page_title: Cherbourg-Octeville
section_title: Military life
hierarchical_section_title: Cherbourg-Octeville / Military life
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Arrivée de l'Abeille Liberté à Cherbourg. IMO Number: 9308699 MMSI Number: 226265000 Callsign: FMDI Length: 80 m Beam: 17 m
context_page_description: Cherbourg-Octeville is a city and former commune situated at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It is a subprefecture of its department, and was officially formed when the commune of Cherbourg absorbed Octeville on 28 February 2000. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. The city is a Maritime prefecture and sub-prefecture of la Manche. Due to its union, it is the most populated city in its department with 37,121 inhabitants making it the first city of the department before the Saint-Lô prefecture and the second in the region after Caen.
  Cherbourg-en-Cotentin is protected by Cherbourg Harbour, between La Hague and Val de Saire, and the city has been a strategic position over the centuries, disputed between the English and French. Cited as one of the "keys to the kingdom" by Vauban, it became, by colossal maritime development work, a first-rate military port under the leadership of Napoleon I, and holds an arsenal of the French Navy.
context_section_description: During the Middle Ages, Cherbourg, a stronghold of the Cotentin peninsula, was home to a small garrison for the protection of the fortress. With the implementation of the harbour and military port, Cherbourg became a port of war at the end of the 18th century, with a large garrison. In 1798, it had 1,332 men, or a tenth of the population, divided mainly between the barracks of the Abbey, current historical Service of the Navy, which housed 542 men of the 4th brigade and the Maurice Quarter, in the Hôtel Epron de la Horie, home to 227 men. Numbers were brought to 3,000 men for the completion of the work, by a decree of germinal year XI.
  During the 20th century, Cherbourg, a strategic point during both world wars, adapted to new threats. It then hosted a large garrison of the Navy, an artillery regiment and a Hôpital des Armées known locally as "marine hospital". In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the presence of the army weakened by the transfer of the northern fleet to Brest and the closure of the maritime hospital renamed René-Le-Bas.
  Yet Cherbourg remained a base of the first order of the National Navy, as the seat of the Maritime Prefecture of Manche and the North Sea and of the Maritime Gendarmerie grouping of Manche. The naval base is the homeport of five patrol vessels of the Navy and the coastguard, group of the clearance divers sleeve and its building-base the Vulcain, the tug Abeille Liberté and various support vessels. It is also the headquarters of the Operational Training of Surveillance and Territorial Information of Cherbourg (Cherbourg FOSIT) which brings together thirteen semaphores and the lookout of the maritime district. In addition, a flotilla 35 F Dauphin helicopter is based at Cherbourg – Maupertus Airport. The operation of the military port is borne by the directions of the Commissioner of the Navy, maritime works and information systems of the Navy, as well as the branch of the support service of the fleet and the military workshop of the Cherbourg fleet.
  Cherbourg is also a training hub of the armed forces through the School of Military Applications of Atomic Energy (EAMEA), in charge of the joint education of military specialists in material sciences, of techniques and of nuclear safety and the École des fourriers de Querqueville, devoted to education of the officers of the three armed forces in business administration, management, human resources and the restoration to the training of specialists of the restoration of the national gendarmerie and the homes of the Navy staff.
  Proposals for reform on the organization and the distribution of the French Army, presented in the spring of 2008 in the White Paper on Defence and National Security planned in the context of the French General Review of Public Policies raise the concern of civilian personnel of the defence of the city, including the construction of submarines. According to projects, Cherbourg-Octeville would become one of 90 defence bases around 2010. In a pooling of means and the establishment of support for the armed forces, the city would retain military and civilian activities, and would host new regiments for the army and of the air force to constitute one of the largest bases of defence. However, the Navy in Cherbourg-Octeville would lose 220 jobs, including civilians, through including the division of half of the staff of the Directorate of maritime works, the abolition of 30 posts including 5 civilians in the École des fourriers and the Atomic school, the loss of 27 posts including 14 civilians in the direction of information systems, and the disarmament of the Vulcain, Acharné, Coralline and Élan. National orders for DCNS could be spread over several years, also reducing human needs there, especially among the subcontractors.
  Several military units were stationed at Cherbourg during the 20th century:
  8th Infantry Regiment, 1939 - 1940
  25th Infantry Regiment, 1870 - 1914
  119th Infantry Regiment,
  77th Territorial Infantry Regiment, 1870 - 1914
  2nd Artillery Regiment of Foot, 1914
  1st Marine Artillery Regiment, 1906
  2nd Colonial Arti
caption: Arrival of the Abeille Liberté at Cherbourg-Octeville.
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