By 8:00 on the morning of June 6th, 1944, a German  officer watching from the ridge believed the attack had been broken.

“The enemy is in search  of cover behind the coastal zone obstacles,” he reported.

“Debarkation has ceased.

A great many  wounded and dead lie on the beach.

” “Yet he added one uneasy line.

” “Some of our strong points have  ceased firing.

They do not answer any longer when rung up on the telephone.

” Even as the message  went out, the defense was starting to come apart.

In this episode of WW2 Wayfinder, I’m  going to take you through the American experience   here on D-Day.

Also, we’ll look at it from the  German defenders point of view, the defenses that they used, and what still remains here today  in 2025.

Of all of the exits cut into the bluffs above Omaha Beach, none mattered more than the  Vierville Draw, known to the planners as Dog One.

It was not simply another gap in the coastal  ridge, but the only route surfaced in hard ball, a road that wound from the beach into the village of  Vierville-sur-Mer before joining the Route Nationale,   the main artery running east and west along the  Norman coastline.

If the Americans could force armour up that road, they would have a readymade  corridor linking Utah Beach to the west with   the British and Canadian landings further east.

If they failed, the western half of Omaha would remain bottled on the sand.

The German coastal  defense system in Normandy rested on a chain of fortified positions known as Widerstandsnester or WN  meaning resistance nest in English.

15 of these strong points guarded the heights above Omaha  Beach numbered WN59 through WN73.

Roughly 360 men man these positions covering the approaches  with around 65 machine guns dug into the cliffs.

Their main weakness was the lack of substantial  anti-aircraft protection.

Apart from a handful of 20mm anti-aircraft guns, there was little to  contest Allied air superiority.

As elsewhere in Normandy, the armament inside the Omaha Widerstandsnester was far from uniform.

Some positions mounted 88 mm guns, notably at WN61 and WN71.

Others fielded  76.

5 mm guns, 50mm anti-tank guns, or even French Renault tank turrets adapted as static defenses.

Many nests also carried flamethrowers and a mixture of machine guns, German MG34s and MG42s  and captured Polish weapons pressed into service.

The approaches were protected by anti-tank  ditches, thick minefields, and rows of barbed   wire, while the bunkers themselves were cast from  heavy concrete reinforced with steel.

A network of zigzagging communication trenches linked each  firing position, turning every WN into a compact overlapping fortress, and a brutal challenge for  any assaulting troops trying to capture them.

With limited men and resources, the Germans poured what  they had into making Dog One a killing ground.

The Vierville draw was protected by a lethal system of  fortifications.

Pillbox is flanking the entrance, an 88mm gun facing east, a captured French 75mm on  the west, and a central 50mm gun position covering the beach itself.

Widerstandsnest’s 71 and 72 stood  on the heights east and west of the draw with WN73 farther west beside a fortified house.

Their guns swept across the sand, not out to sea, turning every step forward into a march through  enfilading gunfire.

A sloped seawall wall topped with barbed wire, thick minefields, Belgian gates,  log posts rigged with charges, Czech hedgehogs, and two concrete anti-tank walls inside the draw  itself completed the defenses.

This is Omaha Beach, better known to the Americans on D-Day as  the Dog Green sector outside of the D-1 draw at Vierville.

And it was here where the 29th Infantry  would undergo a living hell trying to breach the Atlantic Wall.

Responsibility for taking the draw  rested with Lieutenant Colonel John Metcalfe’s First Battalion of the 116th Infantry Regiment, part  of the 29th Infantry Division, the Blue and Gray men of Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland.

Their  badge, a circle half blue and gray, spoke of reconciliation between North and South following  the American Civil War.

That morning on D-Day, it would also come to symbolise determination.

From  the outset, the western half of Omaha, Charlie, Dog Green, Dog White, Dog Red, and Easy Green fell  to the 116th Regimental Combat Team of the 29th Infantry Division.

Its task was starkly simple on  paper.

Land two battalions a breast at H-Hour 0630 with the third following 30 minutes later and  break open the Vierville draw before the Germans could react.

