My grandfather remembers seeing American soldiers using these bunkers during training exercises, the little kids loved to see the men running up and down the beaches and driving their jeeps about the place. My grandfather got picked up by US troops and brought over to Barry's in Portrush. ((Now called Curry's))
@@okandmanniska1183 brilliant…. I must look up and see if I can find photos of that… I never knew that the American soldiers used it, I assumed it was local home guard… yes , although it’s no longer Barry’s at least it’s still there… I was so worried it was going to get demolished when it was sold and turned into apartments…
@@IansOddInterests It was quite early on in the war, around 1940-1942 that the americans were using it. There are photos of the US troops practicing with their Anti tank guns! The homeguard used these shortly after the US division that was there moved, to presumably belfast??? The US airborne came into the area shortly before D-DAY and were situated in Cromore, I recomend taking a spin up there if you are free and go for a nice walk down the glen. My friend went metal detecting there in a field where they were training and emmediatly the metal detector went off before he even went into a field and he started digging and found an ammo box with a coca cola bottle inside it. There are a few bunkers there aswell, they seem to be radio bunkers possibly from the British in the 50s I'm not too sure, they are dug quite deep into the ground and only a small portion is situated above the ground. The history of Portstewart is really fascinating to me, especially anything to do with WW2, I myself was also worried about Barry's being turned into flats. I'm sure we all were!!!!
My grandfather remembers seeing American soldiers using these bunkers during training exercises, the little kids loved to see the men running up and down the beaches and driving their jeeps about the place. My grandfather got picked up by US troops and brought over to Barry's in Portrush. ((Now called Curry's))
@@okandmanniska1183 brilliant…. I must look up and see if I can find photos of that… I never knew that the American soldiers used it, I assumed it was local home guard… yes , although it’s no longer Barry’s at least it’s still there… I was so worried it was going to get demolished when it was sold and turned into apartments…
@@IansOddInterests It was quite early on in the war, around 1940-1942 that the americans were using it. There are photos of the US troops practicing with their Anti tank guns! The homeguard used these shortly after the US division that was there moved, to presumably belfast??? The US airborne came into the area shortly before D-DAY and were situated in Cromore, I recomend taking a spin up there if you are free and go for a nice walk down the glen. My friend went metal detecting there in a field where they were training and emmediatly the metal detector went off before he even went into a field and he started digging and found an ammo box with a coca cola bottle inside it. There are a few bunkers there aswell, they seem to be radio bunkers possibly from the British in the 50s I'm not too sure, they are dug quite deep into the ground and only a small portion is situated above the ground. The history of Portstewart is really fascinating to me, especially anything to do with WW2, I myself was also worried about Barry's being turned into flats. I'm sure we all were!!!!