Monument record TQ 87 NW 1273 - Diver Box Light Anti Aircraft (Diver) Battery D11

Site of a Second World War light anti aircraft (LAA) (Diver) battery in the Diver Box at St Marys Marshes. It was armed with four 40mm guns and sixteen 20mm guns when it was deployed here 13th August 1944, and was manned by 2753 RAF Regiment. (1)
No trace of the LAA Diver battery described by the previous authority could be seen at the given location when the area was surveyed from aerial photographs and lidar imagery as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. However, RAF vertical photographs taken in May 1946 showed the faint traces of a line of small rectilinear marks along the field boundary (centred at TQ 8018 7813 immediately to the north of the location given by authority (1) above. This may be the actual location, or the location of an ancillary part of the the site. These features appeared as a N-S aligned series of 14 square marks c.3.3m x 3.3m with a slightly larger rectilinear mark c.4.8m x 3.7m within this line separating each group of 7. Immediately to the east of, and running parallel, to these marks are 11 further smaller rectilinear marks approximately 2.3m x 2.3m. The marks give the appearance of a light structure resting at each position, but all strucural remains having been cleared away. (2)

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

<2> RAF, 1946, NMR RAF/106G.UK/1447 1058 01-MAY-1946 (Photograph). SKE58788.