Hi,
I am new to this forum so hello.
I was looking at one of the photos on your today showing some German soldiers possibly at St Palais in SW France. I live quite close to St Palais which is a small seaside town near Royan. On the beach there today are the remains of one of the Atlantic Wall bunker complexes and it is possible that these troops were part of the garrison that lived there during the occupation. The placard in front of the soldiers mentions both the words St Palais and Sauvegarde. It is possible that that the word sauvegarde is in fact referring to the French word for safeguard, in other words they are ‘safeguarding St Palais’.
Bits of the bunker complex are partially submerged at high tide, whilst other bits including three gun batteries are pretty well buried in sand dunes close by. There are the remains of other parts of the German bunker defences closer to the town itself which are in remarkably good condition (one is actually inhabited I believe!). Whilst there is some internet references to the bombing of Royan there is very little to be found about the bunkers constructed at St Palais ie when they were constructed and which German units occupied and defended them. I would be most grateful if anyone has any information and/or photographs they could let me have.
I have some good pictures I took last week that show the state of the bunker complex along the beach as it is today but am no allowed as yet to upload them! :neutral:
The photo site and the forums are two separate subjects.
Could you please place a link to the photo(s) in question or at least point out in which album and page it/they can be found.
I tried that before sending my original post but you say I can not post a link or photos until I have posted 5 times! The photo to which I refer is in ww2colour.com/german/vt6%
Hope this helps
Here’s the photo in question:
It says “Sauveterre” though.
The photo shows soldiers of the SS-Standarte “Deutschland”. This unit only performed occupational duty in this particular region for about 2 weeks in June/July 1940.
The photo was definitely taken during that period of time.
I apologise for my reference to Sauvegarde in my first post which should have read ‘Sauveterre’. The name is however derived from the word Safe or more literally Safe Haven. There are a number of Sauveterres around Toulouse so these guys could well have done a stint in both St Palais and one of these towns.