Pill box nerds

[John Orentas]

Wartime pill boxes a quite common up and down the country they were positioned at strategic locations to defend a bridges and other important sites. A the end of the war there was an attempt to get rid of them as they were a bit of an eye-sore but even high explosives would not do the job so we are left with them and they will no doubt be left to history.

 

The Upper Thames has got to be the pill box capital of the world, there are hundreds of them positioned to defend every bend and crossing place on the river. My original interest was stimulated by a very good television documentary a couple of months ago about the 'Other Home Guard', not the Dads army one but the serious fighting force trained in very nasty guerrilla tactics which would implant themselves behind enemy lines when the invasion came. it was seen as inevitable in 1940.

 

The line of the Thames was an important line of defence, the idea was to defend it at any cost and those now innocent looking lumps of concrete in their now tranquil settings were very much part of the scheme backed up of course by by mobile artillery and anything else that was available.

 

The boxes seem to come as a few standard designs, the smaller cuboid ones of the dimensions of an old haystack which I am sure they would be dressed as when the day came, larger octagonal ones with a 360 deg firing potential and I noticed one or two very large ones big enough to house probably very serious 75mm guns. Oh yes there are some pre-fabricated ones never seen those before, built up from individual large lumps of concrete and very accurately made.

 

A couple of the more interesting bits to come out of that programme, in recent years various NATO computer models have been tried out to see what success rate the invasion of Britain would have enjoyed. Somewhat surprisingly the invading forces would have been routed within a couple of weeks and before moving from the south of England, the British fleet would have blockaded the channel starving them of supplies, a scorched earth policy having previously been put in place (every crop and useful building destroyed).

 

When that guerrilla force was first recruited it was done on a very local level the only local man entrusted with the job was normally the mayor and as they were organised into small fighting groups he was the only man with all that information. One of the local group commanders, now an old man was interviewed for the programme, he explained that he was given sealed orders to be opened in the event of the invasion. He confessed that at the end of the war he contravened orders and opened his orders. First order on the list - Kill the mayor. They were serious times.

 

Sorry about the ramble but watch out for the pill boxes, they as much part of our history as the Tower of London.

Edited July 18, 2006 by John Orentas

[Noah]

John

 

There are three pillboxes on the L&L near where I live in West Lancashire, two concrete octagonal and one that’s built of red brick in the beer garden on a canal-side pub. As a kid I spent a few nights in one. I’ve often wondered what their defensive use would be in the event of an enemy invasion. Did the Ministry seriously expect the Germans to advance along the canal system at 4mph? Visions of swastika-emblazoned hire boats descending the Wigan flight!

 

More seriously, my dad was in occupied Jersey and he told me of some the horrors that he witnessed.

 

Noah

[John Orentas]

Hi Noah.

 

Jersey, now there is a pill box place if ever there was one, I was there on holiday some years ago the people of Jersey make a big thing out of the occupation but to call those fortifications pill boxes might not be too accurate. Massive multi story emplacements but built by the Germans of course and housing naval guns.

 

One particularly impressive one is above St Helier, the occupying forces as part of their propaganda told the resident population that it was there to protect the town from attack from the sea which it no doubt was as a primary role, but when the Germans eventually moved out they found painted on an interior wall a very neat plan of the town, it is still there now, but the chilling thing they found that every building was accompanied by it's gunnery co-ordinates.

 

St. Helier would have been levelled in a matter of minutes when the order came.

[DaveR]

There are a number on the Seal Sands area of the North Tees. Some years ago they decided to get rid of them by blowing them up.

 

Large crowd, lots of explosive and all they managed to do was create a crater into which the still intact bulker now rested. I think they buldozed earth over it at that point and all went home

[CanalWalker]

The defences on Jersey etc are very well designed, they look like chainmailed fists and helmets staring out to sea.

 

Here are the Lancashire ones, desgined to stop paratroopers crossing the canal after they landed on the flat lancashire plain or on the beaches (poss. via ireland).

 

 

those two are not marked on any OS map

 

There are also brick built posts next to bridges built near or onto existing buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

Maghull had a lot of defences, pillboxes, barbed wire, etc it was very unpopular with the farmer whose field it was in. no department claimed responsibility so it was removed by the farmers before the end of the war.

[Hairy-Neil]

The Kennet and Avon has many too. I recall one has been incorporated into a BW sanitary station building.

[carlt]

How come English pill boxes smell of wee but French ones don't? Is it because ours were manned by old men during the war?

[nigel carton]

How come English pill boxes smell of wee but French ones don't? Is it because ours were manned by old men during the war?

Nice one Carl! Where trying to be serious here!

[Guest]

John

 

There are three pillboxes on the L&L near where I live in West Lancashire, two concrete octagonal and one that’s built of red brick in the beer garden on a canal-side pub. As a kid I spent a few nights in one. I’ve often wondered what their defensive use would be in the event of an enemy invasion. Did the Ministry seriously expect the Germans to advance along the canal system at 4mph? Visions of swastika-emblazoned hire boats descending the Wigan flight!

