Verlaine Message Museum, Military history museum in Tourcoing, France
The Verlaine Message Museum is housed in a concrete World War II bunker with original German military equipment including generators, ventilation systems, telephone switchboards, and translation rooms. The bunker displays how military personnel organized communications and information processing.
The bunker was built in 1941 as a radio communications and message interception center and remained active until the war's end. The facility played a key role in intercepting radio signals and coded messages across the region.
The museum shows how radio communication and message systems worked during the German occupation of northern France. Visitors see the daily work of soldiers handling radio equipment and transmitting information.
The bunker is somewhat hidden beneath a regular building on Avenue de la Marne, so visitors should expect to spend time locating it. It is helpful to confirm the exact location before arriving at the site.
The bunker is noted for intercepting a BBC radio broadcast on June 5, 1944, that contained coded verses from Verlaine's poem Pain announcing the signal for the Normandy invasion. Few know that these messages coordinated thousands of resistance fighters across Europe.
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