Norton Fitzwarren Supply Depot Pillboxes

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Bishop

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Norton Fitzwarren supply depot was a large site most probably constructed in the early 1940's, I've yet to research it properly but I do know it was used by the US Army for a while most probably around 1944-45.

The site itself is rather large with numerous WW2 buildings still standing such as warehouses, garages, nissen huts etc, the lines have been removed but the site did link to the main rail line to the south of the site. These days the supply depot is in private hands and the various buildings are used by a variety of small businesses, its also been imaginatively renamed as the Taunton Trading Estate.

At some point in time Krela and myself will go back and have a good look at the supply depot but for starters heres a bit of info and pics of the depot's defence posts built to defend the depot from ground and air attack.

Below defence post is the north east corner of the depot.

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The ladder to the anti aircraft position is only attached by the bottom four bolts, the top two have come away at some point.

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Size? Well roughly 20ft tall, 8x8ft. The large embrasures are about 5ft by 6ins.

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The second defence post we found right in the middle of the depot. Its had its embrasures bricked up and judging by the pong its now being used as an oil store.

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The third defence post, like the last its situated in quite a central position in the supply depot.

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The fourth post was hidden behind a modern large sign at the depots main entrance.

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Entrance.

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Other side. Still got its ladder.

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B
 
Ok where was I up to? Oh yeah number five on the north western side of the depot.

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The final defence post had been visited before by Graybags here's a pic from his user gallery.

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This one had the safest looking ladder of all of them so I couldn't resist having a look at the anti aircraft position. This defence post is slightly different from the others in that its a bit taller, the ground floor bit with the embrasures is roughly three feet high. If you look at the small wall by the entrance on the left then the floor inside is roughly the same height.

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Rungs and grab handle in the anti aircraft position.

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No hole in the floor for a weapon mount.

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All of the defence posts would have been connected by telephone.

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To get inside the ground floor you go through the entrance and are faced with a small cellar and a ladder.

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Wooden cover for the entrance is still inside this pillbox and still fits.

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A view of one of the embrasures.

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B ;)
 
For the last defence post/pillbox we had a bit of a job finding somewhere to park the car, eventually we found a spot in an industrial estate and got out of the car to be hit by an overpowering smell of cake, it started off with jam sponge then later fruit cake. Mmm cake.

DSC_4721.JPG


Turns out the last pillbox near the rail line at Silk Mills is listed.

A World War II sentry post will be preserved when a new railway bridge is built in Somerset.

Work on the bridge, which replaces a level crossing at Silk Mills in Taunton and is designed to end traffic hold-ups, has already begun.

Above from an old BBC news page (04).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4118359.stm

Live Local aerial shot of the Norton Fitzwarren depot.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=51.027111~-3.139139&style=h&lvl=16&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000

b
 
Fantastic set of pics!

Those embrasures seem suicidally wide, especially without an internal blast wall :eek:

Interesting lack of AA weapon mount; probably a Bren fired using the 'hosepipe' method (shooting from the hip, using tracer to adjust aim). The 1942 manual says that the weapon should move around the man, not the man around the weapon.

Any idea how deep the cellar was and did they all have one?

Pete
 
gaspirator;10768; said:
Any idea how deep the cellar was and did they all have one?

Pete

The only one that has a 'cellar' (it's not actually a cellar as it's above ground level) is the last one by Silk Mills and this is only to give it extra height above the surrounding land. All the others have ground level floors.
 
Mr gaspirator wrote.

Those embrasures seem suicidally wide, especially without an internal blast wall

Interesting lack of AA weapon mount; probably a Bren fired using the 'hosepipe' method (shooting from the hip, using tracer to adjust aim). The 1942 manual says that the weapon should move around the man, not the man around the weapon.

Neat to read your thoughts on these defence posts gaspirator, to be honest I've not really considered what it would be like to actually use one in a defensive role and I agree totally with your comments above. The construction of these posts leaves a lot to be desired, 2 layers of red brick and only concrete in the middle is far from beefy it is a lot to different to some of the stuff on the Taunton stop line (3ft thick reinforced concrete).

The anti aircraft positions are actually quite deep I think I might have been stood on a rung in the pic above, I don't think it would be very easy to fire a light machine gun from the hip up there?

I thought with the anti aircraft positions they would have probably used a stand like the pic below, whack a few sandbags on the feet perhaps?


imageslgaam.jpg


I'm sure I've seen pics of Bren guns on similar AA stands though I could be wrong?


B
 
Hi guys,

krela;10775; said:
The only one that has a 'cellar' (it's not actually a cellar as it's above ground level) is the last one by Silk Mills and this is only to give it extra height above the surrounding land. All the others have ground level floors.

