The Maisy Battery
A forgotten German Gun Battery in Normandy is unearthed after 60 years
We are delighted to report that the long awaited opening to the maisy battery took place on April 3rd 2007 and the site is now open to the public again from February 10th 2008.
The papers said....
A previously forgotten German gun battery - part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall in Normandy near Omaha Beach - has been uncovered and it is about to re-write the story of D-Day.
Military enthusiast Gary Sterne came across the buried 40 acre site a few years ago whilst studying a wartime officer's map of the area marked 'Area of High Resistance'. "Not knowing where I was going or what I was looking for, I continued walking across the fields until to my amazement I found I was standing on concrete. I followed the concrete to the edge of the tree line and discovered a bunker entrance... then a tunnel, an office, store rooms, headquarters buildings, radio rooms, bunkers … and most importantly mounts for 155mm cannons," he recalled.
Thus began a four year project to buy the land from its various owners, and to uncover the largely untouched bunkers and tunnels. After the war it had been buried beneath a metre of top soil and farmed. The virtually impenetrable Normandy hedgerows had covered the evidence and the site, which had housed hundreds of German soldiers, was forgotten by the locals and ignored or overlooked by historians. “After studying the RAF reconnaissance photographs it was clear that the site was of major importance - it was not just another little gun battery but a major complex - a larger size to that at Pointe du Hoc but virtually undamaged - and only 4 miles away."
Further research in the Washington and Berlin archives revealed that in 1944 the Maisy Battery was a headquarters complex for the coastal defence of what became known as Omaha Sector and its guns included four 10.5 cm howitzers – three in casements and one in a field, six 155mm howitzers in open emplacements, 4 as yet unknown field guns in open emplacements, two 50mm KwK anti-tank cannons, two Renault Tank turret tops mounted into casements – not to mention many machineguns, mortars and rifles.
Maisy was guarded by 12x 88mm anti-aircraft permanently stationed in and around Maisy village. As well as its usual personnel who had manned it since it was built in 1942, it was guarded by infantry from the 352nd & 716th Infantry Divisions and one thousand men from a flak battalion arrived on the 5th of June and were ordered to defend it. The flak battalion No 1 was commanded by Colonel Kistowski and in his original interviews with Longest Day writer Cornelius Ryan he provides graphic details about the Allied planes flying over Maisy on D-day and how the Germans kept up the pressure to repel the invasion by shooting them down. He reported that they captured 21 US paratroopers at Maisy on D-day morning alone.
On D-Day and for two days afterwards, the Maisy Battery fired on American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach - 'Bloody Omaha' - as it has been ever afterwards known and also at the troops landing on Utah Beach.
Indeed German wartime records state that the guns at Maisy were firing at the troops landing on Utah but were unable to be effective... they then transferred their attention to the ships in the bay. During the landings men from the US Rangers scaled the 80 ft high cliffs at Pointe du Hoc near Omaha Beach to put out of action the gun battery there. Those who have watched the film ‘The Longest Day’ will recall that when they reached the casemates there were no guns there. Since then the question has been asked by historians – where were the guns from Pointe du Hoc?
Not at Maisy.... Maisy Battery was built at the same time as Pointe du Hoc and yet it was kept TOP SECRET - not only from the allies but also from the local population. Being constructed entirely by foreign labour and military conscripts the site was visited by Rommel many times but only was he ever seen on film walking around Pointe du Hoc. (more on Pointe du Hoc later).
After three years of research Gary believes that he may have the answer: the huge casemated guns at Pointe du Hoc were an elaborate bluff – the gun barrels pointing from the concrete bunkers were telegraph poles - a 'ruse de guerre' by Rommel to distract the Allies who diverted men and bombing raids to destroying it. This is borne out by the French Resistance leader in the area Jean Marrion who told his contacts in England before D-Day that there were no guns at Pointe du Hoc. Meanwhile the well camouflaged nearby Maisy Battery was pounding the beaches until it was captured on June 9th. This is evident in the US G-3 after battle reports which continually state that Maisy Battery was firing at Omaha Beach during these 3 days despite being bombed, shelled and straffed. Its survival was inpart helped by the fact that the Germans designed and built the whole battery on the reverse slope of the fields at Maisy, allowing its cannons to be protected from the Allied ships which could not fire directly at them.
On the morning of the 9th of June 1944 Maisy Battery was attacked by 2 halftracks of the US 2nd Rangers and infantry from the 5th battalion, soldiers from the 116th Regiment of the 29th Div. (Maryland, Virgina National Guard) and 81st Chemical Weapons Battalion (Heavy Mortars) and was supported by a barrage from the 58th US field gun battery. It was eventually captured by the Rangers after a fierce 5 hour battle.
In another of Ryan's interviews with Staff Sgt. Donald Chance of A company 5th Rangers, Chance wrote that “we were the lead company in the behind the lines action to attack the complex at Maisy”. The firefight lasted all morning until the Germans eventually surrendered. The scars of the battle can be seen so vividly at the site today - in the tunnel walls and building fronts and are a testament to the ferrocity of the encounter.
When it was eventually captured by the Rangers the site was well stocked with food and over 180 tons of ammunition and could have continued to fire at Omaha Beach. So why has it been ignored by historians after the war?”
There is also no mention the 21 US paratroopers who dropped onto the site and were captured by the Germans on D-day, they were mentioned in Kistowski's interviews - were they just part of the Allied mis-drops, were they shot down or were they part of an attack force sent to neutralise the battery which failed? Nobody knows for sure... it most likely they were part of mis-dropped units blown over the estuary... however, the question remains why have they not been accounted for in paratrooper books to date?
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So thats the sort of things that the papers have been saying.... If you have a question please feel free to ask me directly.
We would like to hear from anyone with information or contacts in the USA or Germany who can shed more light on the story of the Maisy Battery and in particular I would love to have the opportunity to purchase any photographs, sourvenirs or original Ranger artifacts for the museum at Maisy. I am not asking for donations. I am happy to pay for original Ranger items and they will be displayed and cared for so that others can see the sacrifices made for us by these brave men 60 years ago.
Email: gary@armourer.co.uk
