Ouverage St Symphorian July 22

[Newage]

Hi All
Day 8

Right this was only a small "Ouverage" or works with one artillery casemate and some personnel shelters, magazines etc BUT this was the first fort/Ouverage
to have feature the added 1917 tunnels, so late in WW1 the forts in this area were started to be modified by build a new tunnel system underneath the forts
to a depth of 100+ feet, The 1917 tunnels were started at this site by digging the vertical shafts, they are f******g deadly open vertical shafts.

Pictures..............

Heading down to the lower level and the artillery gun casemates, if you look at the back of this room you can make out a patch of missing concrete floor.

This is what waits for those without lights.

There is more than one of these shafts, the one below is just inside the way in.....

Inside the main artillery casemate

Up on the top of the Ouverage is this one man observation post.

Right that`s that only a small report for a small location, thanks for looking and as normal all and any comments are most welcome.
There are more pictures on my FlickR site so shoot on over too -

Ouverage St-Symphorian

Cheers Newage

 

[King Al]

Cool find Newage, defo not one for a night explore

 

[Newage]

Cool find Newage, defo not one for a night explore

Wait till you see Fort Marre for the most dangerous.

 

[HistoryBuff]

Small but pretty cool.

 

[BikinGlynn]

Nice bit of wartime heratige there

 

[TeeJF]

That's one of the ones we never visited back when I was a regular urbexer (and a mod in here!). If this area interests you take a look at our visits from about 14 years ago - click on the link below if you can't find our original reports in the archive here.

http://www.jarrelook.co.uk/Urbex/Verdun/Verdun.htm

 

[Mox83]

We used your excellent site a lot for researching the Verdun forts. I did another trip to there, Metz/Thionville and Liege with another friend this year. planning to do a big trip to Germany/Poland next year.

 

[TeeJF]

Really? Wow! That’s great it was of some use! Thank you.

I was back over there in 2017 for the centenary of Passchendale and we dropped across to Fort du Regret again (it’s my favourite) but we were surprised to see that masses of work had been done to clear the moat. So it looks like it’s now in private ownership. I will be interested to see what has happened with it in the interim. I am guessing they intend to do what Cedric and his wife Julie have done with their fort, or like the one near the border a bit over from Ypres which is now a superb museum.

Have you managed to visit any of the Maginot Forts yet? They’re such a moveable feast with entrance being simple one week and then a week later the military has bulldozed a 30 foot high soil berm across the doors! And the number of pykey fires is frightening - it’s common to get in only to find your way is blocked with choking fumes from a still smouldering fire literally weeks old. Worth it though if you get into one where the guns et all are still in situ! Do take care if you go into any of them though because they're a mess of hazards, not least when you come round a corner in a Verdun fort and find a 30 plus foot deep pit with nothing over it like we did in Bois Bourous! I see you found some yourself! The Travaux 17 system in BB was simply amazing though.

 

[pme]

Nice to see something the twat painters haven't messed up.

 

[Mox83]

TeeJF, we also used the now sadly defunct fortiffsere.fr site. Was of great use on another trip in which we explored all the Sere de Rivieres all the way down to Belfort. One of these days I should really get to sorting the photos and making reports on them.

Fort du Regret is great, the association are doing an excellent job of restoration. We've had 3 tours of it so far, last one with an American Youtuber last summer.

And you're right about Travaux 17 tunnels being very dodgy, I fell down one of the slope shafts in Fort Marre in '22 and bruised/cracked a couple of ribs.

 

[TeeJF]

TeeJF, we also used the now sadly defunct fortiffsere.fr site. Was of great use on another trip in which we explored all the Sere de Rivieres all the way down to Belfort. One of these days I should really get to sorting the photos and making reports on them.

Fort du Regret is great, the association are doing an excellent job of restoration. We've had 3 tours of it so far, last one with an American Youtuber last summer.

And you're right about Travaux 17 tunnels being very dodgy, I fell down one of the slope shafts in Fort Marre in '22 and bruised/cracked a couple of ribs.

Ouch. Good job it wasn’t that vertical one in Bois Bourrous. Or was it??? Doesn’t bare thinking about.

I didn’t know Cedric and Julie’s site was gone? What a shame, it was really good. And they were so helpful when I was doing my Verdun fort site too. You say you’ve done loads of the forts? Did you perchance go to the one near Ypres which is a privately owned museum? They charge pennies for entrance and the lady who showed us round was fab. We went into lots of the parts they are still cleaning up with her. And the museum they have is great. They’ve also got TWO French light tanks!!! Highly recommended.

I’ve got just one full on fort left to do in Verdun now but I’ve tried several times and failed. Cedric and Julie were lucky enough to be taken in by the French military.

 

[Mox83]

No, but had a good look down it from the edge.

We haven't done that one near Ypres yet, but I'll mark it on the list. We did most of the Maginot and Prussian stuff from Verdun/Thionville across to Strasbourg and will definitely be going back, as there was a great fort museum in Epinal that was finishing off their original working narrow gauge track system to a neighbouring fort in 2021.