Friday, June 9, 1944
The days that marked the Battle of Normandy
Allied forces continue to land a considerable number of men and equipment in Normandy. Facing them, in the British area of responsibility, the Germans position three divisions northwest of Caen: the 21st Panzer Division, the 12th Panzer Division and the Panzer-Lehr. These divisions are in contact with the British soldiers of the 2nd Army who are supported on the ground by anti-tank guns and in the sky by a particularly effective allied aviation which worries the German generals.
Luftwaffe counter-attacks are rare and doomed to failure in Normandy: on June 9, German Bf 109 fighter-bombers are reported near the village of Lion-sur-Mer. Immediately, American P-51 Mustang aircraft repulsed them.
The American troops of the 7th Corps continue to attack the village of Montebourg in the Cotentin, fiercely defended by the German soldiers. The losses are significant. Other units seized the locality of Azeville and silenced the German battery that fired on the area of Utah Beach since D-Day. The 1st American infantry division, disembarked on June 6 in Omaha Beach, launched an offensive west of Bayeux: the villages of Tour-en-Bessin, Etreham and Blay were freed. The 29th American infantry division is on its way to Carentan and seizes, after a long day of fighting, the city of Isigny-sur-Mer. South-west of Isigny, the command post of the 2nd American infantry division settles in the village of Formigny. Its forces advance in the south towards the localities of Trévières and Rubercy which are reached in the evening.
Three companies of the 5th Battalion of Rangers, reinforced by fourteen Rangers and two half tracks belonging to the 2nd Battalion, attacked in the morning the complex of the German Maisy battery (composed of the Wn 83 and Wn 84 strongpoints) by the south, east and the north. After five long hours of furious fighting (sometimes hand-to-hand combat) during which several Americans are killed, Rangers blow up the field hospital where German defenders have taken refuge. The battery falls into the hands of the Americans in the late morning.
