SWORD: Inland near Tailleville was WN 23, which was the headquarters of II./Gren.-Regt. 736, commanding K.V.U.-Gr. Seulles. A few hundred meters to the west was a small antiaircraft gun position, with six ex-French 7.5cm antiaircraft guns, manned by personnel of 3. (Flak)/Panzerjäger-Abteilung 716 (3./Pz.Jg.-Abtl. 716). Nearby was a multiple rocket launcher battery, consisting of about twenty 32cm Wurfgerät.Manuferey wrote:Hi Rich,
There is a reference to "stationary smoke-shell mortars [in the original German text: “bodenständige nebelwerfer"], manned by infantry" near Utah Beach in the debriefing of Lt-Col. Keil, CO of the 919. Gren,-Regt. Keil's text makes it clear that it is different from the I./101 S.Werf.Regt [mistakenly referenced as I./100. S. Werf. Regt. by Keil]:
I also found the following in a US post D-Day intelligence report but it's a little bit confusing:
"Rockets were located several hundred yards behind both beaches [i.e. Omaha & Utah] in hedgerows. They occurred in groups of 38 firing pits with 4 rockets to a pit.
UTAH BEACH: 0 rocket pits, bearing on the beach".
So I'm curious to find out if Wurfgerät 40, manned by infantry, were standard beach defenses or not in Normandy.
Emmanuel
JUNO: Opposite WN 66 was WN 68, another “two-tiered” position with a 4.7cm Pak 181 (f) in an open pit and a machinegun casemate that covered the draw from the bluff. On the beach was a 5cm gun in an open pit, and two 7.5cm turreted guns mounted on casemates that had been taken from a tank prototype, the VK3001, that had never been put into full production. [edited to fix the redundent redundency]
OMAHA: WN 67 was at the head of the Moulins Draw where it split into two narrower valleys. It was a simple position designed to accommodate the firing position of a multiple rocket launcher battery and was similar to that near Tailleville in WN 23 on JUNO. It was armed with 38 32cm Wurfgerät.
UTAH: inland was a Wurfgerät position with reportedly six to eight six-barrel launchers.
I suspect there was another at GOLD, but haven't confirmed it. Werfer-Brigade 7 prior to D-Day provided personnel detachments to man fixed multiple rocket launcher (4-barrel 32cm Wurfgerät) positions along the coast. It is known that men from Werf.-Regt. 84 manned such a position at OMAHA and other, similar, positions are known to have existed on SWORD and JUNO, and, probably, GOLD. The brigade was ordered to Normandy, probably on 6 June. By 11 June it was south of Caen and in action by 16 June.
That's all I've been able to find to date on their existance and how they were possibly manned.
I think it was the report of the 1st ESB that mentions them specifically? IIRC they were not anywhere near Brucheville and were apparently a static position. Similar to what happened at JUNO (IIRC) the engineers mentioned that the firing cables linking all the launchers had been severed by the bombardment. By the wording it seemd to imply they were part of a fixed posiion and not mobile launchers. I'll try to review it again.
