The WW II German <i>Stützpunkt</i> on the Menez-Hom (Finistère-FR)

Abstract

The Menez-Hom hill placed between the Brest harbour and the Douarnenez bay, although only about 350 m height, dominates the surrounding territory.Therefore, during the WW II the German Wehrmacht decided to establish on its top a Stützpunkt (support point) for controlling and eventually impeding access to the Crozon peninsula to foreign troops. The available literature gives only fragmentary information about it but the mention of a Gerät (deviceradar?) belonging to the FuMB686 Wolga and the presence of rests of a Seetakt radar on the Menez-Hom hill at the end of the war make the location of the Stützpunkt Wolga at the top of the Menez-Hom hill highly probable. The visit of the Stützpunkt site took place on 27/08/2010 and allowed to identify many of its components and to determine its organization.

The German Radar Station <i>La</i> 318 <i>Frosch</i>

“…The ditch reminds the barrack emplacements (6)-( 10) observed at the Stp Menez-Hom (Tomezzoli, 2017b). It protected either a large barrack or barracks (Lippmann, 2018;Powelei, 2012) or electrical generators (GLAD, 2020).…”

The German <i>Stutzpunkt</i> Kerloich (Le Conquet-FR)

“…The ditch is not visible on post WWII French air reconnaissance images. Therefore, it is not possible to assume that it could have had the functions of either hosting and protecting one or more shacks for personnel lodgement as those at Cap Fréhel (Tomezzoli & Moser, 2021), Qu 500 and Qu 13 at the Pointe du Raz (Tomezzoli, 2021), on the Menez Hom (Tomezzoli, 2017a) and at Flescou (Tomezzoli, 2022) or be a pool as those at Murs Érigné (Tomezzoli, 2016) and at the Domaine de Pignerolle (Tomezzoli, 2019) for providing relax to the personnel in service and water in case of fire to the devices of the Stp. Mr Clochon is of the opinion that it was excavated after the WWII for providing water in case of fire at the buildings of the after WWII Radio Conquet components.…”

The Pillboxes of Lanzarote (Spain)

“…The bunker (27) lodged personnel in the 1 st and 2 nd rooms and one or two guns mounted on wheeled support in the 3 rd room to be conducted and placed outside through the ramp. The square pit (Tomezzoli, 2017) near the entrance was probably an open, drinking water cistern although the function of external observation post for the surveillance and protection of the bunker by one soldier cannot be ruled out. The absence of trace of a kitchen and latrines at the interior and a chimney at the exterior, indicate that the personnel lodged outside the bunker in disappeared barracks or tents and reached the bunker in case of alarms.…”

“…The geodetic stone (15), of recent construction (Tomezzoli, 2017), certainly was not an original component of the Lanzarote defences.…”