WW2 trips and museum visits

Heinrich Severloh; Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. Widerstandnest 62, German 352nd Infantry Division

The site of Severloh’s last active mission was a simple foxhole in the section of Omaha-Beach known to American’s as “Easy Red”. His foxhole was part of a medium-sized emplacement known as Widerstandsnest 62. At this time Severloh was assigned to a lieutenant Frerking from the 726th Grenadier Regiment though he initially was under command of the German 352nd Infantry Division.  Frerking coordinated the artillery fire for a battery in Houtteville from a bunker at WN62, Severloh manned a MG42.  He fired on the waves of approaching American GI’s with his machine gun and two Karabiner 98k rifles, while comrades kept up a continuous flow of ammunition to him. By 3 p.m., Severloh had fired approximately 12,000 rounds with the machine gun and 400 rounds with the two rifles. According to experts, this resulted in an estimated 2000-2500 American deaths and injuries.

 

According to Severloh, there were only two or three active emplacements with machine guns in his section of the beach at the time of the landing. He and the 19 year old Franz Gockel positioned next to him were armed with machine guns. Severloh claimed that there were about 30 soldiers defending the beach and that only two or three men were necessary to keep an entire armada of enemy soldiers at bay. Whether these claims are correct is unknown. There can, however, be no doubt that the emplacements were so well placed that their overlapping target areas could cover the beach.

 

The few cannons available provided considerable support for the machine guns. Concrete walls several metres thick shielded the cannons from direct attack by enemy ship-borne artillery. This meant that they could not fire directly out to sea, but they were able to fire along the entire beach.

 

Imagine Widerstandnest 62 were a clock.

There were at least 6 machine gun positions a bit centred in the position.

Four faced the front, one in the centre and one faced the rear but could be brought to bear forward:

 

11 o'clock - Position with MG 42 manned by Faust, KIA (killed in action) and Kwiatkowsky;  WIA (wounded in action)

 

12 o'clock but inset - Position with MG wz 08 or MG wz 30, water-cooled Polish gun.  Kieserling, KIA

 

2 o'clock - Position with MG wz 08 or MG wz 30, watercooled Polish gun.  Gockel, WIA

 

Clock center - Position MG 42 manned by  Severloh, WIA & POW (prisoner of war)

 

6 o'clock - Unfinished position with unknown type MG, probably Polish, manned by Schnichels, WIA & POW

 

9 o'clock - AA MG Position with dual MGs (probably MG 42s) manned by Pieh, WIA; Schulte, KIA; and  Häming, KIA

 

These positions were almost all knocked out by invading tanks. Widerstandnest 62 had in addition to its machine guns two Czech-made 76.2 mm field cannons, the neighbouring Widerstandnest had a 88 mm flak gun.

 

Additional U.S. casualties were caused by artillery fire from further inland. Meanwhile, many landing boats hit mines, exploded, sank, or burned. Severloh’s lines of fire almost entirely covered the sections of beach known as Easy Red and Fox Green. Furthermore, the Americans took several hours to pinpoint Severloh’s position. Only when the shortage of standard combat ammunition led him to the use of tracer ammunition U.S. war ships were able to locate his foxhole and attack it with heavy artillery.

 

When lieutenant Frerking noticed that Widerstandnest 62 had been bypassed and was being attacked from the side, he ordered a retreat. Severloh was injured at Omaha-Beach and retreated with one comrade to the nearby village of Colleville. He was taken captive by American soldiers while escorting American prisoners from a dugout to a prisoner collection point. Frerking himself was hit in the head and killed by one of the invading soldiers a matter of seconds after Severloh had left the emplacement and was fleeing towards Colleville.

 

Severloh was released from captivity in 1947. He had first been sent as a prisoner of war to Boston, USA, where he was held until May 1946. That December, he arrived in Bedfordshire in England, where he helped with the construction of roads.  Severloh regained his freedom as the result of a request made by his father to the British military authorities, as Severloh was needed to work in the fields of his parents’ farm.

 

 

When Severloh was taken captive, he thought that he could tell nobody, not even his comrades, how many men he had probably killed during the landing. He thought that he might be murdered if the Americans ever found out what he had done. For many decades, Heinrich Severloh told nobody but his wife about what he had experienced in the war.

 

Source: Severloh, Heinrich (2004). WN 62 - Erinnerungen an Omaha Beach Normandie, 6. Juni 1944.

 

Heinrich Severloh  23. June 1923  - † 14. January 2006