searched for it but coulded find it on you're search. strange but Looking at the quantity of topics around here ... I would still be searching.

thanks guys.

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Sixty-four bomber pilots and crew lie in the cemetery at Wevelgem Communal and today many locals still pay their respects to those brave men from high in the skies.

I opened a thread about this but now I do see that there is already one.

Indeed pretty strong story.

I would say 1000 is more likely. but then saying 1000 men hit NOT killed. If me neightbour shots one and I hit him to and I credit him as a "hit" you'll be hitting 3000 soon.

just my 2 cents.

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Sixty-four bomber pilots and crew lie in the cemetery at Wevelgem Communal and today many locals still pay their respects to those brave men from high in the skies.

'Beast of Omaha' weeps as he recalls slaughter of thousands on beach

Severloh was safe in an almost impregnable concrete bunker overlooking the beach. He had an unimpeded view of the oncoming Allied forces. He was the last German soldier firing, and may have accounted for about 3,000 American casualties, almost three-quarters of all the US losses at Omaha. The Americans came to know him as the Beast of Omaha.
A leading German historical expert of the Second World War, Helmut Konrad Freiherr von Keusgen, believes Severloh may have accounted for 3,000 of the 4,200 American casualties on the day.

Severloh is less sure about the number, but said: "It was definitely at least 1,000 men, most likely more than 2,000. But I do not know how many men I shot. It was awful. Thinking about it makes me want to throw up. I almost emptied an entire infantry landing craft. The sea was red around it and I could hear an American officer shouting hysterically in a loudspeaker."

Lt-col Stuart Crawford, formerly of the Royal Tank Regiment, and a defence consultant, said it was entirely possible that a single German soldier had killed so many GIs.

He said: "I have fired that machine-gun. I did it as part of my training, and it has an extremely high rate of fire. He was in a position which was almost impervious to the weapons which the Americans could bring to bear on him. The Americans made the mistake of not landing tanks with the first wave of troops, so they had no support or protection."

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=643752004

Another source in english:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10191-2004Jul23_2.html

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

This from another poster on another discussion site,

"Agree about burning out several barrels. The least amount of ammunition he would have to fire is about 20,000 rounds with 70,000 being more likely. Aside from the changing about ten barrels, even with the quick "flip", he would have to store everything around the bunker, the huge amount of ammunition could not all be within reach of him or his assistant. Wasn't there 300 rounds in a box? As you said the Americans wouldn't take a time out to give the guy time to straighten himself out. Even the thousands of empty cartridge cases would be a problem."

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Actually, he likely got less than 200 and probably killed less than 50. Somewhere on this very board I put up a very detailed breakdown of his position, arcs of fire, potential targets up through his post being overrun, US casualties in these areas etc as this is not the first time this guy has come up as a subject.

I didn't know Franz Gockel was next to him at the time. If I'm not mistaken, Gockel has been seen on several documentaries about the German defenders on D-Day. I sometimes wonder if people have mistakenly indentified him as the "Beast" because of his close proximity to him.




Somewhat OT, but...

I've been there twice, and I have to say that is (or was) one really crappy museum. LOTS of inaccuracies, I hope it's become a bit better since then. S. Ambrose certainly had a lot of influence in it, way too much IMO. I heard the bottom floor was damaged by the flooding during Hurricane Katrina, but that they found the replica landing craft floating.

Severloh's story came to prominence in the early '60s ; he was one of the 'stars' of Paul Carell's book, 'Invasion - They're Coming !'. Given Carell's background, allowance has to be made for some bias in his books.

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

It may have been covered before, but I was still glad to read the story, thanks for posting this

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Here ya go. its in the "General Discussion" Forum .

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/20154-beast-omaha.html

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

Maybe I'll need to buy that book

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Sixty-four bomber pilots and crew lie in the cemetery at Wevelgem Communal and today many locals still pay their respects to those brave men from high in the skies.

I actually, ahem, 'acquired' that book from my school library a while back. A good read IMHO.

