Anti Aircraft Protection in 1940s.

[toby webb]

I understood that there were 8 Ack Ack sites around Swindon i.e. of which 3 were at Eastrop. Farbridge & Burytown.
Can anyone add to this and were there in fact more?
Thanks, Toby.

[tonepad]

The link below has:

Swindon
1 Eastrop
2 Shrivenham
3 Farbridge
4 Burderop
6 Restrop
5 Whitehill
7 Calcutt
8 Burydown

http://www.anti-aircraft.co.uk/HAA_gun_sites_map.html


Tony

 

[toby webb]

Thanks  tonepad. That's a move in the right direction. However I was told that at Kingsdown there was  a Z  AA Battery 220 manned by 101Wilts H.G. Was this something different?
T

[tonepad]

Yes, a Z AA Battery was different to the HAA sites:

A "Z  AA Battery" used anti-aircraft rockets and were manned by the Home Guard.

The eight Swindon Heavy Anti-aircraft gun sites had 3.7-inch guns and 40 mm Bofors.


Tony

[toby webb]

Well done tonepad. I shall be off to the library tomorrow to find out more. Thanks.

[Malcolm33]

  Thanks Tonepad for that link.   Gosh but if I had seen that when a kid I would have done much more than lie on the couch crying in my mother's arms as she told me that all the crashing explosions that were so deafening were only our guns firing back.

   From that map, the nearest gun was at Northolt and we were off Cannon Lane between Pinner, Rayners Lane, North Harrow and Eastcote.     That's a good 4 kilometres from our house then.

    The Bomb Map shows me that we had a load of bombs all around us - http://bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900     I got two weeks off school when 2 hit my school.

      Perhaps there were more smaller guns closer at hand?

[toby webb]

I have returned to this site to see if there has been any progress. Surely there are people still around who knew exactly where they were particulaly the Z site in Kingsdown. Thanks to anyone getting his thinking cap on, Toby.

[youngtug]

Stubbs Hill, Burytown farm, Blunsdon

[youngtug]

And this I think was at Eastrop, Highworth; https://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/threads/highworth-anti-aircraft-battery.12638/