More Remnants of the Civil War
We went for our Wednesday walk with our Spanish walking group, this week (25/06/2025) the group decided to go the the natural park at Clot de Galvany which is situated at the foot of the urbanization with is called Gran Alicant.
Scattered around the park are a number of bunkers which date back to the Civil War which was a pleasant surprise and bonus for me 😁
It turns out the area around Clot de Galvany was a major defensive position guarding the aproaches to Alicante from the south.
There were orginally 11 bunkers, plus anti-aircraft positions and entrenchments plus some ancillary buildings, water deposits, etc. Some of the structures were destroyed over the years during building expansion or just general miss-use.
Map of the natural park
Bunker 1
A twin pair of circular concrete bunkers, built into the hillside. The twin bunkers are joined inside via a tunnel with an exit to the rear. The whole complex is now partially obscured by brush and trees which have grown up since 1937.
Bunker 2
A couple of hundred meters up the hill from bunker 1 you find bunker 2, it seems the two are of similar design, with two circular firing positions and a central conecting bunker with rear access.
View from the top of bunker 2
Bunker 3
This is a small bunker, possibly just a sentry post?
This photo shows the bunker from the path, obviously the undergrowth has grown since 1937
Bunker 4
Another largish bunker with two circular firing positions, this bunker is just plain concrete (not covered in stones like the earlier ones). The bunker is covered by about 20 meters of concrete entrenchment above/behind it, the entrance to the bunker is in this trench.
Looking down on the bunker from the observation platform
View from the front of the bunker
The bunker entrance in the trench
More views of the trench
Me (in my SOTCW shirt) standing on the firing step in the trench (photo by Jose)
Group leader Alfredo standing near the entrance to the bunker, a nice scale shot showing the size/depth of the trench (again photo by Jose)
Central command bunker
If you return to the site map, you`ll see another bunker right in the center, this is the defensive lines command and control bunker. But it is situated on an island in the center of the largest lake in the park and only accessable at the height of summer when water levels are at their lowest, so not yet even after several weeks of 35+ temperatures!
In my internet reasearch into the bunker complex I did find a few photos, below (if I`m infringing on anyones copyright please let me know and I`ll remove those images)
This bunker is far larger than the rest, with several chambers inside and mounting points on the roof for a pair of 20mm AA guns
For anyone wanting to do some further reading about this site try these web pages:
The following blog is quite excellent with loads of photos and details about places we never found or saw during our walk, quite impressive:
You may also wish to refer back to other pages on this blog about various sites and bunkers:
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Interesting stuff Richard, that Central Command Bunker looks in relatively good nick, and formidable. In terms of your locale Richard what are the prevailing attitudes towards the SCW . If this is problematic, no worries mate.
ReplyDeleteI always treat the Civil War with care. I make no secret of the fact I come from a union/communist background, but I am a foreigner looking on. One of our regular "friends" Jesus is ex-Civil Guard and certainly pro-Franco, some of the walking group are less inclined to take sides - quite understandable. One guy said to me a couple of weeks back that the problem in Spain is that really that unlike Italy and Germany, Franco survived and there has never really been a Nuremburg style investigation into what was done, which I thought was quite profound.
DeleteNice pics. I always like to try imagine who has walked/stood in this exact same spot during times of trouble and wonder what they thought as they looked out.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Geoff
Hey Geoff, interesting place, I`m not 100% convinced about the siting of the various bunkers! They don`t appear to be mutually supporting or well positioned - lots of dead ground and frankly just over the hill (behind them) is a sandy beach, what happens if the enemy lands troops and comes from that direction?? The bunker line was probably set up to dominate the main road (now the N332) running south from Alicante towards Cartagena, but the main bunkers are simply too far away from the road for 1937 infantry weapons IMHO too??
DeleteMaybe it was a case of the military “architects” designing the bunkers etc but, when it came to construction time, the “builders” just decided to physically place them slightly differently. Or maybe that’s just modern tradesmen 😂🤣
DeleteHa, ha, ha :) Maybe the terrain was different back in 1937, less under growth and trees more fields and crops?? Hard to say for certain :)
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