StP Vasouy M.K.B
Covering the mouth of the River Seine.
How they may have looked.
Gun room at Longues-sur-Mer.
Plan of an M272 casemate.
Elevation of an M272 casemate.
StP Vasouy M.K.B
9./MAA 266. (Marine Artillery Abteilung)
3 x M272 casemates.
1 x M262 fire control post for a light battery.
3 x 15cm Tbts.K.L./45 guns.
4 x 2cm flak28 Oerlikon.
StP Vasouy M.K.B
The German plan of the area showing all the defence positions north of Trouville.
Bootsmannsmaat.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
The D513 from Honfleur to Villerville is very busy but there is a lay by (parking) on the opposite side of the road near the gate.
Plan of the battery area.
Red : is the Fire Control Post PDT.
Yellow : Vf ammunition.
White - the M272 casemates. Two complete and one very damaged casemate.
M262 plan.
M272 plan.
2cm Flak 28 Oerlikon
StP Vasouy M.K.B
Just entering the field via the gate where there is a concrete base for a hut or such like.
M262 plan.
M262 elevation.
StP Vasouy M.K.B
Air photo showing the battery site..
Bunker construction.
Reinforcement.
StP Vasouy
M262
This is one of the best preserved M262's, it was never as far as I can see fired on or bombed. As the allies advanced the battery's crew retreated north and crossed the Seine.
M262 from the air..
M262 plan.
StP Vasouy
M262
The entrance into the range-finder room.
Range-finder.
Range-finder.
StP Vasouy
M262
The rear entrance into the range finder room.
StP Vasouy
M262
Range-finder room. The concrete raised base is for a range-finder to stand on.
Range finder.
StP Vasouy
M262
The view across towards Le Havre and the E-Boat pen.
E-Boats from Ostende.
E-Boat Cherbourg pen.
StP Vasouy
M262
Range-finder room a better view.
Some of the wood shuttering is still in place and also it looks as though the work on this M272 was very hurried by waste concrete not removed.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Range-finder room at the rear showing where it has been partly filled in.
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M262
The entrance.
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M262
Camouflage netting hooks made from the re enforcing rods bent over.
Putting on the camouflage nets.
Camouflage netting.
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M262
The entrance to the computing room.
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M262
The stars down.
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M262
Close combat embrasure in front and below a space to pass equipment.
The niches in the walls either side are for light switches and the slots are for telescopic aerials.
Lights switch inside its niche.
Aerial fitted into its slot.
Bunker lamps.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Drain in the floor, remember its their when you walk into a bunker they nearly all have one.
Plan of a drain.
Zinc drain bowl to catch large items.
Plan of a bunkers drainage.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Passing through the gas lock. This is my opinion but I think that many if not all the metal fittings had not been installed. It looks as though it was a hurried build and may have been up and ready after Christmas 1944 not August 1944.
19P7 door that should have been here, I am not sure if they were fitted.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Computing room.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
A model of an M262.
This gives an idea of what it would have looked like inside.
Loading equipment into a bunker.
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M262
Steps up to the observation room.
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M262
The observation slit.
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M262
The rear wall of the observation room.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
The computing room.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
A manhole to what??
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Close combat window covering the entrance. Any enemy trying to enter via the rear entrance would have met with a hail of Mg34. The large hole underneath was to allow for equipment to to passed in, items that could not have come in via the doors.
483P2 close combat defence window that possibly should have been fitted here.
Close combat defence.
Close combat defence.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Wireless, Liaison & Watch-Office.
Communications cables possibly to the three casemates.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Wireless, Liaison & Watch-Office.
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M262
The way out.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
The steps out.
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M262
here
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M262
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M272 casemate
Casemate Turm 3 15cm Tbts.K.L./45 15cm ships or submarines main gun.
M272 plan.
M272 elevation.
M272 at Wn48 Longues-sur-Mer..
Wn Trou05 Vasouy M272
Casemate Turm 3 the only part of the casemate that you can see is the rear entrance. A large block of concrete with access either side as the plan below.
Rear entrance where two sets of steps either side join into a passage into the gun room with shell and case rooms either side.
The passage with the two ammunition rooms either side..
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M272 Casemate Turm 2.
15cm Tbts.K.L./45.
Gun room..
Ammunition room.
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M272 Casemate
Turm 2.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M272 Casemate
Turm 1 totally destroyed and just a crater left. It may be that the British piled all the ammunition into Turm 1 and when MEK * 60 attacked the battery. It must have been one hell of an explosion.
M272 Casemate Turm 1 from the air. You can still see the large crater now a pond.
Wn Trou05 Vasouy
M272 Casemate
Turm 1.
Linsens speedboats used by M.E.K. 60
Very little known story that took place at the MKB Vasouy after the German retreat and the occupation of the battery by the English: the sabotage of guns by a group of German combat divers to avoid the English use of the guns, abandoned intact according to my source able still to shell Le Havre, still held by the Germans.
On August 26, 1944, probably at night (my source does not specify), a group of German combat divers MEK * 60 including its leader, the Oblt.MAdR Prinzhorn and 7 men slipped into MKB Vasouy.
Translated text: "Some time ago, the British troops had captured the 15 cm gun L / 45 of the battery Vasouy which were initially planned to protect the Seine estuary served by men of the M.A.A. 266, guns and ammunition had been left intact before the English advance. Located between Honfleur and Trouville, the guns were perfectly placed in their concrete bunkers to shell Le Havre held by the Germans, only 7 km across the estuary . Prinzhorn and his men, guided by a gunner who was familiar with the site, approached this impressive site aboard two speedboats ''Linsens'' and managed to set foot on land within 100m of the first bunkers. The guns were located above the beach,. The assault group Prinzhorn silently approached its objectives, the introduction of explosives in the same barrels of the guns and penetrating through the narrow passage between the guns and the walls casemates to place other charges in ammunition stocks. There was no guard dedicated to each bunker and the commandos could well destroy the guns without being disturbed by any British sentries who roamed without conviction the battery site. "Emmanuel''
M.E.K. 60 Le Havre / Rouen; Rhein-Front, Elbe-Front Oblt.MA. Prinzhorn (Hans-Friedrich) 03.44 - 11.44 03.45 - Ende.
A frogman of M.E.K. 60.
M.E.K. = MEERSKÄMPFER.
MEERSKÄMPFER
= Sea Fighter.
Model.
StP Vasouy
Ah the horses, whenever I have visited these guardians of the bunkers have kept me at bay.
StP Vasouy