Panjandrum: The 'giant firework' built to break Hitler's Atlantic Wall

Summary

Panjandrum: The 'giant firework' built to break Hitler's Atlantic WallImperial War MuseumsTo make D-Day a success, the Allies thought they might have to break through formidable German defences. One unconventional idea was a "giant firework" that would deliver a one-tonne bomb: the Panjandrum.After conquering much of Western Europe in the first few years of World War II, Nazi Germany then diverted a huge effort into protecting what it had invaded.Once the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies in late 1941, the threat of invasion from the sea went from a distinct possibility to certainty.To prevent it, hundreds of thousands of forced labourers – some of them Russian prisoners captured on the Eastern Front – were set to work. They built walls, tank traps and reinforced-concrete emplacements. The fortifications stretched around 5,000km (3,105 miles) from France's border with Spain all the way to the northern tip of Norway. Adolf Hitler called it the "Atlantic Wall", and there are still many traces of it, littering beaches from the Bay of Biscay to the sub-Arctic fjords. Allied military planners had many challenges to wrestle with during their long preparations for the liberation of Europe. Seizing a port made the most sense – it would be easier to get vital supplies to the troops on the beachhead by unloading ships more speedily on the docks. But the ports on the English Channel coast had been heavily fortified by German defenders.AlamyThe 1942 raid on Dieppe showed that the German defences around Channel ports were too strong for beach landings (Credit: Alamy)A bold plan to temporarily take over one of these ports – Dieppe, in France – in August 1942 showed how difficult a port would be to capture. Thousands of mostly Canadian troops were killed or captured in a botched attempt to push through defences; supporting tanks became bogged down on loose shingle sand and the built-up surroundings gave the defenders plenty of cover from which to fire on the ...