Bunker BE 1 Boncelles

Bunker BE 1 is located along a new city district in the city of Boncelles in a tiny wood and is part of sector Boncelles-Embourg (BE) of the second line of defence for the city of Liège, la Position Fortifiée de Liège, (PFL 2).

The bunker is located on a tiny forestplot and can be seen from the parkinglot of the new city quarter.

To the south-west side the sector BE borders to sector Flémalle-Boncelles (FB, consisting of 4 bunkers, of which 1 still remains). To the north it borders sector Embourg-Chaudfontaine EC, consisting of 5 bunkers of which 4 still remain).

When after the war the bunkers lost their strategic importance for the Belgian defence, the metal doors and shutters were removed and sold as scrap. It is a large bunker and would hold two machinguns ore one and a 47 mm anti-tank canon.

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