Documentary Military Ammo Bunkers in southern Oregon

Location
Talent, Oregon (far from the madding crowd)
Name
Miguel Tejada-Flores
On a bird-watching hike with a number of avid southern Oregon birders, in the forested wetlands near to White City - which is the site of what was formerly Camp White, one of the largest domestic U.S. Army Military bases during WWII, I discovered something fascinating: in the terrain where we were hiking, military exercises and maneuvers used to be run - and ammunition for them was stored in a number of partially underground Ammo bunkers. I'm not certain whether the Ammo Bunkers were also used for the storage of serious amounts of different types of live ammunition during World War II (the rationale being that in the event of 'enemy attack', they wouldn't all be stored in one central ammunition depot which might be overly vulnerable, but rather spread out in a number of locations.

HIking around, and seeing them, they reminded me of largish industrial military versions of the hobbit holes in Tolkien's fantasy novels. Though much of the Bunkers are underground, the front and openings are visible, all the ones I saw were 'set into' hillsides.

It was a gray, overcast, generally cloudy day. Here are a handful of photos I took of different ones, in the order that I saw them, during the hike. As you can see, they were 'numbered'; the first one I saw was #8.

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#8(1).jpg
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Another view of #8---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#8(2).jpg
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And one more angle of it---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#8(3).jpg
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The next one I came upon, wouldn't you know it, was #7---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#7(1).jpg
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One more of #7---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#7(2).jpg
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Followed, not surprisingly, by #6, of which I only took this shot---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#6(1).jpg
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Eventually, I came to #5---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#5(1).jpg
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My second shot of #5---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#5(2).jpg
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I'll admit, looking at them, together, then separately, there is a certain 'sameness' to the different bunkers. Obviously. But, somehow, moving from one to the next, as I walked and hiked and 'discovered' yet another, and then another, they seemed (I don't know how or why, not really) different to me.

The next I came across was #4---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#4(1).jpg
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But, surprisingly, I didn't see any sign of #3. Hmmmmm...?
However, #2 was further down the path---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#2(1).jpg
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Perhaps because there was no visible #3, I felt #2 definitely merited another angle. It was also the only one of the bunkers that I saw in front of which were some discarded metal things, not sure what the were exactly, or why they had been left there, 'outside'---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#2(2).jpg
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The last one I saw was #1 (though obviously if I had started out from this 'end' of a long hike, it would have been the first)---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#1(1).jpg
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The rusted metal grillwork on #1 seemed like a good punctuation to what was my final shot of the series---

X30_Jan5_22_Ammo_Bunker#1(2).jpg
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Another younger and possibly either more energetic or more obsessive version of myself might have taken a few dozen more shots, and angles, or even more. But on today's hike, with my small Fujifilm X30 in my pocket, this seemed like more than enough. There is a quiet here, punctuated by occasional birdcalls from multiple species, giving way to more stillness and silence, and the occasional distant echoing gunshots of hunters. But I can't help imagining what it may have been like, three-quarters of a century ago, when the explosions of guns and artillery filled these woods on one or another simulated missions or 'war games'.

I want to come back here for another look, one of these days.
 
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