'We dug up our garden and found a Nazi bunker under our house'
A couple were gobsmacked when they unearthed a World War II Nazi bunker beneath their home. Shaun Tullier, 35, and his wife Caroline, 32, stumbled upon the historical find while renovating their house.
To their astonishment, they uncovered a sizeable bunker featuring two large rooms and a corridor, complete with German inscriptions on the walls. Among the chilling messages was "achtung feind hort mit" - which chillingly means "beware, the enemy is listening".
The pair from Torteval, Guernsey, settled into their abode in October 2021. Shaun revealed that they were aware of the property's past as a gun emplacement during the war.
Yet, there had always been "a suspicion" that something more lay hidden. The Channel Islands were under German occupation from 1940 to 1945, and at Hitler's command, they were fortified to be an "impregnable fortress".
Shaun, a native of Guernsey, commented: "I was born in Guernsey, so I always knew about bunkers, but when Guernsey people came back to Guernsey after the war, they wanted to fill all the bunkers up. A lot of people still have bunkers here, but they are down the road and in gardens - not underneath the house.
"You just never knew what state these bunkers are in - where they are, how deep they are - you can't start digging all around just to try and find out. We knew the actual foundation of the house had been utilised as a German gun storage - but what we didn't know was if there were any rooms. We always thought, 'imagine that!' but we had no factual information around it."
Shaun revealed how the couple initially wanted to transform their front garden into a driveway - so they excavated it and laid gravel during the renovation work. As Shaun works as a carpenter, he crafted some chopping boards to sell on Facebook Marketplace - when the previous homeowner contacted him and revealed a wartime secret buried beneath the property.
He recalled: "The old owner of the house got in touch with me - as she recognised the very pink kitchen in the photos. She said, 'oh did you find the rooms below your house?'
"I then replied, 'oh, so there are rooms!', to which she said, 'yes, we used to play in there when we were kids, my dad filled it in - I know they're at the front of the house. It was very interesting - so I then said to my wife, 'we're going to have to dig up the drive again' - a week after putting it down. I told my friend about the news and he thought it sounded ace - so replied, 'if you get the digger, I'll dig it up!'"
The pair ended up excavating 100 tonnes of earth and uncovering the entrance to the bunker. The underground shelter comprised two main chambers measuring 17ft by 10ft and 17ft by 20ft, plus a corridor stretching 30ft by 4ft wide.
The drop from ground level to the bunker floor measures 26ft down. Among the features the family unearthed were numerous old bottles, debris, water, a tiled floor, an escape hatch and German inscriptions on the walls.
Shaun described the find as "completely wild". He said: "You can't really put it into words. It is history and it's good to have, but I couldn't have imagined going through that - it really puts you back, especially when you go down.
"It's cold and damp. The people doing it, they didn't have a choice. It's not just rooms for us, it's a part of history."
In the midst of their work, the family poured 80 tonnes of concrete into the walls and steps, and they're still in the process of transforming the bunker into a games room, complete with a snooker table and a gym. They've decided to preserve the German inscriptions on the walls and aim to have a new floor laid and the bunker painted by November this year.
Shaun continued: "It's not something you find every day. We are definitely keeping the writing - and might get someone that can calligraph it back on, otherwise it gets lost. Even the air getting to it has faded it a bit.
"So in that way we can kind of frame it. My wife is not great, she wants the house done - not the bunker. But I have promised everyone a Halloween party down there for the last three years, so fingers crossed it's happening this year - it's my duty to uphold."
During the Occupation, hundreds of islanders were deported to prisons in Europe, and many who stayed on the islands faced near starvation. Guernsey and Jersey were freed from occupation on May 9, 1945.
Sark was liberated the following day, while Alderney, having seen most of its residents forced to evacuate, did not see the return of its population until December 15, 1945.
Nowadays, islanders commemorate the end of the German occupation with Liberation Day festivities in Guernsey, Jersey and Sark, as well as Homecoming Day in Alderney.
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