More than a hundred bunkers open to the public, from the Wadden to the Zeeland coast. ‘I feel very vulnerable here’

First they would go by motorcycle, from the Schnellbootbunker In IJmuiden, via German casemates in the dunes to Hoek van Holland and back via a bunker on the former military airport Valkenburg near Katwijk. But it has been raining all day and that is why Daniël Vermeulen (24) and Nick Zwolsman (25) make their journey by car.

Say Bunkerdag and you say Atlantic Wall. Opened on Saturday for the tenth year in a rowMore than a hundred bunkers from the Second World War from the Wadden Islands to the Zeeland coast their thick, rusty doors.

Above that IJmuidense bunker for patrol boats of the Kriegsmarine, until recently, the demolition ball hurled, but soon it will probably be a national monument. « It was the most beautiful we saw today, » says Daniël. « It is very rude, but at the same time brutal architecture, that gives a kick. You wonder what the people there have experienced there. »

And now they stand between photos, models, books and military parapernalia in a modest building in addition to what was ten years ago the head of a runway. The former telecom plant of Valkenburg airport is also a bunker (Tje) – the concrete roof is sixty centimeters thick and it is gas -tight – but a lot more modern. It dates from a more recent war that was fortunately never hot.

This is it Museum of the Foundation Who wants to keep history alive of the airport that existed since 1940 and where until 2006 patrol aircraft of the Navy Aviation Service (MLD) had their home base. Nowadays Valkenburg is best known for Soldier of Orange, the musicalwho has been pulling a full hangar almost daily for fifteen years.

Spontaneous reunion

« As an airplane spotter, I have been on the other side of the fence for years, » says chairman Marco Borst (59), who runs the museum with around twenty volunteers, including former MLD people. Between older visitors often « a spontaneous reunion, » he says. Unlike the bunkers, they are open every Saturday. « We lift a bit on the national publicity around Bunkerdag, » says Borst

As a citizen, I would not know what to do if it becomes war

In addition to the elderly, according to him, there are many young people, and not just men. One of them is today Simone Rijksen (33), primary school teacher from Leiden, who walked here in waterproof clothing. « I didn’t realize that there is such a story around the corner, » she says. That story, the museum shows, is, for example, the failed attempt by German parachutists to occupy the airport in May 1940. But it is mainly that cold war, in which Valkenburg was a crucial support. Allegedly there were also nuclear depth bombs for use against Russian nuclear grounds on the Atlantic Ocean.

For many visitors, this era feels a little less far away these days, with a real war on the European Eastern border and rising tension in the West.

« I try to imagine what it means when these types of buildings are put back into use, » says Rijksen. « As a citizen, I would not know what to do if it becomes war. I feel very vulnerable here. »

Double feelings now that danger is back

Valkenburg airport provides former MLD people double feelings. They still think it is ‘terrible’ that VVD minister Henk Kamp decided in 2003 to take the thirteen Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft out, because « the (Russian) submarine danger (had) decreased. »

That danger is now back. And also with the hybrid operations against cables and pipelines in the North and Baltic Sea, they could have fulfilled a useful role, says Hans van Hese (78), who from 1966 as Marconist and specialist electronic warfare made more than ten thousand flying hours on almost all MLD aircraft, with the last. “All those know-how Is gone. We can never fall back on that. « 

But it is also a source of good memories, of friendships, operations that should still not be discussed, and tricky moments that are now mainly a good story. Like the time he had a heart attack during a nightly patrol, later woke up in an American military hospital in Italy. « The first words I heard were from a beautiful female cardiologist: »The Lord Doesn’t Want You Yet, Hans« . »

At the age of sixteen he became Marconist on board the aircraft carrier Karel Doorman. He actually always stayed that. As a radio amateur, nickname PC4E, he talks in Morsecode with like -minded people in the world. Surrounded by his old logs and a gray kite chek with a silver wing on the lapel, he winds points in the bunker of Valkenburg points and stripes into the ether.

But he realizes that he has pink glasses on, he says. « Those Orions were the newest of the newest at the time, and now they are just as old -fashioned as this sphere. »

The asphalt of the starting lanes, the traffic control, the lights, the radar antennas have disappeared. Perhaps the long-announced new city district will come here, such as at Ypenburg airport near The Hague. But sometimes the soldiers return.

That happened in 2014 During the nuclear top in The Hague. Then a military hospital arose here and Apache fighting helicopters were stationed and anti-aircraft missiles. This will happen again during the NATO summit on 24 and 25 June. Soldier van Oranje, the musical, must then close temporarily. And the bunker museum also closes.

« It now feels a bit like the Cold War here, » says Madelon van Velzen (44). And then: « The children just said: Dad can walk around here for another three hours, but we have seen it now. »

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