WW2 Trench Art by German POWs Held Inland from D-Day's US Utah & Omaha's Beaches For Sale

++ Due to the vagaries of International Customs.. only available here in the UK.. apologies ++

A superb example of a

WW-II US Army

40-mm Bofors Casing

'Trench Art'

fashioned by captured

German POWs

south of the

American 'Utah' & 'Omaha'

D-Day Beachheads

June1944

In the weeks after the successful Normandy invasion,

thousands of surrendering Germans were

rounded up and sent into the Allied bag

in and around

To beat the boredom many Germans,

often held on makeshift camps on local French farms,

took to trench art with whatever US material came to hand;

this 1943 dated 40mm Bofors brass casing

being such an item.

In the days after the American landings at Utah & Omaha

US 40 mm L/60 anti-aircraft guns were rushed ashore

to protect the landing beaches, the pontoon harbours

and the newly established infantry supply lines,

from ground attacks by marauding Luftwaffe fighters.

With an upward range of 12,500 feet and a fire-rate of

some 120 rounds a minute,

the Bofors were used to good effect in their

defensive anti-aircraft role

and could also be levelled horizontally later on in the

Battle of Normandy

to wreak a devastating havoc on enemy targets on the ground.

This 40mm Bofors casing, found on of one of

the French farms turned into a temporary war-time POW cage

is marked on the base

SMC 1941

(Symington Machine Corp. Rochester New,York)

Stanings 12" high, skilfully etched & incorporating the French

Cross of Lorraine

on the front, the top scroll reads

Edmond

7 Aout 44

(August 7th 1944)

A cracking piece of Normandy-found German POW trench art

from the weeks following in the wake of the

June 6th D-Day Landings of 1944.

(B/W Photo Courtesy of The Tomahawk Films (1990 Ltd) WW-II Archive)