16 December 1943

16–20 December 1943 Channel Islands battery construction

War Diary, 16–31 December 1943. No special occurrences for 16–20 December. Construction report follows.

Batterie Mirus: work continued on the emplacements, camouflage of the whole battery and roads at Nos. 2 and 4 guns. The cheval-de-frise obstacles were renewed and reinforced, and splinter-protection trenches dug at No. 3 gun. Work continued on anti-aircraft position No. 8, while the hut at position No. 1 was demolished. The firm Kowohl & Bruns continued camouflage work.

Batterie Steinbruch: fitting-out continued in the unoccupied rooms of anti-aircraft positions Nos. 1–4 and crew bunkers Nos. 1–2. Because position No. 6 was too confined, work began on a field-type anti-aircraft position. Scaffolding was built to move searchlight A and the searchlight was lowered. Construction work was carried out on the main road. Organisation Todt's gardening firm filled ground at anti-aircraft position No. 2 and water tank No. 1 and planted the battery grounds.

Batterie Strasbourg: expansion of the close-defence installations continued. Organisation Todt's camouflage firm continued camouflaging and painting the battery.

Batterie Lothringen: enlargement of the bed for a 7.5-cm gun and the doors for the ammunition bunkers were completed. Work continued on camouflage, the Flanders fence and accommodation for Eastern Legion troops. Posts were installed for aircraft-defence machine-guns. The 150-cm searchlight was placed in its final position; the 90-cm searchlight was withdrawn and made ready for transfer. The intermediate floor was installed in the new fire-control post.

Naval Artillery Battalion 605 — Batterie Annes: Organisation Todt removed the external shuttering from the return-cooling bunker and applied a fine concrete layer to the machinery bunker.

Batterie Annes: lighting-cable installation in ammunition replenishment bunker II was finished and began in bunker I. Earthworks for power cables—new trenches and backfilling over laid cables—were proceeding only slowly. The diary states that, instead of the concentration-camp prisoner detachment formerly employed at the battery at a strength of 80–90, only a much smaller number of Jewish labourers, twenty-seven that day, were now employed. No further concentration-camp detachments were expected because the prisoners were being withdrawn from the island to the mainland. [The source describes two labour groups; it does not establish that the twenty-seven were the remaining members of the former detachment.]

Battery personnel completed painting and concrete interior work in the fire-control-post bunker, continued maintenance and conversion work on accommodation and service buildings, levelled ground in the battery area and laid turf in front of the guns.

Batterie Elsass: Organisation Todt completed the working floor of the new fire-control post at the end of November, after which work ceased completely. Battery personnel reported completion of one new galley, one new canteen with storerooms, five crew rooms and six NCO rooms, overhauled and painted, three washrooms, three 2-cm anti-aircraft positions, splinter-protection walls for three guns and three ammunition recesses with splinter-protection walls. Camouflage work had begun and the perimeter wiring remained in progress.

T-1022 Roll 2422, scans 0738–0739.