Wn345 Digulleville 1./Art. Reg. 1709

Batterie 1./Artillery Regiment 1709, a batterie of four 10cm le.FH14/19 guns. This was a batterie position for four 10cm guns covering the north and east of the coast. I have not visited the site but looking at Google earth, there seems very little if any remains. ( That does not mean there is nothing, Always better to look).

 

German 1944 plan of showing all the defence areas. These maps would be updated on a daily basis and sent out to all local HQ and on to the the main army HQ, so everybody that needed to know could see for themselves.

With four field positions laid out in a half round and facing north, although the guns could turn 360°. All around the hedge rows were ammunition niches, all probably quite small. There was also one or two bunkers (N/E corner and S/E corner). That maybe barracks or extra ammunition.

Allied intelligence air photo of the batterie, four ?105mm (4.14inch) field guns, howitzers. Earth revetments, connected with trenches and 55yards apart (50m). North of the guns an observation post.

The guns were 10cm le,FH14/19(t). Field Howitzers of Czechoslovakian design. And would have been captured stock and re used by the German artillery. Horse drawn with six horses, an ammunition limber and the gun. These guns were probably brought into German army use, the crews trained in Germany. Then the advance into France they would have been drawn by their horses all the way from Germany and then as the war continued. The guns were left in France and used in a static position. The horses were kept and used as draft animals to collect replacement ammunition, food, stores and also to help French farmers bring in the harvest.

An Allied Bigot map dated around April/May 1944, showing that they knew there was a batterie position here. They say it may have been 105mm guns. There was a lot of wire around the site and also mine fields. A lot of the information was from air reconnaissance and local French civilians, who would see what was going on and then with the aid of the local resistance movement. Then information may have been sent to England by carrier Pigeon or by fishing boat or a clandestine British boats used all around Brittany and were some of the time stationed in the Isles of Scilly.

Horse drawn artillery was extensively used by the German army throughout the war. When the Allies landed in France, they had NO horses what-so ever, to the utter surprise of the poor German Landser. (Landser a colloquial term for a German army soldier)

A six man crew and at least three more holding the horses.

Horses at rest, these men would love their horses and do anything for them.