Defense Bunker MN 17 Saint-Jean Sart

This is bunker MN 17 of the PFL 1, the 1st line of defense of the 'Position Fortifiée de Liège'.

MN refers to the sector 'Les Margarins-Neufchâteau' where it is the 17th of a total of 31 bunkers.

The bunker is located against a ridge and has been partially covered by mud over the years and overgrown with bushes and trees. A concrete staircase down the stairs leads to the entrance. The bunker used to be equipped with two steel doors, but they, like the remaining iron of the hatches, were sold as scrap after the war. However, part of the gun plate on the inside is still present. These are usually also completely removed. Shelf carriers and equipment carriers are also still present. Also the small shelf (photo 5) on which one could fasten an hand-operated mechanism (like a glue clamp) and where the cartridge bands were filled with bullets.

Also part of the original fence of concrete posts with barbed wire is still present. The one in front of the entrance should have had an iron gate, but that too has been sold as a shot. The entrance is now fenced off with barbed wire.

As general information, this bunker like most bunkers of the PFL are made of reinforced concrete and were built in the early 1930s. The walls and ceiling are 1.30 m thick. They had to withstand shelling with 150mm shells. Only the walls at the rear are slightly less thick, because in principle they were not exposed to enemy fire.

The holes above and below the gun opening served for ventilation. When both doors of the bunker were closed and the machine gun was firing, the smoke had to get out quickly and fresh air brought in. That is what these ventilation holes, in addition to the gun opening, served for. They are laid out in the concrete in such a way that they do not have a straight connection from outside to inside. They run through the concrete in the shape of a periscope, so to say.

When the bunkers lost their strategic value for the defense of Belgium after the war, the metal of the hatches and doors was sold as scrap metal. Most of the plots on which they stood were also sold. As like Bunker MN 17 which now sits in a meadow.

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Source

• Text: Ed Lewandowski
• Photos: Joost Verheijden (1), Ed Lewandowski (2, 3, 4, 5)
• La Position Fortifiée de Liège, PFL 1, Coenen en Vermeer