Assault on the Merville Battery

At the planning stage of Operation Neptune, the Allied Force Command decided to land the 6th Airborne Division on parachutes and gliders Major General Richard Gale between the rivers Orne and Div in the area of ​​the city of Caen in order to cover the left flank of the Allied invasion zone. This operation, code-named " Tonga ", involved the capture of unscathed and holding two strategically important road bridges across the Kansk Canal and Orn in order to prevent the flank attacks of German troops on the Allied naval assault forces, and to further use this unique eastward access to the operational space for the development of the British offensive. It was also necessary to destroy several bridges across the Div River in order to prevent German troops from moving along them, and to liberate several settlements. After achieving the objectives of the operation, the 6th Airborne Division was instructed to hold the bridgehead, which included captured bridges, until the main forces arrived from the coast. In addition, it was necessary to neutralize the artillery battery in Merville , which the Allied intelligence believed was armed with guns of about 150 mm caliber and a firing range of more than 13 km , capable of causing significant damage to the 3rd British Infantry Division , landing on the section of the Sord- Beach ” ^[5] .

Battery

The location of the Merville Battery at the mouth of the Orn River made it possible to control the only passage through the Kansk Canal to the seaport of Caen, the capital of Lower Normandy . The first strategic importance of this position was appreciated by the famous French military engineer Marshal Vauban , according to whose plans back in 1779 a redoubt was erected ( fr. Redoute de Merville ) on the coast in Franceville ^[6] .

Guided by the same considerations, in 1941 the German command instructed the Todt Organization , responsible for the construction of the defensive structures of the Atlantic Wall , to build a stationary battery two kilometers from the coast, oriented to the mouth of the Orn ^[7] . By August 1942, reinforced concrete casemates No. 1 and No. 2 were completed ^[8] . In January 1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was appointed commander of Army Group B in the Wehrmacht in Normandy. One day, circling the hills of Amphreville east of the River Orne, next to the batteries, he said:

This area is the key to the invasion of France, and, consequently, to Germany.

Original text

This area is the key for the invasion of France and hence towards Germany.

- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ^[7] .

By order of the field marshal, the hasty construction of two more casemates was begun. However, during a battery inspection on March 6, 1944, Rommel was unsatisfied with the pace of construction and demanded to speed it up. Todt’s organization established round-the-clock work, and by May of that year, two unfinished casemates were completed ^[9] . In addition, an underground command bunker with a periscope , a barracks for soldiers and ammunition depots were built on the site. The battery commander had to control the aimed fire of his guns at sea and land targets from an advanced command and observation bunker on the coast in Franceville, which was connected to it by an underground armored telephone cable ^[10] .

Casemate No. 1 belonged to the so-called “611” type and was much more massive (1,400 cubic meters of concrete went to its construction) and more spacious than the other three lighter types “669” (500 cubic meters of concrete). Typically, the Germans built such large shelters for guns with a caliber of 155 millimeters and a range of up to 17 kilometers, which misled the intelligence of the Allies. In fact, the battery was armed with four Czech- made 100-mm howitzers Škoda 100-mm houfnice vz. 14/19 times of the First World War (according to German classification - 10 cm leFH 14/19 (t) ). Such a gun weighing about two tons could send 14 kg shells at a distance of up to 10 kilometers with a maximum rate of fire up to 8 rounds per minute ^[11] . The normal rate of fire of the battery was 6 volleys per minute with all four guns, or with a battery burst of 24 rounds per minute ^[12] . Casemates, 1.8 m thick reinforced concrete floors were covered with a layer of earth of the same thickness from above, and the entrances protected steel armored doors, served as a reliable shelter for guns in case of an air attack or shelling . To fire, the calculation of the howitzer was to roll it to open positions in front of the casemates ^[13] .

