Pampus
Pampus () is an artificial island and late 19th-century sea fort located in the IJmeer near Amsterdam. Pampus now belongs to the municipality of Gooise Meren and is open to visitors. Together with the artillery battery on the lighthouse island near Durgerdam and the battery at the Diemer seawall, Pampus protected the entrance to IJ Bay and the harbour of Amsterdam. Pampus was part of the Defence Line of Amsterdam (Dutch: Stelling van Amsterdam). In 1996, UNESCO designated the entire Defence Line with its 42 forts a World Heritage Site. Construction The fort is on a man-made island situated on what was the Pampus shallows or sandbank in the then Zuiderzee. There is a well-known Dutch expression "laying for Pampus" used to describe people that are lying down knocked out. It stems from the time ships had to wait for high tide at Pampus before they could enter the harbour of Amsterdam. Work commenced in 1887 and creating the island and fort required the sinking of 3,800 piles and the importation of 45 thousand cubic metres of sand. It took the Dutch eight years and ƒ 800,000 (€ 8,559,172) to construct the fort. The fort is built of bricks and concrete. The fort has an oval shape and the main building has three floors. On the ground floor were the troops' quarters, kitchen, laundry, two coal-fired steam engines of 20 hp, two dynamos, telegraph, first aid station, and magazines. Most classrooms were located on the south side of the fort. An eight-metre dry moat surrounds the building. Tunnels on the north and south connect the ground floor of the building to the counterscarp. The counterscarp is made of concrete and contained a gaol, the forge, and several supply rooms. On top of the counterscarp there is a parapet to provide close-in defence. A large glacis surrounds the whole fort. History The fort was commissioned in 1895. It was armed with four Krupp L35 (35 calibers long) guns deployed in two hydraulically operated cupolas of two guns each. Electric lifts brought shells and cartridges up from the magazines on the ground floor. These guns fired a shell of for a range of up to . Each gun had a crew of an NCO and six gunners, who could get off one shot every six minutes. (For a picture of a similar and still extant cupola with twin Krupp guns see Fort Copacabana.) Pampus was one of only four forts in the Defence Line armed with large caliber guns. (The other three forts were the forts near IJmuiden, Velsen, and Spijkerboor.) Pampus also had two positions for 57mm (2.2") quick-firing guns for close-in defence. The counterscarp held four M90 Gardner machine guns on garrison mounts for the defence of the moat. Pampus had facilities for a permanent garrison of 200 men, but the only time it achieved that strength was during the First World War. In 1926, the fort received emplacements for three anti-aircraft guns. The fort never saw action and the