THE LAST STAND

NORTHERN EUROPE

MARC WILSON

Contents

Map

Foreword Roy Exley

England & Wales

Scotland

58

The Atlantic Wall

88

Short Select Bibliography

174

Selection of Online Sources

174

Acknowledgements

175

Support

175

Foreword
War is a brute, and its brutality unleashes energies that are at once startling and

in the region of 15,000 structures created by the Todt Organisation, was inspired by

defy and eschew any established aesthetic sensibilities: no hint of the classical, the

when not only the low angle of illumination from the sun, but also the presence of

terrifying. There is nothing subtle about the productivities sponsored by war;

the Cyclopean concrete architecture of Friedrich Tamms flak towers constructed

gothic or the baroque here (unless, perhaps, we were to invent the category of the

high atmospheric humidity, reduced any possibilities of brightness in the incident

commitment is total. Such is the intensity of those unleashed energies that wars

around Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna to protect the cities from Allied bombers. It

abstract baroque!). Their geometries, purely contingent, were designed to resist the

light around those scenes: the sense of limbo residing there, enhanced.

are, inevitably, historic watersheds way-markers in the history of civilisations. In

is uncompromising in the extreme: a chain of monumental sentinels stretching

effects of the latest developments in projectile technology, their profiles shaped to

terms of the wider history of mankind they are often brief, but their effects and their

along the maritime fringes of north-west Europe. If these edifices, whose facades

deflect such missiles and avoid any direct percussive explosions on their structures.

traces are, invariably, enduring.

are frequently mask-like, had expressions, they might be typified as scowls, their

Those geometries developed out of the direct experiences of combat. In the

demeanour that of the curmudgeon. These scowling concrete sentries were intended

American Civil War almost a century before, the ironclad warships of both sides

as a deterrent to, as much as a defence against, potential invaders. In the current

the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia had superstructures whose profiles avoided

context their incongruity is striking: they mutely stand guard against bleak and

rectilinear, flat, vertical surfaces. The Monitor had a wide, cylindrical design that

barren stretches of marginal and generally empty littoral landscapes. Sometimes

doubled as gun turret and control centre; the Virginia had a low-profile structure

partially sometimes completely inundated by dune sands or immured by pioneer

whose sides were raked back at such an angle that any incoming ordnance would

woodland, they have not only become irrelevant but also, often, invisible. In the

be deflected, only to ricochet away harmlessly. In the Battle of Hampton Roads in

impressively atmospheric images of his The Last Stand series, Wilson has invested

1862, both of these vessels fired endless rounds of shells at each other without either

these structures with a new life, not so much a resurrection as a re-invention,

succumbing or even being significantly damaged. Such structural solutions aimed

As witnesses to, and participants in, a rapidly evolving and restless consumerist

presented as Non-places like no other (Non-place in terms of being possessed

at damage limitation, while not directly imitated, can nevertheless be seen mirrored,

culture, we have become accustomed to the built-in obsolescence that characterises

or frequented by no-one and rendering everyone strangers). The boundaries

subsequently, in the design of those bunkers on the Atlantikwall. There was nothing

many of the products we purchase. In contrast, it seems outrageous that such

between perceived contexts and actuality are, in these scenes, often blurred. Are

speculative or arbitrary about the bulwarks of their sometimes bizarre and often

productions of war as the bunkers of the Atlantikwall given their imposing presence

nature of these latter bulwarks, that they have resolutely resisted destruction in the

we looking at images of scenes that celebrate the architectural, the archaeological

ungainly forms: they were purely functional. While far from being graceful or

and the huge effort and energy expended, the enormous input of manpower and

decades that have passed since the wars end. They do, however, have their Achilles

or the geological, or something of each? Such references are emphasised to different

classically proportioned, there is something visually appealing about the alien (and

materials that went into their construction should so rapidly become obsolete.

heel, which Marc Wilson, in his poignant images of those structures, does not fail

degrees in different images in this series. Also, the littoral environment of which

sometimes sinister) forms of those bunkers. Novelty does not quite describe this

Why were lessons not learned from the earlier failure of the Maginot Line on the

to emphasise. Built without foundations reliant on the massive weight of their

many of these photographs were taken is one that offers its own ambivalence:

appeal: more surprise perhaps a surprise that courts the sublime.

Franco-German border? Were they the last desperate, and ultimately futile, effort of

centres of gravity for their stability these structures, through the passage of time,

the strand sometimes sea, sometimes land dominates these scenes, offering a

have become unstable through the natural erosion of the coastal sands upon which

further fluidity to that quandary of identity that besets them. The military machine

many of them stand. They have simply tilted, tipped and tumbled in an inevitable

of the Third Reich attempted possession of land through something that, ultimately,

submission to the vicissitudes of gravity, coming to rest at crazy angles, their

nature would undermine. During the past four years, Wilson has journeyed the

attitudes, but not their structures, altered: a stoic invincibility transformed into a

length of Europes north-western coasts tracking the traces and remains of the

wayward whimsicality. This endurance is, however, relative and ultimately finite, a

Atlantikwall, the ghosts left by the grandiose ideas of the Nazi leader and the 12 years

fact compellingly attested to in Wilsons photographs.

of madness they spawned.

War is a brute and the nature of its structures and works, by necessity, brutish. The
architecture of Hitlers concrete defences, the Atlantikwall, consisting of somewhere

Duration, durability, resistance to decay are, by their very nature, inherent qualities
of the edifices thrown up in the service of war. Those monuments, left by wars that
we prefer to forget, are rarely celebrated but nevertheless endure often resisting
or skewing those natural processes of growth and decay that are an integral part
of the evolution of the landscapes that surround them. The obdurate presence
of those monuments effectively punctuates their landscapes, both visually and
4

historically. The remnants of the defensive walls and fortresses of Roman times,
on through the castles and fortified bastions of medieval history, right up to the
massive defensive structures built by both sides of the conflict that was the Second
World War: those scars left by conflict remain. Such is the massive and monolithic

Wilsons photographs depict these ruins as mellowed through the passage of

An on-going project rolled out between the years 1942 and 1945 to protect the Nazi
occupation forces in France from Allied invasion from the sea, the designs of the
Atlantikwall fortifications were constantly evolving. Any formulae involved in their
conception were being continually adapted or revised and this is what makes the
natures of these structures so diverse, so intriguing and so photogenic. The intrinsic
irony surrounding these bunkers is that as massive and monolithic as they are, built
to withstand the ravages of both war and time, their usefulness was extremely brief,
their significance fleeting. Once they had been by-passed by the surging advance of
the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, they became, in effect, redundant hulks.

a regime that was staring defeat in the face?

the years. Like classical ruins looming out of the mists of time, the weathering

Eschewing any form of decorative elaboration to which much architecture can

effects witnessed here, while superficial, nevertheless ameliorate and soften the

be vulnerable, the bunkers and gun emplacements that dot the Atlantic, English

intrinsic grimness of their stern facades. In his images, they merge with, rather

Channel and North Sea coastlines have a purely utilitarian, functional aesthetic. The

than punctuate, their landscapes. Somehow they have become a topographical

contingently chamfered, curved and raked facades (facilitated by the plasticity and

component of, rather than an imposition upon, those landscapes. The narrow tonal

eminent mouldability of poured liquid concrete) for the deflection of any incoming

range of The Last Stand emphasises that mellowness that has ultimately softened

ordnance and avoidance of catastrophic direct hits, are the most dominant features

The forms of those bunkers, gun emplacements, observation posts and command

the edges of the menace they formerly possessed. Wilson achieved the paradoxical

of the profiles and structural forms of these buildings. Narrow slits and slots,

centres constructed by the Third Reich using copious quantities of poured concrete,

dreamscape atmospheres of these images by photographing the sites at dawn

observation ports, and embrasures pierce the massive walls, the chamfered edges to

their frames effectively generating ricochet upon contact for any incoming bullets

size and number. In terms of design, they were more utilitarian and less visually

The monumental bunkers and other defensive works we have inherited from the

generations to pass and so their traces are also short-lived; the fierceness of modern

or shells. The design of these structures stands in stark contrast to the clean, pristine,

striking than the Atlantikwall defences on the other side of the Channel. However,

hostilities of the Second World War, we have done so unwittingly and are hesitant to

warfare is ameliorated by its greater transience. The mood of Wilsons photographs

rectilinear profiles of the modernist architectural styles of the time.

Wilson explores the remains of some impressive examples in his images. One being

give them space, to acknowledge them, in the annals of architectural history. They

deftly captures this transience so clearly manifested by the ghostly presence of the

the chain of concrete cones, whose serrated profile looks for all the world like the

are monuments to something that we would sooner forget than commemorate.

Atlantikwall bunkers on the coasts of north-western Europe and the Allied defences

back of some sea-dragon or serpent emerging from the waters and heading for the

Nevertheless they remain. Thomas Traherne, the 17th-Century mystic, wrote: For

in Britain. Repeated viewing of these images intensifies that mood, eerily immersing

bleak shore through the ghostly mists of the Firth of Forth. They are, in fact, the

we can unsuppose Heaven and Earth and annihilate the world in our imagination,

the viewer in their dreamlike countenances.

tops of submerged pillars between which were suspended spans of anti-submarine

but the place where they stood will remain behind, and we cannot unsuppose or

cables. Wilsons camera angle and his viewpoint conjures a scene here of pure

annihilate that, do what we can.

In an analysis of the nature of and the philosophy behind the Atlantikwall, the fact
of the construction of those bunkers does indeed represent the onset of defeat for
the Third Reich. They are the physical, historical traces (like flotsam left on the
strand-line) of the turning of the tide against Nazi Germany in the Second World
War. With its policy of blitzkrieg (swift, intense attack), the Nazi war machine could
only maintain its dominance through expansion, through a philosophy of proactive
determinacy offensive action. Once it went on the defensive (an attitude effectively
betrayed through the construction of the Atlantikwall), defeat for Germany was
inevitable. Lightning advance through the deployment of ultra-mobile and flexible
6

offensive forces, both in the air and on the ground, was its speciality. Once it halted
or worse, retreated all was lost: the ultimate example of pride going before a

surreality. Dorset also provided a happy hunting ground for Wilson in his quest for
the remnants of military fortifications. The gun emplacements at Portland looking
like the forlorn remains of a space-ship launch site from a 1950s sci-fi B movie; and
a comparatively diminutive pillbox clinging, at a precarious angle, to a crumbling
cliff its pediment testing out the water before it plunges in are two memorable
images from his Dorset series.

