The D Day Defenders

It was soldiers from the German 716th Division who stood in the front line facing many of the Allied units that went ashore on 6 June 1944, D-Day, particularly the Anglo-Canadian assaults at Juno Beach and Sword Beach, as well as fighting against the Americans at Omaha Beach. From coastal fortifications, gun emplacements, and other defensive positions, the division’s role was to hold its sector long enough for stronger, motorized German reinforcements to arrive and launch a counterattack. On D-Day, however, the division, understrength and poorly equipped, feared badly. Shattered by the Allied onslaught, it fell back in disarray and fragmented groups during 6–7 June. Its commanding officer, General Wilhelm Richter, despairingly declared that his unit had been destroyed. Much has been written about the American, British, and Canadian attacks on the 716th Division, and considerable attention has also been given to the attempt by the German 21st Panzer Division to launch a counterattack in the Anglo-Canadian sector near Caen. But there are few accounts that focus specifically on the 716th Division itself. Now we can learn the other side of the battle for the Normandy beaches. The D-Day Defenders highlights the story of the units specifically designed and armed solely for coastal defence, the so-called Bodenständige divisions. This type of division was equipped with non-German weapons, had almost no motorized transport, and counted only about 7,700 soldiers (in contrast to a standard German infantry division, which often had 10,000–15,000 troops). Many of these soldiers were not Germans but Volksdeutsche or came from Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere. Much was expected from these static coastal divisions during the first hours of an invasion, yet their circumstances and equipment did not match reality – a truth that many senior German officers were well aware of long before D-Day, 6 June 1944. The 716th Division lost more than 3,000 soldiers during the fighting on D-Day and retreated in disorder toward Caen. Told through the words of the soldiers who defended Normandy and photographs of the positions where they fought, this book sheds new light on one of the Second World War’s pivotal moments.