11 September 1942 Part 1

11 September 1942 Channel Islands Sea Defence diary

Weather: wind from 90°, 1 metre per second.

00:00–01:00: Guernsey radar located targets in grids 2666 and 2655. 04:20: Batterie Blücher fired on a radar target in grid 3519.

The diary comments that Island Commander Alderney ordered Blücher’s firing. At 00:13 on 11 September the Casquets lighthouse was sent radio questions asking whether everything was all right, stating that radar had lost ship targets to the north-west, and asking where the shells were falling. Casquets replied that Alderney’s shells were falling near the lighthouse and among the rocks; the light was out of action and no ships had been seen. Although radar placed the ships sixty hectometres north-west of the lighthouse, the impacts were near the Casquets. The diary therefore records serious danger to the lighthouse and its detachment.

Construction, Naval Artillery Battalion 604 — Batterie Mirus. Nos. 1 and 2 guns: work on ammunition-track approaches and crew-bunker interiors continued. Nos. 3 and 4: machinery for turret traverse, elevation and ammunition hoists completely installed; only oil for the ammunition-hoist winches lacking. Fire-control post: no important changes. Nos. 1 and 2 could now operate completely under power in an alarm. Nos. 3 and 4 had powered traverse and elevation but ammunition was still handled manually. A Naval High Command Weapons Office representative was accepting and handing over the direct- and alternating-current diesel-electric generators and high-pressure compressors for bore clearing and the air recuperators in all four machinery bunkers.

Batterie Strassburg: no changes. Batterie Steinbruch: Nos. 1 and 2 sufficiently complete for provisional command-transmission equipment to be fitted the following week; both used for drill. At No. 3 reinforcement of the lower surrounding wall completed; No. 4 ready for concreting. Reserve fire-control post sufficiently complete for the rangefinder to be installed.

Naval Artillery Battalion 605 — Batterie West. Fire-control post: excavation continued. Turrets 1 and 2: shuttering and reinforcement continued. Turret 3: half-metre base poured. Turret 4: structure poured. Machinery bunker: work suspended. Galley and communal room: excavation continued. Office: site excavated and base poured; barrack to be erected the following week. Construction of a temporary battery telephone network begun. No gun ready to fire.

T-1022 Roll 2422, PG 37996, scan 0505–0506.