Brécourt was a
Nazi Germany bunker in
Équeurdreville-Hainneville near
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
, in
Manche of
Normandy, northern
France.
History
Codenamed ''Ölkeller Cherbourg'' ("Cherbourg oil cellar"), Brécourt's structure is located at the foot of a hillside on which the French Navy had eight underground galleries dug for the storage of fuel oil in the 1930s.
These installations were reused by the German army to store
V-2 rockets.
Early in 1944, the facility was converted to a
V-1 flying bomb launch facility.
The ramp consisted of two parallel reinforced concrete walls, long, with a notch on the inside faces giving the slope of the ramp, which was oriented towards the port of
Bristol.
The Brécourt
military installation was virtually undetectable by aerial observation.
However, the
387th Bombardment Group 387th may refer to:
*387th Air Expeditionary Group (387 AEG) is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing at Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait
* 387th EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) Company, part of the ...
records indicate
Operation Crossbow bombing in Manche of a "
Martinvast V-1 site" on 11 November 1943, which may have been Brécourt.
The launch pad was not fully completed when the Allies captured Brécourt a few days before July 4, 1944. both
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
and
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
subsequently visited the facility.
The bunker was declared a French protected monument on 1 December 1996.
See also
*
V-1 flying bomb (facilities)
References
External links
Picture from Brécourt today
V-weapon subterranea
Buildings and structures in Manche
History of Manche
Ruins in Normandy
Cherbourg-Octeville
World War II sites in France
{{World-War-II-stub