How Deadly Were These German Guns Above Gold Beach on D-Day? | WW2 Walking The Ground
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
- Al Murray and James Holland are walking the clifftop at Longues-sur-Mer, above Gold Beach, where there are still four imposing concrete casements that on D-Day housed a series of German navy --Kriegsmarine -- guns. Al and James look at what steps the Allies took to neutralise this position and find themselves marvelling at German engineering but also questioning the effectiveness of these four gun emplacements on D-Day as the US, British and Canadian forces stormed the beaches.
In Walking the Ground, historian James Holland and writer and comedian Al Murray (from the popular We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast) follow in the footsteps of World War Two soldiers and commanders, unearthing fascinating insights and stories along the way. Exclusively on RUclips. Subscribe now: / @ww2walkingtheground ".
Loving this series, one of the best subscriptions I ever made on YT.
I was here some years ago and overheard an explanation as to why the weld lines on those guns are still silver while everything else has rusted, they're chromium which apparently the nazis bought from turkey using gold they 'appropriated' from the camps. Not a particularly nice story but a piece of history in itself.
Thank you for watching and thank you for this great comment!
That's fascinating
@@jamesross1799 I agree, this was a tour guide that said this incidentally, one of those things you'd miss ordinarily.
@@TheFatNumpty it's the tiny little facts and details like that as much as the whole human Drama and "could I have coped with that?? " aspect that make the second world war so ibloody fascinating and a subject of endless interest.
I was there a month ago with a British Legion cycling group and our historian informed us that they were Czech built guns and that for every shell that the battery fired, the naval ships returned about 200. One of the reasons was that communications with their forward observation point right above the cliffs was destroyed by the last bombardment.
You two are like a couple of kids in a sweet shop, absolutely brilliant broadcasting and your podcast is on another level....Thank you.
I wouldn't say those coastal batteries are as rare as hens teeth, but their not far behind and I can't help thinking those guns could do with some preservation, the gun barrels and concrete will be around for a long time to come, but the rest of the metal is looking in bad shape. Needs protecting for generations to come. I doubt WW2 has ever been so widely covered as it is today with the multitudes of YT channels, so the interest is probably growing by the day.
Anyway, loving this series, the dynamic between Al and James is something special. I always think of that comment on a Tank Chats Top 5 video when Al said something like "I've been Al Murray and I hope you've enjoyed the video, if you haven't, I'm most definitely James Holland." 🤣 Still cracks me up. Looking forward to the next instalment.
Glad your'e enjoying the series! Next instalment is from Omaha beach....if you are subscriber we can alert you when it's out.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Subscribed the first minute I saw a video with Al and James walking Normandy. Watched every video so far with pleasure 👍🏼
Al’s point about the Atlantic Wall being outgunned by the Allies is very well made.
Definitely, when you consider there were 7 battleships and 5 heavy cruisers. Including,hms warspite (8x15in guns only 6 operational at the time) and uss Texas (10x14in guns). Plus the many smaller cruisers and destroyers around.
A must-visit location if you are in Normandy. Hitler boasted "I am the greatest fortress builder of all time", he built what has often been called a "threadbare fortress". The gun you gents examined, the way the side shielding has been bent back and the securing heavy screws have been sheared away, and the splinter damage that can be seen piercing it from the inside to the exterior of the gun shield to the bunker walls, a killer shot.
Ajax did great work, a testament to her gunnery systems and to the experience of her gun crews and above all the men who directed their fire, the defense network around the site is also worth a look.
Nice "on-site" presentation.
Sure, Ajax did hit the gun from 6 miles away. But hitting from that far out is hard, many many shells did not hit.
@@BeerSougionIt only takes 1!
Only tuned in to see James running. Run Forest run!
This is a relief; I thought the videos were over with the debrief!
Don't worry -- lots more to come! Next stop Omaha beach...
Really excellent stuff, this. Placing those megastructures in context. Very good!
The holes in the metalwork / shield to the left of the gun, where James squeezes by 16:31, are bent outwards. Suggesting an internal explosion. Perhaps from the direct hit from Ajax. Certainly would not want to be manning the gun at that point. Nice series guys. Thank you.
