Starfish site

Last updated

Control bunker for starfish site at Black Down in the Mendip Hills. Black Down bunker.JPG
Control bunker for starfish site at Black Down in the Mendip Hills.

Starfish sites were large-scale night-time decoys created during the Blitz to simulate burning British cities. The aim was to divert German night bombers from their intended targets so they would drop their ordnance over the countryside. The sites were an extension of Colonel John Turner's decoy programme for airfields and factories (code named "Q" Sites, probably by analogy with Q-ships [1] ). Following the bombing, and near destruction, of Coventry in November 1940, Turner was tasked with creating decoys for seven major cities.

Contents

Turner referred to the new sites as "Special Fire" or "SF". However, one early site (near Bristol) was given the name "Starfish", which subsequently became used for all of the decoys. The sites were constructed around 4 miles (6.4 km) from their protection target, and at least 1 mile (1.6 km) from any other settlement. They consisted of elaborate light arrays and fires, controlled from a nearby bunker and laid out to simulate a fire-bombed town. By the end of the war there were 237 decoys protecting 81 towns and cities around the country.

Archaeological excavation in 1992 of the original "Starfish", in the Mendip Hills, found no evidence of bomb craters. Later research confirmed that Starfish sites did attract the attention of enemy bombers; one estimate is that around 968 tons of ordnance were dropped on the decoys.

Background

At the outbreak of World War II, the British government feared a German bombing campaign against the UK mainland. Colonel John Turner, an engineer and retired Air Ministry officer, was tasked, in September 1939, with establishing a broad range of day and night decoys to mislead enemy bombers. His initial work was with dummy aircraft, airfields and factories; the decoys for which were dubbed 'K' Sites. Turner also implemented night decoys; dubbed 'Q' Sites, they consisted of lights mounted on poles to simulate an airfield. [2]

Decoy Fire Sites

In response to the Germans' use of incendiary bombs, Turner added fires to the 'Q' Sites, dubbing them Q-Fire or QF, to add to their plausibility. Initially very crude, the fires were controlled from a nearby concrete pillbox. The theory was that after a first wave of bombers dropped on the real target, the decoy would light fires to simulate the previous raid for further waves to home in on. [2] [3]

Special Fires

Following the night bombing of Coventry, in early November 1940, the decoy programme was expanded to include towns and cities; the Air Ministry initially ordered sites to be set up for Bristol, Crewe, Derby, London, Manchester, Middlesbrough and Sheffield. The new "Special Fire" decoys were set up to simulate the bomb drops of German pathfinder squadrons. By 23 January 1941 the programme had been increased to 43 sites protecting 13 town and cities and by March operational sites numbered over 100. [3] [4] [5] [6] By the end of the war there were 237 Starfish sites protecting 81 locations. [7] [a]

One of the first decoy sites was constructed on Black Down on the Mendip Hills; [b] it was code-named "Starfish", derived from Turner's original SF code, and built to protect the nearby city of Bristol. The Starfish name was eventually adopted to describe all of the SF decoy sites. [9] The Mendip Hills site used fires of creosote and water to simulate incendiary bombs exploding. In addition, glow boxes were used to simulate the streets and railways of Bristol; the light bulbs were powered by electrical generators turned by Coventry Climax petrol engines contained in two bunkers. [10] [11] Another of Bristol's sites was located in the parish of Yatton, North Somerset. [12]

Glasgow was protected by various Starfish sites located on its surrounding hillsides. A decoy site existed at Long Wood at grid reference NS 540 524 outside Eaglesham in East Renfrewshire. [c] Clusters of impressions where basket fires once stood, bounded by fire-break trenches, covered much of the area seen in Second World War photographs, and a prominent structure near the site may have been the decoy control bunker. Anti-aircraft gun emplacements have been noted at the site. [13] Another site known as Craigmaddie lies on the Campsie Fells at Blairskaith Muir, NS595 762 . It was a co-located Starfish and QF/QL site. [14] [d] Carrington Moss, near Manchester, was another Starfish site. [16]

World War II control bunker on Liddington Hill Liddington Starfish.jpg
World War II control bunker on Liddington Hill

As of 2000, there is a relatively intact control bunker for a co-located Starfish and Quick Light (QL) site at Liddington Hill overlooking Swindon. [6] [15] [17] [e]

Effectiveness

A 1992 archaeological survey of the Mendip Hills did not identify surviving bomb craters on the Black Down site (the original "Starfish"), despite claims of their existence. [18] In his 2000 book, Fields of Deception: Britain's Bombing Decoys of World War II, historian Colin Dobinson collated Turner's conservative estimates as to the success of decoy sites; suggesting that Starfish decoys diverted 968 tons of German bombardment. [7] [19] [f]

