You have hit the nail on the head… you have not ever visited the site… so how can you knowledgeably say what was there or not.
The debate about what was and was not at Maisy continued for a long time and throughout it was punctuated by people stating that because it was not on their maps, or in their paperwork - then there was nothing there.
You are admitting that in effect yourself. You are telling me that I might be wrong… but you havent been and seen what is there. I am more than happy to be wrong about everything, because I will learn from that. But, there have been dozens of examples were people have argued that their map dosent contain information and yet we have the evidence to the contrary… and I am therefore deluded, wrong or inaccurate for arguing the point.
This has happened over their being hospitals at Maisy… Rangers involved in fighting there and to real make the point.. you are not suggesting that the figures for the Flak Battalion are incorrect.
The "evidence" for that is held in the Cornelius Ryan Archive of the Ohio State University and if you email Doug McCabe (custodian of the Ryan collection) I am sure he will be happy to give you a copy of Werner von Kistowski's interview with Ryan in 1953. It very clearly states which groups of men, equipment and types of AA guns (including 88's) were sent to Maisy. He was sent with HALF of the battalion to Maisy on the 5th of June. That is his words not mine. His Battalion was sent to La Cambe (2,500 men) and "half" (1,000 of them - less cooks and staff - were sent to Maisy.
Another huge debate about Maisy on the other forums was the number of AA guns and if there were 88's in the area… there were - but as they do not appear on maps - then I am regularly told they were not there. If you search the "Maisy debate" on the aforementioned forum you will see that people were laughing about their being 88mm AA guns in Maisy - and yet 10 years later they are listed with positions in my book. Not including the 88's that Kistowski brought to Maisy.
Here is the detail for that….
The following is based on an interview in 1954 with Colonel Werner von Kistowki. He was commander of Flak Assault Regiment No. 1 attached to the 3rd Flak Corps. It was fully motorised and it consisted of three artillery groups, the 497th, a mixed group, the 226th, also a mixed group, and the 90th, a light anti-aircraft group. The two mixed groups had five batteries in all, and the light group had three batteries. Each of the two mixed groups had three batteries apiece. These had in them four 88s, nine 37mm and twelve 20mm. The light battery had 37mm and 20mm guns.
The entire Flak Regiment had 2,500 men with approximately 600 men to each battery and 100 attached to headquarters and general duties, such as cooks and so on. Not all these men were gunners, of course. They were protective infantry which guarded the batteries. Flak Assault Regiment I arrived on 5 June in the morning at La Cambe, which was their headquarters, and it was to position at the mouth of the Vire at Grandcamp.
The light group of batteries were placed at the mouth [of the Vire Estuary – at La Martiniere] and the mixed groups were placed at Maisy and stretched across to the outskirts of the town itself of Grandcamp.
There had been no mention of the invasion, however. Kistowski was told his unit was being moved because of the continual bombing attacks and the planes seemed to be swinging over Grandcamp as they made their runs into and from the Continent. They dug in on the 5th, ‘just foxholes and camouflaged tents’.
On the evening of the 5th the Colonel drove to St Lo to the headquarters of the 84th Corps under the command of General Marcks. He went there for a specific reason. He had been warned that he should be ready to move again soon and since he had used up all his gasoline he needed new supplies. He saw the Chief of Staff, a Colonel Von Criegern and the Quartermaster General and requested gasoline. It was a requirement that he must always have 33,000 litres of gasoline – that was enough for a hundred kilometres and his motorised vehicles could not use synthetic gasoline.
It was about 2200hr when he got the okay on the supplies and then he set out for his headquarters at about 2300hr. It was as he was driving back towards La Cambe that he saw the ‘Christmas Trees’, the flares that had been dropped by aircraft and were hanging in the sky floating down to earth. He said to his engineering officer who was with him, a certain Lieutenant Colonel Busche, ‘Busche, I think this mess is starting.’ The bunches of Christmas Trees hung all the way from Carentan to the mouth of the river at Grandcamp. They drove very slowly as they headed for his headquarters. Then he heard his guns firing and he could see the flashes in the distance.
At about 0145hr he sent out a pre-arranged signal to 84th Corps, ‘LL’, meaning that the invasion had begun. At 0148hr he received a telephone call from the 90th Artillery group (at Maisy) that the first POWs – paratroopers – had been taken. There were four prisoners and, ‘This was immediately followed by another seventeen near Maisy ... These paratroopers fell on a battery between Maisy and GefosseFontenay’. He wasn’t sure whether they were paratroopers or bomber crews that had parachuted down to earth.
