The flyers of Birnbeck & Locking (1942-49)

Following the requisitioning of Birnbeck Pier by the newly formed Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD), a number of sites along the North Somerset coast were developed by the Royal Navy for weapons testing. Many of these tests were undertaken directly by the DMWD - or Wheezers and Dodgers, as its personnel became known. Others were conducted by the Sea Trials Department of Portsmouth based HMS Vernon. 

Indeed, when the DMWD released Birnbeck Pier in 1945, HMS Vernon's activities along the coastline continued until late 1949. The story of collaboration between the DMWD and HMS Vernon is covered in a previous post as are the trials involving the Squid anti-submarine weapon - linked here. 

This post, however, concentrates on another important aspect of the story: the significant involvement of the Royal Air Force in trials of parachute mines and other stores designed to be dropped from aircraft.

A parachute mine at RAF Locking (Jean Sugar collection)

As the use of aircraft-laid mines increased, the specialist team at HMS Vernon sought a suitable testing area where mines could be dropped and, crucially, recovered easily. The tidal range of up to 40 feet in the Bristol Channel made the area around Weston-super-Mare particularly suitable. At low water, extensive areas of sand and mud are exposed; a few hours later they are covered by the incoming tide.

A proposal to build a large scale West Country base for the HMS Vernon team was eventually abandoned and instead a corner of Weston-super-Mare airport (under the authority of RAF Locking) was made available for the trials. Although the aircraft became a civilian facility, it was under the authority of RAF Locking during the war years. 

A couple of linked huts were allocated to HMS Vernon's Gosport based Air Torpedo Development Unit (ATDU) - suitably close to a large hanger where aircraft could be stored and adapted for use in the trials. 

During a recent visit to the Weston Aviation Heritage Exhibition at the Helicopter Museum situated on the old airfield, I came across a map showing the location of the ATDU (see below).

Naval Torpedo and Mining Establishment - Locking

At the National Archives in London, I found a detailed description of the modus operandi for the trials. They could only be undertaken on the Springs, which usually meant two seven day periods per month. 

At this time the base came alive. A dozen men composing the trials party would arrive by train from London, the mines arrived by road, the airmen flew in from Gosport. The designers - a mix of HMS Vernon and, in the early days, DMWD personnel - arrived by 'devious means'. 

The recovery boat was an adapted landing craft which was moored at the mouth of the River Banwell. It would discharge its cargo on a wooden pier, built for the DMWD, at St Thomas's Head. The boat crews would reach the recovery craft by skiff. 

For each trial an RAF communication van would drive up to the shore at St Thomas's Head. From there, an R/T set would be used to establish communication with the recovery vessel and the aircraft which would be dropping the mine. 

Sources show that the type of aircraft used in the trials included Avro Lincolns, Mosquitoes and Bristol Brigands.

The recovery boat - Banwell Creek (National Archives)

Avro Lincoln at Weston Airfield (National Archives)

The target area was Langford Grounds (the area better known for the Woodspring Wrecks). The target consisted of a catamaran surmounted by a large round marker. 

One eye-witness left a particularly vivid description of what it was like to watch the trials:

At the back of St Thomas's Head the ground rises to a mound and then falls away so that a low flying aircraft approaching on the dropping course is out of sight until it appears from behind the mound at what seems to be less height than one's own. As it then passes over one's head, one realises that its height is in fact a trifle greater. A moment later the mine is dropped, the aircraft circles and the procedure is repeated until all stores have been laid. 

 The observer then goes on to describe the less dramatic part of the operation. Once the aircraft had returned to base there was little more to be done except to return to Locking for dinner and wait for the tide to ebb to allow recovery.

He recalls that in the summer, going out on the mud to look for black cylindrical objects was second only to make and mend, but in Winter there was not much to be said for it!

Target marker, Langford Grounds (National Archives)

Dropped mine (Jean Sugar collection)

The trial parties were well practised in the business of recovery. Once unloaded on the St Thomas's Head pier, the mine was hauled up the foreshore on a trolley along a set of rails. A small power winch provided the muscle. 

Once at the top of the incline, the mines were loaded onto a lorry and returned to RAF Locking. 

The record of the trials shows that a variety of devices were tested in this way - including bombs, smoke markers and sonar buoys - in fact as one contemporary record rather neatly put it, anything designed to be dropped from an aircraft from time to time. 

The official record of the HMS Vernon trials, now held at the National Archives at Kew, ends on an unexpectedly poetic note. The anonymous author quotes Rupert Brooke, suggesting that his words might be re-echoed by sailors making their way across Langford grounds: 

One might not doubt that, somehow, good

Shall come of water and mud;

And, sure, the reverent eye must see a purpose in liquidity.

One of the few remaining original buildings on Weston Airfield

North Somerset Council's Birnbeck Pier Restoration Project has been made possible thanks to over £44m in external funding secured from the UK Government, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, National Heritage Memorial Fund and Historic England.

