Monument record TQ 54 SW 374 - Kentish Gun Belt Diver Battery A1

The layout of each of these mobile sites was:

Eight guns in a V-formation aligned on the primary bearing, the guns being 30 yards apart.

The command post was located on a line at right angles to the primary bearing, 30 yards from the radar, and 260 yards from the apex of the `V' of the guns. It was housed in one 36 foot by 16 foot six-bay Nissen hut, the floor of which was pre-cast concrete or hardcore.

The radar was sited 30 yards from the command post and circa 200 yards behind the guns. The gun control room was built of 9 prefabricated large trench shelter sections. This was mounted on dwarf walls, 2 feet high, constructed of brick or hollow concrete blocks or sandbags. The floor was of precast concrete or hardcore.

Units were given explicit orders not to create formal emplacements for the guns.

On July 4th the order was given to to replace all of the HAA sites in the Diver belt with 3.7-inch static 3.7-inch Mark IIC guns, and to install Radar AA No.3 Mark V, and No.10 Predictor, radars. The static guns were secured via a holdfast to makeshift prefabricated bases known as Pile platforms or matresses. These platforms consisted of a lattice of steel rails and sleepers. The holdfast was located in the centre of the Pile, and in the first stage of construction the lower frame of the holdfast was laid either upon the ground, or in the base of an excavation around 18 inches deep, and surrounded by a cruciform arrangement of railway sleepers, 20 feet x 20 feet across, one arm a single sleeper deep, the other doubled. Six railway lines were then laid across each arm. The top frame of the holdfast was secured to the lower by bolts, making the complete construction 2 feet high. The whole assembly was then filed with ballast, which formed the ground surface around the gun anchored to its holdfast.

New orders were issued on the 8th July to battery commanders to replan their static sites in view of the new equipment. The guns could be redployed in one of three configurations:

a) Where space was unrestricted, in a shallow bow whose chord was at right angles to the primary bearing, with a 30 yard spacing between guns.

B) Where space was restricted on the flanks, with six guns in a shallow bow at 30 yard spacing, the other two guns in forward positions,

c) In either a or b, but at 27 yard spacing to save space.

The visual command post was to be resited 100-150 feet behind the guns on the primary bearing, the control room nearer the guns, and the mobile radar a further 50-100 feet behind the command post, but not more than 200 feet from the control room. (1)

<1> Dobinson, C., Operation Diver : England's Defence Against the Flying Bomb, June 1944-March 1945 (Monograph). SWX23707.