Bunker to be opened to public for first time in 60 years

The Channel Islands Occupation Society is currently cleaning an eight-room coastal defence gun casement at Corbière Lighthouse and they predict that the project will take around two months.

A team of six are working to make the underground bunker, which is buried below the car park, safe for people to visit.

Malcolm Amy, CIOS committee member and fortifications manager, said that the bunker was closed in 1953 by the authorities and that only a handful of people in the Island had ever been inside.

‘There was a scrap metal drive in 1953 and they went into the bunker and removed the French 105 mm gun, which would have weighed around two or three tonnes.

The bunker remained hidden until 1989, when the CIOS broke through the sealed door to investigate if there was anything worth salvaging, only to block up the entrance shortly after.

In 2006, when vandals broke in to the fortification, the CIOS decided to eventually reopen the bunker – a decision that is due to be realised this year.

‘We are going to clean it up, but leave it as we find it,’ Mr Amy said.

‘This is not a restoration project. This bunker tells the story of what happened to the German defences after the war, of how the scrap merchants were interested only in profit, not preservation.

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