Western Daily Press (Saturday)
How the Forest of Dean became massive storage site for munitions
Janet Hughes discovers that truth is at least as interesting as fiction when it comes to the Forest of Dean’s wartime past
MENTION the war in the Forest of Dean and somebody will invariably bring up stories about tanks, motorbikes, cars, munitions and even rations dumped down the mines when the Americans left at the end of the Second World War.
Usually they will swear that a deceased relative saw tanks lined up in some underground tunnel or other, but they will never really remember enough details for the report to be checked out.
Yet over the decades miners, cavers and others who explore this underground terrain have never come across a single abandoned tank.
And the truth about what happened above ground is far, far more interesting than any urban myth about mystery underground dumps nobody has ever found.
For leading up to and during the Second World War, the Forest of Dean was one of the biggest storage areas for bombs, bullets and mustard gas in the whole country.
Vast quantities were brought on specially built rail tracks and stored under tarpaulin in the woodlands or at the side of the main roads so the Forest canopy could hide it from enemy planes.
With 36 square miles of mixed woodland, the Forest of Dean was a natural place to hide the nation’s build-up to war as the Government ordered an expansion of the armaments programme in 1939,
On October 10 1940, 30 members of the British Army unit 28ASD arrived from the munitions factory at Rotherwas in Hereford to oversee the creation of a Cinderford storage depot.
Civil engineers turned 14 miles of mainly woodland tracks into roads and constructed Nissen huts for the soldiers who would work at the depot which would store conventional air dropped bombs, shells, mortars, hand-held weapons and grenades.
It would also store the feared poison mustard gas, a clear amber-coloured oily liquid with a faint odour of mustard that created a toxic cloud which caused vicious blistering, burns and blindness.
Mustard gas was first used at Ypres in Belgium in 1917 when it killed 10,000 troops and many of those who survived developed cancer in later life.
Ironically it is now used to cure cancer, but back then any Foresters who came across it in the woods were in danger of suffering a long, painful death, and two GIs who succumbed to the gas are said to be buried in the Forest.
“The crates of incoming ordnance were stacked on concrete lintels under 16ft long corrugated iron shelters to prevent any wet and damp getting in,” said Terry Halford, who has been gathering information about the Forest during wartime for more than 40 years.
“The shelters were then covered with a green tarpaulin sheet and tied down.
“There were 2,000 of these shelters placed around the depot with 450plus British soldiers looking after it.”
In August 1942 the War Office handed over the depot to the US Army and historians working for the US Army say that by 1943 Kingham in the Cotswolds and Cinderford in the Forest of Dean were the biggest and second biggest US ammunition depots in England.
Ordnance was unloaded from railway wagons at Speech House road station, put onto trucks and taken up the hill and into the depot through entrances at Yew Tree brake and opposite Dean Hall school.
In 1943 the Army constructed a railway siding known as Acorn Patch to make unloading easier.
During this time around 250 British soldiers and 900 Americans were living and working in the Forest and there was a one-way system to try to avoid accidents amid reports of the Yanks driving far too fast and furious.
Eventually around 160 wagons of ordnance per day were arriving at railheads in Parkend, Bilson Green, Cinderford and Speech House.
Although depot O-660 was taking in 30,000 tons of ground ammunition, 5,000 tons for the AirForce and 15,000 tons for CWS chemical weapons, it still wasn’t enough.
Capacity was increased to 85,000 tons of ordnance and eventually the Cinderford depot stretched through Bilson Green, Ruardean, Brierley, Cannop, Coleford, Parkend and out as far as Staunton near Monmouth.
Any leaking gas mines or bombs were placed in pre-dug holes in a designated area and covered with a
I have been told... that a number of local people have been seriously injured by picking up wood that has been contaminated. There are warning notices... but they are unlikely to deter a child F W BATY
bleaching agent to make them safe before being buried with soil.
