JUNE 2009
NORMANDY - MAISY BATTERIE
(1 of 2) |
 The
forgotten Maisy German gun battery - part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall
in Normandy near Omaha Beach - has been
unearthed
after 60 years and was opened to the public in
April 2007.
Despite being heavily bombed, the
infrastructure of Maisy Battery remained largely intact. But
local interest waned after the war and nature rook over, burying the
40 acre site. |
Range Map
located 6 miles east of Utah Beach and 7 mi west of Omaha Beach the
Maisy guns even included coverage of Point du Hoc |
German Artillery Piece
sits rusting in the salt air. On D-Day more than a dozen Maisy
guns covered the Omaha sector |
June 8, 1944
the Rangers captured the battery site |
Stop #1
Randy Lewellen and Don van den Bogert (obscured) read an information
sign |
Half Buried
this bunker had a circular gun port on top |
Bunker Panel
shows rear and front views |
Actual Bunker
front has been been fully excavated |
Multiple Rooms
were in some large bunkers |
Blackened Wall
may be soot marks from a stove |
Old Stoves
are displayed |
Nap Time?
a German cot is probably just one of many found here |
Escargot
a snail still makes the bunker home. German soldiers may have devoured its
ancestors |
Gun Port
the angled deflections prevented ricochets from reaching the gunner |
Graffiti
written in German says, "Built in 1943" |
Support Building
was a simple corrugated arch with cement overhead |
|
All Normandy 'D-Day Plus 65' trip photos are a
multi-national mixture of work by Hervé Argoud, Hans DeBree, Gene Garren,
Fred Hoek, Herbert Lahout, Randy Lewellen, Cyndi Mathews, Bill Nation, Dick O'Donnell,
Dominique Potier, Vivian Roger, Zane Schlemmer, Donald van den Bogert and Nelly
van Loo-Polley. Individual credits have not been
given. |