Fire support for the assault was to  come from the 743rd Tank Battalion.

Two of whose companies would approach the beach in amphibious  DD Shermans with the third landing directly from armored LCTs.

Three elements of the second  ranger battalion would a strike still further west at Pointe du Hoc while C Company of the same  battalion was assigned to land on Charlie Beach on the 116th right and seize the German positions  at the Pointe de la Percée.

The remaining rangers, those of the Fifth Battalion and the uncommitted  companies of the Second, were held as a mobile   reserve to reinforce Pointe du Hoc if that assault  succeeded or else to follow the 116th through Dog Green and pushed toward the headland via the  overland route.

The scheme depended on a precise sequence, a 40-minute naval bombardment and a  30 minute air strike to soften the defenses.

DD tanks arriving 5 minutes before the infantry and assault  sections landing in ordered waves, each with clear narrow tasks in reducing the beach obstacles and  engineers arriving immediately behind to clear   and mark safe lanes before the tide swallowed the  seaward obstacles entirely.

If the timings held, the draws would be open by H + 3 hours, and  the first day’s objectives, an inland penetration of some 5 miles (8 km), and a junction with the British to  the east and 7th Corps to the west was judged attainable.

Yet, the plan’s precision was also  its greatest vulnerability.

Every moving part assumed visibility.

Intact navigation, markers,  stable seas, and landings aligned with the beaches as drawn on the map.

In reality, very little  unfolded as planned.

Rough seas swamped multiple landing craft before they even reached the line of  departure, and others survived only because their   passengers bailed with their helmets.

Seasickness  was widespread.

Smoke, mist, and fires from the naval bombardment obscured the Vierville landmarks,  while a strong eastward current continually pushed   the waves of craft off course.

The pre-landing  bombardment shifted inland to avoid shortfalls did little real damage to the German beach defenses.

The resistance that mattered was still very much   intact when the first ramps dropped.

Because  of the sea conditions, the DD tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion were brought directly to the  sand rather than launched offshore.

Opposite the Vierville draw B Company of the 743rd landing with  the 116th lost all but one of its officers and about half its DD tanks to heavy fire coming from  Dog Green.

The other two companies of the 743rd landing to the left came in with fewer immediate  losses but still under direct observation from the bluffs.

Of the infantry in the first wave,  only A Company of the 116th on Dog Green and C Company Second Rangers on their right touched down  where they were meant to.

However, it was alone, without its tank support, and in front of every  German gun in the sector.

The six British LCA’s carrying the company allowed only a single file of  men to disembark from the craft at a time, which   made them easy targets.

Captain Taylor Fellers led  his boat straight into the crossfire of two pill boxes.

He and all 31 men with him were killed  almost at once.

Within 15 minutes of landing, A Company of the 116th had been cut to pieces.

Roughly 120 men were killed or wounded.

Most of the leaders were down and the survivors were  pinned at the water’s edge or behind obstacles.

The small Ranger company to their right managed  to reach the base of the bluffs but at the cost of about half its strength.

Other companies of  the 116th fared no better in terms of cohesion.

G Company of the 116th intended for Dog White  landed on Easy Green opening a gap of nearly a kilometer between itself and A Company.

Easy  Company of the 116th was scattered into the 16th Regimental Combat Team sector to the east and some  sections of G Company of the 116th and F Company reached the shingle with relatively lighter  casualties, but they lost cohesion as some tried   to move west under fire toward their original  objectives.

So this is Widerstandsnest 71.

This is on the eastern side of the Dog One exit  here at Omaha Beach and arguably the bloodiest section of Omaha Beach where Able Company of the  116th Infantry Regiment from the 29th Infantry Division came ashore on D-Day.

Now, there isn’t  too much left to see here at WN71.

Unfortunately, most of it like this feldmassing here.

This field  works, this field position is now, as you can see, it’s mostly overgrown.

And inside, it’s pretty  dirty.

I don’t really want to take too much of a look in there cuz these places are often quite  gross on the inside, but you can still see the remains.

The structure is still there.

