APRIL 98 TRIP

On 20 April 1998 I miraculously found myself winging my way once again to Europe. Miraculously I say, because it had taken me five years to get back. And of course, every year something came up that kept me from going. But somehow this time I made the airline reservations and reserved a car and off I went.

Before I left I had been lucky over the previous year to meet several fine gentlemen over the internet who shared my interest and love for fortifications. Four of those men lived in France, Germany, and Belgium. Jo Vermuelen lives near Liege, Belgium. He has an excellent web site on the Brialmont fortifications of that city. Martin Rupp lives in Saarbrucken and is very knowledgeable about the New Front construction. Patrice Lang lives near Thionville and is a guide at Ouvrage Immerhof. Finally, Nicolas Braun lives in Metz. He and his group study the fortifications of that city. I say that I am lucky to have met these men because of the wealth of information they provided to me before I left which helped me to plan and my trip, and because I was extremely fortunate to have been able to meet Jo, Patrice, and Nicolas in person.

I spent about a month preparing for the trip, deciding where to go and what to bring. I had some good maps of France and Belgium , made copies of the portions I needed and put them into a book along with maps of the forts and ouvrages. I was lucky enough to have been able to purchase Phillipe Truttmann's excellent book on the Maginot Line. I read through that to help me with details. I brought rain gear, boots, two flashlights, a video camera, still camera, and 8 rolls of film.

I arrived in Frankfurt on Tuesday, rented a car, and drove to Ramstein in southwestern Germany, near Kaiserslautern, where I spent the night with some German friends. On Wednesday morning I left at 0700, and headed south through Pirmasens to Ouvrage Simserhof. I can't tell you how great it was to once again see a French casemate alongside the road. I had planned to visit the surface of Schiesseck, part of Simserhof, Welschoff, and Haut-Poirier, but I also made plans to meet Nicolas at Hackenberg at 1330 so I didn't have enough time to see everything. Instead of going to Schiesseck I went to the combat blocs of Simserhof.

The weather was beautiful, but it had been raining for several weeks before and the ground was very wet. Of course I was too lazy to put on my boots so my sneakers were soaked after about two minutes. I drove down a road which runs to the north of Simserhof. To the left I could see the steel antitank rails in the woods. Further down on the left was an old military road which led between the two groups of combat blocs. It could best be described as a mud puddle. I parked and walked down the road towards the main part of the ouvrage. 50 meters down the path I ran into Bloc 1. A deer was sitting peacefully on top of the bloc. Bloc 1 is a huge bloc, buried deeply in the vegetation. I made my way around to the front of the bloc and got some great photos of the varied embrasures. On top of the bloc was a closed machine gun turret. I heard dogs barking and it was too wet to tramp through the woods so I returned to my car and headed west towards Rohrbach.

The Petit Ouvrage de Rohrbach, also known as "Fort Casso" is in excellent condition. Being a Wednesday, it was closed, but I managed to get some goods shots of Bloc 3's surface. There is also a beautiful view from the top of the Bloc. This ouvrage, as well as Welschoff and Haut-Poirier, are all cleared on the surface so they give you an indication of what the fort was like during wartime. Most other ouvrages are lost in the woods. I moved on to Welschoff and there got my first indication of actions being taken by the army to seal off the abandoned forts. Welschoff's entrance door was completely walled up. A worse example was at Haut-Poirier where the doors were sealed up and the ditches filled in. Haut-Poirier was very unique in its design and well worth a visit. Bloc 1 had four cloches of varying design. In between bloc 1 and 3 was a false cloche made of concrete. The ouvrage was an excellent example of New Front construction.

After leaving Haut-Poirier, I travelled along the inundation zone between Saaralbe and St. Avold. This was the region that would be flooded in the event of an attack. Many of the small reservoirs and dams were still in existence. The only problem was that there was very little rain in May 1940 so the flood zones were not capable of providing an adequate water barrier. Around noon I caught up once again with the main fortification line southwest of St. Avold at Teting.

I had planned to stop at Teting, Laudrefang, and the Casemates of Quatre Vents. I also was looking for the old caserne at Teting. Being pressed for time, however, and because Teting is very deep in the woods, I skipped that and Laudrefang. I drove past the Casemates but could not find a place to park so I drove on towards Hackenberg, passing by the most densely fortified region of the line. At 1250 I arrived in the village of Veckring. I had a few minutes to spare so I parked by the American tank at the beginning of the road leading up to the entrances of Hackenberg and walked about 100 yards down the road to the Veckring caserne, which is now a paintball range.

The gentleman who runs the range was kind enough to let me walk through the area and take some pictures. I took photos of the main barracks buildings, which are still in pretty good conditioned although they are abandoned and the wind blows freely through the missing windows. One feature I found fascinating was the barracks made entirely of metal. In fact, the metal was rusted. After a few minutes I returned to the tank to wait for Nicolas and his entourage. They showed up a few minutes later.

