Batterie Lothringen

Batterie Lothringen

Before the Second World War, Noirmont Point, a magnificent headland dominating Jersey's south coast, was in private ownership, fenced in with signs warning against tresspassing; however, all that changed with the arrival of the German occupying forces in the summer of 1940. Blasting deep into the Jersey granite, the German's turned the headland into a fortress of concrete and steel - Batterie Lothringen, the only coastal artillery battery to be established in Jersey during the occupation. 

This is the story of that battery and the men who served in it - the 'Lothringers'. It covers every aspect of the battery's formation, construction and operational service, and provides a unique insight into the private lives of the young soldiers who manned this powerful outpost of Adolf Htler's much vaunted 'Atlantic Wall'.

The  book also examines the post-war campaign to acquire Noirmont Point as the official memorial to the more than 450 Islanders who lost their lives in the conflict, and the efforts of the Channel Islands Occupation Society (Jersey) to preserve Batterie Lothringen as an important part of Jersey's military heritage and a monument to the last great fortification building programme of the 20th Century.