And this  would be used by the German soldiers as a place of rest to store food, small arms ammunition as well  to support the other fighting positions in and around this plateau here on the eastern side of  the Dog One exit.

So from the feldmassing, we’re going to go and find one of the other defensive  positions that can still be found here at WN71 above Omaha Beach.

It’s a tobruk fort.

Now, tobruk forts came in a variety of designs depending on whether they had machine guns or mortars in  them, but they were really a small single or two-man fighting position that we used as part  of the defence of the wider Widerstandsnest So, they would be put on the outside of the positions  in order to provide that defensive network for the Germans to try and protect the main emplacement.

This is the tobruk position.

We’re about 60 m to   the east from the feldmassig position off to my  right there.

And we just come that bit further east.

And here it is.

Looking at this tobruk  position here.

From the angle out to the sea, we can see that this was not designed to carry out  defensive operations against a seaborn invasion.

This position here was purely designed to provide  a defensive ring of fire, defensive element against any possible attack against the wider WN71  position itself.

Even if we look further out to the east, even with the vegetation that’s here now  that during 1944 may well have been cut down by the Germans so that it wasn’t so obstructive  of field of fire and field of observation, you still don’t get the ability to depress a  barrel down enough to get fire onto the beach down there on the eastern sector of Omaha Beach.

So we  can clearly say that this was purely a defensive position just for the wider WN71 position here on  the eastern side of the Dog One exit.

So looking at the bunker itself then for its age of 80 plus  years old.

You can see it’s actually in remarkably   good condition.

Some of the reinforcing steel bars  are starting to show through the concrete as it started to break down.

But considering this was  rushed and made of somewhat substandard concrete, it’s actually in pretty good condition for its  age.

Now, unfortunately, the entrance to the tobruk bunker itself is now blocked up with soil  and other waste.

That means we can’t actually gain proper access to it.

And even inside here, it’s  full of rubble and broken glass.

But the centre pedestal, the centre post there is still present  that would have had the machine gun mounted at top it.

But from this position, we really do get  a good idea of the fact that you would struggle to depress the barrel to anywhere near like what  you would need to gain a view of the beach, even out to the east there.

What this position  would enable the Germans to do if WN70 further out to the east there along Omaha Beach fell  and Allied troops started coming ashore and up   the bluffs there and moving westward to try and  reach Vierville, they would be able to swing the gun over to the east and then pour fire on Allied  troops advancing in this westerly direction.

Also as well, there was another MG tobruk position  further to the south here at WN71 as part of that wider structure here that would help defend this  position from any allied ground assault.

So this is the other tobruk position here at WN71.

Just  behind me there, that’s the feldmassig.

So you can see again, it’s not particularly far away.

And this one’s actually in better condition with   all of the concrete surround here still looking  in reasonably good condition without any of the concrete reinforcement rods showing through.

Also, as well, the MG mount in the centre there is looking in better condition.

But as you can  see, there’s loads of undergrowth in here and lots   of concrete blocks and stuff have been thrown in  here.

So, unfortunately, the inside is is looking in a worse state.

But actually structurally this  one is better than the other tobrook position further out on the cliffs.

So another aspect  of WN71 that we can’t really see today because they’ve all been filled in is the trenches that  would have been here in 1944.

Now typically when   we think of trenches you might think of the  First World War and massive trenches designed to move lots and lots of troops through and keep  them below ground.

But the trenches here, whilst   they did a similar thing, they were much smaller  and they were really just lines of communication trenches designed to be able to move troops from  one position to another with a reasonable degree of protection from any aerial bombardment or  small arms fire.

Another defensive structure   that would have been here at WN71 is barbed wire.

There would have been lots of it put out by the Germans.

It was cheap, relatively effective.

The  lessons of the First World War taught us that   barbed wire is great at slowing down advancing troops  and it’s also hard to break up with artillery fire.

So from a defensive point of view, it’s a  great and very cheap effective way of protecting any fixed position such as Widerstandsnest 71 here and  all the other Widerstandsnest across the Normandy front.

