German Flak and Anti-Aircraft in the Cotentin

Discussion in 'German' started by StevenJ, Sep 12, 2018.

  1. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    Hey Guys,

    I'll start right off. I'd absolutely love to see any pictures of anti-aircraft weapons (8,8cm guns, 2cm guns, AA tripods for MG34/42 etc.), associated equipment (strange looking trailers, trucks, searchlights), or weird looking fighting positions in the Cotentin, or in the Isigny-Maisy-Longueville area. If you come across things like that, please pitch it at me if it doesn't take you out of your way to do so-I'd love to have a look and try to position it on a map.

    I'm not as familiar as I would like with the various esoteric locations of online photographs and my book collection, while substantial, doesn't have too much specialist Normandy material in it yet (I am, however, working on that).

    I suspect that the equipment I'm looking for are primarily 2cm Flak 30/38 or possibly Gebirgsflak 38. Its possible that there were other pieces, but so far, at the base of the Cotentin, these were it.

    I've seen reports (and I'm thankful to the researcher here that has built the 6juin1944 site because its an excellent pointer to the primaries) that Americans expected 2cm flak around Lessey and 8,8cm Flak from the Channel Islands and Cherbourg. Flight plans routed around these concentrations. Upon emerging from the cloud bank, continuous antiaircraft fire was generally encountered in a line stretching from Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte to Etienville to Sainte-Mere-Eglise. Pilots and paratroopers (usually the senior ranking officers I've found) often remarked on receiving fire from these cities and in Brig.Gen. Gavin's case, he mentioned that fire from Etienville lined up with what he'd been led to expect. I suspect that much of the fire received was from rifle caliber machine guns, and I'd imagine that these on their single or double AA mounts account for most of the tracer fire and light damage to aircraft. (if the maintenance records of individual C-47 still exist, I'd likely find an answer). As of now, searchlights are the most elusive subject, being rarely mentioned.

    From the German units in this area, the 82nd reported seizing a total of 14 anti-aircraft weapons (I haven't been able to find a more detailed description) between 6-8 June. I suspect that these guns would have come from the 91st LL Division (that had an organic Flak company of probably 12 guns, and *maybe* some attached to the 6 Fs.Reg.?), from the Sturm-Bataillon AOK 7 (that apparently had several attached to its HQ), or conceivably from the 709th I.D (which might have had larger 3,7cm 18/36 guns).

    There was a regiment from III Flak Corps, Ob. Werner v. Kistowski's Flak-Sturm-Regiment 1., that deployed into the Isigny-Maisy-Grandcamp area June 5. This unit would actually have had several batteries of 8,8cm guns and if deployed on a line from Isigny-Maisy would have been range of some of the drop zones. Kistowski appears in The Longest Day and in the Maisy battery books; I wish they had cited his comments (its possible they come from the 1954 book Flak: Die Geschichte der Deutschen Flakartillerie, but I don't have that available to me right now to check).
     
  2. Jpz4

    Jpz4 Active Member
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    #2 Jpz4, Sep 12, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2018
    Hello Steven, first of all welcome on the forum.

    Flak units on the Cotentin are indeed a topic that very little has been published about. They're worse off than other formations in the area, although those are actually rather poorly covered as well. A real problem with Luftwaffe units in general is that almost all LW records were destroyed during the war.

    As part of my project of writing rather detailed overviews of all German units on the peninsula, I'm also 'reconstructing' the Flak formations under Flak-Rgt.30. The Flak that belonged to other units will be discussed with those units.

    Any way, what I can say here is that I've found no evidence of Luftwaffe Flak anywhere in the area of`St.Sauveur to Ste.Mère-Église. Almost none were deployed in the area of the airborne landings. The available Flak mostly belonged to the Heer.

    There was a 3,7-cm company stationed at Pont-'Abbé (Etienville) and to the south were the 2-cm Flak from the 91.LL.Div. Even further south were the 2-cm Flak from the 243.I.D.
    There is also mention of light Flak protecting the bridges north of Carentan, which should have belonged to the Luftwaffe. I suspect they belonged to a platoon (= 3 Flak) from le.Flak-Abt.996 which had platoons at both Isigny and Carentan. Light batteries typically had five platoons which were frequently deployed individually to protect specific objects or localities.