In terms of the battery was an irregular circle with a diameter of about 500 meters, surrounded around the perimeter, except for the main entrance, by a minefield up to 91 meters wide, fenced from the inside and outside by two rows of barbed wire 4.6 meters wide and 1.5 meters high ^[14] . From the coast between the minefield and the battery an anti-tank ditch was dug, which according to the plan was to surround the entire object, but was never completed ^[15] . To prevent the landing of airborne assaults, Field Marshal Rommel ordered the flooding of the surrounding marshes and lowlands, for which a dam was erected at the mouth of the Div river, located east of the battery ^[9] .

The battery commander, Hauptmann Karl-Heinrich Wolter ( German: Karl-Heinrich Wolter ), who was killed during the bombing by the Royal Air Force on May 19, 1944, was replaced by Lieutenant Raimund Steiner ( German Raimund Steiner ). Under his command was a garrison of 50 sappers and 80 ordinary artillerymen of the 1st battery of the 1716th artillery regiment - a total of 130 people ^[10] . Some of them defended the object with the help of several 2 cm FlaK 30 anti-aircraft guns and about a dozen machine guns located at firing positions connected by concrete trenches ^[8] , which made it possible to keep approaches to the battery under crossfire ^[14] . In addition, the 3rd battery compartment of the same regiment served the command and observation post of Lieutenant Steiner on the coast ^[16] . The 1716th Artillery Regiment was part of the 716th Infantry Division the Wehrmacht ^[17] , in addition, which included eight infantry battalions poorly armed with various types of foreign-made weapons. The personnel of the division, staffed by collaborators from Poland , the USSR and France , were commanded by German officers and non-commissioned officers ^[18] . The 716th Infantry Division was deployed in Normandy since June 1942 and was responsible for the defense of the section of the Atlantic Wall at the mouth of the Orn River with a length of 34 km ^[19] .

British Cooking

The bombing of the Royal Air Force , the last of which took place on May 19, 1944, did not cause the Merville Battery any significant damage. For the British command it became obvious that to neutralize the weapons hidden in reinforced concrete casemates, it is possible only by direct hits of ammunition of the largest caliber. However, it was very difficult to ensure the necessary accuracy of air strikes or ship artillery fire, given the small size of the targets, their careful disguise by the enemy, and the location of the battery away from the sea coast. The assault by the forces of the infantry unit seemed in such a situation a more effective solution ^[20] . Therefore, the destruction of the battery was entrusted to the 9th Parachute Battalion 3rd Parachute Brigade 6th Airborne Division of Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway ^[21] .

Like other parachute battalions, the 9th originally consisted of a headquarters and three rifle companies , called the letters of the English alphabet "A", "B" and "C". In each company, which consisted of a headquarters and three platoons , there were 5 officers and 120 non-commissioned officers and privates. The parachute platoon led by an officer consisted of a headquarters and three squads ^{[K 1]} of 8 privates under the command of a corporal and sergeant , for a total of 36 people ^[22] . The paratroopers were armed with hand grenades, Lee Enfield rifles and STEN submachine guns , and the number of the latter was much larger than in the usual infantry battalion. In addition, each compartment had one Bren light machine gun , a 2-inch mortar, and one Lee Enfield sniper rifle with an optical sight ^[23] . Since 1944, the battalion was added a staff company (otherwise - a support company ) consisting of five platoons: motor transport, communications platoon, mortar, machine gun and anti-tank. Their armament consisted of eight 3-inch mortars , four Vickers machine guns and ten PIAT anti-tank hand grenade launchers . In addition, the battalion included aircraft controllers , scouts, engineers, doctors and glider paratroopers ^[21] .

