FRANCE: D-Day: Ghosts in a Landscape

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE - NOVEMBER 21: The entrance to an underground German bunker used to store ammunition, 21 November, 2008, in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. WN62 (Widerstandsnest - Resistance Nest) was the most heavily fortified of all defenses on Omaha Beach inflicting horrific casualties on US soldiers landing there. One German corporal personally fired over 12,000 rounds from his machine gun over a 9-hour period, setting the grass on fire around him from overheating his weapon. Of...
more »

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE - NOVEMBER 21: The entrance to an underground German bunker used to store ammunition, 21 November, 2008, in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. WN62 (Widerstandsnest - Resistance Nest) was the most heavily fortified of all defenses on Omaha Beach inflicting horrific casualties on US soldiers landing there. One German corporal personally fired over 12,000 rounds from his machine gun over a 9-hour period, setting the grass on fire around him from overheating his weapon. Of the 25 Germans manning WN62, only 3 escaped unscathed. US troops from the 1st Division (Big Red One), 29th Division and 2nd Ranger Battalion, landing on Omaha Beach, also known as "Bloody Omaha", took 2,200 casualties on D-Day - most of them in the first hour. This was mainly attributed to ineffective pre-invasion bombing and intelligence failure in detecting German reinforcement of the 716th Division's second-rate troops, with the battle-hardened 352nd Division. D-Day is regarded amongst historians as possibly the most defining day of the 20th Century, when allied forces comprising of 175,000 fighting men transported by 5,333 ships and 11,000 aircraft, landed in Nazi-occupied France and went on to liberate Europe.
« less