Open day tomorrow at German bunkers array at Fort Hommet
A COMPLEX of German bunkers will be open to the public tomorrow, as Festung Guernsey holds an open day at the Fort Hommet Headland.
The group has recently completed the second phase of a project to install power to the bunkers on the headland.
They were built under the direction of the German occupying forces during the Second World War, to guard Vazon Bay to the south and the sea approaches from the north-west.
A new cable has been installed as far as the top car park and a new roof has been put in place on the excavated Pak garage – built to house an anti-tank gun.
Sites on either side of the lane leading to the upper car park also include a personnel shelter and a type 633 bunker featuring an M19 automatic mortar.
The bunker beside the 19th century Martello tower to the west of the headland, which was transformed by Hubert Le Galloudec into the Shrine of the Sacred Heart – known as the Shell Shrine – will also be open.
Entry to all these sites will be by donation and Festung Guernsey will have experts on hand to explain the use of the bunkers and the restoration work completed so far.
In addition, the nearby restored 10.5cm casemate is being opened by the German Occupation Museum at a reduced rate of £2, or £1 for under-14s.
The complex of more than a dozen reinforced concrete installations was named Stutzpunkt Rotenstein by the occupying forces and was a part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.
The enormous amount of materials necessary for their construction were delivered via a railway which ran from the north of the island.
Festung Guernsey, which is a registered charity and is staffed by volunteers, will be holding the open day between 2 and 5pm.
The type-633 M19 automatic mortar bunker
Festung Guernsey began excavating the M19 bunker in 2010. It is thought that about 150 of these were built, of which four are in Guernsey, two in Alderney and one in Jersey.
The bunker was designed to be sited entirely underground, necessitating the removal of almost 2,000 cubic metres of earth and rock.
The automatic mortar within was capable of firing 120 bombs per minute to a range of between 20 and 620 metres in any direction. These bombs had a calibre of 5cm, weighed 900g each and could be fired at a velocity of 44 or 83 metres per second.
The purpose of this was to flush out any attackers from positions where they could not be reached by the defenders’ machine-gun nests.
Festung Guernsey has removed a large amount of backfill and has formed a gentle slope to the entrance of the bunker. Ongoing restoration work continues on salvaged parts of the weapon and, once complete, it will be one of only a small number of originals available to view along the Atlantic Wall.
