Marg02 Phare d'Ailly, StP Gruppe, Ste Marguerite, K.V.A.'E2', AOK 15 Haute-Normandie.

RADAR · StP Gruppe Ste Marguerite · AOK 15 Haute-Normandie · France

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

Phare d'Ailly was just a light house on a promontory over looking the channel. The first light was placed there in 1775 with an open fire type of light. By 1820 a proper modern light was installed. 1938 and a second light was built further back due to the cliffs having always been unstable. As the war progressed the Germans built an observation and two radars were placed, one on the light and another to its left. In 1944 the tower was destroyed by Allied bombing, but I would think it was RAF Typhoon fighter bombers, taking out as many radars as they could at the run up to D-Day and beyond.

Coast watcher was the Allied code word for a Fu.MG Seetakt Gema Zertsörersaüle Fu.MO 3.

Würzburg See Riese Fu.MO 214 at Arromanches.

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

Phare d'Ailly This is the Phare (lighthouse) today replacing the 1890 light in 1952.

24 March 2007

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

The Air40/1668 air photo of the radar target on the lighthouse.

Air 40/1668

High flying Spitfire photo Reconnaissance.

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

The early lighthouse before the the light was fitted.

Post cards -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post card

This shows the light in place.

postcard

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

This is how it looked from AIR 40/1668 with a wooden gantry built around the lighthouse and a Würzburg See Riese Fu.MO214 radar sat on the top. It was blown up by retreating Germans in 1944/or by the Allied airforce..

Air 40/1668

All they would have seen flying in from the sea.

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

The full plan of the RAF's Target XII/62.
Kriegsmarine radar station.
1 x V229.
1 x machine bunker.
Several field bunkers.
3 x 2cm flak.
1 x Würzburg See Riese Fu.MO214.
1 x Zertsörersaüle Fu.MO 3.
1 x Peilstand/Vf observatory/fire control.

Air 40/1668

This is an enlarged picture, the four red buildings surrounding the light, are French buildings. The two with green surrounding them may be the German bunkers. Another was a generator to power the systems. Then three Flak positions with 2cm Flak. Marked as trenches on the plan are anti-tank ditches and the wire and minefield surrounding the site.

Marg02 Phare d'Ailly

During the German occupation (1939 –1944), it was, of course out of action. The installations were only used once, during the passage of two battleship cruisers returning to the North Sea from Brest. After the Anglo-Canadian landing of August 19, 1942 on the coasts of the Dieppe region, the optics of the lighthouse were sheltered behind sandbags intended to protect it from bombings. Then, the engineers obtained authorization from the Germans to move the lighthouse device which was dismantled and, divided into a certain number of crates, stored in Longueville-sur Scie. The mercury, more than 800 kilos, which remained in the tank, was transferred clandestinely by the engineer and the radio electrician into twenty-two specially made bottles which, when full, each weighed 40 kilos, which were hidden in a garage. in Dieppe. On August 30, 1944, before their departure, the Germans blew up the lighthouse and its associated installations.

Post card