With Rachel in Dublin on a girl's trip, her car and I decided to storm the Atlantic Wall.
The Atlantic wall park is at ATLANTIC WALL RAVERSYDE, just west of Bruges and north of Dunkirk.
There is a vey well preserved Rommel Atlantic Wall Battery, as the only remaining example of a German WWI coastal battery.
The WWI emplacements are much more open, and used a lesser quality concrete.
The observation bunker had a slit trench for observing under fire as well as under ground storage and living quarters.
There were 4 gun emplacements in the WWI battery. The guns could turn 360 degrees to fire in land if required.
A cutout shows the gun mechanism.
One of the interesting WWI instruments was the Optical Range finder.
The instrument had two optical paths, and the operator in the centre adjusted the compensator until the two images were coincident. The amount of adjustment corresponded to the range to the target.
The observation tours had a commanding view of the North Sea.
This is an example where the Wars meet. A 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun was placed on top of an existing WWI bunker. The Germans used a wide variety of weapons that had been captured during the early days of WW2 when the Germans captured most of Europe and forced the British to abandon all of their equipment during the escape from Dunkirk.
The WW2 bunkers were hardened, and the gun emplacements protected.
The gun emplacements were moveable, and the gun had a metal shield to minimize the possibilty of the gun taking a direct hit.
The battery had a narrow gauge rail system for delivering ammunition and supplies and a myriad of underground tunnels to minimize exposure.
The battery was build on a large hill, and there was an extensive tunnel system below. To accommodate the visitors, emergency exits were installed. I won't be having any emergencies.
Most of the tunnels were 6 feet high, and made of brick. The structures were build using forced labour, prisoners of war and local workers.
However, some of them had very narrow openings, and more than once I was forced to jam 10 lbs of sugar into a 5 lb bag.
The structures are remarkably well preserved after 80 or 100 years. The battery was taken from inland by the Canadians. Despite orders to the contrary, the Germans destroyed the guns, but left the structures intact.
The park is an excellent example of the coastal batteries of the two world wars, and is well worth a visit.
Those tunnels are amazing! They resemble the ones in Rome and Jerusalem. Quite the engineering feat in those days. And still standing! Thank you for sharing. Really enjoying your comments and learning a lot.
Those batteries are absolutely amazing. Poor folks in that region who had both WWI and WWII take place on their beach. The tunnels look a lot better built than some of the trenches you have shown in earlier posts.
I went to Ireland in 2019, the first thing I did after checking into the hotel was have lunch with a lovely pint of Guinness of course.
The Atlantic Wall is amazing and in such good condition after all these years
Bet Rachel had to find a bathroom after drinking all those Guiness, huh?
The fortress pictures are amazing. Very intresting.