 

More seriously, my dad was in occupied Jersey and he told me of some the horrors that he witnessed.

 

Noah

There are also lumps of concrete on the L&L banks with four lumps of railway line sticking out of the top. I have been told these were put there during the war ready to drop in the cut in case of invasion. Can anyone confirm this?

[John Orentas]

Brilliant Red I have found a Nerd, knew I would.

[anhar]

...Jersey, now there is a pill box place if ever there was one, I was there on holiday some years ago the people of Jersey make a big thing out of the occupation but to call those fortifications pill boxes might not be too accurate...

 

John, the history of the German occupation of Jersey is a shameful one. First of all a lot if not all the fortifications were built by slave labourers imported by the Germans. You can imagine the kind of evil conditions under which the Nazis typically forced these people to work, as they did all over Europe with Jersey no exception, many of course died there. There is nothing whatsoever admirable about what the disgusting Germans of that era did there, it's not hard if you have unlimited free labour whom you are quite happy to work to death, literally, with no compunction.

 

Whilst that was not the fault of the Jersey citizens, where they cannot escape censure is in their willing co-operation with the Germans on the deportations to their deaths of Jews, particularly those Jersey citizens in positions of authority like the police and local government officials. There were hardly any Jews on the island anyway but I recall hearing of one family who employed a young Jewish woman refugee as a nanny for their children. Some worthless piece of crap in the guise of a local bureaucrat willingly went along quite happily with the Germans in finding this woman, registering her as Jewish and eventually deporting her to her death. Whilst this was no worse than the kind of thing the authorities in for example France did in doing the Germans' dirty work for them with thinly disguised relish, it puts paid to the notion that many of the Brits would have been much different.

 

Another example of how Jersey viewed the occupation is that famous photo of a Jersey policeman grinning with pleasure at opening the door of some Jersey government office to a German officer. It's like a scene from a fictional film about what might have happened had the Germans successfully invaded the mainland and it's shocking because it is real. A cop, in normal British uniform as could be seen anywhere at the time, smirking with the pleasure of kissing German arse.

 

regards

Steve

Edited July 19, 2006 by anhar

[John Orentas]

Steve.

 

I don't know why you should put me down as something of a sympathiser or apologist nothing could be further from the truth, but perhaps the Germans did have a certain expertise in the use of concrete. As for the the behaviour of the people of Jersey who can say how we would have acted in similar circumstances I like to think that I may have been more honourable and courageous but who can say.

 

I was not born until the end of the war but I do know that if jackboots had trampled on our islands the resistance would have been as ferocious as anything in recorded history, we had a leader who would have set an example and seen to that.

[anhar]

Steve.

 

I don't know why you should put me down as something of a sympathiser or apologist nothing could be further from the truth, but perhaps the Germans did have a certain expertise in the use of concrete. As for the the behaviour of the people of Jersey who can say how we would have acted in similar circumstances I like to think that I may have been more honourable and courageous but who can say.

 

I was not born until the end of the war but I do know that if jackboots had trampled on our islands the resistance would have been as ferocious as anything in recorded history, we had a leader who would have set an example and seen to that.

I wasn't trying to put you down John or imply you were an apologist etc. Sorry if you got that impression. But I do know that Jersey plays down what happened. The reason for my message was to give some background to the method by which the fortifications on the island were built by the Germans and to the way some residents behaved, because the discussion progressed to Jersey and the war, and thus add to your comments, not to disparage them or you.

 

I make no apologies though for my comments on the behaviour of Jersey residents and fail to see why it is thought this kind of behaviour would not have been repeated on the mainland. Not by everyone of course, I never meant to suggest that but I suspect that despite the Churchillian resistance to which you refer, and with which I agree, there would have been widescale happy co-operation too. Especially in killing Jews and others. This was the experience in many European countries. The idea that the Brits are different was ruined by what Jersey did.

 

regards

Steve

Edited July 19, 2006 by anhar

[John Orentas]

The point is Steve, the Brits were different, as most of Europe capitulated at the sight of a swastika the people of the UK were prepared to and would have fought to the death. All that stuff about fighting in the streets and on the beaches was not empty retororic, we are learning more and more even now about what preparations were being made.

[Ju and Tuffty]

there is also a pill box on the Shropie at Market Drayton

[pegisoo]

There is one right by a bridge on at Hopwas too, the track over bridge leads into Hopwas woods which is used as a rifle range by The Staffordshire Regiment based 'next door' at Whittington Barracks.

I sometimes walk both that towpath and the adjoining woods but you cannot walk in the woods when the red flag is flying (unless you want to be shot that is!)

it has made me stop and think on more than one occasion when I spot that pill box during my walk and hear the sound of gunfire so close just how lucky we are to be able to persue our leisure without fear!

