6 March 1943

6 March 1943 Channel Islands Sea Defence diary

Weather: wind 270°, 3 m/sec. At 15:30, FK 25 and FK 27 destroyed an 80-cm-diameter mine north-west of Grosnez, Jersey. Ammunition expenditure: 200 rounds 2-cm and 700 rounds light machine-gun ammunition.

Retrospective entry recorded under 9 March: at 1530 on 6 March FK 17 destroys a drifting mine off Alderney in The Swinge. Expenditure: forty 1.5-cm and 107 2-cm rounds.

Harbour-protection position 8 off Jersey could not be manned during the night of 6/7 March because boats were unavailable.

Mirus battery: the principal works remained suspended because Organisation Todt labour had not returned. Battery personnel poured the first 7.5-cm gun position and completed another Tobruk near No. 1 gun. Shelters at bearing stations 1 and 2 were repaired as far as available resources permitted. Work on the mess barrack progressed slowly.

Strasbourg battery: the internal fitting-out of the new fire-control post could not begin while Organisation Todt labour remained absent. Battery personnel continued the work begun during the preceding week. The splinter-proof covering of the ammunition recess at No. 4 gun was stopped because firing at land targets was imminent.

Steinbruch battery: major works resumed after Organisation Todt workers returned to those sites. Shuttering of the fire-control post was complete and pouring was to begin on Monday. The crew barrack at No. 1 gun was complete. Half of the machinery house had been shuttered, and work on the mess barrack continued.

Battery West, M.A.A. 605 — an undated weekly report appears immediately before the explicitly dated 6 March report: Organisation Todt surveyed and shuttered the armoured cupola at the fire-control post and poured accommodation bunker 2; otherwise there was no change from the preceding week. Battery personnel continued position construction, drainage and levelling of a strip of battery ground for use as a parade square.

For the report dated 6 March, Organisation Todt poured around the armoured cupola, poured and smoothed the fire-control-post roof and completed removal of the shuttering. Installation of the ammunition hoists in turret 3 continued. Removal of shuttering began at accommodation bunker 2, and excavation resumed at ammunition replenishment bunker I. Battery personnel extended the machine-gun positions, levelled the future parade square and began laying telephone cables from the fire-control post to the guns approximately 50 cm underground.

T-1022 Roll 2422, PG 37997, scans 0605–0607.