Bunker MN 2 Les Margarins

This is bunker MN 2 of the PFL 1, the 1st line of defense of the 'Position Fortifiée de Liège'.

MN refers to the sector 'Les Margarins-Neufchâteau' where it is the 2nd of a total of 31 bunkers.

The bunker is located in the middle of a private plot. With the owner's permission, I was allowed to take a few photos of the bunker in his garden. The bunker is used as a gardenshed and was closed with a homemade door. No so-called "DN" (Defense National) posts were present anymore. The military plot was cordoned off with four of these posts and a fence to indicate that it was a military domain.

At the entrance the grenade trench can still be seen, which was used to throw hand grenades from inside through this trench to the intruders.

As general information it can be mentioned that this bunker like most bunkers of the PFL are made of reinforced concrete and were built in the early 1930s. The walls and ceiling are 1.30 m thick. They had to withstand shelling with 150mm shells. Only the walls at the rear are slightly less thick, because in principle they were not exposed to enemy fire.

The holes above and below the gun opening served for ventilation. When both doors of the bunker were closed and the machine gun was firing, the smoke had to get out quickly and fresh air brought in. That is what these ventilation holes, in addition to the gun opening, served for. They are constructed in the concrete in such a way that they do not have a straight connection from outside to inside. They run through the concrete in the shape of a periscope, so to say.

When the bunkers lost their strategic value for the defense of Belgium after the war, the metal of the hatches and doors was sold as scrap metal. Also, most of the plots on which they were situated were sold, so many bunkers are now on private plots. Like bunker MN 2.

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Source

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