Bunker CTF 20 Hotchamps

This is bunker CTF 20.

The bunker is located within the sector Comblain-Sougné of the first line of defense for the city of Liège. La Posistion Fortifiée de Liège 1,PFL 1.

CTF stands for 'Centraux téléphoniques' which can be translated as a bunker for telephone exchange. The bunker was not intended as a bunker in de line of defense or shelter. Within the PFL area there were 34 CTF-bunkers. They provided communication between the forts and the bunkers.

typical for this kind of bunkers is that they do not have gunopenings. On first sight one might think dat the opening next to the door was for a cannon or machinegun. But this is an escape hatch. The bunker is accessible. Here you can see that everey bunker had two doors. The second door has been disassambled ans was put aside in in the passage. Inside one can see the acces to the escape hatch and the little square boxes in the wall for the incomming telephone lines. Also the corrugated roof can be seen. This kind of roof was inside every bunker.

Telephone lines were burried as deep as 2 meters in between bunkers and the forts. Outside the forts the lines were burried even as deep as 6 meters. Out of precaution for the expected shelling of the forts with heavy artillary. At this depht the lines would be less vurnerable for the shells.

The walls and ceiling of the bunkers from the PFL were standard 1.30 m. thick and of reinforced concrete. They had to be able to withstand shells of 150 mm.

The bunkers were built in the 1930s.

After the war, when the bunkers lost their strategic value for the Belgian army, the plots of land on which they stood were sold. All the metal of the hatches and doors was sold as scrap metal. Hence the that most bunkers are now on private plots.

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Source

• Text: Ed Lewandowski
• Photos: Ed Lewandowski
• La Position Fortifiée de Liège, Coenen & Vernier