Bullecourt 1917, Jean & Denise Letaille Museum, is a small museum but therein lies its charm. You have time to read and see the very well-written stories (in both French and English) of the battles of Bullecourt and, particularly, of the soldiers who played such a tragic part in World War I in this part of Pas de Calais.

The Battles of Bullecourt

On April 11 1917, the Australian 1st Anzac Corps of the British Fifth Army attacked the Hindenburg Line, the major German defensive line of defence that ran from Arras to near Soissons on the Aisne river. The offensive was part of the attack that included the Battle of Arras (9 April to 16 May 1917) further north.

The Australian and British attack on the German position was a shambles. A lack of communication and the late arrival of tanks led to 3,289 Australian casualties, including 1,166 taken prisoner by the Germans. It was the largest number captured in a single battle during the whole of the Great War. The Germans suffered 749 casualties. 

A second battle which lasted from May 3 to 17 led to more than 7,000 Australian and 8,119 British casualties.

British divisions like the 5th (London) Division and the 62nd Division (volunteers from Yorkshire), were largely inexperienced; the 7th Division was experienced; it had been fighting in the war since 1914.

It’s not a well-known story outside the immediate area, partly because it was such a badly run campaign by the generals and partly because it gets caught up in the better known story of the Battle of Arras at the Wellington Quarry.

Bullecourt 1917 Museum and Jean Letaille

You’ll find Bullecourt 1917 located in the now renovated barn and stable that originally housed the museum. The inspiration came from the former Mayor of Bullecourt, Jean Letaille and his wife Denise. He was a farmer and over the years had discovered that his fields yielded a rich selection of wartime artifacts, of rusting machinery, old guns, helmets, barbed wire, unexploded shells, scrap metal,  bits of uniform and more…relics and reminders of the battles of World War I. 
While Jean Letaille was Mayor, he created a small museum in the Town Hall before relocating them to his barn and stable in 1995.

The Bullecourt 1917 Museum Revealed

The museum is divided into two rooms.

The Battle Room

In the middle of the long room lies a display of those relics of World War I, many of them found by Jean Letaille: rusty tank remains, mortars, boxes of shells. The story is told in panels around the room and here it becomes fascinating. 

Exhibits describe – and illustrate – everyday life at the Front which was nasty and brutish and often short. Nights were particularly hard when in the dark and cold, the stench of decaying bodies and fear of attack took over the imagination. Soldiers wrote letters, made ornaments, played cards. The sight of air battles overhead broke the monotony and bets were made on the outcome. Keen souvenir hunters took extraordinary risks to take rare objects from their enemy, and later sold them to those waiting to be called forward.  Water was brought from the rear often in drums that had held petrol…imagine the peculiar taste.

There are pictures of Australian soldiers playing pitch and toss where they threw a coin as close as possible to a given target in the sunken road near Noreuil. Others heat up tea over candles in trenches. 

You see medical equipment like a shell dressing in a canvas bag. You see images from the advanced medical station where the nurses’ lips were stained brown from using their teeth to remove the corks from bottles of antiseptic iodine tincture. And who knew that camphor or caffeine injections were used as a cardio stimulant?

It’s these small details that fascinate and make this one of the World War I museums you should put on your list. I have been retelling the story of the nurses’ brown lips with great success!

Early cemeteries were created, like the Quéant Road Cemetery in Buissy. Of the 2,377 commonwealth soldiers buried there, 1,441 bodies are still unidentified. Of the 995 Australians, only 299 are named. The search, and the story, goes on. In 1995 the remains of Sergeant John (Jack) James White were found in a field nearby and identified. He died on May 3, 1917. In 1995, 77 years after his death he was buried here. Inscribed on his gravestone are the words:  Deep Peace Of The Quiet Earth So Far From The Land That Gave You Birth.

The Tribute Room – The Dead, The Missing, The Survivors

Black and white photos line the walls of the second room with the name, fate, date of death and age below of the face that stares back at you. The Australians are in their characteristic ‘digger’ hats; others in army hats; some are bare-headed; a few are in civilian clothes. Most of them sport moustaches or small beards – it was the fashion then but it also recalls the difficulties at the front of washing and shaving in precious water. Below the photos stand cases of more war items.

Again it’s the stories behind the photos that bring home the harsh reality of war. 

Private Christopher Douglas Elphick of the Honourable Artillery Company was killed on May 15, 1917. His remains were found in a field in Bullecourt in 2009 with 8 other bodies. He was identified by a ring with his initials, and was buried at Ecoust-Saint-Mein at the HAC cemetery in 2013. There’s a picture of him and a photo with his wife and child. One of the eight buried along with him is Lieutenant John Harold Pritchard, identified by his silver identity bracelet. 

Both were discovered by Didier Guerle, an elderly farmer who unearthed one of the soldiers’ gas canisters. He dug a little deeper to remove the canister and discovered the soldiers’ remains.

It took 3 years to trace the named soldiers’ relatives after they were identified.

More surprising is the story of rifleman Léon Pageot. Born in Dijon in 1891, the young French citizen moved to London to work as a jeweller. While there he designed the Royal emblem of the Postal Service, still used today on red post boxes. Married and the father of 2 children, he entered military service in 1916 and was killed at Bullecourt on  May 21, 1917. He has no known grave.

After the Battles of Bullecourt

Bullecourt was a small village, with just 396 inhabitants in 1911. At the end of the war it was classified as being in the ‘Red Zone’ (totally destroyed) along with other nearby villages. In 1920 the inhabitants returned and began rebuilding Bullecourt as a farming village. Inevitably as the land was ploughed up, discoveries were made. 

On withdrawal from the Hindenburg Line Germans left behind booby-traps. On March 25 1917, the town hall at Bapaume was destroyed by a delayed-action bomb left by the Germans. About 30 men were sleeping in the building. 5 were brought out; 25 were killed including 9 Australians and 2 French MPs.

Memorials to the British and Australian soldiers

At the village church you’ll find the Slouch Hat memorial to the British and Australian soldiers who lost their lives at Bullecourt. Next to it is a small brick memorial dedicated to the tank crews of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps (HBMGC) who died here. The corps was the first unit in the British Army to use tanks in combat.

Just 900 metres away on the Rue des Australiens, you’ll come across the Australian Digger Memorial Garden. This was the front line, occupied by the Australians in their attack on Bullecourt. The statue in the garden is of the ‘Bullecourt Digger’, wearing the insignias of all four Australian infantry divisions who fought in Europe. 

Two hundred metres further along, a cross stands just beside the road with a collection of individual memorial stones to the soldiers who died here.

The Australian Remembrance Trail

The ART is a 200 km (124 mile)-long commemorative trail running from Ypres in Belgium, through Fromelles, Bullecourt and Pozières to Villers-Bretonneux, east of Amiens where you’ll find the Sir John Monash Australian Centre. The trail, which includes battlefields, cemeteries, memorials, and museums, commemorates the experiences of the Australian soldiers between mid 1916 and late 1918 in France and Belgium.

