ISBN 0-7110-2769-2
160 pages

Introduction and Acknowledgements; photos; maps; tables; diagrams; Bibliography; Index

Appendices: Useful Addresses; Museums

   Some authors work like master craftsmen who devote most of a lifetime to learning about an arcane topic and then producing a single, acclaimed opus which stands as the acknowledged leader in the field. Other authors function more like assembly-line workers who tackle a new topic every few months and construct a steady stream of utilitarian volumes built from standardized, off-the-shelf components. George Forty seems to fall into the latter category. His prolific output of workmanlike books amounts to a considerable library of pleasantly ordinary volumes: no masterpieces, perhaps, but not much to embarrass himself, either.
   Forty's latest—at least for the moment!—certainly qualifies as unspectacular but perfectly respectable. It looks like he spent a few months rounding up a pile of books about the Atlantic Wall, synthesized the most important materials into his own perspective and format, and ended up producing a useful overview of the topic. According to his Introduction, a recent bibliographic survey of books about the Atlantic Wall listed over 600 items. (Forty's own bibliography is far more limited, amounting to about fifty books, many of them quite general in nature.) His volume can't possibly compare to the immense range and accumulation of information in all those specialized works, but Forty identifies some specific topics to address:

• Reasons for construction of the defenses
• The construction process
• Types of defensive structures
• Raids against the defenses
• The D-Day assault

   According to Forty, the genesis of the Atlantic Wall can be traced to the installation of heavy artillery batteries at Cap Griz-Nez which were intended for artillery support of the German landings during Operation Sea Lion. Blocking the Strait of Dover to enemy shipping by emplacing more guns on the Channel coast is given as another landmark. Chapter Two goes on to quote "Directive Number 40" of 23 March 1942 which laid down specific instructions for building coastal defenses. Although he praises the precision with which the directive spelled out its intentions, Forty raises a number of questions, some of which will reappear throughout the book. Who was really in command? Who controls what? Where was the main battle to be fought? How would the mobile reserves be handled? Forty goes on to quote from Directive 51, Fuehrer Order 11, and Directive 62, all of which continued to specify how the Atlantic Wall was to be built and defended.
   After laying out that background, the next two chapters cover the actual building of the wall. These pages cover the Reichsarbeitsdienst, Army fortress engineer units, and especially the Organization Todt. Besides general information about the OT and biographical sketches of Fritz Todt and his successor, Albert Speer, Forty also covers issues like wages and uniforms in some detail. He divides the OT workers themselves into four categories—volunteers (including local workers), conscripts, slave workers, and prisoners of war—and explains how each category fit into the organization. This part of the book in particular is punctuated with the recollections of men who worked for the OT in one capacity or another, and, as with much of the book, often draws upon the German-occupied Channel Islands for examples.
   Chapter five offers fourteen pages on the different types of defensive works comprising the wall. For those interested in the wall itself from a military perspective, this is one of the meatiest parts of the book and it includes about a dozen good diagrams of various kinds of standardized emplacements, pillboxes, casemates, observations posts, and shelters along with some technical specifications for various plans. Most of this material appears to derive from the US Army Manual TM-E 30-451 of March 1945. Other interesting information about how these structures withstood Allied bombing in the months before D-Day comes from contemporary German reports published by the US Army in 1947.
   After a chapter about the St Nazaire raid and Dieppe, Forty turns his attention to Erwin Rommel's role in the defense of the Atlantic coast. The Desert Fox brought to the job a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. The books explains his role in inspecting the fortifications and quotes extensively from his report. The next chapter surveys, much as Rommel might have done, the condition of the wall on the eve of the Normandy invasion. In this the author looks at the full length of the system from Norway to the Spanish frontier (and even on the Mediterranean coast of France), breaking the wall into sectors and assessing the local defenses. Unfortunately, this is not done with a great deal of detail or precision. For example, under the heading "Super-Heavy Guns," Forty indicates "Belgium—two locations with eight guns" without providing further information about where those locations were or what kinds of guns were installed there. For Belgium as a whole, here is the entire entry:

   As in the Netherlands, the Atlantic Wall on the Belgian coast comprised many bunkers and field works, backing up the 37 battery sites along the 65km of North Sea coast. The great port of Antwerp and other ports such as Blankenberge, Zeebrugge, Ostend and Nieuport (there were a total of 15 in all) were all protected by permanent fortifications and became 'Defensive Areas' (Verteidigungsbereich - VB) whilst the areas in between got much less attention. This, for example, reduced the number of bunkers built in Flanders to 160 (from a planned 399). In the end only 50% of the anticipated total were ever built and the hinterland was protected merely by barriers and small infantry bases. Rommel's inspection tour (on 21 December 1943) highlighted the shortcomings in this area.

