Hayling gun site

Just as it came from the camera. No edit, colour grading, sharpening or FX.

A World War II Heavy Anti-aircraft battery P2 and associated domestic camp, including a concrete air raid shelter, at Sinah Common. Operational by 1941 when it was damaged during a heavy bombing raid on Hayling Island, which acted as a target decoy for Portsmouth. Six gun crew were killed and there is a small memorial plaque to them placed on the site.

The site was known as Sinah or P2 (Solent 2) and formed part of a chain of batteries positioned to defend the industrial and military targets of the south coast.

The battery was equipped with four 4.5-inch gun emplacements of which only emplacement number 1 remains as a well-preserved above-ground structure. Emplacement 4 has been mounded over, as has the command post, and both will survive as buried features. Emplacements 2 and 3 have been substantially altered to provide sheltered seating. Two ammunition stores are present, one on the piece of land jutting out into the lake and one adjacent to the road.

The site was also equipped with a Gun Laying (GL) MK II radar and in April 1942 was one of the first to be fitted with a paraboloid aerial replacing the ground laying mat. The radar operators were ATS volunteers making P2 one of the first mixed-sex HAA sites. The women were housed across the road in Nissen huts.

In January 1946 the battery was selected to form part of the post-war defence known as Nucleus Force and served as a battery with its guns held in readiness off-site. In 1955 the Nucleus Force programme finally ended and the site was subsequently closed.

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Interesting throughout and, especially around 1 and 4 minutes, beautiful.

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