Given the exceptional difficulty of the task, Lt. Col. Otway received a carte blanche from the command for planning and preparing the operation. Having carefully studied intelligence, Otway developed a sophisticated assault plan, according to which, immediately after midnight, D-Day at the V landing site located between the Varaville commune and the battery 2.5 kilometers from the latter ^[24] , together with aircraft controllers, an advanced reconnaissance group of ten people of the 9th parachute battalion landed. Her task is to sneak up on the battery, conduct a detailed reconnaissance , cut through a barbed wire fence and clear the passages through the minefield. At 00:30, a hundred Royal Air Force heavy bombers, Lancaster or Halifax , strike the battery with Blockbuster ( 1800 kg ) special-power bombs in an attempt to destroy it or at least destroy the defenses. Then, at 00:50, the entire 9th parachute battalion landed on the landing site, accompanied by a platoon of sappers of the 591st parachute company of the Royal Engineers ^[25] with a lot of equipment, including mine detectors , “ Bangalore torpedoes ” for breaking barbed wire fences, as well as two anti-tank guns QF 6 pounder , designed for punching steel doors casemates. By 04:00 all forces are concentrated on the approaches to the object, and at 04:30 the platoon No. 4 of company “B” carries out a diversion - it attacks the main gate of the battery; at the same time, snipers destroy enemy soldiers in bunkers , machine gun nests and at the positions of anti-aircraft guns . Then comes the most risky stage of the plan of Lieutenant Colonel Otway - a blow coup de main on the battery ^[14] . An assault team of 50 company “A” volunteers and a group of Royal Engineers armed with Lifebuoy flamethrowers land on three Airspeed Horsa gliders directly between casemates, breaking wings, if necessary, on ground structures ^[20] . At that very moment, Company “C” begins a breakthrough to their aid through pre-prepared passages through the barbed wire and minefield, followed by the remaining soldiers of Company “A” and “B” ^[20] . At 05:30, in the absence of conditional signals about the success of the ground operation, the light cruiser of the Royal Navy Arethusa opens fire with all six 152-mm guns of the main caliber in an attempt to destroy the battery from the sea ^{[26] [3]} .

After the battery was neutralized, the 9th Parachute Battalion had to perform two more combat missions on the same day - to capture and destroy the German headquarters and the Kriegsmarine coastal radar in the municipality of Salniel , and then to liberate and hold Le Plain ( French: Le Plein ; now - an attraction in the municipality of Amfreville ), which was also a very important target for paratroopers, since it was on a dominant hill, from which almost the entire bridgehead occupied by the 6th airborne division was shot through ^[27] .

In total, the 9th parachute battalion numbered 600 people ^{[2] [K 2]} . In addition, taking into account the nature of the upcoming mission, Colonel Otway had at his disposal as additional medical assistance the 3rd platoon of the 224th parachute medical detachment Of the Royal Army Medical Corps ^[28] , consisting of 14 orderlies with a stretcher, a clerk and three rank -and- file nurses under the command of a medical officer and nurse with the rank of Staff Sergeant ^[29] . Another unit is company “A” of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion - was supposed to provide military security for British paratroopers on the route to the battery and after retreat to other targets. However, the direct participation of Canadians in the assault was not planned ^[30] . To communicate with the cruiser Arethusa, Otway was given several naval radio operators trained in parachuting ^[31] . The total number of paratroopers involved in this operation is about 750 people ^[21] .

Delivery to the landing area of ​​the 9th battalion was carried out by 32 Dakota transport aircraft of the 512th Royal Air Force squadron ^[32] , which took on board 2 squads of armed paratroopers and containers with their personal equipment ^[21] . The delivery of heavy weapons with ammunition - anti-tank guns, machine guns and mortars, vehicles ( Willys MB jeeps ) with trailers, sapper equipment, including explosives and mine detectors, as well as radio stations - was organized on five more Horsa gliders, which had a wingspan of 27 meters and a length of 20 meters and a maximum payload of 7140 kilograms ^[33] .

In April 1944, the 9th Parachute Battalion was deployed to Walbury Hill ( Berkshire ), where for seven days the Royal Engineers built a full-scale replica of the Merville Battery, including barbed wire fences and other obstacles. The next five days were devoted to instructing the paratroopers and getting acquainted with the battery device. Nine training assaults were conducted, four of which were at night ^{[25] [34]} .

