The archaeology of World War II



The Archaeology of World War II

Malcolm Atkin

Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service

matkin@.uk

Introduction

From 1995 - 2002, a national project - the Defence of Britain Project - ran to record the surviving monuments of World War II on the home front, building on a long tradition of work by special interest groups such as the Fortress Study Group and individuals (see ). The spur to the project was the realisation that time was fast running out to assess priorities for long-term preservation of monuments that were never expected to last even 60 years. Nonetheless, they represent the physical inheritance of a critical time in the country’s history. Future generations may expect to be able to inspect the physical record as they do with monuments of prehistoric, Roman or medieval periods. Parallel to the Defence of Britain project, English Heritage commissioned a series of documentary surveys of monument types.

The Defence of Britain project was conceived as being based around the work of local, amateur researchers but the national response has been patchy. One factor in its success was the support provided by local archaeological services. Worcestershire is acknowledged as one of the success stories, with a dedicated team of volunteers based in the SMR of the Archaeology Service. Indeed, the efforts of Worcestershire to build up as complete a record as possible of all known defence sites has somewhat distorted the national distribution map of the DoB. Since the closure of the national project, the local team have continued as the ‘Defence of Worcestershire’ project and extended their remit back into the Napoleonic period. The paper will be mainly illustrated from Worcestershire examples, but they do fairly represent activity of what exists – but in an increasingly parlous state – throughout the Midlands.

If the upstanding monuments built of concrete or brick are fragile, already we are seeing earthworks being absorbed into the archaeological landscape. Shallow earthworks may represent the firebreak trench for a Q decoy site, designed to confuse enemy bombers into attacking empty fields rather than airfields or towns. Somewhere nearby such features will be their control bunker. As a lesson for the unwary, from an aerial photograph the ploughed out remains of a searchlight battery (such as from Cradley, Herefordshire) may suggest the presence of prehistoric barrows.

The short paper presented to the seminar focused on anti-invasion but wider coverage will be provided in the paper that will follow. Suffice to say here that there is a wide variety of surviving features that illustrate and inform the events of the period, and the planning of the military and government strategy. Many can only properly be interpreted with the help of surviving documentary evidence and, crucially, by the testimony of those who took part. The latter is in itself a diminishing asset. Who would think that a very ordinary hut at Guarlford, just outside Malvern, once played a historic part in the war effort. It was from here that a RAF identified the movement of specialist German units to the Baltic in 1944. As a result the RAF were able to identify and bomb the V bomb development site at Peenemunde – putting back the deployment of the weapon for several months.

I must also make a special mention of airfield sites. They have an importance in their own right with distinctive layouts and buildings – hangars, air raid shelters, huts, control towers, battle headquarters (to control defence against parachute or glider landings). But work at Throckmorton airfield in Worcestershire has also emphasised their potential in preserving large areas of underlying earlier archaeology.

Anti-Invasion Sites

We can identify a range of features that give a physical, and at times chilling, expression to Churchill’s famous declaration in 1940 that ‘We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills’. The surviving documentary evidence provides information on the military strategy and logistics – but the physical evidence brings home actually what was intended. The original anti-invasion plan was to hold the beaches. The next, from June 1940, was for static lines of defence in depth across the country using ‘stop lines’. Although the emphasis was shifted to more mobile defence from August 1940, the development of strong points, based on strategic locations on the stop lines still continued until August 1942 when the construction of pillboxes was abandoned. Despite the modern impression of the Home Guard from ‘Dad’s Army’ and all the inadequacies that the series fairly accurately portrayed, they were intended to be the cannon fodder whose sacrifice would buy the regular army time to regroup. Most of the features described below were manned by the Home Guard. Perhaps even more unsettling is the fact that whole towns were designed to be ‘anti-tank islands’ – strongpoints to threaten the flank of an enemy but also to act as ‘honeypots’ to draw them in and allow the regular army to then attack in force. This was to be the fate of Worcester and Kidderminster.

The main features that we should be seeking to identify and record are:

• Anti-tank cylinders

• Loop holed walls

• Spigot mortar pedestals

• Pillboxes

• Heavier anti-tank positions

Their context will be to defend

• Airfields

• Factories

• Road/rail crossings

• linear stop lines which may incorporate rivers and canals.

Anti-Tank obstacles

Anti-tank defences are rarely in situ. As well as the common cylinders – originally designed to carry a metal spike and barbed wire entanglements, steel stakes might be set into sockets let into road surfaces. These can still survive.

Loop-holed Walls

The discrete cutting of a loophole in a property boundary wall, or in the wall of a building can easily be missed but they do represent an important indicator of how a strongpoint was intended to be defended, and the broader strategy of defence.

Spigot Mortars

The mountings for spigot mortars are not obvious but still quite common. They were introduced in 1941 (range of 100m, black powder – Blacker Bombard). The reinforced concrete central pedestal was originally surrounded by a weapons pit, now usually back-filled. The stainless steel pintle carried a remarkable mortar that had the unnerving characteristic of firing in a straight trajectory, which meant that it could ricochet back towards the weapons crew!!!