    I've seen people occasionally refer to heavy Flak around the bridges across the Douve in the area of Pont-l'Abbé but after looking at the evidence that appears to have been merely a (possibly paper) training exercise in May.

    Fj.Rgt.6 did not have Flak on D-Day. Sturmbtl. AOK7 had four 2-cm Flak but I've never found a solid link on where they were positioned. Most likely they were with the battalion on the northeast corner of the peninsula. There were additional Flak protecting batteries on the east coast, but that's a subject of its own.

    As for the regiment at Isigny - Maisy, as you probably know this was Flak-Rgt.32 (renamed as Flak-Sturm-Rgt.1). It arrived in early June and on 4 June was reported combat ready with gem.Flak-Abt. (mot) 497 and le.Flak-Abt. 90 (Sf). The former was stationed in the area NE of Isigny, the latter in the area of Bayeux.

    Only a few photos of material of Flak-Abt. 497 are known and images of Flak from around the Douve are probably even more rare. A lot of 2-cm Flak were encountered by the 508pir on 13 June on their way to Baupte. These should be excluded from the tally for 6-8 June and I really do wonder where the division's claim of capturing anti-aircraft weapons comes from. Then again, numbers on enemy equipment losses tend to be exaggerated.

    As for the expectations of 2-cm Flak at Lessay: so far I've not found any evidence to prove there indeed were light Flak there on D-Day. It may simply have been an assumption that the airfield there had some for protection.

    Hope this helps,
    Niels
     
  3. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    Jpz,

    Thank you for the lengthy reply. I'll keep that all in mind as I go forwards. In reading elsewhere here it seems like you've been collecting names. In some of the 82nd documents I've looked at, there was a letter (in English) apparently from the Mayor of Sainte Mere Eglise that puts a Cadet Koller (Cdt. Koller) as the leader of some sort of flak detachment in the town's courtyard with their firing position outside on the "Fauville Hill", from which they were finally driven off some time later. I'm hesitant to assume anything that I know is not already known here, everyone strikes me as quite an expert and I'm quite glad to have found you all.

    I've also read a pilot report or debriefing (he was shot down) that there was some sort of a gun platform, or a tripod machine gun on top of a building in Sainte-Mere-Eglise. The pilot thought it was a church. Has anyone ever heard of something like that? The church sounds unlikely to me because it doesn't look like there is any place to really do much of anything except observe or snipe out of the tower.

    with regards,
    Steven
     
  4. Jpz4

    Jpz4 Active Member
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    Oct 24, 2012
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    Hello Steven,
    over the past few years I've not spend too much time reading and searching for personnel accounts, but as you can see from other posts here I'm always happy to look at them and try to interpret them. So feel free to mention or post them here on the forum. Any new account is more than welcome. I'm not really collecting German names (I probably should to keep track of the available accounts) except for officers. Officer names are far more useful to identify a specific unit than the name of an enlisted man.

    I've found that most accounts require quite a lot of context to understand, while others remain rather incomprehensible. A lot of accounts have issues when it comes to exact locations, which makes for an interesting challenge. A lot is based on assumptions, which is understandable but makes personnel accounts a complex source of information. Unfortunately there often remain too many questions to consider them reliable enough to use as a source beyond being a personnel account.

    Having the context to be able to interpret accounts and reports is also one of the reasons behind my project: only understanding the German formations involved will help us understand what the US forces were encountering on the peninsula.

    Any way, so far I've not found any evidence to support the presense of Flak troops at Ste.Mère-Église other than the men from the transport battery. This Cdt. Koller may well illustrate another problem of personal accounts: translation/interpretation errors. I actually think this was Maj. Koller, the commander of the transport battery!
    I have a theory for the Cdt. bit: villages, towns, etc. typically had a local German commander. In most cases it was the senior officer (or NCO) of a unit stationed there or in the vicinity. This also means that ranks can vary quite a bit. This local commander was known as the Ortskommandant. I assume that Cdt. actually stands for Kommandant*, but was lost in translation. The battery itself had no flak, so it should not have flak positions on Hill 20. However, in the past we have speculated on this forum that this transport battery may have stationed (part of) its vehicles in the Fauville area. The Mayor's account might add some support to that.

    I'm not sure what to make of the pilot's account but for now I'd assume that it did not happen at SME, or at least not in the way he describes it. If we can figure out where his plane crashed we could look for other options.

