Bunker CTF 10 Retinne

This is bunker CTF 10.

The bunker is located within the sector Fleron-Evegnée of the second line of defense for the city of Liège, la Position Fortifiée de Liège 2, PFL 2.

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 not accessible. But through the openig in the door you can see that everey bunker had two doors. The bunker is camouflaged in the typical redbrick patern so it would fit in with the houses in the area. The patern was carved in the cement.

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. 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.

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Source

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