Wn223 Marais de Bas Querqueville

This picture is Le Fort Vauville in 1944/45 showing what this small French fort would have looked like.
The Vauville fort was built around 1760, during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), when Vauban undertook to defend the English Channel coast against a possible invasion by English troops. After studies, a certain Ricard was entrusted with the creation of a coastal defense network, from Mont Saint-Michel to Cherbourg (west coast) and from Cherbourg to Carentan (east coast). The defensive system comprised two types of structures: small forts scattered along the coast, which could communicate with each other by relayed optical signals; and larger, less numerous forts. These fortified forts housed the command centre, reserves and reinforcements, and also included a chapel. The forts located directly on the beaches most often consisted of a standard plan: a house or shelter measuring 10 meters by 6 meters, with rubble walls built with lime mortar, 1.20 meters thick. This house was divided into three compartments or rooms: the storeroom for powder and provisions, the captain's room, and the men's room, a room equipped with a fireplace. Surrounded by a perimeter wall with a sentry walk leading to a firing platform where a light cannon was positioned, the house sheltered approximately six men. Virtually no forts remain in good condition. Most were abandoned and then sold off by the state. In most cases, they were used as stone quarries. The Fort of Vauville, listed in the supplementary inventory of Historical Monuments, has the advantage of having been preserved and restored. It is one of the last remaining links in the Cotentin defense chain from the 18th century.

Plan of the defences in 1944 and what is there today. An anti-tank ditch was built around the rear of the defence, barbed wire, mines and out at sea Tetrahedra the X shaped anti vehicle defences, some just on land and many in the sea.
There is a tank wall covering the back of the SK/Searchlight bunker and the Tobruk in the top corner has an interesting entrance.

1 x R501 group shelter.
1 x R134 ammunition bunker.
2 x R667 casemates for 5cm KwK.
1 x SK/Scheinwerfer (Searchlight) bunker.
3 x Vf58c Tobruks, although there may have been four or five?
1 x Ringstand Pz.TFT17.
1 x MG stand or more?

The back wall has been knocked down.

SK/Scheinwerfer (Searchlight bunker). John entering the SK/ Scheinwerfer crew quarters.
JF in attandance.

Wn65 St-Laurent-sur-Mer le Ruquet ouest, showing what it would have looked like.

This is an Allied report on Tobruks.