Need info on battle for the Crozon

[Kingfish]

This being the peninsula that is southeast of the port city of Brest. What I need to know is what German units were there during the fighting in early / mid September. I know that most of the 2nd FJ div was in Brest, but did part defend the Crozon as well? Any other units?

[Dandelion]

Kingfish

According to the OKH KTB, fighting in Brest proper ceased on September 17th, and "Ramcke held out a further 48 hours on Crozon". So apparently the paras did defend it.

FJR 2 is officially listed as destroyed in Brest September 17th, whereas FJR 7 is listed as destroyed on September 19th, no placename. So it would appear it was at least formally remnants of FJR 7 fighting in Crozon. (The FJD 2 is listed as destroyed September 19th, thus with the last of its units).

Crosschecking the various units of the division and their date and place of destruction, it becomes evident that present in Brest/Crozon were;

- I., II. and III./Fallsch.Jäger-Rgt.2

- I., II. and III./Fallsch.Jäger-Rgt.7

- Fallschirm-Panzerjäger-Abt.2 (a six company variant here)

- I./Fallschirm-Artillerie-Rgt.2 (as it is the first Btl. it will have been 75mm)

- Fallschirm-Pionier-Btl.2

- Fallschirm-Luftnachrichten-Abt.2

Units of FJD 2 not present were;

- Fallsh.Jäger-Rgt.6

- II. and III./Fallschirm-Artillerie-Rgt.2 plus regimental staff.

- Fallschirm-Flak-Abt.2

- Fallschirm-Granatwerfer-Btl.2

- Fallschirm-Sanitäts-Abt.2

And of course all the "slice" units.

Also fighting in Brest were remnants ("Restteile")of I.D. 343 (it was also officially destroyed September 19th and thus probably had units in Crozon (officially disbanded September 29th)). At present I lack the source I'd need on 343 to specify exactly what remnants were there. But before the Normandy debacle started the division consisted of;

- Fest.Gren.Reg.851 I.,II.Btl.

- Fest.Gren.Reg.852 I.-IV.Btl.

- Fest.Gren.Reg.898 I.-IV.Btl.

- Art.Reg.343 I.-III.Art.Abt.

- Pi.Btl.343

- Nachr.Abt.343

Thus a fortress division.

There was also a unit called "Brest" present in Brest proper. The name spelled out "Kdt.der Seeverteidigung (Seekdt.) Brest-Bretagne". Exact content unknown to me at present. If pushed out as suggested above, remnants of this unit might have been present in Crozon as well.

Generally speaking - the "Seekdt." were commands adapted for roughly brigadesize units. They controlled available coastal artillery (Naval and Army), coastal flak (Navy "Marine-Flak" units) and the Hafenkommandant (i.e. all floating units based in Brest). Could in practice mean anything from an office to half a division. It is unlikely to have been of significant size in Brest. In the listing of ground units formed by stranded naval personnel in the French coastal cities, not one served in Brest. Flak and coastal artillery was deployed in batteries or battallions. As Brest was no naval center, like Bordeuax for instance, it is unlikely there were higher units than batteries of anything there. Most importantly I suppose, none of these units are likely to have been equipped with transport of any kind, thus stational until collected by somebody else. (i.e. when Brest fell, they fell).

There may have been others. There really shouldn't be because AK XXV didn't have any other known units there, nor were any higher echelon units or schools, depots or arsenals, which leaves only local command, which was said "Brest" unit. But you know, anything from mobile Flak units to railway postal detachments might appear there, and the situation leading up to the battle was chaotic. All kinds of stragglers might have dropped in.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Kingfish]

Excellent!

Very much appreciated. As always you've been a big help.

I took a look inside Feldgrau to see what additional info I could find on the 343rd ID. Not much there, but I did find something odd. According to the site there were two soldiers that were awarded the Knight's cross, both within days of the destruction of the division. According to the site, both are listed as 'Chef'. Am I reading this right? Heroic last stand armed with a meat cleaver and spatula? Or did they whip up an exceptional pot of Sauerbratan?

[Dandelion]

Chef means boss in this context. As in "commander of" (e.g. Kp.Chef for Company CO, the official abbreviation being Ch.). Technically you could still be right, there were officer cooks in a division. Or rather, officer bakermen. It doesn't say what they were bosses of, either of them, which normally always follow when using "Chef" (e.g. "Chef-Gen.St.") but one must presume they were commanding the companies they are listed with.

