Word: vauban
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Modernized, the fortress is still a good example of the defense-in-depth theories of the famed military architect, Marquis Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban, who built...
...troops had been fighting inside Cherbourg for 26 hours. But on the city's perimeter were Maginot-type forts, begun by Vauban in the 17th Century, improved by Napoleon in 1808, perfected by Todt in the 1940s, which still blazed with bitter resistance. Spectacled Major General Manton S. Eddy, commander of the 9th Division, stood with one of his regimental commanders on a hillside near Octeville, on the southwest approaches to the port...
...Lower Level. Schlieben's small, holdout groups achieved a few hours more delay. Time & again U.S. troops cleared one level of a Vauban-Todt fort, only to have Germans emerge in their rear from a lower level. Schlieben's tunnel system at first yielded 300 Nazi moles; from the sub-basement finally came 500 more...
Roar followed roar from all parts of the harbor as ship after ship exploded. German troops raced for the Vauban Basin where the battleship Dunkerque had been tied up for repairs since the British attack on Oran in July 1940. Near by were the cruisers Algérie, Foch and Jean de Vienne; their docks were wrecked with them. Earth and air trembled as the beautiful ships destroyed themselves...