German underwater Barrier pile up on beach in Normandy.

German underwater Barrier pile up on beach in Normandy. Steel barriers, which the Germans had anchored under water in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent Allied landing craft from reaching shore, pile up on a beach in northern France after they had been uprooted and hauled ashore by allied engineer troop. In an effort to make them deadly as well as impassable, the Germans attached explosives to the steel barriers but only in a few instances the deadly charges inflicted damage upon landing craft. Some Allied landing troops storming ashore turned the barriers to their own advantage by taking cover behind the steel frames as the enemy swept the beach with machine gun rifle fire.