New research sheds light on forgotten WWII decoy sites
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In the first detailed examination of its kind, Professor Peter Doyle and researchers at Keele University have uncovered the history of forgotten WWII decoy sites in Staffordshire.
Exterior of a bunker with a blast wall
During the Second World War, a complex deception strategy was used to trick Luftwaffe pilots into dropping their bombs on open countryside, rather than populated areas or key industrial sites. Brave crews operated these fake airfields and factories with artificial lighting from bunkers, actively trying to attract raiders to drop bombs on the decoy sites and making them look as if they had been the target of previous bombing raids. The decoy sites acted to both deceive German pilots into thinking that they had hit their intended targets but also to encourage other enemy raiders to add further destruction to the decoy site, rather than the real target.
The researchers investigated the remains of three decoy sites in North Staffordshire, which were built to divert bombers from target industrial sites in Stoke-on-Trent and the surrounding area. Using drones, ground-based LiDAR, geophysical datasets and 360-degree camera imagery, they digitally studied the sites and captured images to preserve them for future generations. Their findings have been published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology, and covered by the BBC.
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Digital images of a control shelter created from UAV aerial photographs and LiDAR scans
Well-preserved, brick-built control bunkers remain at two of the sites. Each would have had two rooms, one for the generators powering the sites, and one equipped with a telephone, bunks for the crew, and an escape hatch. The researchers found expansion chambers that were intended to protect the crew from the bombs that they were trying to attract. The sites also offer evidence of wartime brick companies, with bricks discovered with the label PB Co Ltd (Potteries Brick Company) and stamped with a V for victory to show they were produced as part of the war effort.
The ingenuity of these defences shows how the British responded intelligently to the threat of all-out attack by the Luftwaffe as it shifted its attacks away from airfields to major industrial areas and cities.
Professor Peter Doyle, Lecturer in Military History
The three examined sites were all initially ‘Special Fire’ sites, nicknamed Starfish. Crews at the decoy sites would have used lighting effects to simulate industrial activity such as factory lights, locomotive glows and moving vehicles, and make it look like targets had already been hit using controlled fires.
An escape hatch forming a part of the decoy site
Dr Kris Wisniewski, lecturer in Forensic Science at Keele University, said: “This ground-breaking research is the first detailed examination of the surviving remains of permanent Starfish decoy sites that were intended, through the use of controlled fires and lighting, to deceive the German Luftwaffe into dropping their bombs on to relatively uninhabited areas, in woodland and in the countryside, away from their intended targets.”
Professor Peter Doyle, Lecturer in Military History, said: “Just as had happened in World War One, the theory was that the fires on the decoy sites would be started after a first wave of bombers had attacked their target, hoping that the following waves of bombers would be drawn to the decoy site to carry out their attacks. Luftwaffe prisoners had indicated they were under orders to add further incendiaries to any fires they saw alight.
“Examining surviving sites like this with this level of detail provides a real opportunity to consider the complexity and intensity of the defence of Britain at this more crucial period in our history.”
Escape hatch and remains of a ladder
Dr Jamie Pringle, Reader in Forensic Geoscience at Keele University, said: “Many of these hurriedly made decoy sites still remain today in various states of preservation but they have been largely overlooked and forgotten about since the end of the war.
“The discovery of the expansion chamber foundations shows how, even in such desperate times, site designers were still aware of how dangerous these decoy sites were for the crews manning them and tried to give them a better chance of surviving concussions from nearby bomb blasts which they were actively hoping to attract.”