Amfreville (York) N49 39.817 W001 42.497 Map 1210E
The Kriegsmarine gun batterie just to the west of Cherbourg was equipped with
four 170 mm cannon of German origin.
They were manufactured by Schiffs and were of the SKL40 type.
They were housed in M271 casemates and were placed here to protect the western
approach to the port.
The site is unusual in as much as the casemates were aligned in slightly
different directions.
This would have made the task of direction finding even more difficult than
usual.
The spotting of targets and the calculations were done in the Fire Control Post
and four small observatories placed around the site.
The site was ringed with mine fields and several machine gun posts, mortars, and
two PaK 75mm cannons, protecting the rear of the site.
The batterie had its own hospital, kitchens, workshops and command post. These
were in fact part of the old French Fort that the Germans acquired on their
arrival.
The batterie first came under fire on June 25th, during the final stages of the
liberation of Cherbourg.
The battery was shelled by the British cruisers
HMS Glasgow and HMS Enterprise, both firing 6 inch shells (160 mm).
The batterie returned fire and the Glasgow was damaged, York claimed the hit,
but evidence points to a smaller shell hitting the Glasgow, possibly from Fort
de Couplets ?.
The batterie was then engaged by the USS Texas and these two continued to fire
without much success until the batterie was final silenced by the infantry who
overran the batterie. There are two relitivly rare bunkers on the site a 607 and
a 610 these were used for ammunition and as a command post. A very rare find is
an abandoned German 75mm field gun minus is barrel, could it have been one of
the guns used here?