Some of these bunkers, resemble ancient rock tombs with the diminutive
embrasures, portals and tunnels let into their massive concrete bulwarks, or burial
mounds subsequently opened up by treasure-hunters as if their subterranean
depths could entomb and withhold the secrets and purposes of their birth,
beyond their death. Did they, beyond their death, assist with the birth of brutalist
architecture in the 1950s? Did they only supplement the influence of the work

fall. That such massive and apparently impregnable monumental structures should

In her recent review of the exhibition Ruin Lust at Tate Britain in London Review

of Le Corbusier or did their aesthetic take the baton from him (see his chapel at

represent and commemorate the beginning of the end for the Third Reich, is the

of Books, Rosemary Hill wrote: Ruins are unstable things, sometimes physically,

Ronchamps) as an inspiration for the brutalist architecture of such architects as

ultimate irony.

culturally almost always they are the remains of something else, of which they

Peter and Alison Smithson, Sir Basil Spence, or Rodney Gordon or were they

must necessarily be a shadow, an echo or a critique.[1] This is the crux of our

swayed by the aesthetics of the bunker? Brutalist architecture is exemplified by

experience of these concrete ruins, whose tilted and toppling traces are but benign

forms derived from the pouring of concrete rather than the forming of metal or

shadows of the sinister workings of the Third Reich, or the reply from their Allied

laying of brick or stone. It precludes any use of pre-fabricated units and so avoids

adversaries. Their shadows mellowed by the crepuscular light of dawn in Wilsons

the formulaic. It has been classified as sculptural architecture or architectural

atmospheric images, these ruins have indeed become something else, and it is

sculpture and the bunkers have been described as the apogee of the architectural

difficult to perceive their materiality outside of the historical framework within

achievements of the Third Reich making a joke of the pompous neo-classicism of

which they were conceived. While they lack the romantic resonance of those ruins

Hitlers chief architect Albert Speer.

Once these bunkers had lost that meaning, construed through their purpose; once
they had become abandoned, obsolete and redundant their utilitarian ethos erased
they invited fresh, other, contextual meanings, alternative visual identities. So,
with their utility neutralised, the foundation of war removed, their defensive stance
against the supposed or anticipated offensive actions of their foes destabilised, their
identity has become similarly unstable. Flawed as credible fact, they are now cast
adrift on the currents of fiction and fantasy. Once militarily apparently infallible,
their credibility is only tentatively supported in the face of their inherent fallibility.

dreamed up in the landscape paintings and synthetic parkland landscapes of

the Picturesque movement during the 18th Century conjured up to weave their

Much the same can be said of the Second World War fortifications and defences

sublime spells for the leisured pleasure of the aristocracy and landed gentry of those

on the British side of the English Channel. Without the manpower of massed slave

times the demeanour of Wilsons images nevertheless imbues them, paradoxically,

labour that was at the Nazis disposal, the British war defences bunkers, pillboxes,

with a faux romantic mien.

gun emplacements and maritime barriers were somewhat more modest in both

Before the onset of the machine age, wars were often protracted and slow-moving
measured in decades rather than months or years and the resulting flux of
peoples was widespread. The traces of those distant wars are retained not in the
landscape, but in our genes, through that resultant intermixing of peoples. The
relatively brief machine-age wars leave scars on the landscape that take but a few

[1] Rosemary Hill, At Tate Britain, London Review of Books, Volume 36 No.7, 3rd April 2014. Page 20.

Roy Exley
Roy Exley is a freelance art critic and curator based in London. He has written for many art
magazines and journals and is currently a regular contributor to the contemporary photography
web magazine Photomonitor www.photomonitor.co.uk. He has curated eleven exhibitions of
contemporary art in London and Paris since 2000.
7

England & Wales

On 1 September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. Two days later, having given Poland

coastal installations. Should the enemy near or reach the shores of Britain, it would

German torpedo boats and air attack. During the Second World War, the defences

have invaded Ireland and used it as a base from which to launch attacks. Both Cardiff

guarantees in the event of German aggression, Britain and France declared war on

face a coastline bristling with emergency batteries; entanglements of barbed wire to

of these forts were updated and expanded, and their armaments upgraded.

and Swansea were heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe because of their importance as

Germany. On 4 September, advance parties of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF)

hamper beach access; minefields; lines of anti-tank concrete blocks some in rows

landed in France.

two or three deep; and thousands of pillboxes, some on the sands, others on cliffs

By May 1940, the German army had swept through Holland, Belgium and France

became an iconic symbol of resistance. Early in the war, Churchill had insisted upon
coastal defences and artillery positions being strengthened to protect this stretch of

docks and industrial centres. Wales played an important part in the Battle of the
Atlantic. Sunderland flying boats flew anti-submarine reconnaissance patrols from
Pembroke Dock. They also rescued crews from ships torpedoed by the Germans.

in a lightning blitzkrieg offensive. Forced to retreat to the French coast, the BEF and

To defend the coastline and prevent the enemy from landing, an almost continuous

coastline, which was to endure more than four years of bombing and shelling from

On 23 March 1942, Hitler signed a directive ordering the building of the Atlantikwall

other Allied troops became trapped in and around the port of Dunkirk. In early

chain of defences was established on the south and east coasts the most vulnerable

German-occupied France across the Channel. Secret tunnels below Dover Castle,

(Atlantic Wall) [4] to fortify the coasts of German-occupied countries against

June, in Operation Dynamo, more than 338,000 men stranded on the beaches were

areas for what seemed an imminent German invasion from the sea and also on

constructed in the chalk cliffs during the Napoleonic wars, housed the Coastal

future Allied invasion. By now, Operation Sealion had long since been abandoned,

evacuated by a flotilla of hundreds of small boats that had sailed from the English

many parts of the west coast. Radar stations were established along these coastlines

Artillery Operations Room. It was from here that Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey

America had entered the war, and Germanys conflict with Russia on the eastern

to give warning of approaching enemy planes. These replaced early 20th-century

masterminded the Dunkirk evacuation.

front was draining its resources and manpower.

pre-First World War acoustic mirrors, rendered obsolete by technology and the

After Dunkirk, in June 1940, in order to keep fighting and to harass the enemy

By 1943, with German invasion no longer a threat, many of the beach defences in

in occupied Europe, Churchill gave orders that a special force should be trained

southern England, including mines, were being cleared. Several locations in Dorset,

coast to rescue them, transporting them to larger ships offshore.

Soon after war had been declared, the German Admiralty began to initiate a plan
8

overlooking the beaches.

In the South-east, the White Cliffs, stretching along ten miles of the Kent coastline,

for the invasion of England, codenamed Operation Sealion (Seelwe). Following

speed of later aircraft.

the capitulation of the French Government and the German occupation of France

The success of Germanys plans for the invasion of Britain depended on the Luftwaffe

for raids and sabotage missions on occupied territory. Hayling Island, on the

Devon, Cornwall and Wales where defence structures had been built were used

and the Low Countries, Hitler hoped Britain would negotiate for peace. But on 16

winning air supremacy over the Channel and southern England, defeating the Royal

Hampshire coast, was the wartime base for the highly secret COPP (Combined

in 1943 and 1944 as training grounds for D-Day, as their beaches were similar to

Operations Assault Pilotage Parties), a group of commandos assembled by Lord

those in Normandy where the Allied landings were to take place.

July 1940, he issued his Sealion directive: Since England, in spite of her militarily
hopeless position, shows no sign of coming to terms, I have decided to prepare a
landing operation against her [1]

Air Force and destroying its airfields, as well as British aircraft factories. But under
Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, commander-in-chief of Fighter Command,

Louis Mountbatten. One of its teams was trained to reconnoitre potential Allied

Battle practice areas for the US troops who were to storm Utah Beach on D-Day

the RAF successfully defended the skies during the Battle of Britain in the summer

invasion sites on the Normandy beaches for the D-Day landings.

Three days later, in a speech to the Reichstag, Hitler offered Britain the choice between

of 1940. The defeat of the Luftwaffe forced Hitler to postpone his invasion plans, and

England had been threatened by enemy invasion at various times in past centuries

farms in the vicinity of Slapton Sands, were ordered to evacuate their homes with

peace or unending suffering and misery [2]. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the

Operation Sealion was later abandoned.

and ports on its south coast had been fortified against attack from France and Spain.

their livestock, farm equipment and personal belongings. A large-scale rehearsal,

In April 1940, Germany had also invaded and occupied Denmark and Norway.

Henry VIII ordered extensive construction of defences to protect key harbours and

codenamed Exercise Tiger, was to end in a landing and mock assault at Slapton

vulnerable landing sites. Following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 during

Sands beach. To make it as realistic as possible, live naval and military ammunition

the reign of Elizabeth I, further fortifications were built and the updating of those

was to be used. The exercise ended in tragedy. Over 900 American servicemen were

earlier defences was carried out. In the second half of the 19th century, with the

killed, many by drowning when their landing ships sank after they were torpedoed

perceived threat of a French invasion, new defences (the Palmerston Forts) were

by German E-boats, or by friendly fire on the beach.

Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet since the outbreak of the war, who
had become Prime Minister on 10 May 1940, commented: I do not propose to say
anything in reply to Herr Hitlers speech, not being on speaking terms with him.

[3]

When the Luftwaffe started a relentless bombing campaign against the north of
England from its bases in occupied Norway, decoys were sited in Yorkshire to

Faced with the threat of German invasion, Britains first line of defence was air

divert the enemy aircraft and lure them into dropping their bombs away from

reconnaissance, submarine watching and attacks on the enemys shipping and

their intended targets. First used to protect airfields and factories, the decoys,

operational ports. Its second was the constant patrolling of the seas around British

which simulated burning targets, were soon being used to protect towns and

coasts by hundreds of Royal Navy vessels, with destroyers ready to intercept and

cities all over Britain.

attack any invading seaborne expedition.

