About Battery Moltke

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.

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.

Contact sheets from the bunkers…

Most successful images