Cherbourg Naval Base is a naval base in

Cherbourg Harbour Cherbourg Harbour (French: ''rade de Cherbourg''; literally, the "roadstead of Cherbourg"), is a harbour situated at the northern end of the Cotentin Peninsula, on the English Channel coastline, in Normandy, northwestern France. With a surface ...

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 ...

Manche Manche (, ) is a coastal French département in Normandy, on the English Channel, which is known as ''La Manche'', literally "the sleeve", in French. It had a population of 495,045 in 2019.department,

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

. The town has been a base of the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in th ...

since the opening of the military port in 1813.

History

Early works

Cherbourg had been a stronghold since Roman times, and was one of the strongest fortresses of the

Hundred Years War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantage ...

. But until the 18th century it had only a shallow harbour, minor commercial activity and no military development. In the 17th century the

military engineer Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics ...

Vauban drew up plans to develop Cherbourg into a port where passing ships could shelter from attack or storms. Vauban's plans included an artificial harbour, and the quadrupling of the size of the city. The project was eventually abandoned, before being temporarily revived under

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...

. The British raid on Cherbourg in 1758 however caused severe damage to the barely completed commercial port. Louis XVI visitant le port de Cherbourg en 1786

Louis XVI visitant le port de Cherbourg en 1786

By the 1770s, with French involvement in the American War of Independence,

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...

sought to create a large military port on the Cotentin Peninsula, allowing access into the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or (Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kan ...

, and comparable to that of Brest on the Atlantic. Two projects were drawn up and presented to the king in 1777. The first, by the chief engineer of the bridges, roads and ports of the

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Armand Lefebvre, called for the fortification of the Cherbourg

roadstead A roadstead (or ''roads'' – the earlier form) is a body of water sheltered from rip currents, spring tides, or ocean swell where ships can lie reasonably safely at anchor without dragging or snatching.United States Army technical manual, TM 5 ...

around the enlarged commercial port. The second project, by director of maritime engineering Antoine Choquet de Lindu, proposed the construction of a first class arsenal at La Hougue. Naval officer Louis de La Couldre de La Bretonnière conducted a review of the proposals, which favoured the Cherbourg option. La Bretonnière recommended the construction of a jetty "two thousand toises long" between the tip of Querqueville and the reefs of Île Pelée, with the dredging of a harbour to a depth of 20 meters. La Bretonnière suggested the construction of a breakwater composed of sunken

hulks The Hulk is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of '' The Incredible Hulk'' (May 1962). In his comic book ...

and rocks, to be a foundation for further construction. Ultimately an alternative proposal, by engineer Louis-Alexandre de Cessart, was preferred, that of a breakwater created by the sinking of 90 wooden cones weighted with stones, 50 meters in diameter at the base and 20 meters in height. Work began in the 1780s. Île Pelée was fortified, and the wooden cones filled with stone were sunk outside the harbour(one in the presence of the king), to serve as a foundation for the breakwater. The cones were damaged by bad weather, and were gradually replaced by a continuous breakwater in pierres perdues, when the works were interrupted by the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

Nineteenth century

Work resumed in 1803 under the orders of First Consul

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

(decree of 25 Germinal year XI), as part of the plans to invade the United Kingdom. From 1803, protected from British attacks, Cherbourg became a haven for

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

s. The breakwater was discontinued after 1813, to be resumed in 1830 and completed in 1853. The engineer Joseph Cachin continued building the military port to the west of the town, the avant-port of which was opened on 27 August 1813 by Empress Marie-Louise. It was decided to establish the Arsenal in the same place. Work began on the Charles X basin (420 × 200 × 18 meters) in 1814, and it was inaugurated on 25 August 1829 in the presence of the Dauphin. A second basin, Napoleon III (290 × 220 × 18 meters), was begun in 1836 and inaugurated on 7 August 1858 in the presence of

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A neph ...

and Empress Eugénie. The continuous expansion of the military port and dockyard eventually came to consume between 3 and 4 million gold francs a year. By the end of the nineteenth century the United Kingdom was no longer the main adversary. The city had become a major industrial centre and employer, with 4,000 workers from all over France based at the arsenal, which became the "backbone of the city". With the naval importance of the port reduced, the well-developed harbour became a base for transatlantic trade connecting northern Europe with the east coast of the Americas.

Second World War

Bundesarchiv Bild 101II-MW-5716-45A, Cherbourg, NSV-Flüchtlingsbetreuung

The city was first bombed by the ''

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

'' on 15 June 1940, during the

Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...

. The port was used as the evacuation point as British and French soldiers withdrew ahead of the advancing German Army, Cherbourg becoming the "Norman Dunkirk". The east fort on the breakwater was destroyed by the French Navy. German forces arrived at Cherbourg on 17 June, and on 18 June the city council declared Cherbourg an open city. Maritime prefect Vice-Admiral Jules Le Bigot ensured three submarines under construction at the arsenal, ''Praya'', ''Roland Morillot'' and ''Martinique'', were destroyed, and then surrendered the city to General Erwin Rommel.