More about Australians on the Western Front

More about the two World Wars in Pas de Calais

The Wellington Quarry in Arras

World War II Sites in Pas de Calais

Guide to Calais (I have to admit, one of my favourite cities).

Declaration: I travelled to France courtesy of DFDS from Dover to Calais on a self-driving press trip as a guest of Pas-de-Calais Tourisme.

More Information on Ferries to France including DFDS details.

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The Wellington Quarry Museum (La Carrière Wellington) in Arras is an exceptional, eerie place. It’s buried in the tunnels that crisscross the ground 20 metres beneath the attractive city of Arras. What you are about to experience is the story of the Battle of Arras from the beginning: the secret tunnelling, the life underground, the lead up to the battle on April 9^th, 1917 and the sad aftermath. It’s a remarkable insight into a less well-known aspect of World War I.

A Short History of The Wellington Quarry and the Battle of Arras

The battles of Verdun and the Somme in 1916 had been a disaster. So the Allied High Command decided to create a new offensive on the Vimy-Arras front.

Arras was a ghost town, continuously bombarded by German troops, smoking and in ruins. From 1916 to 1918 the town was under British command… unique in the history of World War I.

The Wellington Quarry Tunnels

The extraordinary story begins with the digging of what became an underground barracks. Chalk quarries dating back to the Middle Ages had for centuries provided the growing town with rock for the ramparts, the religious buildings and houses that were making Arras such an important city.

500 New Zealand tunnellers, mostly Maori miners, helped by Yorkshire miners called Bantams, dug 80 metres a day in two interlinking labrynths. The whole project was called Wellington by the New Zealanders; underground the tunnellers named the different sectors after their home towns. For the New Zealanders it was Nelson and Blenheim. For the British, London, Liverpool and Manchester. The work took under six months. Eventually the 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) accommodated 24,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers.

One of the greatest engineering feats of World War I, it was discovered by archaeologists in the 1990s. It must have been an extraordinary moment when they began to see the graffiti on the walls and realised the significance of the tunnels in the history of the Great War.

Setting the Scene

As you wait for the visit, there’s a chance to walk around the small exhibition that covers the lead-up to The Great War, the main areas of war, the New Zealand tunnellers and more.

Going Deep Underground

Wearing a helmet and warm clothing (it’s 11°C  down there) you descend in a lift down into the quarries with a bi-lingual guide and audio guide for the 90-minute tour. Setting the scene, you slowly descend past images of Arras as it collapses. You step out of the lift to a panoramic film bringing to life the full horror of the war on the city.

The guide takes you along the long twisting passages and past cavernous spaces roughly hewn out of the chalk.  You stop to see old films and hear long-forgotten voices on small screens that disappear into the darkness.  There’s the sound of pickaxes and it feels as if the miners are actually there with you. ‘Each man had his own war’, a solider says.

You pass by piles of rusting tins, graffiti of names, drawings of loved ones back home and prayers, and hear more voices as you round a corner and see a film flickering on the wall in front of you.

Voices Echo from the Past

‘Bonjour Tommy’ says a Frenchman against footage of civilians and soldiers chatting in the streets. ‘They do not hate the Germans. They do not insult the prisoners and are attentive to the wounded’, writes a French journalist.

You hear poems by war poets like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon who wrote The General.

Good morning. Good  morning” the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.’

You hear Yorkshiremen singing On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at (which translates as On Ilkley Moor without a hat); it became the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire.

The Wellington Quarry was a small, albeit primitive barracks. The walk shows you the life of the soldiers underground, their grim or flippant humour, and their camaraderie.

A chapel, power station, light railway, communications room, a hospital in a series of rooms that could fit 700 beds and operating theatres, and a well were all built in the pale, flickering electric light. There were showers and a transmission room. On pillar 5E a film shows the last prayer service held before the attack.

The Battle of Arras Begins

Then you come to the sloping passageways that led up to the light, and for many of the young soldiers, ‘too young’ as one Frenchman said, to their death. For a few days before, the artillery had been firing at the German lines. It was 5.30am, snowing and deadly cold on April 9 Easter Monday, when the order was given to burst out of the quarries from Exit no 10.

Each year, on 9^th April at 05.30 a memorial service attended by thousands is held at the Wellington Quarry.

The Battle of Arras Continues

A film tells you the aftermath of the Battle of Arras. The initial assault was highly successful. Vimy Ridge and the village of Monchy-le-Preux were taken by General Julian Byng’s Canadian Corps Vimy Ridge. But for two days the Allied troops, on orders from above, held back. In that time the Germans, who had retreated initially, formed a new battle front and brought up reinforcements.  On Aril 11, British and Australian forces attacked around Bullecourt. Fighting continued unto May 16.

For British soldiers the average daily loss rate at Arras was the highest of the war at 4,076. Total casualties were roughly double that, with the Germans losing around the same number.

Outside The Wellington Quarry in Arras

Outside the passage leading to the Wellington Quarry there’s a memorial wall. It commemorates the infantry and cavalry units who fought in the Battle of Arras with portraits, sculptures and memorials. A large block of stone has a silhouette of a miner.

Information on the Wellington Quarry in Arras

More Information on Pas de Calais

World War II Sites in Pas de Calais
Guide to Calais
The Calais Dragon

Food of Hauts de France (which won the European Region of Gastronomy Award for 2023)

Declaration: I travelled to France courtesy of DFDS from Dover to Calais on a self-driving press trip as a guest of Pas-de-Calais Tourisme.

More Information on Ferries to France including DFDS details.

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The Armistice Museum and Memorial is surprisingly little known to the general public – even in France. It’s an important site: it was here that the armistice to end World War I was signed in 1918. In 1940 this was where the Germans accepted the French surrender. It’s tucked away in the peaceful forest of Compiègne in Picardy, Hauts-de-France, far from battleground museums and war cemeteries. And it’s a private museum though with some government support.

The Armistice Museum is not even very well signposted but persevere in your quest; this small but impressive museum has a story well worth the telling.

As you turn off the main road and drive towards the museum, you pass the massive Alsace Lorraine Monument. The statue, located 250 metres down the road from the museum, shows a French sword cutting down the Imperial Eagle of Germany. The sculpture was more than symbolic; it was made by Edgar Brandt (1880-1960), an interesting character who began by designing weapons of war for the French army then became one of the 20th century’s greatest Art Deco ironwork craftsman. He also made the torch for the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris.

Park in the small car park – which is never full – then walk along a path through the trees to the clearing.

The Glade of the Armistice

A statue of Marshall Foch to one side looks down on the clearing. Foch, the supreme Allied commander who united the British, French and American forces is one of France’s great heroes. In 1918 he commanded the successful push back against the German offensive.

Emerging from the woods is a single railway track. It leads to the centre of the clearing and a huge slab in the ground commemorating the place where two railway carriages were brought in 1918.

Ahead between a Remembrance garden and a small tank stands a modest, low, white building with flags on the front, looking rather like a school.