Meanwhile, Colonel Kistowski decided that he had time to write to his wife Ruth, who lived near Bonne. He had taken a room in a nearby farmhouse so he wasn’t living in a tent. As he wrote he heard the pounding of the waves of bombers as they flew over and it began to get louder and louder to such an extent that halfway through the letter he wrote: ‘Darling, I must stop now because the bombs are coming too close.’
There were more reports of paratroopers landing so Kistowski drove to Maisy to see for himself what was going on. He described the bombing as ‘absolutely hideous – it was just murder’. His men cowered in foxholes and the bombs laid pattern after pattern across their positions. He and his men did not think they could possibly survive the pounding. When they climbed out of these holes, they were absolutely shivering but every time they thought it was going to stop, another wave of planes would come in and no sooner had the air bombardment ceased then the naval bombardment, which was much worse, began.
All the time in his foxhole Kistowski was able to follow the path of the gliders as they were towed in over the mouth of the River Vire passing over Grandcamp. All the time he thought to himself, ‘If only this foxhole was smaller’. The foxhole itself seemed to him much too wide and he felt that every shell, every bomb that fell was aimed at him.
Instinctively Kistowski tried to make himself as small as possible. In fact as he put it, he was trying to duck and crawl inside his helmet. The moment it let up he lifted his head out of the foxhole and yelled to his communications officer, ‘Schmidt, are you still there?’ Next he called his adjutant, 1st Lieutenant Gelaubrech, ‘Are you still alive?’ He was astonished to discover that they were. The bombs he remembered were dropped by the air force and were a special type that detonated just above the ground. This is substantiated by the Allied air force reports that they were dropping air-burst bombs on targets on D-Day to clear mine fields and wire emplacements – today they are known as ‘Daisy Cutters’. He thought how much worse this was than the forty days of bombing night after night he had experienced in Berlin in 1943. Lieutenant Schmidt said to him afterwards, ‘Colonel, now I know what my wife is going though in the Ruhr.’
When it all stopped the air was filled with the acrid smell of cordite, both from his own guns and the explosives. Very slowly they came up from their foxholes and even more slowly looked around. The Colonel stood up and one by one he saw heads appearing. Everybody was black and covered with dust and everybody was trembling. Some looked around cautiously, some were braver than others and stood up and stretched. Then everybody got out of the foxholes and washed.
The entire Flak Regiment had lost only one man killed and three wounded at that time. He was absolutely amazed. He drove across to Grandcamp and there for the first time he realised the terrible bombardment they had just experienced because of the huge craters that covered the ground.
It was while Kistowski was at Grandcamp that he happened to look out to sea and there to his amazement he too saw the fleet on the horizon steadily steaming towards the coast. Quickly he drove back to his guns and just as he did the naval bombardment began again. Because he had been a former naval officer, he knew how devastating the naval bombardment could be. He knew that it was laid out in squares and that whole areas would automatically be covered, so he ‘drove like hell’ back to his positions. During this naval bombardment, he had one 88mm gun destroyed and four or five other smaller ones, and there were terrific casualties among his men. He forgot what the casualties were, but he said it was more than a hundred.
Now Kistowski found that he had no communications except for one radio set. At the time he thought this was due to the ‘Daisy Cutters’, but the real damage was done by naval shelling. It was different from the air bombardment and was absolutely ‘devastating’. Now he fully expected the invasion as he watched the fleet come in closer. He ordered his communications officers out on the coast with a small radio to act as an observation post for his 88mm guns.
This goes some way to providing an understanding of how the guns at Maisy were still able to operate. By this time many of the Germans’ conventional observation posts had been destroyed. Kistowski’s men would have had a clear view of the Utah and a partial view of the Omaha landing sectors from this area because of the high ground.
The terrible situation which the Colonel found himself in was one of being caught squarely in the middle, along the seam between both Utah and Omaha Beaches and his guns could not hit the beaches where the landings were taking place. He could not depress his guns sufficiently to reach these areas and anyway the boats were too far away for his guns to have any effect.
This is interesting because in 99 per cent of interviews with the Rangers they state that they were coming under fire from 88s when in most cases – for example on the beaches and the approaches – it would have been from heavier calibre guns. For example, the 75mms (Pak 40s) situated on Omaha Beach were designed to fire laterally to the beach and not out to sea, or on the beach approaches.
Kistowski was caught in the middle and he remembered saying to his communications officer, ‘Damm it, if only we were a bit to the right, or the left we would show them’. He never did finish his letter to his wife. He couldn’t hear his own voice that morning because of the shelling that was taking place.
Kistowski’s guns ‘fired right, left and centre’ at the hundreds of planes that came over and by the end of that day he was able to record that his light battery had shot down the following:
01:38 a B-26.