We decided to visit Billig, which was the next ouvrage north of Hackenberg. I had written to the French Army and requested permission to visit some of the forts. They allowed me to visit Billig, Metrich, Koenigsmaker, Driant, and Jeanne D'Arc. Nicolas, Francois (secretary of the RLD), and Nicolas' brother Pierre set off for Billig. We drove up to the combined entrance. The grill was sealed shut but there was a small gap large enough to squeeze through. Somehow I made it through, but the inner armored was soldered shut so we could go no further. We decided to head to the surface and find some of the more interesting blocks, but we might as well have been in the Amazon jungle. We did find bloc 3, but that was it. We packed it in and headed for Metrich.

Metrich is a very large ouvrage located at the end of the ridge which runs into the Moselle River valley north of Thionville. The Americans made their way up this ridge in 1944. There was some fighting at Metrich but the main American objective was to stop the shelling from Hackenberg. They did that the next day. The road to the entrances runs by the old caserne, which is still occupied. The road leading up to the entrances is not very good. There were puddles and lots of holes, and we would have been in trouble if someone was coming the other way because it was not large enough for two cars passing. We reached the munitions entrance and were shocked to see that a mound of dirt had been piled up all across the face of the bloc. We walked up to the other entrance, about 300 yards away, and it was worse. I learned later that the ouvrage had been sold to a commercial venture but they backed out at the last minute.

We returned to the munitions entrance and the top of the dirt had been cleared away to make it possible to gain entrance into the bloc. (It was at this point when I realized that it didn't matter what anyone did to try to keep people out of the ouvrages, dedicated "fortiphiles" would not let a little dirt or solder stop them.) We entered the fort and were able to get past the armored door into the main gallery. A group called the "desoudriers" or de-solderers, proudly proclaimed in chalk above the doorway that they were going to break through all the seals. A man named "Brice" also made himself known. All throughout the fort, he left messages in chalk describing some of the fortress elements. BRICE - ARE YOU OUT THERE - ETES VOUS LA??

Metrich is a very large fort, as I have said before. One thing we noted very quickly was the intrusion of anhydrite, a gypsum-like material, through the floor of the gallery. It seems that a geological phenomenon had caused the anhydrite to swell up and push its way up through the concrete floor of the fort. The effect was a crack in the floor and a raising of the floor level up to about 2 1/2 feet at certain spots. The going was dangerous - the floors buckled, wet, and covered with scrap metal. However, Metrich had many interesting features. On the back of the door in the kitchen area was a painted sign advertising the hours when wine was distributed. Blocks 8 and 11 were unique. A single staircase led up about 6 flights to an intermediate corridor which led, on each end, to the blocks. Block 11's 75mm turret still had the guns in the firing chamber. I was too tired to go climb any more stairs so we made our way out, having spent about 60 minutes inside. While dilapidated, it was still magnificent.

We moved on the Fort Koenigsmaker, a German-built "Feste Gruppen." Koenigsmaker was built after the turnover of Alsace and Lorraine to the Germans in 1871. The fort is to the northeast of Thionville, on the right bank of the Moselle, directly across the river from the Nuclear Power Plant of Cattenom, and the Cattenom forest, which itself is thickly covered by casemates, shelters, observatories, and ouvrages. Koenigsmaker was part of a new concept, where barracks and batteries were hidden by the terrain. The fort sits on top of a hill. It can be reached on foot by a strategic military road.

The first thing we saw was a gate which passed between a rusted, spiked iron fence. About 10 yards further on was another fence. Between the fence was a ditch and a counterscarp wall which housed several casemates to protect the ditch. Several yards further up were the barracks, infantry positions, and a gun battery. Koenigsmaker had four 105mm guns in revolving turret. Unlike her sister fort, Guentrange, all of Koenigsmaker's guns have been removed. You can go inside the gun battery and into the cupola chambers. These were Krupp guns. The barracks were in poor condition. The floor was made of wood and was missing in quite a few spots. The generators were gone and debris filled the passages. The structures were made of masonry with window openings and were covered by a layer of concrete. Thus, while they conformed to the terrain, they were not underground like the Maginot Line. Nicolas Braunn has an excellent website which discussed the German forts.

The next day, Thursday, Nicolas, Francois, and I set out early for Battery Plappeville, two gun batteries situated between Fort Plappeville and Fort Gerardin. These batteries were the same construction as at Koenigsmaker. We decided to try to get into Fort Plappeville, a magnificent structure about a mile north of the batteries. Plappeville is a huge fort with bastioned walls and a deep ditch. Unfortunately we could not get past the advance post which gave access to a bridge into the fort. We headed instead for Ouvrage Bois La Dame.

