Sottevast V2 bunker

Last updated
Sottevast
Reservelager West
Sottevast, Normandy, France
V2 rocket launch site 1944 - US Army Signal Corps 7.jpg
Aeral view of the V2 rocket site at Sottevast in 1944
France location map-Regions and departements-2016.svg
Red pog.svg
Sottevast
Reservelager West
Coordinates 49°32′14.98″N1°34′54.7″W / 49.5374944°N 1.581861°W / 49.5374944; -1.581861 Coordinates: 49°32′14.98″N1°34′54.7″W / 49.5374944°N 1.581861°W / 49.5374944; -1.581861
Type Bunker
V-2 rocket storage facility
CodeReservelager West
Site information
OwnerPrivate property
Controlled by Nazi Germany
Open to
the public		No
Condition ruins
Site history
Built1943-1944
Built by Organization Todt
In usenever operational
Materials reinforced concrete
Battles/wars Operation Crossbow

Sottevast was a Second World War bunker complex for launching V2-weapons in Sottevast near Cherbourg, in Normandy, France. It was built, under the codename Reservelager West (Reserve Store West), by the forces of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1944 to serve as a launch base for V-2 rockets directed against southern England.

Contents

The bunker was never completed as a result of the bombings by the British and United States air forces as part of Operation Crossbow against the German V-weapons program and the Normandy landings in June 1944.

Background

[Interactive fullscreen map]
List of the main German V-weapons heavy sites built in France by the Organization Todt from 1943 to 1944.

The V-2 rocket (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, "Retribution Weapon 2") one of several innovative long-range weapons developed by the Germans after the failure of the Luftwaffe to strike a decisive blow against Britain. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a "vengeance weapon", assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities.

The German leadership hoped that a barrage of rockets unleashed against London would force Britain out of the war. Although Adolf Hitler was at first ambivalent, he eventually became an enthusiastic supporter of the V-2 program as Allied air forces carried out increasingly devastating attacks on German cities.

Nazi Germany decided to build four giant bombproof bunkers to assemble, service and launch V2 rockets in the North of France. Watten and Wizernes were set up in Pas-de-Calais, Sottevast and Brécourt on the Cherbourg peninsula in Normandy. [1]

At the end of May 1943, the British Chiefs of Staff ordered that aerial attacks be carried out against the so-called "heavy sites" being built for the V-weapons. [2] On 27 August 1943, the US Air force attacked Watten with devastating effect. It was no longer possible to use it as a V-2 launch site, but the Germans still needed liquid oxygen production facilities to supply V-2 sites elsewhere. The Germans' main focus of attention switched instead to Schotterwerk Nordwest , the former quarry at nearby Wizernes, where work had been ongoing to build a bombproof V-2 storage facility. This project was expanded to turn the quarry into a fixed launch facility. The Reservelager West in Sottevast and the Olkeller Cherbourg near Brécourt were designed to be launcher bunkers like Watten with the main building measuring about 30 by 200 metres (100 ft × 655 ft) [3]

Following Operation Crossbow bombing, initial plans for launching from the massive underground Watten and Wizernes bunkers or fixed pads such as near the Château du Molay [4] were dropped and forced Walter Dornberger to develop mobile launching systems.

Description

Layout of a V-2 rocket Aggregat4-Schnitt-engl.jpg
Layout of a V-2 rocket

Hitler decided the construction of the Sottevast site in July 1943 to target southeast England. [5] The bunker, built by the Organization Todt between 1943 and 1944, was intended to be a storage and servicing facility for launching V-2 ballistic missiles. [6] [7] It was conceived to accommodate a missile regiment and a store for 300 missiles. [8] [9] [10]

Generals Eisenhower and Bradley visiting Sottevast days after D-Day. Eisenhower visiting the V2 launch site at Sottevast 1944.jpg
Generals Eisenhower and Bradley visiting Sottevast days after D-Day.

The bunker was located on an isolated piece of land to the north of the road to Valognes and to the east of the road to Brix, close to the latter municipality. The site should have been serviced by a narrow gauge, considering that the main railway line was less than 200 metres (655 ft). [11] [10]

The L-shaped main building enclosed a large concrete pad, forming a 180 m long by 57 m wide rectangle with 4.50 m-thick walls. [12] Two other smaller bunkers were built on the site but no installations to produce liquid oxygen.

