World War Two bombing decoys in Flintshire
Mick Sharp deciphers remains of structures intended to confound invading aircraft
On September 3 1939 Great Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany after it invaded Poland. As the Luftwaffe had been photographing potential bombing targets in Britain, schemes were needed to hinder further aerial reconnaissance and to confuse enemy bomber crews. Many industrial sites were easily visible from 7,000 feet (2100m) in bright moonlight. On October 11 the Civil Defence Camouflage Establishment, later the Camouflage Directorate, was set up in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, with premises in the Regent Hotel, the Roller Skating Rink and Leamington Art Gallery. Here “Churchill’s wizards” waged a secret war of concealment and deception. At its peak the directorate employed some 270 men and women: artists, photographers, designers, scientists, clerical and other support staff, makers and mappers.
Artists flew over key civil and military sites, took photographs and made notes, and returned to studioworkshops to create perspective drawings and scale models to demonstrate and test proposed camouflage schemes. Models placed on a turntable in the “viewing room” were observed from different angles through a German bombsight under variations of simulated daylight and moonlight. There were also viewing tanks for testing naval disguises under a wide range of conditions.
Factories were painted to blend with the landscape and shielded by camouflage nets raised on tall poles. Cooling towers were covered with semiabstract patterns using blocks of colours mixed with lifelike street- and houseshapes. Pale roads were cloaked in dark materials, airfields spray-painted to resemble arable and pasture, aircraft shrouded in nets and decoy lighting schemes set up to lure night bombers away from factories. As war progressed from fear of Britain being invaded to preparations for the Allied invasion of Europe, dummy tanks and landing craft were placed to misdirect the deployment of German forces.
In the same year that Home Guard Manual of Camouflage by Roland Penrose, an artist, was published (1941), a decoy fire-site control-centre was opened on Ffrith Mountain, Flintshire, north Wales. Night decoy, qf or
“starfish” sites were set up in rural areas to confuse Luftwaffe crews into dropping bombs on what looked like a town or industrial complex already set ablaze. The fires on Ffrith Mountain were contained in troughs and baskets filled with combustible materials, topped by roofing felt and gravityfed with fuel from distant tanks. Detonators under the decoys were fired from the control centre via batterypowered cables. The centre was provided with a dedicated phone line to give reports and receive instructions from raf Radlett, but initially a bicycle was used for a three-mile round trip to the nearest telephone box.
The entrance to the central Anderson shelter (pictured) is protected by three brick walls angled to deflect bomb blasts. The roof has collapsed, alders mask the mountain view. This and a second site were designed to lure bombers away from the local steel and chemical works ( ici Valley Works, Rhydymwyn), raf Sealand airfield and the Liverpool Docks. Luftwaffe crews bombing the area were based in northern France or Scandinavia: ici Valley was not on their target list.