Germany

The Germans also built large-scale night-time decoys such as the Krupp decoy site (German : Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) for the Krupp steel works in Essen.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The SF codes go from SF1 to SF81. [6]
  2. ↑ Dobinson reports that Starfish sites in the main programme had an identification code such as SF1(b). [8] With SF1 referring to Bristol the first town/city to be protected and (a) to (f) being its Starfish sites. [6] The Black Down site appears to SF1(b).
  3. ↑ The site is SF13(e). [6]
  4. ↑ The site is SF13(c) and C15(g). [6] [15]
  5. ↑ The site is SF41(a) and C71(a). [6] [15]
  6. ↑ Dobinson worked on English Heritage's Monuments Protection Programme. The copyright of Fields of Deception: Britain's Bombing Decoys of World War II is vested jointly in Dobinson and English Heritage.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krupp</span> German steel and weapons production company

Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer during both world wars. It produced battleships, U-boats, tanks, howitzers, guns, utilities, and hundreds of other commodities. The company also produced steel used to build railroads in the United States and to cap the Chrysler Building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">V-1 flying bomb</span> German World War II cruise missile

The V-1 flying bomb was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) designation was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was Höllenhund (hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug and in Germany as Kirschkern or Maikäfer (maybug).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Bodyguard</span> World War II deception plan during the build-up to the 1944 Normandy landings

Operation Bodyguard was the code name for a World War II deception strategy employed by the Allied states before the 1944 invasion of northwest Europe. Bodyguard set out an overall stratagem for misleading the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht as to the time and place of the invasion. Planning for Bodyguard was started in 1943 by the London Controlling Section, a department of the war cabinet. They produced a draft strategy, referred to as Plan Jael, which was presented to leaders at the Tehran Conference in late November and, despite skepticism due to the failure of earlier deception strategy, approved on 6 December 1943.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic countermeasure</span> Electronic device for deceiving detection systems

An electronic countermeasure (ECM) is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar, or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting information to an enemy. The system may make many separate targets appear to the enemy, or make the real target appear to disappear or move about randomly. It is used effectively to protect aircraft from guided missiles. Most air forces use ECM to protect their aircraft from attack. It has also been deployed by military ships and recently on some advanced tanks to fool laser/IR guided missiles. It is frequently coupled with stealth advances so that the ECM systems have an easier job. Offensive ECM often takes the form of jamming. Self-protecting (defensive) ECM includes using blip enhancement and jamming of missile terminal homers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dundry</span> Village near Bristol, England

Dundry is a village and civil parish, situated on Dundry Hill in the northern part of the Mendip Hills, between Bristol and the Chew Valley Lake, in the English county of North Somerset, previously Somerset. The parish includes the hamlets of Maiden Head and East Dundry. The parish had a 2011 population of 829.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liddington Castle</span> Hillfort in Wiltshire, England

Liddington Castle, locally called Liddington Camp, is a late Bronze Age and early Iron Age univallate hillfort in Liddington parish in the English county of Wiltshire, and a scheduled monument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenock Blitz</span> German bombing raids on Greenock, Scotland during WW2

The Greenock Blitz is the name given to two nights of intensive bombing of the town of Greenock, Scotland by the Nazi German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. The raids over the nights of the 6 and 7 May 1941 targeted the shipyards and berthed ships around the town. The brunt of the bombing fell on residential areas. Over the two nights, 271 people were killed and over 10,200 injured. From a total of 180,000 homes nearly 25,000 suffered damage and 5,000 were destroyed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Down, Somerset</span> One of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England

Black Down is the highest hill in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, in south-western England. Black Down lies just a few miles eastward of the Bristol Channel at Weston-super-Mare, and provides a view over the Chew Valley. The summit is marked with an Ordnance Survey trig point, the base of which has been rebuilt by the Mendip Hills AONB authority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haddenham, Cambridgeshire</span> Village in Cambridgeshire, England

Haddenham is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 3,228. The 2011 census reported a population of 3,344, a figure which includes the hamlet of Aldreth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bristol Blitz</span> WWII aerial bombardment of British city

The Bristol Blitz was the heavy bombing of Bristol, England by the Nazi German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Due to the presence of Bristol Harbour and the Bristol Aeroplane Company, the city was a target for bombing and was easily found as enemy bombers were able to trace a course up the River Avon from Avonmouth using reflected moonlight on the waters, into the heart of the city. Bristol was the fifth-most heavily bombed British city of the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bombing of Essen in World War II</span>