01:42 a B-26.
06:10 Two Lightnings. 09:15 a Thunderbolt. 10:00 a Thunderbolt. 04:15 a Mustang.
To the Colonel it was, ‘A very good day, a very good day indeed, one of the best.’ One of the planes came down near his headquarters quickly followed by a terrific fire as the plane’s ammunition exploded. Throughout this morning and afternoon, the Colonel was absolutely on his own with no communications with the 3rd Flak Corps, his headquarters, and the 84th Corps. General Marcks and the 7th Army had nothing whatsoever to do with them so he did not receive any orders.
On the afternoon of the 6th he decided to move his headquarters to Littry. He had sent one of his officers to Le Mans to telephone to the 3rd Corps to get more instructions and set off himself to co-ordinate his activities with those of the 352nd Infantry Division. The night of 6 June Kistowski moved out the battery at Maisy.
If you want more on Kistowski then buy the book. The Cover Up at Omaha Beach.
Alaine is quite correct in a direct sense - Maisy could not directly fire on any of the landing beaches on 6 June.
Completely wrong… read the book, look at the RANGES marked on the maps and read the reports - German Artillery - St. Lo discussing firing on the beach at Ravenoville and the approaching LCVP's… the Range of the Les Perruques guns cover the West end of Omaha Sector and up to Vierville - last time I checked that included the land in front of Grandcamp - Pointe du Hoc - Enqlesqueville and Vierville beach exit. All part of the OMAHA SECTOR.
Not to mention the Russian 7.65mm howitzer… range greater than Vierville and the gun from the battery at 16A.
Except they all of course played a part and Maisy's was no more unique than any others in that respect.
No other German gun battery fired at BOTH Utah and Omaha Beach… that makes it quite unique.
The British War Cabinet were given a ‘Summary of Operations of Bomber Command for Four Weeks ending 18th June 1944’ in a Downing Street meeting which stated: (this is a direct quote)...
Results of Operations
The great bulk of operations carried out during this period were designed to assist either directly or indirectly the establishment and maintenance of our forces ashore in Normandy and the reduction and hampering of the enemy force opposed to them.
Gun Positions and Coastal Batteries in France.
Bomber Command took a highly successful part in the attack of gun positions and coastal batteries in France during the period. Very good results were obtained on Beaumont, Trouville, Eu, Le Clipon, Neufchatel and St. Vallery-en-Caux. On the eve of D-Day attacks were carried out by 1,136 aircraft on 10 coastal batteries to such good effect that,
with the sole exception of the battery at Maisy, not a single battery was able to offer any serious resistance to the invading forces.
That I assume is also a unique a proposition for German artillery.
A lot changed when the Ranger veterans came back to Normandy, and described their part in the Maisy battle. And over the years the arguments changed and are often coming from the same people … "we have no hospitals"… then "we have no AA guns" etc. The calibre of the guns is a popular one (even though we were digging up live shell cases as proof of calibre)… etc. etc. etc.
I am afraid you haven't made that point - obvious or not. Yes, hundreds of German prisoners were captured on 9 June. No, you have not shown how many of those were at Maisy.
You will notice that the After Action Reports state a 6 figure grid reference… which is slap bang in the centre of the Les Perruques battery… it cannot be mistaken for any other place because of that.
Really? "1,000 men" of "Flak Btn No 1" were sent to "guard Maisy"? What is the source for that information, including the identity of the battalion? Are you referring to gem. Flak-Abteilung 266, which became I./Flak-Sturm Regiment 1 on 26 June? The entire regiment, also including gem. Flak-Abteilung 497 and le. Flak-Abteilung 90 moved to the area between Isigny and Bayeaux prior to 6 June.
Again you prove the point… there is documentary evidence in the form of a real life interview with the man concerned - stating that he was at Maisy on D-day. It conflicts with what you are reading somewhere - but it does not make it wrong.
BTW, I don't know if they were "the largest grouping of cannons and howitzers" and offhand have little interest in checking, since such a factoid is irrelevant - and sometimes counterproductive - for field artillery.
Not really, if you want to know if something was significant or not. How many firing field guns were at Pointe du Hoc on D-day… ZER0 field guns firing
Also BTW, please give some examples of the "flawed paperwork". Cross-Channel Attack mentions the Maisy engagement in passing on page 356
Published in 2013 - 6 years after the site first appeared in the newspapers. and its also mentioned in OMAHA Beachhead
a reprint of a wartime document. Go and look in the US National Archives and you will find millions of EX-Top Secret documentation covering Maisy. But where are all the modern last 60 year books on the subject.?and any number of other works I can easily refer you to.