Naval Artillery
   There was a naval artillery detachment at Ostend.

   Again, the Channel Islands, to which Forty's text returns often, receive more attention. This whole section cries out for some diagrams of the relative density and readiness of fortifications along the coast, but we're given only a map showing the dispositions of German divisions prior to D-Day. The chapter concludes with quotes from soldiers who served in various defensive posts on the wall in 1944. The next chapter devotes twenty pages to the D-Day landings. While Forty offers some general observations about how the concrete positions withstood the assault, most of the chapter ends up rehashing the same old D-Day material. The final four paragraphs of the chapter, under the heading "How Good Were the Defences?," sum up the battle at the water's edge but also reveal the paucity of specific, detailed data here:

   From the various eyewitness reports covered, it is clear that the permanent reinforced concrete installations undoubtedly protected the German infantry, but also undoubtedly reduced their fields of fire, making them less effective, bur more likely to survive, although, as explained earlier, this was not the basic German philosophy as far as building such defences was concerned, but rather that fewer men would be able to cover a greater area. Nevertheless, infantry positions close to the shoreline were generally able to inflict considerable losses upon the enemy, but were themselves extremely vulnerable to fire from the sea, be it from naval vessels or close support landing craft - such as those carrying batteries of rockets. The commander of 352nd Infantry Division said that on 6 June his division had lost one fifth of its total infantry fighting strength.
   Communications between all positions were frequently broken due to the telephone wires being damaged whether or not they were buried. This was a well-known hazard in defensive positions, but still occurred constantly and led to chaos, there being insufficient modern radios to replace/back up the telephone system, whilst specialist repairmen were always at a premium. This led to runners having to be used, causing delay and casualties.
   Troops held back for counter-attack purposes were never sufficient to get the job done, especially as they were usually short of heavy weapons and lacking in suitable transport - one divisional commander complaining that his troops had to march, go by bicycle or travel in old French lorries which continually broke down. There was also a shortage of heavy weapons in the forward positions, which should have been 'in the shop window', that is to say up front in protected positions - Rommel's relevant tactic being aptly described as: 'let all weapons display their effect on the water'. In some areas, the Atlantic Wall as we imagine it today, just did not exist; for example, parts of the Bayeux sector were lacking any concrete defensive positions at all.
   Artillery, both coastal and field, generally did well initially, but was then badly affected by enemy air strikes, both on gun positions and, most importantly, on forward observers (the observers could be replaced but not their equipment). However, the worst problem of all was a general shortage of ammunition, which seems to have been a major difficulty, compelling the defenders to use ammunition as sparingly as possible. All types of artillery suffered from the fighter-bomber activity, which caused many casualties, especially to flak and anti-tank artillery.

   The tenth chapter gives some information about post-D-Day operations involving other portions of the Atlantic Wall, such as Cherbourg, Dunkirk, the Scheldt, and—predictably—the liberation of the Channel Islands. After a chapter of "Conclusions"—mostly given to quoting remarks about the Atlantic Wall from German and Allied commanders—Forty provides a chapter advising what remains to be seen of the fortifications along with various museums and contact information. This carries over to a pair of appendices with "Useful Addresses" and more information about museums. The bibliography proves painfully thin, especially after we've been teased with the fact that more than 600 books on the Atlantic Wall are in existence. On the other hand, much credit should be given for an excellent assortment of fresh photographs and some good diagrams.
   For what is really only an overview, and one limited to 160 pages, Forty has included a great deal of information and some telling detail. If he has emphasized some parts of the story (such as the Channel Islands) at the expense of other parts, that's probably because of the nature of the "ready-to-use" components on hand. (One of his recent publications was a book about the Channel Islands during the war.) Some readers might have wished for some slightly different emphasis in the topics chosen by Forty. For example, it's possible he has expended too many pages on the Organization Todt and the D-Day landings—both covered thoroughly in other books—when he might have devoted more pages to information about the progress of construction. (What would the Allies have been up against if they had landed in 1943?) Similarly, Forty has reprinted a full-page map showing every German battery on the Danish coast, but perhaps he might have more usefully added maps and diagrams to graphically display details about the state of the fortifications along their entire length in June 1944.
   In sum, no one will mistake this book for the ultimate Atlantic Wall resource, and it's also unlikely anyone will acclaim it Forty's personal masterpiece, but it's nevertheless an entirely adequate and attractive synopsis of the topic with good illustrations, and a book we're quite comfortable recommending on that basis.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Ian Allan Publishing.
   Thanks to Ian Allan for providing this review copy.