coastrider: Burghead Bay

Saturday, 20 January 2024

Saturday, 5 December 2020

Burghead Bay WW2 Coastal Defences...

The Beach at Burghead is quite a sight, a 7 mile of curved bay of white sand,

At high tide you can see a full row of concrete shapes that mark a defensive line of Machine gun Pill boxes every 1/4 mile, with anti tank blocks originally spaced 5 feet apart and strung together with barbed wire and below this line hundreds of mines were laid.

The excellent book `If Hitler Comes` by Gordon Barcley details all the coastline that was rapidly transferred into a fortress line in 1940 as the RAF fought for control of the air over England, and here in Scotland anti aircraft guns and only a few fighter squadrons defenced from Bomber attacks from Occupied Norway...

Here is the plan of Burghead Bay...

And the retreating tide reveals the remains today, 80 years after construction...

Some coastal erosion in the last 80 years has made this line move about and it is now emerged at High tide, but 80 years ago it was just above the high tide line...

Training prior to the D Day Landings took place here at Burghead Bay, as it did at Gullane Beach here in East Lothian, with live fire and explosives,

Here is the remains of a replica of a section of `Atlantic Wall` that replicated aerial recon photos of the Normandy coastline that was used to train troops how to attack and destroy prior to going to France in June 1944...