Another confusing part is the "d.R" after the rank. Have never seen that before actually, and it is not included in the offical army abbreviation list. I am guessing it has to mean "der Reserve", a reserve officer. That should actually be written as "d.Res." though.

It's not that I'm analyouknowwhat, I just want to understand what they mean

You can say Chef in German, using the French loanword. People will understand. But the homegrown word is Koch. You know, like the Paratroop officer on Crete ("Captain Cook")

Cool site there. This guy has really made an effort and put up som volumes of info. This has to stop. Nobody's going to be needing me in the future if he goes on like that

The cooks of Brest may have been too busy to fight. It strikes me that all heads counted they must have been in the vicinity of 20 000 Germans in that pocket. Normal formula means they then had 5500 horses, but as they were paras most of them, maybe they didn't. Anyway, daily food consumption for such a force was about 45 tonnes.

Perhaps its best not to mention the daily 544 litres of alcohol included in those tonnes. Or the 4 cigarettes a day (one cigarr a day if higher rank). Or that lemon received every fifth day.

Sorry, just frolicing around in my ocean of pointless details.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

Kingfish

You still working on this? You see my PC broke down and I was freezing in the internet shade for a few weeks here. And I remembered this question, it being almost peak performance in your restless hunt for obscurities. So I did some reading. Was eventually able to put together a complete listing of the units present at Brest. Chased down that "Seekdt"...

Here goes.

The airforce contributed:

- Stab of Flak-Rgt.100 (just Hq)

- Reserve Luftsperr-Abteilung 207, with 7 batteries. Curiously, it was not a part of Rgt 100, still attached to the Hq.

There were no flying units stationed in Brest at the relevant date.

The army contributed:

- Verteidigungsbereich (Fest.Kdt.) Brest, a corps headquarters organising the following units:

-- I.D. 343 as has been mentioned (Gren Rgt 852 had a Ost-Btl in addition to its three Btl).

-- Festungs-Stammtruppen I/XXXV, a division (or rather 27 independent companies gathered in a semidivsional structure) consisting entirely of fortress crews, with Hq plus companies 1-8 stationed in Brest.

-- Fest.Nachr.Kdt. Brest, a signal unit of roughly battallion size.

-- Heeres-Art.-Abt.1162 with 4 batteries of heavy howitzers, static unit.

All Army units served directly under Mil.Bef.Frankreich and the WKVI was responsible for resupply etc.

The Navy contributed:

- Kdt.d.Seeverteidigung ("Seekdt") Brest, a divisional Hq in this case, organising:

-- III. Mar.-Flak-Brig. (803 Mar.-Flak-Abt. (8 batteries plus a company of pioniere), 804 Mar.-Flak-Abt. (7 batteries), 805 Mar.-Flak-Abt. (7 batteries) and 811 Mar.Flak-Abt. (11 batteries).

-- 231 Mar.Flak-Abt. (9 batteries).

-- Mar.Art.Kdr (Marko) Brest, a brigade Hq which had only one of its battallions in Brest, namely 262 Mar.Art.Abt.

-- 2. and 4. Mar.-Nebel-Abt. 4 and 2 companies respectively (not Nebelwerfer - they put smokescreens over Brest)

-- 3 Mar.-Funkmess-Abt (3 companies, radar)

-- Mar.-Kraftfahr-Abt.14 (No of vehicles unknown and probably varying)

-- Mar.Störtrupp Brest (platoon size).

There were no floating units left in Brest by the relevant date.

In addition, the Sicherheitsdienst had an office in Brest, the SD Kommando Rennes, Aussenstelle Brest. Approx 10 personnel.

I dare say that's the full roster of Germans present in Brest - and of course there is no way of knowing who of these made it to Crozon, if anyone.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Kingfish]

Yes I am. I took a break to do some Normandy scenarios, and now am heading west again.

Questions regarding your last post: what calibur weapons did the various Mar.Flak-Abt have, and were these weapons fixed to defend the port facilities, or could they have contributed to the defense of the perimeter?

Also, in your first post your mentioned that only the first battalion of the 2nd FJ artillery regiment made it to Brest, and this was equipped with 75mm guns. However, according to this site, the first Bn had 12x 105mm guns. Given that it was 1944, and the division was recently rebuilt following heavy losses in Russia, could it be that the division traded in it's Pack for the heavier guns?

