La Valette Underground Military Museum, Guernsey

[scowen]

This has to be one of the saddest Third Reich (or come to that any military) museums that I have ever encountered. Set in an underground tunnel complex (supposidly air conditioned) built by the germans to store huge tanks of fuel, almost all of the exhibits have been neglected & are corroding away without any attempt to preserve them.

Ferrous items are rusting, aluminium pieces oxidising, cloth has mould & mildew growing on them in large patches.....

What makes it worse is that there is a huge display of named British Medals donated by families also in a terrible state. I'm sure that the people who donted those items would be as horrified as I to see the condition of these items....

La Valette Underground Military Museum
La Valette,
St Peter Port
GY1 1AX
Guernsey

[scowen]

An impressive looking display of daggers.

[scowen]

Another display cabinet, unfortunately the corrosion isn't visible in most of the images.

[scowen]

Helmets......

[scowen]

Another cabinet

[scowen]

Once the allies had landed in France, the Channel Islands were cut off. No further supplies of food or equipment could be obtained, according to the displays some of the soldiers attempted to cast & produce their own awards..... A couple of crude examples are displayed.

Pictures are pretty poor I'm afraid, lighting is very low in the museum & it was difficult to keep the camera still long enough to get a decent shot.

[scowen]

These were some of the few cloth items untouched by mould

[scowen]

Another display

[scowen]

A death sentence.........

[scowen]

More items rotting away, this was one of the cleaner cabinets. Even the hessian used as a backing to the displays was rotting.....

[scowen]

Some cuttlery

[scowen]

I managed to capture some of the mould in these shots. The white patches on the Swastika are mould.........

[scowen]

An award display. Note the lighter spots between the awards on the backing cloth? Thes are also colonies of mould... Also look at the edges of the H.J. armband, mildew. Above the armband, see the left DRB patch it had an almost complete layer of fur growing over it.

On the closer shot, check out the triangles at the bottom, the light patches are also decay.....

The metal object haven't escaped either, but it doesn't show in the images.

[scowen]

Finally a couple of other items that had mercifully some how escaped the decay so far.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Don, thanks for the images. I have never been there.

What a very sad story :mad: If they cannot look after their exhibits they don't deserve to have them. Disgraceful. Sounds like money is king to them.

Cheers, Ade.

[MRomanych]

Unfortunately, this situation seems to be all too common. The original founders of a museum or other historic site build it up into a tourist attraction with their time, sweat, and money. Then succeeding members of the organization let it run down because they do not share in the founding members’ fervor and vision. Over time, the organization becomes a social club for its members rather a group of people who want to preserve history and further people’s understanding of the historic site. I’ve seen this in a Maginot Line museum where the tour guides portray an utterly false picture of the fort and its combat history to visitors.