Built at the start of 1944, at the top of a wooded plateau, the Pernelle II battery was equipped with four modern German 170-mm guns with a range of approximately thirty kilometres.

As their casemates had not yet been constructed, the guns were still sitting in concrete pits when they were subjected to a violent Allied bombardment on May 9^th. One of them was damaged and the three others were moved to the shelter of thick hedges. For two weeks, they caused minor hindrance to the operations on Utah Beach, but lacked the necessary instruments to adjust their fire.

On June 19^th, faced with the imminent arrival of the Allied troops and the impossibility of moving the guns to Cherbourg, due to the absence of lorries, the Germans sabotaged them and left them where they were.