Churchill, inspecting every aspect of British defences, toured the countrys military

Decoys were also used to protect the Royal Navy installations on the Humber
Estuary and the forts built during the First World War to defend the Humber against

constructed. During the Second World War, these were used as communication
centres and observation ports and some were re-armed.

were set up on the south Devon coast. Residents of Torcross, and other villages and

In north Devon, the coastline from Braunton to Morte Point consisting of miles
of beaches, cliffs, headlands and sand dunes was assigned to the US Army Assault

Wales, too, saw extensive building of anti-invasion defences. Some were constructed

Training Centre. The troops (later relocated to Slapton Sands for the second part of

to protect against possible invasion by Germany from Ireland, should the Germans

their training) practised new tactics of amphibious assault against heavily fortified

enemy-occupied coasts, and how to neutralise beach defences and then fight their

The Mulberry project is said by many historians to be one of the greatest military

way inland. Using information about German fortifications gathered by local

engineering achievements of all time. Referring to the Mulberry harbours at the

French Resistance movements, the Allies constructed mock German defences to be

Nuremberg Trials in 1946, Albert Speer, Hitlers chief architect and head of the

used in training. These replicas included concrete pillboxes. One of them, at Baggy

Todt Organisation in charge of building the Atlantic Wall, said: To construct our

Point, still bears the name of an American soldier scratched into the concrete: AA

defences, we used some 13 million cubic metres of concrete and 1.5 million tons of

Augustine. He was to die on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

steel. A fortnight after the Normandy landings, our efforts were brought to nothing

In August 1942, an Allied amphibious raid had taken place on Dieppe, on the

because of an idea of simple genius. [5]

northern coast of German-occupied France. One of the raids objectives was to

test the feasibility of capturing a port where the enemy was entrenched during the
initial stages of a future invasion of the Continent, and to learn the problems that
would face a full-scale Allied fleet. The raid went disastrously wrong and 4,000
Canadian and British troops from a 6,000-strong force were killed, wounded or
10

captured. Until the Allies could secure a deep-water seaport, they had no way to

11

offload men, vehicles and supplies from ships off the coast, nor to supply the Allied
troops who would be advancing across France following the invasion. So when the
Normandy landings finally took place in June 1944, the Allies brought their own
two prefabricated and transportable ports codenamed Mulberry each the size
of the port of Dover. A large number of sea-going tugs were requisitioned to tow the
various parts across the English Channel.

[1] Fhrer Directive No.16 On preparation for a landing operation against England, 16 July, 1940. List and details of

Fuhrer Directives, C.Peter Chen, (Founder & Editor), World War II Database, www.ww2db.com.
[2] Adolph Hitler, speech to the Reichstag (Berlin), 19 July, 1940.
[3] John Colville, Diary of John Colville (member of Churchills Private Office), 24 July, 1940. As quoted in

Martin Gilbert in Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill 1939-1941 (William Heinemann, 1983).

[4] Fhrer Directive No.40, On Command Organization of the Coasts, 23 March, 1942.

World War II Database, www.ww2db.com.

[5] Albert Speer giving evidence: Nuremberg War Crimes Trials Proceedings [Vol.16.], June 1946 as quoted on The

Avalon Project, avalon.law.yale.edu.

Abbots Cliff, Kent, England

Separated from France by only 21 miles of sea, Kent has often
been threatened by invasion. During WW2, new anti-invasion
defences were built, such as those at Abbots Cliff between
12

Dover and Folkestone. Coastal batteries were established and

13

earlier ones were re-armed. Cross-Channel guns, two of them

nicknamed Winnie and Pooh, were positioned on the cliffs at
St Margarets near Dover as a response to the danger from
German long-range guns in the Pas-de-Calais.

Abbots Cliff I, Kent, England. 2010

14

15

Abbots Cliff II, Kent, England. 2010

Hayling Island, Hampshire, England

During an air raid in April 1941, Sinah Common, a decoy site on
Hayling Island, attracted more than 200 German bombs and
parachute mines intended for Portsmouth.
Some sections of the Mulberry harbours used on the D-Day
beaches were built on the island.
In late 1943 and early 1944, Hayling Island-based COPP survey
teams, trained as frogmen and canoeists, were taken by X-Craft
mini-submarines and dropped off in two-man collapsible
16

canoes three to four kilometres off the coast of Normandy.

17

After paddling closer to the shore, the reconnaissance man

swam to the beach, while the second commando stayed in
the canoe conducting offshore surveillance. They recorded
every detail of possible landing sites and assault areas, and
information about the German enemy defences. A geological
assessment of the beach was also vital, including the gradient
of the underwater approaches. Core samples of the sand and
gravel were taken to find out whether heavy armed vehicles and
tanks would be able to negotiate the terrain. These commandos
returned on D-Day, when they guided the Allied ships to the
landing beaches.

Hayling Island, Hampshire, England. 2013

Studland Bay, Dorset, England

In April 1944, after months of intensive planning and practice, a
18

full-scale D-Day rehearsal for the Normandy landings was held

19

in Studland Bay. Exercise Smash, in which live ammunition

was used, was watched from Fort Henry, a nearby reinforced
concrete observation bunker, by King George VI, Prime
Minister Winston Churchill and Supreme Commander of the
Allied Forces General Dwight D Eisenhower.

Studland Bay III, Dorset, England. 2011

20

21

Studland Bay I, Dorset, England. 2011

Studland Bay II, Dorset, England. 2011

Portland, Dorset, England

The Verne Battery was built in 1892 in a disused stone quarry
on the Isle of Portland in Dorset as part of Britains coastal
22

defences. Decommissioned in 1906, it was used after WW1 for

23

storing field guns brought over from France, and during WW2
to house ammunition in preparation for the D-Day landings. It
also became an AA battery (anti-aircraft artillery). Thousands
of gravestones were hewn from Portland Stone for the fallen
Allied soldiers who died in both World Wars. It was also used
to build the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

Portland, Dorset, England. 2011

Torcross, Devon, England

Exercise Tiger was a large-scale rehearsal by US troops for
the D-Day landings. It took place in the area around Slapton
24

Sands and Torcross in 1944. Alerted by heavy open-radio

25

traffic between the Allies, German E-boats on a reconnaissance

mission sighted a convoy of eight landing ship tanks (LSTs)
travelling back from Lyme Bay to Slapton Sands. Torpedoes
fired by the German E-boats sunk three of the LSTs. More than
900 US soldiers and sailors died during the exercise.

Torcross, Devon, England. 2011

St Michaels Mount, Cornwall, England

At low tide, St Michaels Mount is joined to Marazion on the
south coast of Cornwall by a granite causeway. Its Benedictine
priory, dedicated to the Archangel St Michael, was turned into
a fortress by Henry VIII. He prepared defences against invasion
threatened by France and Spain.
26

The very first beacon warning of the arrival of the Spanish

27

Armada in 1588, during the reign of Elizabeth I, was lit on the

Mount, which remained a fortified island until the end of the
Napoleonic era.
In 1940, it was again garrisoned and fortified with a light
anti-aircraft battery and three pillboxes. One of them, made to
blend with its surroundings, was built of concrete blocks and
located in a cleft in the rocks.

St Michaels Mount, Cornwall, England. 2012

Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England

The Warden Point acoustic mirror on the Isle of Sheppey
had been part of the Thames Estuary Defence early-warning
28

system. By the outbreak of WW2, technology and the speed of

29

aircraft had rendered the acoustic mirrors obsolete, as enemy

planes would be within sight by the time they were located.
The system was replaced by radar, which linked tracking
stations and plotted aircraft movements.

Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England. 2012

Tilbury,Thurrock, England
Coalhouse Fort, a 19th-century Palmerston Fort built to protect
London from invasion by France, was re-armed during WW2.
A monitoring station inside the fort used cables laid on the
30

riverbed to check the magnetic fields of the steel hulls of

31

passing ships, which could trigger German magnetic mines. If

necessary, the boats were ordered back to Tilbury Docks to be
degaussed (demagnetized) by fitting electric cables around the
hull and passing electric current through them.

Tilbury I, Thurrock, England. 2011

32

33

Tilbury II, Thurrock, England. 2011

Dengie peninsula, Essex, England

In the eventuality of a German landing, Burnham-on-Crouch
on the Dengie peninsula would have offered a short and
undefended passage to London, by-passing the defences of
the Thames and the Medway.
34

35

This fortified minefield observation and control tower a twostorey hexagonal tower, ten metres high, surmounted by
a cupola was built on the edge of an open field adjacent to
the sea wall, in order to control the estuary minefield that
defended the River Crouch.

Dengie peninsula, Essex, England. 2011

Orford Ness, Suffolk, England

Orford Ness, on a gravel and shingle spit, was a secret military
site from WW1 until the end of the Cold War in the 1980s.
36

Early research and testing of radar by Robert Watson-Watt and

37

his team at Orford Ness led to the development of the network

of radar-directed air defences along the east and south coasts of
England at the outbreak of WW2.

Orford Ness, Suffolk, England. 2011

Spurn Point,Yorkshire, England

Spurn Point is a curving sand-and-shingle spit stretching
between the North Sea and the Humber. In WW1, Spurn Point
38

was leased and then purchased by the War Department, which

39

built fortifications and gun batteries protecting ports along the

River Humber from attack by German U-boats and Zeppelins.
During WW2, the defences were updated and extended with
anti-tank blocks, pillboxes and gun emplacements.

Spurn Point, Yorkshire, England. 2012

Reighton Gap,Yorkshire, England

Reighton Gap and the surrounding area was part of the heavily
defended Yorkshire coast. Single lines of concrete blocks ran
40

down the beach to the seas edge to stop landing enemy vehicles

41

traversing the sands. Double lines of anti-tank blocks were

constructed along the top of the sands below gaps in the cliffs.
Three artillery guns covered Reighton Gap. Along the coast
were lines of pillboxes, at the head of the beach and at the edge
of the cliffs above.

Reighton Gap, Yorkshire, England. 2012

Bamburgh, Northumberland, England

A tidal surge in December 2013 at Bamburgh uncovered a
pillbox in the sand dunes. It was constructed from hessian
42

sandbags filled with concrete and was part of a long chain of

43

coastal defensive sites including pillboxes, gun emplacements,

anti-tank blocks and a radar station. RAF Bamburgh was a
Chain Home Low radar station, which gave early warning of
enemy raids approaching the north of England.

Bamburgh, Northumberland, England. 2013

Borth-y-gest, Snowdonia, Wales.

Sited at Borth-y-gest on the north coast of Cardigan Bay in
Wales, standing above the waters of the Glaslyn, this pillbox is
constructed from concrete and camouflaged with local stone.
A mile away is the port of Porthmadog, where Dutch troops
44

45

from 10 Inter-Allied Commando were based while training in

Snowdonia in 1942.
Up in the hills are the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog. The
Manod Quarry nearby was used by the Government as a secure
location for storage of the National Gallerys paintings to
protect them from the London Blitz.

Borth-y-gest, Snowdonia, Wales. 2013

Ragwen Point, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Pembrokeshire, in south-west Wales, had already been
fortified over the centuries. During WW2, pillboxes, tanktraps (such as those at Ragwen Point) and radar sites were
46

built and minefields laid. Pembroke Dock became the largest

47

operational flying-boat station in the world. Stationed there

were Sunderlands, joined later by US Catalinas. These large
aircraft defended the Western Approaches, escorting Atlantic
convoys and attacking U-boats. In June 1944, they protected the
sea-lanes to Normandy as part of the D-Day operations.

