Fort, vesting en -onderdelen, Budapestlaan bij 17

English translation

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Description

Cluster 39.

Introduction

GROUP SHELTER TYPE P as a component of the adjustment of the work to changed military techniques dating from the late interwar period. (Concrete) group shelters were a response to the arrival of heavy projectiles and high-explosive grenades. The latter had a high-explosive bursting charge and caused a rain of metal shrapnel, which could cause many casualties. According to the weight of the grenade and the protection against it, there is a classification into resistance or protection classes, consisting of two numbers, for example W 12-15. The first indicates that the protection is sufficient for impacts of projectiles up to that calibre (in cm); the second that protection also exists against one or at most a few impacts up to this higher calibre. The earliest types of shelters offered only protection against grenade shrapnel and were called 'shrapnel-proof'. The group shelters Type P were built in the years 1939-1940 at several locations in the Netherlands according to more or less uniform or standard design. The total number of built examples is approximately 700, of which around 570 in the Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie; the majority (approximately 400) of these still exist. The construction programme of the Type P shelters was not completed at the outbreak of the Second World War and a number of examples remained visibly unfinished. Type P (also called 'the pyramid' because of its distinctive shape) is presumably the best-known type of concrete defensive work in the Netherlands. The type was derived from the so-called VIS 77 (Regulation for Setting Up Positions no. 77), from 1928, and was among other things intended to form part of the defence of a number of accesses. The group shelter Type P usually came into being in the immediate vicinity of already existing or contemporaneously constructed casemates, gun emplacements, fortifications, group nests or trenches. They were also frequently built on forts. Because the trenches and other (earth and concrete) works were later levelled or demolished almost everywhere, the concrete shelters nowadays sometimes lie partly below ground level. The historically entirely closed front or front side of the group shelters Type P was intended to be covered by earthworks, which could form part of a group nest or fort wall. These earthworks are now mostly no longer present or only barely recognisable, but particularly on forts or in otherwise terrain characterised by relief, there is sometimes still cover.

There are various variants of Type P, both in dimensions and protection class as in execution and detailing. For example, examples were built in the protection classes W 15-21 and W 21-28 at dimensions ranging from approximately 5.50 x 7.20 x 4.70 m to 6.50 x 8.20 x 4.90 m (w x d x h). The example located on the Werk aan de Hoofddijk belongs to the heaviest class. Many examples of Type P were built in inundable areas, in which almost always a pile foundation was used; others have a surrounding protruding concrete foundation slab. There are large rectangular entrances, while often a retaining wall or occasionally a trough with steps against inundation water was built in the then elevated, square entrance.

Description

GROUP SHELTER TYPE P on the south-eastern part of the wall of the work. Group shelters are single-storey, usually reinforced, approximately 100 to 180 cm thick cast-concrete, grenade-proof, military shelters, which could provide protection for 10-12 infantrymen / artillerymen. The group shelters Type P are built on a rectangular ground plan. The visible height above ground level varies. Both blind side walls and the throat side are executed vertically up to approximately 3 metres height. Above this these walls bend at approximately 45° inwards, then transition to a flat roof. On the right in the throat side is at locally varying height above ground level an (later either sealed or not) entrance opening. The entirely vertical, closed front side reflects the 45° angles and thus ends as a 'truncated pointed gable'. Iron hooks or brackets were cast into the wall(s) that could serve for fastening camouflage material. A characteristic component on top of the shelter type P is the conical, concrete 'outlet', which was intended for use of a periscope. However, these periscopes were never actually installed in practice. The interior of the group shelters Type P consists of a short corridor (usually with a concrete retaining wall and usually a few descending steps) and from there a 'lock' directed to the left that could be sealed by a (consisting of several parts) heavy, steel door with bolts. Via a second, similar door the space to the right could be reached, the actual shelter. The entrance could be covered from this space by a gun slit. However, the steel doors were never installed; in a number of cases wooden doors were. The ceilings located at approximately two metres above floor level are flat and rectangular. It is not known whether interior components still present are, such as (remains of) wooden benches or a support for the sealing of the gun slit for covering the entrance.

Valuation

The GROUP SHELTERS TYPE P on the Werk aan de Hoofddijk is of general importance because of:

* Cultural-historical values as part of the Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie as designed by C.R.T. Kraijenhoff and initially from 1815 realised by him, Jan Blanken and major-engineer Willem Offerhaus and subsequently by others strengthened and improved for approximately 125 years.

* Military-historical values as part of a continuous military defence line between the former Zuiderzee and the Biesbosch. This consisted mainly of a coherent system of inundation fields and associated inundation means and firing zones. This system was supplemented with various types of (defence) works dating from different periods that were built or laid out to serve or contribute to the closure of non-inundable areas or other accesses.

* Architectural-historical values in particular as an expression of military-strategic building technique, which is based - on the system of inundation and accesses (nineteenth and twentieth centuries), - on the race with increasingly powerful offensive means (twentieth century) - and on the system of 'living' field fortification in depth (twentieth century).

This concerns a component from the years 1939-1940, namely a reinforced concrete group shelter type P / Pyramid, executed in reinforced concrete, partly (still) with earth cover.

* Ensemble value and situational values as part of the Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie. Also because of the functional and physical coherence with the other components of the complex.

* The component is representative (characteristic) because it was added to the existing fortification system as part of a deconcentrated defence within a nineteenth-century defensive work.

* The component is reasonably well preserved and is easily recognisable as a built component on the work.