2 September 1942 Part 1

2 September 1942 Channel Islands Sea Defence diary

Weather: wind from 225°, 1–8 metres per second [upper figure as read].

13:50: Harbour Commandant Alderney reported that Batterie Elsass had sighted a large sailing vessel of unknown nationality on bearing 320°, thirty-five kilometres distant. Two harbour-protection boats were initially ordered out for closer observation. 15:00: reconnaissance by those boats without fighter cover was considered impossible, so Fighter Leader 3 was asked to reconnoitre. Its fighters found nothing. A renewed request was therefore made through Naval Commander Channel Coast. About 16:00 two Focke-Wulf fighters attacked the sailing vessel with their aircraft armament and turned away at 16:20. At 17:02 the vessel could no longer be seen from Alderney and was assumed sunk.

17:00: trial firing of Batterie Mirus’s captured 7.5-cm guns with illuminating ammunition. Three rounds expended. Two illuminating charges functioned after piercing with the prescribed tool, but both piercing tools broke. The third illuminating charge failed after piercing with a locally made tool. The broken tools were sent to the Naval Artillery Arsenal for repair and manufacture of two spares was requested.

23:30: Alderney observed searchlights on bearings 350°–10°, about twenty to twenty-five kilometres away, at the place where the sailing vessel was believed to have sunk that afternoon. Last observation at 00:00.

Subsequent investigation established that the vessel was a French fishing cutter from Lorient which had apparently navigated incorrectly. Three of its five crew were wounded by the fighters. After drifting for two days the boat was towed into Cherbourg by an outpost boat. [The diary’s initial sinking assumption is thus corrected by its own later account.]

T-1022 Roll 2422, PG 37996, scan 0498.