Landing and Concentration

Immediately after midnight on June 6, 1944, the advance group of the 9th Parachute Battalion landed with the brigade’s aircraft commanders and reached the place of the battalion's assembly without any problems. While part of the paratroopers were preparing positions, deputy battalion commander Major George Smith went with a reconnaissance group to reconnoiter ^[35] . At the same time, the Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers struck the battery as planned, but missed the target - their bombs fell southward without harming the Germans, but nearly covered their scouts and aircraft guards at the landing site. Luckily, none of them was injured, but in the thick smoke amid the destruction from the bombing, their signal lights were no longer visible to pilots of transport aircraft, and the driven radio beacons Eureka turned out to be broken during the landing ^[35] .

At 01:00, the main forces of the 9th Parachute Battalion began to land, but due to problems with guiding transport aircraft, most of the soldiers were at a considerable distance from the intended landing site "V". Lt. Col. Otway landed with his squad 370 meters from her, on a farm serving as a command post to the German battalion. After a fleeting battle, Otway’s squad helped other scattered paratroopers and arrived at the gathering place with them at 01:30. By 02:50 at the assembly point, there were only 150 paratroopers with 20 “ Bangalore torpedoes ” ^{[36] [K 3]} , one Vickers machine gun, several Bren light machine guns and one radio station. Of the doctors, only the senior officer and several orderlies were present ^[38] . None of the sappers and marine signalmen managed to get to the landing site ^[20] . None of the five gliders with mortars, anti-tank guns, jeeps, medical and engineer equipment arrived. As it turned out later, due to bad weather, towing planes lost them over the English Channel and all of them, together with the crews, went missing - most likely, they died at sea ^[39] .

Realizing the need to neutralize the battery before the Allies landed on the coast, Otway decided not to lose time and moved towards it with the forces that were available to him. On the way, he had to make his way through continuous fields of craters up to three meters deep, left over from the recent bombardment. Near the commune of Gonville-en-Oge, Major Smith's reconnaissance group joined him. Scouts fully completed the tasks assigned to them according to the plan: they cut the barbed wire and cleared four passes through the minefield ^[35] . Since mine detectors and a special marking tape disappeared along with the gliders, the scouts had to creep mines manually, marking the borders of safe passages with traces of heels of boots ^[40] .

Battery Assault

At 04:30, Lt. Col. Otway divided his people into four assault groups - one for each casemate, which, under the command of Major Allen Parry, began to prepare to penetrate the battery through a minefield. Their movements attracted the attention of the Germans, who opened crossfire of six machine guns on both flanks of the 9th battalion. A small group of paratroopers under the command of Sergeant Knight attacked three of them closer to the main gate and interrupted the calculations with bayonets and grenades, while Sergeant McGeever crushed the other three on the left flank from a single machine gun Vickers. Then Sergeant Knight led his fighters into a distracting attack on the main gate, firing with all kinds of weapons and making as much noise as possible to distract the Germans ^[20] .

At that moment, two Horsa assault gliders appeared over the battery. The third glider shortly after departure from England due to bad weather, a tow rope burst, and he was forced to land at the Royal Air Force base Odiham . Dense cloud cover and smoke from fires after the bombardment prevented pilots from orienting themselves, and paratroopers could not designate for them a landing zone on a battery with illuminating missiles , since they were lost during landing ^[37] . As a result, one of the gliders mistakenly sat in a village 3.2 km from the battery. The pilots of the other managed to find their target, but when approaching, they were met by battery-powered air defense fire, which wounded four paratroopers on board and knocked the car off course so that it began to fall into the center of the minefield. However, the senior pilot, Staff Sergeant Kerr ( English Kerr ) managed to reach the forest belt behind him, where he made a hard landing , as a result of which several more people were injured ^[20] . The surviving paratroopers got out of the wreckage of the glider just in time to trap and destroy the German unit from the ambush, which was heading to strengthen the battery garrison, but the chance to strike a coup de main was missed ^[41] .

