[1]: 143, 286 Anticipating an Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom during World War II, the Germans built an extensive system of defenses.

By the time of the invasion, Pointe du Hoc was manned by a token force of Wehrmacht troops, and the artillery pieces had been moved to other sites, replaced by dummy guns.

The battery at Les Perrugues, which was designated by the Germans as WN83, Widerstandsnest 83 (Resistance Nest 83), included six 155 mm First World War French field howitzers.

[1]: 130–131, 265, 269 The batteries at Maisy were D-Day mission objective Number 6 as given to Colonel James Rudder in his Operation Neptune intelligence and US 1st Infantry Division orders.

Historian Gary Sterne, in a book published in 2014, suggests that Rudder disobeyed orders calling on him to continue to Maisy after taking Pointe du Hoc.

[2] British military historian Gary Sterne rediscovered Maisy Battery in January 2004, based on a hand-drawn map in the pocket of a US Army veteran's uniform he had bought.