Brécourt was a Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 bunker

Bunker

A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks...

 started inside an underground French Naval oil storage facility. On July 7, 1943, the site was ordered to be completed as a V-2 rocket

V-2 rocket

The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...

 launch facility. Early in 1944, the facility was converted to a V-1 flying bomb

V-1 flying bomb

The V-1 flying bomb, also known as the Buzz Bomb or Doodlebug, was an early pulse-jet-powered predecessor of the cruise missile....

 launch facility and subsequently completed.

The military installation was virtually undetectable by aerial observation, although the 387th Bombardment Group records indicate Operation Crossbow

Operation Crossbow

Crossbow was the code name of the World War II campaign of Anglo-American "operations against all phases of the German long-range weapons programme—operations against research and development of the weapons, their manufacture, transportation and their launching sites, and against missiles in flight"...

 bombing of the "Martinvast

Martinvast

Martinvast is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France....

 V-1 site" on November 11, 1943.
The Allies captured the site a few days before July 4, 1944, and both Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

subsequently visited the facility – the latter reportedly dropping an apple he was eating in astonishment of the massive facility.