Chassiron

         

The Chassiron headland was an outpost that, together with the île de Ré, was to defend access to La Rochelle and its naval port of La Pallice where the construction in 1941 of submarine pens was a major strategic interest in the war against Great Britain.

In 1942, at the very tip, German occupying forces installed three batteries that created a veritable fortress; civilians from the village of La Morelière were evacuated..

At the most northerly point, in front of the Chassiron lighthouse, a radar station for naval targets was set up. It had two radars: one with a broad detection and the other much more precise with a 7 metre diameter dish. A naval target could be tracked in any weather and at night up to a distance of 30km with a precision of 25 metres.

Each radar, with a power of 8,000W, was fed by generating units protected by a concrete bunker. The personnel were housed in other concrete bunkers close by.

The station’s role was to detect and then orient precisely the fire of surrounding coastal batteries, notable the Schwalbe battery on the eastern flank of the point.  Together with the île de Ré, this battery of four guns prevented access to the Antioch strait.

Behind the lighthouse, the powerful Seelöwe battery protected the airspace with its six antiaircraft guns including two rapid-fire types. The equipment was installed in the biggest bunkers constructed on Oléron. The battery also had a small parabolic radar for its own use that was to target objectives that could then be followed by optical projectors.

These three batteries were linked by underground networks that made it possible to hide activity during Allied reconnaissance raids.

---

In the autumn of 1944, following the liberation of most of the département and the creation of the Royan and La Rochelle pockets, none of the Chassiron weapons was of use. The batteries were removed from the headland and discreetly set up in positions in the south of the island and at Saint-Pierre. The weapons were replaced by wooden fakes and a few Italian units of little military value were deployed. In the evening of 1^st May 1945, the Chassiron lighthouse was crowned with a French tricolour in a zone finally liberated from combat.

Crédits
©Archives CCLSO
©Service Historique de la Défense
https://www.servicehistorique.sga.defense.gouv.fr/
https://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr
©Stéphane Calonnec
©Fonds Boyer/Musée de l’île d’Oléron/CDCIO
©BAMA Bundesarchiv Militararchiv
©Thierry Richard/Oléron production