That last comment made me laugh 🤣🤣
I went earlier in the year and walked the ground myself. The very french animated experience at merville was actually quite moving.
Thanks for the send off al,
daz and charlie
I’m so glad to see you’re back at it and talking about the Senior Service to boot! Brilliant.
I just watched this whilst cuddled up with my four year old son. Thankfully he's showing an interest! He'll be coming along to WHWfest with me in a few years 😆
Really enjoying this series fellas. More of the same please.
A bit of trivia to throw into the mix ….. HMS Ajax was one of the three cruisers, along with HMS Achilles & Cumberland that engaged the KMS Admiral Graf Spee at the battle of the River Plate in December 1939, where the Panzerschiff was scuttled in the estuary outside of Montevideo. Ajax took a bit of a hammering in that encounter and limped back to the Falklands for emergency repairs. Clearly she was back up to speed by 1944, as I didn’t realise that she was involved in this engagement.
Present were Ajax, Achilles and Exeter. Cumberland missed the battle but joined from the Falklands before Graf Spee was scuttled.
@@johnculver2519 Apologies you are correct. And in fact I think it was Exeter that had to retire to the Falklands and not Ajax. Kind regards
On one of the gun emplacements, (1 or 2) you can clearly see where one of HMS Ajax's shells has hit the concrete on each of the stepped sections of concrete before it's direct hit on the gun. Parts of the gun barrel are outside the emplacement, half buried.
In having found a video on RUclips of James Holland, from 20 years ago (VE Day) . So much has changed. Yet the history is best in still being kept alive.
Great episode. The battery forced HMS Bulolo to move station. She was the HQ ship for Force G (Gold Beach). Other than that there was not much to write home about.
It looks pretty much the same as when we visited with our Staff College Course in 2005. We wondered about the ability of the construction of the observation post to hold up the roof then but it is still there and hopefully will be for a few more years to come. You can see why Rommel realised that they needed to do so much more, not only to blunt the landings but also in depth. Relying on fixed albeit impressive looking structures gave a false sense of security. You would have thought that they would have realised having neutralised Eban Emael and the Maginot Line in 1940, that static defence was not the way to go and tied down huge numbers of troops and resources.
Enjoy the video mate can't wait for the next one
There a couple of days ago. The descriptive boards do make the point about how ineffective the battery was but also mention that the stadiametric rangefinder hadn’t been installed on the command bunker and the landline communications were destroyed so guns had rudimentary aiming and were controlled by visual signals.
Who spotted the bat that flew near Al Murray's head while they were standing at the damaged gun at about 17:30 ?
My father was on HMS Ajax that day and said the noise was deafening.
Another great walk and chat.. very entertaining..love the banter with the knowledge you reveal, can't wait for Omaha.
All that concrete around that gun.....you hear about hits on ship gun turrets and the carnage inside, then you look at that tomb....
Ajax had - 8 (4x2)[3] BL 6-inch (150 mm) Mk XXIII guns
And Fire Control Radar type 282 after a refit in the USA. So aiming should be easier then optical aiming alone.
I wouldn't not want to be the one doing the risk assessment for this episode.
I found the WHW’s Ep:167 The History Of Concrete fascinating.
If the RAF hit Nazi Fairy Liquid production in conjunction with the Dams Raid the results would have been spectacular. But let’s not deal in conjecture.
Many of you will have seen the observation bunker many time's from the film The Longest Day where pluskats can be seen looking out on the horizon shouting zee coming zee coming and seen laughing hysterical 😀 😢
"Can't think about it too much," in regards to if the gun had been manned when hit. I think that's the distinction between a historian and a reenactor. The historians focus on the facts. The reenactors focus on the experiences.
The Utah museum states that the USS Corry (DD-463) sank on D-Day, The German Saint Marcouf (Crisbecq) battery hit the destroyer amidships at around 6:30 AM. It stated a smoke screen operated by a French plane was lost when that plane was shot down and the gun placement was able to hit it.
Loving these, ✌️
Glad to hear! Do subscribe (if you haven't already!) and we'll alert you when new episodes are released, usually Fridays. Next stop is Omaha.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround i subscribed from the start, been a keen listener to the pod since 2020. WNTL
James say don't think about the guys on that gun.... I doubt they knew what hit them and the clean-up crew would have used a hose D+7 or 8 days later?
