Wasserwerk Desvres was one of five massive WW2 German V1 flying bomb heavy storage facility and launch sites planned for construction in northern France. There was to be two in the Pas de Calais area – Siracourt and Lottinghen – and three in Normandy around Cherbourg at Brecourt, Couville, and Tamerville.
They would each consist of one large storage and workshop bunker over 200m long and around 40m wide with supporting buildings including generator bunkers, water supply reservoirs, and launch ramps – with two launch ramps planned for each.
To hide their true identity and function, the sites were codenamed ‘Wasserwerk’, or waterworks.
In early 1943, construction began on two sites in the Pas de Calais region – Wasserwerk St Pol, at Siracourt, and Wasserwerk Desvres, near Lottinghen, which is inland of Boulogne-sur-Mer.
The plan was for them to be operational before the end of December 1943.
More sites were planned for Normandy with two under construction – Wasserwerk Cherbourg at Couville to the south west of the city, and Wasserwerk Valognes near to Tamerville, north east of the town of Valognes.
Four of the sites were still under construction when they became targets for Allied air raids, with the Siracourt site the one closest to becoming operational with only excavation beneath the finished roof due to be completed.
Wasserwerk Cherbourg at Couville didn’t make it past the early stages of excavation and construction of the site due to raids between November 1943 and January 1944 while work was stopped at the Tamerville site near Valognes around the same time to divert resources towards defensive Atlantikwall sites nearer to the coast.
Siracourt was one of the most bombed V1 buildings of the war with 27 Allied air raids taking place, the last one in late June 1944 which saw Tallboy bombs dropped. One of these massive bombs – dropped by and RAF Lancaster - penetrated the roof of the building leaving the site inoperable.
The main building at Wasserwerk Desvres was due to be even larger than Siracourt at 228m long by 45m wide and featuring walls of five metres thickness. It was bombed for the first time in late February 1944 and eight more raids on the site followed before the project was abandoned.

Wasserwerk Desvres
Today, the Wasserwerk Desvres site is difficult to find as it has been reclaimed by woodland and is heavily overgrown. Even when you are only a few metres away from the huge concrete building it is still difficult to spot!
This site was also planned to feature a generator bunker which would have provided power to the larger building. Again, there are remains of this building just a few metres away from the main construction, but it is overgrown and looks to have been unfinished.
Supporting the site were officer buildings, a water reservoir, a road system, and off-shoot railway line connecting to the main line towards Lottinghen. Evidence of these is difficult to spot today, with the exception being the road and track bed of the linking railway line which today form the road system to the north of the main building.
Modified Wasserwerk sites were also planned within the constructions, one of which is the Wasserwerk 2 site, an underground facility at Brecourt, to the west of the port of Cherbourg. This site was due to be a replacement for the now abandoned project at Couville.
It was the French Navy who originally constructed the underground facility at Brecourt, excavating eight large storage areas and tunnels for fuel oil in the 1930s. When the German Army captured the site in 1940 it continued to be a fuel store until being earmarked for further development and the storage of around 300 V2 rockets with a launch platform nearby.
Initial plans were for the site to be fully operational by mid-1944 but a series of Allied bombing raids on V1 sites from November 1943 saw plans change and in early 1944 construction began on creating a launch ramp for V1 flying bombs instead.
Linked to the tunnels, this building had some similarities to the protected ramp style used in many early V1 launch sites in Normandy and beyond with two large blast walls protecting the ramp.
Wasserwerk Desvres, near Lottinghen, is a difficult location to visit, heavily overgrown and peppered with bomb craters. The site saw over 600tons of bombs dropped on the site between February 22 and April 30, 1944, and you can still see the evidence of the hundreds of craters all around the building area today.
Such is the level of vegetation, even the 200m long concrete building is completely invisible from the surrounding roads and tracks and partially covered by this moss it’s not until you are deep into the woods that the monster construction site becomes evident.
As with many of the V1 launch sites, the bombing was carried out before the site was complete and the impact of these raids were enough for German forces to cease further work at Lottinghen. When Allied forces liberated the area in late 1944 they found an incomplete, abandoned building project.
There is one main entrance in evidence at the north east part of the building, but along the southern flank there are several impact craters which have undermined the walls and allow you a glimpse inside where you can see where excavation work has taken place beneath the 5m thick steel reinforced concrete roof.
The Lottinghen bunker was built in a style known as ‘Verbunkerung’ where the roof would be constructed first and then excavation would take place below, under the protection of the roof.
Around the main bunker there are also other areas of construction, including a long concrete-lined trench leading the main entrance, plus an air-raid shelter, and concrete steps to a large platform area which is likely to have been a site for wooden barracks.
On the outskirts of the woods, you can still see the remains of a railway network which would have moved men and materials around the site.
The Wasserwerks Desvres site is on private land and hazardous, permission must be sought before visiting.