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Wn158 Caen

Underground Kommandostand bunker in city of Caen

Wn158 Caen site overview

What to see

In 1943, General Wilhelm Richter, commander of the 716th German Infantry Division responsible for defending the coast of Calvados, had an underground command post built on the north west outskirts of the city of Caen.
Located 15 km from the D-Day Landing beaches, the HQ comprised a 70m long tunnel which was dug out of the face of an old limestone quarry and reinforced with concrete. It featured three staggered-access entrance corridors and inside the tunnel was split into 12 sections for offices, personnel rooms, communications, generators, a water tank, kitchen, and a small hospital.
Each of the three entrance corridors were protected by machine gun embrasures and on several minefields were laid on the plateau behind the tunnel entrances.
Today you can access the underground system from two of the original entrances and walk through the tunnel. It’s part of the incredible Memorial de Caen Museum and inside there are dozens of displays of fascinating objects and stories from the occupation period.
Formed in May 1941, the 716th Infantry Division was sent a few months later to the Cotentin, in the Coutances sector. It then headed to Belgium before returning to Normandy in March 1942 to take charge of defending the coastline from the mouth of the River Orne to the River Vire. It replaced the 323rd ID which left for the Eastern front.
General Otto Matterstock commanded the division until April 1942 when he was re-placed by General Wilhelm Richter.
The 716th ID was a static unit tasked with defending the coasts. Primarily horse-drawn, it was limited in terms of mobility. The division was made up of two infantry regiments each with three battalions and one artillery battalion.
The staff set up camp in the Villa Baumier, on avenue de Bagatelle in Caen. In December 1943, it had just 9,343 men, just over half of the regulatory size of an infantry division of 17,000 men.
In March 1944, reinforcements arrived in the form of the 352nd ID which reduced the coastal sector defended by the 716th, but they remained woefully understrength to repel a large assault force.
On D-Day British and Canadian troops captured the positions held by the 716th on Juno and Sword landing beaches and moved inland between Bayeux and Caen. The 716th division lost 3,000 men in a single day.
Richter moved into the bunker in the early hours of 6 June 1944. It was there that the decision was taken to launch a counterattack in order to repel the British and Canadian forces advancing on Caen. It was an attack which never made it past the planning stage due to their understrength numbers. The Germans abandoned the bunker later the same month.
However, Caen, which should have fallen into Allied hands that evening, would not be completely liberated until July 19, 1944.
After the war, the bunker was left neglected for several decades until the Caen fire brigade acquired it for training exercises. In 1991, the underground areas were converted into an initial exhibition area and the remains of the German installations were then dismantled.

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