Bunker CTF 8 Bellaire

This is bunker CTF 8.

The bunker is part of the defense for the city of Liège, la Posistion Fortifiée de Liège, PFL.

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. There are however some exceptions. The early build CTF-bunkers (f.a. CTF 2 in Jupille-sur-Meuse), as CTF 8 would have a gunopening. The later types were build without gunopenings.

As of the ivy (photograph 5) the gunopening on CTF 8 can bearly be seen, but it is there.

Also the toplayer of camouflage pattern in cement carved bricks can be seen. This is in the colour red because most houses in the area of Liège are build with red bricks ore are painted red. The bunker blends in perfectly. The original door with its massive hinges is still present.

Telephonelines 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. To illustrate, the caliber of shells a Königstiger could fire was caliber 88 mm. Thus, only heavier caliber field guns could penetrate the concrete and potentially destroy the bunker.

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