Static defence in a war of mobility, who'd have thought it was a bad idea?
You'd think the Germans would have had the self-awareness on that after Blitzkrieg'ing half of Europe.
So what you so accurately deduced was that these 4 "big" guns were way less effective than the machine gun nests at Omaha beach.
Lucky for the Gold Beach attacking force.
RIP those who faced the smaller but more deadly resistance.
There were still MGs on GOLD...
Longues-sur-Mer was a coast battery intended to sink ships, not fire on the beaches.
152 mm is just short of 6 inch, not 4
great video gents, If i may ask what jacket is James wearing ?
It’s an M1941 Field Jacket, OD, Summer - so, cotton twill not poplin, which was the finish for the standard M1941.
Loving these as a devotee of We Have Ways pod and having spent last week driving through Normandy and walking the ground
It's quite incredible how peaceful it is today. People walking their dogs, out exercising etc - but once the site of a major battle 80 years prior.
I first visited this site in August 1967 when at that time one of the gun emplacements was occupied by some gypsies and another had a wire fenced off area at it's rear with stacks of unearthed WW2 munitions!
James and Al are a great team - James does facts but Al does feelings a nice and sobering combination however I was quite surprised they neglected to mention the Fire Control Post wasn't completed on D-Day the structure was complete but none of the equipment had been fitted including the range finders - the earth berm in front of the FCP was only lowered for the making of the film The Longest Day so they could create a more cinematic shot - the scene in TLD was an imagined recreation of what would have been seen along the invasion front at the time however there is some conjecture about whether Pluskat was there at all - the cannon could still fire with some accuracy as they retained their optical sights but without proper fire control and rangefinding their effectiveness would have been dramatically compromised. Ships are big but there's an awful lot of sea between them. -Although built for the Kriegsmarine the battery was apparently transferred to the german army prior to D-Day so I imagine the crews would have been even more inexperienced
Ajax had 8 x 6 inch guns. She wasn’t even a particularly big cruiser.
Drachinfidel has done an excellent video on naval gunnery. To hit anything, a ship had to allow for (at least) its own movement on 3 axis AND the consequent momentum on the shell, the temperature, the air pressure, the wind (which could be different over the course of the shells flight) and even, at these ranges, the curvature of the sodding earth. You also have to know the range to about 50m otherwise all the above would be wrong. And that’s on a stationary target. It always amazes me that anyone hit anything at typical naval engagement ranges.
@@qjnmh Well noted. Tomorrow’s episode ‘D-Day DeBrief Part Two’ James says to Al that Ajax was a light cruiser.
@@WW2WalkingTheGround Ajax had a pretty distinguished career including taking on a much bigger and more dangerous vessel in the Graf Spee at the River Plate. Light cruisers weren’t totally unarmed but they were by no means proof against even land based artillery.
This is just one of many batterys along the Atlantikwall. Four guns and a leitstand or OP to aim the guns. The stationary guns in the emplacements were captured in the early days of the war. Ammo was limited and not wasted on practice. So, the gunners were not well trained. I visited this site last year. The same battery stood 3 miles from my house in the Netherlands. The guns near my place were taken from a captured naval ship. Apart from the big guns there was a whole infratructure of auxillary bunkers with MG’s and antitank guns. The battery near my town was demolished in 1953 with jack hammers.
Fantastic video guys , me and my family visited here last year , now I can tell them a bit more of what happened 👍🏻
Sitting in an outhouse holding your helmet... steady on old boy 😂😂😂
So many different references out there as to what happened at Longues sur Mer on D-day. Part of it I think is due to Stephen Ambrose’s D-day book which goes to great lengths to praise a direct hit by Ajax on one of the guns. However if you’ve been to the site, Ambrose is clearly describing the damage to casemate #4, which was in fact not caused by naval gunfire but by an ammo storage accident on the part of the Allies.
Ajax’s fire was certainly accurate and caused the Germans to retire temporarily for repairs, and certainly accurate enough to sever communications with the observation post. I believe the most destructive naval gunfire was later, on the part of a couple of French ships one of which was Georges Leygues (referred to colloquially by the Americans as “George’s Legs) plus the U.S. battleship Arkansas.
