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On a day of extraordinary feats, I think the attack on the Merville Battery ranks right up there. If you ever get the chance to visit, I can thoroughly recommend it.
On a day of extraordinary feats, I think the attack on the Merville Battery ranks right up there. If you ever get the chance to visit, I can thoroughly recommend it.
Shame that they never disabled the guns, then fecked off, the Boxheads re occupied it and started shelling the beaches requiring another assault on it
'..... During the chaos of D-Day, the Germans re-occupied the Battery. On D+1 a message was passed to the Commander of the 6th Airborne Division, Major-General Richard Gale, stating that the guns had opened fire. He was ordered to ensure that the Battery was silenced, and the task fell to Nos 4 and 5 Troops, No 3 Commando.
During the attack they found relatively few Germans in the Battery, but these fought to the death. The Commando casualties were light, but they suffered a bitter loss in Major John Pooley. Shortly after however, a counter-attack backed by overwhelming firepower caused heavy losses to the Commandos. The necessity of the Commando attack was questionable. They felt this at the time, and were very unhappy about it, especially as they did not have any explosives with which to destroy the guns either. Much controversy exists as to whether the guns did open fire on D-Day, and although the reasons why are still the subject of much debate, the overriding fact is that the Battery did not perform to anywhere near its capability. With the failure of the bombing, the only possible reason for this is the consequence of the 9th Battalion attack. As a result, many lives were saved on Sword beach.