Anchorage

Les Echos De BRUNEVAL

Shelter: E, SW, S, SE
Seabed: sand
Anchoring: Allowed

Beach anchorage under the chalk cliffs of the Pays de Caux in Normandie, 0,8 nm north of the Port du Havre-Antifer oil terminal.

Beach

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Approach from the west, keeping well clear of Port d'Antifer and its restricted zone for tankers, which extends several hundred metres offshore. No shelter in heavy weather, day use only. Check Préfecture maritime de la Manche notices before approach.

Practical

Sand bottom. Shelter from E, SW, S and SE winds. Fully exposed to N and NW winds and Channel swell. Port de Fécamp 10,2 nm NE is the nearest all-weather refuge.

Ashore

Plage de galets at the foot of the cliffs, reached from shore by a steep valley road. Commemorative monument on the clifftop above the beach.

History

On the night of 27 to 28 February 1942, British paratroopers of the 2nd Parachute Battalion under Major John Frost landed above the cliffs and seized components of a German Würzburg radar installation. The Bruneval Raid, one of the first successful Allied airborne operations of the Second World War, is marked by a stone memorial on the clifftop.