"Bayeux castle in WWII" Topic

So just spent some time in Normandy, including walking on the ramparts of Bayeux castle and that got me wondering. Was it used in WWII at all?
You can see for miles from the ramparts..

I realize it's about a 1000 years to old to be a WWII fort, but just wondering if it was used as an observation post (or similar) and if it was damaged at all.

Germans pulled out June 7, so no need to bomb or shell. Any hold outs would not have lasted long with Resistance… so think all pulled out. De Gaulle made speech on 14th and Bayeux became de facto French Capital until Paris liberated.
Probably some allied obs posts, but no real idea.

Oops.
Stayed in Bayeux, the castle I was referring to is in Caen.

A lot of the older tall structures were placed off limits to shelling for cultural purposes. This is why so many churches in Normandy still survive. The artillery units were ordered NOT to strike them. This was not always communicated to the troops on the ground, who got irritated when they felt a German observer was in a church spire, but no one would take it down. When my father complained about this, he was told that the artillery left the spires standing on becasue they served as reference points – allowing the artillery to better judge where they were hitting.

Caen was heavily bombed and you can still see the damage in the Caen castle walls.

Caen itself saw some fighting after the bombing as the Brits and Canadians took it. The bombing caused so much damage it gave the German defenders a lot more cover.

There may have been some fighting in and around the castle but I don't remember seeing any specific references to it.

Do not know about caen Castle, but town was pretty much flattened… ad was almost impassable to Allies, afterwards.