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Hunting gets priority in France

Thanks to my correspondent in the Calais area Olejniczak Hervé
The well known naval Batterie Oldenburg near Calais is going to loose some of its bunkers to a new hunting terrain! Anywhere else this sounds crazy but apparently hunting is still big in France.

Since the first week of december, bird hunting lakes and observation cabins are being built in front of the huge gun casemates of the battery. This is to compensate the closure of hunting areas on the Platier d’Oye more north. The personnel bunker 621, garage 629 and a naval personnel bunker of the battery will disappear under sand.

Speculations

Earlier this year, there were some speculations the battery was about to disappear in total because of Calais’ harbour expension in 2015, but fortunately these proved to be untrue. Now some things will change.

621 bunker for personnel of Bt Oldenburg (Photo: Henk Adriaanse)

621 bunker for personnel of Bt Oldenburg (Photo: Henk Adriaanse)

629 garage for gun of Bt Oldenburg (Photo: Arthur van Beveren)

629 garage for gun of Bt Oldenburg (Photo: Arthur van Beveren)

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Bunker partly destroyed in St Nazaire

Last november, a bunker for machine gun (type 634) was demolished in the French city and former Festung St Nazaire. After the war the Sechsschartenturm was scrapped but the bunker of Stützpunkt Nz 313 was left in place. Due to new housing developments the bunker had to be broken down. The works took 2 weeks and a small part of the bunker was spared.

Instructions inside

Instructions on ammunition usage inside the bunker. (Photo: kreuz44)

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A famous 4.7cm Festungspak 36 (t) gone..

Through the French Atlantikwall Forum I read the sad news that the very special 4.7cm Festungspak 36 (t) in a 612 at Kerbascuirl near Plouhinec (south of Bretagne) has disappeared.
Although it was a miracle the gun was still there after so many years it’s still very disappointing. At the moment there’s no info on who removed the gun.

The gun from Czech origin was brought from Czech fortifications in large quantities after the German annexation of Sudetenland in 1938. The ‘4cm kanon Škoda vz.36’ was renamed to the german 4.7cm Festungspak 36 (t) and special Regelbauten were built for it (139, 506). In the Atlantikwall the gun was widely used and new Regelbauten (642, 631/631B) replaced the older ones, although the old Regelbauten were still built too. Besides the St bunkers, a large amount of Vf bunkers were built for the gun. These structures differed in shape and layout from region to region.
The example in Kerbascuirl was unique in that the gun was placed in a 612 casemate which is a regular bunker for a field gun. The Festungspak was strangely mounted and still had its protective shield and ‘Kugelkopf’.

Addition 24 May 2021

Twelve years later, by a funny coincedence, I found out through the Wikipedia page about the weapon, that this example is now located in the Czech fort MO S-5 „Na trati” near Bohumin in the Czech Republic. So it’s back to its ‘original owner’, although I don’t know if this specific cannon was among the first batch in 1937 which was actually built in.

Festungspak, Plouhinec.

The gun on its mount in 2005 (Photo: Arthur van Beveren)

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