Overlooking the beach in front of the small but beautiful fishing town of Yport to the west of Fecamp you can find several reminders of the German occupation of Normandy.
The pebble beach sits in a valley flanked by high limestone cliffs and overlooking the modern blue and white beach huts and cafes are two bunker sites – the large HKB Yport West batterie and Stp Yport Ost to the east.
The Yport West batterie was due to feature four R679 type casemates but only two were finished by the time the area was captured by advancing Allied forces in September 1944.
The two guns, both 15.5cm and of First World War French origin, were mounted on pivots inside the casemates and also had steel shields around them leaving little space for bombs or naval gunfire to make its way into the buildings.
In the fields surrounding the casemates you can just about make out the overgrown tops of a small shelter and Tobruk while the remains a fire control post stands on the edge of the cliff face overlooking the town and beach area below.
Stp Yport Ost – on the eastern cliff area – was a much smaller site and today only a machine gun post can be seen above the small jetty, although it looks to be a position which could fall in the next few years as the sea cuts away the soft cliff beneath it.
The MG post features multiple embrasures to fire east along the beach below the cliffs and onto the beach to the west. Behind it is another concrete structure which looks to be a small shelter and tunnel linking to the MG post, although this building has now been largely covered by vegetation and stands in a private garden so can’t be accessed.
Inland there are the remains of two Wellblech personnel shelters, one edging ever closer to the edge of the crumbling cliffs and will eventually fall to the beach below.