The Noarderleech was a German army practice location. It was built manually, without machines, in 1940 by about 100 men and given the name SF10 Marrum. SF stands for Scheinflughafen (dummy airport). Bombers and fighter planes dropped their practice bombs here. The Kwelder Centre tells the story of the battles in the air above the Wadden Sea and about the graves of perished pilots that can be found in many of the local villages.
Although the observation bunker and former practice terrain in Noarderleech are not strictly part of the Atlantic Wall, it is an important place in the story of the Wadden area during WWII. And for that reason, it is 1 of the 10 'Atlantic Wall in the Wadden area' locations.
The Kwelder Centre at It Fryske Gea has a permanent exposition about the war on the marshes.
In the centre of the Noarderleech, part of the nature reserve Noard-Fryslân Bûtendyks, you will find a well-preserved bunker, a quiet symbol of the painful reminders WWII left in the marshes. There are also several aircraft wreckages and a field grave for a German pilot who was killed when his plane crashed. An information panel on the bunker tells this pilot's story.
German pilots used the area around the bunker to practice shooting and bombing ‘targets’ in the summer polder: fake ships, for example. They watched the exercises from the observation bunker. The polhoeder, a respected person in the area, made sure there were no people or animals in the area and filled the bomb holes again afterwards. The area was of great importance to the Allied Forces because it was a 'hole' in the German radar system.
