Bunkers at Verclut (St. Catherine)

What evidence can we find of German activity near St. Catherine's Breakwater?

A very obvious bunker is probably the first one you think of.

It's a type 670 casemate bunker where a field gun was installed. Behind it, a tunnel ("HO17 Mole Verclut" with several rooms near the front here) curves around to...

.. the exit behind the rock, amongst all this mess.

The exit door.

OK, what else is fairly well known? The path up the hill leading to Flicquet has pieces of old railway track to block access to any liberating forces, I believe that's quite well known.

And you can't really miss this one as you drive towards the cafe...

.. did you spot the entrance on this side though?

The curvy bit at the front was probably a mortar pit? Or MG? Expert info welcomed, please comment :)

Maybe you've wondered about this door...

.. which goes through to here...

.. yes, that looks rather German in there.

Spotted this one by the public toilets?

Looking back, it's obviously of WWII origin.... a store or shelter?

Ok, more obscure now. See that wall on the right?

Worth a little climb up...

.. turning right, oh this is looking bunker-ish!

Not much headroom in here... bent over double I made my way to the far end and found...

.. yet another 'wriggly tin' shelter. Now, to the right of here, but I don't recall any internal connection...

.. is yet more concrete. In the middle of this pic...

.. looking inside.

On the left of the pic before, hidden inside the greenery, a half blocked entrance. This was a fairly recent find, for me!

Want more? Get climbing... there are steps opposite the new bus shelter...

.. up there, sorry to say I'm not sure what this was all about.

.. but keep going to above the cafe, and hooray, a defensive position...

.. with side store.

Looking towards Fliquet.

If under attack, the soldiers could run along inland to a shelter...

.. where somebody has made themselves a home...

.. closer. Looks like there's probably a wriggly tin shelter in there, but we obviously weren't welcome.

Nice views up there though, well worth a climb on a windless day. View to Flicquet...

.. and here's the end of the breakwater.

Comments and extra information welcomed... it's not tricky, and would be much appreciated... thank you :)





I did climb up the rock back in 2009, so there are more photos at crapaudmatic.blogspot.com/2009/04/climb-up-above-st-catherines.html

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Chipping away at history at Sorel A

Rough treatment damages historic bunker at Sorel Point.

The Jersey Kart & Motor Club are extending and modifying their track at the Loop Road, Ronez Point (A.K.A. "Sorel A" to those interested in the occupation). They say they are not removing or covering up the twin entrance twin bunker here, in fact they have uncovered it. It's interesting to see the top of the bunker and see its size from the outside, and how with two entrances it is in fact completely symmetrical.

The smaller structure (water tank? Generator housing?) to the side has been filled in. What concerned me more is the damage the diggger has caused to the edges of the concrete...

.. here very obvious on the east side entrance.

Looking west, we can finally see how this entrance is the exact mirror of the clear entrance on the other side.

Looking east-ish. More edges scraped. I'm quite disappointed with this damage! This is a historic, heritage structure, and the Club has failed to look after it. Shame on them.





Take a look inside and see how it used to be at crapaudmatic.blogspot.com/2016/05/bunkers-at-rn-sorel-ronez-point.html

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The Battery Moltke Flak Triangle

Near the end of the track to Batterie Moltke at Les Landes, lies a trio of Flak gun bunkers - forming the triangle of positions on the right side of this Google Maps shot. All three are similarly aligned, but not quite exactly.

Plan of the 3.7cm Flak 37 bunkers - steps each side lead down to a crew room.

The first one to visit (most easily found via the 'beaten track') has a view of St.Ouen's Bay...

.. looking back. Nice and clean, because so many people have a wander about.

The north steps are filled in...

.. but the south steps look promising after we'd cleared away some greenery...

.. going down...

.. ah. Who wants to crawl over this? My nimble assistant volunteered...

.. and turned right to find the crew room fairly clean of graffiti or trash - just a bit of rubble.

Looking back.

The north end...

.. and the rubble filling in those steps. A human chain could probably clear most of this in a couple of hours :)

And so, another crawl back to daylight.

Looking east from this first bunker, a grassy mound from where rifle enthusiasts shoot at...

.. targets 1000 yards away over the model aircraft site and a ringstand ("Tobruk") bunker. I'd be lucky to hit the target at all, let alone a bull's eye!

The second position is just off the north side of the road, a few more weeds to battle through to get here. No-one seems to wander around in this one, so it's getting slowly covered over by nature. Both sets of steps are well filled in.

The third bunker is just west of another grassy patch which is the 900 yards part of the shooting range. Mostly surrounded by gorse, you can reach this one from the model planes runway direction (just left of center in this shot). The two short walls giving a zig-zag access are free standing, not tied into the rest of the structure, and some of them are leaning a little. I speculate that they were built after the guns were put in place, sealing them in somewhat?

This one might be crawl-able too, but, you know, seen one and you've seen 'em all ;)

It was at this point that I finally noticed the groove in the gun mounting.








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