I want to build a VK3001 turret bunker of the type built by Steve Z and discussed here earlier. A couple of photos have appeared in this board which apparently show the same turret/bunker after being taken by US Troops. In two of the photos (were there three?) there is a damaged structure to the left front of the turret and there is another well-ish known photo of a VK3001 turret which was taken from the front showing background terrain, (featured in one of Steve Z's Atlantic Wall books) also, but I can't tell if this is the same turret bunker or similar turreted bunkers? Does anyone know the location (to be found on a map) of this bunker and what was around it? Or, if these are two different bunkers, where were they?

Not using stimulus money, I would like to know what the setting for this (these) bunkers were.

Thanks,
Cliff

It appears that the two photos from this website are the same turret bunker due to quite a few indicators. However, I am not sure that the one pictured in Steve's Atlantic Wall Normandy book.

The location of the one in Steves' book is identified as WN68 and in another source, Omaha Beach by Georges Bernage there are good maps showing where these bunkers were located. One was very near the beach while another is marked as being next to a structure (house?) which may be the structure that is shown next to the bunker in picture linked below.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/78970/message/1239997898/Another+pic+of+the+VK-3001+turret

If Steve is listening in, can you determine if the photo in your book is of the same turret shown in the picture linked above? Or was it perhaps the bunker located closer to the beach?

Thanks,
Cliff

Both of the known Signal Corps photos of the VK.3001 at Omaha are in my Military Modelling article; there is a third Navy photo that shows the same turret from the side. They are all the same bunker. I was uncertain about this, as many accounts state that there were two such bunkers in WN68. I subsequently got a USAAF report on Omaha beach defenses form a friend at Sandhurst that clearly indicates that the second turret was not installed on the bunker, which was incomplete. The report is a xerox of a xerox, and the accompanying photo (extremely poor quality) shows the second VK.3001 turret sitting on the ground. I haven't found this photo yet, but it may be in the NARA files. The Martian intelligence reports include a drawing of one of these on a fundamentally different bunker type that I also have in the Mil Mod article(Hillary Doyle has a drawing in the Panzertracts book on Panzerstellung). I don't know if this is one of the missing VK.3001 somewhere in Normandy, or just based on German plans.

When you went to Normandy, was the damaged house that is in the photos, still there, or was it cleared away? I don't recall seeing a photo of this in any current tourist style photos, but that means little.

Thanks for your help. I found a half price sale on the trumpeter kit and decided to go for it.

Since I'm on a roll, this was located at Dog Red beach, exit D3, Les Moulins draw. Just to the west was the heavy smoke that came from a grass fire. We've seen this in photos. The massive, fortified house is just to the west.