During World War II, the German industrial town of Essen was a target of Allied strategic bombing. The Krupp steelworks in particular was an important industrial target, but Essen in general was a "primary target" designated for area bombing by the February 1942 British Area bombing directive. As part of the campaign in 1943 known as the Battle of the Ruhr, Essen was a "regular target".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nottingham Blitz</span> 1941 Nazi aerial bombing raid on Nottingham, England during World War II

The Nottingham Blitz was an attack by the Nazi German Luftwaffe on Nottingham during the night of 8–9 May 1941.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Ruhr</span> British bombing campaign during World War II

The Battle of the Ruhr was a strategic bombing campaign against the Ruhr Area in Nazi Germany carried out by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War. The Ruhr was the main centre of German heavy industry with coke plants, steelworks, armaments factories and ten synthetic oil plants. The British attacked 26 targets identified in the Combined Bomber Offensive. Targets included the Krupp armament works (Essen), the Nordstern synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen and the Rheinmetall–Borsig plant in Düsseldorf, which was evacuated during the battle. The battle included cities such as Cologne not in the Ruhr proper but which were in the larger Rhine-Ruhr region and considered part of the Ruhr industrial complex. Some targets were not sites of heavy industry but part of the production and movement of materiel.

No. 218 Squadron RAF was a squadron of the Royal Air Force. It was also known as No 218 Squadron after the Governor of the Gold Coast and people of the Gold Coast officially adopted the squadron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RAF Sutton Bridge</span>

Royal Air Force Sutton Bridge or more simply RAF Sutton Bridge is a former Royal Air Force station found next to the village of Sutton Bridge in the south-east of Lincolnshire. The airfield was to the south of the current A17, and east of the River Nene, next to Walpole in Norfolk.

Holton Heath is an area of the parish of Wareham St Martin, Dorset, England. The area includes a trading estate, on the site of the former Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, (RNCF). East of the trading estate is the Holton Heath National Nature Reserve, currently closed to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R Force</span> British military deception unit in WWII

R Force was a British deception force during World War II that consisted of armoured vehicles, field engineers and a wireless unit. During Operation Fortitude it attempted to exaggerate the strength of Allied forces in Britain, and deceive German intelligence about Allied intentions. Later it performed a similar role during the fighting in Western Europe in 1944–45. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Strangeways.

<i>Result</i> (schooner) Three-masted cargo schooner built in Carrickfergus in 1893

Result is a three-masted cargo schooner built in Carrickfergus in 1893. She was a working ship until 1967, and served for a short time in the Royal Navy as a Q-ship during World War I. She currently rests on land at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and in 1996 was added to the National Register of Historic Vessels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krupp decoy site</span> WWII decoy steelworks in Essen, Germany

The Krupp night decoy siteKruppsche Nachtscheinanlage was a German decoy-site of the Krupp steelworks in Essen. It was designed to divert Allied night airstrikes in the bombing of Essen in World War II from the actual production site of the arms factory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fox House, South Yorkshire</span> Public house in South Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, England

Fox House is a 17th-century Grade-II listed Inn, located near the Longshaw Estate in the Peak District, near the border between South Yorkshire and Derbyshire in northern England. The building is situated on the A6187 road.

References

  1. ↑ Dobinson (2000), p24
  2. 1 2 Crowdy (2008), pp. 58-60
  3. 1 2 Price (2004), p. 32
  4. ↑ Crowdy (2008), p. 61
  5. ↑ Dobinson (2000), Chapter 4; Starfish: November 1940 - June 1941.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dobinson (2000), Appendix 1: Gazetteer of Sites, Table 1.4: Civil Starfish (SF Series).
  7. 1 2 Arquilla (2007), p. 143
  8. ↑ Dobinson (2000), p. 90.
  9. ↑ Dobinson (2000), pp. 85 & 89.
  10. ↑ Davies, Les (March 2009). "Starfish and subterfuge". Mendip Times . Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  11. ↑ Brown (1999)
  12. ↑ "The decoy cities built to spare Bristol from Luftwaffe bombs". Bristol Live. 24 July 2022. Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  13. ↑ "Long Wood, Starfish Decoy Site". RCAHMS. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  14. ↑ "Blairskaith Muir, Civil Starfish Decoy site". RCAHMS. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  15. 1 2 3 Dobinson (2000), Appendix 1: Gazetteer of Sites, Table 1.7: Civil QL and QF (C Series).
  16. ↑ Smith (2003), p. 14
  17. ↑ Dobinson (2000), Appendix 1: Gazetteer of Sites.
  18. ↑ Ellis (1992), p. 47
  19. ↑ Dobinson (2000), pp. 209-213 & 290-298.

Bibliography

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.