Army Bombing Decoy Site at Oswaldtwistle Moor
It was both a QF site and a QL site .
QF means it used small fires to indicate strikes from incendiary bombs in the hope of fooling the German airmen to drop their bombs on the moor . QF was useful against aircraft following the lead aircaft .
QL refers to the use of lighting to try and decieve the bombers . This would be used prior to bombs being dropped once the lead aircraft had dropped their load more use of the QF would be made .
The shelter that remains has two areas within it . One large, one smaller with an escape hatch . The smaller one probaly contained a generator for the lights and the escape hatch may have doubled as an observation point for the controlling crew to remotely fire the various devices of subterfuge whilst remaining in a sort of safety ..... a sort of because a direct hit would no doubt kill all occupants therein .
It seems a dangerous job to invite aircraft to bomb your location .
view from the outside , with modern day wind turbines on the horizon |
The ladder for the escape hatch can be seen along with an asbestos lined vent and access for the generator |
View toward the entrance of the Army decoy site shelter |
This was a Civil Bombing Decoy Site . The two sites were combined and run as one later in the war .
Nothing now remains of the Starfish site ...we took photos of the area and a few enigmatic red bricks which are atypically found at dismantled Starfish sites .
Red bricks perhaps once of the command structure |
It is very definately an Army Bombing Decoy site. Varified in Colin Dobinson's excellent book Fields of Deception produced by English Heritage .
Suprisingly EH website Pastscape does not have the ABD site on thier pages but does have the Starfish site which is but a short distance away .
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteNice photos and some good work in identifying the role of this particular site.
Ian
A clever ploy to fool the Nazi pilots.!
ReplyDeleteThe red bricks are Accrington nori bricks, the same brick that was used as foundation bricks for the Empire State Building in New York.
ReplyDelete