The Blockhaus d’Éperlecques is a Second World War bunker, now part of a museum, near Saint-Omer in the northern Pas-de-Calais département of France. It was originally intended to be a launching facility for the V-2 ballistic missile. The facility would have incorporated a liquid oxygen factory and a bomb-proof train station to allow missiles and supplies to be delivered from Germany. The bunker was never completed as a result of the repeated bombing by the British and United States air forces as part of Operation Crossbow against the German V-weapons programme. It has been protected by the French state as a monument historique since 1986 and is now a privately owned museum.
About Blockhaus d’Éperlecques in brief
The Blockhaus d’Éperlecques is a Second World War bunker, now part of a museum, near Saint-Omer in the northern Pas-de-Calais département of France. It was originally intended to be a launching facility for the V-2 ballistic missile. The facility would have incorporated a liquid oxygen factory and a bomb-proof train station to allow missiles and supplies to be delivered from production facilities in Germany. The bunker was never completed as a result of the repeated bombing by the British and United States air forces as part of Operation Crossbow against the German V-weapons programme. It has been protected by the French state as a monument historique since 1986 and is now a privately owned museum that presents the history of the site and the Nazi V- weapons programme. The A-4 ballistic missile was developed by the Germans between 1939 and 1944 and was regarded by Adolf Hitler as a Wunderwaffe that he believed to be capable of turning the tide of the war. As the missile was intended for use against London and southern England, its operational range of 320 kilometres meant that the launch sites had to be located fairly close to the English Channel or southern North Sea coasts, in northern France, Belgium or the western Netherlands. The German Army preferred an alternative approach which would use trailer-style mobile launch platforms called Meillerwagen-based mobile launchers accompanied by testing equipment mounted on railway cars or trucks.
The Army was not convinced that fixed bunkers could resist repeated air attacks and was concerned about the vulnerability of the road and rail links which were essential for resupplying them with missiles and fuel. Two different designs had been prepared: the B-2 design envisaged by Hitler and Albert Speer of Munitions, and the B2 III envisaged for the production of B-1 bombers and B-3 missiles. Today, the bunker is preserved as a private museum and is open to the public for guided tours and guided tours. It is only some 14. 4 kilometers north-northwest from the more developed La Coupole V-1 launch facility, in the same general area, in the same area of the Pas- de-Calyas départements of France, and only some. 4km north-east from the La Coupoles V-3 launch facility. It’s not clear if the bunker will ever be fully operational again, but it has been used as a museum since 1986 for a number of years. It was captured by Allied forces at the start of September 1944, though its true purpose was not discovered by the Allies until after the war, and it is now protected as a monument histique. Part of the bunker was subsequently completed for use as a liquid Oxygen factory. The bunker has been preserved as a privately-owned museum and has been protected by the French state since 1986. It has been preserved by the French government as a Monument historique.
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This page is based on the article Blockhaus d’Éperlecques published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
