15 December 1942 Part 5

15 December 1942 Standard system for island fortification maps and returns

Submit revised tactical construction maps and returns by 2 February 1943, showing status on 1 February, in duplicate. Thereafter use reusable maps circulated to army. Provide a separate 1:20,000 sheet for each regimental sector, not a pasted whole-division map; report Machine Gun Battalion 17 with Cherbourg. Include every resistance nest of army, navy and Luftwaffe, even field works, batteries and flak positions, but not reserve quarters.

Use red for army, blue for navy and green for Luftwaffe. Mixed-service sites have concentric circles, the inner colour identifying the commander’s service. Fill battery circles in the service colour, treating army coastal artillery as naval; fill yellow where armoured embrasure turrets are installed. Solid red outlines group resistance nests into strongpoints, broken red outlines into strongpoint groups. Mark Cherbourg’s defence perimeter yellow, tactical sector boundaries black.

Preserve geographic numbering based on divisional boundaries of 1 November 1942: Calvados for 716 Division’s former area, Cotentin for 320 Division’s, Channel Islands for 319 Division’s. Geographic boundaries remain even if tactical boundaries move. Division 165 begins numbering anew from north to south. Prefix f where no permanent work exists or is planned; discontinue additional black numbering of individual permanent works. Give strongpoints geographic names. Mark geographic boundaries red; Division 165’s southern tactical boundary remains black.

Enter returns in pencil, numbering in service colours. Identify site type and exact weapons, calibres and models, including alarm devices but excluding rifles and pistols. State whether battery guns are armoured or under concrete, all-round or limited-traverse embrasure weapons, and whether bunker guns can also operate outside. List works and obstacles with approximate lengths in metres, excluding minefields and roadblocks. Record construction condition: all open, improvised or concrete works with less than two metres of reinforced concrete count as field works; the reinforced-field category is abolished. Obtain concrete-thickness data from fortress engineers. Record actual garrison separately from accommodation capacity in completed works. Use one replaceable sheet per resistance nest, identifying its strongpoint, group and defence area. Total each category separately by service and by strongpoint, group, defence area and coastal sector. 319 Division follows the same system without replacing its fortress-engineer monthly report.

T-314 Roll 1603, expanded reading edition T314_R1603_English_Translation.docx. 15 December 1942 | Source PDF pages 768–772. Supplement to material retained from earlier editions.