French Artillery in Action During WWII (1940)
Apr 26, 2025
This footage captures French artillery operations on the front lines during wartime. See 75mm, 155mm, and both short and long 220mm and 280mm guns in action. A French general christens a massive 400mm gun before it fires in dramatic sequence. The video also shows camouflaged cannons, frontline trenches, a patrol with a dog, and a direct shell strike on a house—offering a rare glimpse into the intensity of battlefield artillery.
Day after day the official communique from the French high command
sums up the activity in some such phrases nothing of importance to report.
What kind of activity is it that General Gamelan thus describes?
Apart from the endless digging and the continual strengthening of the main fortifications,
there is the constant watch in the front line trenches
and dogs are waiting to play their part when a patrol goes out.
So come out with a patrol. For this work the modern soldier requires
the quick eye and the sharp hearing of an Indian scout.
The patrol is spotted and the enemy sends back word for the artillery and things get hot.
Then the French artillery replies. The famous 75s
and from every camouflaged emplacement a battery roars to life.
The reports would say slight artillery activity.
Now the bigger guns take up the challenge and the sky re-echoes thunder.
French artillery second to none in accuracy and rapidity of fire.
Yes the French army is a mighty and wonderful machine
and what they've had in action is only the hors d'oeuvre to what they have to come.
The general in command of this unit performed the christening ceremony.
Christening a 400 millimeter gun is an occasion worthy of ceremony
and all these big fellows have names which revive memories of the great artillery duels
of the last war. France has guns even bigger than these but these will do for the present.
Majestic and terrible they stand guard over our freedom.