Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request ww2 remains

does anyone know of any remains of ww2 defences left in wirral apart from the pill boxes,bidston/tranmere tunnels.found a german bomber map on mersey-gateway.org which had sites marked on it i.e. dock mills,gas works etc but also at seacombe and in wallasey central park by where the old bandstand was a point was marked but no reason as to what they are,also i have been told that in central park just inside the liscard road/martins lane entrance there was a air raid shelter on the right hand side,if you look when the grass is long you can see the markings where the walls used to be but can't find any info on what was in the park in ww2,any ideas or suggestion would be great,thanks john.

Best place to go John is the Defence of Britain site:

Defence of Britain Database

If you get yourself Google Earth you can download a KML file which will load all the WW2 defences for the country that they have logged.

If you have a look around Wiki Wirral you will also find threads on WW2 defences here. E.g.

Dr Frick's bombing map

WW2 Gun sites

WW2 Bombing Decoy at Brimstage

In fact - put "WW2" into the search bar and you should find a fair few topics.

Miss Guided have you noticed that The Bidston Hill Bunker is missing?

They obviously dont want us to know about it.
WELL MOD YOU FAILED

I could handle this 2 ways Jamie...I will opt for the way where I don't call you an annoying little bbbbbbbbbbeep.

When I used the 'E.g.' it had a special meaning - that being 'for example'. I wasn't going to list the entire plethora of wiki threads that held info on this subject. I thought I'd leave this new member to go and discover for himself.

Sorry Miss

thanks for the suggestions,i have been on most sites / links already but i'll keep looking,i wasn't being lazy i had searched before posting ,thanks anyway .

What sort of thing are you looking for john? The only thing I can think of that is not covered very well are the Barrage Ballons and there are not going to be many remnants of those visible.

Don't forget there was an enormous amount of british intelligence work during the war, one method used was to saturate the opposition with loads of duff information so you expect quite a few randoms on german bombing maps. And the german intelligence was under pressure to come up with targets, so it probably wasn't unheard of for a few creative targets to be created (cratered?) to look like they were doing their job well.

DD - by this do you mean how they made Burton marshes look like Garston docks? I'm sure we have a thread about that.

No MissG, I am talking more about providing target information to the Germans such as the (my myth - not real example)2000 people underground headquarters under Vale Park.

One method used to transfer this duff information was to put bits of notes on airplanes that were on high risk missions, it would look like these notes were real and genuine should the airplane come down in enemy territory, this has been used in a few films.

Loads of radio signals gave tiny bits of information that could be put together piece by piece by the germans, again this was leaked False information.

Sometimes even the BBC news was used to leak information by a passing mention of things in other news articles - eg the road was flooded here after the recent heavy usage, implying there was convoy traffic in a location where in reality there was nothing. But this sort of information would plant a seed, a bit more information from somewhere that backs up the story would make it look kosha - a suspicious blob on an aerial picture nearby and next minute it would appear on a target list.

At the moment i'm intrested as to what was in central park ,got afew pics but they dont show what i'm after i.e. shelter and bandstand field .for 35 yrs i thought i new the park back to front then find these things out ,the shelter may well still be under the park and in other parks aswel.

Very interesting

Vale park ?? lol

Ill ask me nan in law. Trouble is she'll ramble on repetivley and if you ask a specific question she will repky 'oh i cant remember that' its best to let her go on and get the odd pearl of new information. Bless her!
I do know that she did not feel atall safe in the shelters. She was also in mill lane when it got bombed. Baby in a cot several beds down took a direct hit. She was rescued by a male patient. I hear that story a lot lol

thanks mate,any info will be greatly appreciated.

wow what a read gang vale park intresting!

Was there any AA placements on the hill and where? I'm sure I have read there were but not found out whereabouts. I also thought there was AA behind where Vyner primary school is? There is a raised area on that field...