Cycle around the WW2 Tank blocks at Gullane Point...

 

Since a kid i loved coming out here with my Dad and looking at the WW2 stuff that's nearly all still visible in the growing dune system above the high tide line at Gullane point, today all on the Aberlady Bay Nature Reserve. Most of the tank blocks are still in amazingly good condition despite being built in the summer of 1940 as Great Britain hurriedly  built the coastal Crust anti invasion defence barrier along the east coast of the UK for the expected defence against the German War Machine that had swept right through Western Europe taking many countries by total surprise...

Some soldiers of other countries including Poland escaped to the UK to carry on their fight  and were involved in helping with the construction.... 

The spelling of Wednesday as `Wedenesday` a possible clue on this block dated 21st August  as most of the signed blocks here were set on or around that date that the makers signed before they had dried...

Not sure how a German military mark was left though it is reversed... prob a youngster having a laugh...

Though as we read today the reality of invasion was very real indeed and things could have been very different  today if things had went there Germans way...

Wonder what T Black did after the war?... his named is etched in several...

The blocks ran high across the Reserve and along the coast to Aberlady, where they again started at Gosford Bay at Green Craig all the way to Port Seaton and must have been some sight...

The Anti Tank stopping blocks were just one measure, Anti glider poles on flat areas, mine fields, Machine Gun Pill boxes, trenches behind machine gun pilll boxes, ant tank trenches, flame fourgasse sites, barbed wire and mortar mounted were hastily built... all to slow an invading force to allow deployment of defenders...

I uncovered this mortar mound a few  years ago and around the same time found and uncovered one at Fernie Ness both situated on a slightly raised area overlooking their target areas...

The large machine gun pill box has nearly disappeared and gives an indication of the growth of these dunes as it would have once looked out across the flat sands and today has a 70 foot dune in front of it, I wonder what else is buried out here amongst the blown sand?...

Wee film, song is `Seeya Later` by Boards Of Canada

More soon...