WW1 and WW2 Defences - Suffolk and beyond

The second post with a trench theme, this time Second War. This trench can actually be tied into a position to be held by the 2/4 South Lancs Regt in 1940 in the Mount Pleasant area, Dunwich. I've known about it for a while but only just got round to mapping it. Wish I had done it sooner as it has now been filled with brash from the clearance of road side scrub, which made recording by tape and offsets very tricky! Hence the plan shown is not as accurate as it could have been, but I believe it is still an accurate representation.  Above: Top the section post at Mount Pleasant from the 2/4 S Lancs War Diary. the green lines indicate rifle fire and the red line Bren gun fire. Middle and bottom - the trench today, full of brash! The  trench system consists of communication trenches leading to various weapon-pits and also perhaps a section of fire trench. There are also two large pits in the vicinity, one perhaps connected to part of the trench system. Abov...

With a few days off work, I've been out and about in the field. This is the first of two posts that will look at trenches - one from the First War and one from the Second! This afternoon, I decided to combine a visit to an excellent  second hand bookshop in Beccles (cost me £24!) with a visit to look at the First War practice trenches on the Common. These WW1 practice / training trenches  are fairly well known. Although they have long been infilled they show up as marks in the grass extremely well from the air and also on the ground as well. I don't have any information of which unit dug them or when. Although how Suffolk was to be defended in the First War is something I want to start looking at, I doubt if I will ever find out which units were billeted in Beccles or when these trenches were dug; they would obviously have nothing to do with Suffolk's fixed defences in WW1 but would have been dug by troops as practice before being sent out  to France.  ...

It's been a while since I last did a post and I have a few things to write up from various trips out and about this year. The first is a visit made back in the spring to a section of remaining seawall constructed on the Orford Battle Training area for 79th Armoured Division. This particular seawall features in a well know photograph of a Churchill tank scaling the wall using  an ARC Mk 1. Above: Well known image of a Churchill tank scaling a mock seawall on the Orford Battle Training area.  Today the remaining section of seawall is largely overgrown but it is clearly identifiable as the one in the above image, with even some of the embedded wire pickets to support the barbed wire in the above photo still remaining along with remains of 2" scaffolding poles which made up the railings. Above: Remains of the Orford seawall today. Note the barbed wire picket in image no 4 and the remains of the railing in image no 5.