Monument record TQ 87 SW 1261 - Diver Box Diver Battery Ts33

Site of a Second World War heavy anti aircraft (Diver) Battery in the Diver Box near Tunbridge Farm. It was armed with eight 3.7-inch Mark IIc guns, and manned by 115 Anti Aircraft Artillery Regiment. It was redeployed to TQ839 765 on 8th August 1944. It formed part of 28 Anti Aircraft Artillery Brigade.(1)

The previous authority positioned this battery at TQ 802 741. No trace of this Second World War Heavy Anti-Aircraft battery can be seen on aerial photographs taken in 1946. This battery is likely to have been a mobile one, or if static, the guns would have been mounted not in concrete but in a portable mattress constructed of interlocking railway sleepers and rails known as a Pile Platform. This battery formed part of the Diver Box created in July 1944. The Diver Box was one of 5 gun zones created between June 1944 and March 1945 to combat the V1 flying bomb. Whatever form this battery took it was only at this location for a short time before its move 4.5km to the north-east in August 1944. Evidence of this battery in its new location is visible on aerial photographs and is recorded in NMR 1478233. Photographs of this area were consulted as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project.(2)

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

<2> RAF, 1946, RAF 106G/UK/1702 3055-3056 27-AUG-1946 (Photograph). SKE58782.

<3> Dobinson, C., 2001, AA Command:Britain's Anti-Aircraft Defences of the Second World War (Bibliographic reference). SKE56093.