Ragwen Point, Pembrokeshire, Wales. 2011

Brean Down, Somerset, England

Brean Down, a 19th-century Palmerston Fort 60 feet above sea
48

level, was part of a chain of defences protecting the approaches

49

to Bristol and Cardiff. Re-armed with a coastal artillery battery,

it was also used as a test site for rockets and experimental
weapons, such as torpedo decoys and the bouncing bomb
designed by Barnes Wallis.

Brean Down I, Somerset, England. 2012

50

51

Brean Down II, Somerset, England. 2012

Brean Down III, Somerset, England. 2012

Braunton Burrows, Devon, England

Braunton Burrows was the location of live firing ranges
and dummy pillboxes used by US troops for training. In the
52

Burrows are the remains of concrete replicas of landing craft.

53

Their fronts slope down, as did the ramps of the real craft once
they were lowered. The water in the dip at the front of the
mock-ups represented the sea into which the soldiers had to
plunge when they landed on the D-Day beaches in Normandy.

Braunton Burrows II, Devon, England. 2012

54

55

Braunton Burrows I, Devon, England. 2012

Widemouth Bay, Cornwall, England

In 1944, the 2nd US Ranger Battalion, under the command of
Lt Col James Earl Rudder, carried out training exercises near
Widemouth Bay in north Cornwall, including climbing nearby
56

steep sandstone cliffs. Their D-Day mission was to launch an

57

attack to destroy the German battery above the sheer cliff of

Pointe du Hoc in Normandy. This battery could direct its fire on
both Utah and Omaha, the two D-Day beaches on which the
Americans were to land, so needed to be disabled. The British
would land on Gold and Sword, and the Canadians on Juno.

Widemouth Bay, Cornwall, England. 2011

Scotland
Scotlands coastal landscape, like that of England, changed during both world wars

aircraft of the war brought down over Britain. Two of the German airmen were

entrance, the building of the Churchill barriers was started. These were a series

Orkney was extended by locating radar units on the Shetland Islands; two of them

especially during the Second World War with the construction of numerous

buried in Portobello Cemetery overlooking the Firth of Forth with full military

of causeways made with huge concrete blocks connecting the mainland to Burray

on Unst, the most northerly inhabited island. Throughout the war, a strong link

defences against possible German invasion.

honours and the chaplain wrote to their mothers.

and South Ronaldsay and the two smaller islands of Glimps Holm and Lamb Holm.

developed between people in occupied Norway and the Shetland Islands, where

On the west coast, anti-aircraft defences protected strategic locations such as

During the First World War, small islands in the Forth including Cramond, May,

The construction was continued by Italian soldiers taken prisoner in North Africa

many Norwegians had taken refuge after the invasion of their country.

the Firth of Clyde, the regions industries and shipyards and the city of Glasgow.

Inchcolm and Inchkeith had become part of the defences of the Firth of Forth.

Churchill described the Clyde Estuary (as he did the Mersey Estuary in England)

Following the Luftwaffe attack on the Royal Naval base, their defence and coastal

as the lungs through which we breathed [1]. Through their ports arrived urgently

batteries were refurbished and updated. To support the defences of Rosyth,

The Home Fleet, which had been lying at Rosyth, sailed back to Scapa in March

Service of Norways Government-in-Exile. A base for Britains Special Operations

particularly against midget-submarines and E-boats, the Fast Attack torpedo boats

1940. Barrage balloons, forcing enemy aircraft to remain at high altitude from

Executive (SOE) was established in Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. From there

of the Kriegsmarine (the German Navy), anti-submarine magnetic indicator loops

where bombing was less accurate, were set up so that the anti-aircraft guns could

was conceived the clandestine operation The Shetland Bus. In the dark of winter

were laid on the sea floor of harbours.

protect the anchorage. A network of radar stations was established, its operations

to avoid detection by the Germans, this saw Norwegian fishing vessels manned by

controlled from Kirkwall, the capital of the Orkney Islands.

volunteer Norwegian crews make numerous journeys often in violent seas from

needed food, weapons and war materials from the US and Canada.
The building of coastal defences was concentrated on Scotlands east coast. Before
May 1940, measures to protect this area had been minimal, although its sandy

58

in 1942. They left behind a legacy a beautiful small chapel they had built on Lamb
Holm by converting two Nissen huts: The Italian Chapel.

beaches and good communications offered ideal conditions for an enemy invasion,

Off the northern tip of Scotland lie the Orkney Islands. Some surround Scapa

and as early as 1938 German aircraft had been seen photographing the coast. The

Flow, a large 120-square-mile expanse of water within the southern part of

As a temporary base, some of the ships of the Fleet also anchored in the deep

Chief Royal Engineer for the 9th Highland Division GA Mitchell, a veteran of

Orkney. It has been used as a safe haven by ships, including those of the Vikings,

waters of Loch Ewe, which opens onto the Atlantic Ocean via a narrow mouth.

the First World War, was made responsible for the Scottish defences. These were

throughout the centuries.

Sheltered from the prevailing westerly winds, this north-facing loch in the north-

intended to slow down a beach landing in the event of a possible invasion from
Norway, which Germany had occupied since April 1940.

west Highlands was less exposed to air attack than Scapa Flow and easier to protect

With easy access to the North Sea to the east and the Atlantic to the west, Scapa
Flow became the chief anchorage of the Royal Navys Home Fleet during the First

up of forces in Scotland. The attack of targets in Norway by Allied commandos in

shifted the blockships (old merchant ships that had been sunk to protect the eastern

Control of Norway gave Germany direct access to the Atlantic Ocean, in addition

erected along the coastline to prevent enemy gliders from landing behind defence

approaches), and some had been dismantled and removed.

to naval bases for its submarines and warships and air bases for the Luftwaffe. By
controlling the port of Narvik, Germany also secured the supply line for Swedish
iron ore needed for the production of weapons.

Above the Firth of Forth, just weeks after war was declared, the first daylight air

torpedoes sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak as she lay at anchor, with the loss of

The Shetland Islands played a vital role in the North Sea blockade. A base for

attack over Britain took place. Twelve German Junkers JU 88 and Heinkel He 111

833 lives 120 of them boy sailors aged 14 to 18.

aircraft, ships and submarines, 20,000 troops were garrisoned there. Anti-

Forth, damaging the British cruisers HMS Southampton and HMS Edinburgh and the
destroyer HMS Mohawk. Sixteen Royal Navy crew were killed and 44 wounded. RAF
Spitfires shot down two of the Junkers and a Heinkel. They were the first enemy

aircraft gun barrages and searchlight towers were set up all around Shetland and

The Admiralty called for an immediate plan of action to improve and increase the

new coastal batteries were sited to protect Lerwick, Scalloway and Sullom Voe.

defences of Scapa. It included the reinforcement of the boom nets, backed up by

Because of the threat to Allied merchant shipping using the high-latitude routes

controlled minefields and indicator loops. New batteries were sited to cover all

across the North Atlantic, the range of coverage provided by the radar stations on

approaches and searchlights were installed on coastal positions. To seal the eastern

[1]

Norwegian refugees escaping the Gestapo.

invasion preparations, such as Operation Fortitude North, which simulated a build-

wire entanglements; minefields and gun-emplacements. Long wooden poles were

bombers attacked the Royal Naval base at Rosyth, on the north bank of the River

supplies and weapons. On return journeys, they sometimes brought back to safety

Loch Ewe served as an assembly point for the Arctic convoys to Russia.

War defences had been neglected and become run down. Winds and tides had

mission, a German U-boat (U-47) was able to penetrate Scapa Flows defences. Its

and saboteurs to meet up with Norwegian Resistance fighters and also delivered

controlled mines across the mouth of the loch and also anti-submarine boom nets.

blocks; pillboxes; observation towers; large, tubular-steel scaffolding poles; barbed-

an invasion would become major targets for the enemy.

Shetland to Norway and back again. They took undercover agents, radio operators

The British fed German Intelligence with misleading information about Allied

World War and again during the Second World War. But by 1939, its First World

On 14 October 1939, two days before the German air raid on the Forth, in a daring

London between the British Secret Intelligence Service and the Military Intelligence

from the threat of enemy submarines. Anti-submarine guard loops were laid with

Mitchell organised the construction of beach defences including concrete anti-tank

lines. Coastal gun batteries were placed at ports and airfields, which in the event of

A plan to organise the transport of secret agents by sea to Norway was developed in

Winston S Churchill, Ocean Peril, in The Second World War, Book IV: Their Finest Hour (Cassel and Co, 1948-1954).

spring 1944 reinforced the Germans belief that it was the prelude to an invasion. By
then, Hitler had 13 army divisions in Norway. The Allies hoped that Fortitude North
would prevent or delay the reinforcement of German troops in France following the
planned June invasion of Normandy.

59

Cramond Island, Firth of Forth, Scotland

An anti-submarine barrier, known as the dragons teeth, was
built along the causeway between the village of Cramond
60

and Cramond Island. Arranged in a long row, these pyramid-

61

shaped concrete pylons up to three metres high and spaced

at 1.5 metre intervals have vertical grooves in their sides into
which were slotted reinforced concrete panels. On top of the
blocks were fixing rings for large-diameter steel wire and antisubmarine nets.

Cramond Island, Firth of Forth, Scotland. 2012

Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

A one-kilometre-long anti-tank wall was built across
62

Newburghs sand dunes, 100 yards inland. This barrier

63

consisted of a mound of sand, a deep ditch and a large wall

made from steel scaffolding poles. It was designed to protect a
gun battery up in the dunes from any flanking attack by tanks
managing to get through the main defences on the beach.

Newburgh I, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. 2012

64

65

Newburgh II, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. 2012

Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland

A line of defences ran along the Moray coastline between
Cullen Bay and Findhorn Bay through the Lossie and Roseisle
forests. Anti-tank blocks ran the full length of this part of the
coast, forming a barrier with the pillboxes that were placed
between them at regular intervals. Some of the defences were

66

67

constructed by a Polish army engineer corps stationed in

Scotland. Kazimierz Durkacz, a medical student who joined
the Polish forces, wrote: At first, we used wood to make the
moulds for the large concrete blocks and then a combination of
corrugated iron and wood... I remember mixing concrete with
a shovel. [2]

[2]

Kazimierz Durkacz, quoted in Forestry Commission Scotland,

WWII Coastal Defences. www.forestry.gov.uk.

Lossiemouth I, Moray, Scotland. 2011

68

69

Lossiemouth II, Moray, Scotland. 2011

Findhorn, Moray, Scotland

Some of the amphibious Valentine tanks used by Allied troops
while training for the D-Day landings sank in the Moray Firth.
In 1943, British Army officer Captain Marks and four Norwegian
sailors working at a nearby shipyard drowned in Findhorn Bay.
The seamen were part of the clandestine Norwegian Resistance
group the Shetland Bus. Using volunteer Norwegian crews,
it ferried undercover agents and equipment from the Shetland
Islands into Nazi-occupied Norway, maintaining contact with
Resistance groups.

