The Citadel of Doullens, north of Amiens in the Somme department of northern France, is a fascinating site with a lot of history.
The huge fort site – which occupies over 50 hectares - was originally built in the late 1500s to stand as a defensive structure on the border between France and the Spanish Netherlands. Over the next few centuries, it served as a fort, a prison for political offenders, a reform school for girls, a hospital and a telephone relay station for V1 flying bomb sites.
During the First World War the site was used by both the French and Canadian armies as a hospital to treat the wounded.
Following France’s occupation by Germany in 1940, the site once again became a prison camp, this time for political prisoners of the Third Reich.
Later in the war it was chosen as a location for a command centre for Hitler’s V1 rocket sites - of which there are many in the surrounding area – however, this command HQ never came to fruition.
There was still an incredibly large bunker built here though and at the heart of the site, inside the fortified walls of the Citadel, you can find a huge, 50m by 40m comms bunker boasting nearly 40 rooms for officers, soldiers, and communications specialists.
The area’s operational unit, Flak Regiment 155(W), called the site ‘Dohle’, which translates to ‘jackdaw’ in English.
The bunker is visitable as part of a guided tour around the Citadel.