Great series, keep it coming 😊
It’s reasonably instructive to compare these guns performance to that of one, badly outdated, gun in Norway in 1940. The latter sunk the Blucher in short order. These achieved very little. I find that interesting.
Is Al doing the drumming?
Yes he is!
@@WW2WalkingTheGround needs to add the gong he took along on Taskmaster
Yes!
On further study the ship you briefly show could be SMS Goeben!
Living in Guernsey, Channel Islands, which as many people know were very heavily defended by the German occupiers, my understanding of the German hierarchy when it comes to gun battery's is that Guns placed to engage targets at sea were controlled by the Navy, Guns placed to engage aircraft were controlled by the Airforce and Guns and other defensive positions to repel an invasion were controlled by the Army
Amazing work lads! I was there two weeks ago myself. By the way, the observation bunker is the one used in the movie "the longest day".
My dad was with 6th green Howard's on d-day
My respect to your father for his brave service ❤
Amazing. Did he know Stanley Hollis?
He never mentioned it but then never talked much about. His experience. Going by his records he was with D company in the August.
I think many people can't easily comprehend that naval artillery is orders of magnitude more massive then most ground-based artillery. 152mm is a very heavy piece of artillery by army standards but the Battleships have guns of 356-406ish mm caliber (14-16 inch) so your average person seeing the coastal guns can be forgiven for seeing them as more formidable then they actually were. I guess if those were naval guns it would also make sense to man them with Kriegsmarine crews since they would already be familiar with the guns which might save some headaches with training new crews
They weren't even German guns. Captured Czech items. The gun crews got little training due to shortages of ammo and the communications were non existant due to the bombing. So they just fired at what they could see, instead of hitting the beaches as intended. The gun crews were Navy for the same reason AA batteries were Luftwaffe. They weren't doing anything else more useful. In early 1945, Uboot crews were used as infantry.
Can't believe Al and James stood in the OP and didn't recreate that scene from The Longest Day - golden opportunity missed!! 🤣
Im loving this series. And hoping that you will do arnhem next month.
My grandfather was there in HMS Ajax.
Getting a direct hit from a 6 inch naval rifle might not bear thinking about, but you don't need to think about it for long. I'm surprised the gun wasn't blown clean out through the firing port
HMS Ajax 8 x 6inch guns so approx same calibre as those in the emplacements. So whilst twice as many guns a single target whereas the emplacements were dispersed and probably didn't have anywhere near as good fire control.
the photo is not of HMS Ajax it's the Turkish flagship Yavuz (ex SMS Goeben), the picture was taken FROM Ajax on 18 September 1945 in Istanbul.
How far back does the space for the crew go? Are there tunnels?
There’s actually not much behind the gun emplacement. Just a corridor with some rooms either side then an exit at the back.
For the sake of accuracy three of the four bunkers were knocked out by fire from US ships after the Longues Battery guns fired on Omaha Beach, this because Ajax failed to knock them out but did take out a Flak gun.
Any sources for that claim, please?
Great.You needed to show the fields of fire.
Gents with your connections with film and television producers can’t you get a film or mini series of Pegasus bridge and the beaches to the breakthrough.🇬🇧
18:44 "Nazis, eh?" 😆
WW2 summed up in two words! 😂
good lad
First class!
It’s life Jim but not as we know it!😂
Not to take away from the shot by Ajax, but it's more likely, given all the variables inherent in naval gunnery, that that one shot was luck as opposed to expertise and really aiming to put one right down the barrel of the gun.
In reality, it’s both. You have to put down a large amount of fire for the law of averages to produce a direct hit, but you have to be really good in the first place for the law of averages to stand a chance.
Fancy having to look up Ajax haven't either of you ever watched "The Battle of the River Plate" when Ajax, Achilles and Exeter two light cruiser's and a heavy cruiser ran down the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.
Love the point that one RN light cruiser overmatched the entire battery by 2 to 1. And Ajax was small compared to some of the ships out there on D-Day.
Nazis eh
Yes they are great shots but he acts like it was done with a single shot. It took hundreds of trys.