19 May 1943
In office at 9. Quite busy with letters until 10.30 when Lt Hauge
70

Norwegian from Burghead, came to collect urn.

71

Took me to the church at B. for the memorial service of Captain Marks,

who drowned with several Norwegians in Findhorn Bay on Easter
Saturday Hauge read his part of the service in Norwegian which
was most impressive we then marched down the high street at B. with
a Sqd of Norwegian sailors carrying the urn down to the harbour &
pier, where a few of us boarded a fishing tug & put out to sea.
When we stopped for the scattering of the ashes, a great swell nearly rolled
us over & I had great difficulty in reading the prayer! However, all went off
according to schedule the Norwegian sailor with Mrs Marks remarking
It is very very strange not according to the rules apparently. My first
burial at sea or rather my first service for the scattering of the ashes.
From the diary of Rev A T Goodrich,
Chaplain at RAF Kinloss, 1943-1944:

Findhorn, Moray, Scotland. 2011

Loch Ewe, North West Highlands, Scotland

The Arctic convoys to Russia, called by Churchill the worst
journey in the world assembled in Loch Ewe before sailing to
the ports of Archangel and Murmansk in the northern Soviet
72

Union. These merchant ships, escorted by Allied warships,

73

carried vital supplies and ammunition to Russia, fighting the

German army on the Eastern Front in what the Russians called
the Great Patriotic War. More than 3,000 seamen in these
convoys lost their lives in the icy waters, fog and raging storms
of the Arctic, their ships attacked by German submarines and
aircraft from bases in occupied Norway.

Loch Ewe, North West Highlands, Scotland. 2012

Lyness, Hoy, Orkney, Scotland

Hoy is one of the islands encircling Scapa Flow, which was
the Royal Navys chief anchorage during both world wars.
On the hillside above Lyness stands the Wee Fea Naval
Communications and Operational Centre. From 1943, this
was the main base for, and controlled, naval operations in
74

Scapa. It enabled direct communication to all defence sectors

75

and then to the outside world.

Lyness Naval Base was the site of the operation to salvage the
German Fleet scuttled in 1919 during its internment at Scapa
Flow at the end of WW1. It took eight years to raise 45 of the
52 scuttled ships.

Lyness, Hoy, Orkney, Scotland. 2013

Golta Peninsula, Flotta, Orkney, Scotland

The small island of Flotta, the flat island in Old Norse, was the
76

gateway to Scapa Flow. The multiple launcher site of Z battery

77

was installed on Golta Peninsula on Flotta to protect military

targets against low-flying German aircraft. It comprised 64
rocket launchers and over 100 shelters, forming a grid. They
were used to protect the gun crews and to store the ammunition.

Golta Peninsula, Flotta, Orkney, Scotland. 2013

Stanger Head, Flotta, Orkney, Scotland

To protect Hoxa Sound, the main entrance channel to Scapa
78

Flow, new coastal defences were established during WW2. They

79

included gun and rocket batteries, boom nets, searchlights, also

anti-aircraft and barrage balloon sites. The Navys signaling and
observation station on Stanger Head was also enlarged.

Stanger Head, Flotta, Orkney, Scotland. 2013

Calf Sound, Flotta, Orkney, Scotland

80

Anti-submarine boom nets strung from shore to shore

81

protected the main entrances to Scapa Flow. At the end of

WW2, boom netting and cables were dumped in Calf Sound.

Calf Sound, Flotta, Orkney, Scotland. 2013

Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland

In May and June 1940, Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland
Islands, saw the arrival of refugees from Norway, fleeing their
country after it was invaded by Germany. In 1941, it became the
82

official base of the SOE where the Shetland Bus operation was

83

conceived. It was also the base for No 14 (Arctic) Commando,

formed to raid German bases on the Norwegian coast. To
defend Lerwick, new coastal batteries were built. As part of
the harbour defences, three torpedo tubes were mounted on a
concrete platform built on the rocks at the headland of the Knab.

Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland. 2013

Mavis Grind, Northmavine, Shetland, Scotland

Northmavine is joined to the Shetland island of Mainland by
Mavis Grind, which means the gateway of the narrow isthmus.
84

At its narrowest point, 33 metres wide, it separates the Atlantic

85

Ocean to the west from the North Sea to the east. It is believed
that the Vikings dragged their longships across Mavis Grind to
avoid having to sail around the rocky shores of Northmavine.
Nearby, Sullom Voe became a flying-boat base.

Mavis Grind, Northmavine, Shetland, Scotland. 2013

Lamba Ness, Unst, Shetland, Scotland

Because of their proximity to occupied Norway, where the
Germans had established U-boat and Luftwaffe bases from
86

which they threatened Allied shipping in the North Atlantic,

87

it became urgent for Britain to extend the range of the radar

covering Orkney and Shetland. A Chain Home Low radar
station (RAF Skaw) was set up at Lamba Ness in Unst, the most
northerly island of Shetland. It could detect enemy aircraft
flying at a minimum altitude of 500 feet.

Lamba Ness, Unst, Shetland, Scotland. 2013

The Atlantic Wall

In March 1942, Hitler signed a directive ordering the building of the Atlantikwall
(Atlantic Wall) to secure the coasts of occupied Europe against Allied invasion. It
[1]

was to run for almost 5,000 kilometres along the coastlines of Norway, Denmark,
Germany, Holland, Belgium, France (down to the Franco-Spanish border), and also
the Channel Islands, which had been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940.
The construction of this wall of concrete and steel a network of about 15,000
bunkers with strategic strongholds and coastal batteries was carried out by
Germanys civil and military engineering Todt Organisation using forced labour
and prisoners of war from occupied countries. Over 13 million cubic metres of
concrete and more than one million tonnes of steel were used in its construction.
Ten per cent of the total steel and concrete was used for the defences of the Channel
Islands. This was the only part of the British Empire to be invaded and occupied by
88

Germany. Despite Winston Churchills reluctance, the British government decided

that the Channel Islands would not be defended; instead they would be demilitarised
and declared an undefended zone. Their occupation lasted from June 1940 until the
end of the war in Europe in May 1945.
The Jutland Peninsula on the west coast of Denmark is 400 kilometres in length with
numerous fjords and inlets. Its beaches are long, flat and sandy, backed by dunes.
Soon after invading Denmark and Norway in April 1940, the Germans heavily
mined the Skagerrak, the stretch of sea between Denmark and Norway. Flowing
into it are the waters of the Kattegat between Sweden and Denmark, gateway to the
Baltic Sea. Sealing it prevented the Allies sailing from the North Sea to the Baltic.
The Germans left a passage through the minefield for shipping and the transport of
troops and supplies from Germany to Norway.
Hanstholm is a headland at the furthest north-westerly point of Jutland, where the
North Sea meets the Skagerrak. By autumn 1941, it had become the largest fortified
area in Northern Europe with a battery covering more than nine square kilometres
and comprising over 450 bunkers. A similar battery, carved into solid rock, was

undertaken to protect the bases of the U-boat flotillas along the western Atlantic

cathedral bunkers because of their shape). One of these was near the coastal town

coast. From here, since the fall of France in 1940, the Germans had been raiding

of Wimereux, north of Boulogne, which became the German Naval Headquarters

Allied shipping in the Atlantic and threatening the supply of food and arms to Britain.

after the Allied retreat from Dunkirk.

steel for armaments. From neutral Sweden, the iron ore was transported by rail to

Five days after Hitler had issued the directive ordering the building of the Atlantic

Many of the launching sites for the V1 flying bombs and the V2 rockets (the first

the Norwegian port of Narvik, shipped down the west coast, across the Skagerrak

Wall, British commandos and naval forces attacked and damaged the heavily

ballistic missiles) were located inland in the Pas-de-Calais. The V stood for

and then down the coast of Denmark to the German ports.

defended U-boat dry dock at St Nazaire on the west coast of France. It had the only

Vergeltungswaffe meaning reprisal weapons. Priority was given to the building of

dry dock where the fast and heavily armed battleship Tirpitz, which was based in a

huge bombproof shelters and blockhouses to defend these facilities and launching

fjord in Norway as a deterrent against an Allied invasion, could be taken for repair

areas, but mobile launchers were later used for the V2s.

erected on the Norwegian side of the strait, at Mvik, west of Kristiansand.

In winter, when the German northern Baltic ports were frozen, Hanstholm
protected the ships transporting iron ore, vital to the Third Reich for producing

In 1943, concerned that an Allied diversionary landing might take place on the
Jutland coast which faces England and had an excellent infrastructure of roads
the Germans built 8,000 concrete defence structures, including 2,000 Regelbau
bunkers, with coastal batteries placed at strategic positions. In addition, 1.5 million
mines were laid on the seaboard.
Following German setbacks on the eastern front that same year, Hitler had to shift
resources from his forces in Western Europe to Russia. To do this, he needed to repulse

and maintenance. The raid at St Nazaire, Operation Chariot, was followed in August
by the Allies amphibious raid, Operation Jubilee, at Dieppe.

When Rommel inspected the existing defences of the Atlantic Wall along the coasts
facing England, he found them inadequate. Believing that unless an invasion could

These raids forced the Germans to increase their defences, especially around French

be stopped at the beaches within the first 24 hours, Germany would be defeated, he

ports, in order to protect the bases of the U-boat flotillas on the western coast at

immediately ordered the defences to be strengthened and new ones built on every

Brest, Lorient, St Nazaire, La Pallice and Bordeaux.

beach even on those where the possibility of the Allies using them as landing
zones was remote.

any invasion in the West by the Allies. But with the build-up of Allied military forces

When faced with the build-up of Allied military forces in Britain, Hitler issued

and equipment in Britain, Germanys fear of an invasion grew. On 3 November,

another directive in November 1943 ordering the further strengthening of the

By March 1944, now believing that Normandy and not the Pas-de-Calais was the

Hitler issued a directive ordering the strengthening of the Atlantic Wall [2], especially

Atlantic Wall. He appointed Field Marshal Erwin Rommel known as the Desert

most likely place for an Allied landing, Rommel created a series of defences there.

on the Channel coast where it was assumed that the invasion would take place.

