Need help identifying equipment - Pillbox fitting.

In one of the observation post bunkers near where I live, there is what appears to be the remains of a mattress or spring frame attached vertically to the wall by springs and suspended from the ceiling by springs. It is believed this bunker was used to keep an eye on the mines in the approaches to the harbour.

Do any of you more knowledgeable types know what this frame was used for? (Besides sleeping standing up, that is.)

 

Wouldn't like to stop any other more knowledgeable types from coming up with a solution to your mystery find but can't help feeling that there may be a more prosaic explanation for the "contraption"

As I once intimated (see below) it's sometimes very easy to think that 2 plus 2 = 4 when all the time the correct answer might be 22

Palliasses certainly got a mention here on the BBC archives website:
BBC - WW2 People's War - Army Beds

I also remember responding at the time with the following:
Quote:
Hi chaps
I've got a bed story for you too!

My Diary for Saturday 7th October 1944
reads: Our present location skin factory, slightly lousy.

What actually happened was that we came across this empty building near Assisi and, on entering, found lots of what we took to be double decker bunk beds. They had latticed wire frames stretched across where a mattresses would normally be found and so, grateful for small mercies we all gratefully dumped our paliasses on the beds and retired for the night.
On waking in the morning we all found ourselves covered in flea-bites and
realised that the wire frames normally held animal skins.
The MO's orderly spent the next few days trying to rid us of our newfound friends !
Ron

 

Regulations 19th century:

Every pair of soldiers was supplied with a palliasse or bed case by the Barracks Master to sleep upon. Each palliasse measured 6 ft by 7 ½ ft (183 cm x 229 cm) and was made out of two pieces of ticking osnaburg. To show government ownership, the palliasse were "stamped each with durable marking stuff (G.R) in each corner." Thirty-six pounds (16.33 kg) of straw were supplied for filling each palliasse and replenished every three months. Typically palliasses were filled through length-way slits in the centre top side, were either tied or buttoned closed after the palliasse was full. When not in use as mattresses "the palliasse which is to be doubled once from the length" with the bolster inside.


This was still in the QRs of the 1980s. Palliase filling regulations - Not for a pair of soldiers though!

 

Ain't you ever slept on a palliasse? Cadet force tented camps in the late 1950s were invariably provided with palliasses to sleep on. Went on three or four such camps.

Chris

 

This isn't like any bunk support. Take a look at these photos from the bunker in Whangaparaoa.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/qFT3Z8bzIWPi8u-udcHmXA?feat=directlink
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IRP0ApmfJYUK1TqQfmbtog?feat=directlink
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/r0mM5vf4omYVibePS4J9-w?feat=directlink

 

Thanks for that -- much appreciated.