media:image:e2414052-293e-45bb-bd7e-52e7e8223398

JimmiJames
Mon, 09/22/2014 - 21:24
oldernewer

This banyan tree is doing its very best to smother the small building in the middle of dense vegetation on a hillside near Mount Kellet. Is this a military building from WW2? This is not part of the system of tunnels under Matilda hospital but from much further round the hill above Peel Rise and just under La Hacienda. Any ideas? Quite a bit further down the hill in a valley there are a few remnants of old agricultural style stone walls with terraced areas behind them. I don't think the two sites are related.


JJ

 

Date picture taken
2009

Comments

JJ,

That's an interesting one. I haven't seen it before - does it look like any other military buildings you've seen? It's hard to see what we're looking at from the photo - can you talk us through it? Any other / larger photos would help too, and a new Place would pinpoint the location.

Maps show a path along a contour about where you describe. From a brief attempt to walk along it (further back near Peel Rise), there wasn't a clear path any more, but there was a pipeline - water I think. So possibly the building could be waterworks-related?

I'm also interested to hear more about the 'system of tunnels under Matilda hospital'. I've seen an entrance to a Japanese tunnel heading back into the hill from behind the Artillery Observation Post that is just down the slope from the hospital, but haven't looked inside yet. Is that the one you mean?

Regards, David

Hi David,

  From what i remember I followed a path leading off Peel Rise and then cut up the hillside for quite a way through some really heavy vegetation. I do remember a series of water pipes but can't recall if they were near this small brick building or further down the hill nearer the path. I also can't recall if the building was North or South of La Hacienda. I was scrambling around, as I am known to do, looking at plants. The only way to locate it more accurately would be if I go back to the spot and try to get a better idea of what and where it is! I do remember very well that there was some pretty foul swamp area downhill of one of the house complexes up there.......full of grey washing machine type water which was unpleasant to get through to say the least.

 In that photo I am looking through the doorway to the inside of the possibly 6ft x 6ft x 6ft room. The roots now block any attempt to get inside.

  Yea those tunnels I mentioned are the ones just under the hospital.

 

JJ

A possible clue - if it was built of bricks (and the back wall in the photo looks like bricks), I'd say that's a vote against it being a military structure.

If you think of the pillboxes / AOPs / Splinterproof shelters we've seen, I think they are all made from reinforced concrete, not bricks and mortar.