Todt Battery
The Todt Battery, also known as Batterie Todt, was a battery of coastal artillery built by the Germans in World War II, located in the hamlet of Haringzelles, Audinghen, near Cape Gris-Nez, Pas de Calais, France.
The battery consisted of four Krupp 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun#Coast defense gun| guns with a range up to, capable of reaching the British coast, each protected by a bunker of reinforced concrete. Originally to be called Siegfried Battery, it was renamed in honor of the German engineer Fritz Todt, creator of the Todt Organisation. It was later integrated into the Atlantic Wall.
The 3rd Canadian Infantry Division attacked the Cap Gris-Nez batteries on 29 September 1944 and the positions secured by the afternoon of the same day. The Todt battery fired for the last time on 29 September 1944 and was taken hours later by the North Nova Scotia Highlanders that landed in Normandy, as part of the 9th Infantry Brigade, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, after an intense aerial bombardment, as part of Operation Undergo.
History
Germany's swift and successful occupation of France and the Low Countries gained control of the Channel coast. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder met Hitler on 21 May 1940 and raised the topic of invasion, but warned of the risks and expressed a preference for blockade by air, submarines and raiders. By the end of May, the Kriegsmarine had become even more opposed to invading Britain following its costly victory in Norway. Over half of the Kriegsmarine surface fleet had been either sunk or badly damaged in Operation Weserübung, and his service was hopelessly outnumbered by the ships of the Royal Navy.In an OKW directive on 10 July, General Wilhelm Keitel requested artillery protection during the planned invasion:
OKW Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl set out the OKW proposals for the proposed invasion of Britain in a memorandum issued on 12 July, which described it as "a river crossing on a broad front", irritating the Kriegsmarine.
On 16 July 1940 Hitler issued Führer Directive No. 16, setting in motion preparations for a landing in Britain, codenamed Operation Sea Lion. One of the four conditions for the invasion to occur set out in Hitler's directive was the coastal zone between occupied France and England must be dominated by heavy coastal artillery to close the Strait of Dover to Royal Navy warships and merchant convoys. The Kriegsmarine's Naval Operations Office deemed this a plausible and desirable goal, especially given the relatively short distance,, between the French and English coasts. Orders were therefore issued to assemble and begin emplacing every Army and Navy heavy artillery piece available along the French coast, primarily at Pas-de-Calais. This work was assigned to the Organisation Todt and commenced on 22 July 1940.
cannon in 1941 on the Atlantic Wall moving out of its shelter in Hydrequent, northern France
By early August 1940, all of the Army's large-caliber railway guns were operational taking advantage of the narrow width of the English Channel in the Pas-de-Calais. Firing sites for these railway guns were quickly set up between Wimereux, in the south, and Calais in the north, along the axis Calais-Boulogne-sur-Mer making the most of the railway tracks entering the dunes and skirting the hills of Boulonnais, before fanning out behind Cap Gris-Nez. Other firing locations were set up behind Wissant and near Calais, at the level of the Digue Royale. Copied from swing bridges and railway turntables, Vögele rotating tables were assembled, on stabilized or lightly reinforced ground, at the end of these various deviations enabling rapid adjustments and all-round firing of these railway guns. Outside of firing periods, the guns and their accompanying carriages would find refuge in quarries, under the railway tunnels or under one of the three dombunkers, reinforced concrete shelters of an ogival shape whose construction began in September 1940. Six 28 cm K5 pieces and a single K12 gun, with a range of, could only be used effectively against land targets. Thirteen and five pieces, plus additional motorized batteries comprising twelve 24 cm guns and ten 21 cm weapons. The railway guns could be fired at shipping but were of limited effectiveness due to their slow traverse speed, long loading time and ammunition types.
Better suited for use against naval targets were the heavy naval batteries that began to be installed around the end of July 1940. First came the Siegfried Battery at Audinghen, south of Cap Gris-Nez,. Four naval batteries were operational by mid-September 1940: Friedrich August with three barrels; Prinz Heinrich with two 28 cm guns; Oldenburg with two 24 cm weapons and, largest of all, Siegfried with a pair of guns.
