Destruction and reconstruction of private buildings in Vierville
Beach and arrival at the sea
See also
661-5731-Streets of the Sea and the Percée
The beach and the arrival at sea in 1939
An approximate score shows that there were in 1939, on the 2 km of Boulevard de Cauvigny facing the sea, about 35 built properties, not including their annexes. Many land was also unbuilt before the war, along the boulevard.
On the rue de la mer, from the foot of the descent to the quarry (before the house Le Bastard), there were about 20 to 25 houses, villas or shops (Hôtel-Restaurant du Casino and Etablissement Le Gallois), including the house of Mr. Gambier, embedded a little further into the cliff, and not including the many beach cabins for rent (mainly by Le Gallois). Recall that there was no organized camping before the war in Vierville.
Upon their arrival on June 18, 1940, the Germans occupied the empty villas of occupants for their needs. Those that were occupied, including the Casino, the Eden-bellevue, the villas Hortensias (Michel Hardelay) and La Source (Charles Mathy) were only occupied in 1941 (exact date?) When the Germans demanded the departure of the owners who resettled in the village; In particular Michel Hardelay came to the house located at the end of the Pavée impass, and the Mathy were housed at the Campserveux route de Formigny.
The Germans began systematic destruction from 1943. Their goal was to clear their shooting ranges for the defense of the beach.
One could imagine that they hurried to demolish everything with explosives. But at the same time they had to build many shelters grouped into fortified points (the WN) near the descents of Vierville and Saint-Laurent and above the Hardelay and Chevalier villas.
They then took the party to recover as much material as possible from the houses to be destroyed, including reusable wooden or metal beams.
The systematic demolition of construction was therefore quite slow, a series of aerial photos taken by the Allies on June 30, 1943 clearly shows the progress of the work. It was a matter of destroying about sixty houses, the work was perhaps done at only 30 or 40%.
Just before June 6, 1944, about a dozen large houses were still being dismantled in the central part of the beach of Vierville: the villas Hardelay, Chevalier, Richard (on Fortescue land today), Colin ("Grain des Sable", on Marchal Jacques land today), Schaeffer (on Terrain Voisin today), Heuline (on Robert Lebrec land today), Mathy, gardener's house Mathy, gardener's house Parmentier, villa Roger (Sainteny, today, Marchal Raymond field). Some of these houses still had their roofs.
In addition, some constructions at the foot of the descent of Vierville had been voluntarily spared, because they were used by the Germans for various purposes, including:
- the Hôtel du Casino (serving as a nursing home for soldiers tried by the fighting),
- Villa Mary (serving as a radio and observation station for the Kriegsmarine)
- a small white building, with a flat roof and 2 levels, located behind the villa "Les Chimères" of the Cusinberche family - which seems to have been destroyed before June 6 - (used for the services of the WN71/72?)
- Mr. Gambier's house, embedded in the cliff, (used for WN73 services).
On June 6 at 6:00 a.m. aerial and naval bombings targeted the arrival at the beach with its fortified points WN 70 to 73.
The aerial bombings, - 250 and 50 kg bombs launched by a hundred four-engine B24 "Liberator" at high altitude and above the clouds - were ineffective, dispersed in the inland countryside, for lack of fairly precise means of aiming. They did not cause any damage to the targeted objectives, but they sometimes killed farmers in their fields. Thus the grandmother of our current mayor, Louise OXEANT (35), and one of her sons, Bernard OXEANT (14), were the dramatic victims of one of these lost bombs, while they had gone to milk cows in a grass in Louvières. Another resident of Louvières, Louis BERNARD (36), was also killed in the same conditions.
On the other hand, the naval bombings were better targeted and it is likely that the 4 ships spared by the Germans, of which we spoke, the Hôtel du Casino and 3 houses, were hit in the morning by the fire of American and English ships (armber USS Texas, with its average artillery of 127mm, cruiser HMS Glasgow with 150mm artillery, and many destroyers and smaller ships).
Subsequently, other bombings took place, including around 12:30 p.m., Texas fired several salvos of its 356 mm heavy guns on WN 71 and 72 at the foot of the descent. The power of these shells of 700 kg each certainly contributed to completing the demolitions.
Later late afternoon, it was the German field artillery that targeted the descent of Vierville, preventing the American genius from quickly opening a beach exit route.
Then during the 6 to 7 months of operation of the port of Omaha Beach, the land bordering the sea had served as roads, depots, cantonments and workshops for the Americans of the 11th Port (PC at the castle of Vierville) and the 6th Special Brigade of Engineering (PC at the castle of Gruchy).
In the descent, all the buildings had been replaced by a huge more or less well stoned embankment, extending from the seashore to the Grandcamp - Port-en-Bessin road.
The old quarry that existed on the east bank of the Rue de la Mer, had been put back into service by the American Engineer and largely enlarged.
End of 1944, nothing was habitable of what existed before the war, disappeared, razed to the ground, with the exception of a few rare villas in the center of the beach (sometimes still with their roofs): villas Hardelay, Chevalier, Heuline, Mathy, Roger.
Their walls have sometimes been used for reconstructions, including the Hardelay and Mathy villas, which have regained their pre-war appearance. The walls of the Heuline villa were used to build Robert Lebrec's villa, but with a terraced roof.
All these circumstances have favored a new route of the roads and a complete resembring of nearby properties or in the descent to the sea, with the objective of no longer accepting private properties between the beach and public roads (Boulevard de Cauvigny and rue de la Percée).
On the zone thus divismed from the foot of the descent to the sea to the old quarry, there are now about 25 new houses and villas. Including the Hôtel du Casino and the Brasserie-Meublé-Bazar de la Plage, a party hall for the municipality, a bunker transformed into a historical monument by the United States National Guard, another bunker transformed into a boat garage, and some other smaller bunkers that can possibly be developed.
There were about as many buildings before the war, but on a completely different cadastre.
Many memorials have also been installed there by the associations of American and French veterans and resistance fighters.
The pre-war beach cabins were not rebuilt, but a campsite was created in the 1970s on the cliff.
On the boulevard de Cauvigny, the reconstruction was also completed in the 1950s and 1960s and then completed by many entirely new villas.
Today, there are about 60 to 65 built properties (instead of 30 to 35 before the war) and there is very little unbuilt building land left. However, on each land already built, the theoretical building rights authorized by the COS (Soil Use Coefficients) are often not exhausted. These are of course theoretical rights, because these rights are now subject to the discretion of the protection commissions of the Grand Site of Omaha Beach. The Grand Site's mission is in principle "to ensure the preservation of its exceptional qualities, whether picturesque, historical, scientific or legendary".