Gun Battery Petit Thot

This gun battery was started by the German army in the Autumn of 1942. The four 105 mm. guns had a range of 15 km. and were placed in open ring positions. Their function was to protect the Bay of Vauville, on the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, from Allied landings.

A command bunker and several bunkers for personnel and ammunition were initially cast and the following year, an expansion of the gun battery began; this meant, among other things, cast bunkers (R671) for the four guns.

After the Allies' landing in Normandy and subsequent attacks on Cotentin in June 1944, it was clear to the Germans that the guns would never come into action. The firing direction was wrong - out to sea when the American forces were approaching from landward - and the bunker made it impossible to move the guns. The guns were therefore destroyed and the gun battery evacuated.

The bunkers and remains of the gun battery today lie in a field.