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The main focus of this book is one particular clash, between a naval bombardment group led by USS Texas and Batterie Hamburg, one of the strongest German gun batteries at Cherbourg.
The technical chapters have to deal with two very different combatants. On the German side we get a history of the development of German coastal defences, from the Flanders defences of the First World War to the Atlantic Wall. We then move on to look at the guns, bunkers, fire control systems etc in use in 1944, including the difference between Army and Navy controlled batteries.
On the Allied side we look at the First World War experience, the lessons learnt from it, Dieppe, Operation Torch, Pantelleria and Sicily. The Allies put a great deal of effort into learning from their earlier Second World War experiences, and these fed into the plans for Normandy.
Pantelleria was an interesting operation, in that the idea was to test how effective air and naval bombardment could be against heavy fortifications. The conclusion was that the accuracy of both wasn’t good enough to directly destroy the gun positions, but the collateral damage could knock them out of action, cutting communications, power and supply routes, and forcing the gun crews to take shelter. However we also see the development of ways to land away from major ports and their heavy concentration of guns, reducing the direct threat from coastal defences.
There is plenty of material on the bombardments on D-Day, which had been very carefully planned. The attacks used bombers, fighter bombers and naval gunfire, with the aim of surpressing the gun batteries until the Allied armies could capture them from the land. This was a very succesful operation, and only a handful of the coastal batteries were able to make a significant contribution to the fighting. The only major Allied warship that was lost in part because of coastal guns was the US destroyer USS Corry, which probably hit a mine while taking evasion action.
The fighting around Cherbourg was different in character to the fighting on D-Day. The D-Day beaches had been chosen at least partly because of the low density of guns positions. However Cherbourg was a major port and was far more heavily defended.
We start to focus on the Cherbourg battle in The Combatants chapter, which looks at the Allied warships (mainly the battleship Texas) and German batteries involved in the battle. In some ways we are interested in similar topics – number and size of guns and the armour protection of the ships and bunkers, gunnery control etc.
The actual clash between the Texas and Battery Hamburg demonstrated that even a battleship would struggle to knock out a well designed gun emplacement. None of the guns in the battery suffered damage during the duel, while the Texas was hit and one crewman killed. Vice Admiral Bryant, in charge of the bombardment force, clearly thought his efforts had been wasted, and his after action report made it clear that he didn’t think such an attack should be repeated unless the target was so important as to ‘justify unrestricted expenditures of ammunition and the risk of serious damage to the bombarding force’. On the German side Oberleutnant Rudi Gelbhaar was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross in the belief that his battery had sunk two enemy cruisers, despite no major Allied warship being sunk by German coastal guns in the entire Normany campaign!
This book contains a great deal of interesting background material on German coastal defences and Allied naval bombardment techniques, as well as a good overview of the effectiveness of both during the Normandy campaign.
Chapters
Chronology
Design and Development
The Combatants
The Strategic Situation
Combat
Analysis
Aftermath
Author: Steven J Zaloga
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 80
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2023