A lot has been built on the new land since the reclamation of the Northeast Polder: farms, villages, a town, to name a few. Most of what was once built can still be seen today. But some structures have since disappeared. An example of this are air watchtowers, of which fortunately some remains worth seeing.
In the first polder of later Flevoland, there were three air watch towers in the 1950s and 1960s. They bore the names 6K1, 6K2 and 6K3, which in practice were called Karel 1 through 3 when reported. Karel is de Dutch version of the English name Charles. Karel 1 stood on Urk, next to the Kerkje aan de Zee, Karel 2 stood in the Emmelerbos in Emmeloord and Karel 3 stood in the Enserbos in Ens. Karel 1 to 3 were part of an extensive network of a total of 276 air watchtowers, spread throughout the Netherlands.
The air watchtowers were about 14 metres high and built of shock concrete, which many farm barns in the Northeast Polder were also made of. This shock concrete was supplied by the firm N.V. Schokbeton from neighbouring Kampen. This made it possible to build a complete tower of prefabricated concrete elements in just two weeks.
The air watchtowers were used to scan the skies for fast and low-flying aircraft from the former Soviet Union, which were feared to fly into the country under the radar to drop bombs. It was, after all, the time of the Cold War. This scanning was done by locally resident military personnel from the Air Corps. These plane spotters had learned to recognise both our own and enemy planes by their silhouette and engine noise. The transmission of a spotted aircraft was by phone to the regional airguard centre to which the tower was attached.
Most of the air watchtowers were demolished from the mid-1960s onwards, because with the advent of fighter jets that could intercept enemy aircraft as well as improved radar technology, the air watchtowers and their crews were no longer needed. Only 18 complete towers remained of the 276 national towers. Karel 1 through 3 were completely demolished, but the foundation remained in the ground.
The foundations of the air watchtowers in Emmeloord, in Ens and on Urk were subsequently made visible again and provided with information panels. This was done on the initiative of Stichting Canon de Noordoostpolder and Cultuurhistorisch Centrum Noordoostpolder in cooperation with luchtwachttorens.nl and the municipalities of Noordoostpolder and Urk. This way, we keep the special history of the Netherlands in general and of Karel 1 trrough 3 in particular alive.
In Emmeloord, a see-through panel has also been placed near the foundations of the former air watchtower. On the transparent plate of this vista panel, a drawing visualises an object/activity that is not (or no longer) visible in the landscape, in this case Karel 2. This gives you an even better idea of what it looked like at this spot in the Emmelerbos in the 1950s and 1960s.
Read more about his see-through panel
The information on this page is based on research done by Sandra van Lochem, who also wrote and compiled the texts for the information panels. Want to read much more about air watchtowers? Then take a look at the website luchtwachttorens.nl (available in Dutch only).
