— Wn400 Inglemere (StP Fermanville)

Wn400 was an add on position to gradually infill defences as men and weapons became available. It was the first Wn in the Cherbourg outer defence ring and filled a small gap between Wn201a and Wn401.

 

Sections of Rommel´s Asparagus beach defences, now being used as fence posts.

Eisenpfahel part of the original barbed wire defence of the area.

To start with you have K.V.Gruppe Cherbourg, that is sub divided into K.V.U.Gruppe Cherbourg See (here numbered in the 200 range.) And then you have K.V.U.Gruppe Cherbourg Land (here numbered in the 400 range). Cherbourg Land basically is every position (Wn/StP) used in the land defence of Cherbourg. The Cherbourg outer defence ring. Wn400 just happens to be the very first in the series sitting as it does between the StP201 and its four positions and the mainland. It was an add on position to gradually infill defences as men and weapons became available.

Yellow - The area we are in at the moment. Red - The Cherbourg outer defence ring.

Yellow - The 400 series Wn/StP's. Red - The 500 series Wn/StP's. The 400 series was the outer ring and the 500 series the flak, radar, artillery, road blocks, HQ and forts. Uncoloured the 200 series that is the K.V.U.Gruppe Cherbourg see (Sea) defences.

One position we know of and possibly two more that could have been used.

Air photo taken in 1958 shows the one defence

Certainly there was a trench running directly into the M.G. post and there could have been two more. I have high lighted the ones I think were going up to the beach area. This picture taken in 1958, fourteen years after and shows very little left.

A machine gun post I expect made by the defenders. They would have been ordered into the area and told that they had to make a defended position called Wn400. This is on a piece of land between Cap Levi's defence of Wn201a and the Plage de la Mondrée. Probably a small section of men, six to ten. With a corporal in charge. They may have used the small fisherman´s hut as a barracks and cook house. Then set about digging trenches in some very hard ground and then building this small defence position and probably going out on the beach to help other units assemble anti landing devices and mine fields.

Looking down into the post, there are several niches to set up wooden boxes for spare ammunition, hand grenades and any other small items.

There are several depressions in the ground probably made by quarrying stone but re utilised by a group of young soldiers to make a small defence. A machine gun set up here would give very good flanking fire on anybody trying to land on the beach. We do not know how many men were here or how many weapons, so I am guessing on at least two machine gun crews of around four men per crew.

Looking back over Wn400 towards Wn201a the port at Port Pignot