Lt. Col. Otway began the assault as soon as he noticed the approaching glider of Staff Sergeant Kerr. Explosions of "Bangalore torpedoes", clearing two passages in a barbed wire, along which paratroopers rushed to attack through a minefield, aroused the Germans. Three machine gun nests opened fire on the attackers, but they were soon suppressed by Bren machine guns and airborne snipers. The Germans, taken at first by surprise, managed to quickly navigate and organize the defense - they lit the battlefield with missiles and opened aimed fire from the anti-aircraft guns at the British. In addition, part of the attackers, having lost their way in the dark, was blown up by mines ^[20] . As a result of the attack, paratroopers suffered heavy losses. So, from the group that stormed the fourth casemate, only four fighters managed to reach the target unscathed and neutralize it by shooting through loopholes and throwing grenades into the ventilation shafts ^[42] . Colonel Otway introduced a reserve into battle to suppress enemy firing points, which were still firing at assault groups ^[20] already on the battery. It was possible to clear the enemy’s casemates No. 1, 2 and 3 with shrapnel and phosphorus grenades ^[3] due to the negligence of the garrison - during the previous bombing, the gunners removed the guns inside the casemates, but left the external steel doors open for ventilation ^[43] . During the assault, 22 Wehrmacht soldiers were killed and about the same surrendered. The rest of the garrison went unnoticed, hiding in underground bunkers ^[3] .

During the bombardment, the battery commander, Lieutenant Steiner, was in the command and observation bunker in Franceville. Upon learning of the assault, he went to the battery, but could not get inside because of the fire of the British paratroopers. At the same time, a German army air defense reconnaissance patrol arrived on a large-caliber half-track ZSU . Her crew intended to take cover on a battery, but instead, by order of Lieutenant Steiner, he opened fire from his gun on the attackers ^[3] .

Having captured the casemates, the paratroopers found that instead of the expected 150 mm guns they contained Czech Škoda field howitzers of the 1919 model ( 10 cm leFH 14/19 (t) , according to the German classification). Although it was obsolete artillery, its range of up to 10,000 meters still allowed significant damage to the Allied forces on the Sord Beach bridgehead, and therefore it was necessary to neutralize it. Since the sapper platoon and all the special explosives were scattered during the landing, the British had to improvise. They inserted a shell backwards into the barrel of one of the guns, then loaded it from the breech with another and fired a shot that completely destroyed the gun. In two other guns, explosions of plastite from personal ammunition intended for the filling of Gammon grenades damaged breech -bones and guidance mechanisms ^[44] . The paratroopers tried to neutralize another weapon by throwing fragmentation grenades into the barrel, but this did not have a visible effect, so due to lack of time they simply removed the bolt and scattered its parts in different directions ^[40] . By this time, Lieutenant Steiner returned to Franceville and ordered the 2nd and 3rd batteries of his regiment to open fire on Mervil’s battery, which caused additional damage to the paratroopers ^[45] .

By 05:00, the battle died down, and the paratroopers gave the cruiser Arethusa a conditional signal of success with a yellow smoke bomb . In addition, they sent a message with the carrier pigeon , which the signalman Jimmy Loring managed to keep alive during the landing and assault ^{[K 4] [47]} . However, they failed to establish a radio connection, and they were afraid that the cruiser would start shelling at 05:30 anyway, and therefore hastened to leave the dangerous area as soon as possible ^[37] . However, first of all, it was necessary to take care of the wounded, which on both sides there were a large number. They were transported on a slide designed to transport shells to guns in an improvised infirmary in the barn of the Ara de Retz farm ( Fr. Haras de Retz ), located near the battery, and provided first aid ^[48] . Three German prisoners of war - a doctor and two orderlies, who were joined by two British orderlies, were left to look after the wounded, without making a difference in their nationality ^[49] . The doctor refused to leave his patients even after Lt. Col. Otway warned him of the risk of death in the event of shelling from the sea ^[50] . However, the cruiser did not open fire on the battery ^{[K 5] [37]} .

