[15], Ten other coastal artillery batteries, which included 1 x 15 cm SK C/28 and 1 x French 22 cm K532(f) at Jerbourg Point, run by Marine units, 3 x 21 cm Mörser 18 and 3 x French 22 cm K532(f) army units, all designed primarily to fire out to sea, were placed in open concrete pits so that they could turn 360 degrees. This took the troops in Guernsey up to 12,000. Wire on low wooden poles; 8). Ho. Guernsey, although the smallest of the two, was given special treatment and had 12,000 troops inland, that’s one German soldier for every two civilians. Defensive areas were built to protect facilities or an area. Camouflaged barrier and machine-gun nest; 10). OT transport was brought to Guernsey, mainly French vehicles dating back to 1914, to supplement horse-drawn transport. They mined all the beaches. Twenty one of the casemates built into the coast were designed for 10.5 cm K 331(f) French guns that had been acquired in large quantities. Guernsey WW2 bunker to open to public. It had the largest artillery pieces in the Channel Islands, tanks, and 12,000 troops:[1]:204 one soldier for every two civilians on the island, compared to France which had a 1:80 ratio, or higher. By 1941 the prospect of conquering Britain had decreased and the probability of an eastern war increased, requiring defences to be built to reduce the number and quality of troops required to defend the western ocean areas. They therefore had a high level of skills and quickly worked out the details of what was needed.[3]:8. Over 300 large concrete constructions were built in the Channel Islands. Tunnelling also generated stone. The route from St Peter Port to St Saviour was modified to accommodate the towing of the Batterie Mirus gun pieces by four heavy Sd.Kfz. Fortification in Guernsey was colossal during WWII including bunkers, forts, gun emplacements and tunnels to help create Hitler's Atlantic Wall. [7]:56 [16]:98–100, Battery Dollmann at Pleinmont is open to the public to visit; it has one of the four 22 cm gun pits and a number of trenches restored. Seventeen additional 4.7 cm Pak 36(t) were emplaced in field positions. The manual labourers - mainly prisoners of war - were treated like slaves, housed in camps, poorly fed and forced to work
It’s hard to estimate as I haven’t seen an exact total I think due in part as there really hasn’t been an assessment by any one group of people but estimates have been totaled to be about 12,000 bunkers in France alone. Some of the OT supervisors were sadistic. Tiny Guernsey received special treatment. View the maps of Guernsey used by the Germans during World War II. [5] There were over 200 standardised armour parts. Work would be split in accordance with Dr Todt's construction orders for the Channel Island works. [7]:19, Headquarters of the 7,000 strong OT in Guernsey was established at Sausmarez park in December 1941. The first mine was laid in November 1940; altogether there were 118 minefields in Guernsey. Several Strongpoint groups made a Verteidigungsbereich (Defence area)[23], Hohlgangsanlagen (cave passage installations) (Ho) were built to store vehicles, ammunition, food, fuel and equipment, Ho. Each observation slit of a tower observed for one particular battery and was fitted with range finding equipment. With several concrete constructions, they were adapted to the circumstances, such as WN Grune Dune, which is at Rocquaine Bay, comprising two anti-tank gun casemates, a multi loophole steel turret bunker mounting several machine guns, a personnel bunker with a periscope, anti tank wall, observation position and small command bunker. Fortress Engineer specialist sub-units such as Compressor, Mining, Rock Drilling, etc., would move between the Islands as required. Apr 8, 2016 - Explore Digital History Archive's board "WWII Fortifications" on Pinterest. These employees were paid and provided with accommodation, better food, time off, leave[11]:42 and comforts. Guernsey had a major quarrying industry so had stone and crushing facilities available. OT, formed in 1933, was a construction organization that organised and supervised the work of a number of engineering and construction companies, as well as supplying a large labour force. [7]:59–60, It was not just men that became OT workers; a number of women also found themselves in work camps. This example shows a bunker disguised as a house. First line of defense. In this section you will find: Guernsey Occupied - this is a past exhibition about the occupation in general. eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed
'Wish you were here!' Find out more about the history that inspired The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society. Other buildings used as headquarters included the Crown Hotel, which served as the Harbourmaster's office. SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/c/VicStefanu - A tour of the German fortifications of Guernsey. Film Synopsis:
[17]:21, Mainly manned by Luftwaffe men of Flak Regiment 292, the multi purpose 8.8 cm Flak 36 were the main defence with a 7,500m effective range, located in six Island batteries and controlled by radar direction finding equipment, backed up by 150 cm searchlights. Cavities filled with rubble. Of the 96 OT workers who died in Guernsey, the majority died as a result of tunnelling accidents, a British bombing raid on St Peter Port in January 1942, and typhus in February 1943. Oct 28, 2020 - Explore Marcel Edwards's board "world war 2 Guernsey German soldiers 1940-1945" on Pinterest. From April, Tours of Guernsey will be offering walking tours around the Scharnhorst Battery, the bunker network on the Fort Hommet headland, and the not-seen-before site at the Mirus Battery. The battery had its own Würzburg Dora radar position and command bunker. The crew room and ammunition store was below each open gun placement. Using four barrels taken from a 1917 Imperial Russian dreadnaught captured in Norway and resting on platforms manufactured by Friedrich Krupp A.G., these 30.5 cm guns had a potential range of 51 kilometres (32 mi) with lightweight high explosive shells, weighing 250 kg or 31 kilometres (19 mi) with the heavier 405 kg armour piercing shells. The Naval Signals HQ at St Jacques in St Peter Port was the main communications centre. A special partnership between a tour business and Festung Guernsey will give people the chance to take an in-depth look at some of the island's more hidden-away German fortifications. An additional 13 being mounted in open field positions. [7]:36 Contractors brought equipment and vehicles. [22], Widerstandsnest (Resistance nest) (WN) formed a smaller defensive zone, filling in between SP's, and protecting specific points, like artillery batteries or a radar station. [16]:101 Naval Range-finding Tower MP 3 at Pleinmont, which has 5 observation levels and had a radar unit on the roof, has become a museum, open to the public. Lily James plays free-spirited journalist Juliet Ashton, who forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and
long hours without respite. Using the Regelbau standardized plans, each site was excavated normally using manual labour, sometimes needing explosives, the materials excavated generally being kept close by. Sourcing of materials and transport had to be organised. These bunkers were used in addition to the use of hotels and large houses that made more amenable surroundings for the officers. Mines, controled from the machine-gun nest; 9). To eliminate traffic accidents, everyone had to drive and cycle on the right. Barges and small ships were brought to the Islands to transport materials to supplement the two ships run by OT. Historic defence works, considered by the engineers to be of high quality construction and well placed were given concrete additions,[16]:68 Castle Cornet, Vale Castle, Fort Hommet and Bréhon Tower amongst them and would become SP's or WN's. [16]:63 Army troops were rotated to Alderney for three month tours of duty. Many roadside walls received painted arrows and numbers in red or yellow to indicate directions. Alderney was considered too well-protected against aircraft attack so HMS Rodney had the mission of shelling it. In September 1944 there were 10,980 troops in Guernsey comprising:[14]:52. The concept of lineal defences having been discredited in World War 1, the current idea was hedgehog defences with all round visibility and support from other positions giving interlocking fire. 4 is now an occupation museum. [1]:204 The civilian population in Guernsey was 23,000. It comprised three bunkers: types V142, M172 and V192. SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/c/VicStefanu - Let's visit the WW2 German fortifications of Guernsey. A 90 cm gauge railway was constructed, running from the harbour in St Peter Port north to St Sampson and on to L'Ancresse, before running down the whole of the west coast to L’Eree. In Guernsey a total of 92,995m³ of rock was excavated and 22,009m³ of concrete were poured. [17]:36 Two batteries were to Fortress-quality positions; the remaining four were in field emplacements. Whether the Islands were impregnable was never tested, except for Battery Blücher in Alderney. 