilz the pill box that has now been removed to make room for the war memorials and flag posts.
Machine guns and rifles could be used inside.
Inside a Pilz.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Memorials
Details
The site of the Pilz.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Post card
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
5cm KwK Pak
Details
A post card of the 5cm and the Pilz still in position. Also it is seen before the road level has changed.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
DEFE 2/433
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Fort Saint-Aubin/Peilstand & Roman Fort
Details
8.14cmGr.W.278(f) mortar Tobruk type BF.69.
.
Plan.
BF.69 mortar Tobruk plan.
/278_fcrew100.jpg)
8.14cmGr.W.278(f) crew
/8cmgr_w34ammunition100.jpg)
8.14cm mortar bombs
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Post card
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Fort Saint-Aubin/Peilstand & Roman Fort
Details
Fort Saint-Aubin remains and the Peilstand above. This observation (not really a fighting position) could call down fire from Wn28a 7./1716 batterie of 4 x 10cm leF.H.14/19(t)
guns inland. (The guns were captured Cz guns).
Plan.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
12 June 2017
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Fort Saint-Aubin Roman Fort
Details
Further along was the Roman Fort this maybe remains of the fort.
.
The Roman villa..
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
DEFE 2/375 Battery photographs Cherbourg to Honfleur
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer Peilstand for 7./1716 batterie at Wn28a
Details
This is the position of the batterie in question Wn28a from an allied document dated 1943.
4 x 12.2cm s.F.H.396(r)
guns. Ammunition was stored in he woodland and the guns in open earth emplacements.
.
12.2cm s.F.H.396(r).
12.2cm s.F.H.396(r) about to be towed away by its horses..
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Plan
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
Landings took place here by the North Shore Regiment on Nan Red Beach. 48 Royal Marine Commando followed and helped them to fight off the 716 Inf. Reg to take Saint-Aubin and then moved on to Wn26 Langrune-sur-Mer.
Commandos landing.
Canadians.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 1944
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
North Shore Regiment on Nan Red beach.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 1944
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
D-Day
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Nan Red beach later on.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
June 1944
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Beach party
Details
Nan Red beach. Naval beach control parties directing traffic off the beach. Although left on the beach and not used in the initial advance inland. These troops and Naval personnel took a lot of casualties from shelling and sniping. This picture must have been a bit later as they are not wearing their steel helmets.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
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Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
A lovely old tiled road sign still on the wall.
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
06 June 2010
Information
Wn27 Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer
Details
France
Great Britain