Departure, Next Goal

After the retreat of the 75 surviving fighters, along with the German prisoners of war captured on battery ^[53] , moved to the next target. On the way, they were joined by several more paratroopers who got lost during the landing, including about 20 people from the company “A” of the 1st Canadian parachute battalion under the command of Lieutenant Clancy. In accordance with the plan of operation, Canadians immediately began combat protection of the 9th parachute battalion on the march ^[54] . Lt. Col. Otway, evaluating his strength, he realized that they would be enough to solve only one of the two tasks. Therefore, he chose the highest priority - instead of objects in Salniel, he moved to Le Plain. Around 09:00 on the outskirts of Le Plain, the battalion was fired from the MG 08 machine gun from the side of the small Chateau d'Amfreville ^[55] ( FR. Château d'Amfréville , now in ruins), located on top of a hill that dominates the surrounding area ^[56] . The paratroopers lay down, and the soldiers of Lieutenant Clancy took up a circular defense , and then knocked out the Germans from the chateau during a short-lived battle, thus allowing the British to turn this tactically convenient position into their strong point . Having completed the combat mission, Canadians left Lt. Col. Otway to join their battalion, located in the commune of Le Menil ( French Le Mesnil , now a village in the commune of Breville-les-Monts ) ^[55] .

At 09:30, the 9th battalion attempted to attack Le Plain from the Château d'Amfreville. However, having met stubborn resistance of the Germans and having lost the commander of one of the squads, Otway was forced to retreat to the chateau, which gave some shelter to the remnants of his battalion. There the paratroopers dug in and began to wait for the arrival of reinforcements from the coast - the 1st brigade of commandos who helped complete the operation ^[57] .

After the British left, the Germans again occupied the battery. They managed to repair two of the four detonated guns, however, now the battery could shoot no more than 2 times in 10 minutes ^[37] . Ober-lieutenant Steiner also could not conduct targeted fire at the landing allies, since his command and observation bunker in Franceville was destroyed by naval artillery fire ^[58] , and Sord Beach was not visible from the battery. This problem was somewhat compensated by spotters , who were with the 736th Infantry Regiment in La Breche ( French: La Brèche ) and helped him direct howitzers until their position was destroyed ^[59] . However, for every attempt to open fire, the Germans received a retaliatory salvo of the cruiser Arethusa ^[60] , forcing them to hide in shelters and cease firing for a long time, which reduced the combat effectiveness of the battery to almost nothing ^[12] .

Until the end of the day, June 6, 1944, the wounded of the 9th parachute battalion, many in critical condition, were on the Ara de Retz farm without qualified medical care ^[48] - as it turned out later, the German doctor who remained with them died from a random projectile burst ^{[ To 6]} , when he went for medicine to one of the casemates ^[50] . In the afternoon of the same day, the battalion chaplain, Rev. John Gwinnett, lost, like many paratroopers, during landing, reached the temporary headquarters of the 3rd parachute brigade in Le Menil. There he heard about the situation of the wounded fellow soldiers and, together with the driver, Private Olt ( Eng. Allt ), immediately went after them in a captured German truck ^[62] . To protect themselves from enemy snipers, they placed a German prisoner of war vehicle with a homemade red cross on the hood as a human shield . Only four lying wounded were placed in the back, so the chaplain and the driver had to take them out on several flights. They completed the rescue operation at 21:30, delivering the last victims to the location of the 224th parachute medical unit at the brigade headquarters, where they received the necessary assistance ^[48] .

The next day, June 7, the battery was again attacked by two platoons of the 3rd battalion from the 1st brigade of British commandos. The Germans repelled the attack, inflicting heavy damage on the attackers. The British never managed to completely destroy or take control of the battery until August 17, 1944, when the Wehrmacht began a retreat from France ^[4] .

Loss of Parties

The British paratroopers suffered heavy losses during the assault on the battery - 75 people, half of the attackers. Of these, about 30 were injured, the rest died ^[29] . In addition, many paratroopers scattered during the landing, drowned in ponds and swamps, suffered from the so-called "Rommel asparagus" ( German Rommelspargel ) ^{[K 7]} , died in minefields or were killed by the Germans. The total losses of the battalion on June 6, 1944 amounted to 94 people killed, 167 wounded and 194 missing ^[66] . There were few prisoners of paratroopers, since the order was in force in German troops: do not take enemy paratroopers prisoner, but shoot them on the spot ^{[K 8] [40] [67]} .

