From: http://www.bpears.org.uk/Misc/War_NE/w_section_05.html What a great site! Next came the beach defences designed to delay and contain any enemy landing. All the vulnerable beaches in the North-East were strewn with large concrete blocks (most measuring 4 X 5 X 5 feet) to stop heavy equipment -many can still be seen especially around Druridge Bay and Bamburgh. Between these and the sea were impenetrable barriers of barbed wire and, in some cases, scaffolding below the water line. On some beaches concealed machine gun positions dominated open stretches of sand, but none of this would have stopped a determined landing, so these defences were backed up by a devastating secret weapon, little reported to this day. Concealed perforated pipes hidden below the water line would have spewed petrol and then the floating fuel would have been ignited. Long before this stage the "Beetle" invasion warning network would have been activated. Under this scheme warnings would be passed to five military headquarters by point-to-point radio links. At each of these centres a powerful long-wave radio station would then transmit the warning which could be picked up on ordinary broadcast receivers installed at every R.A.F., army and navy establishment in the area. The Centre for the North was the headquarters of Northern Command at York and the whole system was ready by August 1940. Bomber, Coastal and Fighter Commands and the Navy would, of course, engage the enemy but in addition Operation BANQUET would be initiated. This involved the R.A.F.'s Flying Training Command who would use 350 old Tiger Moth and Magister trainers fitted with rudimentary bomb racks to drop 20 lb bombs on the beaches. Lysanders, Wellingtons, Battles and Blenheims would spray Mustard Gas on the landing craft and Tiger Moths fitted with crop sprayers would do the same with Paris Green a lethal mixture of arsenic trioxide and copper acetate. Mustard Gas of two types, H.T. or Runcol and H.S. or Pyro, was manufactured in huge quantities at I.C.I.'s Randle Works near Runcorn and the nearby Rocksavage Works made Chlorine and Phosgene for use as war gases. The I.C.I. works at Springfields near Preston also made Lewisite, which was similar in its effects to Mustard Gas but included arsenic. Poison Gases were stored at five Forward Filling Depots at key points for use by Bomber Command and in smaller quantities at many more airfields for use against the beaches. The Forward Filling Depot serving the Bomber Command Airfields in Yorkshire was at West Cottingwith, eight miles south-east of York. It has been suggested that Churchill would have authorized the use of chemical weapons against German cities if the Germans used it first or if there was a successful landing on our shores. There were also a large number of mine-fields on land along the south and east coasts, usually just inland from the vulnerable beaches. All were clearly marked and surrounded by barbed wire; they were intended to deny these areas to the enemy, not to kill. The only victims of the numerous Northumberland mine-fields were actually British civilians; on August 7th 1941, three foolish people entered a mine-field and were blown up and killed -no information about the age or identity of the victims or the location of the tragedy has been found. After the war the army had to undertake the horrendous task of clearing these mine-fields. It took many years -well into the 1960s for some of the East Anglian mine-fields. The inland defences in the North were surprisingly based on a roughly North-South barrier known as the G.H.Q. Line which used natural obstacles such as waterways and steep inclines and man-made obstacles where necessary to form a barrier which was impenetrable to tanks. Constructing the defences on the G.H.Q. line involved some 150,000 workmen nationally and virtually all the earth-moving equipment in the country. In our area the G.H.Q. Line ran from Goole on the Humber to Musselburgh on the Firth of Forth and was roughly 30-45 miles from the coast. It passed through York, Boroughbridge, Topcliffe, Barnard Castle, Wolsingham, Stanhope, Rookhope, Allenheads, Hexham (by way of Devil's Water), Humshaugh, Wark, Bellingham, Falstone, Kielder, Hawick, Melrose, Galashiels and Dalkeith. The idea of this section of the G.H.Q. Line was to restrict the enemy to a coastal strip following a landing on the Northumberland beaches. The enemy would be engaged immediately by Coastal Defence Units and by Bomber, Coastal and Fighter Commands and would then face the major infantry battalions of the Home Forces held in reserve away from the coast (the composition varied but for the most part this involved the 15th, 54th or the 59th Divisions). These would then perhaps be joined by armoured units such as the 24th Army Tank Brigade from Yorkshire or, later in the war, the 35 Army Tank Brigade from Haydon Bridge, but if the landing had been on a large scale there was little chance that such intervention could do much more than delay the enemy. But, as the enemy tried to move south, they would face a succession of road-blocks, defended road junctions, defended defiles (places where the topography forms a narrow passage), and a series of of east-west Stop Lines. The mainstay of this type of defence were the concrete blocks already mentioned, concrete "coffins" and "pimples" (or Dragon's Teeth), anti-tank ditches and "pillboxes". Pillboxes were of many types -some square, some circular, some hexagonal- but were basically strong, generally concrete, buildings with one or two small openings from which rifle or machine-gun fire could be directed at the enemy. These were built in thousands during the first year of the war and Northumberland had more than its share, the biggest concentrations being near the coast and along the Stop Lines described below -many can still be seen dotted around the countryside. The Stop Lines were heavily defended lines designed to delay or stop an enemy -at each the defences were arranged on the basis that the enemy forces were to the north, so on that side cover was to be as limited as possible, whereas to the south, the British side, it was to be maximised. If the enemy breached the first Stop Line then the British would retreat to the next. The first Stop Line followed the River Coquet for about 25 miles inland and the second the River Wansbeck for about 20 miles. Neither of these extended west to the G.H.Q. Line but would be difficult to by-pass and furthermore the major troop concentrations were in this area -such as the large encampment at Thropton near Rothbury.
