The visit to Societe Jersiaise archive served as a introduction to the A2 project, ‘Bunker Archaeololgy’ and the German Occupation of Jersey. The aim of the visit was begin research on and start to develop ideas for the forthcoming project.
To begin the day we were given a brief introduction into what the SJPA is for and what it is used for, before being allowed to rummage through the many boxes of photographs that documented life under Nazi occupation. For this task we had to select at least 10 images that interested us and write down the reference number so we could later use the high resolutions.
Our second task was to create a narrative using a selection of archive images. To do this, my group arranged the images into three categories; Construction, weapons and living. We then further selected four images from each of the categories before arranging them into a order that showed the Nazi’s integrating themselves into island life.
During lunch we were tasked with waling around town and photographing landscapes, people and objects that related to the Occupation. Many of us, including me, went to the obvious places for this. In the Royal Square there’s a ‘V’ paved into the floor and was to represent ‘V’ for ‘victory’.
Battery Moltke is a costral artillery defense system which is incomplete. It is located in Jersey Channel Islands in the parish of St. Ouens. The site contains a number of bunkers and gun replacements which were designed and used to protect St.Ouens bay, as well as in case of attack as the Island was included in the occupation where the Nazis had occupation over Jersey.
A association called ‘The Channel Island Occupation Society’ is an organisation which is made up of volunteers in order to help preserve/ operate some of the bunkers as museums in Jersey while still keeping the original site open. The volunteers all study the occupation of Jersey and help seek awareness so they can help to educate the public of World War Two.
Our Day at the Bunker Site
On the 10th of June 2019, me and my classmates headed down to the bunkers at ‘Batterie Moktke’ at St. Ouens on a photography trip. We began the trip with an information meeting with a CIOS member who started the tour by giving us an insight as to what the occupation was like. This was done in front of a canon used in the war which is shown below, the tour guide as showed us images from the war and told us his experiences as a little boy after WW2 had finished. After learning about the artillery we went on to view the main bunker which was turned into a museum which the public could go and see. This bunker was of course underground and included many rooms, all of which had real war objects which had been preserved. Most of these elements were kept in glass boxes. Some of the different real object we saw during out visit were elements such as radios and typewriters. My favorite part of this tour was the introduction where we were being educated on all of the information of the site while being in the site itself, so we could see the elements he was describing for itself.
an image shown on the tour
Few facts we learnt from our tour guide
Batterie Moltke was located in Jersey Channel Islands and was built by the Germans in 1942 as protection in world war two.
The guns which were shown in the images were originally french guns which were reused by the Germans from the bunkers. They were used through the open concrete posts which allowed them to defend St. Ouens Bay, the guns also allowed them to be able to target the rest of the island of Jersey in case of attack.
After the war the British dismantled the guns and they were thrown over the cliff which have been collected and restored since. However, a few still remain in the bottom of the cliffs which we are no longer allowed to take.
I have tried to replicate a photo from the Jersey Archive in the modern world. I tried to capture more modern items in the photo (Such as modern clothing and accessories) whilst avoiding including aspects which will give away the time this was taken in, such as a car driving past.
This is the original photo which I tried to take at the same place and angle as a photo from the occupation which I saw whilst at the archive visit.
First I have applied the Black & White filter preset to the photo, this is the most obvious step as the photo in the archive didn’t have colour.
Next I imported a frame which will give the photo a damaged/faded effect, which will make it look older and look as if it was taken closer to the time the original was.I had to paste the frame next to itself and delete the line down the middle in order to make it large enough to fit the photo.Next I placed the frame on top of the photo.Then I lowered the opacity of the frame so that the middle white part doesn’t make the whole image too bright.This is the finished image. I think it does a good job of being similar to the original with a modern twist, but without it being too obvious it is a modern image.
To help start off out project we went on a visit to Société Jersiaise. This greatly helped us gain understanding of the topic, and gain inspiration for our projects.
To start off the day we had a presentation about the occupation and liberation of Jersey, and the photographic documentation of it all. We then had a chance to go through recovered old photos and pick out our favourite ones which were later sent to us in digital format.
We had a story-telling activity which involved being put into groups and given a stack of occupation photography which we were tasked to move into an order which we saw fitting. The outcomes of this were interesting as every group took a completely different approach to ordering the same set of photos.
We were then given an hour to photograph interesting war monuments or anything relating to the war in the town area. I have photographed buildings which had existed during the war and still exist today as part of this task. It’s really interesting seeing how the town area has been modernised, yet most of the buildings in war photographs can be easily recognised today.
These are some of the photographs I took for this task:
Noirmont is a headland which is based in Saint Brelade and is the site which holds ‘Batterie Lothringen’. It is a substantial part of the headland and is a large part of the Island’s war memorial, this being because Jersey was occupied by the Germans for five years and the bunkers at Noirmont are a showing of what the war conditions were like. Most people visit the headlands is to view these restored bunkers and gun replacements.
Day at Batterie Lothringen
On the 6th of June i took an independent visit to Noirmont site to explore the bunker sites with are known as ‘Batterie Lothringen’. The reasoning carrying out an extra shoot is because my previous shoot to Battery Moltke it was very rainy and cloudy which made the image not very appealing and i did not get many images as i didn’t want to ruin my camera in the rain. However, on this visit particular visit it was great weather and therefore i was comfortable enough to take many images of the bunkers which had the most historical content, best photographic features, as well as having lots of historical features.
This was not a guided tour but there were different maps around the site to inform you on the bunkers which were around, as well as information sheets about each bunker, making it very easy to get around as well as informative. Due to this not being a guided tour there was no access into the bunkers themselves, restricting images, although i do think i got good images of the bunkers themselves from the outside.
map shown
Batterie Lothringen Facts
The costal tower at the foot of Noirmont is called ‘Tour de Vinde’ and was built when the French invasion was at its peak in 1810-1814.
The Germans started to build defense installations at Noirmont in 1941.
The main bunker in the site is 40 feet long, has two floors and has been restored for viewing.
The bunker has been restored to very high standards and proves to be a unique insite to the German military engineering.
Batterie Lothringen was the only German Naval coastal artillery battery to be established in Jersey during the Occupation.
This site cost the States of Jersey £8,800 and was bought so that the history of WWII soldiers could be kept.
