CME Expedition 14

Location: Skien, Norway.
Members: 001, 004.
Type: Defence Post, WW2.
Status: Abandoned.

After exploring the location in expedition 13, we got back in the car and continued our journey. It was still early in the evening, sunny and warm, and caveman 004 was ready for some more exploring. We decided to have a look for a defence position built by the germans during the second world war, reported to be nearby. This place was located on a little hill right in the middle of a field, so we had to drive a little back and forth to find a place to park. We saw a guy standing by the side of the road and decided to ask him politely if we could park on his property for half an hour. He replied with a grin, so I was curious to see if the car was there at all when we got back, or if it had been stripped for all usable parts. Either way, we climbed the little hill and the following picture illustrates what we saw.

001 Headed Into The Bush

We looked at eachother thinking 'how the hell are we going to find anything here'? It was the right spot, so we carried on through the bush, fighting off branches and bugs, carefull not to fall into overgrown trenches. Then, at last we spotted concrete, though heavily overgrown after being abandoned for the past 68 years. This was a perfect caveman playground and a nice find. All we had to do now was find a good entry point.

Trenches

After pushing through branches and trees a little while longer, we found the entry point. All of a sudden a horse comes riding by litterally 20 ft. from where we stand, but the rider has no chance of spotting us, as this place is so overgrown. It made us wonder how much of the surrounding bush the germans would have left standing when making this place. The trees around us seemed to be quite young, but this could have been cut down and re-grown several times since the war. Caveman 004 jumped on in, and while I took pictures from above, 004 was moving along down in the trench.

 
It didn't take long before it branched off into two paths..towards two different shooting positions.

Intersection

We decided to check out the path on the left hand side in the picture above. Branches and small trees down in the trench served the purpose of natural barriers, but 004 carried on and got to the first shooting position. It had a raised platform and niches in the wall for storing ammo.

Position 1

After heading back to the intersection and choosing the other path, 004 crouched down to get a shot of where we came from. If you imagine his camera replaced by a gun, it sort of looks like he's defending the trench from a rear attack.

Private Caveman 004 Reporting From The Front Lines

The second shooting position turned out to be a bit bigger than the first, and was overbuildt with what the germans called wellblech, but still had the raised platform and ammo niches in the walls.

Position 2

Having found the extent of the trench system we climbed up and headed to the front of the structure to get an impression of what potensial enemies would see, that's when 004 discovered that they had even built a draining system to keep water out of the trenches.

Drain Hole In Front Of Position 2

Once down from the little hill we had been on, we turn back towards the second position and discussed how this must have been quite a strategic position, it overlooks the field nearby and a little lake, and it's relatively well concealed. Besides the fact that it uses natural rock, the germans probably fitted it with their own camouflage.

Looking Back Up At Position 2

So now to the question about why the germans constructed this position just here? Well, it's hard to tell really. It's not situated close to any place of obvious strategic value. The guys over at the kystfort forum speculate that this may have been constructed to protect a seaplane port down by the lake, or it could have been here to defend against airborne troops landing in the area. I have no idea which is correct, but the germans constructed several inland positions up in the county of Telemark during the last stages of the war. A lot of the original german records from the war are simply gone, so it could be hard to find out. We'll keep you posted if we do. Oh, by the way...the car was still there when we got back!

-Caveman 001-