The Wehrmacht lost during the assault on the battery 22 people killed and about the same number of prisoners ^[3] , only six people from the entire garrison were not injured ^[20] .

In October 1944, for commanding the assault on the Merville Battery, Lt. Col. Terence Otway was awarded the Order of Outstanding Merit ^[68] .

The assault on the Merville Battery under the symbolic name Merville Battery is placed on the banner of the British Parachute Regiment . According to the traditions of the British army, such honors turn out to be regiments that distinguished themselves (mainly won) in a particular military campaign ^[69] .

After the end of World War II, every year on June 6, veterans of the 9th Parachute Battalion gathered on the ruins of the Merville Battery to commemorate their fallen comrades. On June 5, 1983, after a three-month renovation of Casemate No. 1, a museum was opened in it dedicated to the assault of the battery ^{[K 9]} . The museum’s exposition is constantly evolving and currently includes all four casemates, as well as artillery and military equipment in open areas ^[70] . Since October 25, 2001 all the constructions of the Merville Battery were classified as a historical monument and entered into the Merimet base of the French Ministry of Culture ^[8] .

The crossroads near the commune of Gonville-en-Oge, on which, before the assault on the Merville battery, Lt. Col. Otway met the reconnaissance group of Major George Smith, now bears the name of the 9th Parachute Battalion ( FR. Carrefour du 9e Bataillon ). There, a stele was installed in memory of the feat of British paratroopers ^[32] .

In 2004, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landing, a black and white BBC black-and-white documentary film “D-Day” was released on television in many European countries and Japan ^{[K 10]} , which tells of the events of Operation Neptune , including the assault on the Merville Battery. The film starred both direct participants in these events (among them - Lieutenant Colonel Terence Otway and Chief Lieutenant Raimund Steiner), as well as dramatic actors who played them in the reconstruction of the events of June 6, 1944. The film was also released on DVD under the title "D-Day 6.6.1944" ^[71] .

In the post-war period, historians, mostly English-speaking, unanimously assessed the assault as an unconditional success of the British airborne assault : as a result of the attack of the 9th parachute battalion, the Merville battery was neutralized, and the threat to the British naval assault on Sord Beach was timely eliminated ^[72] . However, in 1987 a direct participant in the events, Alan Jefferson, who served as captain of the 9th Parachute Battalion and was seriously wounded during an assault ^[73] , published the sensational book “ Assault on the Guns ” ( Eng. Assault on the Guns) of Merville ) ^[74] . In it, for the first time, these events were covered from the opposite side - the testimonies of German soldiers and officers who defended the battery are given. In particular, the battery commander, Lieutenant Steiner, denied damage to the guns by paratroopers, claiming that three of them turned out to be in perfect order after the attack, and that in the following days he managed to destroy the Allied ammunition transport vessel, which had been unloaded in Uistream , which had been burning for a long time and finally sank. Ostensibly, news of this success reached Berlin , and on June 20, 1944, two military photojournalists even visited the battery. In the book of Jefferson, he is echoed by the predecessor as battery commander (December 1943 - March 1944), Lieutenant Hans Malsch ( German: Hans Malsch ), who told the author that on June 6, 1944, the battery was completely ready for battle and took part in shelling the sea landing allies. This book provoked a stormy and lengthy discussion among specialists divided into two "camps", one of which adhered to the "official" point of view about the success of the assault, and the other denied it ^[75] . In 2004, Raimund Steiner repeated in general terms the same version in an interview with Stern magazine, adding the destruction of the Canal Canal Gateway drives on June 6, 1944, which, in his opinion, blocked the canal and prevented the Allies from breaking into the city of Caen on the same day from the sea ^[58] .

