British hardened field defences of World War II
British hardened field defences of World War II were small fortified structures constructed as a part of British anti-invasion preparations. They were popularly known as pillboxes, a reference to their shape.[1]
Coastal pillbox with camouflage paint scheme in July 1940
Extant pillbox at Acle, Norfolk (Grid reference TG4015310586), carefully blended with the adjacent building
Detailed instructions were given for the careful concealment of pillboxes and other field defences[100] and all pillboxes would have been camouflaged. Many were dug into the ground or inserted into a hedgerow or hillside to provide the lowest possible profile; others had soil piled up on the roof and sides. Camouflage paint schemes and camouflage netting would be used to help break up the outline.[101] Use was made of local materials: concrete made with beach sand, a covering of beach pebbles, or stone from a nearby cliff was not only a time saving measure but aided camouflage by helping the defences to merge into the background.[102]
Artists Roland Penrose (author of the Home Guard Manual of Camouflage),[103] Stanley William Hayter, Julian Trevelyan and many others were employed to conceal defences.[104] In built-up areas, pillboxes were disguised to look like a part of an adjacent building, carefully matched and provided with a roof to look as if they had always been there. In extreme cases, they were built inside existing buildings.
Some pillboxes were carefully constructed to resemble a quite different, innocent, structure: a haystack, a disused cottage, seaside kiosk, bus-stop shelter or railway signal box. It was not uncommon for pillboxes to be fitted with a dummy pitched roof to aid the deception.[105][106] Some of these disguises bordered on the fanciful.[107][108]
In some cases, the reinforced concrete roof was sculpted to make the distinctive form of a pillbox less obvious from the air.
Along part of the Taunton stopline in Somerset, due to the shortage of material available, six pillboxes were coated with a mixture of cow manure and mud topped with straw as a form of natural concealment. Close to Axminster, a square pillbox was disguised as a Romany caravan. During the summer months, a scarecrow "family" and a horse made of straw were dressed and suitably arranged around the caravan to visually disguise the fact that it was actually a manned pillbox.
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54°0′13.176″N 2°32′52.28″W / 54.00366000°N 2.5478556°W Centre of Great Britain