Todt Battery, Military museum in Audinghen, France
The Todt Battery is a fortified installation with four gun bunkers on the French coast near Cape Gris-Nez, 60 meters above sea level. Each bunker originally housed a heavy naval gun with a caliber of 380 millimeters.
The German military built this position between 1940 and 1942 as part of the Atlantic Wall fortifications. The construction was directed by Organisation Todt, which employed thousands of forced laborers for the work during the war.
The battery was first to be named Siegfried, after the Siegfried Line; it was renamed in February 1942 in honour of Fritz Todt, head of Organisation Todt, who had died in a plane crash that month. In Turm 1 the Atlantikwall Museum displays the battery's history and military equipment, including a board on which the gun crews recorded their shots against England.
The museum occupies Turm 1, one of three bunkers that survived the war largely undamaged; a fourth was destroyed by explosive charges. Inside, a board on which the gun crew logged its shots against England is displayed. The 28-cm K5 (E) railway gun stands outdoors.
The battery's four casemates each measured 47 metres long, 29 wide and 20 high, with 8 metres below ground, and their walls and roofs were 3.5 metres thick, built to resist 380 mm shells and heavy aerial bombs. Three bunkers survived the war largely intact; one was destroyed by booby traps set off by two Frenchmen.
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