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The wind got up last night and is really violent this morning. Neither of us slept much as the van shudders and rocks on its suspension. The other vans are feeling it too and three of them move off around 07:00.
We wait for daylight, but by 08:15 we are also getting away from this exposed shoreline.
There is another aire and service point a mile away so we make our way through the town, past the star fortress and compact but imposing main square. With its cobbles, canal and old buildings it would make a nice visit but not in squalls and gale force winds.
Servicing done we have breakfast and set out towards Wizernes south of St Omer. Following signs for La Coupole we arrive in the carpark from where we can just see the concrete dome that gives this place its name, swelling like a blister out of the hillside. The concrete dome is 51 metres across and 5 metres thick and was built as a factory and launch facility for German V2 rockets.
We get tickets and our audio headsets in the visitor centre then enter the facility by way of an arched concrete tunnel about 5m wide and 8m tall. The scale and weight of these concrete constructions are impressive, and as we venture along what would have been the railway track there are spur tunnels and galleries and a generator room all hewn out of the limestone hill.
Large pictureboards captioned in four languages outline some of the significant developments of warfare, from WWI tanks, trenches and chlorine gas attacks, through WWII with the technological race of ever more powerful gunnery leading to the V1 and V2 rockets.
We venture deeper into the hillside where there are air raid sound effects and the sounds of excavation. Water drips freely further in, until we come to the modern lift shaft, which takes us up 3 levels to the museum in the top of the dome. A notice in the lift bears the message; this dome was built in wartime to create destruction, the museum is here because Europeans live in peace, please conduct your visit in silence.
A film show describes how Hitler recruited amateur rocketeers like Werner von Braun, who dreamed of putting men in space, to use their ingenuity to develop weapons of mass destrucion. Launch sites and factories such as La Coupole were built with slave labour who were pushed to death by exhaustion, starvation or transported to Belsen. Such brilliant innovation and technology, but built on such inhumanity is soul-numbing. Everyone leaves the cinema with a respectful silence and disperses to look at the exhibits.
Actual V1 and V2 rockets; rocket engines, reconaissance photos and large scale models of rockets are all on show. Another film describes how the Nazi scientists were divided among the allies in 1945 with Von Braun going to the Americans who overlooked his Nazi background in favour of his ability to lead the space race. Von Braun gained US citizenship and designed Saturn V which took men to the moon.
Another section focuses on the invasion, occupation, resistance and the internment and executions on mass scale. It is humbling and sickening, but to the museum's credit it reports history with no jingoism or judgement.
Following analysis of photos at Peenemunde and realising the magnitude of La Coupole as a threat to Britain, over 100 Lancasters dropped over 500 tons of bombs, culminating with 617 squadron dropping 'Tall Boy' bombs which blew the hillside to pieces exposing the concrete of the dome we stand and study on our way out.
We leave La Coupole in sombre and reflective mood, heading south through more wind and rain until we arrive at Argoules and find a Passion for the night. There is no one about but we park by the orange flower sign and settle in.
It's still a bit blowy, but nothing like last night's storm Katie which rendered 60,000 homes in Brittany without electricity.
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