Bunker BM 2-2 Saive

This is bunker BM 2-2 of sector Barchon-Meuse of the 2nd line of defense for the city of Liège (PFL 2, le Position Fortifiée de Liège).

The sector Barchon-Meuse consists of 8 bunkers between the fort of Barchon en the river Meuse. To the west it borders the sector of Evegnée-Barchon (EB).

The bunker is on the 2nd line of the sector of Barchon-Meuse, and at the same time the only one on the 2nd line.

The bunker is accessible. Inside there are two chambers for machinguns. (Most bunkers however were equipt with machinegun and an anti-tank canon.) Both chambers still have the original mount for the machingun. On the mount the machingun could be moved left and right. The two steel doors and shutters are gone. They were sold as scrab after the war when the bunkers lost their strategic meaning in the defence of Belgium.

Rermarkebly the chambers have no means of communication when fighting and both machineguns fill the bunker with heavy noise, like bunker Mont of sector Becco-Vesdre (BV), photo 3.

Standing on the outside one might think that te bunker is een poor condition. But when you are inside you can see how well conserverd the bunker in fact is. The 1,3 m. thick concrete walls have kept the bunker in excellent shape.

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