Gun Emplacements

Pillboxes are the most obvious survival of anti-invasion features in the landscape. After the war, farmers were paid £1 to try to demolish them – but most failed. They were made of concrete, or concrete poured between brick shutters. They fall into a number of well-defined types of which the following is merely a selection:

Type 24 at Rotherwas munitions factory

Type 22 (heightened) at Wormley rail crossing, Herefordshire

Type 28 Double decker (anti-tank guns) Summerfield Ordnance factory, Worcs.

Open topped at Blackpole aircraft factory, Worcester

Pre-fabricated at Avon stop line, Eckington, worcs.

Oakington type for 360 degree airfield defence at RAF Long Marston

Today we see them usually in a bare form. In use, they would be camouflaged with netting, paint or sometimes more elaborate disguises.

A larger type of emplacement was the 6lb gun emplacement. This carried a 6lb hotchkiss gun – originally mounted in 19th-century battleships, then in WWI tanks and finally given to the Home Guard. This, from Holt, Worcs., is one of the best surviving in the country.

Group Value

Features such as the above rarely appear in isolation. Usually they formed part of a group of defensive features. A survey should therefore be made of the surrounding landscape. At Bretforton, Worcs., there is what appears to be an unremarkable tin shed behind the spigot mortar emplacement – but this was the guard hut and ammunition store.

Such features have an intrinsic interest but their main value is in establishing and illustrating the strategy that would have been deployed during invasion. The two spigot mortars at Bretforton were designed to cover the road junction and prevent any break-out from any enemy landing at Honeybourne airfield.

Stop Lines

Although many anti-invasion features are designed to protect individual sites (factories, airfields, etc.), others form part of an organised network of General Ironsides’ ‘stop lines’. These might be artificial defence lines or based on natural or pre-existing features (rivers or canals). One stop line was formed by the River Avon. A postcard of 1944 got past the censor and shows two Type 26 (square) pillboxes on Pershore Bridge over the Avon. A combination of field survey and interviews with surviving Home Guard members has revealed a remarkable concentration of defensive positions here. The main position – a 6lb gun emplacement was designed to cover both an attack from east and west, supported by the two pill boxes, spigot mortars and a trench system. The Shropshire Union canal was also to be employed as a convenient anti-tank ditch, protected by pillboxes such as this Type 24 (hexagonal).

Auxiliary Hides

If the enemy did break through the stoplines, and the fighting moved to defending isolated pockets of resistance, then the government had one last hand to play. Military Intelligence had put in place a system of resistance cells – the ‘Auxiliary units’, nominally part of the Home Guard but better equipped than most regular units and highly trained. Their task was to harry the rear of German troops, disrupt communications and engage in sabotage against pre-planned targets (typically airfields and railways). There was an organised system of operational and signals units, supported by couriers and intelligence officers. The physical survival of the system is represented by the remaining ‘hides’ of the operational and signals teams. These are rare, and now usually derelict and unsafe - but are a high priority for preservation. The members of these units were told never to reveal their existence and most have now taken their secrets to the grave. The recovery of the history of these units in Worcestershire and Herefordshire has been one of the most surprising aspects of the DoB project – now published as The Mercian Maquis (Logaston 2002). The work of the authors, Bernard Lowry and Mick Wilks, amply illustrates the importance of combining oral history, documentary research and archaeological survey.

The Future

The known distribution of sites in the Midlands clearly indicates that the first priority has to be a greater degree of systematic recording. Without this it is difficult to make informed judgements about priorities for preservation and the scope for additional research/presentation. The work in Worcestershire may provide a model for this work to be achieved through volunteers attached to SMRs/HERs.

Archaeological recording of such sites has largely been confined to basic survey. A detailed programme of survey of pillboxes is now underway in Worcestershire. This has revealed local variations, with just three pre-cast concrete examples now surviving in the country. Details of construction have identified some as having been made by Dorset labourers. The most complete excavation of a WWII site in Worcestershire has been of a Bofors anti-aircraft gun site in Brockhill, Redditch (BUFAU 1994). Sadly, it was recorded in the early stages of the DoB project and if discovered today would, I believe, warrant preservation in situ. Only 3% of such sites now survive nationally.

But what is to be done with all of these features. Overall, the priority, as stated in the English Heritage booklet Twentieth Century Military Sites (English Heritage, 2000) must be to improve our overall understanding of the resource as it survives, principally through documentary research and field survey. Only then can we provide informed guidance for protection and management of key structures. Many are derelict and overgrown. Others are blocked up to prevent vandalism. On occasion, imaginative uses can be found for them – as in the case of this 6lb gun emplacement converted into a TIC in Stourport. Unfortunately this has since been demolished, as it had no formal protection. The features are part of a national phenomenon – but also have considerable local interest. It is regrettable that English Heritage in 2003 would not list the Drill Hall in Stourport (with an intact rifle range inside) before its partial demolition on the grounds that ‘others of this type exist elsewhere in the country’. It will probably be possible to actively protect a minority but this will be immeasurably assisted if we can improve public awareness of them and increase the sense of community ownership. Interpretation panels have now been erected at Pershore Bridge and the Parish Council have placed their own commemorative plaque of the spigot mortar bases at Bretforton.

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