Please do so… I would love to see something giving detail of the Maisy site and battle written before 2004.However, the engagement at Maisy does tend to get overshadowed by the larger events before and after it. So do many other events.
I quite agree.
Oddly enough, I haven't been there either, but oddly enough I can look at a map or at Google Earth and measure how big it was. Again, so what? What makes it so unique in size and composition?
Where it is located… simple as that. Of and the 144 Acre Minefield around it… which you can't see on Google earth.
The orders and AAR were declassified c. 1969 and have been available at NARA since c. 1976 when the Pentagon deposited the bulk of the Adjutant General's reports for World War II at Suitland in 1976. I think the first time I ran across them was in circa 1987-1988 at DMSi/HERO as a photocopy in one of the working files there. Since then I've seen the originals and copied the AAR at NARA II College Park c. 1999-2000, when I first noticed it was misfiled. You're serious? We could "all see Colonel Rudder's actual orders for D-day" long before December 2013.
Wrong. The orders circulating are not those given to Rudder. The orders for Rudder including the full brief for the Rangers were FIRST released in December 2012 when they were de-classified. It is marked on the top of the page by NARA with their release date.So what the heck do you think you are talking about?
Read the de-classification date. 1st Inf. Div orders.
So up until that set of orders was published EVERY single piece of paper, book, report, TV documentary had it wrong… and yet, I am being told here that there is no way that the 10th battery was at Maisy?
What in the heck are you talking about? Had what wrong? The engagement at Maisy appears in OMAHA Beachhead and Cross-Channel Attack and any number of other sources.
So I have written a book about nothing then obviously… …after if it has clearly all been written about before then nobody would be buying the book..… I would love to see anything about Maisy written in any detail (and not by the army in 1944) - written before 2004 - it just dosent exist.
So you "don't know where they were", but they were a "battery in Osmanville"? Seriously?
wrong grammar and you know what I meant - if you are picking up on that then the foreign contributors need to watch out..
Do you actually read what you write? You "build from the physical evidence on the ground" but your information on the destruction of 16A "comes from reports"? If you found a cannon ball dropped on the march to Formigny would you also develop the humble opinion that demi-cannon were fired at U.S. forces on D-Day?
See above…. Kistowski was pretty much alive when he conducted his interview with Ryan… not me reading about it in a book or misinterpreting it… but Kistowski telling his own experiences as a live person. First hand evidence - not paperwork. Perhaps the cannon ball hit you on the way down and you missed that bit ?
You have been told what batteries were assigned there...
I already know who and what was assigned there… I have dug up the body of German officer still wearing completely legible dog tags - so I have the physical evidence to tell me. Have you any physical evidence other than your books ? ..and what their armament was numerous times. And indeed it is possible that a 15cm battery was there sometime, but no proof they were there on 9 June.
Other than the US Navy with NARA documented Air Support destroyed the gun position after D-day and of course the large very heavy 150mm wheels I dug up … They are marked on the GSGS maps from March as being there until the day they were destroyed and the US Naval Intelligence report dated July 23rd written for Admiral Hall states that there were THREE batteries at Maisy… and they went to see for themselves then. Targets 5, 16 and 16A.
So the wheels have lay for 60+ years where they fought … not moved etc. Also no ammo dump at that location after the war. They are all marked on US Engineering plans post D-day.
No prime movers, unable to withdraw pieces, piece damaged, abandoned, out of ammunition, site used by U.S. forces as Ordnance dump temporarily, etc.
good speculation but no evidence physical or not to prove it
The video of the battery behind Omaha has been around for a few years and is a great piece of first hand evidence.[/quote]
Indeed, a great piece of first hand evidence filmed by an American Signal Corps photographer after the fact. So not "first hand" WRT to the engagement at Maisy, but first hand when he filmed it.[/quote]
Obviously not relevant to Maisy - but as good as you can get to tell you what was there in the area. The point I was making is that it really shows you what was there.. not tells you - a big difference.
Great debate… but as you say - you have never been to Maisy. So with all due respect you cannot know as much as people who have. The book covers most of it and it is mainly new information… not stuff I have put on forums etc. I gave up doing that some years ago and will do the same now.
Good luck with the debate. If anyone can give me the unit number etc. for the guns at Osmanville I would love to have it and anyone with any information on battery 16A at Maisy I would appreciate it. But no more verbal tennis - good luck to you and your books and don't wear your armchair out. Come and visit Maisy if you ever get to Normandy and you never know, you might just be surprised at what you see.
Bunker14 - you continue to amuse - but no longer excite… 
