As the longest slightly sloping bay in the Island, St Ouen’s Bay was always likely to be the obvious choice for an invader. Throughout Jersey’s military history, successive would be defenders have built emplacements and batteries, defensive round towers, together with magazines and guard houses. Invasions were attempted or occurred on at least two occasions – Admiral Blake landed his Parliamentary Force there in 1651 and the Prince of Nassau tried in 1779.
The Germans took the fortification of St Ouen’s Bay to another level in the Occupation. Not only was the beach criss-crossed with fire from artillery and machine guns, it was mined and protected with obstacles designed to rip into the undersides of landing craft. Concrete anti-tank walls stretch its entire length and the fields and dunes to the rear were made “killing fields” with enfilade machine gun fire from numerous machine gun positions.