FuMG 'Bulldogge', Ste-Cécile Radar
RADAR · Hardelot - Merlimont K.V.A. D1. · AOK 15 Nord Pas de Calais · France
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Luftwaffe station "Bulldogge".
11./Luft.Nachr.Rgt.52.
3 x Freya radar positions.
2 x R515 machine gun bunkers.
2 x V229 Würzburg radar sockets.
2 x R502 twin group bunkers.
4 x Vf2a small shelters.
7 x Flakstellung.
5 x Maschinenbunker.
8 x Feldm shelters.
4 x 3cm Flak 30.
3 x 2cm Flak 38.
2 x Fu.SE 65 Würzburg Riese radars.
1 x Fu.MG 401 LZ Freya radar.
1 x Freya Fahrstuhl radar.
1 x Fu.MG 450 Freya radar.
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
This is StP Ste-Cecile the green circle.
The red circle - FuMG Bulldogge.
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
5cm KwK R600 emplacement.
On the corner of Boulevard de Sainte-Cécile & de Lille. This gun would have had a 360° traverse and the whole area would have been open ground. The gun position was part of the greater StP Ste-Cécile and that covered Bulldogge's rear flank.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
There are two types of R600e, one is just the Ringstand as at here and also some have underneath a bunker with a crew room and an ammunition room.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
5cm R600e Ringstand
The Ringstand shows up well on this 1947 air photo.
1946/7 Geoportail
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Here is the R600e with its 5cm KwK 38, as you can see it covers the whole area at the rear of the StP.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
An RAF air photo of the area of Ste-Cécile. It shows the Bulldogge radar and another now in the built up area of the town.
AIR 40/1667
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Looking at the 1946 air photos, showing part of StP Ste-Cécile. This is about the area of FuMG Bulldogge. We could only visit a small part of Bulldogge on this visit.
Geoportail 1946
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Plan
This is about half of Bulldogge and the half we visited in early 2020. Several Vf2a shelters, an R501 twin group bunker, a Machinery/Kitchen bunker, an R515 machine gun bunker and three buildings. This area was known as Luftwaffe station "Bulldogge" and the 11./Luft.Nachr.Rgt.52 were here in 1944.
Geoportail 1947
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
The ground level has been bulldozed away since the war and on the right is possibly the main entrance into the camp. Its built on sand dunes.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Part of this R502 has been cut away.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R502 I don't think its cut in half, just the edge removed.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R502's had a third room for either storage or an officers room and it usually had a periscope to be able to look around the outside from inside the bunker.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
A Vf2a, the whole area was a camping site and there are all sorts of odd bits an pieces around. Very confusing.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
The entrance into the Vf2a.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf2a inside.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf2a.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Further along is an R515 machine gun bunker. This is the escape hatch and ladder outside. This would have had a bricked up square or half round concrete wall and sand/earth piled up to the roof.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
A slightly different style of Tobruk. This was added as the original design dose not have a Tobruk defence. Its an early design the type I have seen in Alderney.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Here is the R515 side on.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Kurt's plain of the R515 casemate.
MKB
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Its quite a long thin style of bunker.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Gun room where a steel plate would fill this room off and a machine gun could cover the entrance of Bulldogge.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Large bolts to hold the metal plate in place.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Two small Sprachrohr pipes, one connected to the rear entrance and the other to the Tobruk, keeping the commander in contact with his other men around the bunker. The centre tube is to aid the removal of smoke fumes from the gun room.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Gun room. Possibly three to four men in here and very cramped. One gun or bunker commander, one gunner & one loader. A fourth as ammunition carrier and also to drive the gas filtration system. There would be a fifth in the Tobruk at the rear.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Crew room where the crew of about four or five would have lived, ate and then fought. A very tight space.
26 January 2020 Kurt
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Escape, we saw the escape outside with the steel steps going up the wall, this is inside where a door would have fitted.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
The escape tunnel, first had a gas tight door. A 410P9 type. Then several shutters that closed off the space. behind that the tunnel would be filled with sand or gravel. You would have to open the door, remove the shutters and then drag out the gravel/sand. When all this is done, crawl out and climb the steel ladder and hope you escaped?? The reason for the gravel/sand was to make it very difficult for an enemy to access the bunker via the escape.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Brackets for the anti gas filter system. A handle would be turned and air would be sucked in from outside and filtered for gas/smoke/fumes and fresh air pumped into the inner space. The air would be over pressured so that gas could not seep into the bunker. Also valves could be manipulated to just allow the fumes from the gun room to be vented outside, pumped by the pump. There was also a periscope room in the middle of the bunker.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate.