While the bombing of Britain intensified during the Blitz, Hitler issued his Directive No. 21 on 18 December 1940 instructing the Wehrmacht to be ready for a quick attack to commence his long-planned invasion of the Soviet Union. Operation Sea Lion lapsed, never to be resumed. On 23 September 1941, Hitler ordered all Sea Lion preparations to cease. Most historians agree Sea Lion would have failed regardless, because of the weaknesses of German sea power, compared to the Royal Navy.
On 23 March 1942, Hitler issued Führer Directive No. 40, which called for the creation of an "Atlantic Wall", an extensive system of coastal defenses and fortifications, along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom. The manning and operation of the Atlantic Wall was administratively overseen by the German Army, with some support from Luftwaffe ground forces.
The guns started to fire in the second week of August 1940 and were not silenced until 1944, when the batteries were overrun by Allied ground forces. They caused 3,059 alerts, 216 civilian deaths, and damage to 10,056 premises in the Dover area. However, despite firing on frequent slow-moving coastal convoys, often in broad daylight, for almost the whole of that period, there is no record of any vessel being hit by them, although one seaman was killed and others were injured by shell splinters from near misses.
Description
Before 1940, Haringzelles consisted of three farmsteads bordered by low walls and bushes. The occupants left shortly after 1940 when the German engineers chose the site to build the Todt Battery. German troops transplanted mature trees from the forests of Boulogne-sur-Mer and Desvres to camouflage the construction operations.The Organization Todt began the groundwork at the Todt Battery in July 1940 and the first casemates were completed late 1941 after pouring 12,000 cubic meters of concrete to build each SK casemates. Hitler visited the Todt battery on 23 December 1940.
Each casemate consisted of two parts: the firing chamber which housed the 38 cm SK C/34 naval guns under an armored turret, designated as Bettungsschiessgerüst C/39, and, on two floors, one of which was underground, the ammunition bunkers and all the facilities needed for the ammunitions, the machinery and the crew.
The battery fired its first shell on 20 January 1942, although it was only officially opened in February 1942 in the presence of Admirals Karl Dönitz and Erich Raeder. Originally to be called Siegfried Battery, it was renamed in honor of the German engineer Fritz Todt, creator of the Todt Organisation and responsible for the construction of the Atlantic Wall, who died on 8 February 1942 in a plane crash days before the battery's inauguration when visiting he Wolfsschanze airfield near Rastenburg in East Prussia. This decision was materialized by embossed 1.50-m high letters, displayed on Casemate 3.
The Todt Battery, its close-combat defensive positions and its anti-aircraft guns formed the strongpoint Stützpunkt 166 Saitenspiel.
Garrison
The Kriegsmarine maintained a separate coastal defense network during World War II. It established early 1940 several sea defense zones to protect the large amount of coastline which Germany had acquired after invading the Low Countries, Denmark, Norway, and France. In spring 1940, the Kriegsmarine began to reorganize coastal defense around sea defense zones. Logistically, the sea defense zones and its separate coastal defense network were strictly a Navy command but were eventually integrated into the Atlantic Wall which was generally overseen by the German Army.The 242nd Naval Coastal Artillery Battalion manned the Todt battery under the orders of the seekommandant Pas-de-Calais, Vice Admiral Friedrich Frisius.
