Digosville

Situated on the edge of the village of Digosville now surrounded by a sports ground.

The casemates cannot be seen on Google, but are to the left of 'Stade Municiple'.

Four 105mm. (4.14in.) field gun-howitzers. Range 13,000yda. Weight of shell 33lb. Rate of fire 6-8r.p.m. Guns in casemates 35ft square, 63-70yds apart. Position was constructed in 1944. Accommodation: Small shelters being built in hedge to rear of battery. Secondary Armament: None yet installed in April, 1944. Dummy: At 205210.

Schwere Holztur 620x760mm (Heavy Wooden Door). I thought these doors were pinched from local barns, but no they were a standard size German wooden door for a casemate. These casemates had just been finished by June 1944. But the Americans came in behind these casemates and passed on to take StP235 Carneville Osteck Luftwaffe Station "Taussendfussler". The guns were first in open emplacements in the countryside, then these four casemates were constructed to protect the guns from Allied bombing. The guns were aimed to protect the east side of Cherbourg harbour. They may have been placed in the casemates but as the Americans came in from the rear, they may have been removed and turned on the American advance.

Turm 1 R669 casemate.

Rear of a casemate here. This looks like the gun has been pulled out of the casemate.

Turm 1 Gun room.

In this bunker it actually had both rear doors fitted. The second picture is form Mo86c Batterie Versendoket 2/A.R.266 and that casemate has written on the wall details about opening the rear door when firing.

Another picture of the rear of a casemate, this shows the gun has been removed from the casemate and completely blown up. On the roof shows a 2cm Flak position.

On the roof shows a 2cm Flak position. So the batterie had its own Flak with this gun disabled with its barrel removed, but boxes of ammunition stacked behind the gun.

Turm 2.

Turm 3. Note the concrete camouflage, the indentations. When the cement was wet, empty bags of concrete screwed up and pushed into the concrete. When the concrete dried, the bags would be removed, leaving concave shapes in the smooth concrete.

The four casemates.

4 x 15.5cm s.F.H.114(f) were here, they look as though they were not all placed in the casemates and this one was used outside and heavily camouflaged. They were horse drawn artillery and their animals would have been kept quite close.

This one looks as though the gun has been completely destroyed.

It looks like after capture, the US Army built either a camp, a hospital or a POW camp.