Monument record TQ 87 NW 1021 - Diver Box Light Anti Aircraft (Diver) Battery D5

Feature that appears to be an abandoned Anti Aircraft battery. Photographs (1,2). Area is now grazing marsh. No visible remains of this feature in 2005 (3)

The site of a Second World War light anti-aircraft -LAA (Diver) battery in the Diver Box at Allhallows Marshes. It was armed with four 40mm guns and sixteen 20mm guns when it was deployed here 28th August 1944, and was manned by 2852 RAF Regiment. (4)
The faint traces of the Second World War light anti-aircraft battery described above were seen centred at TQ 8472 7835 within Allhallows Marshes immediately to the east of Allhallows-on-Sea. The site was seen on RAF aerial photographs taken in May 1947, appearing as curving support road which branches off and then returns to an E-W aligned track which extends into the marshes from Allhallows-on-Sea. The road curves around a building (probably the command post and magazine. The outlines where four guns stood could be seen arranged in a NNW-SSE line along the outer NE edge of the service road. A second line of four further gun emplacements could be seen SW of these, two on either side of the track out of Allhallows. The locations of further guns and or buildings were also noted on either side of this track as continued out into the marsh. The site as seen on aerial photographs taken in May 1946 appeared as pale patches, possibly the traces of recently removed temporary structures and sandbagged emplacements. This site was mapped from these 1946 RAF aerial photographs as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. (5)

<1> 2000, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX10249.

<2> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9480.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2005, North Kent Coast Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey: Phase ll: Field Assessment Year Two Report (Unpublished document). SWX12323.

<4> Dobinson, C., Operation Diver : England's Defence Against the Flying Bomb, June 1944-March 1945 (Monograph). SWX23707.

<5> RAF, 1946, NMR RAF/106G/UK/1444 3012 01-MAY-1946 (Photograph). SKE55870.