The Armistice Museum

You buy your ticket in a small modest office then walk into the first long room. Nothing prepares you for the sight of the railway carriage that stands marooned here.

You peer through the windows at the carriage. This was where Marshall Foch, accompanied by the allies who included the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, and the Chief of Staff, General Weygand, met with the Germans to sign the Armistice to end the horror that was World War I. It was signed on November 11^th at 5.10am though not officially declared until 11am. Armistice Day is officially celebrated at 11am on the 11th day of November.

The choice of the remote Compiègne forest setting was a deliberate one by Foch. It was a simple way of avoiding any intrusive journalists and protecting the German delegation from hostile crowds of French locals.

Graphic Horrors of World War I

It’s in the oval-shaped rotunda, a pleasant light space, where the major horrors of World War I are shown. A series of stereoscopes around the walls are labelled with different themes: the Somme, Verdun, other major battles, the army, the trenches and so on. The images stand out in startling 3D. Some show soldiers just standing around looking bored; others show guns firing, dead bodies, twisted bodies of horses, prisoners with their faces stripped of any expression except defeat, and more.

Then you walk through The Crypt where the names of the battles are carved into a wall behind the flags of the three nations.

You’re taken further into the war with a 3D film. You see more detail leading up to 1918; another film focuses on Augustin Trébuchon, the last French soldier killed during World War I, shot 15 minutes before the Armistice was enacted. It was 10.45am on November 11, 1918.

It reminded me of the Wilfred Owen memorial in North France. The soldier-poet was killed seven days before the end of the war. His mother received his last letter to her, and the telegram of the news of his death on November 11th.

You’ll see a variety of objects scattered throughout the museum: yellowing newspaper articles, photocopies, flags, objects made from shells. There are American artefacts and copies of newspapers from Raleigh, Virginia, describing the progress of the war.

The 1918 Armistice Room has scale models of the clearing and the railway carriage.

Treaty of Versailles 1919

Then you’re in a room explaining the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, signed in Versailles on June 28, 1919 after six months of talks and negotiations.

The Treaty imposed harsh conditions on Germany. It forced the Germans and their allies to take responsibility for ‘causing all the loss and damage’ during the war. Germany had to disarm, give territories away, particularly Alsace and Lorraine, and pay crippling reparations.

The Expansion of the Armistice Museum

The museum was expanded in 2018. The new section covers the years between the two world wars and the events that led to the German attack in 1939. Then you walk through a corridor with two model airplanes above you.

And this is where it comes full circle. In 1940 the Battle of France was lost and the Germans were in Paris. France was about to be divided in two: the German military occupied section and Vichy Frace government section under Marshal Philippe Pétain. This was the unoccupied ‘Free Zone’ that was made responsible for the civil administration of France and its colonies.

Marshal Pétain as prime minister had signed the armistice with Germany on June 22 1940. And of course it was signed in the railway carriage where Germany had signed the 1918 Armistice, symbolizing the Third Reich’s victory over France.

Hitler’s Revenge

CBS war correspondent William Shirer was present and saw Hitler’s reaction on seeing the Alsace Lorraine monument:

“Through my glasses I saw the Führer stop, glance at the [Alsace-Lorraine] monument…. Then he read the inscription on the great granite block in the center of the clearing: Here on the eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German empire… vanquished by the free peoples which it tried to enslave.“

“I look for the expression on Hitler’s face. I am but fifty yards from him and see him through my glasses as though he were directly in front of me. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. He steps off the monument and contrives to make even this gesture a masterpiece of contempt. He glances back at it contemptuous, angry. … Suddenly, as though his face were not giving quite complete expression to his feelings, he throws his whole body into harmony with his mood. He swiftly snaps his hands on his hips, arches his shoulders, plants his feet wide apart. It is a magnificent gesture of defiance, of burning contempt.”

Hitler ordered the destruction of the site and the clearing. The Alsace Lorraine monument was dismantled and along with the other monuments were sent to Germany. Interestingly, Hitler saved the statue of Foch and left it where it stands today. The railway carriage was taken to Berlin to be put on display. It was then destroyed; either by air attack in the Ohrdruf prison camp in the Thuringian Forest, or by the SS in March 1945 as American troops advanced into Germany.

Hitler’s revenge was complete.

The Armistice site in 1944

Compiègne was liberated on October 21, 1944, almost exactly two months after the liberation of Paris. In November, General Marie-Pierre Keonig, the best known Free French leader after General de Gaulle who was in Britain, led a military parade in the Glade. The watching crowd included British, American and Polish officials.

The 1945 peace treaty was signed not here, but at Reims in Champagne.

In 1950, the French manufacturer Wagons-Lits donated an identical car to the original to the museum – 2439D. It was opened to the public on November 11.

More Articles on the 20th century World Wars

Here are more articles on World War II in Nord-Pas de Calais

La Coupole and Hitler’s V2 Rockets
The Secret Blockhouse of Eperlecques
Mimoyecques and Hitler’s V3 Rocket Dream

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Centre shows how war graves are looked after throughout the world. Well worth a visit in North France.

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Memorials and sites from World War II are found throughout north France, though the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches along the Baie de Seine are the most famous, and the most visited.

2024 sees the 80th commemoration of the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches. Normandy will be crowded but will also have a series of great events all along the coast, and inland.

The beaches are stunning; today the places for dog walkers, surfers and sand yachts, a far cry from the scene 76 years ago.

The Landing Beaches on D-Day

Early in the morning of June 6, 1944, 160,000 soldiers landed on the beaches of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. It was the start of the remarkable fight by Allied troops against the enemy. Along this stretch of coast 80 kms (50 miles) long, you’ll find the memorials and cemeteries, batteries and bridges of Operation Overlord.

Museums, Memorials, Cemeteries

There are a large number of museums, sites and memorials commemorating the Normandy Landing beaches offensive and the events around Operation Overlord in June 1944.

Some museums and sites are old, but every year a new one opens. Some are financed and run by the French state; others are small private museums, the result of a lifelong passion of an individual enthusiast.

Large concrete batteries line the cliffs. Part ruined, they still echo with the memories of the war.

There are also war cemeteries for the Canadians, Americans, the Germans, the French, the British and the Allies that punctuate the landscape.

And there are many small sites just by the roadside or signposted down small tracks that commemorate a regiment, or a particular significant incident.

The upshot is that you can come back each year, visit the ones you like the best but always find a new one to explore.

This is a very brief overview of the main sites along the coast. My partner, Alastair McKenzie, has a website called MechTraveller.com which covers all the below and more. But for a good overview, start with the…

Mémorial de Caen

The Mémorial de Caen makes the perfect start to any D-Day Landing Beach tour. It’s particularly useful if your knowledge of the events is, as mine was, sketchy. Taking a long overview, it starts with World War I and the aftermath.

According to Anthony Peregrine, one of the great experts on France, the Caen Memorial is ‘probably the best second world war museum anywhere’.

Standing on a hill above the main part of the city, the Caen Memorial was built on the site of the bunker of Wilhelm Richter, the German general who faced the British-Canadian forces on June 6, 1944. 

