Grand-Camp Maisy (August 20th, 2010)

There is a new find in Grand-Camp Maisy that redefines the history of Normandy that you won’t find in any current history books.  For three days, big guns opened fire on the landing ships as D-day arrived in Normandy for Omaha and Utah landing beaches.  A German map shows that there were no big guns at Pointe du Hoc where the Rangers landed however, on June 6^th the Germans still had complete coverage of the landing beaches.  The guns that attacked these beaches were at Grand-Camp- Maisy a German base that was so well hidden no one new about it on D-day.  Maisy was buried immediately after the war and forgotten.   The entire area has been reverted to farm land ever since.   A local was walking the field one day and tripped over a pipe low in the ground.  Digging down, he found that it was a ventilation pipe leading into a concrete bunker.  Intrigued, he started talking to older residents of the area and learned that there was heavy German activity in this area but no locals were allowed near the site.  He went to the US and researched it further and found that there were American records from the war reporting it’s discovery.  In order to fully unearth this area, he had to buy property from some 20 different residents which took several years.  Finally, owning the property he began digging and found one of the largest underground German bunker systems known in WWII.  There were soldier barracks, officer barracks, a communications building, a hospital, emplacements for 155 mm howitzers and many other buildings all buried and well hidden.  All of the equipment from these bunkers was removed when discovered in 1944 so only the buildings remain.  This site was officially opened to the public in 2006 but there is still much work to do in uncovering the remaining buildings.  Even today, as you look in the direction of the find, all you see is grass land.  You do not see the bunkers until you start walking the trenches that were created in the discovery process – the trenches are in the same location as they were in WWII.

Trenches were used to traverse from one location to another in this complex.

A German living quarters for soldiers.

Steps leading down into living quarters.  Visitors are free to enter any of the bunkers and explore by themselves.

Below is where one of the 155 mm howitzers used to sit.