28 July 1943 Part 1

28 July 1943 Channel Islands Sea Defence diary

Weather: wind 45°, 2 m/sec. From 02:35 the Jersey radar set detected an unidentified target in grid square B.F. 3578 centre-left. Artillery Group Jersey was alerted at 02:35. After the target failed to answer four requests for identification signals, Coastal Batteries 356 and 470 each fired a salvo at 03:30; the target then disappeared. Ammunition expenditure: Coastal Battery 356, one 15.5-cm round; Coastal Battery 470, four 22-cm rounds. The alarm for Artillery Group Jersey ended at 07:10.

Subsequent examination led to the assumption, shared by the Cherbourg plotting centre, that the target had been a slowly approaching fog bank. The diary judged the Jersey radar plots sufficiently consistent in timing and track to require identification as a definite target; it therefore considered the firing justified.

T-1022 Roll 2422, scans 0675–0676.