For the first time in decades, air watch tower Hees can be visited again in Echten. Tomorrow the doors will open due to Heritage Day. Staatsbosbeheer recently worked on the renovation of the tower.
“It is quite special that the tower is now open again,” says forest ranger Jojanneke Drijver. “I think he has not been open to the public since the Cold War.”
The air watch tower is almost 20 meters high, more than 70 years old and still has its original wooden stairs. “If you compare it to towers elsewhere in the Netherlands, it has remained in pretty good condition. Perhaps the forest around it has played a role in it because it has been quite sheltered.”
Each Raat has been investigated on concrete rot. Wall tiles have been replaced, just like some steps that were broken.
The air watch tower comes from the time of the Cold War. Volunteers from the Air Watch Service Corps were waiting there. Looking for enemy aircraft from the Soviet Union that flew under the radar. “They were the early 1950s. We were all afraid that the Russians would come with their bombers. Those Russians were of course low, low under the radar,” says Sandra van Lochem, researcher of air watch towers.
“The radar has a hole. The lowest kilometer is difficult to perceive for the radar due to the curvature of the earth. That kilometer was taken care of by the eyes of volunteers from the air guard service that looked out for these aircraft on 276 of these towers. That was combined with the radar information so that the air defense was a complete picture.” An enemy plane has never been seen in Echten. There is, however, regularly practiced.
Once there was an air watch tower every 15 kilometers. In good weather, the view from the tower was about 16 kilometers and in bad weather but 8. Not all towers have been preserved. The tower in Echten has only been in use for 10 years: from 1954 to 1964. Then the radar systems improved and NATO countries exchanged information and the eyes of the volunteers had become superfluous.
Nevertheless, Ukraine is now being called upon again to volunteers, Van Lochem says. “An app has been developed there that citizens can report drones and planes. So the use of volunteers to help with information that is important for air defense has become up -to -date.”
The air watch tower in Echten has been completely restored, but if you go there on the receipt, you are standing in front of a closed door. Forester Drijver: “The tower is only accessible under my supervision or one of the volunteers. You can sign up for the website of Staatsbosbeheer.”