Battle of Cherbourg

Cherbourg, the only deep-water port in the region, was the primary goal of US troops landed at

Utah Beach Utah, commonly known as Utah Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), during World War II. The westernmost of the five code-named ...

during the allied invasion of Normandy. Cherbourg was vital in order to provide the Allies logistical support for the reinforcement and supply of the troops. US troops encircled the city on 21 June 1944. Furious street fighting took place, with heavy supporting fire from allied warships against the German batteries. After strong resistance from Fort du Roule, General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben, Admiral

Walter Hennecke Walter Hennecke (23 May 1898 – 1 January 1984) was a German admiral during World War II. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Hitler for "a feat unprecedented in the annals of coastal defense", when he comprehensively damaged ...

and 37,000 soldiers surrendered on 26 June at 16:00 to General J. Lawton Collins. The arsenal and the forts on the breakwater resisted for another day before they too surrendered. Cherbourg 1944-Gare Maritime-Interieur

The Germans had systematically damaged the port prior to surrendering. Ships, tugs, cranes and other equipment had been thrown into the water in the basins, blocking the harbour and delaying the arrival of the first ships until the end of July. In November 1944, the local Cherbourg bailout commission was created to organise the salvaging of ships and clearing accesses to the port. The port was only partially back in service by mid-August. On 14 July 1944 the Place du Château, renamed Place du Maréchal-Pétain during the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 193 ...

, was renamed Place Général De Gaulle, while the Quai de l'Ancien-Arsenal was renamed Lawton-Collins Quay, after the American commander of VII Corps, which had liberated the city. American troops of the Fourth Major Port of Embarkation and French transport corps carried out sufficient repairs to the port for it to accommodate the first

liberty ship Liberty ships were a ship class, class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost constr ...

s a month after its capture. From then until the liberation of the

port of Antwerp The Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the port of the City of Antwerp. It is located in Flanders (Belgium), mainly in the province of Antwerp but also partially in the province of East Flanders. It is a seaport in the heart of Europe accessible to ...

in November 1944, the daily landing of supplies and military equipment made Cherbourg the largest port in the world, twice that of the port of New York. Fuel arrived in Cherbourg along the

PLUTO Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest k ...

pipeline, while men and the equipment were routed from the port to the front, travelling by road (the " Red Ball Express") and rail (the "Toot Sweet Express"). On 24 December 1944, the Belgian freighter , carrying 2,237 American soldiers of the 66th Infantry Division, was torpedoed by a German submarine off Cherbourg. 763 were killed and 493 went missing. Cherbourg was returned to France by the Americans on 14 October 1945. It is quoted in the order of the army of 2 June 1948 and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with palm.

Current ships assigned

Cherbourg is one of three naval bases of metropolitan France (the other two are Brest and

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label=Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is the ...

). With the departure of the Flotilla of the North (FLONOR), Cherbourg lost its importance as a port of registry. The Channel Flotilla (Flomanche) monitors the English Channel and the North Sea. The naval base occupies 120 hectares and commands 13 ships: * the three ''Flamant''-class patrol vessels of the

: ''Flamant'', ''Pluvier'' and ''Cormoran'', * the radiological surveillance swift boat ''Coralline'', * the RPC12 tugboats ''Fréhel'' and ''Saire'', * the mine clearance diving support vessel ''Vulcain'', * the diving support swift boat ''Acanthe'' and ''Magnolia'', * the patrol boats of the Maritime Gendarmerie ''Athos'' and ''Aramis,'', * the support vessel ''Élan''. Other vessels present: * Chartered salvage tug '' Abeille Liberté'', * Patrol boat ''Thémis'' (operated by Affaires maritime)�
Ports d'attache des bâtiments de la Marine nationale en 2008
», ''Netmarine.net'', 2008

Cherbourg Arsenal

The arsenal of Cherbourg specializes in submarine construction. These are nuclear vessels for the French Navy, such as the and the planned ''Suffren'' class, or conventional diesel-electric propulsion vessels for export, such as the Scorpène type. Faced with declining needs, the Navy has since 2000 opened the arsenal to the private sector. It leases of land to two companies in its northern part: the

Euriware EURIWARE was a French company that provided advanced Consultancy and IT services in the spheres of energy, industry and defense. The core business of EURIWARE included consultancy, systems integration (enterprise systems, industrial and technical ...

secure management centre (100 employees) and the Ican shipyard (170 employees), specializing in the construction of service boats.

References

{{coord, 49.6525, N, 1.6342, W, source:wikidata, display=title Installations of the French Navy French Navy submarine bases Cherbourg-Octeville Buildings and structures in Manche