Fox after his exploits in North Africa to assess the overall readiness of coastal

The first consisted of underwater obstacles with explosives to blow up the landing

anti-invasion defences. Rommels tour started in Denmark.

craft, as Rommel believed that the Allies would land at high tide (in fact, the Allies

After occupying Norway, the Germans first consolidated the existing Norwegian

landed at low tide so that as many of these submerged obstructions were exposed as

coastal forts. They then constructed batteries between the strongholds to defend

Until then, the Germans believed the Pas-de-Calais to be the area chosen for any

the ports from which their submarines and warships could operate in the North

future landings by the Allies. It is the shortest point between England and France

Atlantic. By the end of the war, 220 of these had been installed in caves and cliffs

and the fastest route to Germany; it also had the ports needed to bring in supplies

and blasted into mountains. Hitler considered Norway the area of destiny [3] for

for the Allies after a landing and invasion. That belief was reinforced by the Allies

determining the outcome of the war and hundreds of thousands of German troops

elaborate deception Operation Fortitude South, which simulated a build-up to

Along the beaches was a string of reinforced pillboxes to house machine-guns,

were deployed there.

invasion at the Pas-de-Calais.

anti-tank guns and light artillery. There were also concrete observation bunkers,

In France, until the end of 1941, the German-built fortifications consisted of heavy

The Germans had fortified the coast with long-range artillery to bombard Allied

batteries between Boulogne and Calais emplaced for the shelling of England during

shipping in the Channel and southern England. Steel reinforced concrete casemates,

the preparations for Operation Sealion, railway gun batteries and U-boat pens.

30 feet high, protected some of the gun positions. Railway guns mounted on

After Sealion had been called off, the construction of bombproof U-boat pens was

wagons moved through armoured doors into Dombunkers (sometimes called

possible). Parallel to the shore were anti-tank steel walls, then more mines attached
to the tops of posts sunk into the sea floor. By May 1944, over four million mines had
been laid along the Normandy coast and in the sea there.

communication trenches, walls of barbed wire, artillery and machine-gun nest

positions with interlocking fields of fire. On the bluffs long-range artillery batteries
were protected by fortified concrete casemates with steel-reinforced walls up to 13
feet thick, which could withstand the heaviest Allied bombardment.

89

Constant photo-reconnaissance by air-crews flying unarmed Spitfires, brought back

to Britain film that was developed and then interpreted to ascertain the location of
bunkers, the anti-tank obstacles, telephone and telegraph wiring between batteries;
and also the location of V1 and V2 launching sites.
Following the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944, the breakout from Normandy and the
liberation of France and Belgium, the Allies needed ports to land supplies for their
advancing armies. They had only Cherbourg and the remaining Mulberry harbour
at Arromanches. French and Belgian Channel ports were still held by German forces.
Having expected an invasion in France in the spring of 1944, Hitler had ordered that
some of the ports should be declared fortresses to be held at all cost, and to the last
man [4], blocking access to them and their installations.
The clearing of the Channel coast and the capture of its ports, from Normandy to
90

91

the Scheldt estuary in the Netherlands, were assigned to the First Canadian Army.
Le Havre, designed as a fortress, required a full-scale assault as did Boulogne
and Calais.
Antwerp on the River Scheldt, which flows from Northern France through Belgium
and the Netherlands to the North Sea, was one of the largest deep-sea ports in
Europe. Although Antwerp had fallen to the Allies in September 1944, its port could
not be used while German forces still held the Dutch island of Walcheren in the
Scheldt estuary. As a fortress, it had formidable defences and was also protected
by two lines of fortifications. One faced seaward, the other inland to defend the
coastline bunkers from flanking manoeuvres and attack from the rear. The Scheldt
estuary and Walcheren were liberated after fierce battles.
The Allies finally breached the Atlantic Wall in June 1944 with the D-Day landings
the first step to the liberation of Europe. In less than a year the Third Reich would
cease to exist. The unconditional surrender by Nazi Germanys armed forces on
8 May 1945 marked the end of the Second World War in Europe.

[1]

Fhrer Directive No.40, On Command Organization of the Coasts, 23 March, 1942.

World War II Database, www.ww2db.com.

[2] Fhrer Directive No.51, On preparations for a two-front war, 3 November, 1943.

World War II Database, www.ww2db.com.

[3] Adolph Hitler at a meeting with Vice Admiral Kurt Fricke of the Kriegsmarine, 22 January, 1942, quoted in

Clay Blair, Hitlers U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939-1942 (Modern Library, New York, 1998).
[4] Hitlers Order No.11, To Commandants of Fortified Areas and Battle Commandants, 8 March, 1944.

Directives 1939-1945, Hugh Trevor-Roper, (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1964).

Hitlers War

Haugesund, Rogaland, Norway

Haugesund, on the west coast of Norway, was defended by the
naval battery (Marine Kste Batterie) Bismarck. It comprised
four 15cm guns, which could each fire a one tonne shell per
minute up to a distance of 17 kilometres. The Kriegsmarine
(German navy) and Luftwaffe used their bases in Norway to
attack the Allied Arctic convoys bound for Russia.
92

In 1943, Allied commandos from No 14 (Arctic) Commando

93

took part in a raid Operation Checkmate on German

shipping near Haugesund. They used canoes and kayaks and
attached limpet mines to the hulls of the ships. During that
raid, a German minesweeper was sunk. While waiting to be
picked up by a Royal Navy motor torpedo boat (MTB), the
commandos were captured, taken to concentration camps in
Germany and executed.

Haugesund I, Rogaland, Norway. 2014

94

95

Haugesund III, Rogaland, Norway. 2014

Haugesund II, Rogaland, Norway. 2014

96

97

Haugesund IV, Rogaland, Norway. 2014

Kristiansand,Vest-Agder, Norway
A coastal artillery fortress, named Batterie Vara when built
by the Germans in 1941, was located in the cliffs of the Mvik
peninsula near Kristiansand. It occupied a commanding
position overlooking the Skagerrak the stretch of sea between
Norway and Denmark. Together with an identical battery on the
Danish side in Hanstholm, Vara prevented the Allies from using
the shipping lanes of the strait.
Three 38 centimetre Bismarck guns, some of the worlds largest
guns, were installed in land-turrets. These were the same type
98

of guns used both on the battleship Bismarck (sunk by the Royal

99

Navy in May 1941), and on the Tirpitz. A casemate with walls 3.8
metres thick and a roof 4.5 metres thick was built for a fourth
gun. But its barrel, which was over 19 metres long and weighed
110 tonnes, was lost when the ship Porto Alegra on which it was
being transported from Germany was sunk in the Kattegat by a
British air attack in February 1945.
The Vara fire control main bunker was built on the island of
Flekkery to the south of the battery.

Mvik I, Vest-Agder, Norway. 2014

100

101

Mvik II, Vest-Agder, Norway. 2014

Flekkerya, Vest-Agder, Norway. 2014

Lkken, Nordjylland, Denmark

In April 1940, in what was the worlds first airborne invasion,
hundreds of German paratroopers landed in Denmark and
seized the Aalborg airfield in North Jutland. The Germans used
it as a refuelling base and to transport troops for their campaign
102

in Norway. In Lkken, 50 kilometres away, they built large gun

103

batteries in fortified casemates.

About 8,000 concrete defence structures, including 2,000
Regelbau bunkers, were constructed along the Jutland coast.

Lkken, Nordjylland, Denmark. 2014

Vigs, Nordjylland, Denmark

The battery at Vigs was built to protect the gun positions
in Hanstholm from attack from the east. The wide range of
104

artillery in Hanstholm comprised four massive 38cm guns

105

similar to the ones fitted to Bismarck-class battleships. They

could fire a 495 kilogram projectile 55 kilometres, or a 800
kilogram shell 42 kilometres at a rate of one every 1.5 minutes.

Vigs I, Nordjylland, Denmark. 2014

106

107

Vigs II, Nordjylland, Denmark. 2014

Hanstholm, Nordjylland, Denmark

Soon after the German invasion of Denmark and Norway,
Hanstholm, which commands the entrance to the Skagerrak,
became the most heavily fortified position in Denmark.
The battery covered more than nine square kilometres with
108

more than 450 bunkers. Together with an identical battery in

109

Kristiansand on the south coast of Norway, it defended the

channel between Denmark and Norway and sealed off the Baltic
to Allied ships.

Hanstholm, Nordjylland, Denmark. 2014

Vorupr, Nordjylland, Denmark

Vorupr, on Jutlands west coast, was the site of a
Wassermann-S radar receiver. Mounted on a 42-metre-high
tower, it could rotate through 360 degrees and track aircraft
as far as 190 kilometres away. On the night of 30 August 1944,
110

tracked by a smaller Wassermann, a Lancaster was hit by a

111

German night fighter. The Lancaster caught fire and crashed.

All the crew were killed. They were buried by German soldiers
with the inscription: Here rest seven unknown English and
American airmen [5], and a white cross on the grave. They are
now buried in Vorupr cemetery.

Vorupr I, Nordjylland, Denmark. 2014

[5] Memorial stone at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery, Nrre Vorupr,

Denmark. Also quoted on AirmenDK, www.airmen.dk.

112

113

Vorupr II, Nordjylland, Denmark. 2014

Houvig, Midtjylland, Denmark

The Houvig stronghold, on the west coast of Jutland, had 50
bunkers and another 50 concrete defence structures. Around
the fortifications were large minefields and barbed wire
entanglements.
In 2008, 63 years after the end of the war, an intact bunker
114

(including the personal effects of its crew), which had been

115

entombed under the sands in Kryle, was uncovered following

violent storms. One of the former German soldiers who had
been stationed there, Gerhard Saalfeld, had come back to
Denmark many times after the end of the war looking for his
bunker. When it was discovered, inside he found a shoe brush
with his name engraved on it. He had been 17 years old when he
had left it.

Houvig, Midtjylland, Denmark. 2014

Bredene, Ostend, Belgium

Bredene lies north of Ostend, in Flanders. In 1941, the Germans
constructed a railway gun battery (Eisenbatterie E 690) linked by
116

rail to Ostends station. The battery had four 28cm guns placed on

117

a turntable that could turn 360 degrees. It also had a command

post for arming the coastal battery, a fire bunker in front of the
guns and behind them bunkers for munitions and the crews.
Facing the Allied advance in September 1944, the battery was
dismantled and the guns moved to Dordrecht in Holland.

Bredene II, Ostend, Belgium. 2012

118

119

Bredene I, Ostend, Belgium. 2012

Dunkirk, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France

Known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, Operation Dynamo lasted
from 26 May to 3 June 1940. While the RAF patrolled the sea120

lanes, civilian boats (the little ships) and Royal Navy ships

121

crossed the Channel and rescued 338,226 Allied soldiers from

the Dunkirk beaches. Fighter planes engaged in dogfights and
many of the air battles took place further inland so were not
seen by the troops as the RAF tried to break up the Luftwaffe
formations to prevent them reaching the beaches.

