WW2 German Bunkers

[Guest]

I don’t think they felt these were short-term–only defences, no. There’s probably also a bit of spiralling almost out of control going on, so that the works became ever more elaborate simply because if you’ve done A, B and C, not doing D, and then not doing E, etc. doesn’t really make sense. For example, once you’ve made the building bomb-proof (walls and roof 2 metres thick were considered bomb-proof), you’re also going to have to install a good ventilation system else people will probably suffocate inside eventually. But wait, what about poison gas? Et cetera.

[Peter Gillson]

They were definantely not temporary. Hitle described the Islands as his 'battleships of concrete and steel'with the frontline fortifications, such as these being builtto full fortress standard - the same a in Normandy.

Peter

[Guest]

A great thread Peter. I explored a number of the towers when I visited Guernsey many years ago - so common that they're almost emblematic of the island. A lot were built on top of Napoleonic Martello towers I remember.

[spanner570]

This is one of those towers Peter. Snapped on my holiday on the Island. The Germans just encased them in concrete.

I hope this is correct Peter G.


Cheers.
Ron

[Mini Me]

Very nice presentation Mr. Gillson. Thank you for sharing this with the forum. I'm sure it will be invaluable if I should decide to do a complex in the future. Cheers, Rick H.

[JR]

This is one of those towers Peter. Snapped on my holiday on the Island. The Germans just encased them in concrete.

I hope this is correct Peter G.
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Cheers.
Ron

You'll tell us next that Ian took the photo. :smiling2:

Yours 453.
Notcatchingeoutagin
.Mongolia

[monica]

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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

this one,I think i ,have seen up for sale,and with some others as well,

[Peter Gillson]

Peter - glad you enjoyed your visit - yes they are quite embematic of the occupation. You are right that some were build on Victorian fortifications. When the Germans arrived they quickley realised that the Victorians had already built fortifications on the key coastal site (against the French) so had to build on the same sites. Sometimes next to the Victorian buildings, sometimes on them.

Their advance across France and occupation of Guernsey was so fast that when they arrived they didn't have any maps so had to buy (yes buy!!) some tourist maps. Apparently the original strategic plans for defensive fortifications were drawn on such a tourist map which is held by the Bundesarchive.

These 2 photos are of MP 2 which is on a Victorian site:





Monica - The 3.5 acre site which includes the tower other bunkers including a searchlight bunker and a 5 bedroom house is for sale - £4.5million.

The next photo is of MP 5 which was built on top of an existing mill:




Ron - close but not quite right. A peculiarity of the way the German Army organised their artillery is that the arm of service it belonged to depended on what the targets were, so batteries with the primary purpose of firing on seaborne targets were naval batteries, land based targets were army and anti aircraft were Luftwaffe. All coming under ultimate naval control.

Artilery firing on ships had to triangulate onto the targets, hence the building of the multi-level MP towers where each floor ranged for a specific battery. Land based targetting was controlled differently, each beach was split into a number of zones, perhaps 9 or 12. The artillery bateries were all pre-targetted to each of the zones and so only had to be told the beach and the zone to be able to lay down concentrated fire. They could be re-directed from one zone to another as the battle progressed. Presumably the same system was used elsewhere, but I do not know for sure.

The tower in Ron's photo was an army observation tower. Officially designated Army observation post - M5, it is known as Le Prevost tower after the name of that area of the cliffs. Because it did not need to triangulate onto specific targets it did not need to have specific floors linked to specific batteries which is why it has only two floors.

Interestingly Ron was wrong about the encasing in concrete. It was designed to look like a disused windmill and was the normal concrete construction but unusually encased in granite. After the war some locals 'liberated' the granite to use in the building of a house!

Rick - glad you are enjoying the postings.

I'll post some more internal photos tomorrow.
Peter

[Guest]

A peculiarity of the way the German Army organised their artillery is that the arm of service it belonged to depended on what the targets were, so batteries with the primary purpose of firing on seaborne targets were naval batteries, land based targets were army and anti aircraft were Luftwaffe. All coming under ultimate naval control.

This wasn’t the case everywhere. Here on Walcheren, there were both air force and navy AA batteries, for example, though IIRC coastal artillery was all navy-operated (IIRC in Normandy, there were also army coastal batteries).

[Peter Gillson]

Jakka - interesting how command and control varied.

As a slight aside, here is a copy of a map showing the Army artillery locations on the Land and an example of how the beaches were sub-divided in to target zones, as taken form German records.

[Peter Gillson]

Now we are on floor 'G' which supported the Battery Strassburg.



the essential stove . the hole to the right - covered with perspex, was a hole through which grenade could be dropped onto attacking troops.




across the landing is another grenade hole and an embrasure for close defence



the following are a series of photos through the observation slits:

[Peter Gillson]

this floor serviced the battery Steinbruch.

A 3 telephone system:




A pair of binoculars positioned to be used by visitors.


Across the landing is a heavy machine gun table which may be interested to any scratch builders...


Sadly, this is one of only two which remain in the Channel Islands.



finally a view of the stair well

[Peter Gillson]

Up a level to the level which supported the mighty Mirus Battery of 30cm, ex Russian battleship guns.

(The light is a modern health and safety requirement)


Embrasure on this level. Note the ladder leading to the roof.


Air raid alarm bell operated by the lookout on the roof, these would have been on all levels.


An example of the ranging diagrams were painted above all of the observation slits, and part of a stove chimney.



A Das Richt-und Hohenwinkel-Sehrohr C/V made by Zeiss which was designed for shipboard use to determine range and bearing of targets and comprises of 3 sets of binocular telescopes.






you can just see in the above photo the window has been opened to give a clearer view.




the next two are views through the Bearing Officers telescope (left lense)




View through the Bearing Officers telescope (right lense)




View through the Ranging Officer’s telescope



A 10x50 standard rangefinder on a pillar mount, - these would have been on all levels.



View through the left lens of the rangefinder– note the grid



View through the right lens of the rangefinder



obviously when used normally you look through both at the same time and your brain merges the two together, unfortunately that is beyond my photographic skills.

Unusually, this level also had radio communication to the Mirus Battery commander as well as multiplayer telephones.


Peter

[Allen Dewire]

Fantastic Peter,

Thank you so much for taking the time to post all the info and pictures. Absolutely fascinating stuff....

Prost
Allen

[Guest]

interesting how command and control varied.

I misremembered slightly: there were no Luftwaffe troops on Walcheren. There were seven navy coastal batteries and seven navy anti-aircraft batteries. By most accounts, these navy artillerymen put up decidedly more resistance against Allied troops than the army infantry (who were very much second-rate troops).

the following are a series of photos through the observation slits:

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That makes me wish “our” Leitstände hadn’t all been demolished ca. the 1960s Of course, you probably wouldn’t have as good a view from the one that was closest to where I live:



(Apparently, this one had a tiled floor. My father has told me about how, when he was a child, they used to slide down it )

A Das Richt-und Hohenwinkel-Sehrohr C/V made by Zeiss

Going by the explanatory card you pictured, I suspect someone didn’t realise that “das” simply means “the”