[Steve McClaire]

Not sure if you've seen this yet KF, but it looks like a good resource for your Brest scenarios.

Recount of the battle from Geramn 343.ID perspective.

Steve

[Dandelion]

Kingfish,

All Mar.-Flak-Abt. were motorised except 231. State of motor park at this point is unknown to me, but they were still officially "motorisiert", as was indeed the entire III. Brigade.

231 was "Bodenständig", which was not the same as fixed, but meant it had no organic vehicles and would depend upon a transport unit to lift it.

Exact equipment of these units in particular is unknown to me so far. The Marfla used ordinary German AA guns and calibres; 105mm, 88mm and 20mm (notably not 37mm or Vierlings, unless "Bordflak" prefix to a unit, in which case these were salvaged ship artillery, German or other).

Organisation was similar to Luftwaffe rather than army AA battallions.

They would certainly have been part of the ground battle and would have stood as good a chance as any other units of evac to Corzon.

The Festungskompanien 1-8 can be artillery batteries, machinegun companies, Flak companies or ordinary infantry etc - don't know which in this case - and these will all have been fixed, and almost certainly equipped with captured enemy equipment, or WWI vintage. No chance of evac, but the "Festung" was aimed inland as well and so some of these systems will have been possible to bring to bear in the fighting for Brest as such.

My input on the paraartillery was deduction only, as authorised equipment of the 1st battallions of para artillery regiments was 75mm, the second 105mm. Positive and specific information on this unit will show if they IRL followed regulations or used an ad hoc solution. I'd go for your more exact source here.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Kingfish]

Amazing what you guys come up with.

Steve,

That is an incredible site, and no, I've not seen it before. Many thanks for it.

Dandelion,

Thanks for the follow up. I did some more research online to see what guns were organic to the MFBs, but have not found anything (yet).

I did come across one interesting tidbit regarding German coastal artillery. Seems there were batteries set up in Pas de Calais that regularly bombarded the English coast. This I never knew, or thought possible. One battery was 380mm, the other 210mm, with the latter firing it's last shells on Sept 9th, 1944 shortly before the Canadian 3rd division captured it.

[Steve McClaire]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

Steve,

That is an incredible site, and no, I've not seen it before. Many thanks for it.

You're welcome. It's from the Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) at the US Army Command & Staff College. They have quite a few digitized WWII operational documents available, as well as some really interesting masters theses on various aspects of how the US Army fought WWII.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

I did come across one interesting tidbit regarding German coastal artillery. Seems there were batteries set up in Pas de Calais that regularly bombarded the English coast. This I never knew, or thought possible. One battery was 380mm, the other 210mm, with the latter firing it's last shells on Sept 9th, 1944 shortly before the Canadian 3rd division captured it.

Some years ago I was told a story by a woman who was a WREN stationed at Dover. They were on the receiving end of some of those barrages. One day she was walking with a friend through the town not far behind another WREN who was out with her sailor boy friend. A German shell landed nearby, and a piece of it took off the girl's head. My friend said that the sailor had a wry and ribald observation about that, but she wouldn't tell me what it was.

Michael

[Kingfish]

BTW, does anyone know of a good online site for topo maps of the Brest / Crozon area?

[Michael Dorosh]

You could try www.militaria.com - Jon Gawne has a vanity forum there - he wrote the book on Brest and may have access to info....

[Kingfish]

Dandelion (or anyone else),

Any info on the makeup of Festungs-Stammtruppen I/XXXV apart from the HQ / 8 company structure you mentioned earlier? Since CM does not have Festung units, what company size unit would be the equiv?

[Dandelion]

Regrettably nothing from me on that one. Just some contextual input of no use for the design of scenarios. The Festungs-Stammtruppen commands (roughly brigade size) were created during 1943 specifically to man the Atlantic wall. I./ means first battallion, the other two of this command were posted to Lorient and St Nazaire. They are designated as "Spezialeinheiten" as the individual units were specifically organised and staffed to man a particular fortress complex (unlike standardised Festungs- units, which followed a given pattern of organisation). Men used were Landesschützen personnell (in this case).

In order to know the exact composition of these 8 companies, one would have to know exactly what installations formed part of the fortress complex Brest, which they manned. And unfortunately I don't I guess we're left to our imagination here.

Sorry

Dandelion