I walk into the bunker behind a grandfather and his son. The son talks about a war museum. The grandfather answers that he is not interested in wars. The son's reply is the question why he then never misses to visit Bunkers on Bunkerday.
Why are buildings as ugly as a bunker so fascinating? It surely is the history behind them, the stories about bloodshed and destruction, the possibility to look into something which during its functioning days was forbidden for the eyes of the curious.
During the time of the German occupation, the Dutch port town of Ijmuiden at the entrance of the canal leading to Amsterdam was declared a fortress. Houses were torn down to provide a free shooting range and bunkers being part of the Atlantic wall were built to prevent an attack by landing forces from the sea.
But as access point to the Channel it also was a base for an armada of speedboats designed to fire torpedoes at allied ships passing by. These boats, being able to reach 65 km/h for 1500 km, were built from wood and very fragile. They needed protection from the increasing air raids. Since 1941 Ijmuiden harbour already had a big boat shelter with a 2m reinforced concrete roof, but the increasing destructive force of the bombs needed a stronger bunker.
Therefore in 1943 the Germans started to built another stronger bunker with a reinforced concrete roof 4m thick. The bunker had space for 12 boats and additionally another 4 docks for reparation.
The construction of the bunker was delayed by the constant air raids. However, in 1944 the roof was finished. Meanwhile the allies had developed new bombs. The tallboys were bombs of 5 kiloton and the idea was to let them explode right next to the outside wall of the bunker to destroy the foundations leading to the collapse of the supporting walls. This tactics indeed led to the destruction of the older speed boat bunker. The speed boats now were spread out in the harbour to minimize damage.
On the walls of the then new bunker you still can see the damage done by tallboys hitting the walls.
The torpedoes to arm the speed boats were stored in a separate bunker a distance away from the boat shed. This bunker still exists and now serves as a band practice room.
The rails of the narrow gage railway used to bring the torpedoes to the boats are still in the entrance.
In 1944 a new secret bomb called the Disney swish was used. Its name was inspired by a n propaganda cartoon by Walt Disney. The bomb was accelerated by a solid fuel rocket engine, which gave it an impact speed of 1590 km/h - much higher than the speed caused by gravitation of an ordinary bomb.
In 1944 a Disney swish hit the new, unfinished bunker in Ijmuiden. It penetrated the 4m reinforced concrete roof, left a neat hole in the underlying ceiling and ended up stuck in the ground. Without exploding.
Other damages can be seen inside the bunker. These occurred from bombs hitting before the ceiling was finished.
After the experience that the allies now had bombs which were able to enter even the new bunker, the works were stopped and the bunker never finished. After the war it ended up on the property of Cebo, a company storing and selling minerals.
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