Fjell Fortress ( no, Fjell festning) is located on the island of

Sotra Sotra or Store Sotra is the name of a large island in Øygarden Municipality in Vestland county, Norway, located just west of the city of Bergen. It is part of a pair of islands called 'Sotra' and 'Litlesotra' ('small Sotra') that are part of a ...

in the municipality of

Fjell Fjell is a former municipality in the old Hordaland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Midhordland. The municipality consisted of several islands west of the city of Bergen, the major ones being Litlesotra, the northern ...

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

History

The fortress was built by the German occupation forces during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The construction works were commenced late summer 1942, and completed so far that they could fire the main gun for the first time as early as in June–July 1943. The fort was a significant link in the coastal defence of Norway. Its main commission was to intercept the seaward approach to

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula o ...

. The main gun was also to a certain extent employed in the interception of foreign aircraft raids against Bergen. The fortress has areas over and under the ground, with a network of tunnels two miles long on the surface and in the mountains. The fortress area is today the property of the

Norwegian Armed Forces The Norwegian Armed Forces ( no, Forsvaret, , The Defence) is the military organization responsible for the defence of Norway. It consists of five branches, the Norwegian Army, the Royal Norwegian Navy, which includes the Coast Guard, the Royal ...

, while Stiftelsen Fjell festning are responsible for conducting the preservation and maintenance. After sending a petition, the municipal authorities was offered by the Norwegian Armed Forces, represented by Skifte Eiendom (the Norwegian Armed Forces's property management), to take possession of the fortress area without compensation. The offer was rejected by the municipal authorities. The future fate of Fjell Fortress thus remains uncertain as of 2008.

The main gun turret

To mount the main gun

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

at the fortress, it was necessary to dig 17 metres vertically into the mountain. This was considered a time-consuming task, so the main entrance and gun emplacement were constructed as an open ditch, and later covered with concrete, instead of blasting a tunnel into and down in the solid rock. As a result, water entering the tunnel system has been a problem ever since the tunnel was constructed. The work was mainly carried out by prisoners from eastern Europe, but also Norwegian prisoners participated. 25 prisoners died during the construction works, either as a result of frostbite, exhaustion or execution. The

28 cm SK C/34 naval gun The German 28 cm SK C/34SK - ''Schnelladekanone'' (quick loading cannon); ''C - Construktionsjahr'' (year of design) naval gun was a 283 mm 54.5- caliber built-up gun designed in 1934 used on the and for the planned ''Landkreuzer'' P ...

turret was taken from battery Bruno from the battleship ''Gneisenau''. It had three barrels, 28.3 centimetres each, and a range of 41 kilometres, from

Fedje Fedje is an island municipality in the Nordhordland region of Vestland county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Fedje. The traditional economic activity of the inhabitants is fishing. The municipality is ...

in the north to Stolmen in the south - but this was with the greatest possible charge. Each barrel fired 3 shells at full charge, this caused an earth quake, shattered all windows in Fjell and flattened some barns. The guns were never fired at full charge again, so under a reduced charge the correct range at Fjell would be around 37 km. The guns originally weighed 600 tons, the armour was increased to a total weight of 1,000 metric tons.

External links

*
NRK KulTur til Fjell festning (Norwegian)
{{Coord, 60, 19, 30, N, 5, 04, 56, E, display=title, region:NO-12_type:landmark_source:nowiki Fjell Forts in Norway Military installations in Vestland Tourist attractions in Vestland Coastal artillery