First Post

Hi everyone.

My first post on this forum but not my last. I found the main site by accident whilst doing some research for work (in Qatar).
I just love the photos, they bring back so many memories of BAOR.
I notice there are no photos of Imphal/Mercer Bks in Osnabruck. There are some brilliant images of it on Google, the good news is the barracks have not been pulled down.

As I am in Qatar I cannot get at all my photos as they are in storage in UK, I have Tons !!! I'm afraid you will have to wait 15 months until you see them.

There are lots of things to comment about so I'll resist the temptation of writing an essay and place one each day until my store is empty.

In the Location report of Minden, one guy remembers a telephone exchange just down the road from 11 Inf Wksp REME. I was there from 62 - 63 and we certainly knew about it but never visited, so the writer can rest easy now, it DID exist. My wife learnt to drive in 2000-2001 in Harrogate. Her instructor was called Bill. On speaking to him I found he had been a VM(B) there at the same time as I was and neither of us knew each other. I was Orderly Room Cpl.
Good photos of Porta Westfalica on the site too. Only in the last few years has it been known that under those very hills was a WWII German underground Aircraft and Rocket factory. It is still there and locked off but a couple of years back a UK journalist managed to get in and look around before some politzei came in and chased him out.
PS If you are worried about dates, my wife is very much younger than I am.
Bye for now. Malaboman

Welcome mate. Pint in the NAAFI later.

malaboman wrote:

Hi everyone.


Good photos of Porta Westfalica on the site too. Only in the last few years has it been known that under those very hills was a WWII German underground Aircraft and Rocket factory. It is still there and locked off but a couple of years back a UK journalist managed to get in and look around before some politzei came in and chased him out.
PS If you are worried about dates, my wife is very much younger than I am.
Bye for now. Malaboman

Regarding Porta Westfalica...and I hope I'm not getting my denkmals mixed up here ...the original was a very ornate Kaiser Wilhelm era piece, quite spectacular.

When Hitler came to power, he had it re-designed in the Monumental style so beloved by the Nazis. While certainly still imposing, it didn't have the flamboyance and verve of the original, which was quite gothic, actually. Way more over the top than anything the Victorians came out with.

I never heard of a factory under it, but then the Nazis had these sorts of subterranean infrastructures all over the place and in the damndest places, too, so it is very possible.

There is a hill in Berlin that is not a natural hill but actually a buried massive fortress the Nazis built. The Allies couldn't destroy it all (part of it was built into another artifical hillside) and so they just buried it and planted trees on top. It's apparently a very popular park site now.

I think the "fortress" in Berlin referred to here is actually one of the Flak Towers built by the Germans during WW2. There were 2 or 3 of them and were virtually impossible to destroy - so the allies simply buried one and formed a hill - the top still being visible.

Another artificial hill is to the west of the City where the allies built a Sigint facility on top of rubble piled up from the post war clearing operation.

Niall

Niall. Its the Sigint one I was talking about. It was German women who built it , there were not many youing/fit/able men around in 45 - 47. As you correctly say it was built from the rubble of bombed buildings, hence the name Trummerburg.
The women used hands to move each brick or piece of stone and put them in wheel-barrows and those little karts that people had then (and certainly upto the late 60's in rural areas).

298HALL wrote:

I think the "fortress" in Berlin referred to here is actually one of the Flak Towers built by the Germans during WW2. There were 2 or 3 of them and were virtually impossible to destroy - so the allies simply buried one and formed a hill - the top still being visible.

Another artificial hill is to the west of the City where the allies built a Sigint facility on top of rubble piled up from the post war clearing operation.

Niall

There were 3 Flak towers built, Flakturm I was located at the western end of the Tiergarten, Flakturm II in Friedrichshain and Flakturm III in Humboldthain. The remians of I one were cleared to make way for an extension to the U-Bahn, II was buried and the mound that was caused has now been landscaped and planted with trees. III was partially buried and you can still get up on the top, on the side which overlooks the railway tracks. The Sigint facility was on the Teufelsberg, which was home to No 26 SU.

298HALL wrote:

I think the "fortress" in Berlin referred to here is actually one of the Flak Towers built by the Germans during WW2. There were 2 or 3 of them and were virtually impossible to destroy - so the allies simply buried one and formed a hill - the top still being visible.

Another artificial hill is to the west of the City where the allies built a Sigint facility on top of rubble piled up from the post war clearing operation.

Niall

Yes, Flak Towers, that's it. Couldn't think of the name off the top of my head (loss of hair will apparently do that, I've heard!) so went with "fortress" figuring you'd all understand what I meant.

And it's one hill, composed of the debris and such left after the war that was Berlin. My original post suggested the original facade was built into a hill and then the Allies buried the whole kit and kaboddle, which isn't quite right...I was sort of just dashing the post off and didn't take time to think it through.