Merville Gun Battery
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The Merville Gun Battery was a coastal fortification in Normandy, France in use as part of the Nazi's Atlantic wall built to defend continental Europe from Allied invasion. It was one of the first places to be attacked by Allied forces on D-Day.
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[edit] Merville Gun Battery defences
It overlooked the British invasion area of Sword Beach, and as it was believed to contain four 150 mm guns, it was a serious threat to the Allied landings. Each of the guns was sited within a reinforced concrete casemate, six and a half feet thick with a further six feet of soil above. As these could only be destroyed by an unlikely direct hit from the heaviest of ordnance, it was decided that British paratroopers would attack and destroy the guns a few hours before the landings at Sword Beach began. The 9th Battalion of The Parachute Regiment was selected for the task.
The northern end of the Battery was protected by an anti-tank ditch, 14 feet (4.3 m) wide and 300 feet (91 m) long, with the remaining circumference protected by two belts of barbed wire, the inner belt being 8 feet (2.4 m) tall, and in between these lay a 50-75 feet deep minefield. The garrison, of gunners and sentries, amounted to one hundred and sixty men, and they were supported by numerous machine-gun emplacements and three 20mm anti-aircraft guns.
[edit] The plan of attack
Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway, the commander of the 9th Battalion, had formulated a complex plan to assault the Battery. Firstly, an advance party of four men was to land in advance of the remainder of the Battalion. They would then proceed to the Battery to cut holes in the barbed wire and clear paths through the minefield.
At 00:30, before this reconnaissance party had reached the Battery, one hundred RAF Lancaster and Halifax heavy bombers would attack it with 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) bombs in the hope of destroying the position altogether or at the least inflicting considerable damage upon the defences. At 00:50, the main force of the 9th Battalion would land and they would be expected to reach the Battery by 04:00. With them would come a troop of Royal Engineers from the 591st Parachute Squadron, and a plethora of equipment, including mine-clearance devices, bangalore torpedoes for dealing with the barbed wire, and two guns of the 4th Airlanding Anti-Tank Battery, which would be used to puncture the steel doors that sealed each of the casemates.
At 04:30, No.4 Platoon was to make a diversionary attack on the main gate area whilst two sniper groups fired at enemy troops in pillboxes, machine-gun emplacements, and upon flak towers. The next phase was to be the timed arrival of three Horsa gliders, containing most of the Battalion's "A" Company and more Engineers, who were to land inside the Battery itself and attack each of the casemates with Sten guns and flamethrowers. At the same time, "C" Company would make the main assault by proceeding along the cleared paths through the minefield, quickly followed by the remainder of "A" and then "B" Companies.
In the event of failure, the light cruiser HMS Arethusa would open fire on the Battery at 05:30 if no success signal had been received.
[edit] Initial problems with the plan
The entire plan, as laid out above, broke apart completely. Due to navigational errors, low cloud, and the pathfinders being dropped astray and so were unable to mark the drop zone for the 9th Battalion, the paratroopers were scattered anywhere up to ten miles (16 km) from the zone. Lt-Colonel Otway waited at the Rendezvous Point, but by 02:50 only one hundred and fifty of his six hundred and fifty men, and nothing else besides, had arrived. None of the Jeeps, anti-tank guns, mortars, mine-detectors, medical personnel, sappers or the naval liaison party had arrived.
[edit] Success after improvised changes to plan
With time pressing on, Otway was left with no choice but to attack with what he had. When the 9th Battalion arrived at the Battery they found that their reconnaissance party had gone about their business excellently, having made a thorough study of German positions as well as clearing four paths through the minefield. The RAF bombing raid had, however, missed the Battery completely and their bombs fell away to the south, doing no harm to the Germans but landing dangerously close to the reconnaissance party.
By 04:30, the Battalion had been reorganised into four assault groups, led by Major Parry and consisting of "A" and "C" Companies, which were to proceed along two of the paths cut through the minefield. As they were forming up, however, they were spotted and as many as six German machine-gunners opened fire upon both of the 9th Battalion's flanks. A small party of paratroopers under Sergeant Knight engaged the three guns near the main gate, taking out their crews with bayonets and grenades, whilst the only Vickers medium machine gun available to the Battalion dealt with those upon the other flank. Knight then led his group around to the main gate and improvised the diversionary attack by opening fire with everything at their disposal, which suitably distracted the Germans.
As this was happening, two of the assault gliders approached the Battery, the third having cast-off over England when its tow rope snapped. The gliders were to be guided to the Battery by the troops on the ground using Eureka beacons, however none of these had been recovered from the drop, and so the gliders pilots were flying by eyesight alone. Their view was further obscured by clouds and smoke from the bombing raid, which resulted in one of the gliders mistaking a village two miles (3 km) away for their objective. The other, however, found the Battery and was making its final approach when it was spotted and fired upon by a machine-gun, wounding four of the men inside and throwing the glider off course. The glider finally came to rest 750 yards (690 m) away. The glider was a wreck and several men had been hurt in the crash, however they disembarked in time to detect and ambush a party of Germans who were marching towards the Battery.
As the glider flew by, Lt-Colonel Otway gave the order to attack. Major Parry blew his whistle, the Bangalore torpedoes were detonated to further clear the barbed wire, and the four assault groups charged forward. In the darkness, the marked paths were not so clearly visible and so it was inevitable that some men strayed from the path and onto mines. Three German machine-gun positions fired on the assault groups but these were soon dealt with by the Battalion's Bren gunners and snipers. Amidst the enemy fire and exploding mines, firing from the hip and lobbing grenades at any strong-points that they encountered, the paratroopers charged on towards the casemates. Initially taken by surprise, the German garrison quickly recovered, first by shooting flares into the sky to illuminate the area, and then by bringing shellfire down outside the wire, and even arranging for a Battery at Cabourg to fire directly onto the minefield.
Otway ordered in his reserve to deal with the final machine-guns that were hitting the assault teams, who by now were pouring into the casemates and engaging their defenders hand-to-hand. The guns, which were to be destroyed with specialist explosive that had not been recovered after the drop, were knocked out one at a time using the high-explosive anti-tank Gammon bombs which each man carried. The fighting began to die down as the garrison was at last overcome, and by 05:00 it was all over. Inside and around the Battery the scene was one of carnage, with dead and wounded of both sides lying everywhere. The German garrison had approximately numbered one hundred and thirty, but by the end of the battle, only six were unscathed. Of the one hundred and fifty men of the 9th Battalion who began the assault, sixty-five had been killed or wounded.
The guns which had posed such a threat to the invasion, even though they were found to be obsolete 100 mm guns instead of the 150 mm calibre that was expected, had been destroyed and many lives were saved as a result. The assault upon the Merville Battery, by a small and wholly ill-equipped force, is still regarded as one of the most outstanding achievements in the history of The Parachute Regiment.
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