These emplacements were a serious threat, despite not ending up doing much historically on D-Day. We have to remember the huge forces the Allies had to bring in to neutralise them, & all the other gun batteries. Only the British, Americans & their allies had the industrial capacity & ability to do this, & the Germans had no idea just how much production the Allies were capable of, & how quickly it built up. In 1943 the Allies postponed their invasion landings in France, as they knew they weren't strong enough.
Avoiding another Dieppe, only 2 years before, was in all the Allied High Commands minds.
I believe the guns were 'Navy' operated due to their size, the army tended to use guns of a smaller calibre.
Not necessarily. The German army operated batteries in the 10cm to 24cm caliber range.
So guys, when are you touring HMS Belfast for the other end of this.
Nice idea!
@@WW2WalkingTheGround film one episode relating to D-Day etc, but then do another about the battle of North Cape and save it for a rainy day.
Why are all the concrete structures built with the upside down wedding cake over the opening? Is there an obvious engineering reason I’m missing?
The serrations/reveals are to stop ricochets going into the opening I believe. The domes/radius top is to help shells bounce off. Having a smaller construction in the middle would save on concrete, but also provide more observation & light for the gun crews & their optical sights for the gun being turned both ways.
@@eric-wb7gj Thanks!
Maybe they should of used rocket firing aircraft to strike those guns from the front not hit from above🤔
Loving these but please get the photos right. The ship photo that is on screen for a few moments as James & Al are waxing lyrical about HMS Ajax’s gunnery is not HMS Ajax. I suspect that it is actually the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben pictured in Istanbul after outrunning two Royal Navy battle cruisers in the Mediterranean in August 1914.
No, it is. Firing at the port of Bardia in 1941 and the photo of it in entirety is taken in Turkey in 1945.
It's as if these two lads are unaware that there were only two winners in WW2... or that Britain was not one of them.
Historians who get it wrong. Those guns were supposed to fire on the beaches and landing craft. Not take on massively armoured ships 6 miles out to sea. Whoever commanded the gun battery was unable to direct fire, as all the comms lines had been blown up. Props to the cameraman who concentrated on filming these two blokes and not the gun emplacements we wanted to see. Not having a light was a bonus move. Who wants to be in a heavily fortified bunker when under bombardment you ask ? Better than being outside.....
If they were meant to be firing at the beaches they'd have built them facing the beaches and not the sea. They were naval guns manned by naval crews - sorry.
Just made that up, didn’t you? They were primarily for hitting ships out at sea according to all sources I can see.
They cant see the beaches, due to being built back from the shoreline, they dont have line of sight and are too close for guns that size to arc unless they could elevate to 89 degrees.
The Brecourt guns were intended to hit the beaches, and they were 5km inland - because thats how large caliber guns work.
Aren't 152mm russian caliber?
These are Czech.
German type 15cm Tbts KC/36 guns.
Oh dear. Firstly you show a photograph of what looks like a WW1 German battlecruiser purporting to be HMS Ajax and then you claim Ajax had 12" gun instead of the 6" she actually carried.
Nice series guys! Enjoying your podcast continuation on the ground in video! As for the concrete and its quality. Totally depends on the location, building firm and available raw materials. It can be awful in 1941 and great in 1945. Concrete isn’t that hard to produce. There was a big lack of parts from time to time like armoured doors etc which were sometimes replaced by wooden ones.
Most of the large caliber guns (20,3cm, 28, 38 and 40,6cm) were intended for ships and became available for coastal defence after the discontinuation of the Kriegsmarine fleet program. However the German navy historically has been responsible for coastal defence. The Belgian coast in the FWW had quite a number of German naval coastal batteries. In the interbellum they built their batteries at the Baltic and naturally they were responsible for the European west coast as well. The army only chipped in with their own coastal batteries because the KM couldn’t supply the necessary guns and crews for the entire length.
As for the fire control post. There’s additional steel reinforcement int he concrete on the edges so the concrete roof is not entirely resting on those rusty things only. ;)
About their effectiveness. The battery wasn’t fully operational yet on D-Day so automatic range information from the control post to the guns wasn’t in effect yet. So a bit crippled. Bit yes Ajax did a nice job here! 😄
Love for it to be Ajax as a Brit, but wasnt that gun taken out by USS Arkansas?