Sottevast was built using the technique known as "Verbunkerung". Organisation Todt engineer Werner Flos devised a plan under which the 5-m thick roof would be built first, flat upon the ground, and the soil underneath it would be excavated so that the construction works below would be protected against aerial attacks.

While Watten and Wizernes were designed to be capable of frequently launching V-2 rockets and, by their size, future developments like the A9/A10, [13] [14] Sottevast was not designed to be capable of launching V2 rockets frequently. The V2 rocket would have been transported by train to Sottevast, transferred to the narrow gauge train, serviced along the L-shaped building and launched from the same entrance. This configuration would have made it difficult to launch more than a dozen of rockets per week, with a payload per rocket equivalent to that of a classical bomber. According to Henshall, Sottevast and the other launch silos in the Cherbourg peninsula were not designed to launch V-2 rockets with conventional warheads but chemical warheads, with nerve gas like Tabun and Sarin, or radioactive warheads. [13] [15] [16]


The site was partially completed when it was captured by the 314th Infantry Regiment of the 79th Infantry Division during the Normandy campaign. Generals Eisenhower and Bradley visited Sottevast days after D-Day. The site was filled in by the US Army at the end of the war, under twenty metres of soil. [17]

Operation Crossbow

In May 1943 Allied surveillance observed the construction of the first of eleven large sites in northern France for secret German weapons, including six for the V-2 rocket. The construction works at the Sottevast site was first reported on 31 October 1943. [18] It was repeatedly bombed in April and May 1944.

Chronology
DateResult
29 February 1944

1 March 1944

One Mosquito to a "flying-bomb site" at "Sottevast" [19]
28 April 1944Mission 325: 14 of 116 B-17s bomb the Sottevast, France V-weapon site and targets of opportunity; [20] clouds prevent most B-17s from bombing; 2 B-17s are lost (1 has 6 KIA and 5 POW) [21] and 47 damaged; 3 airmen are WIA and 21 MIA. Escort is provided by 46 P-47s without loss. [22]
5 May 194433 B-24s bomb V-weapon installation at Sottevast. [23]
8 May 1944Mission 345: 384th Bombardment Group. [24] 52 B-17s bomb the V-weapon site at Sottevast. [25]

See also

Related Research Articles

Peenemünde Army Research Center Research center under Nazi Germany

The Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the German Army Weapons Office (Heereswaffenamt). Several German guided missiles and rockets of World War II were developed by the HVP, including the V-2 rocket. The works were attacked by the British in Operation Crossbow from August 1943, before falling to the Soviets in May 1945.

V-2 rocket Worlds first long-range ballistic missile

The V-2, with the technical name Aggregat 4 (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings against German cities. The V-2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.

V-1 flying bomb German World War II cruise missile

The V-1 flying bomb was an early cruise missile and the only production aircraft to use a pulsejet for power.

Walter Dornberger

Major-General Dr. Walter Robert Dornberger was a German Army artillery officer whose career spanned World War I and World War II. He was a leader of Nazi Germany's V-2 rocket programme and other projects at the Peenemünde Army Research Centre.

La Coupole WWII Nazi-built bunker complex in France

La Coupole, also known as the Coupole d'Helfaut-Wizernes and originally codenamed Bauvorhaben 21 or Schotterwerk Nordwest, is a Second World War bunker complex in the Pas-de-Calais department of northern France, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Saint-Omer, and some 14.4 kilometers south-southeast from the less developed Blockhaus d'Eperlecques V-2 launch installation in the same area. It was built by the forces of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1944 to serve as a launch base for V-2 rockets directed against London and southern England, and is the earliest known precursor to modern underground missile silos still in existence.

Tallboy (bomb) Type of earthquake bomb

Tallboy or Bomb, Medium Capacity, 12,000 lb was an earthquake bomb developed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis and used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War.

