Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

386 Coast Battery RA of the 554 Coast Regt. RA.
1 x Type 25 'Armco' Pillbox.
3 x Searchlight (Defence Emergency Lighting) (2 x removed).
3 x gun casemates (1 x demolished).
2 x Generator sheds.
1 x portable generator (removed).
1 x rifle embrasure in wall.
1 x Lookout.
1 x Machine gun post.
4 x Minefields.
1 x 5 inch gun practice gun.
2 x 4 inch. Naval Mk VII guns on Mk II mountings November 1940.

4inch WW1 Naval Mk VII on Mk II mounts.

4inch WW1 naval guns.

Defence Lewis gun position.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

Swanage Coastal Battery, an emergency battery built during the Second World War as part of Southern Command's coastal defences. The battery was commissioned in July 1940 and mounted two 4-inch naval guns. It was armed until at least May 1945 and manned by 386 Coast Battery of the Royal Artillery.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Swanage Bay
The view from the searchlight around Swanage Bay.

German Armies plan to invade Britain.

Training.

Learning the art of landing.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Swanage & the Bay
A - Searchlight.
B - Peveril Point Battery and another searchlight.

4'' Naval gun.

A searchlight instillation at Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands.

Home Guard with a Vickers .303 machine gun.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

I have always thought this to be a searchlight house and have subsequently found out via Facebook that it actually is a gun casemate. On re looking at it, I must admit I can see the ammunition rooms built into the rear under an earth mound and its now converted into a viewing and sunshade for holiday makers. What gun was here I have not found that out yet.

How it may have looked.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Gun casemate.
The view from behind with the new generation of bunker hunters checking out the view.

Happy British home defence soldiers.

Beach defence.

Searchlight crew.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Gun casemate.
The side door is the ammunition rooms.

Ammunition being brought up from the magazine below and behind the gun.

 

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

Gun casemate.
This is where the gun would have sat, looking out to sea and covering the whole of Swanage beach.
Behind on the railway were situated very early in the war, sets of railway guns. Usually kept in a siding (maybe Furzbrooke sidings) and could cover quite an area. Most of the seaside towns railway lines had a set of railway guns and I know one set were in a quarry at Maiden Newton.

This picture is from a gun emplacement at Bow Bridge in Axminster, showing the guns mounting

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Ordnance QF 6-pounder 6 cwt Hotchkiss gun at the Tank Museum.
The original QF 6 pounder naval gun had turned out to be too long for practical use with the current British heavy tank designs, which mounted guns in sponsons on the side rather than turrets on top as modern tanks do. The muzzles of the long barrels sometimes dug into the mud or struck obstacles when the vehicle crossed trenches or shell craters. The shortened QF 6 pounder 6 cwt Mk I of single tube construction was introduced in January 1917 in the Mark IV tank, and may be considered the world's first specialised tank gun.

An early model British Mark I male tank, named C-15, near Thiepval, 25 September 1916 with the long barrel.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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A site of the first casemate.
B main site of the battery.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Gun casemate.
Now a very nice viewing platform.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Gun casemate today.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

Plan

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

Type 25 Armco Pillbox.
Internal measurement 6ft.
Official designation: FW3/25
Shape: circular
Common name: Armco.
Proof against rifle fire for infantry using rifles and light automatics. Usually found with three rifle loops and a low entrance. Walls 12'' thick and often shuttered in corrugated iron giving it a distinctive appearance. From Pillbox Study Group.

Plan of a Type 25.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Type 25 Armco Pillbox.

Plan of a Type 25.

Standard British army Le Enfield rifle.

Inside a larger pillbox.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The view from one of the rifle slits.

Plan.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Protected generator house.
A strengthened building to hold a medium generator.

Mobile Lister generator set that could have been garaged here.

Also stored would be many two gallon 'Flimsy' petrol cans.

Amps & Volts.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

Protected generator house.
There would possibly have had a double steel door on the front.

Plan.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

4'' gun casemate.
The two sloping ramps each side are covered stairways down to an underground magazine.

Plan.

Plan of the casemate.
Gun room.
Steps either side to magazine.
Ammunition magazine.

Seamen loading 4inch ammunition below decks.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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4'' gun casemate.
The covered stairway to the magazine.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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4'' gun casemate.
This is how it was in 2012, the gun room has now been converted into staff area for the Volunteer Coastguard.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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4'' gun casemate.
he covered stairway to the magazine.

The slopping concrete is a protected stairway down to a rear magazine where a steel door would close off the top and bottom.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.
The gun would have sat on a bolted hold-fast in the middle of the floor.

Plan.

4'' naval rounds.

4inch naval gun.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.
Steps to the observation platform.

Observation officers.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.
Observation platform.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.
Compass painted on the roof. I have found this in German batterie sites as well and they were not only used in action but also a training aid to teach the guns crew where the enemy are.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

Details

The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.
The view out to sea.

Barr & Stroud GK5 6x42 Director binocular Royal Navy.

B.R. 1534, Handbook on Minor Fire Control Instruments.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.
The young intrepid bunker hunter checking it out.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The second 4'' gun casemate with the battery lookout above.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The view across the bay.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Gun room for a 4 inch guns were 4 inch. Naval Mk VII on Mk II mounting November 1940.

Plan.

4inch naval gun.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The gunners view.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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A Mk II mounting hold fast for the gun. There would have been a ring of threads sticking up to hold the gun down.

A ring of threads to hold down a gun. How it would have looked. Mk II mounting.

 

 

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Garrison BL 5in gun Vavasseur mounting.
The 5 inch gun was a bit of a failure and that is why they were only used in practice batteries. There were a few of these batteries around, one was in Gibraltar and another pivot mount found at Dunree Battery, Ireland (built when it was part of Great Britain). The gun is on a Vavasseur mounting, most of them were scrapped by 1913. I would like to thank John Guy for all his help in naming the mounting and the gun.

My original caption to the picture "This maybe a gun hold fast or a winch fitting to winch in boats?? I am more of the opinion that this was a WW1 or pre WW1 gun mounting".

Carriage Garrison BL 5in Vavasseur. Mk 2. Slide LBL.

The same mounting at FORT DUNREE.

Battery of BL 5inch in Gibraltar

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Garrison BL 5in gun Vavasseur mounting showing its position.

Plan.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Waterside House
Just noticed a rifle embrasure set into the wall. In the summer it would be overgrown and unable to see it. There was a searchlight set in its own bunker sat in the garden.

Plan.

How it may have looked.

Standard British army Le Enfield rifle.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Waterside House
This was the billets of the battery members.

Plan.

Coastal Artillery Battery Sandown Isle of Wight.

The British soldier.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Waterside House
Photos of a model has come to light of what the emplacements looked like.

Plan.

Coastal beech defence.

A cold winter.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Waterside House
This shows a searchlight was placed into the gardens of the two cottages.

British searchlight in an emplacement.

Generator in a trailer but of the type that may have been used here.

A British 6" naval gun in action.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Third Searchlight demolished in 2012.
This was an open concrete position.

Plan.

How it used to look.

 

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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Third Searchlight demolished in 2012.
This was an open concrete position.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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The battery position.
.The two four inch gun emplacements.

Swanage Emergency Coastal Battery, Swanage, Dorset

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© 2013 Richard Drew