Colleville (Hillman)
Map1612 OT
The Germans concentrated quite a number of bunkers and casemates in the area.
The village was later to become known as Colleville Montgomery after the famous
British General.
To the west of the village the Germans installed four Czech, 100mm guns still
mounted on their gun carriages. This made them difficult to aim
accurately, even though they sat on concrete platforms.
By the time of the landings they had constructed casemates of the H669 type.
The site today is occupied by a market garden and one of the casemates has been
converted into a house. British intelligence code named this site "Morris"
To the south is the strong point called "Hillman" by the British, the Germans
knew it as Wn17.
The main bunker at this point being two type H608. These were used as a
battalion headquarters, and there were around twelve bunkers on this site, which
included type H605 bunkers, which were garages for two cannons. Oddly
though on of the PaK garages has solid rock in front of its entrance so could
never be used for its planned purpose, but this was not unusual. Many bunkers
built along the Atlantic Wall were never used for their intended use, but were
possibly built because the standard design could be adapted for some other use.
The site was ringed with Tobruks as an inner defence ring and then mine fields
and barbed wire placed around the perimeter. For the 1st Suffolk Regiment D-day
had started quite well, they had landed on Sword beach at around 08:25 and had
maid their way to a pre arranged assembly point about 1 km from the beach. By
09:30 the battalion was at strength in the woods near Hermanville, clearing the
village as the went. The area had also been cleared earlier by the 6th Airborne.
They attacked the German Gun position "Morris" at around 13:00 and moved onto
attack "Hillman".
This attack was repelled by the Germans and a second attack, using tanks from
the Hussars was successful. By nightfall the command post surrendered with forty
Germans being taken prisoner.
This delay in taking "Hillman" allowed the Germans time to reinforce their
positions further inland and some historians claim that if "Hillman" could have
been taken earlier in the day, Caen itself might have fallen in days rather than
weeks.
WN017 R605 - R608 x 2 - Vf58c x 3 - 75mm FK231 - Manned by 1/AR1716
