Hello all,

I am back from a week trip to the Rotterdam area. There are huge relics from the Atlantic Wall there incuding hundreds of bunkers (over 100 in Hoek van Holland alone) . There are also several museums which have material on display such as guns , tanks, a Biber sub, torpedoes etc...

This is of course interesting and I took pics of thes etoo , but I mainly focussed on the things that are more or less hidden (buried bunkers, galeries, recycled buildings etc...) This cost me a pair of trousers and my jacket too as I often got entangled in barbled wire and had to fight with 60 year old vegetation, rust, iron etc... The result is hundreds of pictures. Here are the first ones. Eventually I post the most interesting ones in the galery. I hope you"ll like them

Click on the picture and you"ll get a larger view.

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Nothing less is expected of a true WWIIF enthusiast !

Well done, Skipper......

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Great photos, Skipper.

That forward fire control bunker looks to be in remarkable condition...apart from the graffiti...

Much like this one at Longues-sur-Mer, Normandy.

Attached Images

DSCN0554_800x600.JPG (68.2 KB, 8 views)

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Regards
John

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see" - Winston Churchill

Graffti is everywhere but I learnt to look beyond it. Besides some bunkers have been restored and the graffiti taken away. It does look like the Longues one though. Unfortunately there are bars for security reasons so I couldn't get into that one. However I managed to get into many other ones and have many interior pics too. Many are party places or burning places for leftovers from paperboys (I found large stocks of half burnt modern papers that were dumped there by kids who wouldn't put them in the mailboxes)

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Nice one, Skipper!

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Regards,

Gordon
http://www.freewebs.com/thehistoryvault/
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

It's good to know that some of the bunkers have been restored. This fire control bunker at St Marcouf also had bars over the entrance, but they had been dislodge by someone previous.
After a little persuasion, I managed to squeeze past the bars and get in for a good look around.
I even found a few 7.92 cartridges in there...

Attached Images

DSCN1283_800x600.JPG (95.2 KB, 9 views)

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Regards
John

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see" - Winston Churchill

Nice John, the Saint Marcouf one is in excellent condition. One big difference with the Dutch bunker sis the use of bricks for tunnels, stairs etc... I was surprised to see so many brick walls inside , they are sometimes painted in white with some black stripes at the bottom.

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More here: these are all in Hoek van Holland either on the beach or in the dunes. They are the easy access ones, later I will post pictures of those that have almost disappeared under the sand or vegetation. I could also walk in some galeries. To be noticed I had no flash light so the only light i had was the flash of my camera and I discovered what was on the picture once I had left the place.

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a nice galery that is not tagged



some chimneys!



a well hidden entrance that has not been used for years!



anothe rentrance and some riveted cones that probably had a small gun



more here with iron relics on the concrete.

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Nice photos skipper.
Are the golf ball like dimples for atttching camoflague?

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Fantastic stuff Skipper!!

WW, I'm wondering the same thing!

Keep them coming Skip!

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...this army made up of ex-resistence men and named by the Prince Himself, became known as the STOOTTROEPEN(Stormtroopers).
Nulli Cedo = I'll give way to no one.

Scott

Wow, I also was inside this control bunker.
We could have met
You have good eyes, and some luck, to find a few cartridges in
the inside. I only saw empty beerbottles and ruined concrete!

Nice pics. I'm not liking the graffiti on the bunkers but what can you do? Kids will be kids. Thanks for the pics. I hope to make a trip to Europe some day and hopefully see some WW2 sites.

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Need WW2 12" action figures made by Dragon. Message me if you have any you wouldn't mind selling.

a trip of a life time very nice pitchers thankyou for showing them
best krieg

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for thow . will be ours someday .we shall have it all
. . und mear

Thanks guys, glad you like them, I have dozens more. Her are some that were harder to find and but it was worth it.
Wessex , the dimples on the previous picture are to prevent penetration from certain caliber shells, this way they will bounce agaisnt the concrete and change directions.

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Skipper, your photos just keep getting better.
keep them coming...



Very uncanny Edward, your photo is identical to the one I took inside the St Marcouf bunker...

I found the cartridges in the room where an MG would have been sited to cover the main entrance to the bunker. I also found more on the steps of the internal stairway.

Attached Images

DSCN1046_1024x768.JPG (104.0 KB, 6 views)

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Regards
John

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see" - Winston Churchill

That is not what I want to hear!
Lucky you. But I must say that I did not really look for them thinking after so many years, and so many visitors what could there still be found.

a large metal door completely buried under the sand and found by coincidence. I wonder what's under it...



another buried entrance






another view from a pitch dark bunker. Look at the metal parts on the floor next to the beer cans. I couldn't see them when I took the picture but they look most interesting. There seems to be a large pipe on the right, I wonder what the cylinder on the left is.

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Very nice Skipper!!

I would love to bring a shovel out there and find out what's under that metal door! I'm very jealous Skipper! They are great, hope you had a great time! And thanks for sharing these with us!

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...this army made up of ex-resistence men and named by the Prince Himself, became known as the STOOTTROEPEN(Stormtroopers).
Nulli Cedo = I'll give way to no one.

Scott

I had to dig around in the rubble and dirt that lay on the floor of the bunker, the result was a few cartridges and a pair of lungs full of dust...



[quote=Skipper;283486]a large metal door completely buried under the sand and found by coincidence. I wonder what's under it...


quote]

That door is just begging to be unearthed and opened...

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Regards
John

"It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see" - Winston Churchill