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Post by fots2 on Jun 21, 2012 11:31:30 GMT 8
ozzlefinch,
One out of two is not bad (unless you are into mine sweeping). ;D
That shaft certainly does look unfinished or possibly destroyed. Even rebar is sticking out of it half way up. There is an old land defense magazine quite close to SL #8.
I have been meaning to ask you, do you have any photos from your trips to Corregidor that you could post? It is always interesting to see what it looked like years ago.
Thanks.
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Post by oozlefinch on Jun 21, 2012 11:59:26 GMT 8
On my trip in '87 I took over 1200 slides. I have tried to scan the slides so that I could them to ArmyJunk and Glen Williford, but have so far been unsuccessful, but, I'll keep trying. I have a couple of slides of the 3" gun hanging off the east side of Malinta that I would like to post. Do you have any idea whatever happened to it?
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Post by fots2 on Jun 21, 2012 13:10:04 GMT 8
Wow, I would love to see those ’87 photos. Perhaps you have some geeky neighborhood kid looking for such a project. Good luck.
There is an amazing aerial photo of the two east side tunnels. (I wish I had a hi-rez version of it). Supposedly both contained 3-inch pedestal mount guns. There is a close-up photo of one of these tunnels that shows the gun. By the way, do you know where these guns came from? Was it Battery Maxwell Keyes?
The left side tunnel was buried by a landslide that also covered the road going to the top of the hill. That is where the little detour with the rope handrails are now. The right side tunnel is still there but the gun is missing. I have no idea where the gun went as it was gone before my exploring days. To my knowledge, there is no such type of gun on the island anymore.
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Post by oozlefinch on Jun 27, 2012 13:32:54 GMT 8
A lot can happen in the 25 years since I saw it on the side of the hill. I looked for it again in '89 and '06, but couldn't find it. I think part of my problem was in both of those years I came up the road, and not up the west side of the hill. I've thought about this a little (middle of the night when I couldn't sleep) and I think I was looking in the wrong place. If it's still there (I hope), I think it is between the saddle, where the road reaches the top of the ridge, and the East Defense Station, just down from the east side of the ridge. If it's not still there, it fell down the side of the hill, probably bouncing over both the Malinta Hill Road and the South Shore Road and ended up either in the water or on dry land south of the east entrance to Malinta Tunnel. Has anyone ever spent any time in that area? Has anyone ever gone up the ridgeline from the saddle to the Defense Station?
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Post by fots2 on Jun 27, 2012 15:16:42 GMT 8
ozzlefinch,
I have zigzagged up the eastern side of Malinta Hill looking for anything of interest. Not much was found. The last 30 feet or so before the top was very steep and I had to crawl on my stomach using roots and scrubby trees to hold onto. (I won't do that again).
The rock slide that covered the second tunnel is a bit north of what would be directly below the East Defense Officer's Station.
It would be great if such a tunnel and gun still existed but I think the chances of that are slim.
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Post by oozlefinch on Jun 28, 2012 8:43:37 GMT 8
The gun wasn't in a tunnel, but out in the open. I didn't go down to the gun (call me gutless), but, I did get a couple of pictures. I can't tell if it is mounted or has been pushed over the side and ended up in an up-right position. I have tried to e-mail scanned slides to Glen Williford previously, but without success. I may have come up with a half-assed solution. I'll know if he replies to my e-mail. I've tried attaching it to this message, but without success. I'm working with ArcSoft PhotoImpressions program and, for whatever reason, it seems to be too large to send as an attachment. If it works, maybe I can send what I have to you off-line and you can review them (and post them if you think they merit it).
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Post by fots2 on Jun 28, 2012 15:16:21 GMT 8
Hi oozlefinch,
That sounds very interesting. I will send a Personal Message to you.
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Post by oozlefinch on Jun 30, 2012 11:13:59 GMT 8
I sent copies of scanned slides to 2 different individuals. One was able to open them, and the other wasn't.
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Post by chadhill on Jul 12, 2012 1:17:14 GMT 8
I was reviewing fots' replies #103 and #112, which were about the air shaft he found above the NW hospital entrance. Good work, fots. It made me wonder how many air shafts the entire tunnel complex must have had. I've read how stuffy the air became during the final days before the surrender, with all the overcrowding there was. I found only one map in a book that showed the air shafts. This was from the 1947 book The Hard Way Home by Colonel William C. Braly. It shows four ventilation shafts, two for the hospital complex and two for the main complex. It also shows that the east and west sides of the hospital complex have 4' x 6' ventilation passages, as do the north and south sides of the main complex. These ventilation passages connect the ends of the lateral tunnels.  A lengthy search of the 'net found this map on a few sites. Interestingly, it shows two additional air shafts for the main tunnel complex, at the ends of the HQ USFIP tunnel (lateral No. 3) and the Harbor Defense HQ tunnel (lateral No. 2). The 4' x 6' ventilation passages are not noted as such on this map for some reason.  I seem to vaguely remember finding one of the air shafts on the east side of the main tunnel complex back in the 1980s, and think I even climbed a short way up inside it to a small ledge. But I have no photos of it, so maybe I'm off my rocker. Something else that caught my eye is the elevation shown on these maps for the tunnel entrances. The east entrance is nearly 34 feet higher than the west entrance. I haven't been there since the '80s, but don't remember noticing any slope. |
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Post by okla on Jul 12, 2012 5:43:22 GMT 8
Hey Chad....Methinks you, and most folks, would readily notice a 35 foot difference in a length of a bit longer than two football fields. That much slope would be difficult to miss. Just my humble. When I was playing football in high school, our practice field had a 3 foot difference from goal post to goal post and it was readily noticeable, especially when running 10 and 20 yard wind sprints and doubly noticeable when we ran the final sprint of 100 yards to wind up the daily grind. Surely, that chart is in error on this particular point. Cheers.
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