 

The research that I’m carrying out for the project, which is covering Birnbeck Pier's Second World War history, has been made possible thanks to funding from the council’s social value agreement with its contractor, Mackley.

Nagasaki: The Bomb that ended the Second World War (9 August 1945)

This is my final post following our visit to Japan earlier this year. Unlike many articles on Walking the battlefields, this is not about a battlefield in a conventional sense. Instead, it concerns one of the greatest human tragedies in history - an event that, arguably, brought the Second World War to an end, and in doing so, may have prevented an even greater loss of life than the estimated 40,000 to 70,000 people killed when a plutonium bomb exploded over Nagasaki's Urakami district at 11.02 a.m. on 9 August 1945.

My wife and I weren't sure what to expect as we stepped off the tram at Matsayama-Machi, the nearest stop to the three sites we were determined to visit - the Peace Park, the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter Park and the Nagasaki Bomb Atomic Museum. What we discovered was a place that was both remarkably accessible and profoundly moving - a landscape dedicated not to victory or defeat, but to remembrance, reflection and hope. That is, aside from the museum which presented an incomplete picture.

The Nagasaki Peace Memorial 

Nagasaki - Orientation Map

The Peace Park is reached by a pair of escalators to the right of which are the entrances to two air raid shelters which were in use at the time of the bombing. Given the proximity to 'ground zero' none of those seeking shelter would have survived the blast. 

At the top of the escalators visitors are immediately drawn towards the imposing ten metre high Peace Statue standing at the far end of the park beyond a tranquil pond and fountain. Unveiled in 1955, the statue has become a focal point of the memorial, while over the decades the surrounding landscape has been enhanced by numerous monuments and sculptures donated by nations as symbols of peace and reconciliation.

In the centre of the park, the outlines of building foundations in the grass provide a stark reminder of the devastation that engulfed this area in August 1945. These simple traces of everyday life are among the park's most moving features, illustrating how an ordinary residential district was transformed in an instant by the detonation of the world's second - and to date, last - atomic bomb used in anger.

The Entrance to the Peace Park

The Nagasaki Stadium - said to be on the site of the original aiming point

The epicentre of the blast was a few hundred metres from the Peace Park, at the foot of the escarpment. To reach it visitors descend a series of escalators before making their way towards the unmistakable Atomic Bomb Museum. Nearby stands the so-called Hypocenter monument marking the point directly beneath where the Fat Man plutonium bomb detonated approximately 500 metres (1,650 feet) above the city on the morning of 9 August 1945.

Nagasaki was not the first choice of target. That distinction belongs to Kokura, but heavy cloud and smoke had obscured the aiming point. After three unsuccessful bombing runs, the US Army Air Forces B-29 Bockscar, diverted to it's secondary target. Together with the Soviet Union's massive offensive into Japanese held Manchuria, launched the previous day, this second Atomic Bomb was the catalyst for Emperor Hirohito's announcement that Japan would accept the Allied terms of surrender, bringing the Second World War to a close.

The Hypocenter Monument, Nagasaki

Ground Zero, Nagasaki

Adjacent to the Hypocenter monument, a section of excavated ground reveal an ancient canal and the level of land as it existed at the time of the atomic bombing. The accompanying information panels make deeply uncomfortable reading. They describe the desperate actions of civilians who threw themselves into the canal in a futile attempt to ease the agony of severe burns. Other transparent panels built into the embankment allow visitors to see the depth of rubble and debris that accumulated in the aftermath of the explosion, providing a stark reminder of the scale of the devastation - which, incidentally, would have been even greater if it weren't for the fact that parts of the city were shielded by hills. 

Atomic Bomb Museum, Nagasaki

The nearby Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum was opened in April 1996, a slightly belated part of the 50th anniversary of the Nagasaki atomic bombing. The building is striking - the domed glass roof gives a vista of the sky above, orientated towards the position where the bomb exploded. The museum's primary focus is on the victims of the bombing and there are numerous artefacts and displays which seek to describe the horrors that ensued on that fatal day back in August 1945. Amongst the exhibits is a blasted clock frozen at the time of the explosion - 11:02 am (pictured above). 

A second theme is concerned with peace and reconciliation. The graphic content of the museum serves to underline the imperative that mankind should work tirelessly to avoid such weapons being used in the future. 

For all its strengths though, the museum presents only part of the historical picture. While it powerfully documents the effects of the bombing, it offers relatively little context for the decision to use the atomic bomb. The narrative gives the impression that the attack was an unjustified escalation, without fully exploring the strategic considerations facing the Allies in the summer of 1945, Japan's determination to continue the war despite devastating conventional bombing, or the anticipated casualties of a conventional invasion of the home islands. Nor does it examine in any depth Japan's own responsibility for the chain of events that culminated in the use of nuclear weapons. I suspect that most visitors would leave with a good understanding of the bombing's human consequences, but a less complete appreciation of the wider historical debate that continues to surround President Truman's decision to drop the bomb.