Dunkirk, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

Wissant, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France

Wissant means white sand in Dutch (wit-zand). From the 7th to
the 14th century, it was considered to be part of Flanders and the
local language was called Old Dutch. During the Middle Ages,
it was a major port of embarkation for England until, towards
the end of the 12th century, it became silted up by the shifting
sands. Some historians believe that it was from Wissant that, in
122

55 BC, Julius Caesar sailed for his invasion of Britain.

123

During WW2, the Germans believed the Allies would regard

Wissant, the closest point on mainland Europe to the English
coast, as an ideal beach for an invasion. Situated between
Cap Gris Nez and Cap Blanc Nez, it was heavily fortified with
enormous bunkers, blockhouses, minefields, an anti-tank wall
and long-range guns that could reach the English coast. In 2013,
these German defences were removed by the local authorities.

Wissant IV, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

124

125

Wissant I, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

Wissant II, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

126

127

Wissant III, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

Wimereux, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France

During WW1, Wimereux and Boulogne were part of an
128

important hospital centre. John McCrae was one of the doctors

129

there. He had come to France with the Canadian Expeditionary

Force. After the death of a friend at the Second Battle of Ypres,
he wrote the poem In Flanders Fields. McCrae died in 1918 and was
buried in the cemetery of Wimereux.

Wimereux, Nord-Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

Berck, Pas-De-Calais, France

One of the Allies objectives before launching their invasion
of occupied Europe (Operation Overlord) was to destroy
Germanys secret V1 and V2 sites in Operation Crossbow.
Aerial photographs brought back by reconnaissance crews
130

flying unarmed Spitfires were analysed at RAF Medmenham in

131

Buckingamshire. Using stereoscopes, photographic interpreters

could see the landscape in 3D. In addition to those in North
Germany, many of the V1 and V2 sites, with their launch
platforms, were positioned in the Pas-de-Calais away from
the coast. Strongly fortified by the Germans with a four-gun
position, Berck-sur-Mer and its airfield were heavily bombed by
the Allies in 1944.

Berck I, Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

132

133

Berck II, Pas-De-Calais, France. 2012

Mesnil-Val-Plage, Seine Maritime,

Haute Normandie, France
Mesnil-Val-Plage is near the seaport of Le Trport, on the
Channel coast, between the estuaries of the River Seine and the
River Somme, about 30 kilometres east of Dieppe. Its cliffs, the
highest chalk cliffs in Europe, are over 100 metres high.
During WW1, the Trianon a Belle Epoque hotel on top of the
cliffs above Le Trport was turned into a hospital for British
soldiers wounded in the Battle of the Somme. In WW2, the
134

135

building was destroyed by the Germans, who established a radar

detection station there.
In August 1942, soon after the Allied raid on Dieppe (Operation
Jubilee), the Germans established a command post they called
the Kahlburg (bare fort), dug out of the chalk cliffs, to protect
that area. A maze of galleries, reinforced by brick masonry, it
was built on four levels and reached by 225 steps, giving access
to technical rooms, barracks, three observation posts and two
combat posts. It also housed a 75mm heavy artillery battery.

Mesnil-Val-Plage, Seine Maritime, Haute Normandie, France. 2012

Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer,
Upper Normandy, France
On 19 August 1942, on the beach of Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer,
a group from No 4 Commando under the command of Lord
Lovat, landed with a mission to assault and destroy the German
Hess battery above Varengeville, which could fire on the beach
of Dieppe. They were successful, but the Dieppe raid ended in
disaster for the Canadian and British troops.
After the raid, the German coastal defences were strengthened.
The monolith on the shingle beach was part of a blockhouse
136

that originally stood on the cliff.

137

Nearly two years later, when landing on Sword Beach in June

1944 during Operation Overlord, Lovat instructed his personal
piper Bill Millin to pipe the commandos ashore. This was
against War Office regulations (many pipers had been killed
during WW1). As Millin cited the regulations, Lovat replied: Ah,
but thats the English War Office. You and I are both Scots and
that does not apply. [6] Millin struck up Highland Laddie, then
Road to the Isles. The Germans did not fire at him.

Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer, Upper Normandy, France. 2012

[6] As recalled later by Bill Millin. www.thewashingtonpost.com, In the news,

T.Rees Shapiro (21 August, 2010).

Normandy, France
At dawn on 6 June 1944, while the German beach defences

enemy guns. They scaled the steep face with ropes fixed in

The next day, they made contact with the British who had

in Normandy were being pounded by heavy naval and aerial

place by rocket-fired grappling hooks, and ladders borrowed

landed on Sword, together with British commando units

bombardment, the Allied forces breached the Atlantic Wall.

from the London Fire Brigade. However, some of the ropes

under the command of Lord Lovat. Attached to No 4 British

The night before, 21,000 paratroopers one British and

were waterlogged so did not extend to the top of the cliff.

Commando were 177 French commandos the French green

two American Airborne Divisions had been dropped into

The Rangers, forced to free climb the last 15 feet, had to use

berets headed by Philippe Kieffer (his commando training

Normandy, securing the flanks of the D-Day assault zones.

their trench knives as holds on the slippery clay surface.

had been carried out at Achnacarry in Scotland). They were

Their task was to destroy German gun batteries and capture

They got to the top, only to find that the casemates were

the first to disembark, the troops of No 4 Commando letting

vital bridges. Operation Overlord had begun.

empty; the guns had recently been moved. Following heavy

them lead the way to the French shore.

Around 156,000 invading troops landed on the beaches,

supported by nearly 12,000 aircraft, and a vast number of
naval forces: 6,939 vessels including combat ships, landing
craft and merchant vessels. The majority of troops were
from the United States, Britain and Canada, with others

138

tracks along a dirt road, they discovered the cannon one

kilometre further inland, but from where they were still
able to target the Allied ships and American troops on the
beaches. Using thermite grenades, the Rangers destroyed
the guns. After accomplishing their mission, they remained

from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece,

under siege for two days during which they held off five

the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.

German counterattacks. By the time they were relieved by

the 5th Rangers Battalion, 135 of them had been killed.

The Allied landings took place at five separate beaches on a

The commandos went on to capture a strongpoint and

gun battery in Ouistreham, later meeting the British
paratroopers at the Bnouville Bridge over the Caen Canal.
John Howards commandos had secured it after a brief
assault the night before, having landed in gliders. It was
re-named Pegasus Bridge, after the flying horse shoulder
emblem worn by the British airborne forces. One of the
objectives of the troops landing on Sword beach had been

50-mile stretch of the coast of Normandy. Each was given a

Omaha was a narrow, enclosed, six-mile stretch of beach

to seize Caen, but it took almost seven weeks to liberate this

code name. In the west, the Americans would land on Utah

dominated by steep bluffs fortified by Rommel with massive

key city, and by 21 July it had been almost totally destroyed.

and Omaha; in the middle, the British on Gold and the

defensive structures. On D-Day, Bloody

Canadians on Juno; and in the east, the British on Sword.

New York Times reporter Hanson Baldwin called it, suffered

Utah was the first beach secured by the Allies. They

Omaha [7],

as the

more than 3,000 American casualties.

D-Day Allied casualties are estimated to have numbered

more than 10,000 men killed, wounded, missing in action
and prisoners of war including nearly 4,500 dead. German

encountered little resistance and their casualties were the

On Gold, also strongly defended, casualties were heavy

casualties are not known, but they are estimated to have

lightest of any of the invading troops. They were to join

but the British established a beachhead, linking with the

been between 4,000 and 9,000 men.

men of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions who had

Canadians who had landed on Juno. They captured the

parachuted in and helped to secure Sainte-Mre-Eglise, the

harbour of Arromanches where they were to build one of

first town in France to be liberated.

the Mulberry harbours, Port Winston. It was in use for ten

On the extreme western edge of Omaha, jutting into the

sea, is Pointe du Hoc. This 100-foot-high cliff had been
heavily fortified by the Germans with six 155mm cannon in
strong reinforced concrete casemates, which could fire on

months, landing 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles and 4

million tonnes of supplies. The British were able to advance
almost to the outskirts of Bayeux, which they captured the
next day.

The Battle for Normandy raged for 11 weeks after D-Day,

ending with the Battle of the Falaise Pocket in August
1944 when 10,000 German troops were killed and 50,000
were taken prisoner. Eisenhower described it as one
of the greatest killing fields of any of the war areas
encountering scenes that could be described only by
Dante [8]. Allied and German troops suffered over 425,000

the troops landing on both Utah and Omaha. Lt Col James

The Canadians encountered strong German resistance on

casualties during the Battle for Normandy, while 20,000

Earl Rudder and his 2nd Ranger Battalion were assigned to

Juno and suffered very high numbers of casualties, but they

French civilians were killed. Many villages and towns were

assault it one hour before the landings and to take out the

were off the beach within a few hours and pressed inland.

destroyed in the fighting and by bombing raids.

[7] Hanson W. Baldwin, Beginnings in France, New York Times, 14 June, 1944.

139

[8] General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, (Doubleday, 1948).

Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. 2014

140

141

Arromanche-les-Bains I, Normandy, France. 2014

142

143

Arromanche-les-Bains II, Normandy, France. 2014

Promoted to Midshipman, Basil John Valentine Spain took command of

LBK1 [Landing Barge, Kitchen], a Thames lighter, which he picked up at
Rochester and navigated round to the Isle of Wight shortly before D-Day.
The unseasonably bad weather conditions delayed D-Day by 24 hours, but
then Midshipman Spain set off on the 6 June 1944 along with thousands
of other craft at dawn.
The crossing took around 24 hours and the seas had still not calmed and
every man aboard was sea sick, including Basil himself. Once off the
Normandy coast, it was his job to secure the boat for a few days until bad
weather forced them into Arromanches harbour, a temporary pontoon.
LBK1s role was to cater for the servicemen engaged in the operation on
144

Gold Beach. A minor landing craft would go out to the larger supply

145

ships, collect whatever food was available and make meals for their fellow
servicemen. Basils war effort was publicised in the national and local
press, under the headline Mickys Fish and Chip Bar, a common name in
those days for fish and chip shops.
The mackerel were certainly plentiful in the waters around the LBK1 as
they fed off the blood and bodies of the many men who had lost their lives
in the water.
It was while involved in this operation, that Basil was mentioned in
dispatches.
Midshipman Basil John Valentine Spain

Arromanche-les-Bains III, Normandy, France. 2014

146

147

Colleville-sur-Mer I, Normandy, France. 2014

...the movies could never explain the colour of the water, bright red and all
the boys floating...
148

149

US Sergeant Bernard Kaufman (on General Eisenhowers staff)

with troops at Omaha Beach landing for Stars and Stripes.