In the future, a more thorough study by historians of ship magazines and reports of the military units of the allies and their opponents, as well as surveys of veterans - participants in the events from both sides, made it possible to reliably establish the following facts:

• On June 6, 1944, the battery of fire did not open allies on the amphibious assault ^{[K 11]} ; British paratroopers damaged at least three of the four guns sufficiently so that they could not shoot for at least the next three full days;
• On June 7 and 8, only one of the four guns fired several rare shots, the targets and effectiveness of the shooting are unknown;
• During the assault, paratroopers incapacitated (killed, wounded, or captured) a significant number of German gunners, which significantly affected the combat efficiency of the battery;
• The bridgehead, captured by the British 6th Airborne Division, cut off the battery from other parts of the Wehrmacht. Its supply routes were constantly monitored by allies from the sea and from the air, which did not allow the Germans to quickly make up for the shortage of personnel, ammunition and spare parts for guns;
• All this, combined with other factors, in particular, regular shelling by the ships of the Royal Navy, for a long time did not allow the battery to resume fire;
• On June 14, 1944, the battery became subordinate to the Wehrmacht's 711th Infantry Division , and the new command ordered Lieutenant Steiner to open fire on the Allied ships with two or three guns that had been repaired by that time;
• On June 15, the battery attempted to open fire on military vehicles of the Allies, which had become unloaded in the Uistream area. German gunners made several hits, causing some casualties and minor material damage. In response, the sailors placed a smokescreen that Steiner probably mistook for smoke from a fire on one of the ships, but the destruction or severe damage to the whole ship is not documented;
• All battery attempts to open fire met the immediate response of the Allied naval artillery, which forced the garrison to hide in bunkers and casemates, interrupting firing for a long time;
• German photographers, if they visited the battery on June 20, it was exclusively as the only point available to them at that time for photographing or filming a panorama of the Allied landing zone. No publications related to the Merville Battery were found in the German media of that period;
• The reports and orders of both warring parties relating to the first decades after landing in Normandy repeatedly report shelling of Sord Beach and the surrounding area by various mobile and stationary batteries of the Germans (for example, from Ulgat), as well as measures taken to counter them (airstrikes and shelling from the sea). However, the Merville battery, unlike others, is extremely rare in these documents, which indicates its extremely low military significance after June 6, 1944 ^{[75] [76]} .

Thus, the main goal of the assault on the Merville battery was achieved - the battery could neither interfere with the landing of the Allies, nor cause them any significant damage. The plan of Lieutenant Colonel Otway, despite all its complexity and a number of setbacks in the implementation, worked. Despite the acute shortage of forces for the assault, the 9th battalion at the cost of heavy losses of its own saved many soldiers' lives on the coast ^[76] . All this puts this operation among the most outstanding achievements of the British airborne assault ^[20] .

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Sources

• The Battery The Merville Battery . Musée de la Batterie de Merville. Date of treatment April 22, 2018.
• The 6th Airborne Division . The Merville Battery . Musée de la Batterie de Merville. Date of treatment April 22, 2018.
• The attack on Merville battery . The Merville Battery . Musée de la Batterie de Merville. Date of appeal April 25, 2018.
• The Wehrmacht in Normandy . The Merville Battery . Musée de la Batterie de Merville. Date of treatment May 9, 2018.
• The next phase of the mission . The Merville Battery . Musée de la Batterie de Merville. Date of appeal May 15, 2018.
• The Museum (English) . The Merville Battery . Musée de la Batterie de Merville. Date of appeal May 21, 2018.
• La ville et ses atouts . Un patrimoine remarquable (Fr.) . Merville-Franceville-Plage . Merville . Date of treatment May 2, 2018.
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• The Obstacles Tour the Battlefields of Normandy (2009). Date of treatment July 31, 2017.
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• Château d'Amfreville (English) . TracesOfWar.com . STIWOT. Date of appeal May 16, 2018.
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• Dickin medal pigeons (link not available) : [ arch. 02/13/2010 ]. - PDSA. - Date of appeal: 07/13/2018.