VK.3001 Panzer Drehturm, WN68, Omaha Beach

This is a continuation of my series depicting specific German fortifications along Omaha Beach. In the spring of 1944, at the seaside hamlet "Les Moulins" of the town St. Laurent, the Germans received 2 tank turrets to reinforce their resistance nests. Often misidentified as Panzer III turrets, these were actually Henschel built turrets for the prototype VK.3001 tanks (cancelled in 1942).
Obsolete tank turrets mounted on concrete tobruks ("Panzer Drehturm" or "Panzerstellung") were a common German fortification along the Atlantic Wall. At the resistance nest "WN68" on the western shoulder of Les Moulins, the Germans mounted one of these VK.3001 turrets to a special type of tobruk (Bauform 246). To the rear, there was a tobruk intended for a French FT-17 turret armed with a Reibel machine gun. This was never installed and simply sat on the ground beside the VK.3001 turret up until D-Day. The other VK.3001 turret was intended for the adjacent nest "WN67" but, like the FT-17 turret, it was never installed.
It is unknown how much action the VK.3001 turret at WN68 saw on D-Day. Its crew would have been from 10. Kompanie of Gren.Rgt.726, 716. Infanterie-Division, but that is all we know. A photograph of the turret, taken after D-Day, is one of the more popular wartime photos taken at Omaha Beach. The turret was removed and scrapped sometime after the war, but the concrete tobruk that held it remains to this day.