Fire control
The casemates were not equipped with sighting elements. The firing coordinates were given to the casemates by the fire control post located in a bunker along the shoreline at Cran-aux-Oeufs, north of the battery. Target information was provided by both spotter aircraft and by naval radar sets installed at Cap Blanc-Nez and Cap d’Alprech, known as DeTe-Gerät. These units were capable of detecting targets out to a range of, including small British patrol craft inshore of the English coast. Two additional radar sites were added by mid-September: a DeTe-Gerät at Cap de la Hague and a FernDeTe-Gerät long-range radar at Cap d’Antifer near Le Havre.380-mm cannons
The 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun was developed by Germany mid to late 1930s to arm the. Bismarcks and Tirpitzs main battery consisted of eight 38 cm SK C/34 guns in four twin turrets. As with other German large-caliber naval rifles, these guns were designed by Krupp and featured sliding wedge breech blocks, which required brass cartridge cases for the propellant charges. Under optimal conditions, the rate of fire was one shot every 18 seconds, or three per minute. Under battle conditions, Bismarck averaged roughly one round per minute in her battle with and.The Kriegsmarine also planned to use these naval guns as the armament of the three planned. The ships' main armament batteries were to have consisted of six 38 cm SK C/34 guns mounted in three twin turrets. By 1940, project drawings for the three battlecruisers were complete. They were reviewed by both Hitler and Admiral Raeder, both of whom approved. However, outside "initial procurement of materials and the issuance of some procurement orders", the ships' keels were never laid. In large part, this was due to severe material shortages, especially of high-grade steel, since there were more pressing needs for these materials for the war effort. Besides, the dockyard personnel necessary for the ships' construction were by now occupied with more pressing work, primarily on new U-boats.
Spare guns were used as coastal artillery in Denmark, Norway and France. The coastal defense version of the SK C/34 was modified with a larger chamber for coast defense duties to handle the increased amount of propellant used for the special long-range Siegfried shells. Gander and Chamberlain quote a weight of only for these guns, presumably accounting for the extra volume of the enlarged chamber. An armored single mount, the Bettungsschiessgerüst C/39 was used by these guns. It had a maximum elevation of 60° and could traverse up to 360°, depending on the emplacement. The C/39 mount had two compartments; the upper housed the guns and their loading equipment, while the lower contained the ammunition hoists, their motors, and the elevation and traverse motors. The mount was fully powered and had an underground magazine. C/39 mounts were installed at the Hanstholm fortress in Denmark, and the Vara fortress in Kristiansand, Norway. Plans were made to install two of these mounts at Cap de la Hague and two at Paimpol in France, modifying guns originally intended for an abortive refit of Gneisenau, but were not executed for unknown reasons. Work on putting two more mounts at Oxsby in Denmark was well advanced but incomplete by the end of the war. Some modified SK C/34 guns also saw service as 38 cm Siegfried K railway guns, one of these being captured by American forces during the Rhône Valley campaign in 1944. Like the 38 cm SK C/34 naval guns deployed as coastal defense, the 38 cm Siegfried K guns were modified with a larger chamber to handle the increased amount of propellant used for the special long-range Siegfried shells. The gun could not traverse on its mount, relying instead on moving along a curving section of track or on a Vögele turntable to aim.
The battery Todt was equipped with four 38 cm SK C/34 naval guns and their correspoding C/39 Firing platform. With a range up to, the guns were capable of reaching Dover and the British coast located less than 30 km from Cap Griz-Nez. Normally these were placed in open concrete barbettes, relying on their armor for protection, but Hitler thought that there was not enough protection for Battery Todt and ordered a concrete casemate thick built over and around the mounts. This had the unfortunate effect of limiting their traverse to 120°.
In 1949, France exchanged 3 German 38 cm SKC/34 naval guns from the Todt Battery with three French 380 mm/45 Modèle 1935 naval guns intended for the battleship Jean Bart. These French guns were transported to Norway following the decision in March 1944 to install them, using the C/39 armored single mounts, in the Vardåsen coastal battery at Nøtterøy.
Capture
Following the victory of Operation Overlord and the break-out from Normandy, the Allies judged it essential to silence the German heavy coastal batteries around Calais which could threaten Boulogne-bound shipping and bombard Dover and inland targets. In 1944 the Germans had 42 heavy guns in the vicinity of Calais, including five batteries of cross-channel guns, the Todt Battery, Batterie Lindemann, Batterie Wissant, Grosser Kurfurst and Gris-Nez. The Germans had broken the drainage systems, flooding the hinterland and added large barbed wire entanglements, minefields and blockhouses.The first attempt by elements of the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade to take Cap Gris-Nez from 16 to 17 September failed. As part of Operation Undergo, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division led the attack on the two heavy batteries at Cap Gris-Nez which threatened the sea approaches to Boulogne. The plan devised by General Daniel Spry was to bombard them from land, sea and air to "soften up" the defenders, even if it failed to destroy the defenses. Preceded by local bombardments to keep the defenders under cover until too late to be effective, infantry assaults would follow, accompanied by flame-throwing Churchill Crocodiles to act as final "persuaders". Kangaroo armored personnel carriers would deliver infantry as close to their objectives as possible.
