Towards the end of last week I got a call asking if I would like to go and have a look at a bunker that had turned up in the garden of a local house. The owners have a couple of other small German bunkers on the property but did not know of the the existence of this one. The were having some work done which involved putting cables across the garden. Whilst the trench was being dug the digger uncovered the concrete of the bunker. When I arrived there was the small tell tale opening of a bunker door. I managed to get my hand inside and snap a few photos, and as you can see it was amazingly dry. Once home I looked at the photo's on the computer screen and could see the other blocked doorway on the opposite side from where I took the photo and also noticed the piece of rusty metal sticking out of the sand just in front of my camera. I spoke with the owner and asked if they would get the digger driver to scoop away and revel the other doorway to allow access to the bunker as there was a tree growing in close proximity to the first doorway and they did not want to remove or kill it....understandably. Anyway the other doorway was cleared and I crawled in on my hands and knees, in front of me buried in the sand I could immediately see the unmistakable shape of the 34 twin stand. That was a truly amazing moment, you would never expect to see or find something like that in a bunker over here these days. Any way after about half an hour of digging, sweating and back ache I dragged the mount from inside the bunker. It had been pushed into the doorway to block it and along with part of an old cooking range it had done a good job over the last 65 years or so. At one stage there must have also been a fire in the doorway as part of the mount had definitely suffered the effects of being burnt. I believe the mount was original positioned in a small concrete position at the bottom of the garden and possibly immediately post occupation the guns and gun carriage part of the mount were removed. The remaining part of the mount... as I had found was most likely at a later stage removed from its position and dumped into the doorway of the shelter. I was truly amazed to see it lying there. I would have been happy to find a few spent rounds or a rusty relic helmet (I have always wanted to find one) but this was way above anything I could have thought of.
I hope you like the pics.
All the best from Jersey,
D.
Some of my pictures are the wrong way round, if they could be turned upright that would be great.
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