Kiev's bunkers

[Jack]

As the German's reached the outskirts of Kiev on the first of September 1941 they were met with an unexpected delay.

25 kilometers west of Kiev, in a line over 70 kilometers in length, in a shaped described to me as looking like a banana, were 140 bunkers. Each bunker was 500 meters from the next bunker.  Each bunker housed two Soviet soldiers.  Each of the almost 300 men manning these bunkers knew they were on a suicide mention.

These 140 bunkers located 25 kilometers to the west of Kiev tied up the German army for two weeks, two much needed weeks for the Soviet's to withdraw from Kiev.

Today only five of these bunkers are left. Here are photos of two of these bunkers.  All the bunkers were facing the west, the direction the German army was coming from.

You can see the intense damage done to the front of these bunkers by German gunfire and probably the German 88mm cannon.  With bunker 2 you can see where the rear door was blown apart (probably by the 88) as well as the names of the two soldiers who died in this bunker.