Naval direction-finding tower MP 5

In 1942, the German Navy built an observation bunker called "Marine Peilstand und Meßstellung 5" in the middle of the southern coast on the Channal Island Guernsey, which was intended to be part of a network comprising a total of six bunkers around Guernsey.

Its purpose was observation and gunnery control and the bunker had two floors, one floor for each associated gun battery. Enemy ships could be very quickly and precisely determined by observations from two of the bunkers, giving both direction and range, and this plot could then be passed on to the guns in the various batteries around the island.

In practice, however, it turned out to be very difficult for two towers to distinguish the individual ships from each other, if several ships were being observed simultaneously. The construction of the bunkers was therefore stopped before all six had been were completed.

Bunker MP 5 was fitted with granite on the outside of the concrete to resemble a Martello tower, a fortification built in the 19th century in many places on Guernsey.

The bunker is located in the middle of the southern coast, 3 km. east of MP4.