Operation Crossbow World War II Allied operations against German long-range weapons

Crossbow was the code name in World War II for Anglo-American operations against the German long range reprisal weapons (V-weapons) programme. The main V-weapons were the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket – these were launched against Britain from 1944 to 1945 and used against continental European targets as well.

V-weapons German WWII long range missiles

V-weapons, known in original German as Vergeltungswaffen, were a particular set of long-range artillery weapons designed for strategic bombing during World War II, particularly Strategic bombing and/or aerial bombing of cities. They comprised the V-1, a pulsejet-powered cruise missile; the V-2, a liquid-fueled ballistic missile ; and the V-3 cannon. All of these weapons were intended for use in a military campaign against Britain, though only the V-1 and V-2 were so used in a campaign conducted 1944–45. After the invasion of Europe by the Allies, these weapons were also employed against targets on the mainland of Europe, mainly France and Belgium. Strategic bombing with V-weapons killed approximately 18,000 people, mostly civilians. The cities of London, Antwerp and Liège were the main targets.

Mittelwerk German WWII underground rocket factory

Mittelwerk was a German World War II factory built underground in the Kohnstein to avoid Allied bombing. It used slave labor from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp to produce V-2 ballistic missiles, V-1 flying bombs, and other weapons.

<i>Blockhaus dÉperlecques</i> Second World War bunker complex in Pas-de-Calais, France

The Blockhaus d'Éperlecques is a Second World War bunker, now part of a museum, near Saint-Omer in the northern Pas-de-Calais département of France, and only some 14.4 kilometers north-northwest from the more developed La Coupole V-2 launch facility, in the same general area.

Operation Overlord Successful Allied invasion of Nazi-held western Europe in World War II

Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy Landings (D-Day). A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August.

Brécourt

Brécourt was a Nazi Germany bunker in Équeurdreville-Hainneville near Cherbourg, in Manche of Normandy, northern France.

V-1 flying bomb facilities

To carry out the planned V-1 "flying bomb" attacks on the United Kingdom, Germany built a number of military installations including launching sites and depots. Some of the installations were huge concrete fortifications.

Siracourt V-1 bunker

The Siracourt V-1 bunker is a Second World War bunker built in 1943–44 by the forces of Nazi Germany at Siracourt, a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France. Codenamed Wasserwerk St. Pol, it was intended for use as a bomb-proof storage facility and launch site for V-1 flying bombs. However it never went into operation due to intensive Allied bombing that made it the most heavily attacked of all the German V-weapon sites, and also of all military targets in Europe during World War II.

Missile launch facility Underground structure for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles

A missile launch facility, also known as an underground missile silo, launch facility (LF), or nuclear silo, is a vertical cylindrical structure constructed underground, for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Military intelligence on the V-1 and V-2 weapons developed by the Germans for attacks on the United Kingdom during the Second World War was important to countering them. Intelligence came from a number of sources and the Anglo-American intelligence agencies used it to assess the threat of the German V-weapons.

Réseau AGIR Military unit

The Réseau AGIR was a World War II espionage group founded by French wartime resister Michel Hollard that provided decisive human intelligence on V-1 flying bomb facilities in the North of France. Thanks to Hollard's reports and information from his agents of the Réseau AGIR, the V1 launch sites located across North-Eastern Normandy to the Strait of Dover, were systematically bombed during Operation Crossbow.

V-2 rocket facilities of World War II

V-2 rocket facilities were military installations associated with Nazi Germany's V-2 SRBM ballistic missile, including bunkers and small launch pads which were never operationally used.

Fortress of Mimoyecques Second World War underground military complex built by Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1944

The Fortress of Mimoyecques is the modern name for a Second World War underground military complex built by the forces of Nazi Germany between 1943 and 1944. It was intended to house a battery of V-3 cannons aimed at London, 165 kilometres (103 mi) away. Originally codenamed Wiese ("Meadow") or Bauvorhaben 711, it is located in the commune of Landrethun-le-Nord in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, near the hamlet of Mimoyecques about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Boulogne-sur-Mer. It was constructed by a mostly German workforce recruited from major engineering and mining concerns, augmented by prisoner-of-war slave labour.

