I find these stories fascinating don't you ? ... it's hard to believe that men would have gone to those lengths - but they would have and in many cases they did !! "The remains of a bicycle ... used to drive a ventilation system and to generate electricity to power the radio equipment (and presumably to give the men a means of exercising)… were still visible." Archaeology is not only about ancient buildings and sites that are hundreds of years old. Sometimes, we have the opportunity to explore our more recent past. Here is the story of a rumour that became a reality. For years, a rumour persisted in Gibraltar of a Top Secret chamber that had been excavated in the Rock by the Military during the Second World War. Were the Nazis ever to have captured Gibraltar, it was said that six men would have sealed themselves in these chambers from where they would have secretly monitored the movements of the Germans and reported these back to London. There was no official backup to this tale and no documentary evidence was ever found to support it, so there was no official name for the project and it began to be referred to locally as ‘Stay-Behind Cave’. So people searched the mass of tunnels that honeycomb the Rock of Gibraltar in the hope of locating this chamber - to no avail. But this was soon to change. On a strong Levanter day in late 1997, the Gibraltar Caving Group came across a strong gust of wind in a tunnel. Further meticulous searching led them to a system of chambers, which they soon recognised as being the lost ‘Stay-Behind Cave’ GIBRALTAR HERITAGE - Volume 1 Issue 1
Some more here, Annie, including how they planned to man it. http://ww2chat.com/forums/news-articles/3647-gibraltars-stay-behind-cave.html
Where do you find all these stories Annie? Every day you have new great stories for us to read,which i like reading.Especially the Germans story,i more in to German Nazi's stories(i do not support Hitler though) Objects to make Ventilation in concelled spaces,that was actually common in ww2. Most tunnels built by POWS to escape, actually had pumbs to make the tunnell usable! In this story,the Nazi's are in a confine space,in the same situation as a tunnel.Therefore i can see why there was a bike and a ventilation invention inside.
