Andy Chatterton

Essentially, they're a bit like a big Anderson shelter, but a lot more complicated and a lot more cool.

So as you're walking along, you will find, as an auxiliar, a hatch, a hatch of some form that's

flush to the ground heavily disguised and the way into the hatch can be done in various forms so it might be that you stamp on it and it comes up in a counterweight system and swivels around and lets you in it might be that you pull what looks like a tree root and that will either activate the counterweight system or it'll ring a bell in the bunker and the other guys can let you in that's cool or you have like different colored each member of the patrol has a different colored marble and then you roll it down what looks like a mouse hole goes underground rattles about in a tin and then they let you in don't be silly yeah yeah

So once you're in, you'll find a ladder going down maybe kind of 12, 15 feet into a shaft, almost like a chimney.

Go down to the bottom.

Quite often you're confronted at the bottom with a blast wall.

So that's there to, if the Germans happen to get into the hatch and dropped a grenade down, it protects the main chamber from the blast.

You weave your way around the blast door and then you're into the main chamber.

So the main chamber,

is where the guys would have been during the day.

Bunks there to sleep, tables, food, equipment.

Occasionally there's a kitchen, which isn't ideal for kind of keeping secrets.

So they would funnel the chimney up a hollow tree and the smoke would disperse at the top of the tree line.

So it wouldn't kind of go through the forest to give the Germans a clue.

There's quite often a pretty horrific Elsen chemical toilet, which after two weeks of nervous men constantly using it would be pretty grim.

They used to store their explosives mainly away from the place that you're staying in, which that's just good thinking.

So there'd be an explosive store just down the road a little bit.

And then into an escape tunnel, which can lead kind of 60 to 100 foot away, that often goes into a water source to kind of aid in your escape.

But essentially most of the patrols knew that if the Germans were at your entry hatch,

you're pretty much done for.