Hi Chaps
No this is not about a new band!
On Saturday, as a shiny new member of the Kent Archaeology Society, I was invited to a guided tour of the Fan Bay coastal defence site that has recently been excavated and I thought you might like to see some of the photo's? The site was first used in WW1 when two 'sound mirrors' were constructed to detect and locate German Zeppelins and Gotha bombers (later Giant bombers). In WW2 it became a coastal defence site, with multiple guns of varying calibres and a deep underground shelter for the gun crews, directly in front of the 'Chain Home' radar facility. It's primary 'declared' purpose was the defence of Dover harbour and invasion protection for the coastline from Dungeness (almost) to Margate.
A copy of the original architectural drawing for the shelter (this was built in just 100 days)
A copy of a painting done in 1940 at the base of the entrance stairs.
The IWM have this listed as 'in the tunnels under Dover Castle' but it is quite clear when you see it in the shelter that it matches the architecture exactly.
A 'Gun Trace' map showing the different calibres and their relative arcs of fire. You can see that the 15inch guns could reach the French coast and the 9 inch guns were for the anti-invasion support of the coastline
Record Plan for the 3x 6inch guns
The mounting for one of the two 15inch guns (Jane)
The northernmost 'Sound Mirror'. Also where the deep shelter tunnels were started from. One entrance/exit from each sound mirror
This shows how the sound mirrors were used. The 'sound cone' was directed at the mirror until the aircraft noise was the loudest an then the 'stick' would point to the location of the sound source. The operator would then read azimuth and elevation off the scales and using the two mirrors at the same time allowed for triangulation to give range and height. This particular sound mirror is the one a the above ground construction at Abbot's Cliff.
In WW2 the site also had two fixed mount 3.7inch AA guns and the Chain Home station behind had 3 40mm Bofors guns.
I hope you find this interesting and useful
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