“Ordnance was stored everywhere on the sides of roads, in the woods, on the sides of woodland tracks, in purpose-built bays,” said father-oftwo Terry, 61, who lives in Cinderford.
“Railway tunnels were also requisitioned, the RAF were at Newland, the Navy were at Drybrook, it seems anywhere was fair game.
“To accommodate all the personnel working at the depot, camps were built at Cinderford, Coleford, Lydbrook, English Bicknor to name a few. It was a massive operation and clearing it after the war would be a long arduous task.”
But as far as anyone can tell the thousands of American vehicles held in the UK before the 1944 invasion of Europe were kept on the south coast and there are no records of tanks being stored in the Forest.
After the war, civilian contractors and remaining military personnel cleared the munitions depot, huts and other structures from the middle of the Forest.
Everything was loaded onto trains and taken to the coast to be sunk at one of the 148 underwater dumping grounds created between Iceland and Gibraltar.
One of the biggest dumping areas was Beaufort’s Dyke, a nine-mile deep trench in the Irish Sea, where 100,000 tons of mostly chemical and phosphorus ordnance was sunk.
Terry says the official disposal site for the leaking mustard gas in the Forest is still fenced off but he is convinced that patches of white bleached-out ground found in the Forest show there were others.
A large brick-built decontamination centre where those working with the gas would clean off at the end of their shift was demolished in the mid-1980s.
Terry says records show five local pit shafts were allocated for the disposal of unwanted or surplus items but most of the stuff disposed of was perishable items such as blankets, camouflage nets and office equipment which have long gone.
The only documented evidence or photographs of anything other than that are five tons of live ammunition found in the 1970s.
“The last train out of the depot carrying surplus ammunition left on July 16, 1953 after which the Ministry of Supply released a statement declaring all the gas bombs had gone and the Forest was reopened to the public,” said Terry.
FW Baty wrote a book which said the Foresters did not begrudge seeing verges stacked with explosives or the severe restrictions on movement but were unhappy that five years later parts of the Forest were still sealed off because removing the mustard gas from around Spruce Drive had been a difficult and slow process.
“I have been told by men working on the site that a number of local people have been seriously injured by picking up wood that has been contaminated,” he wrote.
“There are warning notices, to be sure, but they are unlikely to deter a child from wandering that way, for there are no fences.”
In 2015 several properties in Cinderford were evacuated after the discovery of 17 suspected Second World War mortar bombs by workmen in the area.
Members of the Forest of Dean Local History Society and cavercum-miner Paul Baverstock have never come across evidence of tanks or other vehicles dumped underground by the Americans.
Paul believes Second World War tales are like fisherman’s stories which get bigger and more amazing with each telling.
“Having explored many of the old mines, pits, etc with the caving club I can safely say that there are no tanks, jeeps, motors, etc,” he said.
“But that’s not to say that some things weren’t dumped. Many broken or unusable items such as gloves, masks or old storage bits and pieces were dumped.
“I have been told by someone who has lived in Drybrook all his life that the troops stationed at Wigpool Common buried food, chocolate and money with markers for the local people as they decamped for D-Day.
“But in my honest opinion nothing of any great value was left behind but it is a good tale that keeps surfacing now and again.”
The Forestry Commission was set up in 1919 to expand Britain’s forests after the First World War and the Dean was decimated as the Ministry of Supply utilised land and resources to feed the nation and support the war effort during the Second World War.
Lumber Jills and the Canadian Timber Corp were responsible for the wood and the Bevin Boys provided the coal.
“The Forest of Dean was not only an important source of timber and coal but provided space for ammunition storage and a place to set up both military and prisoner of war camps,” said a spokeswoman for Forestry England.
She added: “Many relics of war remain in the Forest today. This hidden heritage which surfaces from time to time is important to be, where possible, preserved and documented. There is also much rumour, legend and hearsay about this time in history.
“War touched every Forest of Dean household, and Foresters’ each have their own personal family history to tell.”