Interesting; nice adaption of the design to meet the local conditions.

Bishop;10786; said:
Neat to read your thoughts on these defence posts gaspirator, to be honest I've not really considered what it would be like to actually use one in a defensive role and I agree totally with your comments above. The construction of these posts leaves a lot to be desired, 2 layers of red brick and only concrete in the middle is far from beefy it is a lot to different to some of the stuff on the Taunton stop line (3ft thick reinforced concrete).

The anti aircraft positions are actually quite deep I think I might have been stood on a rung in the pic above, I don't think it would be very easy to fire a light machine gun from the hip up there?

I thought with the anti aircraft positions they would have probably used a stand like the pic below, whack a few sandbags on the feet perhaps?

I'm sure I've seen pics of Bren guns on similar AA stands though I could be wrong?


B

You are quite correct; the Bren tripod could be upended and an extra leg added as below for AA (only photo I could find; apologies for confusing backdrop. My other shed's a Porsche...)

bren_tripod.jpg


Quite a large footprint; you'd need to skip over the legs to swing the gun round in a confined space.

Image below shows the hosepipe.

hosepipe.gif


From counting the number of brick courses, I estimate the AA pit is about 140-150cm deep - roughly up to the armpits??

In which case, I reckon the Bren could just about be hosepiped; if not, then fired from the shoulder (another official method), as seen in your 'Bishop's new pulpit' photo which I did a rough photoshop job on :) (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition???)

DSC_4728_modified.jpg


I reckon the pit is deep to afford protection against incoming by crouching, only to pop up and spray lead as the a/c flies past.

My theory is that the external ladder (as opposed to an internal hatch) is to discourage "abandon ship" tendancies when the Messerschmitt's hitting the fan, by forcing you to leave the safety of the pit and expose yourself on the way down.

Are any of these posts in DoB?

Pete
 
Hey Gaspirator you know your stuff alright. I never knew they used light machine guns in such a way, I would have thought it must be rather awkward to use a machine gun like that?

So firing from the shoulder is another option? Resting the barrel on a sandbag, and firing from the shoulder could work. Pick a spot in front of the attacking aircraft and then let rip, I'm glad to say the only time I've shot at aircraft is on computer games and I've found it interesting how far you have to shoot in front of the aircraft to get a hit.

Thanks for posting the pics and doing a good job of explaining your theory, I'll have to have a good look at some pics but I reckon you could be right in that a man could probably fire a machine gun from the hip in the defence posts AA position. He'd have to be a big lad but yeah its probably possible.

Yes these posts are on DoB, try a search for either Norton Fitzwarren or Taunton if I remember correctly? Sadly the description/write up on Dob doesn't explain how these defence posts would have been used.

My theory is that the external ladder (as opposed to an internal hatch) is to discourage "abandon ship" tendancies when the Messerschmitt's hitting the fan, by forcing you to leave the safety of the pit and expose yourself on the way down.

Ooh thats not a nice design feature, makes sense though. :eek:

b
 
Bishop;10794; said:
Hey Gaspirator you know your stuff alright. I never knew they used light machine guns in such a way, I would have thought it must be rather awkward to use a machine gun like that?

So firing from the shoulder is another option? Resting the barrel on a sandbag, and firing from the shoulder could work. Pick a spot in front of the attacking aircraft and then let rip, I'm glad to say the only time I've shot at aircraft is on computer games and I've found it interesting how far you have to shoot in front of the aircraft to get a hit.

Thanks for posting the pics and doing a good job of explaining your theory, I'll have to have a good look at some pics but I reckon you could be right in that a man could probably fire a machine gun from the hip in the defence posts AA position. He'd have to be a big lad but yeah its probably possible.

Thanks!

Yup - firing from the shoulder is actually easier than it sounds if you're shooting upwards; gun weight goes into your shoulder and not so much onto the left arm.

The six-footers were the ones who normally got the Bren, Boys A/T rifle, PIAT etc, although everyone was fully trained to use them in battle if need be.

Best technique was to shoot head-on at the a/c if poss to avoid having to calculate lead; but if you did, you had to track the gun along the flightpath before opening up, the way you do with clay pigeons.

The pits are also deep to avoid you muzzle-sweeping the depot itself; loose tracer and petrol bowsers don't mix...:eek:

Bishop;10794; said:
Sadly the description/write up on Dob doesn't explain how these defence posts would have been used.

The great strength of DoB was that volunteers came forward to list what they knew was there and it was great that things were simply identified as being WW2 (or whenever), even if it was not known exactly what they were.

Which is why it's important that the sites are visited, the pics are posted and the discussions are had! :)

Pete
 

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