The Atlantic Wall

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After the end of hostilities, it was a very long and involved operation to clear the beaches of obstacles and landmines. </div> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> The Atlantic Wall</div> <div> In World War II, a belt of fortifications constructed by the Germans along the coast of western Europe in 1942-44 to repel an anticipated Anglo-American seaborne invasion launched from Great Britain. To build this "wall," the Germans employed Fritz Todt, the engineer who had designed the West Wall along the France-German border, and thousands of impressed labourers to construct permanent fortifications along the Belgian and French coasts facing the English Channel. The line consisted primarily of pillboxes and gun emplacements embedded in cliffsides or placed on the waterfronts of seaside resorts and ports. Included were massive blockhouses with disappearing guns, newsreels of which the Germans sent out through neutral sources in an effort to awe their adversaries (though the numbers of big blockhouses actually were few). On the French southwestern and southern coasts, similar though less formidable defenses were erected.</div> <div> The Allied military buildup in southern England in 1943 signaled to the German high command that an invasion was indeed coming and early in 1944 Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was assigned to improve the defense of the French and Belgian coasts. Rommel found the existing coastal fortifications entirely inadequate and immediately began strengthening them. Under his direction, a string of reinforced-concrete pillboxes were built along the beaches or slightly inland to house machine guns, antitank guns, and light artillery. Minefields and antitank obstacles were planted on the beaches themselves, and underwater obstacles and mines were planted in the waters just offshore to destroy Allied landing craft. By the time of the invasion, the Germans had laid about 5,700,000 mines in northern France. More gun emplacements and minefields extended inland, along the roads leading out from the beaches. In likely landing spots for gliders and parachutists, the Germans emplaced slanted poles, which the troops called Rommelspargel ("Rommel's asparagus"), and low-lying river and estuarine areas were permanently flooded.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="30a98460.gif" border=0 width="664" height="326" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> When the Allies landed in force in Normandy on D-Day--June 6, 1944--they found the Atlantic Wall far less formidable than they had anticipated. This was attributable to a number of reasons. The Germans had constructed the strongest defenses in the Pas-de-Calais region facing the narrowest part of the English Channel and had stationed their most battleworthy troops there; demands of other fighting fronts had siphoned many of the best German troops from France; the German army lacked air and naval support; Allied airpower was so strong that movement of German reserves was seriously impeded; landings of Allied airborne troops behind the beaches spread confusion in German ranks; and the Germans were deluded into believing the invasion was a diversion, that a second and larger invasion was to follow in the Pas-de-Calais. Only at one of the two American beaches (Omaha) was the success of the landing ever in doubt, partly because of rough seas, partly because of the chance presence of an elite German division, and partly because of the presence of high bluffs behind the beach. Paradoxically, the Allies had less difficulty with the highly publicized beach defenses than they had later with field fortifications based on the Norman hedgerows, earthen embankments that local farmers through the centuries had erected around thousands of irregularly shaped little fields to fence their cattle and protect their crops from strong ocean winds.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id83.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="June 6, 1944"><U>Back to June6, 1944</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id83.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="June 6, 1944"><U><IMG SRC="1b950140.gif" border=0 width="80" height="20" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id52.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Index Page"><U><IMG SRC="1b550140.gif" border=0 width="80" height="20" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>