    Niels

    *) A Kommandant is the commander of a specific object or locality (town, camp, tank, ship). A Kommandeur commands troops without such physical boundaries.
     
  5. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    Jpz,
    Interesting, I should have; but didn't consider the Commandant / Kommandant piece. Thank you for that learning point.

    I'm paying attention to the personal accounts right now because they're reasonable easy to get and there are a lot of them. I recognize the difficulty in relying on them solely because many of the paratroopers seemed to have been convinced that the air train was intercepted by German night fighters.

    As for the letter, its pretty odd overall, given the narrator's awareness for battlefield events and his recommendation for an award. There isn't a date, but it could probably be estimated because it is addressed to De Gaulle's government at Bayeux. This comes from a huge file hosted on the Fort Benning Library website: http://www.benning.army.mil/library...nts/Microfilm/film/D1-D630/D78_I2000-2019.pdf, pages 527-528.

    Here is what I read: "At their arrival on French earth, they were received by enemy fire of a detachment of flak which had a camp in a park in the heart of the town. At dawn, the flak under the direction of Cdt.Koller were driven off the hill of Fauville."

    To me, it appears that he is talking about actual weapons but, the Mayor could also just be referring to them by their role/unit name and not talking about actual pieces of equipment.

    Letter 1.PNG Letter 2.PNG

    As for the pilot, its 1st Lt. Louis R. Emerson's statement of the 83rd TCS from the 6Juin1944 site. I'm not sure what to make of it now because the crash occurred late on 6 June when I understand SME to have been more or less secured. It possible he was looking at one of the smaller hamlets nearby, or that his 'church' was a chateau or some other large structure if this part of his memory is accurate.

    After having one engine disabled before making landfall during the Detroit (I assume tail 42-100576) run he says: "Single engine piloting protocol dictates that all tums are made toward the good engine. I started a medium tum to the left (into the good engine) around the center of the village of St. Mere Eglise to head back toward the coast. I looked down the left wing and I was looking straight into a pair of machine guns on a platform on top of a building. I think it was a church. As I was looking, the gunner opened fire, and his aim was excellent. His first burst knocked off most of the cowling on the good engine. His second burst knocked the cylinder heads off the engine top cylinders, and his third burst knocked the dome off the propeller. Propeller pitch control was immediately lost, and the blades flattened out. The engine ran away, broke, and stopped turning completely. Now I was flying a glider." He goes on to describe crashing in a heading that points out towards Utah in a hedgerow.
     

    Attached Files:

  6. John Szweda

    John Szweda Administrator
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    Oct 25, 2012
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    Hi Steven,
    Welcome to the forum!

    I'll just be following along to hopefully learn more on the subject. My interest is in Normandy and the American accounts, and tactics, but for the past few months I've been wanting to know more about the German artillery that was in position to play a role in the first days / week of the invasion and their actual positions. Niels has been a big help to me in understanding that subject more.

    It seems like you are involved in this subject pretty deeply already, but that you'll have lots of work ahead of you too. It is an interesting subject.

    John
     
  7. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    John,
    Thanks for the welcome! Artillery in general is an interesting thing to me. I find it very interesting how the wartime concept of every enemy gun being an "88" and every enemy tank being a "Tiger" has generally survived in the popular imagination to this day. Normandy is one of those periods where certain aspects of the battle have ascended into myth. That is one of the reasons that makes it so particularly interesting.

    If anyone has any particular interest on technical details for artillery or air defense systems from this period, I can give it a good shot at answering them, or, if you like, I know the directors at the US Army Artillery and Air Defense museums in Oklahoma who could be reached for a better answer.
    Steven
     
  8. Jpz4

    Jpz4 Active Member
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    Oct 24, 2012
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    #8 Jpz4, Sep 14, 2018
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2018
    Thanks for posting Steven. It's a long time since I last looked at these particular microfilms (I wish the quality was better). I've little doubt that the document was originally written in French and that somehow a copy found its way to the division. The tekst is slightly odd, but that may not all be caused by poor a translation. I do believe though that it should have been "At dawn, the Flak under Cdt. Koller were driven off to the hill of Fauville."

    I do have an original copy of the Mayor's book (published in 1945 on very poor quality paper) and will check what he wrote exactly. However, he always seems to calls the Luftwaffe soldiers 'Flaks'. I do assume he did the same in his letter. Which means that it is only about personnel, not guns!

