East of the port city of Boulogne-sur-Mer at Saint-Martin you can find the 180m (600ft) high Mont Lambert, a site with an enviable panoramic view over the city and surrounding area.
Given the height and its current use as a location of TV and mobile phone masts you’d expect this site would have been a dedicated communications site by the occupying German forces but there is evidence of only one building used for marine radio and tracking.
Instead, Stp244 Franzosenkraut is a mixture of defensive machine gun bunkers, mortar positions, anti-tank gun garages, anti-aircraft gun emplacements, personnel buildings, command bunkers, and heavy artillery casemates. This was once a formidable fortress on the high ground.
The site is split into two distinct parts with the area on the top of the hill near the new communications masts the most extensive. Difficult to access due to the nature of the modern usage and the active farmland surrounding it, you can still see a number of WW2 constructions as you walk up the twisty path to the summit.
To the east are four artillery gun casemates – two R669 types flanked by larger R611 casemates – which are surrounded by a ring of R630 MG casemates.
This part of the site also boasts an ‘A’ spec, strengthened R644 six-embrasure turret bunker and a R658 water supply bunker, both standing in front of the gun casemates amongst an industrial-scale building material supplier. It is difficult to access these without permission and care.
A second six-embrasure turret bunker, this time a R634 type, stands to the east of the site on farmland and a R121 artillery observation post and garage and open emplacement for an 88mm PAK gun are also present but both on overgrown farmland.