Obelisk Hill - Coy HQ
I met up with Martin Heyes to visit 'D' Coy Royal Rifles of Canada war shelters at Obelisk Hill. The site consists of a string of accommodation shelters, a kitchen shelter and two military-grade toilet blocks. 'D' Coy RRC was commanded by Major Maurice Parker. These shelters accommodated his Coy HQ and Platoon 16 and 17. His No. 18 Platoon was at Tai Tam Tuk nearby and No 18 (R) Platoon was attached to 'C' Coy in the Lye Mum Gap area. 'D' Coy 1/Mx also utilised these shelters as Coy HQ and reported to Major Parker. The 1/Mx Coy personnel were based in pillboxes around the coast from San Wan Bay (near Pak Sha Wan Battery) and around the D'Aguilar promontory to Tai Tam Tuk /Tai Tam Bay Area opposite Red Hill.
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| A string of accommodation shelters at Obelisk Hill |
A seldom-used trail led downhill from the bunkers towards Tai Tam Tuk - which would have been the route taken by No. 18 platoon back and forth from Coy HQ.
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| Kitchen shelter (Obelisk Hill) |
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| Military-grade toilet blockat Obelisk Hill |
Tai Tam Gap Military HQ
We also explored the war shelters at Tai Tam Gap. These had accommodated Royal Rifles of Canada Battalion HQ, East Infantry Brigade HQ and East Group Royal Artillery HQ. Particularly striking was the underground bunker which contained the (disused) Fortress Plotting Room which was used by East Brigade as Brigade HQ. Here is the entrance to the underground bunker.
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| Entrance to underground bunker containing FPR |
We followed a series of corridors until we reached the Fortress Plotting Room (FPR) which was used as Brigade HQ. When we reached the Fortress Plotting Room - it was wet with what I assumed to be bat droppings and there were a lot of bats hanging from the roof. Neither of us being particularly partial to bats, we did not stay to properly explore this room or the tunnel leading off it (visible in the photo below) or the side rooms to the left of the tunnel. The tunnel seems to have been an emergency exit and possibly a ventilation feature. The concrete pillars were supports for the large steel plotting table. It was pitch dark and the light in the photo is from our torches and the flash of the camera.
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The Fortress Plotting Room (with bats roosting on the ceiling)
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| Looking towards the emergency exit and ventilation tunnel and the room to the left. |
This is what Captain Peter Belton (Staff Captain) had to say about Brigade HQ in the FPR at Tai Tam Gap, which commenced operations on Sunday 14 December following the Brigadier's withdrawal from the Mainland on Saturday 13 December.
The Brigade Office was located in the Plotting Room at Tai Tam in a shell and bomb-proof accommodation. It consisted of one large room and some twenty yards of tunnel. The latter I decided to use as sleeping accommodation for troops and arranged for bunks to be fitted. The officers were to be in outside shelters. The staff, both officers and men, were messed by the Royal Rifles of Canada. (Captain Belton - Brigade Staff)
Here is Brigadier Wallis commenting on the underground Operations Room at Tai Tam. (Appendix D East Brigade War Diary and courtesy of Rob Weir).
This room was largely occupied by a huge steel table which was useful to work on with maps , but hampered movement. In this room were located:
Brigade Commander
Brigade Major
Staff Captain
2 Operators - Brigade Signals Exchange
Brigade Intel Officer
Three Brigade Clerks.
In a tiny side-room was the large telephone exchange. In another small room was the emergency lighting plant. The room was reached by a long winding narrow passage into which the Sappers were busy fitting sleeping bunks for staff and Signals personnel. This passage was very dark and crowded at night and it took me some six minutes to leave my maps and numerous telephones and reach East Group RA and 'D' Bn HQ in the shelters up above mine, after threading my way through a maze of camouflage nets and nervous RRC sentries. The atmosphere (in the Brigade office) was heavy and even with the emergency plant working and the air vent open (emergency exit) the air was unhealthy and oppressive and made clear thinking difficult. One became flushed and had bad head aches."
Above the underground bunker that contains the FPR are two or three tiers of splinter proof bunkers used by RRC as Bn HQ and by East Group Royal Artillery.
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| Kitchen shelter |
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| 2nd tier of shelters |
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| 3rd (upper) tier of shelters |
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| Overgrown lower-tier shelters |
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| Lower-tier shelters - neglected and overgrown |
There are two line-of-gaps pillboxes at Tat Tam HQ and some seventeen splinter-proof shelters. Between Tai Tam Gap military HQ structures and 'D' Coy positions at Obelisk Hill was a group of two shelters one of which is shown in the photo below, which I think may have been the ADS (Advanced Dressing Station).
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| What may have been the ADS |
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