Well, it was only sitting in a box under a table in the corner! It's not like it's going to be missed or anything!

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'Carells' books are very good, and the access he had to German veterans was almost unique.

You just have to bear in mind that he was an Obersturmbahnfuhrer in the SS.....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

shame on you

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Sixty-four bomber pilots and crew lie in the cemetery at Wevelgem Communal and today many locals still pay their respects to those brave men from high in the skies.

If you've ever read On Killing by LtCol. Dave Grossman, you'll see that it's just not that simple.

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff

I looked WN 62 up. It is on the Coleville draw on Omaha. Two companies came ashore more or less in front of this position with the first wave. In addition, portions of two engineering companies also came in at this position. Total casualties, killed, wounded, missing between the four units came to less than 400 men. There were less than 100 deaths in the four.
This accounts for everything on Ohama beach for over 500 yards in either direction from WN 62. I doubt given the weather, smoke, and other reductions in visibility that he was able to see 500 yards in either direction. The casualties in this sector are not particularly high for Ohama on D-day either. They fit about average overall.

I'm doing a report on this, I wondered if anyone has any info on how Hein Severloh was discovered back in the 60's.

Here are links to that subject

beast of omaha

Dog Green Sector ect.. Germans Reaction?

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Best Regards,
JW

You forgot this one too Jeff. Maybe all 4 of these could be merged?

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/20154-beast-omaha.html

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I just wanted to find out how he was discovered in the 60's living in Germany.

Isn't there a search button somewhere in this forum? I remember having seen one...

There it is! Top of the page! "Home | User CP | Register | Members | FAQ| Search|

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I used it, couldn't find any info about how he was discovered.

Use the Search Function!

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I did.

I just did a search for him and found three threads on him, so what didn't you do?

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Anyone who believes any one machinegunner on Omaha Beach killed 2000 American soldiers doesn't know much about modern warfare and hasn't visited Omaha Beach.

Regardless of the weapon used -MG42 or anything else (like for example the Americam M1919A4) one has to realize that rate of fire comparisons are not relevant except in pointing out the difficulty in providing ammunition. Twice the mechanical rate of fire in many cases only puts two or three bullets into a corpse when one was adequate.

Postwar study showed that during WW2 the American forces had to expend over 11,000 rounds of rifle calibre ammunition (this includes rifles, light machineguns (BARs) and medium machineguns (M1919s etc) for each casualty inflicted. It is probable that the same figures or close applied to Germans, Canadians, Brits, Japanese etc.

The point is that if this is accurate, then this "Beast" would have had to fire off some 22 million rounds to inflict 2000 casualties -and substantially more to inflict 2000 deaths!

Let is just say that this paragon of machine gunning was 5 times better than average. Then he would have fired only 4 million 400 thousand rounds that fateful day -or maybe he was TEN times better than average -then he needed 2.2 million rounds. If this were delivered in belts of 125 rounds -this would have taken 17,600 belts! I would have hated to be his #2 on that gun -I would have been busy indeed!

And then consider the massive pileup of bodies in front of his position! 2000 dead infantrymen makes a sizeable hill!

How many barrel changes did he have to make?

Does any one gun position HAVE that many barrels?

This whole thing is an excellent example of the "fog of war".

I suspect -with all due respect -that the best single gunner on the beach might possibly have killed 200 enemy soldiers.

This doesn't mean the "Beast" is or was a liar -it just means that he was deluded as to his personal success. He was not alone in fighting the US Army on that fateful fay in that fateful location -but he was not a one man army either.

If even 10 percent of all the machinegunners on Omaha on the German side equalled this man's claimed success they would have wiped out the entire invasion force.

As I remember -that is not the way it happened!

Sometimes you just have to do the math.

Jock Williams

Incidentally -I have fired a few thousand rounds through both of the main weapons mentioned -and a few thousand more through BARs and Brens and Thompsons, Stens, and Schmeissers. Fortunately the Queen was paying for the ammo! Equally fortunately -no one was shooting back at me!