The Exhibits

You walk down a circular walkway, lined with the events of 1914-1918 and the aftermath. You’re drawn slowly into the Great Depression, the re-arming of Germany and the rise of Hitler.

A series of exhibitions takes you through the main events of World War II. Archives, testimonies by witnesses, maps, artefacts, room settings, crackling black and white videos, and films fill the spaces. It covers the different war fronts that took the conflict from a European War into a World War. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour brought in the Americans; Barbarossa brought in the USSR. It became a total conflict.

And of course, there’s a superb exhibition on the Normandy D-Day Landings.

The Memorial brings you further up to date, with 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

But it’s not just about the big, world-wide events. The Memorial also covers civilian life and personal stories. There are small details: exploding dummies dropped by the Allies; a resistance worker’s equipment; machines to code…and de-code and those telephones used in secret. Was it all really only 80 years ago? It seems a different world.

It’s pretty full on, and the films made both during the war and afterwards raise some uncomfortable questions. One which particularly struck me was a French academic talking about collaboration. If your child or a loved one’s life was at stake, what would you do?

You should allow half a day if you can and a day is best if you have time, and energy, But don’t try to do more than the Memorial in a day; it’s comprehensive, packed with those stories and events of the war and it’s best to absorb the knowledge before taking in more of the Normandy sites.

Here are suggestions of places to stay near the different Normandy Landing Beaches.
Also check out the budget hotel chains in France for good suggestions on where to stay.

Utah Beach: The American Sector

Utah Beach was the first to be assaulted by the US 4^th Infantry Division under Major General Barton on June 6, 1944 at 6.30am. It was vital to the success of the whole enterprise; the Allies had to cut off the Cotentin Peninsula, blocking Cherbourg harbour to the Germans.  By the end of day 123,250 men had landed, with 17,000 vehicles and 1,695 tons of supplies.

To the west, it was the task of the airborne troops. The 82^nd Division under Major General Ridgway and the 101^st Division under Major General Taylor were deployed to seize control of the area around Sainte-Mere-Eglise. 14,000 parachutists were dropped in various waves. There were heavy casualties of 2,500 men.

It was in this part of the Normandy beaches that the paratroopers of E Company, 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, played their part. Some of the story of Easy Company (who hasn’t read or seen the TV series Band of Brothers?) is shown at the 2 museums here.

Utah Beach Museum

Utah Beach Museum is one of the must-see sites along the whole Normandy coast. It is comprehensive with maps, photos, videos and a huge number of exhibits well displayed in special settings. Don’t miss: the B26 Marauder Aircraft in a large glass-clad hangar and the outstanding film Victory in the Sand. 
MechTraveller Review of Utah Beach Museum

Sainte-Mère-Eglise

Sainte-Mère-Eglise in the Cotentin Peninsula is just a 16-minute, 16 km/8.5 miles from the Utah Beach Museum. Itss a small village with a big history, much of which is told in the Airborne Museum.

As you enter the village, your first sight will be the model of American paratrooper John Steele of the 82^nd Airborne Division hanging by his parachute from the church steeple. The story has a happy ending.
MechTraveller Review of the Airborne Museum

Azeville Battery

Azeville Battery is just a 11km/6 mile, 15-minute drive north of Sainte-Mère-Eglise. It’s bleak with underground paths that connect the bunkers looking out to sea. Walk along these with the audio guide giving you invaluable information, and look out of the narrow slits.
Mech Traveller’s article of the Azeville Battery

Omaha Beach: The American Sector

Omaha Beach was one of the most formidable beaches facing the Allies. It was backed by rocky steep cliffs and strong defences. It was assaulted by the 1^st Infantry Division, the 116^th Infantry Regiment and the 29^th Infantry Division under Major General Huebner.

Just before the 29^th landed on the beach, Colonel Goode said to his troops:  “You get your ass on the beach. I’ll be there waiting for you and I’ll tell you what to do. There ain’t anything in this plan that is going to go right”.  Good old American straight talk.

Renamed Omaha the bloody, there were 2 major batteries to overcome, only one of which was known to the Allies.

La Pointe du Hoc

La Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument stands high up on the windswept headland. You walk past large boards telling the stories of various individuals then onto the headland. Casements and gun pits are surrounded by craters, and at the edge, the observation point.
MechTraveller Review of La Pointe du Hoc

Maisy Battery

The Maisy Battery, 8 miles away, however was unknown to the Allies. And it remained unknown after the war until it was discovered by Gary Sterne, a World War II historian and collector. Today it’s run by his son who is more than happy to talk. And it’s worthwhile talking to him before wandering through the 2.5 kms of bunkers and trenches and past the rusting guns. And this is only part of the site which is yet to be excavated.
MechTraveller Review of Maisy Battery

The Normandy American Cemetery

Above Omaha Beach stands one of the most moving of the sites along the coast. The Normandy American Cemetery at Colville-sur-Mer is a peaceful place, housing 9,387 US military dead on the huge 172 acre site. 307 are unknown.

The white headstone, dotted with Stars of David stones, run in military precision. Wander at will to look at the names, and look for Preston and Robert Niland, the brothers who inspired Saving Private Ryan.

Gold Beach: The British Sector

At the centre of the landing zones, taking Gold Beach was given to the Briitsh 50^th Infantry Division. At 7.30am, the first Brigades attacked around Asnelles. By the evening, 24,970 men had landed; on the beach alone, 413 men were killed, wounded or missing. They had secured 10 kms inland nearly to Bayeux.

Longues-sur-Mer Germany Battery

They faced the German battery at Longues-sur-Mer which was also pounding Omaha Beach. Today it still looks formidable; 4 huge casements with their guns still there pointing out to sea which you wander through.
MechTraveller’s Review of Longues-sur-Mer

Arromanches-sur-Mer

The Musée de Débarquement has to be the major sight to visit along this beach. It has been gloriously updated, and tells the story of the extraordinary Mulberry Harbours in grand detail. These artificial ports were built to dock the ships arriving with vital goods and supplies after the main troop landings. A film sets the scene, but it’s the long model of the Mulberry Harbour that was an integral part of the old museum which catches your attention. Then look outside; you can see the remains still in the water.
MechTraveller’s Review of the Arromanches-sur-Mer Museum

Drive out of Arromanches up the hill to the cinema in the round. The film, Normandy’s 100 Days, shown on 9 screens, is pretty graphic, bringing home the reality and horrors of war.

Juno Beach: The Canadian Sector

The 3^rd Canadian Division landed at 8am on Juno Beach, delayed by the sea and formidable beach obstacles and suffered heavy casualties. By the end of the day, the Canadians had got further inland than any other division.

Juno Beach Centre

The Juno Beach Centre is another must-see sight. It’s the Canadian Museum, covering a story which we in the UK know far less about. The permanent exhibition takes you through the earlier history of Canada. An excellent film, They Walk with You shows you D-Day from the Canadian point of view. It’s funded and run by the Canadian government. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable young Canadians take you through the exhibition if you want to.

