Wn39 St-Côme (Gold Beach)
WN · K.V.U. Gruppe Bessin (Gold/Omaha Beach) · AOK 7 Normandy · France
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
1. u. 2., Grenadier-Regiment 916.
352nd Inf. Div.
1 x R677 casemate.
1 x R612 casemate.
3 x Lc116 Tobruk´s.
1 x Vf2d bunker.
4 x Felmässig.
2 x Geschützstellung open ringstands for F.K.
2 x 7.5cm F.K.38.
1 x 8.8cm Pak 43/41.
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Allied air photo of Wn39.
1944
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
R612 from the new road that has been cut through this Wn.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Plan of the Wn.
Plan 1944
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
The area the guns covered. They could and did shoot strait down on Wn38 & Wn37 doing a lot of damage to the landings and latter on in the attack on Arromanches.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
German map at the time of the landings showing where the Wn's are and also the mine fields.
Mf. . 1 covers the beach area.
Mf. 88 the rear areas.
Map of the Defences
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
German artillery map showing black circles are the Wn's. and numbered. The red circles and squares are targets and Eisenach, Dresden & Cottbus are beach drenching targets for the artillery to fire on landing craft coming ashore. The red dots (one has 502) are inland spot targets for important cross roads.
Artillery Map
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
This is a Bigot map dated May 44 and shows what the allied intelligence had managed to gather on Wn39. [I have added cm, R numbers and the legend mines and barbed wire].
A mine field Mf.88 covering the left flank and the site is encircled by barbed wire, Vf bunkers show up, casemates and gaps in the minefield and barbed wire. Nice to know these small details when you are attacking a defended area.
Bigot Map information as at May 1944 (This map will NOT be carried in operational aircraft.)
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Vf2d Wellblech bunker.
Wellblech - Corrugated.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Vf2d Wellblech bunker right hand entrance.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Second entrance leading down to a passage.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Passageway. It looks as though there would have been wooden doors and frames.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
The first Wellblech (corrugated) room has higher walls and half round roof, a window to the left that can also be used to escape
The paintings I believe are post war art?? but recently I have read they maybe contemporary.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Looking back at the door and another window in the side wall.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Back to the passage and the next room. The second exit is up the stairs to the right.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
This one is a full Wellblech with two sheets bolted together. On the right side is an escape.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
The start of the escape.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
This is the view from the top looking into the escape and its steel ladder rungs.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Looking back at the door with a window in the end.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Back up the stairs.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
R612 casemate for a 7.5cm F.K.38. This one dates from February 1944 and made of Bauform construction, a breeze block.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
The back looking along the beach. There were two 7.5cm F.K. 38 guns I believe here. One in the casemate and one in a field positions. Another casemate would have been built here next to this one.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
This is the southern side bullet marks from either fighters or the battle to take the Wn.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Wn39 and the direction of fire from the two guns.
The Royal Hampshire Regiment landed on D-Day and moved across country to take Arromanches and would have taken Wn39 before moving on west to Wn40 the radar stations and into the town below the cliffs. The map is of the 2nd Dorsets who continued on to take the Batterie Longues.
Y44 Combined Ops Bulletin
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
R612 casemate.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
R612 casemate the wall on the seaward side covers the embrasure from attack. But it looks as though this one was hit from the front.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Quite a large hit at that. The embrasure on these R612 casemates is very small.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
The gun room, it had two ammunition niches each side at the back but this one has had the right hand knocked
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Hook set into the concrete to hang a camouflage;age net onto.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Part two - this is now on the other side of the road in the housing estate.
An R677, a Tobruk and a Vf bunker possibly two.
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Small Vf bunker hurriedly built. The local troops also made their own bunkers at times as the TODT and army engineers were busy with the main defences. They also laid beach defences and anti-glider posts.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Lc116 Tobruk to cover the rear of the R677 casemate giving all round protection and even some anti-aircraft protection.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
R677 casemate rear entrance, now closed off but it would have been quite a large double door entrance to allow a 7.5cm Pak 43/41 to enter.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
The side wall and flanking wall would have had earth pushed up to roof level and it would also give the bunker added protection from an enemy shooting in from he sea.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Embrasure for the gun to shoot out and it did do a lot of damage on D-Day firing down onto Gold Beach.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Bauform or Breeze Block construction using a pre formed concrete block that inter linked with the next one. When the inner and out wall was built around steel reinforcement, concrete could be poured filling the gap and making quite a strong casemate. This was a quicker and cheaper way of making casemates than using wooden shuttering, but I feel that Bauform was not a strong as the earlier types.
23 March 2015
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
Tobruk, R677 for an 8.8cm Pak 43/41, field gun ringstand for a 7.5cm F.K.38, R612 for the other 7.5cm F.K.38, Mg - machine gun, Fm - Feldmässig and a Vf2d bunker.
Geo 1947
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
This was one of the very many vehicle access roads leading from the Mulberry Harbour onto land. Many thousands of lorries, tanks, Jeeps, etc. came ashore here and also ambulances arriving to load hospital ships with injured soldiers.
10 March 2013
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
10 March 2013
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
A Phoenix section of the harbour, a concrete box floated across the channel and then water pumped in to sink it on the sea bed making a very good harbour wall. The structure sitting on the top is a Bofors anti-aircraft gun mounting (Flak Tower)
10 March 2013
Wn39 de Saint-Côme
23 March 2015