The 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade, with armored support from the 1st Hussars, was deployed to Cap Gris-Nez to take the three remaining heavy batteries. They were also supported by the British 79th Armoured Division and its mine flail tanks, Churchill Crocodiles and Churchill AVRE, equipped with a 290 mm spigot mortar designed for the quick leveling of fortifications.
While the Highland Light Infantry of Canada attacked the batteries Grosser Kürfurst at Floringzelle and Gris-Nez about north, the North Nova Scotia Highlanders faced the Todt battery protected by minefields, barbed wire, blockhouses and anti-tank positions.
The infantry assault was preceded by two intense aerial bombardments by 532 aircraft from RAF Bomber Command on 26 September and by 302 bombers on 28 September that dropped 855 tons on the Gris-Nez positions. Although these probably weakened the defenses as well as the defenders' will to fight, cratering of the ground impeded the use of armor, causing tanks to bog down. Accurate shooting by the British cross-Channel guns Winnie and Pooh, two BL 14-inch Mk VII naval guns positioned behind St Margaret's, disabled the Grosser Kürfurst battery that could fire inland.
On 29 September, the artillery opened fire at and the infantry attack began after ten minutes behind a creeping barrage that kept the defenders under cover. The Todt battery fired for the last time. The North Nova Scotia Highlanders encountered little resistance, reaching the gun houses without opposition. The concrete walls were impervious even to AVRE petard mortars but their noise and concussion, along with hand grenades thrown into embrasures, induced the German gunners to surrender by mid-morning. The North Nova Scotia Highlanders continued on to capture the fire control post at Cran-aux-Oeufs. Despite the impressive German fortifications, the defenders refused to fight on and the operation was concluded at relatively low cost in casualties.
Post-war and museum
In August 1945, two French visitors accidentally triggered a massive explosion in Casemate 3, which pushed out part of the sidewall and caused the ceiling to collapse.Soon after the end of the war, the battery was disarmed. The guns it housed were torched by scrap merchants. The French Ministry of Armed Force became the owner of the battery but a few years later sold the land to farmers who left the bunkers abandoned. Left abandoned, the casemate were gradually invaded by wild vegetation and flooded with water. Today, the four casemates are located on private land. They are still visible and accessible. Only casemate 3, destroyed following its explosion in 1945 is not easily accessible.
Musée du Mur de l'Atlantique
Claude-David Davies, the owner of a hotel-restaurant in Wissant, bought the land on which Casemate 1 was located to open it to the public and turn it into a museum. The work required to open the site to the public was considerable. Buckets and shovels had to be used to remove years of accumulated mud. The ground was drained and the water pumped out after stopping most of the water infiltration. With the help of several people and after three years of work, the private museum about World War II, Musée du Mur de l'Atlantique, opened its doors in 1972. An exterior metal staircase, later dismantled, replaced the old concrete one destroyed in 1944 that gave access to the roof, which was surrounded by a guardrail and open to the public. The interior of the casemate has been progressively transformed into showrooms for weapons, various equipment and even some vehicles such as motorcycles or small trucks. The exhibits today include military hardware, posters and uniforms remembering the Atlantic Wall.Outside the museum, one of two surviving German Krupp 28 cm K5 railway gun is displayed on an iron track, alongside military vehicles and tanks. At the beginning of the 1980s, the existence of this 28 cm K5 Ausführung D cannon, originally stationed at Fort Nieulay in Calais, became known to the founder of the museum. After years of negotiations with the French army, the K5 cannon was transported in 1992 from the Atelier de Construction de Tarbes in Tarbes to the north of France. The origin of the cannon is not clear but it is believed that it was captured in the Montélimar pocket in southern France when the cannons of the EisenbahnBatterie 749 were captured.