The Luftwaffe at Norman time

Ammunition hold, served by a system of trenches, unearthed at the German anti-aircraft defense site of Bretteville-sur-Odon

Archeology gets closer to us and focuses on the Second World War with the original excavation of a fortified site of the Luftwaffe (the German air force). In 1941, the Germans had indeed chosen to settle in Bretteville-sur-Odon, south-west of Caen, in Normandy, within the perimeter of the defensive airfield of Carpiquet.

They set up a site there in charge of the anti-aircraft defense of the sector and the protection of the Carpiquet installations. Codenamed Stützpunkt Bretteville ("Bretteville strongpoint"), it was occupied by various units of the Flak, the German anti-aircraft defense.

Cannons and crockery

Records of the operation of such facilities are scarce, Hermann Goering, Minister of Aviation, having ordered the destruction of all Luftwaffe documents at the end of the conflict. The study of this rear area of ​​the Atlantic Wall, 15 km from the coast, is therefore particularly interesting.

It was as part of a preventive operation that archaeologists from Inrap (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) excavated the place. They distinguish an area to the south, where the guns were installed with shelters buried and masonry in limestone; to the north, they identified pits used as places of life or storage, in which they found important furniture:metal bedsteads, regulation crockery stamped with the characteristic eagle of the Luftwaffe, or even bottles used by the soldiers of the garrison.

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Manholes were also unearthed. They were used by Anglo-Canadian troops just after the fighting, as evidenced by the presence of helmets and ammunition or the remains of a plane shot down near the site, which we still do not know if it is an Allied aircraft. or German.

The German army, for its part, evacuated the site at the beginning of July 1944. Between 1945 and 1950, the pits served as a dumping ground for the rubble caused by the bombardment of the city of Caen:the furniture of the destroyed houses was been evacuated (dishes, vehicles, shop signs, etc.), disappearing underground when the plots were recultivated. It resurfaces today and recounts a dramatic episode in the city.