Most visitors to the bunker sites of northern France will know about the V2 rocket megastructures of Blockhaus d’Eperlecques and La Coupole – giant assembly buildings with launch pads for Hitler’s ‘vengeance weapons’.
But there were also dozens of smaller facilities constructed to launch the V2s from – known as mobile sites. Less conspicuous than their colossal counterparts, they would take the form of simple platforms where truck mounted V2s could be delivered and launched before being detected by Allied reconnaissance aircraft.
Seventy such sites were created in the winter of 1943-44, or were in the process of being built, and were located inland of the coast in the Pas de Calais and Normandy regions.
One such location – V2 mobile launch site No.235 – is located deep in the Clairmarais forest on the eastern outskirts of Saint-Omer in the Pas de Calais region. It stands just over 30km inland of the coast at Dunkirk and around 12km away from the massive V2 sites at Eperlecques and La Coupole.
Covering 1,200 hectares, this is a huge forest. At its offset centre is a roundabout where eight long, straight forest tracks meet and head off into the distance and it’s near this point you can find the remains of the V2 site.
Well hidden amongst mature trees and forest vegetation between the Chemin Forestier du Solday and Route Forestiere du Pintel are three, 15m by 15m concrete launch platforms.
Encroaching vegetation makes them tricky to spot but once your in the right area you can follow the outlines of the platforms which are still in good condition.
As with the much of the V2 program in France, this site never fulfilled its potential and before it was able to deliver V2s on London the area was liberated by Allied forces in early September 1944.
Mobile V2 units did operate in the Netherlands between September 1944 and March 1945 though, and it’s estimated that over 6,000 Londoners were killed by these weapons – a terrible number but far fewer than if the French sites had become operational.