Don’t miss the Guided visits of Juno Park outside the Centre. You’re taken down and through the bunkers on the beach in front of the museum. They were part of the famous Atlantic Wall built by Hitler.

Sword Beach, the British Sector

The westernmost part of the landing site, Sword Beach was the responsibility of the 3^rd British Infantry Division under Major General Rennie. They began to land at 7.30am on the beach that had heavy defences around the port of Ouistreham. Their aim? To capture Caen, 10 miles/15 kms inland.

Concerned about the possibility of a counter attack by the 21^st Panzer Division, south of Caen, the British sent in General Gale’s 6^th Airborne Division.

Museum of the British 6^th Airborne Division, Pegasus Bridge

The museum, known as the Pegasus Memorial, brings home the extraordinarily risky task of the parachutists, taken in flimsy Horsa gliders to land inland from Sword Beach. They were the first of the troops to attack, landing at 9 minutes past midnight. Look inside the gliders; they had no motors, no parachutes and no second chances.

Outside, the original Pegasus Bridge takes pride of place. There’s also a Bailey Bridge and various huts displaying the stories of the expedition. If you’ve heard of the landing, it’s mainly because of the myth about Lord Lovat, who, according to The Longest Day, walked across the bridge at Benouville (later named Pegasus Bridge) with his bagpiper. It’s not strictly accurate; they ran over the bridge with no bagpipes playing.

It’s an excellent museum, another of the must-see sites.

Merville Gun Battery

The Merville Gun Battery squarely set in the ground is just a few yards from the sea. Part of the huge Atlantic Wall, built by the Germans to defend Europe against the Allies, it was heavily fortified. It was part of the 6^th Airborne’s task: to destroy the Battery.

There are various bunkers which you can visit, all showing different part of the assault and the capture of the battery. It was done at a cost; of the 750 sent on the mission, 150 landed here and only 75 survived.

A trip along the Normandy D-Day Landing beaches is both a dip into a history we should all remember and cherish, and a tribute to those who allow us to live in liberty and freedom today.

More about World War II in France

You’ll find more on World War II in Nord-Pas de Calais

La Coupole and Hitler’s V2 Rockets
The Secret Blockhouse of Eperlecques
Mimoyecques and Hitler’s V3 Rocket Dream

How to get to the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches

If you’re coming from the UK by car, then take Brittany Ferries. The overnight sailing to Caen gets you there early in the morning.
More Information from Brittany Ferries route here.

Where to Stay near the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches

Here are suggestions of places to stay near the different Normandy Landing Beaches. It’s a good selection of accommodation including town hotels, a fortified manor house and a fortified farm.

Also check out the budget hotel chains in France for good suggestions on where to stay.

Getting to Normandy
New Travel to and around Normandy: new flight and shuttle bus along the D-Day Landing Beaches to September 2024

Check out the Normandy Tourism website here.

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Ors is a perfectly ordinary looking little village in Nord-Pas de Calais, near the small town of Le Cateau-Cambresis. Driving north out of the village into the surrounding forest you come across a startling white structure, looking as much like a sculpture as a house. This is La Maison Forestière in Ors. Once the Forester’s House, it’s now the Wilfred Owen Memorial.

It was all up to the Mayor

For some time, the mayor of Ors, Jacky Duminy, had noticed the few curious visitors from the U.K. who were traveling through the region looking for various World War I memorials. Wilfred Owen’s grave is in Ors and there’s a small plaque from The Western Front Association in the village. It tells very briefly about the death of Wilfred Owen at a skirmish where 4 Victoria Crosses were won, and a Military Cross was awarded to Wilfred Owen. Intrigued by the story, Jacky Duminy began to research Wilfred Owen’s poetry. He fell under its spell and decided it was time for a proper memorial. 

Not an easy task

It was a huge work to persuade the villagers and the various funding bodies to finance the project. He had help from the Wilfred Owen Association in the U.K. and members of the family but little other help from the British, apart from the British Library and the British actor Kenneth Branagh when the project was well under way.

The plan was to take the Maison Forestière and turn it into a memorial. An English artist, Simon Patterson, was commissioned to do the original design, with the help of the French architect Jean-Christophe Denise. The result is spectacular and spectacularly simple as well. The all white house appears like a ‘bleached bone’ as Simon Patterson described it.

Wilfred Owen as a soldier in World War I

Wilfred Owen joined the 2^nd Manchester Regiment in October 2015. He fought and was badly wounded. Suffering from neurasthenia (shell shock) he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh to be treated. Here the young soldier-poet met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon whose influence on Owen’s style was significant.  The meeting and the relationship is described in Pat Barker‘s historical novel Regeneration (1991) which I thoroughly recommend reading.

How Wilfred Owen died

Owen returned to France in July 2018 to fight on the front line. On November 3^rd, 1918 he was holed up with 20 of his fellow soldiers in the Forester’s House in the dark, damp cellar. He wrote to his mother describing the conditions, which were smoky and crowded with ‘a wheeze of jokes’ from the men.

“I shall call this place from which I am now writing “The Smoky Cellar of the Forester’s House.” He reassured her: “There is no danger here, or if any, it will be well over before you read these lines.” 

The next morning he and his fellow soldiers made their way to the Sambre Canal in the village. Trying to cross the canal they came under murderous fire and Owen was killed, seven days before Armistice Day that ended the ‘war to end all wars’. His mother received the letter from her son and the telegram about her son’s death on November 11^th, Armistice Day.

He is buried in the local churchyard along with other members of the regiment. 

Visiting the Wilfred Owen Memorial

You walk up a ramp into a large space, lit from above. Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum Est is etched on the walls which are clad with a translucent skin of glass. It’s taken from Owen’s hand written manuscript which is now in the British Library. As you stand there, the lights dim and you hear Kenneth Branagh reading some of Owen’s poems. He recorded them for the 100^th anniversary of Owen’s birth for Radio 4 in 1993. The poems appear on the walls over the glass, first in English then in French. In between there is silence. It lasts one hour; you can leave at any time or hear all of them.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Wilfred Owen’s poetry evokes the true horrors of trench warfare. It’s particularly emotive in his most famous poem, Dulce et Decorum Est which is predominantly about the gas that terrified and killed so many soldiers. The Latin ending of the poem reads as: ‘It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’. What an indictment of the leadership of World War I.

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

It’s a powerful memorial. Unlike other museums around war, there are no artefacts, no tanks, no bombs, no arms. Just a room, a poetry reading, and a cellar.

Wilfred Owen’s last night

There is a little more to see. You leave the room and walk down a ramp where parts of Owen’s letter are inscribed on the walls. It leads you into the damp, dark cellar where Owen spent his last night. Very little has been done to the cellar, but as you walk in, you hear the voice of Kenneth Branagh reading out Owen’s letter.

This impressive memorial is made all the more effective by being so simple. It is meant to be ‘a quiet place that is suitable for reflection and the contemplation of poetry.’ I found it to be a lot more than that, prompting reflections on the futility of war and the waste of life. But this chapel-like memorial also celebrates the art that can come out of chaos and tragedy.

Wilfred Owen as War Poet

Wilfred Owen was one of Britain’s greatest war poets, a writer who evoked the horrors of World War I, which he described as a ‘barbaric absurdity’. Trench warfare and the horrors of gas were powerful themes.

Most of his poems were published in 1920, including the best known ones: Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility, Dulce et Decorum Est, The Parable of the Old Men and The Young and Strange Meeting.

More to see on Wilfred Owen

Take the 7km (4.3 mile) walk into the forest of Bois L’Evêque. It’s a 2-hour walk taking you around the various sites associated with Wilfred Owen, and it follows the route he and his men took to the canal. Pick up the leaflet and map at the tourist office in Le Cateau-Cambrésis.

Wilfred Owen is buried in the Ors Communal Cemetery in the special section devoted to the British soldiers killed here. It’s maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The CWGC has now opened a new visitor centre which is well worth a visit. You go behind the scenes to see exactly how they look after the 1.7 million graves around the world.

Opposite the house, the Estaminet de l’Hermitage makes a great lunch or dinner spot.
Lieu dit le bois l’Evêque
59360 Ors
Tel: +33 (0)3 27 77 99 48

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The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Centre (CWGC) opened a new centre in Beaurains just south of Arras in Pas-de-Calais in the summer of 2019. It’s a major attraction where you can go ‘behind the scenes’.

You’ve probably seen a few of the cemeteries and memorials that the CWGC maintains, but have you ever wondered about the background? Why they are there, why arranged like that? How is it that those peaceful plots with their headstones placed in army-disciplined serried ranks stay so pristine?

You’re about to find out.

The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

The CWGC does astonishing work. It cares for war graves and memorials at 23,000 locations in more than 150 countries and territories. It commemorates and helps maintain the 1.7  million graves of British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who died during the two world wars of the 20th century.

It also looks after the graves of the 68,000 civilians killed during World War II.

The CWGC has a large horticultural staff to maintain the plants and grass that are an integral part of every British cemetery.

There’s an extensive archive split into the Commission Archive which holds photos, documents, plans and more about the CWGC and the Casualty Archive. The latter is the online database to use if you are searching for somebody killed in one of the two 20th-century world wars.  

It all began in 1918 with data such as the location of bodies and any details about the remains was collected. All this was recorded and when the bodies were then exhumed and reburied, the information went to the Army Burial Officer, then to the Department of Graves Registrations and Enquiries. All these records formed the basis of the information held today by the CWGC.

But the CWGC goes beyond that. It searches for the identities of those whose bodies or parts of bodies are still being unearthed by ploughs or diggers all along the Western Front – about 50 on average every year.

The CWGC covers the whole of the Commonwealth as Sir Frederic Kenyon wrote in his major report in 1917. ‘India and the Dominions have sent so many of their sons to lie in the graves which for generations to come will mark the line of our front in France and Flanders.’ (See more at the end of this article.)

It’s these kind of details that you discover on a visit to the new Centre as you’re drawn into their extraordinary work.

Tour the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Experience

A short video about the CWGC sets the scene. Then you walk out to the workshops, each one covering an aspect of just what the Commission covers.

The Stonemasons

Stonemasons cut and engrave the headstones from slabs of Portland stone. There are more than 25 different types produced, each one weighing 80 kilograms. The policy of conservation where possible means that in France and Belgium alone, around 15,000 headstone are re-engraved each year at the cemeteries. What must be legible on the headstone is the name and details. Around 3,000 new headstones are produced every year.

The Carpenters

In the carpentry workshop, making doors and benches, French oak is used, with traditional methods being followed where possible. So screws, nails and glue are used as a last resort.

The Signmakers

The sign makers, like the other experts here, must follow strict rules. Every sign has the same colour, font and size to make them uniform throughout the world.

The Gardeners

The gardeners’ workshop comes as a surprise, but horticulture is an integral part of every cemetery and a huge part of the CWGC’s work. 900 gardeners look after over half of the 1,750 acres of grounds throughout the world.

It’s another specialised department, sourcing maples from Canada for the Canadian soldiers buried in Dieppe.

Headstone borders have a mix of roses and herbaceous perennials with low-growing plants just in front of the headstones. The idea has always been to make the cemeteries look like a British graveyard, with borders and paths.

10 gardeners work here, and mechanics look after the equipment (particularly the lawn mowers). They work with the Swedish company Husqvarna, which helps repair the machines.

The Blacksmiths

The blacksmiths produce everything needed from hinges and locks to cemetery gates and those all important cemetery registers that you see in every single cemetery. Like all the other craftsmen, they use traditional methods as they forge and hammer out the metal destined for a CWGC site.

Recovery and Reburial

The last section is the most moving. This is where the research is done on every body that is found on the former battlefields. Glass cases show objects that have been found along with the body that give clues as to the identity. It finishes with a video showing the whole long process from discovery to the final reburial.

For details of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Experience, address, location, hours of opening, see at the end of this article.

The Intriguing History of the CWGC

World War I – ‘The war to end all wars’

The inspiration for what became the Commonwealth War Graves Commission began early in World War I. Fabian Ware, the commander of a mobile unit of the Red Cross, saw the aftermath of the battles and the bodies that lay buried in so many ways across the wastelands of the Western Front.

He decided that the graves of all those soldiers who died in a foreign land should be recorded. The aim then was to rebury the bodies in official war cemeteries scattered throughout France and Belgium. In 1915 his unit become the Graves Registration Commission of the British Army and in 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission with the Prince of Wales as President and Ware as Chairman.

It’s difficult to imagine the aftermath of all those battles of World War I. The bodies of dead soldiers had been buried randomly: in large army base cemeteries, in independent cemeteries of local towns or in open country, adjuncts to French communal cemeteries, adjuncts to French military cemeteries, in small isolated cemeteries and single burials, particularly after the battle of the Somme. How to deal with all this?

It was a complex and emotionally difficult project. In November 1918, the Director of the British Museum, Sir Frederic Kenyon, produced a major report after interviewing thousands of those involved.

“My endeavour has been to arrive at a result which will, so far as may be, satisfy the feelings of relatives and comrades of those who lie in these cemeteries; which will represent the soldierly spirit and discipline in which they fought and fell; which will typify the Army to which they belonged; which will give expression to those deeper emotions, of regimental comradeship, of service to their Army, their King, their Country and their God.”

After the Armistice in 1918, land was bought for memorials and cemeteries and the work of formally recording the details of all the dead began. By the end of 1918 around 587,000 graves had been identified. 559,000 casualties were recorded as having no known grave.

Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield were the three architects who began the work of designing the cemeteries and memorials while Rudyard Kipling become the literary advisor for the inscriptions. Gertrude Jekyll and Kew Gardens were involved with the proposed plantings.

Today the CWGC cemeteries that dot the landscape of north France and Belgium follow the same pattern, of a ‘battalion on parade’: ranks of perfectly placed headstones in military precision, each gravestone of the same dimensions just with the name of the dead, rank, regiment and date of death. Each regiment has its own regimental badge. The sense of equality is deliberate whatever the military rank or position in civilian life.

More World War I Sites in north France

Visit La Coupole for an overview of Hitler’s V2 rockets and the space race
The secret and brutal blockhouse of Eperlecques
The strange story of the V3 weapon, and Lt. Joseph Kennedy’s part in the bombing of Mimoyecques.

The excellent website worldwarIcemeteries.com is a photographic guide to over 4000 Military Cemeteries and Memorials of the Great War.

Cover photo is of Etaples Military Cemetery © Geerhard Joos used with permission by ww1cemeteries.com.

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Between June 1944 and March 1945, Hitler’s V1 and V2 rockets hit London. But there was a third weapon being developed, the V3, in the secret Mimoyecques fortress in Pas-de-Calais.

There isn’t a whole lot to see at Mimoyecques, but it is an odd, disturbing place and completes the story of the Vengeance weapons Hitler developed. And who do you know has seen it?

Visiting the secret Mimoyecques Fortress, the base of the London gun

The site is tucked away in the countryside near the north France coast and there’s little to tell you that this was one of the major sites for Hitler’s rockets aimed at the heart of London. There’s a small building at the entrance where you get your ticket and the story of the site, well worth a read.

You walk down into a huge tunnel that stretches ahead of you into the distant gloom. It’s dank, cold and dusty with flickering lights and panels on the walls telling more about the place. Tunnels lead off to right and left, some of which you can walk down.

At the end there’s a small exhibition about the Canadian 3^rd Infantry Division which finally took over the site on September 5, 1944.

The Canadians landed on Juno Beach in Normandy as part of D-Day Landing operation.

An unexpected hero

In August 1944 an Allied raid was sent from England to bomb the Fortress. There’s one more twist in the tale. Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., (1915-1944) was the eldest son of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (1888-1969) and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (1890-1995) and older brother to President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963). By 1943 Lieutenant Kennedy was flying with the British Naval Command in a B-24. He volunteered for the bombing campaign to Mimoyecques, code named Operation Aphrodite. He flew from Suffolk on August 12, 1944 but never reached France. The explosives in his plane detonated prematurely on the flight and he died age 29.

It’s an eerie place, made even stranger by the fact that this is a bat sanctuary which means that it has limited opening times.

History of the V3 Gun

From 1943 to 1944, Hitler used the north of France as the location for building the V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets, the German’s Vengeance weapons. The blockhouse at Eperlecques was followed by the vast firing site of La Coupole.
At the same time the Nazi Reich, failing on the Eastern front, was developing the V3 in the secret Mimoyecques fortress, which, had it been successful would have been the ‘most devastating attack of all’, according to Winston Churchill.

The V3 gun

The ‘multi-charge gun’ was an extraordinary concept. The idea was to increase the range by increasing the speed of the shell which would be fired from an extremely long barrel. This was to be achieved by constructing multiple secondary propellant charges along the length of the barrel. As the shell shot through the barrel, the secondary charges would fire immediately after the shell had passed them, giving great impetus and speed.

It was an ambitious plan, aiming to produce 50 such guns, firing 2.5 rounds an hour. This, the Germans calculated, would mean 3,000 rounds carrying 90 tonnes of explosive striking London within the 93 mile (150 kilometer) radius.

It may have sounded terrifying but in reality it was impossible to achieve, particularly in the very short time span the German Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, had allowed for the development and building.

Operation Todt was responsible for building the multi-charge gun firing site. Just 8 kilometers from the coast, so back from the danger of the Royal Navy bombardments, the secret Mimoyecques fortress was 165 kilometers from London. The first workers arrived in June 1943. It was a huge task, needing between 1,200 and 1,500 men building galleries below ground to house the gun shaft and the side galleries for the secondary firing.  By September 1943 the first tunnels were built.

The British War Office was aware of the activity in north France. Using information gathered by the French Resistance and RAF reconnaissance aircraft, they identified the area and began Operation Crossbow (the codename for the Allied offensive against all the German weapon-firing bunkers).

From December 1943, the site was targeted. They might have devastated the surrounding area but much of the work was underground and this remained safe.

On July 5, 1944, the British learnt of three planned firings from the Mimoyecques site, aimed right at the heart of London. On July 6, two squadrons attacked. 100 Halifax planes carpet bombed the area. In the afternoon 16 Lancasters of the elite 617 Squadron, led by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire, released 16 Tallboy bombs, designed by Barnes Wallis. It was decisive, destroying enough of the underground passages to stop the building. On July 16 1944, the labour force was evacuated. 

To complete the trio of Hitler’s weaponry, visit La Coupole, and the Blockhouse at Eperlecques.

Visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to see how this great organisation looks after the cemeteries of the great wars, and deals with newly found bodies.

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The story of the Eperlecques blockhouse in World War II is an extraordinary one. Planned in 1942, and begun in 1943, Eperlecques was designed as a liquid oxygen factory and an assembly and launch facility for Hitler’s V2 rockets aimed at London.

Visiting the site

The Eperlecques Blockhouse in north France north west of Saint Omer looks pretty ordinary: there’s a car park and in front of you a small wooden building where you get your tickets with a wooded hill rising behind it. There’s the sound of birdsong and the scent of the trees.

The first time I visited it was off season at the beginning of March, getting cold and with dusk closing in and I was completely alone. It was an eerie experience, walking along the paths and stopping at different points where a loudspeaker system tells you the story in your own language.

There are good signs everywhere explaining the different aspects and the various weapons. But I advise taking a guided tour which I did the second time and which explained so much about the bunker’s history.

The Story of Eperlecques Blockhouse

Built with slave labour under appalling conditions, the Eperlecques blockhouse went up fast and in relative secrecy but the deforestation of the forest and its proximity to La Coupole set alarm bells ringing in London. Reconnaissance flights followed and in August 1943 the RAF launched a huge bombing raid, destroying part of it.

In November 1943 the Germans started work again on the south part of the bunker which was to be used just to produce the liquid oxygen needed as fuel. The engineer devised a system of pouring concrete into shells then lifting the shells one by one, with the bunker protected from bombing.  

It was effective against the Allied bombing raids – 25 of them between 1943 and August 1944. Finally it took a Tallboy bomb smashing through the roof to create enormous damage and the Germans finally abandoned the site. The Canadian 3^rd Infantry division captured Eperlecques in September 1944.

Start the Visit

You start by stepping into a railway carriage, one of the kind used to transport slave labour from concentration camps to work here. The guide shuts the door and it’s horribly claustrophobic even with just a few people.

Through the forest

The path you take is littered with old weapons that look recently abandoned though in reality they are cannons, bombs, vehicles and old weapons collected by the owners.

The Blockhouse

I hadn’t expected the shock when I climbed the path and emerged at the top. The bunker looks like something straight out of a James Bond film. It’s an enormous, ugly and menacing concrete structure though it’s only a third of its intended size.
V2 rockets were to be assembled here, then fueled with liquid oxygen tanks.

You walk around it then enter the damp vast echoing building through a 2-metre thick door; at 17.5 metres high it was big enough for a railway carriage. It’s damp and deeply depressing even on a warm day. What it must have felt like for the labourers is unimaginable. 

Inside a film and a description of how the V2 rockets were moved shows you the mechanics.

Finally you come to a model of the Tallboy which destroyed the bunker. It hangs suspended over water endlessly reflect a hellish vision.

Outside the Bunker

Walk out of the blockhouse, with a huge sense of relief, and you’re faced with a replica of a V1 launch pad with a V1 at the end.

Between June 1944 and March 1945, 22,384 V1 flying bombs were launched mainly towards England, though there was also a campaign against Liege, Antwerp and Paris.

Practical Information

Part of World War II History

Eperlecques Blockhouse should be visited along with La Coupole (the most complete of the German ‘Vengeance’ weapons sites, and Mimoyecques, where the V3 was meant to be launched.

For an expert’s view of the site, its weapons and history, check out the MechTraveller Eperlecques Review.

For an expert’s view of La Coupole and its technical aspects, check out MechTraveller La Coupole Review.

Visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to see how this great organisation looks after the cemeteries of the great wars, and deals with newly found bodies.

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Why visit La Coupole

La Coupole tells the fascinating, and chilling, story of the development of Hitler’s V1 and V2 rockets. Then this impressive museum takes you on beyond World War II and into the space race.

Its Sinister Purpose

The huge dome of concrete built into the hillside hid a vast network of 7 kilometers of underground galleries. Developed in strict secrecy by Von Braun’s team at the Peenemünde centre, it was built in 1943-44 by prisoners in appalling conditions under the direction of the Todt Organisation, responsible for major works for the Nazi state.

La Coupole was intended as an assembly and launch pad for the V1 flying bomb and V2 rockets for attacks on Europe but particularly on London. In 1944 the Allies discovered its existence, launched a massive and successful bombing campaign and the place was abandoned.

First Impressions

You enter a massive, cold, echoing corridor where lights dim randomly and the sounds of war crackle in the background. You’re entering the dome, 72 metres in diameter and 5.5 metres thick, created from 55,000 tons of reinforced concrete. Really it’s better not to think too much about it.

Small exhibitions are housed in the vaults along the walls. One particularly chilling one deals with the Train to Loos, which departed on September 1st, 1944 from Loos, near Lille. It carried 871 resistance fighters aged between 16 and 71 years old to Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. By May 1945 only 275 of them were left alive.

Please note: The most harrowing parts of La Coupole are carpeted in red. So if you don’t want your children to see some upsetting images, videos and information, watch out for this visual warning.

Take the lift up to…

…The main exhibition space which is divided into two sections. The first is The North of France in German Hands (Cineac Circuit), dealing with the Occupation of north France from 1940 to 1944.
The second takes you through the development of the weapons and the building of La Coupole to the space race of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Invasion and Occupation

Start with films on the invasion in 1940 and the evacuation at Dunkirk, covering life during the occupation, the deportation and genocide of the Jews and of gypsies, resistance workers and other ‘undesirables’. It’s extremely powerful, pulling no punches over the details and the statistics, describing in detail the rounding up of Jews in Paris in July 1942, and transporting them to Auschwitz as well as the process of extermination.

Displays cover uniforms, a reconstructed shop, reconstruction of the Execution Wall at the Citadel in Lille, a Messerschmitt propeller, letters and objects that bring the world of resistance to life.

The displays expand on the themes, taking you through France from 1940, when the battle fought from the Ardennes to the Somme ended the French campaign, through the German Blitzkrieg, Dunkirk, the Resistance and the damaging effect on civilian life. These were indeed the ‘Dark Years’.

There are a lot of films, covering propaganda and collaboration which is a fraught and difficult subject, raising questions such as…“Well, what would you do if your children were threatened with death if you didn’t collaborate?”

Dominating the area is a huge V2 rocket, the only one on display in France. It’s terrifyingly large, painted yellow and black and  hangs like some giant, demented creature pointing down to the next area below.

A Memorial Wall records the names and displays the photographs of some of the North France victims  who died.

Total war (1939-1945) and Germany’s secret weapons

This the part that I found fascinating and one where I had not joined up the dots: the story of the V2 rocket technology that became the basis for the space race between Russia and the USA.

It starts with World War II with Nazi Germany developing its rockets at Peenemünde, on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea under Von Braun.

In France, German sonderbauten (special constructions) appeared along the English Channel from Cotentin in Normandy to Pas-de-Calais, built by prisoners from the concentration camps.

June 13 1944 saw the V1 flying bomb offensive against London start in earnest. I remember my parents talking about the ‘doodle bugs’, pilotless winged bombs that flew rapidly until they ran out of fuel. The silence as the engine stopped was the terrifying moment; within seconds it would land and that would usually be it. There were moments of relief; my parents remember neighbours rushing into the street where an unexploded bomb had landed, picking it up and taking it off to the park before calling the bomb squad to remove it.

In summer 1943 the RAF discovered and bombed Peenemünde, leading to the construction of La Coupole by deportees from Buchenwald.

There’s a lot of information about the technology used to make the weapons, but done so effectively that you learn without knowing it. Films and interactive exhibits take you through the processes; models show you what they looked like. It’s a seductive tale, leaving me marveling at the genius of making the bombs and horrified at the uses to which they were put.

By 1943 the Black Projects amounted to total war against the enemies of the Third Reich. From June 13th to September 1st, 1944 V1s were launched against London.

This section also tells the story of the American development through the Manhattan Project of the atomic bomb, the ‘Little Boy’ dropped with such devastating effect on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945.

The Conquest of Space 1945-1969

The conquest of space has some extraordinary films about the space race between Russia and the USA, starting with the acquisition of the German engineers and developers like Werner von Braun. Coming to mind immediately was the scene in the film The Right Stuff . “Their Germans are better than our Germans” remarked an American politician. 

The films and exhibits take you through the Space Race, again with the rockets, the technology and some fabulous images from NASA and from Star City in Moscow. They show Sputnik, the first space ship and personalities like Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut.

3D Planetarium

The 3D Plantetarium is right beside La Coupole and offers timed sessions. It’s worth doing this with a visit to La Coupole. Films include: Dream to Fly; Lucia, the secret of shooting stars; Space Next, a 3D animated session (in French only); Polaris; To Space and Back, and Dynamic Earth. Check the website to see which you want to see; they are aimed at different age groups.
There is a charge for each Planetarium show. Check here for details.

For an expert review of La Coupole with technical details on the rockets, read Mech Traveller’s review of La Coupole.

More about Hitler’s weapons in World War II

The secret and brutal blockhouse of Eperlecques
The strange story of the V3 weapon, and Lt. Joseph Kennedy’s part in the bombing of Mimoyecques

Visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to see how this great organisation looks after the cemeteries of the great wars, and deals with newly found bodies.

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