Back & Forth Tour 2019 - Day Seven, The Batterie Todt and The V3 Fortress of Mimoyecques

We handed our Gite back pretty early on Saturday morning which allowed us to visit something else on our way back to the ferry port at Calais.

Top of our list was the Batterie Todt at Audinghen - Cap Gris Nez  with a secondary target of the V3 Fortress of Mimoyecques should time allow.

The Batterie Todt museum is within one of four massive concrete bunkers that were captured in September 1944 by the Canadians. Only the one bunker is open to the public, but it is a very well stocked museum which kept our attention for over two hours.

Whilst the French Army took over these sites for a number of years post war, they are now stripped of their original armaments....a good job as they could hurl shells as far as Dover and did so on a daily basis.

The pictures below will give you a feel for the site;-

88mm Flak Gun

Beach defences - tetrahedrons

More beach defences - Belgian Gate

Tobruk position, with a particularly large aperture. Maybe built to accomodate an FT17 turret or similar?

The K5 280mm Leopold Railway Gun....very impressive! One of only two in existence.

Post-war Czech OT-810 standing in for an SDKFZ 251

Pak40 75mm Anti-Tank gun

Nice example of a Summer Oak Leaf pattern smock

MG42 in the medium MG role

Kettenkrad half-track motorcycle

A Pak 97/38 - a captured French barrel (75mm) on a Pak 38 (50mm) carriage. Quite an unusual anti-tank gun.

Kettenkrad trailer

Once we'd had a spot of lunch we headed for the ferry port. There wasn't time to do a proper tour of the V3 Fortress of Mimoyecques so we will have to do that another time. We did stop for a quick look though....

Part of the immense steel, armoured doors protecting the gun apertures

The western entrance tunnel to the site. The guns were never installed here as the RAF destroyed the site between 1943-44. The concept was proven later in the war and a smaller version was used to bombard Luxembourg during the battle of the Bulge.

Inside the Western entrance tunnel

That's it for another year. Hope you enjoyed the pictures....