After the surrender of the German troops defending the Longues battery, the Royal Air Force engineers took control of the cliff-top and set up an airfield, known as B 11 and which was operational from the 26th of June to the 4th of September. This rural aerodrome, equipped with a 1,200 m landing strip covered with a square-linked metal grid, was to accommodate some fifty aircraft. According to certain witness reports, the aerodrome was responsible for the destruction of the fourth casemate to the east of the battery. In order to protect the B 11 airfield, the British are said to have installed a DCA (anti-aircraft defence) post on the roof of the casemate and to have stored, inside, ammunition that exploded for some unknown reason. It was the violence of the explosion that caused the destruction of the concrete cube together with its gun, and not, as can often be read, a shot from allied naval artillery. This picture shows the back of Number 4 bunker that was damaged when the ammunition used for the anti-aircraft guns exploded. Located in the heart of the allied assault zone, between the American and the British landing beaches close to Arromanches, the Longues battery is one of the highpoints of the D-day landing circuit. The only battery to have preserved its guns, Longues not only bears witness to the last great fortification built by man, but is also a tangible example of the German occupation in our region and an excellent place of remembrance of the Second World war.
This picture is Showing the ground churned up in front a bunker at Longues after an aerial bombardment and naval gunfire after its surrender to the Allies in 1945.
