Battery Longues-sur-Mer
The Longues-sur-Mer battery is the only German coastal battery on the Atlantic Wall with preserved cannons in all of Normandy .
location
It is located near Longues-sur-Mer on the French Atlantic coast in Normandy on the English Channel . Before the invasion ( Operation Overlord ) on June 6, 1944, the battery was bombed several times by the Allied air forces, but no major damage was done. On the day of the invasion, the battery was shot at by the battleship USS Arkansas (US Navy) and the cruisers HMS Ajax (Royal Navy) and FFL Georges Leygues (Force Françaises Libres). On June 6, the battery fired a total of 170 shots without sinking or damaging a ship in the invasion fleet. The entire crew of the battery (184 men, half of them over 40 years of age) surrendered without a fight to the 2nd Battalion of the British Devonshire Regiment on the morning of June 7th. The battery is now a museum and can be visited. A straight road leads from the gun bunkers directly to the fire control station on the cliff; In the fields on the left and right, some remains of the fastening can still be seen.
nature
The battery consists of four gun bunkers, the cannons and bunkers are in different states and have been partially destroyed. The greatest damage came from the explosion of ammunition for an anti-aircraft gun installed by the British on bunker No. 4, killing many British soldiers. The gun bunkers are about 450 m from the coastline and are arranged parallel to it, only slightly staggered in depth. The main access to the gun bunkers is on the inland side, covered by a splinter wall. A short corridor leads from there into the main combat area, from which the artillery unfolded its effect through the notch. In order to protect the crew from splinters, the guns received shields made of 10 mm thick riveted steel plates. The short corridor leads to a small room on the left and right where the ammunition and propellant charges were stored. Common rooms were housed in separate staff bunkers. Not all of the bunkers are completely cast from concrete, but partly made of concrete blocks.
The main armament of the battery consisted of four 15 cm TbK C / 36 (TbK = torpedo boat cannon), in addition there were machine guns and mortars for self-defense, especially in so-called Tobruk small bunkers , mine fields and barbed wire belts. Only a few remnants are left of these systems.
Located directly on the coastline there are two visible Tobruk small bunkers and the former observation and fire control bunker. This can be seen in the film " The Longest Day " (1962), but not in its original use, and "decorated" (2 cm Flakvierling in the film between the bunker and the cliff). The fire control bunker and the Tobruk small bunker were partly buried and filled with water for a long time and were therefore difficult to enter. In 2004 (60th anniversary of the landing) they were opened up for tourism.
Coordinates: 49 ° 20 ′ 36.3 " N , 0 ° 41 ′ 41.7" W.
Web links
- The battery at chemins de memoire
- Description and detailed photo documents
- Information and pictures about the Longues battery (private site)
- Current pictures and description ( Memento from September 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive )