Sint-Truiden, belgium, The nineteen-year-old Dennis Vanclee from Tongeren and his werkmakker David Deboni from Alken had a slot on the excavation for the underground services to provide for the Truiense Groenmarkt. “Suddenly fell away, we will not further dig, a closer examination do we see on what is now the schuilbunkers turn out to be. They were still intact, seventy years they remained untouched.”
Archaeologist Maxim Houbrecks of ARON, the company that the excavations for the city of Sint-Truiden, read, confirms that the bunkers in 1942 are built to the Truiense population to shelter during the bombings of WW II. “We knew that the bunkers here somewhere had to lie, and they are now also found. However, we continue to focus on the medieval tombs. The bunkers are tentatively back boarded up. The excavations will not immediately take longer.”
We knew that the bunkers here somewhere had to lie
and they are now also foundMaxim Houbrecks
Schepencollege 1939
Stadsarchivaris of Sint-Truiden, belgium Thierry Ghijs know of the shelters: “There are reports of the schepencollege of 1939, in which there is of these shelters. They belonged to the passive luchtverdedigingsplan of Sint-Truiden. Also under the Truiense Large Market is an extensive network of bunkers, just like in the park of Sint-Truiden. They were built against the attacks of the German Luftwaffe, but were at the end of the war used primarily against the bombardments of the allies, that the airport of Brustem disable wanted. Although it must be said that the center of the city pretty well spared from the bombings. The bunkers are all in all used relatively little. The allies had the as already said, especially at the airport of Brustem target, where the German planes went up to London during the ‘Blitz’ bombing.”
Ghosts above Sint-Truiden
That the bunkers in 1942 were built, has maybe also to do with another fact. In may 1942, will the war gradually in favor of the allies. From that moment on to perform more than a thousand British Lancasters air strikes on more Cologne. Is Sint-Truiden is a very important home port for the German nachtjagereenheden, ‘Nachtjagd-geschwäder’, that the task of the British bombers to be intercepted before that the music can reach. And it is from that year, 1942, that it begins to be spoken over Sint -Truiden. The nightly ghost is called Heinz Wolfgang Schnaufer. From January 15, 1942 he becomes a ‘Fighter’ in Sint-Truiden and with his Messerschmitt 4, he pulls one after the other British Lancaster over Sint-Truiden down. He is the terror of the English pilots: ‘The Phantom of the night”. At the end of the war, there are a whopping 121 victories on his palmares. Whenever the ghost is notified, went the air raid sirens in Sint-Truiden, and fled into the Truienaren en masse to the bunkers.
The city of Sint-Truiden is not yet what they will continue with the bunkers is going to do.