Now from here what we’re going to do, we’re going  to go and take a look at Widerstandsnest 72 on the western side of the Dog One exit here at Vierville.

So that you can get a really good appreciation of the firing positions and the fighting positions  that the German troops had here on D-Day as the men of the 29th Infantry Division came ashore.

Lieutenant Edward Tedrick took a bullet to the head, dragged himself up, and tried to shout an order.

advance the wire cutters before another burst cut him down.

Of the 155 men in the company, more than  a hundred were dead within minutes.

A few tanks, however, did manage to reach the shore.

The  Shermans from the 743rd Tank Battalion managed   to land and provide a degree of fire support  to the infantry pinned down by the withering German fire.

Rounds were fired into the German  positions, utilising tracers to help guide naval gunfire onto the defenders.

To the west, Captain  Ralph Goranson’s Company C of the Second Ranger Battalion hit Charlie Beach.

Their job had been to  move inland through the draw once it was open.

But when it was clear that the Vierville draw  was still closed, Goranson decided to scale the cliffs directly in front of him on Charlie Beach.

The Rangers climbed with bayonets and ropes.

And at the top, Goranson made another quick  decision.

Rather than turning west towards the Pont de la Percée as was his original objective, he  would now attack east to knock out the positions hammering the Dog Green sector of Omaha Beach.

Further to the east, companies B and D of the 116th landed amid wreckage.

Company B Commander  Captain Ettore Zappacosta was hit as he stepped from his ramp and fell into the surf.

Small groups,  however, crawled to the seaw wall.

Sergeant John Bob Slaughter found himself cleaning salt and sand  from his rifle, staring at bullet holes through   his coat and realised how close he had come to  joining the dead.

By 0720, Dog Green was still in the hands of the Germans and firmly closed to  the American attackers.

As the morning progressed, what followed was leadership at its rawest.

So,  walking down from Widerstandsnest 71 down to the Dog One exit, this is it.

This is the famous Vierville draw that is made famous in ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Now, one interesting feature of the Vierville draw is that there are some fortifications here that remain quite hidden still today in  2025.

And one such is behind me there.

So, the position itself is a doppelverkfungsbau MG (spelling?) So, what that basically means is a double standardised machine gun defensive position and  it was built in an L-shaped position.

And you can see that from looking at the design today that  there’s one MG port that fires up the Vierville draw to the south and then another position that  fires from the cliff face across the draw and onto the western side of the positions here at  Vierville.

A very cunning position from point of view of the Germans embedded there into the cliffs  hard to see and covering multiple firing angles.

Coming down from WN71 up on the cliffs, it brings  you to here, which is WN72.

This bunker is now an impressive tribute to the men of the National  Guard and the 29th Infantry Division who fought here during World War II.

But on D-Day, this  bunker housed a deadly Pak 43 anti-tank gun.

And again, as we can see from this bunker, and we see  from other bunkers along the coast of Normandy, that it’s not designed to fire out toward the  ships, but to provide inflating fire down along the beach.

So today, if you visit Omaha, you can  still see the Pak 43 in its place here in WN72.

And what’s really interesting is to see all of  the bullet marks and the battle damage that this   bunker sustained here during the fighting on  the 6th of June.

Now, the Pak 43 gun that’s in here was the same basic gun that was inside  of the King Tiger, the Tiger II.

And you can see from that position there, the commanding view  that it would have had down across the beach, the eastern sectors of Dog Green and further down  Omaha Beach with an almost unrestricted view to provide that kill zone for any amphibious troops  coming ashore.

The engineers suffered heavily, but still managed to open only a handful of usable  gaps on the 116th front.

One at Dog White and one at Easy Green.

Often working without proper cover  and under constant smallarms, mortar and artillery fire.

When the second wave came in at around 0700,  the remainder of First Battalion of the 116th, B, C, and D Companies, was already badly compromised  by scattering and missed landings.

Some boats,   including battalion and beach master elements,  beached too far west under cliffs and spent the day pinned by snipers.

B Company from the 116th  sections that did land near Dog Green were forced simply to join A Company of the 116th survivors  adding numbers but no organisation.

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