Brackets for the anti gas filter system.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 crew room
Writing on the wall, the red circle is showing its a gas tight bunker. The doors often have a red circle if they too are gas tight.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 anti gas
Found in another bunker but relevant to here.
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
R515 casemate 50mm Rost vent.
Small vent to remove the smoke from inside the gun room.
26 January 2020 Kurt
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf2a
A small crew bunker behind the R515 can be seen behind the trees.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Damaged entrance to the Vf2a bunker. For V (Verstärkt) f. (feldmäßig). A small crew living shelter, or ammunition room, or office space, or HQ of small Wn. Many uses.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf Machinery Bunker/Kitchen
I have no idea what sort of generator was in here if it was a generator bunker. The chimney makes it look more like a kitchen bunker, so I am not at all sure. I have gone with both.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf Machinery Bunker/Kitchen
A brick roof with a cement render over the top.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf Machinery Bunker/Kitchen
The chimney now pushed over on its side.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
There are about two Vf2a's down the west side of Bulldogge.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Vf2a entrance.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
V229 Fu.SE 65 Würzburg Riese
Back up on the top.
A V229 socket for the Fu.SE 65 Würzburg Riese radar has a low wall around it and small entrance. This maybe original or it may have been built for the camp site BBQ?.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
V229 Fu.SE 65 Würzburg Riese
The V229 socket with access into the centre of the socket when the radar is in place.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
V229 Fu.SE 65 Würzburg Riese, looking inside the socket.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Plan.
We are now in the yellow area where the living accommodation I think would be. There are at least three buildings still here. Two almost L shaped buildings and one square.
Geoportail 1947
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Shelter
Very odd shaped building, why its that shape which is very distinctive from the air..
26 January 2020 Kurt
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile.
The R600b with its 5cm KwK 38, as you can see it covers the whole area at the rear of the batterie.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
This is the square/oblong shelter, with quite a strong concrete roof.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
This looks as though it was the main entrance drive.
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Ringstand
This is interesting, I am not sure of its age, but it dose look like a field guns Ringstand. It may have been used either in the defence of Bulldogge or StP Ste-Cécile..
26 January 2020
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Fu.SE 65 Würzburg Riese
This is a Würzburg Riese radar at Douvres in Normandy.
18 July 2019
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Freya Radar.
AIR 40/3024 Recognition Of German Ground Radar
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
A target reconnaissance photo showing where the target is. "Bowl Fire" was a code word for the type of radar. Then the RAF/USAAF would fly over with either bombers or fighter bombers to attack the site.
There is a story here: -
A friend who at the time was in the Royal Nay on Steam Gunboats. They were large fast MTB. His boat would be sent over at night to France and creep into the coast. The Captain (Later Sir Peter Scott) would ask the engine room "to make SPARKS". To make sparks meant a mass of red & yellow sparks showering out of the ships funnel. The sparks would light up the dark night and also be seen by German lookouts ashore.
Suddenly all the radars in the area would switch on and the guns along the beach start to fire. The Steam Gun boat by now, was at full speed going as fast as it could to get away from shell splashes all around it. My friend said it was an awful moment. He was a 17year old gunner on a twin Lewis gun.
Now whilst all this was going on, a Wellington of a special secret intelligence unit would be flying down the coast, packed with electronics to pick up the radar signals and the radio transmissions. They would plot all the radars seen, the positions of the radios and also take bearings of the gun flashes from the batteries inland. Now Allied Intelligence had targets that could be destroyed at a later date.
That date came around D-Day. Radars that the Allies wanted to see a dummy landing in the Pas-de-Calais, were left alone to dealt with later. The ones around Normandy were bombed and rocketed out of existence.
AIR 40/1663 Rhubarb Operations Appendix VI
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
Radars
A large conical lattice tower with a Freya set behind it. Also an oblong building sunk into the sand, may have been a command centre for the radars.
AIR 40/3024 Recognition Of German Ground Radar
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
RAF Targets
Details of the the constant RAF reconnaissance aircraft.
AIR 40/3024 Recognition Of German Ground Radar
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
On the 3rd/4th of June 1942, commandos carried out 'Operation Bristle' - a raid on a German radar site at St. Cecily Plage, Le Touquet. Troops from 6 Commando were defeated by the strong German defences and harried by enemy fighter aircraft causing damage to three of the raiding force's vessels. One Commando and two naval personnel were killed and another 19 injured. The arrival of Royal Air Force prevented further damage and losses. The convoy was escorted back to Hastings by an Anson airplane which captured cine film of the troops return, this film hosted by the Imperial War Museum gives an excellent view of the coastal defences around the harbour and Stade (beach).
Via Historical Hastings.
04 June 1942
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
04 June 1942
FuMG Bulldogge, Ste-Cécile
26 January 2020