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These Holzfähle (german for wooden stakes) were placed at an angle facing away from the beach and typically had an anti-tank Teller mine on the end designed to explode on contact with a landing craft. There were many thousands of these placed all over the French coast, these are pictured in front of position Wn 81 west of Grandcamp-Maisy. This position conisted of 4 machine guns, 3 50mm AT guns and the turret of a tank set in concrete.
The landings of June the 6th were timed to take place at low tide, in a deliberate effort to render underwater obstacles useless. It was the job of Naval beach parties to demolish obstacles before the tide submerged them. This decision did however cause assault troops to cross exposed beach under the guns of the defending Germans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller_mine