V-2 missile launch site, Blizna War museum in Ropczyce-Sędziszów, Poland

The V-2 missile launch site, Blizna was the site of a World War II German V-2 missile firing range. Today there is a small museum located in the Park Historyczny Blizna in Blizna, Poland. After the RAF strategic bombing of the V-2 rocket launch site in Peenemünde, Germany, in August 1943, some of the test and launch facilities were relocated to Blizna in November 1943. The first of 139 V-2 launches was carried out from the Blizna launch site on 5 November 1943.

References

  1. ↑ Williams, Allan (2013). Operation Crossbow: The Untold Story of the Search for Hitler's Secret Weapons. Random House. p. 279. ISBN   978-1-4090-5173-2.
  2. ↑ Ordway, Frederick I. III; Sharpe, Mitchell R. (1979). The Rocket Team. Apogee Books Space Series 36. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. pp. 118, 121, 218. ISBN   1-894959-00-0.
  3. ↑ Zaloga, Steven J. (20 August 2012). German V-Weapon Sites 1943–45. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 22. ISBN   978-1-84908-071-2.
  4. ↑ Jones, R. V. (1978). Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945 . London: Hamish Hamilton. p.  433. ISBN   0-241-89746-7.
  5. ↑ Sellier, André (2003). A History of the Dora Camp: The Untold Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp That Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets. Ivan R. Dee. p. 24. ISBN   978-1-4617-3949-4.
  6. ↑ Huzel, Dieter K (1960). Peenemünde to Canaveral. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. OCLC   689552965.
  7. ↑ King, Benjamin (9 September 2009). Impact: The History of Germany's V-Weapons in World War II. p. 112. ISBN   978-0-7867-5167-9.
  8. ↑ McNab, Chris (2014). Hitler's Fortresses: German Fortifications and Defences 1939–45. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 362. ISBN   978-1-78200-952-8.
  9. ↑ Henshall, Philip (1985). Hitler's rocket sites. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN   978-0-312-38822-5.
  10. 1 2 "Sottevast V2 Facility". www.atlantikwall.org.uk. Hand Maid Tours. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  11. ↑ Henshall, Philip (1985). Hitler's rocket sites. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 79. ISBN   978-0-312-38822-5.
  12. ↑ Henshall, Philip (1985). Hitler's rocket sites. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 78. ISBN   978-0-312-38822-5.
  13. 1 2 Henshall, Philip (1985). Hitler's rocket sites. New York: St. Martin's Press. pp. 204–205. ISBN   978-0-312-38822-5.
  14. ↑ "A9/A10". www.astronautix.com. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  15. ↑ Gucciardi, Roger (2008). Les fusées V2 et l'arme atomique allemande (in French). Le Coudray-Macouard: Cheminements. ISBN   978-2844786371.
  16. ↑ Henshall, Philip (1995). Vengeance : Hitler's nuclear weapon: fact or fiction. Stroud: A. Sutton. ISBN   978-0-7509-0874-0.
  17. ↑ "Une usine allemande en Cotentin". lamanchelibre.fr (in French). 26 November 2008. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  18. ↑ Williams, Allan (2013). Operation Crossbow: The Untold Story of the Search for Hitler's Secret Weapons. Random House. p. 241. ISBN   978-1-4090-5173-2.
  19. ↑ "Campaign Diary Feb 1944". webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk. RAF History – Bomber Command 60th Anniversary. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-07-06. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
  20. ↑ Carter, Kit C. (1991). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology, 1941–1945. Washington, DC : Center for Air Force History. p. 368.
  21. ↑ "Capt. William G. Lakin". 2001-03-07. Archived from the original on 2001-03-07. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
  22. ↑ "8th Air Force 1944 Chronicles". Archived from the original on 2007-09-12. Retrieved 2007-05-25.1944: April, May, June, July, August, September
  23. ↑ Carter, Kit C. (1991). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology, 1941–1945. Washington, DC : Center for Air Force History. p. 374.
  24. ↑ 384th BG Mission Almanac Mission 103 Archived 2011-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ↑ Carter, Kit C. (1991). The Army Air Forces in World War II: Combat Chronology, 1941–1945. Washington, DC : Center for Air Force History. p. 376.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.