The past and sad present of the B-5 Peña Roiba Battery, in the Rías Altas of Galicia

@ElentirENG ES 2·01·2024 · 23:10 0

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the region of Galicia had some of the best defended coasts in the world.

The two Munáiz-Argüelles cannons of the Battery J-3 of Monteferro, in the Vigo Estuary
Prior Norte searchlights: the eyes of the coastal artillery of the Rías Altas of Galicia

Within Galicia, the best defended part was the Ártabro Gulf, which includes the Ferrol, Betanzos and Burgo estuaries. The importance of this area is due to the naval base of the Spanish Navy in Ferrol and the important commercial port of the city of La Coruña. Cape Prior, north of Ferrol, was the best defended area of the province of La Coruña, with five batteries: Battery B-2 Prior Nortew, Battery B-3 Prior Sur, Battery B-5 Peña Roiba and th Battery e B-6 Monte Prior, in addition to two groups of projectors: Prior Norte, which we saw here, and Prior Sur.

Battery B-5 Peña Roiba (initially called 5th Battery) was a fire support position for batteries with larger guns. It was one of the batteries built as a consequence of the coastal defense plan of 1926, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The B-5 was equipped with four Vickers model 1923 15'24 cm cannons, divided into two sections of two pieces each, at different levels. The cannons were installed there in 1929. The cannons were removed in 1990 and the military zone was abolished in 1998.

Today the B-5, like the other Army batteries in the Cape Prior area, is abandoned. The YouTube channel of Baterías de Costa del Golfo Ártabro (I recommend you subscribe, it has excellent content) has published a complete video that shows what this battery was like when it was active and how this now:

I take this opportunity to recommend the Facebook page of Baterías de Costa del Golfo Ártabro, which publishes old photos of those military positions and also of other batteries in the rest of Galicia. They are doing an excellent job of documentation.

You can see below some images that appear in the video, which show the current appearance of the battery after many years of abandonment. In the video you can see what these places were like when the battery was active. Here we see the old canteen:

The living area, where the soldiers slept.

Telemetry bunkers, which were used to direct cannon fire and calculate shooting distances.

One of the sections of the battery. In each of the wells, now empty, there was a 15.24 cm Vickers cannon.