Location 3 – The Radar Station and Weiderstandneste 42, Arromanches-les-Bains

Directions – Return to your car and leave Arromanches to the east following signs to St Côme-de-Fresné and Asnelles. After turning right at a blind bend you will exit the town up a road which curves sharply to the right (the D514). The radar station and Weiderstandneste 42 can be seen as the road flattens out at the top of the cliff. Park in the car park on the left just past the 360° cinema building. The cinema is worth visiting if you like that sort of thing but, in the opinion of the author, tells you nothing about what went on at this site or on D-Day itself for that matter.

What Happened on D-Day? – This site encompassed a radar station with a large Wurzburg radar and a platoon defensive position known as Weiderstandneste 42 (WN42). This fortification overlooked the town, the site of the Mulberry Harbour and guarded the road into Arromanches from the east. It included a number of 20mm anti-aircraft guns, a field gun and machine guns protected by a minefield and was garrisoned by a mixture of army and Luftwaffe troops. Further down the slope towards Cabane, just before the church is reached, was another defensive post known as Weiderstandneste 39. This contained a command post and two casemates armed with 75mm artillery pieces.

On the early afternoon of D-Day, WN39 was attacked by D Company of the 1st Hampshires and five Sherman tanks of the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry, having previously been bombarded by the 5.9-inch guns of the Dutch gunboat, HNMS Flores. These units had landed on GOLD Beach in the morning and had skirted the heavy fighting in Le Hamel which had sucked in the remainder of 1st Hampshires. In a short but swift action in which the company commander, Major Littlejohns, won the Military Cross, the Hampshires and their tank escorts quickly took WN39 netting around thirty prisoners.

D Company moved onto the radar station and WN42. This time they were assisted by a 15-minute bombardment from a destroyer offshore and by a 10-minute barrage from the 147th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery from the vicinity of GOLD Beach. A further sixty prisoners were taken as D Company fought their way through the radar position and into WN42 at very little cost to themselves. Later in the afternoon men of B and C Companies joined them, fresh from their capture of Le Hamel. It was these units that completed the liberation of Arromanches town and the crushing of remaining German resistance.

The capture of WN39, the radar station and WN42 underlined the importance of tank and infantry co-ordination in taking German defensive zones and demonstrated the crushing effectiveness of Allied artillery fire from the sea, air and ground in suppressing and demoralising German ground units.