From: http://www.bpears.org.uk/Misc/War_NE/w_section_05.html What a great site! The Stop Lines were heavily defended lines designed to delay or stop an enemy -at each the defences were arranged on the basis that the enemy forces were to the north, so on that side cover was to be as limited as possible, whereas to the south, the British side, it was to be maximised. If the enemy breached the first Stop Line then the British would retreat to the next. The first Stop Line followed the River Coquet for about 25 miles inland and the second the River Wansbeck for about 20 miles. Neither of these extended west to the G.H.Q. Line but would be difficult to by-pass and furthermore the major troop concentrations were in this area -such as the large encampment at Thropton near Rothbury. The third Stop Line, however, did extend to the G.H.Q. Line; this was the Tyne Stop Line, and it was actually meant to stop the enemy. As soon as an invasion was confirmed members of the 280th Field Company, Royal Engineers, would dash north via Durham, Leadgate, Ebchester and Hexham and blow up every road, rail and foot bridge -more than 100 bridges- on the Tyne from the Rede Valley to Scotswood; the holes for the charges were already drilled, indeed many can still be seen to this day. Approaches were to be cratered -200 craters were planned- and even small ferries, like that at Barrasford, would have its cables cut and the boat sunk. The Newcastle bridges would be mined but not immediately blown -they were to be defended to the last man- and the Swing Bridge would be opened and disabled. Everything involved in the Battle of the Tyne was planned to the last detail -the battle headquarters was even picked, Beaufront Castle between Hexham and Corbridge. Militarily Tyneside itself would be divided into eighteen districts, each with its own detailed plan of action to stop the invader in its tracks. Industrialists met with the Regional Commissioner and the Military to arrange a scorched earth plan for Tyneside's major industries. Each was given a code word -e.g. DAFFODIL, MUSTARD, POTATO, ASPARAGUS, MINT, CAULIFLOWER- and, on receipt of their particular word, all machinery in their premises would be disabled by removing essential parts. Other code words, or the ringing of Tyneside's 62 sets of church bells, would activate other plans - makeshift road blocks would appear all over the Tyneside and even in Newcastle itself (at the West Road, Nuns Moor Road, Fenham Hall Drive, Shields Road, Walker Road, Heaton Road and Chillingham Road, for example), other roads would be mined; electricity would be cut by exploding charges at nodal points on the network; L.N.E.R. locomotives would disappear along country lines south of the Tyne, like the Victoria Garesfield branch line, and then be disabled; on the Tyne and right along the coast docks would be blocked and machinery disabled; fuel stores, even garage supplies, would be destroyed; the ferry landings at North and South Shields would be blown up and the ferries scuttled; and all major explosive and ammunition dumps would have their stocks either blown up or otherwise destroyed -the dump at Lemington had railway tracks laid into the river ready to "drown" its stocks if necessary. The smaller explosive and ammunition stores, and there were very many of these, would of course be needed for roadblocks and other defence measures, and would be retained as long as possible. Some of these stores were in rather unexpected locations such as Manors Railway Station, the Royal Grammat School and the Newcastle Co-op premises on Newgate Street. (See Tyne & Wear Archives Service document T136-102 - "Home Guard Explosive Stores"). They even stored ammunition and explosives in Jesmond Cemetery and at the Sewage Treatment Plant at Blackhall Mill, although the latter was not associated with the Tyne Stop Line, it was part of another -the Derwent Stop Line! This little known measure is described in Public Record Office document PRO/WO 199/1516,
Nice info Spidge. Pillboxes would be manned by the local Home Guard, who knew that if the invasion came they were to hold those boxes until they were killed. They could not withdraw. Locally we have three boxes. This one View attachment 3079 defended the only bridge across the canal that could take an armoured vehicle. It defended the locks at North Road which would be blown out to drain the canal as well. The box itself was disguised as a haystack. The local HG regularly practised here, setting up the Dragons Teeth in the fields around (Long pieces of girder cut to a spike and buried into the ground at angles) and used to set dinner plates upside down on the road to imitate the tops of mines. Less than a mile away was this one View attachment 3080 whic protected Bosley reservoir in case of any sea plane slanding there. The next reservoir over, Rudyard, had two steel cables strung across just below the surface that would be winched up if there was a risk of a plane landing to slice the aircraft lengthwise as it landed. The last of the three is this one View attachment 3082 that is set in a field, shielded by the hill top on which it sits, protecting Hug Bridge, the only crossing place for miles on the River Dane.
shetland was the base for the "shetland bus" it was also a base for cattalina's and sunderland flying boats, as well as a huge army camp, the norwegian navy were frequent visitors here during ww11
sullom voe was the base for 210 squadron, they flew in catalina's. sunderlands also flew from sullom, but they were not r.a.f. scatsta and sumburgh were bases for 18 grp, coastal defences
The cited website in the first two posts has gone. Not seen such information about chemical warfare should we be invaded before, sadly now minus the source.
In this case luckily it appears to have been fully backed up thanks to the Wayback Machine archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20050207143832/http://www.bpears.org.uk/Misc/War_NE/index.html
During the 1970's I used to go to visit the small village of Levens in south Cumbria to see my uncle. There was a pillbox just outside the village. Never quite understood why as it's miles from anything strategic.
