General information on Saint_Roch

Fortification CORF with artillery.

SFAM (Strengthened Sector of the Maritime Alps)

Multiple mission: stopping of the Sospel-Breil railway with one 75/29 and two 81mm of frontal action; flanking of Agaisen with two 81mm; protection of Sospel and its vicinity with five JM (3 pennies bell and 2 pennies concrete). All this armament is concentrated in only one of its four blocks: block 4.

On our plan, its coordinates are in geographical system WGS84

Caption plan. Entrée_: entry of the men and the ammunition. H_: men. Infanterie_: Infantry. Artillerie_: artillery. B_: arm under concrete. C_: arm under armoured bell. Observatoires_: armoured observatories.

Note: saint-Roch holds us all the more with heart that it is in the association ADASFAM, which maintains it, that we made our first associative weapons “Maginot”. Certain days, our three children made the guides. With our old military vehicles we organized sometimes “Maginot baptisms” (transport of visitors on the tops of Saint-Roch). We remade some paintings khaki, of which those of the crenel of the 75/29, while passing on a beam which spanned the ditch of B4. etc It is already far all that… R.CIMA

Entry

Mixed entry, i.e. for the men and the ammunition and materials. The materials enter by the drawbridge.

Pont- levis dropped

Pont- levis raised

A blocking system maintains the drawbridge closed

The men pass by the door armor-plated (with bars in 1940) after having spanned the ditch on a narrow footbridge.

Cook

The kitchen runs on fuel (cooker and boiler of central heating).

On the photograph, catch through the “service-hatch”, the cooker is on the left, under the hood, and the boiler is with make on the right.

Generating factory

Click: zoom of the photograph opposite

Three SMIM of 36kW, to pneumatic starting, and a small CLM which produces the emergency lighting and the compressed air of starting of the groups.

CLM, behind the pump (red) with gas oil.

Together circuit breakers.

Gallery

Gallery serving all quartering.

Water tanks

General reserves. Opposite: one of the 3 tanks, 19,000 liters each one, supplied with a source. The vertical tubes locate the level of filling of each tank.

Various valves of distribution of water.

Tanks “day laborers”. That at red point is the tank of decantation, that at yellow point sterilizes water by carbochloration.

Rooms

Opposite: room of troop

Room of troop with shelves to take the meals

Room for officers

Room of the commander: captain LINDENMANN in 1940

Medical

The wash-hand basins in the principal gallery and are fed only out of cool water.

Battery of latrines with central heating

Latrines with Turkish

Infirmary

Opposite: surgical unit (for “the small” interventions)

Row of the four rooms of the infirmary

Machine shop

One of the machines (turn) of the workshop of the Genius, for maintenance and the emergency minor repairs.

Rooms of neutralization

This fortification has two rooms of neutralizations which, thanks to their filters, neutralize poison gases: a room for blocks 1 and 2 and quartering; a room for blocks 3 and 4.

Opposite: room of neutralization for quartering.

Room of neutralization for blocks 3 and 4

Winnow of air flow outside drawn (Circuit of green color). Red color for the fresh air and yellow color for the foul air.

Telephony

Opposite: Telephone distributers.

Open distributers

“Pianos” of the telephone exchange from where the operators control the interior relations and the relationships to outside.

Intelligence services (SR)

The intelligence services of the infantry and artillery are distinct and have distinct phone lines. They cohabit, however, in this room.

Opposite: case SR extremely

Notice boards of SR

PC - NCV

In Saint-Roch, PC of work and PC of Infantry occupy the same room, contiguous to that of SR.

PC Artillery

In Saint-Roch there are four PC Artillery: the artillery PC of work (PCAO) which decides on the whole of the shootings, the PC of the casemate of the 75/29 and PC of the two casemates with mortars of 81mm.

Opposite: PC of the 81mm.

Transmitter of orders of the PC 81mm

Telephone operators with the PC 81mm

Transmitter of orders of the PC 75/29

Observatories

The intelligence services are connected to observatories external with the fortress and observatories of Saint-Roch.

Opposite: bell GFM of block 2, observatory on behalf of the infantry.

Bell VDP of block 3, artillery observatory

Tilted plan

The gallery principal, rectilinear, is prolonged by a tilted plan which goes down at the bottom of block 4, level of the reserves with ammunition

Opposite: gallery seen since the tilted plan.

Plan inclined with funicular. On this photograph, the cabin is in bottom, the counterweight is in top.

Machinery of the funicular

Cabin of the funicular. The rails, on the cabin, enable him to transport a tip truck.

Gallery of passage enters the tilted plan and Block 4.

Block 4 (outsides)

Click: zoom of the photograph opposite

Block 4 taken with the teleobjective since the road leading to Castillon.

JM of defense of the backs

Flanking towards Agaisen with JM and 2.81mm

Block 4 (interior)

Unfortunately, it should be admitted that this block of artillery is not maintained (fault arm?) and that it is far from being worthy of quartering. This is why we will present only some photographs.

Opposite: view from above on the cage of the hoists.

Mortar of 81mm.

One of three bells JM

JM (at the bottom). Grenade chute (in the center). Site of the optical transmitter directed towards Agaisen (in the foreground).

Crenel of the 75/29

Photographers

Gerald Goeltl

Jonathan NOWAK

Large a thank you with the photographers.

Video

Launching of the video: Hello with the flag of Saint-Roch

Little story of this video

In the years 1980, during our research in order to carry out our plate on Saint-Roch, Evelyne and me let us become acquainted with Mrs. L.Ricoux, wife of Roger Ricoux head doctor of Saint-Roch in 1939-1940. The latter makes a dedication be inserted in our future plate and gives us several small films made by his/her husband during the war.

This video is an extract of the one of films.

Some of these films are color, which is extremely rare for the time, especially for films of amateur. To protect them from the ravages of time carried we them to the service of the files cinema of the armies. After viewhaving viewed them, the answer of its “person in charge” of the time, which had certainly another thing to make this day there, was: “BOF” it must be colourized, that does not interest us! R_Cima