Bois La Dame was one of 7 intermediate infantry positions built between Forts Driant and Jeanne D'Arc. The American Army called them the "Seven Dwarfs." Ouvrage Bois La Dame (not to be confused with a Maginot Line ouvrage - this was a term used loosely and there was essentially no discernable difference between an "ouvrage" and a "fort) was never completed. It is a concrete structure situated on top of a hill and is accessed over a 3-mile long dirt (and I mean dirt) road. It is very slow-going, but worth the trip. Bois La Dame is distinguished by its "Batterie Cuirassee," or metal gun battery. This was an experimental concept where an entire battery element was made in one piece and connected to the concrete fort. It was a "plug-in" casemate, so to speak. The only problem was that the noise inside was deafening when the guns (machine guns) were fired. Thus the idea was abandoned. The only other noteable thing about BLD was that the kids used it for "Rave" parties as indicated by the direction signs which led to the fort's interior.

We "potholed" our way back down the mountain and headed for the Fortified Group Verdun, which consisted of Forts Sommy and St. Blaise. I had visited the entrance to St. Blaise several years before but had not gone past the gate. Nicolas told me not to worry about any soldiers we might see - just to act as if we belonged there. It didn't take long to test his theory. We parked the car about 200 meters from the entrance and as we were getting out of the car, an army jeep drove down the road from the direction of the fort. We waved and that was it. We walked on to the fort's superstructure and there were about 40 soldiers sitting around eating their lunch. They just looked at us but didn't seem to care whether we were there or not. We didn't spend too much time up there, only taking a photo of the carved shield (coat of arms of the family Graf-Haesler) on the wall of the main caserne. We went from there to Fort Sommy which was on an adjacent hill. The bad road finally prevented us from going all the way to the fort but the walk was worth it. There is a beautiful iron portal over the entrance gate. The Germans were much more artistic with their fortifications then were the modern French military engineers.

Nicolas wanted to take me to see the Fortified Group Marne. We made it as far as the entrance but while we were standing by the car eating lunch, Nicolas heard a hissing sound. It turned out to be a hole in the tire (probably from the bad roads). I decided to get it fixed before it went completely flat so that was it for the day.

On Friday the clouds rolled in. I headed northwest of Metz to catch up once again with the Maginot Line, on my way to Liege, Belgium. It took about 45 minutes to reach the Ouvrage de Brehain. While I could find some of the interval casemates I did not venture into the area with the combat blocs because it looked overgrown. I continued on the Latiremont and was surprised to find that you could see both men's and munitions entrances at the same time, something very rare. I continued on towards the Chiers River valley. The Ouvrage of Velosnes seemed to buried deeply in the woods. As I was rounding a curve in the road past Velosnes I caught a glimpse in the distance of the Fortress of Montmedy. It was beautiful. It was built by Vauban in the late 1600s and rises up above the valley floor. I drove up to the citadel but it was closed.

My next visit was to the exterior of Ouvrage Villy La Ferte. This is comprised of two combat blocs, each serving as entrances. Villy was attacked by the Germans and captured, but not before the garrison died from asphyxiation due to gas from charges thrown into the gallieries by the German pioneers. This was the only Ouvrage to fall to the Germans. The most interesting feature was the intact anti-tank rail/barbed wire lines surrounding the ouvrage. I had not seen the double barrier anywhere before, except buried in the woods. All of the terrain around V L F is clear so you can see the barriers and you also have a commanding view of the surrounding countryside. One aspect I found to be a bit disturbing was when standing inside the entrance. A drawbridge crossed over the ditch leading into a small outer tunnel about 2 meters inside the fort. To the right as you entered was the inner armored door that led inside. It was locked so I couldn't get inside, but as I stood next to it, I could hear a howl of wind coming from inside the ouvrage. It almost sounded like the wailing of the spirits of the dead heroes who had died in the galleries below. It was creepy.

From here I headed to Liege for the weekend. For a description of my visit there, see www.oocities.org/Athens/Delphi/9677 in the near future.

On Monday I returned to Metz and visited some of the ouvrages in the Cattenom Forest, namely Immerhof, Soetrich, Kobenbusch, Sentzich, and Galgenberg. Soetrich's entrances were covered over with dirt like Metrich. I found the most interesting of all entrances to the Maginot Line in the northeast at Kobenbusch.

On Tuesday I headed back to catch my flight at Frankfurt but not before visiting the concrete transformer stations at Bettalainville and Rurange - very interesting. I also stopped in Saarbrucken and, thanks to Martin, found some Westwall dragon's teeth and bunkers on the Halberg (some of the few remaining in Germany, although I am finding from my associates that many Westwall features still remain).

Some final observations: If you want to visit these fortifications, don't bite off more than you can chew. Most of the Maginot and Messine fortifications are hard to find and are buried in the woods. Access roads are mainly dirt roads in poor condition. Finding surface combat blocks in the woods is next to impossible and can be very dangerous because they are surrounded by anti-personnel features like barbed wire and stakes in the ground. The forts inside are also dangerous. Take a good, powerful flashlight and backups. And take a friend. Now, I am the last one to avoid doing something because its dangerous but I feel the need to warn you. Otherwise have fun!