tunnel

[ddigger]

I tore down this house not long ago, it was built by a Jewish imigrant to this Country. In the tower were shooting rests and the small windows folded down to the inside. In the basment there was this.

I went in about 150ft untill it became clogged with tree roots and my shoulders felt like they were beginning to swell. The nieghbors I spoke with said rumor had it that it daylighted out nearly 1/4 mile away, and that the man had vowed never to be captured again. It makes me wonder the **** this man must have seen to go to the lengths.

 

[johnk]

That is very interesting. Is it in the US? Must of had some really nasty doings with the wrong people..

 

[nybirdman]

Probably a survivor of the Holocaust,captured by the German's WWII
Eastern Europe......immigrant Jew are the clues.

 

[ddigger]

Yes sorry, Northern California.

 

[JB4310]

I like tunnels, thanks for showing it.

What type of soil? looks pretty hard and stable. How deep is it? Could you stand up in it?

JB.

 

[MarkV]

Wow, don't see that everyday. In the first two tunnel photo's there was something on the ground that looked like containers tied together but I could not make it out for sure. Any idea what they were? Are you also going to collapse the tunnel?

Looked like an interesting house. Was it to far gone to save or was it being torn down for other reasons?

MarkV

 

[ddigger]

The soil is just a type of hard pan. The tunnel was about 28 t0 30 inches wide and 36 to 40 inches tall. The entrance was about 7 ft below exsisting grade. The house was on the grounds of a private school which I also demolished, to make way for a housing project of some sort. I am sure that after I left the dirt guys dug up and recompacted the tunnel. As for the stuff on the ground it was just junk, old pipe, cans and wire, mostly stuff that had fallen in from the demo.

 

[ljellio]

Very interesting thank you for sharing . Kinda gives you chills to think what he has been through. Similar when you see houses and barns that were part of the underground railroad

 

[jinman]

I can't speak to the tunnel, but I know someone who is finishing up a house in the country with a gun port in a wall beside the front porch in case undesirables come calling. He'll probably never have to tell anyone to leave more than once.:thumbsup:

BTW: I'm always amazed at how the older generation would do things. If I were building a tunnel, I'd first dig a trench with a backhoe, put in shoring, and cover it up. Digging by hand and dealing with cave-ins and spoil removal must have been a huge task. My 75 year old uncle bought a house in the 70s with a vacant lot beside it. He got out there with a pick and shovel and dug a hole, set forms, and poured a storm cellar. His neighbors (and me) thought he was nuts when he started, but they were awful friendly when he got finished. His was the only shelter on the block.

 

[MossRoad]

My dad was a WWII veteran and an architect. He built our house back in the mid to late 50's. We had the only reinforced concrete bomb shelter on the block! :laughing: It had steel I beams to support the concrete slab on the ceiling. The door was counterweighted with several large steel weights on a cable, pulley system. There was a hand pump well pipe and a fresh air intake pipe. He never finished the well pump or built the air filtration system. It was supposed to be some sort of hand crank apparatus with automotive oil filters to trap radioacitve dust particles. He figured by the time the "bomb" was dropped and armageddon was emminent, there really was not much of a point in staying in a concrete hole for 20-30 years! But it made a dandy tornado shelter! :thumbsup: :laughing:

 

[JB4310]

He figured by the time the "bomb" was dropped and armageddon was emminent, there really was not much of a point in staying in a concrete hole for 20-30 years!

Reminds of a twilight zone episode. I was never even a big fan of TZ but that episode always stuck with me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shelter_(The_Twilight_Zone)

Always hear about those cold war shelters but never seen any. My older home was built/owned by a well off factory owner, I'm always thinking maybe I'll unearth one

JB

 

[20 20]

interesting thanks for sharing

 

[MossRoad]

.... My older home was built/owned by a well off factory owner, I'm always thinking maybe I'll unearth one

JB

The Oliver family (Oliver plows and tractors) and the Studebaker family (Studebaker wagons, then later cars) both had mansions here in South Bend, IN. The entire factory areas on the south west side of South Bend is riddled with a tunnel system. Some are just for people. Some are large enough to drive trucks through. There was one tunnel from the Studebaker mansion to the factory so the Studebakers wouldn't have to walk in the snow and it doubled as an escape route... rumors of Indian attacks, which were probably unfounded. Anyhow, many of the larger truck tunnels were built because of WWII so factory work could continue underground. I have friends that work on some of the old factory buildings and they have a real problem with homeless people and scrappers coming into the factories stealing copper wire and such. The tunnels are accessible from many of the abandoned buildings in town, and also through some manholes. There are barriers erected in the tunnels to try to keep them out, but they just keep working on them until they break through. Kinda creepy going down into the third lower level of a factory basement only to find filthy homeless guys cutting into your live wiring.

