ROCK-CARVED CITY

Evening Star, Issue 25070, 11 January 1944, Page 5

ROCK-CARVED CITY

HOUSES INVASION AMMUNITION From an underground city carved out of solid rock and rivalling sections of the famous Maginot and Siegfried • Lines will flow much of the animuui- ; tioirto be used in the Allied invasion of Europe (writes a correspondent of the ' Christian Science Monitor '). The existence o-f this huge bomibproof arsenal, along witli the tact that the ' British started building it seven years 1 ago,, was made public tor the first time as the Press was taken through it on a guided lour. It has been one of Britain's bestkept war secrets, and reporters,looked on in amazement as a War Office official explained how some old, abandoned ' quarries were converted into a giant subterranean warehouse for explosive. l ; ] Details of the vast stores are, of .course, secret. All that can be said is that there are stacks and stacks more of ammunition ready for the big '■' day. ' ' . "DREAMED UP " IN 1936 Away back in 193 G someone at the War Office with a hunch about the future had what then was" considered a wild idea for utilising the unused quarries as. storage areas. Starting with a small crew of specialists, the numiber of workers was drawn from all over/Ehglancl and : grew into thousands. 'Hund-redsr"of' thoiisaiids of toils of rock had to be moved and new tunnels cut linking old .caves. • AJI the workmen ■ were,sworn to secrecy. ..-; All that-was known about their molelike jabs was that they were working at " the dump." Hundreds of rumours spread about the place, but the puiblic never kuew exactly what was going on. The most pensisteivt rumour was that it was au emergency food store. It was—food-for guns. One enters the underground city through- what looks like an ordinary railway tunnel. 'Theinterior is a maze of tunnels* rail lines, conveyor belts, elevators,'storage rooms, offices, and barracks for workmen and guards.

THREE MONTHS TO LEARN WAY. "I was here three months before I could say 1 knew*"the place ..properly," said the commanding officer. A stranger gets hopelessly lost in five minutes.

Over .the entrance of one of the great storage sections is painted the words " Germany's Bogy." Among other 'features of the place is a telephone exchange operated Iby A.T.S. (Auxiliary Territorial Service girls), modern workshops, an air-con-ditioning system, and an emergency generating plant powerful enough to provide power and light for a whole township. Yet on emerging from the depths of the..earth into daylight one sees only .peaceful pasture land and grazing cows.