Todt Battery, Hameau de Haringzelle – Audinghen, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France
Located in the hamlet of Haringzelle, Audinghen, near Cape Gris Nez, in Pas de Calais, the Todt Battery was once one of the most important coastal fortifications of the Atlantic Wall. It was built by the Germans during World War II and consisted of four Krupp guns capable of reaching the British coast, each with a range of up 55.7 kilometers and protected by a bunker. One of those now houses a museum called Musée du Mur de l’Atlantique that’s entirely dedicated to World War II, where visitors learn more about military history through displays of various hardware.
The Battery officially fired its first shell in February 1942 and, after an intense aerial bombardment, was taken in September 1944 by Anglo-Canadians troops as part of Operation Undergo. Todt Battery was originally supposed to be called Siegfried Battery; that changed when the engineering mastermind responsible for building the Atlantic Wall, Fritz Todt, died in a plane crash just a few days before the battery’s inauguration.
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