Many bunker sites across the Atlantikwall featured Wellblech personnel shelters but this must be the site with the largest concentration still remaining in northern France.
Spread throughout a handful of streets in a modern housing estate in the centre of Le Portel, near the port area of Boulogne-sur-Mer, you can find 13 shelters, all with thick concrete roofs over a corrugated steel skeleton.
Around twenty were built here and these buildings are difficult to destroy, hence why so many still remain at this location.
They were used by troops from the Heeres Kusten Artillerie Abteilung 832 (Army Coastal Artillery Division number 832) which was established in January 1941 and were armed with captured French cannons of 15.5cm calibre.
The Division was split into three groups - 1/832, 2/832, and 3/832 – and it was the 2/832 who manned the site here at Le Portel with their six guns standing in open emplacements forward of the shelters on the high ground behind the vital port facility.
Incidentally, the other two groups were stationed further north with 1/832 at Stp161 Bumerang at Cap Gris Nez while 3/382 were located at Wn116 Barmen, a site behind the dunes at Wissant.
In May 1942 all three groups and their guns were transferred to Normandy where they became the HKAA 1260 and saw action at sites including Riva Bella in Ouistreham, the Mont Fleury batterie behind Gold Beach, and Stp75 between Omaha and Utah beaches – better known as Pointe du Hoc.