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| The port of Dunkirk in WWII The Atlantikwall (the Atlantic Wall) Jan Hyrman |
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| With the Allies gaining strength after the Battle of Britain, Nazi leadership became increasingly concerned about the safety of Western Europe. With the United States now as a decisive player in the war, invasion was now a factor, which demanded serious consideration. With the resources provided by the U.S.A., Britain was quickly rebuilding what it had lost during the Battle of France in 1940. In Spring 1942, the construction of the |
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| The propaganda image created by Goebbels showed the western coast of Europe as a heavily fortified area, with guns capable of engaging any conceivable invasion fleet, armies of qualified and high-morale personnel and forts bristling with machine guns. The reality often was quite different - fortunately for the Allies. The guns were of many different calibres (the actual number of calibres was twenty-eight), the ammunition supply was often a nightmare for those responsible and the units attached to the fortresses and the surrounding areas were often second-class troops either untrained or of low fighting value. By June 1944, 15,000 bunkers, some of them designed down to the last detail by Hitler himself, with over 3,000 guns were built, using up 13 million cubic metres of concrete, with 179 gun batteries placed in Normandy and the Calais area. Six million mines were laid (the target was 11 million mines). |
| Photos by courtesy of Maria Khayutina |
| Atlantic Wall was ordered by Adolf Hitler. Plans were drawn up for the fortification of the entire western coast of Nazi-occupied Europe, a belt of forts, pillboxes and counter-invasion measures stretching from the north of Norway to southern France. Due to the proximity of the Channel Islands and Calais to the English coast, the area was to become a focal point of the line of fortification. Harbours became fortresses, the beaches were dotted with pillboxes, densely mined and outlined with trenches. Large and heavily fortified submarine bases were constructed at Lorient, Brest, St. Nazaire, La Pallice and Bordeaux. Bases for the Schnellboote (S-Boote), or fast motor-boats, were built at Rotterdam, Oostend, Dunkirk, Le Havre and Cherbourg. |
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| Operation Dynamo The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from France, May-June 1940. |
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| Machine guns and coastal batteries of the heaviest calibres were pointed at the beaches. At some points, fortresses (Boulogne, Le Havre, Calais, Cap |
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| Clearing the Channel Ports One of the lesser-known campaigns of Northwest Europe in 1944, the struggle to capture French ports cost many lives of Allied soldiers, particularly Canadians. |
| Czechoslovaks at Dunkirk 1944-1945 It was not exactly the place where the members of the Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade Group would want to get stuck for the rest of the war, but many different reasons caused the unit to retain the mission of sieging the ruins of the port till May 1945. |
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| Gris Nez) with all-round defence were built. All kinds and sizes of guns, including massive 406mm guns, were scrambled together for the propaganda newsreels, including captured equipment from virtually all previous campaigns, including guns of Czechoslovak or Soviet production. |