Caveman
Well-known member
I visited this place when on tour with the Fortress Study Group many years ago. It was quite a spooky place considering just how smashed up the place was. Originally designed for the assembly of V2s from parts delivered by train, then being fired from a portal set in the side of the building. But the all seeing eyes of the RAF's PRU aircraft meant that it had a few visits from the RAF heavies as well as the USAAF. When it became of no use for firing V2s the newer site at Wizernes, now called 'La Coupole' http://www.lacoupole-france.com/en/default.as the site at Watten was converted to make liquid oxygen for the fuel for the V2.
This is the memorial to the forced labour that lost their lives in the building of this massive bunker complex.
The front of the bunker is quite beaten up by the bombing by the RAF and USAAF. The big pond was a crater from a Grand Slam bomb dropped by 617 Squadron and the damage to the top of the bunker is evidence of a much smaller armour piercing bomb dropped by the USAAF.
The rear of the complex showing where the railway line would have delivered the parts to be assembled into complete V2 rockets inside of the bunker.
These are the various concrete structures that were successfully bombed and never cleared by the Germans.
What a V2 would have been like if assembled as the Germans had hoped before the bombing put paid to that idea.
A newer concrete slab was built so that liquid oxygen could be manufactured on another layer. The original internal height of the building can almost be gauged with this phto, but the light available was insufficient to light up this space.
One of the flooded entances/exits, of which there were several.
I have found quite a few newer photos of this site after doing a search on the internet, which will go some way to showing how this bunker has been opened up as a tourist site. When we visited there were no restrictions on our movements, but I would think that with health and safety in mind, that it will not be the same on my next visit.
More reading here... http://www.afterthebattle.com/osCommerce/product_info.php?products_id=122
Please pause for a thought about the forced labour groups who died in the building of this complex. It was a sobering sight when we first arrived.
This is the memorial to the forced labour that lost their lives in the building of this massive bunker complex.
The front of the bunker is quite beaten up by the bombing by the RAF and USAAF. The big pond was a crater from a Grand Slam bomb dropped by 617 Squadron and the damage to the top of the bunker is evidence of a much smaller armour piercing bomb dropped by the USAAF.
The rear of the complex showing where the railway line would have delivered the parts to be assembled into complete V2 rockets inside of the bunker.
These are the various concrete structures that were successfully bombed and never cleared by the Germans.
What a V2 would have been like if assembled as the Germans had hoped before the bombing put paid to that idea.
A newer concrete slab was built so that liquid oxygen could be manufactured on another layer. The original internal height of the building can almost be gauged with this phto, but the light available was insufficient to light up this space.
One of the flooded entances/exits, of which there were several.
I have found quite a few newer photos of this site after doing a search on the internet, which will go some way to showing how this bunker has been opened up as a tourist site. When we visited there were no restrictions on our movements, but I would think that with health and safety in mind, that it will not be the same on my next visit.
More reading here... http://www.afterthebattle.com/osCommerce/product_info.php?products_id=122
Please pause for a thought about the forced labour groups who died in the building of this complex. It was a sobering sight when we first arrived.
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