8 half-tracks. One of the most significant periods in the Channel Islands’ history was the German Occupation during World War II. Thousands of foreign prisoners and labourers were shipped to the Islands to complete the construction. From the beginning of 1943 further construction work became a lower priority as the by then existing defences were sufficiently strong. There was a lack of waterproofing and subsequent rock falls into cavities could damage the tunnel. The German Festung Guernsey book recorded 616,000m³ of concrete used in Guernsey, almost 10% of the concrete used in the Atlantic Wall. Bunker Archaeology: The German WW2 fortifications of Agii Apostoli in Crete Interviews, Then and Now, WW2 in Greece, WW2 Wrecks. Netzknotenpunkt (Telephone network bunkers) were built to protect vulnerable exchanges. [9]:448 Festungspionierkommandeur XIV was created to command the project of fortifying the Channel Islands. Lastly, the Germans produced a map, suitably marked, for their soldiers.[26]:19. Some elements were stripped from the Westwall and Maginot Line,[1]:192 others manufactured specifically. 1. Luftwaffe fighter groups JG27 and JG53, equipped with Me Bf 109s, had been based during Kanalkampf in Guernsey in 1940. All of these were two stories, some were disguised as houses, with tiled roofs and painted windows. They set these gun positions all over. The chapters from the original book have been reproduced in a set of ten paperbacks. machine gun posts, observation posts, battery locations, etc.) The island of Guernsey has … During the Occupation, German troops went about fortifying Guernsey, building reinforced bunkers as well as adapting existing fortifications … Minefeilds; 2). [4]:56–9, Land artillery was situated to fire on landing beaches and inland. They are the most obvious symbol of German construction. Once the fumes and dust had dispersed, the loose rock could be cleared, loaded onto wagons run out on 60 cm tracks and removed. Guernsey recorded 112 deaths of foreign workers: Channel Islands Occupation Society, (1994), This page was last edited on 13 December 2020, at 15:37. Holes through walls for ventilation pipes and cables, doorways and escape routes being put in before the concrete was poured. Film Synopsis: Lily James plays free-spirited journalist Juliet Ashton, who forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.In cinemas April 20th. A number of junctions on the route also had sentry and machine gun positions built into granite walls. [12] Other sources of labor were Poland, French camps full of Spanish Republicans who had fled Spain after losing the civil war, and 1,018 out-of-work French North Africans from Algeria who were living in the south of France. The work would continue as planned, despite the death of Dr Todt in a plane crash in February 1942. 319 Infantry Division (319 ID), which had been created in November 1940 and was designed as a static division for service in occupied Europe, was allocated to the islands. Many of the German works are on private land and so inaccessible to the public. Water had to be drained and the new floor levelled and the track extended. Mines; 4). The battery became operational in June 1942. By Pierre Kosmidis Info and photos submitted by Emmanouil Tzilivakis, used by permission. The designs had been updated as captured enemy fortifications were examined; some were even tested to destruction for effectiveness. during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII. [1]:190–3, On 16 June 1941 Hitler's instructions to reinforce the islands were transmitted there from Oberbefehlshaber West; the rationale was that an Allied attack "must be reckoned with" in Summer 1941. Its guns had a range of 23 kilometres (14 mi). However, when it became clear this was not going to happen Hitler issued a directive in October 1941 that the Channel Islands should be converted into an indestructible fortress as part of the Atlantic Wall. Each of the Islands of Guernsey had a completely different occupation experience, from total evacuation to horrifying occupation. This weekend marks 75 years since the beginning of the liberation of the Islands of Guernsey after the Second World War. The smaller Freya radar was less visible. At the end of the reign of Henry VIII, in 1546 work was begun on building a fortification on the site that would become known as Essex Castle, the only remains are the current North and West walls of the fortification. Liberation. 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