Located around three kilometres inland of the port town of Fecamp, the village of Ganzeville holds a surprising amount of concrete.
Manned by Artillerie Regiment 3/17, this early war site featured 10.5cm guns with the remains of just one open emplacement in evidence today, although there could have been up to four guns originally positioned here, some in simple field excavations.
Walking around the small village you can see the remains of several additional buildings including a field construction Leitstand observation post and three understand shelters. One is now a storage building in a private garden, one of visible but overgrown and not accessible, and the third is accessible but usually flooded. Each underground shelter is a simple, single room construction.
A local tells us of much more concrete being here originally and that he used to play in the bunkers as a child but can’t remember seeing more concrete gun positions other than the single open emplacement which remains.
After the fortress ports of Le Havre and Dieppe, Fecamp was the third most fortified port in this area of Normandy. Fecamp was occupied between June 9, 1940, and September 2, 1944.