    Niels
     
  9. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    Niels,
    That sounds like a great source to have on hand. Have you heard anything about a 'flak train' operating on the Cotentin? Its referenced in the intelligence annex dating from 2 May when the 82nd was supposed to be committed further west. I took a look at NCAP but they don't have enough uploaded imagery to support a search for it right now (if they ever will). I would take a guess and say it was probably in the region for a while then moved elsewhere-especially when the preparatory air campaign against rail centers got going.
    Capture.PNG
    This scan of the document is available via the Defense Technical Information Center: BIGOT - NEPTUNE. I was somewhat surprised to see that their library had declassified BIGOT documents on hand. Their library is somewhat unreliable (like all the other .mil domains) for downloading.
    Steven
     
  10. Jpz4

    Jpz4 Active Member
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    Oct 24, 2012
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    There were no Flak-trains, but there were trains with Flak. These weapons belonged to a dedicated railroad Flak battalion: le.Flak-Abt.955 (E.Tr).

    This battalion is a very difficult unit to follow because it covered a vast area that stretched beyond Bretagne and Normandy. Some guns of 1.Bttr. apparently were used between Cherbourg and Countances, while 3.Bttr. was responsible for the route Caen - Cherbourg. The guns involved were a combination of single and quadruple 2-cm guns. Gavin mentions encountering such a train leaving Chef-du-Pont early on D-Day.
     
  11. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    That is actually fascinating.
     
  12. Pat Curran

    Pat Curran Administrator
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    Oct 20, 2012
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  13. StevenJ

    StevenJ Guest
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    Pat,

    Thanks for linking that document. I'd seen some of the foreign material technical manuals, but not this one. I've seen documents in this series, there are some cool ones on radio intercept equipment and radar.

    There is an recent book on the general topic: Flak: German Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 1914-1945 by Edward Westermann. It is covers the entire period (including the origins back with the anti-balloon guns in 1870).

    In continuing to go through things that are readily available, but I'd like to get to the archives.

    Thanks,
    Steven
     
  14. Steven Jaskowiak

    Guest

    So, back to work. I've gotten not much of anywhere in the past year, but that is hardly a surprise! It is still quite interesting to take a look at the material.

    And in the spirit of getting no closer to anywhere, I've read through an interesting book on the 91st LL (Die Geschichte Der 91. Luftlande-Division) where it says several wonderful (more or less just several though) things about the division's Fla-Kp.191 being composed of 12 x 2cm Gebirgsflak with RSO movers.This is even substantiated by a neat photo of their Taktische Gliederung from 6/6, showing what appears to me to be the correct symbol for this.
    upload_2019-11-29_18-22-2.png

    The authors, of course, later on just casually toss this picture in there from a NARA film archive. Wrong vehicle type and wrong gun for the unit, and of course this doesn't look to me like an Sd.Kfz.10/4 mit 2cm Flak 38...more like a Sd.Kfz.7 mit 3.7cm Flak 36.
    upload_2019-11-29_18-21-33.png

    So I'm back to trying to force all my puzzle pieces to go together the wrong way for now.

    There is an interesting pair of shapes in a field SE of Etienville/SW of Pont l'Abbe on NCAP imagery (In the bottom right corner, Etienville; Lower Normandy; France | NCAP - National Collection of Aerial Photography): an equilateral triangle and a quadrilateral with circles at the points. Unfortunately the picture is fairly faint-these could be some of the positions mentioned by jpz4 above, or you know, cows standing in circles. I'm going to order this one and slide it into my Google Earth so I can do some basic measurements of the shape dimensions though. The field has only changed slightly in the last 75 years with part of it having been turned into houses and yards.

    Pionier-Bataillon 191 received citations for downing two C-47s in the vicinity of Pont l'Abbe (the authors helpfully or suggest that these could have been 42-100819 near Picauville, 42-30734 near Clainville, or 42-24077 near Founecrop). So this is another possible lead. I'd like to go check those citations, which is simple to do. All I need is to get the correct book via library loan.

    In Heimdal's Forgotten Wings, there is a comment by a 1057th Reg infantryman who reported his unit using "anti-aircraft guns and MG 42s" at gliders overflying Mont de Besneville. Unfortunately the available NCAP photos that I can find in the region have a wonderfully fluffy cloud over the Mont and a nearby chateau (my guess is either the regimental HQ or a battalion HQ) with defensive works that was pointed out by the 82nd's intelligence annex.

