Nursery teacher stumbles upon German bunker

The Monkey Puzzle School set traps in the grounds in Les Cotils to celebrate Burns Night, but when a teacher stood back to take a photograph of the children she stumbled into a small hole and discovered a German command bunker.

Class teacher Christine Le Huray thought the hole was only small, but after trying to cover it with stones and stepping on them to pack them down, her foot went further into the hole.

‘The children, myself and a colleague were just out looking to discover if we had caught Haggis,’ she said.

‘Little did we know that we’d stumble upon another part of history.’

She let Les Cotils staff know about the hole and this led to an investigation by Festung Guernsey, a Second World War fortification initiative.

Project co-ordinator Steve Powell said they forced fresh air via specialist pumps into the bunker after being called in to explore the hole, and discovered a network of four rooms connected by a long corridor which was lined in granite setts.

‘We were expecting only a single room when we opened it up a couple of weeks ago,’ he said.

‘It’s such an exciting and unique find, because it’s not in any German documents at all.’

Bunkers are known to have been placed on high ground as a German line of defence in the Second World War, with this believed to be a command bunker receiving communications protecting the harbour.

Mr Powell added there were plenty of interesting features that made the bunker even more unique, such as small recesses in the walls, telephone ducts and names inscribed in the concrete, as well as the transfer of newspaper ink onto the concrete, some which was partially legible.

‘We believe when the bunker was built newspaper was laid on the shuttering before being peeled away revealing the timbers,’ he said.

‘You can see the words – it’s all in German and it’s back-to-front – but we’re hoping to translate it and pick out the dates.

‘There are also communication cables and what we believe to be French names inscribed in the walls. We’d love to find out more.’

The site has now been secured to prevent any further collapse.

However, Mr Powell said they were in discussions with Les Cotils to see if they could open it up again.

Since nearly falling into it, Ms Le Huray has shown pictures of the bunker to her class of two- and three-year-olds.

‘It’s such a nice find,’ she said.

‘I’m not surprised a bunker was found in the area, but to come across it the way I did is completely different. We’re just lucky it was me and not one of the children who got stuck in the hole that uncovered it.’