 

There are a few more on the flood plain of the rivers Tame and Anker where they meet by Tamworth Castle as well.

[minerva]

How come English pill boxes smell of wee but French ones don't? Is it because ours were manned by old men during the war?

 

 

not only wee but they have strange phallic drawings and suggestions of what to do with said phallic drawings...& no, ive not been doing drawings.....(4 you ask)

 

theres some good uns near Dover....teetering on the edge of the cliffs

Edited July 19, 2006 by minerva

[fuzzyduck]

Whilst not strictly a "pillbox nerd" i am a "man made underground spaces dork"

 

Part of my passion is WW2, and Cold war defence installations like the one at kelveden hatch, some of the stuff out there is Awsome. Check out "Monkton Farleigh, Ridge quarry, london deep level shelters, z rocket batteries, LLanberis bomb store, Burlington, red sands forts, tunnel quarry, and spring quarry", oh whilst not defence related have a good squint at "paris catacombes" (there are however 3 bunkers down there, 1 nuclear, 1 German WW2, and 1 French Resistance WW2)

 

Incedently if the TV program is the same as the one I saw, remember the special dagger that was designed as a derivative of the commando dagger , well I inherited one off my grandfather. he was a communications expert during WW2 and as well as in the later years, we believe being part of the team that implemented the comms for the "resistance" we also heard he trained members of the French resistance in situ. Brave man, i'd have liked to have got his story.

Edited July 19, 2006 by fuzzyduck

[minerva]

Underground Interests...join "Subbrittanica"....

 

Its a few quid a year and you get invites to such places at Hack Green Nuclear Bunker, in Cheshire.....

 

 

The give talks on how much we would have been annihilated if we'd have been bombed by USSR....in the cold war..very interesting actually...

 

Some of the talks are from ex military peeps on defence and suchlike....

 

We went to Filingdales early warning facility which was very interesting...& had a talk on how the system works and how it intercepts/spots incomings, from hostile nations..

[fuzzyduck]

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/ if you're interested

[minerva]

ahh ta 4 that....

 

we aren't members this year but its very good....I wasn't interested in it at all, my partner is, but I have to say it was fab!

 

i would definitely join and go again....been to some very intriguing places....

 

Stockport has a labyrinth of passageways carved out of sandstone, goes on for what seems like miles.....very scary and eery!

[Hairy-Neil]

........ there would have been widescale happy co-operation too...........This was the experience in many European countries.

 

Steve

 

 

I used to work with a Polish guy who fled his homeland after the war as he was seen by his people to be a colaborator with the occupying Germans forces. The thing is though he used to say the co-operation wasn't optional.......

[minerva]

re Stockport: they were used as a bunker during the war, the metal framed beds and a medical centre are still there!....smells dampfusty...

[kawaton]

Not a pillbox post, but on the war nevertheless.

I've done a lot of travel in Poland, and been to Auschwitz several times.

During one visit i remember walking through a forest. The very next year a section of that forest had turned into a war memorial site. Underneath the very spots i had previously walked on was a forced labour camp for Allied air force prisoners. Bunkers, barracks the lot.

It had been overgrown for years, covered by trees, soil and alike.

It was only found when an ex prisoner from Canada visited the area to reflect, only to find, that nobody knew anything about it (or claimed so)

New places/items of Nazi history are being found all of the time.

However, the Nazis did a very good job of destroying as much as they could.

 

Auschwitz, for those that have never been, is an eye opening place. Rooms filled to this day with human hair, false limbs, spectacles and cyclone-B canisters. Strangest thing, when you walk inside the camp, there are no birds singing, and it may be a sub-conscious thing, but there is an eerie smell.

 

I have discovered a wealth of infomation there, and i have also talked at length with family members that fought in the Polish resistance. Some explained how they "acted" friendly with Nazis, whilst hiding what they were actually doing. Behind their backs they were plotting, deceiving, and actively fighting against the Nazis. Destroying transports, assassinating soldiers, and gaining inside info.

 

To show hatred, and their true contempt would have meant certain death. Sometimes they had to sacrifice "individuals " to keep this hidden.

 

Fair enough, some people in Jersey may have sided with the Nazis through choice outwardly...doesnt mean they were inwardly.

I don't think any of us, unless we were there, can truly appreciate what anybody went through in occupied territory...and thus how they would have reacted/coped.

 

I've seen many pictures of Oscar Schindler, smiling in photos with Nazi officers. But no one person did more to save Jews than he

Edited July 20, 2006 by kawaton

[minerva]

Exactly...one would have had to have been very foolhardy to have shown any disdane to the Nazis....

 

I honestly think I wouldn't be able to handle going to such a place......

 

You'd have to be made of brick, not to feel the gut wrenching atmosphere of a place like that....

 

It was bad enough when we went to visit a USA war graves site, in Cambridgeshire....rows and rows of white headstones, almost as far as the eye could see, on pristinely cut grass.....a lump was in my throat all the time I was there.