 

[JB4310]

The Oliver family (Oliver plows and tractors) and the Studebaker family (Studebaker wagons, then later cars) both had mansions here in South Bend, IN. The entire factory areas on the south west side of South Bend is riddled with a tunnel system. Some are just for people. Some are large enough to drive trucks through. There was one tunnel from the Studebaker mansion to the factory so the Studebakers wouldn't have to walk in the snow and it doubled as an escape route... rumors of Indian attacks, which were probably unfounded. Anyhow, many of the larger truck tunnels were built because of WWII so factory work could continue underground. I have friends that work on some of the old factory buildings and they have a real problem with homeless people and scrappers coming into the factories stealing copper wire and such. The tunnels are accessible from many of the abandoned buildings in town, and also through some manholes. There are barriers erected in the tunnels to try to keep them out, but they just keep working on them until they break through. Kinda creepy going down into the third lower level of a factory basement only to find filthy homeless guys cutting into your live wiring.

Except for the threat of an obnoxious hobo I would love to explore those tunnels.

Been in some interesting WW2 tunnels and bunkers in Poland. One was a train tunnel through a small mt/hill ~1/4 mile long, was designed to shelter munitions trains with steel blast doors and gaurd pill boxes at each end.

Inside there where smaller tunnels branched out with a steel rail mounted to the ceiling, for moving cargo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOqkfJJUz1s&feature=related

Other large bunkers would have a network of smaller bunkers around them for support.

JB.

 

[czechsonofagun]

Except for the threat of an obnoxious hobo I would love to explore those tunnels.

Been in some interesting WW2 tunnels and bunkers in Poland. One was a train tunnel through a small mt/hill ~1/4 mile long, was designed to shelter munitions trains with steel blast doors and gaurd pill boxes at each end.

Inside there where smaller tunnels branched out with a steel rail mounted to the ceiling, for moving cargo.

YouTube - Bunkier Hitlera St?pina Anlage Sud

Other large bunkers would have a network of smaller bunkers around them for support.

JB.

I bet you would enjoy this We were building a defense line of fortresses before WWII - it never got to be used, but some of them our now accessible for tourists.

More pictures.

 

[texasjohn]

Thanks for posting.

Once in a while, like this, if we watch and listen to the silent testimony, we get a glimmer of the shadows that can fall on humans, our resiliency, lessons learned and an individuals' unflagging determination to avoid/escape evil.

I've seen much bluster regarding home protection and personal protection. This fellow was deadly serious about spending massive personal energy to achieve it. WWII is a fading memory now, but those who lived it and survived were forever changed in ways I simply cannot fully appreciate. Or, at least, I have not been personally driven, as this fellow must have been, to exert such extreme effort and resource to be so self sufficient in personal and home protection.

May we all be spared the life changing experience which would drive us to such protective lengths!!

 

[ddigger]

Amen brother!

 

[JB4310]

I bet you would enjoy this We were building a defense line of fortresses before WWII - it never got to be used, but some of them our now accessible for tourists.

More pictures.

Cool, I like the armored military vehicles too.

Thanks for posting.

Once in a while, like this, if we watch and listen to the silent testimony, we get a glimmer of the shadows that can fall on humans, our resiliency, lessons learned and an individuals' unflagging determination to avoid/escape evil.

May we all be spared the life changing experience which would drive us to such protective lengths!!

Well along this train of thought, this is from Poland also. very moving to see in person. I had heard about it but had to search for it as it's not that well known.
Child partisan fighter from Warsaw ghetto.
Ma?y Powstaniec - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

JB.

 

[czechsonofagun]

The Warsaw uprising was very ugly - with russians near by and waiting for the Poles to be all killed. The process of pacifying of a nation, Poles killed in the uprising would very likely be disruptive under the Russian rule over Poland later on. And germans used Vlasov's units to fight the uprising too.

Russians did the same thing with the Slovakia uprising; anybody wonder why we don't like Russians and/or communists?