2 November 1943 Part 2

2 November 1943 Seventh Army account of Guernsey batteries firing on radar contacts

Editorial note: The Army account gives 529 rounds. The naval diary already reproduced under this date calls the expenditure 500 rounds, while its itemised quantities total 509. These are parallel accounts of one incident, not additional engagements; the conflicting figures remain attributed to their respective sources.

On 2 November, targets detected at sea north of Guernsey by Artillery Regiment 827’s aircraft reporting post were engaged with artillery. They proved to be drifting balloons. One recovered balloon bears the marking “M.K. XIII A. 76.105”, is fifteen metres long and has the shape of a barrage balloon. Naval Commandant Channel Islands informed.

LXXXIV Army Corps’ Chief of Staff briefs Seventh Army’s Chief of the General Staff on naval detections during the night of 1–2 November. The navy maintains that an enemy naval formation was near the coast. On the available reconnaissance evidence, Corps Headquarters cannot share this view.

LXXXIV Corps Headquarters reports that the army coastal and naval batteries on Guernsey fired a total of 529 rounds at detected shipping targets during the night of 1–2 November 1943. Reconnaissance found only a balloon drifting in the water. Corps Headquarters will ask the Commanding Admiral, Channel Coast, to instruct the responsible naval authorities to commit larger numbers of batteries and quantities of ammunition to fire directed by detection equipment only when an enemy attack can reliably be inferred. Otherwise the island batteries risk exhausting their ammunition before actual enemy action.

T-312 Roll 1558, scans 0099–0100. Extract from T-312_Roll_1558_Master_English_Translation.docx.