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Fecamp

Port town with huge bunker complexes and radar site

Fecamp area overview

What to see

The beautiful port town of Fecamp is a popular holiday spot and for concrete tourists there's a lot to see including over a dozen gun casemates spread across the hillside, a stack of casemates on the cliff edge, and a huge radar facility.
Fecamp was split into around a dozen different strongpoints with bunkers built to protect the town, on the edge of the hill to cover the port area, and on the cliffs at the top of Cap Fagnet where a mixture of defensive structures and radar bunkers still remain.

The largest remains site is strongpoint Fe08 Le Semaphore - located on the point of the headland where the modern semaphore station now stands.
Standing the tallest is a V143 radar bunker built for a Gustav Mammut radar - one of the biggest radar systems used during WW2. The radar was fixed to three giant plinths with cables running into the bunker below where the data would be captured and processed. This bunker never became operational as it was captured before the large radar array was fully installed.
Just a few yards away is a protective enclosure for a ‘sea searching’ FuMo2 Seetakt radar, and also a R636 observation bunker which features a position on top where a huge FuMo214 Wurzburg Riese radar dish was mounted.
In the grounds of the modern semaphore station you can just see a cable bunker which is a giant junction box for the wiring needed to power the site while in the area between the church and the semaphore there are two personnel shelter - only the roof of each is visible - plus a number of small niches, shelters, and a Tobruk.

Below the radar facility the hillside was fortified to protect the entrance to the port. Standing near to the lighthouse and jetty at the edge of the cliff on the eastern side of the port you can see a stack of gun casemates which were part of the Fe09 strongpoint.

Fe01 Ferme le Pastourelle - a well spread out strongpoint near the wind turbines on top of the cliffs - featured the largest number of defensive builds and included R680 and R677 gun casemates, a R634 six embrasure turret bunker, a bunker for a field gun, ammunition stores, and group shelters, although not all were finished being built by the time the Allies captured the site in summer 1944.

Not all of the bunkers are as obvious as the ones you can see stacked on the eastern cliffs near the semaphore and you'll have to do a big of exploring to get amongst the concrete hidden in the woodland area on the hillside opposite the port.

Gallery

Directions to bunker sites in this area...

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