The following is taken from the CIOS (Guernsey) Newsletter No.32, February 2010 and should be of interest to the Regalbau fans!
Regards,
Malcolm
Trevor Davenport wrote:From 2008 until the present, major construction works have been undertaken on the commercial quay at the harbour in Alderney.
The harbour and surrounding area was known to the Germans as Widerstandnest Hafen. Most people who know of the German structures in the harbour area have heard of Alderney's 'German Jetty' that was demolished during 1978 1nd 1979.
What is not so well known - if at all - by most, is that the Germans in-filled a corner of the pre-war jetty to increase unloading space, and that in this filled area they built two substantial shelters together with two Tobruk pits. The whole area had been concreted over and built on soon after the war had ended. The five sets of steps to these shelters were just visible on the 1945 aerial photographs, as were the two Tobruk pits that had supposedly mounted tank turrets on the seaward side of the shelters. It was impossible to identify from the aerial photographs the type of shelters, or the type of tank turrets, if any, which were mounted in the Tobruk pits.
During 2009 the engineering works first revealed that the northernmost Tobruk pit had a toothed wheel mounting for an APX-R tank turret. This was soon followed by the exposure of the two sets of steps down to the northernmost bunker. The bunkers were flooded but the passage at the base of the steps revealed (by photograph only) that access to the Tobruk pits was, very unusually, directly from the outside passage - and from both sides.
The southern bunker is completely covered but the aerial photos show it to be similar to the one partially exposed and described above. Measurements of the uncovered tops of the bunkers exposed during excavations strongly indicate that these are Type 656, 15-man personnel shelters with a third smaller bunker - whose purpose is unknown - in between them.
The drawing below is based on the aerial photographs and recent measurements. There may be some questions about the exact extent of the concrete surrounding the bunkers, as the shelters were inaccessible and flooded above the main steps down to each bunker. The purpose of the smaller bunker is unknown.
