India

[wattman]

WO II Air raid shelter in Chennai.Nu in gebruik als voetgangerstunnel

http://chennaimadras.blogspot.com/2009/ ... round.html" target="_blank

[wattman]

Nog een bestemming als je toevalling in Chennai komt

Het Fort St. George, hoewel nog steeds in gebruik bij de Indiase overheid, is deels te bezoeken. Naast het zgn. Fort Museum - waar nog wat schamele getuigenissen van de aanwezigheid van de VOC aan de Coromandel kust zijn te bewonderen - is een van een attracties het kerkje in het fort.
Wat ik tijdens mijn bezoek in 2003 niet wist, was dat het kerkje ook als bomvrije schuilplaats was ingericht.

Uit The Story of Madras http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/26621" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

In deciding to build a new church, the Governor and his colleagues realized that if ever the Fort should be bombarded, a shot from the enemy's guns was as likely to fall upon the church as upon a fortified bastion; so the roof of the church was made 'bomb-proof,' in preparation for possibilities. Events proved the reasonableness of the measure; for on more than one occasion the church was a factor in war.

In 1746, when the French were besieging Fort St. George, the British defenders lodged their wives and children and their domestic servants in the bomb-proof church, and they took refuge there themselves in the intervals of military duty. During the three years that they occupied Madras, the French, fearing that they might be besieged in their turn, used the bomb-proof church as a storehouse for grain and as a reservoir for drinking-water. The church organ they sent off to Pondicherry as one of the spoils of war.

At the end of the war Madras was restored to the Company, but a few years later the Fort was besieged by the French again. During the interval, some of the houses had been made bomb-proof, and in these the women and children were lodged, but St. Mary's Church was used as a barrack, and its steeple as a watch-tower. Lally, the French commander, failing to capture Madras, had to march away with his hopes baffled; but, notwithstanding its bomb-proof roof, the church, as also its steeple, had been badly damaged during the destructive siege, and the necessary repairs were considerable.