On the remote island of Tarva, off the coast of Trøndelag in Norway, lies this huge coastal fortress which consisted of a multitude of bunkers, trenches, gun positions, cannon emplacements, radars and more, built by the Germans after the invasion of Norway in April 1940. The fortress was equipped with 3 huge 28cm SKL/45 guns, capable of propelling a projectile almost 40 kilometres away. It also had an extensive set of defensive works in the surrounding area, to defend against land based and airborne attacks.
At it’s peak, over 2000 German soldiers was garrisoned on this island. In addition, there was an unknown number of POW incarcerated here to work on the building of the fortress. The fortress got a brief history as part of the Norwegian army after the war but after an accident during test firing of one of the canons in November 1945, in which a grenade exploded inside the canon, killing 6 of the German crew, and 2 Norwegians, further plans for a coastal fortress as this Island was abandoned. A 500Kg piece of the canon can still be found where it fell after the explosion 55 years ago, almost 1.5 kilometres from where the canon stood.
To get to this island, there’s a 2 times daily ferry, going once back and forth in the morning, and once back and forth in the afternoon, with a bit different timing during weekends. In order to get as much time as possible on the island, I decided to take the last ferry out on Friday evening, and the only ferry back again, the next day. This left me with about 16 hours between I got to the Island at 20:00 Friday evening, and until I had to be back at the ferry, to get back to the mainland at 12:25 the next day. The 5 hours of sleep I got during the night was obviously too long, since 16 hours proved wholly inadequate and I didn’t even manage to get around everything, much less take a second round to take some more proper pictures as I had planned, after doing a preliminary round just taking snapshots. I suppose this just means I need to go back some other time ; – )
- The ferry taking me from the mainland out to the island, and back again
- Landing for the ferry
- Only the building foundations and steps are left
- Unknown position
- House made out of rocks and concrete
- Water reservoir, still in use
- Recycling fenceposts for barbed wire blockade
- Kabelhaus
- Steps leading from baracks up to positions on top of the hill
- Smaller gun position?
- Smaller gun or radar position?
- Part of the camouflage covering for a canon?
- View from one of the bunkers
- Tank traps
- Foundations of building
- House without a roof
- Tree groing in the middle of what used to be an office
- Garage
- Some kind of building made out of concrete
- Shelter
- Foundation for one of the radars
- Business end of tunnel entrence
- Severely rusted door inside tunnel
- Business end of tunnel entrence
- Fluwa – air defence lookout
- Possibly a phone?
- Trenches leading to covered defensive position
- Entrance to the giant mamoth radar bunker
- Same entrance from the inside
- Inside the bunker for the mamoth radar
- Shaft up to the top of the radar bunker, where the actual radar was located
- Inside the bunker for the mamoth radar
- Bunker near the mamoth radar
- Bunker near the mamoth radar
- Beds inside a tunnel
- Some kind of tank inside one of the tunnels
- Bunker
- Observation post
- Observation post
- MG position
- Flak position?
- Flak position?
- Entrance to main command bunker
- Inside main command bunker
- Main command bunker
- Inside main command bunker
- Inside main command bunker
- On guard (Ehlert, Max / CC-BY-SA / 1943)
- Command bunker (Ehlert, Max / CC-BY-SA / 1943)
- Inside main command bunker
- 12 years worh of “Wireless world”
- Loran timer set instructions manual
- Inside main command bunker
- Command bunker
- Bunker and road leading up to the site of one of the 28cm SKL/45 canons
- SKL/45 (Photo: Ehlert, Max / CC-BY-SA / 1943)
- Bunker at the site of one of the 28cm SKL/45 canons
- Bunker at the site of one of the 28cm SKL/45 canons
- 500Kg part of the 28cm SKL/45 canon that exploded in the accident after the war
- Bunker next to the site of one of the 28cm SKL/45 canons. Reused by local farmers
- Bunker with big hole in the wall
- Bunker entrence
- Ammunition bunker. (Photo: Ehlert, Max / CC-BY-SA / 1943)
- Ammunisjonsbunker med skinne i taket for løftetalje.