Colleville-sur-Mer II, Normandy, France. 2014

150

151

Pointe du Hoc I, Normandy, France. 2014

Pointe du Hoc II, Normandy, France. 2014

152

153

La Madeleine, Normandy, France. 2014

The Channel Islands, UK

Thirty thousand German troops were garrisoned in the Channel
Islands, which had been invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany
in 1940. Although of no strategic importance to Germany
154

except for propaganda value, and believing that the British

155

might try to recapture them, Hitler gave orders that the Channel
Islands be turned into impregnable fortresses [9]. Due to their
heavy defences (including the defences at St Ouens Bay, Jersey,
and a fort at Les Grandes Rocques), the Allied forces by-passed
them during the invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

St Ouens Bay, Jersey, UK. 2013

[9] Fhrer Directive, Fortifications and Defence of the English Channel Islands,

20 October, 1941. Michael Ginns, M.B.E., Living with the enemy,

www.livingwiththeenemy.com.

156

157

Les Grandes Rocques, Guernsey, UK. 2012

Pointe de Pen-Hir, Brittany, France

Gun emplacements were built at Pointe de Pen-Hir to guard the
158

entrance to Brest harbour, which was used as a U-boat base. The

159

submarines began operating from Brest in August 1940, after

being transferred from their bases in Kiel and Danzig on the
Baltic. Using wolf-pack tactics, they inflicted heavy losses on
the Allied convoys.

Pointe de Pen-Hir, Brittany, France. 2014

Lorient, Brittany, France

The Brittany harbours of Brest, Lorient and Saint-Nazaire
became bases for the German submarines that attacked the
convoys bringing military equipment and food supplies from
the United States to Britain.
160

In Lorient, the largest of these U-boat bases, the Germans built

161

three gigantic reinforced concrete structures on the Keroman

peninsula. The third of these, K3, was 138 metres long, 170
metres wide and 20 metres high. It was protected by a double
roof 7.4 metres thick that the Allies were unable to destroy,
despite very heavy bombing. Floating armoured doors sealed
the pens, from which the U-boats had direct access to the deep
waters of the estuary.

Lorient, Brittany, France. 2014

Ile de R, Charente-Maritime, France

During WW2, to protect the port of La Pallice, six kilometres
from La Rochelle, the Germans fortified nearby Ile de R
with gun batteries. La Pallice was used by the Germans as a
U-boat base. From here, they operated in wolf-packs, attacking
the Allied Atlantic convoys that brought vital supplies from
America. Two twin gun turrets part of four originally built for
the German heavy cruiser Seydlitz, which was never completed
were sent there to reinforce the Atlantic Wall defences at the
Karola and Kora batteries. The range finder was located on a
concrete tower, 25 metres high.
162

163

In 1944, La Rochelle became one of the Atlantic pockets

defended by 20,000 German soldiers. Besieged by the Allies
from 13 September 1944, Vice Admiral Ernst Schirlitz, its
Commander since August that year, did not surrender until
8 May 1945, the day of Germanys capitulation at the end of
the war. In secret talks between Schirlitz and French Naval
Officer, Captain Hubert Meyer, an agreement was reached
(the La Rochelle Convention) that prevented the town and its
submarine base from being blown up by the Germans, which
Hitler had ordered. This pact allowed the Allies to supply the
inhabitants of La Rochelle with food and medicine.

Ile de R, Charente-Maritime, France. 2014

Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, Charente-Maritime, France

Saint-Palais-sur-Mer lies at the mouth of the Gironde estuary,
which was defended by two fortresses built by the Germans.
164

Like other fortifications at major harbours, they were to be

165

defended to the last man. They were part of the Atlantic

pockets, the final resistance areas, which the Germans held long
after the rest of France had been liberated by the Allies in 1944.

Saint-Palais-sur-Mer I, Charente-Maritime, France, 2014

166

167

Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, II Charente-Maritime, France. 2014

LAmlie, Gironde, France

Aquitaine is subject to intense coastal erosion. Some of its
beaches such as lAmlie next to Soulac-sur-Mer have
168

receded up to 200 metres since the end of WW2.

169

All along the coast, German defences built originally on the

dunes are now, for the most part, submerged by the sea except at
low tide, or lie directly on the beaches.

LAmlie, Gironde, France. 2014

Capbreton, Aquitaine, France

To defend the Aquitaine port of Capbreton, which was part of
the Atlantic Wall, each of the four 105mm guns of the coastal
battery was located in the first row of dunes near the beach and
mounted in a separate casemate.
A little further down the coast, near the Franco-Spanish border,
170

171

is the Basque fishing port of Saint-Jean-de-Luz. From there,

Polish troops unable to sail to Britain from Saint-Nazaire after
the Fall of France, boarded two Polish ships to get to England.
One of the escape routes used by the Belgian and French
resistance group Comet Line, which helped Allied airmen shot
down behind enemy lines get back to Britain, passed through
Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Taken by guides across the Pyrenees into
Spain, they were then escorted to Gibraltar.

Capbreton I, Aquitaine, France. 2014

172

173

Capbreton II, Aquitaine, France. 2014

The Last Stand received generous support through

crowd-funding campaigns.
Thank you to the following people, whose names are included here in recognition of their contributions:

174

Acknowledgements

Short Select Bibliography

Selection of Online Sources

Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War

No.4 Commando-WW2 Combined Operations,

(Cassel and Co., 1948-1954).

Mulberry Harbours, www.combinedops.com

Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill 1939-1941

The Avalon Project, World War II Documents,

(William Heinemann, 1983).

www.avalon.law.yale.edu

Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill 19411945

The Navy Department Library, World War II Invasion of Normandy

(William Heinemann, 1986).

(1944), Rommel and the Atlantic Wall, www.history.navy.mil

With thanks to all my family, especially my father Paul Wilson

for his support behind the scenes

Antony Beevor, D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

Ibiblio, HyperWar: US Army in WWII, European Theater of

(Viking, 2009).

Operations, www.ibiblio.org

Personal stories:

James Holland, The Battle of Britain: Five months that changed history

English Heritage, Historic Environment Local Management

MayOctober 1940 (Bantam Press, 2010).

(HELM), Twentieth-Century Military Sites: Current approaches to their

H.W. Koch, ed, Aspects of the Third Reich

(Macmillan Publishers, 1985).
Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich
(Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1970).
David Howarth, The Shetland Bus
(Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1951).

(Black & White Publishing, 2010).

Research and text: Eliane Wilson

Foreword/essay: Roy Exley
Map : Martha Gavin
Sub-editor: Claire Vaughan

The diary of Rev A T Goodrich, with the kind permission of his

daughter Anne Ahmed

recording and conservation, www.english-heritage.org.uk

Basil John Valentine Spain, with the kind permission of Andy

Spain and family

Historic Scotland, Wartime Defences,

Bernard Kaufman, with the kind permission of his daughter Niki

Richardson

www.historic-scotland.gov.uk
Atlantic Wall research Norway,
www.atlantikwall-research-norway.de
Greg Goebel, The Wizard War: WW2 and the origins of Radar,
Vectors, www.vectorsite.net

Philip Paris, Orkneys Italian Chapel: The True Story of an Icon

To Maya and Luca

For their support in the production of The Last Stand:

The Royal Armouries Museum (Exhibition production)
Spectrum Photographic (Exhibition Printing)
Labyrinth photographic (Film Processing)
Tim Parkin (Film Scanning)

Tim Allen
Andrew S Almanza
Julian Anderson
Paul Arthur
Sean Ashcroft
Aki Atoji
David Baker
Martin Bartholomew
Bob Barton
Richard Battye
Richard Bayley
Dave Bean
John Beavan
Ed Berger
Danielle Birkett
Genny Boccardo-Dubey
Steve Bonser
Dries Bos
Matt Botwood
David Breen
Martin Brink
Alicia Bruce
Edward Brydon
Vincent Buller
James Cannon
Emma Castle
Mark Coe
Terry Cripps

Yolanda Crisp
Harrison Crombi
Alex Currie
Cameron Davidson
Simona DellAgli
Dan Dill
Dan Dineen
Duncan Fawkes
Wayne Ford
Gavin Franklin
Frances Gavin
Martha Gavin
Pat Gavin
Terry Gibbins
David Gillett
Julie Graham
Andrej Gregov
Brice Guillaume
Martine Hamon
Tim Harris
Emma Harrison
Heidi And Pip
Emma Homent
John House
Richard Hurst
Natalia Imaz
Jacquelyn Jubert
J M Kinberger

James King
Ian Kingsnorth
Rod Klukas
Stella Kramer
Anja Lampert
Amanda Large
Justin Leighton
Claudia Leisinger
James Lightbown
Philip Lisowski
Amanda Lucidon
John Macpherson
Michael Marten
Andy Matthews
Tracy Merrie
Christiane Monarchi
Ben Morby
Jim Mortram
Louise Nicholson
Andreas Oetker-Kast
Jane Patterson
Jon Povey
R.G. Quiros
Lucien Rentznik
Simon Roberts
Lee Robinson
Luca Sage
Iain Sarjeant

Yair Shahar
Robin Snelson
Carolyn Solomon
Andy Spain
Jim Stephenson
John Stephenson
Jorn Tomter
Helen Trompeter
Jo Underhill
Stephen Vaughan
Bryan Waddington
David West
Angela and Pete
Wilkinson
David Williams
Clive Wilson
Eliane Wilson
John Wilson
Martin Wilson
Paul Wilson
Dan Wood
Dave Wyatt

175

The Last Stand is available in three editions

As well as the Standard Edition, the book is also available in a Special Edition with a choice of two
signed prints thirty copies of each at A3 and ten of each at A2. Luxury Edition books are available
with two signed prints, in either A3 or A2 sizes up to thirty of each.
Prints available are: Haugesund III, Rogaland, Norway. 2014 page 95 and Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, II
Charente-Maritime, France. 2014 page 166.
Special and Luxury Edition books are embossed, numbered and signed, and come in a limited
edition slipcase.

Limited edition prints archivally printed on Fotospeed paper.

176

First Published 2014

Copyright Photography: Marc Wilson. Text: Eliane Wilson & Roy Exley. Map: Martha Gavin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by means of any information storage
or retrieval systems without written permission from the publishers. Whilst every care is taken for the
correctness and accuracy in the content of this publication, Triplekite Publishing or any individuals
affiliated with Triplekite Publishing in any capacity accept no liability whatsoever for omissions or
errors, technical inaccuracies or typographical mistakes. A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0957634558

Designed by Dav Thomas. Printed in Malta