The Pointe de Grave is the Northernmost tip of the Médoc

Médoc

The Médoc is a region of France, well known as a wine growing region, located in the département of Gironde, on the left bank of the Gironde estuary, north of Bordeaux. Its name comes from Medullicus, or "country of the Medulli", the local Celtic tribe...

 Peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

 and marks the Northern end of the pine-clad sandy Landes

Landes forest

The Landes forest or the Landes of Gascony , in the historic Gascony region of southwestern France now known as Aquitaine, is the largest maritime-pine forest in Europe...

 coastline of Western France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. It lies opposite the resort town of Royan

Royan

Royan is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department, along the Atlantic Ocean, in southwestern France.A seaside resort, Royan is in the heart of an urban area estimated at 38,638 inhabitants, which makes it the fourth-largest conurbation in the department, after La Rochelle, Rochefort and Saintes...

.

The offshore Cordouan lighthouse

Cordouan lighthouse

Cordouan lighthouse is an active lighthouse located 7 km at sea, near the mouth of the Gironde estuary in France. At a height of it is the tenth tallest "traditional lighthouse" in the world....

 lies off the point and a second lighthouse, on the shore, houses a lighthouse museum.

History

It is of strategic significance, owing to its position at the mouth of the Gironde Estuary

Gironde estuary

The Gironde is a navigable estuary , in southwest France and is formed from the meeting of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne just below the centre of Bordeaux...

 and was the site of a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 fortress during the Second World War, built to guard the entrance to that Estuary. In April 1945 US Eighth Air Force

Eighth Air Force

The Eighth Air Force is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command . It is headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana....

 B-24's of the 467th Bombardment Group

467th Bombardment Group

The 467th Bombardment Group is an inactive United States Army Air Force unit. Its last assignment was to the Strategic Air Command, being stationed at Clovis Army Airfield, New Mexico. It was inactivated on 4 August 1946....

 set a new record for precision bombing

Norden bombsight

The Norden bombsight was a tachometric bombsight used by the United States Army Air Forces and the United States Navy during World War II, and the United States Air Force in the Korean and the Vietnam Wars to aid the crew of bomber aircraft in dropping bombs accurately...

 and destroyed a German battery

Artillery battery

In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...

. The old blockhouse provides panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

, the Cardouan lighthouse, the Gironde Estuary, Royan, the La Coubre lighthouse, further up the coast from Royan and the Médoc peninsula itself.

During the First World War, US troops were landed here. A monument marked the place but it was destroyed by the Germans, during their occupation of France in the 1940s.