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Origin and history

The battery of Azeville is a German defensive site built between 1942 and 1944 in the framework of the Atlantic Wall, in the municipality of Azeville (Manche, Normandy). Camouflaged to look like ruins, it housed four H 650 casemates equipped with 105 mm French guns recovered from World War I. These guns, with a range of 10 km, were connected to the nearby Crisbecq battery, with which Azeville formed a coastal defence system against an allied landing.

The underground complex covered 700 metres, including galleries, shelters, ammunition holds and command posts. A 170-man garrison, housed among the inhabitants, operated the site under the orders of Commander Treiber and Leutnant Kattnig. The firing station, with no direct view of the sea, was located near Crisbecq. The battery played a key role during the Disembarkation: on June 6, 1944, it took action against American troops at Utah Beach, delaying their progress.

The position fell on 9 June 1944 after intense fighting: repeated assaults, bombardment by the USS Nevada battleship (including a 356 mm shell crossed a casemate without detonating), and a flame-throwing attack by Private Ralph G. Riley. The latter blew up the ammunition, forcing the surrender of the 169 surviving Germans. Riley received the Silver Star for this feat. The battery, owned by the Manche department since 1994, is now a museum open to the public, classified as a historical monument in December 2024.

The site allows to discover 350 meters of underground, casemates equipped (command posts, water reserves, gas shelters), and a reconstruction of the daily lives of the soldiers. A documentary film presents the construction of the Atlantic Wall and the relations between German occupants and inhabitants, through local testimonies. The battery of Azeville, with its archaeological remains and 31 identified elements (casemats, tobrouks, trenches), offers a concrete testimony of German military strategies in Normandy.

Architecturally, R650 casemates (Bauwerke 344 to 347) combined fire chamber, ammunition bunkers and defensive sas. Two of them (B344 and B345) were built as early as 1942, the others (B346 and B347) during the winter of 1943-44, the latter receiving a DCA position. The network of galleries, partially buried, linked the works between them and to equipped shelters (foldable beds, telephones, ventilation). An additional field battery, armed with 155 mm guns, was positioned west of the village during the Disembarkation.

Ranked among 18 World War II remains protected in 2024, the Azeville battery illustrates Nazi military engineering and its integration into the Norman landscape. Its inscription under the title of Historic Monuments covers all works, including buried archaeological remains, on 12 cadastral plots. The site, managed by the departmental council, is part of a memorial network including Utah Beach and the nearby batteries of Crisbecq and Varreville.

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