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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The Military Past at Les Landes

One of the most obvious signs of German WWII activity - a naval look-out tower. With people nearby for a sense of scale - there is one viewing slit per internal floor.





There are two others in Jersey, at Corbiere and Noirmont - a number of others were planned but never built.









Closer - again with Guernsey in the distance.





Showing the commanding view...









.. closer.




In the bay between the tower and the headland to the south, a number of big guns were dumped over the cliffs after the war, to stop them being used again and to erase unpleasant memories of the war.



Plans were recently announced from Guernsey to hoist one of the largest up by helicopter to take it back "home" to its wartime position - where it had been for most of the war.




This hasn't gone down well (excuse the mild pun) with local rock climbers who fear the rockface may be damaged in the process of retrieval.






.. however, I believe a competent Chinook pilot ought to be able to handle it. Just how much "damage" can you do to a cliff anyway? Don't climbers relish a new challenge is the cliff changes slightly?



The principle has already been established to place old guns as a reminder of the war, lest we forget, etc.








On a headland overlooking Le Pinacle, it looks like a german position of some sort.







More guns quietly rusting away.






Meanwhile, this bunker overlooking Stinky Bay...







.. L'Etacq, and all over the bay to Corbiere...






.. has been sealed up recently with metal sheeting. Spoilsports! I hope they don't do that with the open shelter bunker closer to the tower.

Extreme Low Tide - Les Landes

A great day up at Les Landes, during the lowest tide of the year - less than 1ft. Nice and sunny, and sheltered from the east wind it was T-shirt conditions - which was brilliant for a winter day!


With the tide so low, I don't expect you'd usually see quite so much of the rocks below Le Pinacle...








.. or below the German WWII lookout tower.







There's a vast expanse of rock ...







.. at L'Etacq.







"Stinky Bay"







.. and more.






A dark seam of rock below the tower.







.. and a pink one.







That's just begging to be tipped over! :)







Are these rocks trying to say something?








That's that other island in the distance...





.. right a bit, and closer. St.Peter Port.







The area around Le Pinacle ...






.. and evidence of prehistoric activity.






If you're not likely to ever set foot on top of the stack, here's what it looks like up there.






Two churches and a mill.






The whole snap of a view over St.Ouen's Bay...








.. and a closer bit.

More next time, as we take a look at military WWII relics up there.