MIMOYECQUES
LANDRETHUN LE NORD, PAS DE CALAIS FRANCE.
the fortress at mimoyecques was one of Hitler's vengeance weapons. unlike the V1 and 2. the V3 at mimoyecques was a fixed weapon, a super gun aimed at London. (it was situated 5 miles from the coast and 90 miles from London) so therefore it was called the London gun. this v3 site is a huge complex and only the top quarter is available to visit the rest was blocked of by the royal engineers with 4 tons explosives.
the way the site was built was ingenious. firstly a train tunnel was built through a hill. in the hill a platform was built on either side of the track to unload materials. and so the complex could be built away from prying eyes. the site was so secret even the white chalk taken from the excavation was painted green.
there are two parallel tunnels in this complex and one is 1 km long. the other is slightly shorter and much is now blocked by debris. which looks to be in the process of being excavated.
the fortress was built to house 25 guns, each one 420 ft long.
as the shell went up the barrel then the charges on either side at 12 foot intervals, would be set of giving the shell more momentum. the shell left the barrel at 5000 ft per second.
from November 1943 to august 1944, several thousand tons of bombs were dropped on the site including the new tallboy earthquake bombs. there is a model of this bomb inside and also some excavated examples of unexploded bombs from the site.]
there is also a memorial inside to the multi national builders of the site who were killed in the bombing and also to the RAF and USAAF who were killed. including Joseph Kennedy, brother of future president J F Kennedy.
this site is huge and there are war relics laid in the tunnels from recent excavations. it is a little on the cold side even in the summer, and take a torch if you want to look into some of the longer galleries as the lighting isn't very good.