AZZAVILLE BATTERY

The Azzeville Battery is a series of bunkers situated a few miles north of Utah Beach. The guns here had heavily shelled the Americans on Utah Beach. A company of the American 27th Infantry, with the aid of a bombardment from the Battleship USS Nevada, overpowered the Germans and thus relieved the troops on Utah Beach.

The Battery has undergone a full restoration and has recently been opened to the public. With the aid of a recorder phone the visitor is conducted on his own tour through the underground battery complex. The storage, command and living areas, all reinforced by heavily reinforced concrete, can be appreciated as one walks along the underground passages joining the various batteries. You can imagine that you are with the Germans in their underground bunker. These bunkers were camouflaged with paint to look like ordinary houses but the French Resistance described their whereabouts to the Allies.


There is also a very good movie with interviews of local French residents. It gives you a very good insight as to how the French lived under the Germans. The locals were ordered to help build the bunkers and they did everything they could to sabotage and slow their construction.