PREPARING FOR D-DAY THAMES FORTS
Thetford in Norfolk cover huge swathes of the UK. These large areas are complemented by pockets of land and buildings, some of which were requisitioned during the Second World War, such as Stanford in Norfolk (which covers some 4% of the county) and the village of Tyneham in Dorset. In both cases it was hoped that those evicted might return after the war but controversially it was a hope never realised. Today both of these areas, and others like them, are held by the Defence Estate.
The buildings left standing within these restricted areas have effectively been trapped in time, while the training areas encompassing them provide a rich haven of diverse habitats supporting a broad range of fauna and flora. Many of these areas are carefully managed and recognised as ecosystems that might otherwise have fallen prey to development.
SECRET EXPERIMENTS
On a remote stretch of the Suffolk coast lies a significant coastal nature reserve in the care of the National Trust. Yet since 1913 it has been the site of some of the most important military and scientific experiments of the last century.
During the First World War, Orford Ness was quickly established as a place in which to develop aircraft designs away from prying eyes, while during the late 1930s radar was also
“The extensive military remains at Orford Ness create a surreal skyline”
developed here, which underpinned victory in the subsequent Battle of Britain of 1940.
After the war, huge concrete bunkers were built there in which our early air-dropped nuclear weapons were tested. The tests were needed so that the air crews tasked with carrying the weapons could be sure the devices’ casings would withstand the vibrations, pressures and temperatures they’d experience while being flown to their targets.
Today, the extensive military remains at Orford Ness create a surreal skyline over this beguiling shingle spit and are now home to thousands of native and migrating birds.
SECOND WORLD WAR AIRFIELDS
For much of the early part of the Second World War, Britain could only take the fight to the Nazis in Europe through the skies. The American entry to the war in 1941 meant more pilots and crews taking off from Britain, all of whom needed accommodating when they weren’t in the air. The solution was hastily built airfields across the East of England, notably in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. East Anglia, dubbed ‘Britain’s Aircraft Carrier’, soon boasted an airfield every five miles, from which both US and RAF fighters and bombers took the fight to Germany.
Today many of these airfields are often used for modern commercial businesses, but still display memorials to the units that were once stationed there.
Those airfields that have survived can prove very evocative. One of my favourites is Upottery in Devon and though it’s in private hands, it’s certainly worth seeking out if you’re passing. It was from here that the men of Easy Company, the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the US 101st Airborne, made famous in the epic mini series Band of Brothers, took off for France in the early hours of 6 June 1944, and in so doing started D-Day.
PILLBOXES AND STOP LINES
Growing up in East Anglia I was never far from an old airfield or one of the thousands of so-called ‘Pill Boxes’ that were built across Britain. Most of them appeared during 1940,
when the threat of invasion loomed large following the fall of France and the ‘miracle’ of Dunkirk.
Some 28,000 of these concrete or brick bunkers were eventually constructed. Many pillboxes formed fixed nodes on more than 50 of the stop lines that were built. Stop lines were a series of defensive linear barriers that made best use of natural obstacles such as valleys and rivers, as well as many hastily dug trenches and wire entanglements. Each stop line was just one element in a complex network designed to ensure any attempted invasion would be met with a set of deep and exhausting defences that would thwart its progress.
Today, some 6,500 pillboxes survive and can often been seen next to strategic locations such as railway crossings, bridges or overlooking obvious landing sites, as well as countless beach positions on the coast. Braunton Burrows in North Devon was established as an assault training area by the American military in 1943. The dune system was settled on after a desperate search for a location that would allow them the space and time to master the challenges of an amphibious landing on the coast of France. As it turned out, Braunton Burrows’s unique landscape mirrored the area on the Normandy coast that would become known as Omaha Beach perfectly. The decision to build a fixed flotilla of mock landing craft out of concrete has ensured that, today, the sacrifices made during the D-Day landings will never be forgotten. The alien-lie structures of the Red Sands Fort Complex tower over the approaches to the Thames Estuary. Built in 1943, these huge concrete caissons were towed out before being sunk, thus creating an artificial, anti-aircraft node in the English Channel to target German aircraft heading towards London. Since the war they’ve been home to a pirate radio station – and an independent country: Sealand.
It may be over 70 years since the end of the Second World War but the fascinating and poignant reminders of 20th-century conflicts are still etched into our landscapes and in a host of excellent museums – a distant echo of ingenuity, industry and heroism.