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On a recent trip to north Norfolk I got distracted by these WW2 Pill-Boxes. It would seem that some are of just concrete construction while other examples are of brick and concrete. The Pill-Box in the middle of a modern housing estate looks a little out of place but at least the developer decided to retain it and make it a feature.
There are a fair few in the Fens of East Anglia generally where they are right in the middle of ploughed fields, where their construction is far to much trouble to try and deconstruct such fortifications when they held small cannons in the some of the wide open areas where they feared German Glider borne troops.
Most appear to be alongside the main A141 road between Huntingdon and Wisbech, very well built.
Here's one where the lampost has arrived post war. These apparently had searchlight units alongside them.
The fourth shot really gives the incumbents a great field of fire when you consider 75 years on how clear it must have been during WW2
The first 4 pics are of the same Pill-Box and this ones seems a little unusual in that it appears to be 2 "grafted together" which I haven't seen before. It has also been half protected by earth banks/piles. This Pill-Box and the one in the 5th pic are just behind the tree-line in a wooded area next to a field.
I was speaking to a guy who sadly died last year aged 97 in the village, and he was the Home Guard Sergeant looking after a lot of these boxes and crew, he was telling me all the East Anglian boxes right into London had a searchlight unit attached to them, with some cracking WAAF's doing the business from start to finish!!
Not sure what he meant by that, but he married one of them, so the light must have shown into their eyes :lol::lol:
In some cases permanent brick shuttering was used because of shortage of shuttering material.
After the war the government offered landowners a small cash payment to waive their rights of reinstatement, where the site was difficult of access or the agricultural value was marginal. Many appear to have accepted.
Some of the pill-boxes that line certain stretches of the river Thames appear to have unusually thin walls. I don't profess to be any sort of expert in the design of pill-boxes but the few that I have examined, some years ago, just seem to have unusually thin walls when compared to other pill-boxes that I have seen in other locations. Some pill-boxes appear to have thick walls but not the ones lining the river Thames.
This one is in woods near Cuffley (Herts) on one of the stop lines around London.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...standard-1.jpg
Some anti-tank cubes opposite - some would probably have been pulled out into the road at the right time.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...standard-2.jpg
Blacker Bombard position in the hedge near Brookmans Park BBC transmitter
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...standard-3.jpg
Another, near the wireless station.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...standard-4.jpg
I know I have mentioned it before on here, but of course these reminders of WW2 are in view..............I wonder how many "bunkers" that are still full of arms to provide covert operations had we been invaded are still out there unfound.
As I understand it, only a few were trained and in the know of their location..........one has to assume there is a centrally held map somewhere with them all logged. I watched a programme the other night where one was shown with its entry through a false panelled brick wall.
I recall reading in the papers many years ago oif a fortification that was at sea level on the Kent(?) coast. Once the steel doors had rusted away by the mid 70's, the kids had cleared the sand away, got in and it was pretty much as it was left. Weapons, papers, tables, radios books etc etc. All rusted solid of course by then because while people hadn't be able to get in, the sea water and damp had been able to enter but only to the lower level. Everyone assumed that it'd been cleared and sealed when it was accessed via rusty steel doors, there it all was.
Post #8 by MKVII, pics 3&4 "the Blacker Bombard" or the Spigot Mortar, for anyone not in the know, link below gives a view of what sat on the stainless steel spigot.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...43._H30181.jpg
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gil Boyd
I can speak about some of these stories...they are most likely just that. We have a series of bunkers here in our city and the surrounding area. When I joined the regular army the reservists were FULL of stories about the bunkers below our feet being full of things. They had stories about magic secret entrances that only the natives knew about and had been seen coming and going with brand new rifles. I was young and wanted a piece of this action so I spent my off time searching. All bunker entrances had filled with water through time so only the higher rooms were dry. Using the air vents to access found absolutely nothing. If I'd taken a broom with me I doubt I could even have swept up a cup of dust. The more the doors were secured, the bigger the stories of loot. Nothing...Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
No matter what the papers said...I'd have to see it to believe, we all know how tight fisted the Gov't is about leaving stuff without a keeper. Did you see pics Peter?
Yes Jim, kids were going home with the rusty stuff and the cops were called. It was getting dangerous too where the door had rusted through at he bottom. They had to wiggle through so it was cleared and sealed. There was a story and some photos in one of these 'after the battle' type magazines too
There's also been romours since 1944 that there are hundreds of tons of US stockpiled ammo buried in Savernake Forest near here. The MoD were called in by the local council because odds and sods were being found and handed in. They were from a railway wagon explosion but later a Navy or RAF helicopter dis a series of low passes over the forest. They didn't explain exactly what it diud but the press simply stated that all they COULD say in the interests of security was what the MoD told them to say. That if the helicopter could locate/find a submarine - or other metallic material in the deep ocean, then metallic objects buried in a few metres of ground would not be a problem. That stopped the rumours in their tracks and the residents now all live happily ever after
That applies to most bunkers Jim, but the ones Gil and Peter mention are the Secret Army ones, small groups that were to form underground cells and had a small weapon cache etc. The fact that it was so secret is why there are still a few that remain undiscovered.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
My father's first job in 1949, at the age of 15, was working on an Essex farm. While working there, in 1949, he found a very heavy steel trap door which was very securely locked by 2 large padlocks in the bottom of a long dried up ditch. The trap door had been hidden by dried leaves etc and when my father asked for what purpose the trap door was for, he was fobbed off with a silly story. It could well have been an Auxiliary Unit hide-out and only being a few years since the end of WW2 it would be understandable if people did not wish to talk about it.
The reason I raise it again I was watching the TV the other night, BBC1 I think and one was uncovered in pretty good nick, and the main access was from a main road and the removable door was a bouldered frame exactly like the boulders in the wall all along that side of the road and grown over as you would expect. Found by a local farmer recently doing hedge maintenance I remember.
There was nothing in this bunker now except beds and cupboards and lock up weapons cases ALL empty. I will see if I can find the link to the programme.
It rekindled my interest and thought, well if he didn't know it was there, how many more were lurking about the English countryside??
I'm familiar with those stories...Quote:
Originally Posted by bigduke6
And we didn't have the Nazis standing on our doormat either.
The Auxiliary Unit underground hide normally had a escape tunnel/2nd exit in order to evacuate the hide in an emergency.
Operational Bases of Britains Secret Underground Army - The Auxiliary Units - YouTube
The British Resistance in Wales - A Film Made For Abergavenny Museum - YouTube
Mentioned in the series by Harry Harris,
Auxiliary Units On Discovery History - YouTube
My wifes family from Faringdon and Shrivenham have a very warm and close connection with Coleshill house, the ancestral home of the secret army. In fact, we drove past the grounds today to meet friends for lunch in Highworth. Her mothers family firm, Pugh, the plumbers from Faringdon were working in the attic areas of Coleshill house when it is said that one of their hand held blowlamps was not properly extinguished and.... Well the rest is history but hence the warm association. Luckily the Pugh plumbing business survived will into early his century whereas Coleshill house didn't. It really was a run-down shambles by the time it burned down. Wifeys best friend from school lived down the hill, some 50 yards from the house and she took me around the grounds a couple of years ago and showed me where the old loco used to be and the remains of an old tank and 'stuff' in the woods plus grated and sealed entrances were. It was their playground in the 50's. Knapps the builders used a lot of the old house stonework. Shame that there's none left as one of the surrounding walls has just fallen down