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Our first stop was the German Military Underground Hospital and Ammunition Store. The descriptive explanation about it was all taken from the inside of the brochure.
The German Military Underground Hospital and Ammunition Store is the largest structural reminder of the German Occupation in the Channel Islands. This maze of tunnels covers an area of about 75,000 square feet. Almost invisible from the surface (except for the entrances) this vast concrete maze is built under a low hill in the heart of the Guernsey countryside. The escape shafts are no more than square holes level with the field surface above.
Hundreds of slave workers of several nationalities helped to build it. It took them approximately 3 ½ years to excavate, concrete and equip the place, yet it was only in actual use for some nine months. During that period thousands of tons of ammunition were stored there, but the actual hospital was only used to accommodate troops brought from France where they were wounded in action against the Liberating Forces.
Designed to accommodate 800 patients, the Hospital, in an emergency, could have housed three or four times that number. Included in its medical staff were at least six German female nurses. The Hospital was ready for use in 1944.
The 1 ¼ miles of corridors and rooms which can be visited today were all excavated out of the solid rock, about 60,000 tons were removed. The workers included men from France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Belgium, Holland, Poland and Russia, together with some Guernseymen.
The Hospital comprises two main corridors running parallel to each other. Between them, and connected to both, are the wards, operating theatre, Xray room, laboratory, dispensary, staff sleeping quarters, etc. On the other side of one of the corridors are store rooms, cinema and mortuary. At the end of one of the main corridors are the central heating boilers and kitchen.
NOTE NOT IN JOURNALING: My pictures did not turn out well at all - I couldn't get my camera to do well with the low light but one of our tablemates, Callie Stewart got excellent photos and shared them with me. Most of the photos in these pages of the underground hospital are hers.
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Thanks for spreading positivity!
September 04, 2016
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August 22, 2016