WW2 German Bunkers

[Peter Gillson]

the toilets.

On the right were the cubicles.

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note the embrasure on the left allowing close defence of the corridor to Seeko-Ki bunker, and painted above the urinals ...

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"after peeing rinse"

[Guest]

Indoor toilets … Most bunkers would instead have had a compost toilet (see, they were modern and ecological in the 1940s too!) in the dead end of area 1.

[Peter Gillson]

Jakko - this was a bit of a unique bunker being the main communications bunker for the Channel Islands, which I suppose justified the luxury of indoor toilets.

A few years ago a lot of bushes and scrub were cleared from around a flak emplacement where the remaines of a little, wooden toilet block was found. It consisted of a single wash hand basin and single toilet cubucle. Unfortuntely after 60 + years being overgrown almost all of the wooden had either rotted away or had been removed just after the war. I am guessing that such wooden 'outbuilding' type of toiles would not have been unusual.

[stillp]

A pit with a plank over it would have been common!

Pete

[Steve Jones]

Thanks for sharing Peter. Some terrific reference material:thumb2:

[Peter Gillson]

Steve - glad you find them interesting.

Here is the last batch of photos;

2 part, stable door type of armoured door (Panzer tur) The red ring refers to gas lock instructions. the small panel would slide to the left to open the gun port/peep hole. like the gun port in an earlier photo it was lined with felt so that when the 2 knobs were tightened, it would be a gas proof seal.
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next a 1 piece armoured door.
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Instructions above a number of doors “No light when opening the door”.

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Instructions above doors “Under gas attack all slides closed and red knobs tightened” or entrance defence gun ports.
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Above the door into room 15 “Entrance Defence”.
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And finally. - somebody decided the bunker would make great foundations ...

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Peter

[Guest]

2 part, stable door type of armoured door

The reason for being two-part is so that if rubble gets into the entrance corridor (outside the door), the top half could still be opened. You didn’t show the most ingenious part of the door, by the way: it would normally be placed so that its outer edge reaches to the corner of the entrance corridor if the door is open, but that corner is cut away. This is in case of an explosion nearby: the blast will (should?) catch the edge of the door and push it shut, protecting the bunker’s occupants.

[JR]

Peter.
Absolutely fascinating read. When the Germans built something they certainly put some thought into it. Take the ventilation system for an example, having that standby hand operated pump in case of power failure. Nothing left to chance. Thank you for spending so much of your time bringing this to the forum.
John.

[Guest]

If you’re interested in these kinds of details, let me quickly advertise something I put together about 15 years ago:

[Peter Gillson]

Following on form the MNO HQ I thought some may be interested to know a little more about some towers which were unique to the Channel Islands, these were naval range finding towers.

Unlike along the rest of the Atlantic wall, where the seaborne enemy would only come from one direction, Guernsey, being an Island could be attacked from any direction. Therefore all of the coastal defence artillery were established in open positions so that they had a 360° field of fire. A complication of having such a field of fire was that batteries were expected to fire over the Island and onto targets which were out of sight of the batteries themselves.

The solution to this problem was a number of buildings unique to the Channel Islands, the Marinepleilstanden und Messstellen,navel direction and range finding positions – known as MP towers. The intention was to build a number of towers around the Island and work started in 1941 to full fortress standard, i.e. walls of steel reinforced concrete at least 2m thick.

Here is a photo of one of the towers:



Each level of the tower has a front observation room while the rear part formed the stairwell and landing, each floor providing ranging for a specific battery, below is the same photo as above but with the internal room structure.



All of the towers were all under the control of the Kapitan Steinbach the Kommandant der Seeverteididung Kanalinsen (Naval Commander in Chief, Channel Islands), “Seeko-Ki” stationed at the MNO bunker in St Peter Port, see the previous photos. It was his role to ensure they all operated in a co-ordinated manner.

The towers were ideal for sighting and ranging for batteries which would provide general barrage fire on target areas, such a landing grounds, however for specific naval targets it was a little more complicated. Although the towers were fitted out with equipment which could determine the range and bearing of the target this was not immediately useful to batteries which were situated some miles away since the range and direction would need to be adjusted to compensate for the different locations. The intention was for the towers to be used in conjunction with each other and the battery, if possible. Readings from two towers would be taken, these sent to the battery were the mathematics to determine the range and triangulate the bearing from the battery guns was calculated by the Langbasis Kleingerat – the Long Base Small Apperatus.

The intention was to build 7 towers but only 4 were built, this was mainly due to the general reduction of building works from 1943, and partly due to the doubts Kapitan Steinbach had regarding the operational efficiency of the towers, especially when trying to co-ordinate on multiple targets, preferring the use of direct observation and the use of radar for gun-laying which had become available.



Over the next few days I'll post some photos of the inside of the tower MP4 which has been restored and is open to the public.

[spanner570]

Thanks for posting your photos Peter.
They brought back great memories both to me and my wife of the magic holidays we have had on your beautiful Island. She even put up with my 'Bunker Hunting' of which we visited many.
We stayed at the Blue Horizon Hotel overlooking Moulin Huet Bay.

[Peter Gillson]

Ron - glad it brings back some good memories. Moulin Huet was also a favourite of Renoir.

Starting with some ground floor photos:

In the entrance defence room, the air pump and filter, electrically operated it could be operated manually by turning the handle. I'm not sure if anybody makes a model of this, but it should be reasonably easy and add interest to any bunker diorama.



There is not a lot in the other ground floor rooms - some storage, so it is up to the first operational level (e) for a wood burning stove and telephone. Each level had its own stove and connected to one of two chimneys rising through the walls to the roof. These were a common feature in nearly all bunkers in Guernsey.

Note the ranging diagram above the window.



alongside all of the stoves would have been instructions, which I will leave to somebody else to translate!

[Peter Gillson]

moving up to the next floor - which was the ranging floor for the Battery Radetzky and a double telephone fitting.

“Achtung! Feind Hort Mt” translates to “ Attention! The enemy may hear”.

and this floor also had it's own stove ...



Kein licht bel offener Tur” translates to “No lights when door are open”, referring to the metal door which would each have ad their own gas seals. sadly only the hinges remain.



Peter

[Guest]

alongside all of the stoves would have been instructions, which I will leave to somebody else to translate!

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Not going to bother with all of it, but for interest, the headers translate as:

I. Lighting the stove
II. During heating
III. Extinguishing the gas-tight and pressure-proof stove Wt 80 without or Wt K 80 with cooking plate
IV. Miscellaneous maintenance
V. When to put out the stove
VI. Heating at night
VII. Carbon monoxide (CO) danger

“Achtung! Feind Hort Mt” translates to “ Attention! The enemy may hear”.

More closely, “Caution! The enemy is listening in"

[JR]

Great posts Peter, just caught up from when I last posted.
From the way the Germans constructed certainly didn't look as if any thing was temporary.