    It certainly would make sense for the division to have divided its 20mm gun company between the major subordinate units. 1057th could have a section placed on high ground near where it had soldiers working (they were cutting trees down apparently). The Pioneers were the major combat unit in proximity to the division headquarters, so their awards could have come from subordinated gun sections, or from some good shooting by their organic machine guns. Pz.Abt.100 with its positions spread around Ste-Mere-Eglise could have owned the Fla.Kp. HQ for administrative purposes and this could explain our previous discussion about the commandant and the "flak troops" we had earlier. Besides, placing the mechanized units together allows a few other advantages. Anyway, whatever. None of this could be correct, or perhaps all of it.

    One of these days I'll get out to Freiburg to check and another day I'll get out to London. The archives there should have the M.I.15 department files. If I can clean up this one company...
     
  15. Jpz4

    Jpz4 Active Member
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    #15 Jpz4, Nov 30, 2019
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2019
    Although I've been in contact with one of the authors of the 91.ll. book, they never took my offer to proof read stuff for them. I've asked some questions in the past but getting clear answers has often been a challenge (there have also been some language barriers). Anyway, I was slightly surprised by the format of the end result (mainly a collection of sources) and there are also some errors in the book that could have been avoided. However, all of this is typical for enthousiasts spending a lot of time researching relatives (both authors had a grandfather in the division), but it can be difficult to get sufficient knowledge on particular topics. (Which is why I offered to help.)
    The halftrack image is an example of that. The vehicle belonged to the 3,7 cm company I mentioned already. This unit was most likely tasked with defending the Douve bridges, and the Flak from the 1057 account might be connected. I am however unfamiliar with that particular story.
    As for the division's own flak, its distribution is a mystery, but based on the available information from the later fighting, it would appear most was actually deployed in its sector between Baupte and the Douve, also the core sector of Pz.Abt.100. The 508pir encountered a lot of 2cm fire there, and if I'm not mistaken the company was so short of ammo that it did not actually engage aircraft.
    As for the Pi.Btl. being credited with downing planes, I would tend to link that to their own organic weapons, not attached units. It would be interesting to determine if more units were credited in that area.... Hopefully that book will tell. It's been rather difficult to get access to a copy or would have checked it already.
    The flak troops in SME were Luftwaffe, and rather irrelevant as they did not have Flak. I've still not found any evidence for Luftwaffe Flak near the Douve, other than a platoon protecting the bridges between Carentan and St.Côme-du-Mont.

    Hope this helps, Niels

    PS I've seen the Kistowski account (Ryan archives) and it is a pretty useless mess. I'm not sure who wrote it down but he/she did an appalling job. There is no real link with the airborne sectors though.

    PPS for those interested in the book, I think that the 3 star review here sums it up nicely: https://www.amazon.de/Die-Geschicht...&sr=8-1#aw-udpv3-customer-reviews_feature_div
     
  16. Steven Jaskowiak

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    Niels,

    Always helps! Its pretty fair to say that if soldiers couldn't accurately identify tigers and 88s back in '44, then I've certainly got to be careful when I'm reading their accounts (modern soldiers aren't much better). It would be interesting to try a text analysis on collected accounts to see what words are used when (contemporary accounts vs modern recollections), how often, and by groups (Pilots vs Paratroop Officers vs Paratroop Enlisted vs air crew etc.). Someday perhaps.

    What the authors of the 91st book did get right, is assembling their bibliography together and publishing it. Other recent authors with bold claims on this battle unfortunately do not always seem to do that.

    That is a real shame about the Kistowski account, I had been looking forwards to reading that.

    I have access to a Germany-wide ILL system-let me know if you want me to try and source something. I haven't tried yet but I need to locate the US European Command archives. I know from prior experience that unfortunately the US Army Europe archive is a total disaster.

    Its not quite the Douve, but there was a disabled (apparently it hit a mine in May) Artilleriefaehrprahm (apparently AF 64) docked in Isigny on the 6th. Its guns probably remained operational though. One of the NCAP aerial photos shows one of the main turrets trained off to the NNE. Yank even did a cartoon of it sunk at the quay.
    upload_2019-11-30_14-52-12.png
     

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