The Fort du Roule is a collection of French and German fortifications built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the Roule mountain in

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 ...

(

Cherbourg-en-Cotentin Cherbourg-en-Cotentin () is a city in the department of Manche, Normandy, northwestern France, established on 1 January 2016.

since 2016). The first fortifications were built in 1793 to protect the Bay of Cherbourg from English attacks. The current fort, at the top of the mountain, was built between 1853 and 1857 under

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 nephew ...

. In 1928, the Navy built extensive tunnels under it to store equipment. During the Second World War, the

Todt Organisation Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projec ...

built several tunnels, installed

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...

s for artillery, and built gun emplacements. The fort was captured after fierce fighting by the U.S. Army on June 26, 1944. After the war, the Navy took possession of the site and set up its command post in the first maritime region until 1988, when part of the site became a naval communications center. The School of Military Applications of Atomic Energy uses some of the facilities. The fortifications at the top of the mountain now house the Cherbourg Liberation Museum, and the tunnels leading to the German gun emplacements are open to the public.

References

Cherbourg-Octeville Roule {{fort-stub