Conserving ‘Powerful Symbol’ of Nazi Invasion Threat
By Paul Tritton
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Conservation of the Second World War pillbox revealed during building work at Tonbridge School (see KAS Newsletter 108, Spring 2018) is progressing. Acting on guidelines proposed by Victor Smith, chairman of our Kent Historic Defences Committee, the school’s estates department has carefully removed the dense foliage and undergrowth that had concealed the structure for most of the years that have passed since the end of the war. Victor is preparing a survey and a set of 1:20 scale architectural plans, elevations and cross-section drawings of the pillbox for the school’s archives, and publication in Archaeologia Cantiana, the KAS Newsletter and other journals, along with an in-depth case study of Tonbridge’s anti- invasion defences by Paul Tritton.
The pillbox, part of the town’s defences against a Nazi invasion, is now in a landscaped setting and although it cannot be visited without permission, it is on prominent view to passers-by. An information panel and plaque will commemorate its importance to Tonbridge’s military history. The pillbox is in remarkably good condition and stands in the shadow of the new Barton Science Centre, opened in March, where pupils will design an experiment to be carried out on the International Space Station and where an international student science conference and other major educational events will be held.
During the centre’s two-year construction programme the brick and reinforced concrete pillbox remained stable despite adjacent deep piling work and movements of heavy construction plant. “It’s bubble-level and vertical and shows no sign of having been dislodged or tipped,” said Victor. “There’s some damage to the machine- gun firing apertures, but the walls are largely intact. Iron hooks that secured camouflage netting to the roof have also survived. I have advised making only minimal repairs to prevent decay. Retaining the structure’s original appearance is essential. It is a powerful symbol of the danger of invasion we faced in the Second World War.”
Built in 1940 or 1941, the pillbox is
3.16m long, 2.21m wide and 1.5m tall overall and barely large enough to protect three Home Guard machine-gunners, firing through apertures aligned towards the High Street and the ‘Big Bridge’ over the
Medway (the direction from which an enemy advance through Tonbridge would most likely have occurred); Portman Park to the east, and the High Street’s junction with London Road and Shipbourne Road.
It would have been essential to defend this crossroads at all costs, in order to prevent German Panzer columns from pressing on towards London and north Kent’s military establishments and industrial towns. The pillbox appears to be a rare design. Six basic types were designed by the War Office, to be constructed quickly and capable of withstanding bullet and shell fire, but it appears that nothing similar to Tonbridge School’s pillbox has been recorded in Kent. “The design is clearly a non-standard one,” said Victor Smith, “but there were various individual designs up and down the country.” “Perhaps this one was tailored to suit its position and complement other defences deployed nearby,” added Paul.
Tonbridge was strongly fortified because it would have been a key inland objective after a successful German landing on the south Kent or East Sussex coasts. Many of the hundreds of pillboxes built in Kent
Top
Field Marshal Ironside’s memorial at Tonbridge School
Bottom
Field Marshal William Edmund Ironside
In 18 astonishing months, from June 1940, an estimated 10,000 to 18,000 pillboxes were built along a meandering 500-mile stop-line, from Bristol in the south- west, across southern England to Maidstone, and from there to the Thames. From Essex, it continued to Cambridge, then on to The Wash and North Yorkshire. It was officially called the GHQ (General
Tonbridge was one of Kent’s six ‘Category A’ nodal points, under orders to ‘hold firm indefinitely’ and fight to the last man and the last round. During 1941 it was upgraded to a ‘fortress town’, with augmented defences within a three-mile outer perimeter of anti- tank ditches and tank-traps. The strongest area in the fortress was the castle and its immediate vicinity, where new fortifications were built for the first time since the castle’s twin-towered gatehouse was completed nearly 700 years earlier.
General Bernard Paget, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of South-Eastern Command, issued this order to his garrisons at Tonbridge and other ‘nodal points’ and fortress towns: “There will be no withdrawal in any circumstances, and all ranks must be determined that every German who succeeds in setting foot in this country shall be killed.”
Right, top
Tonbridge School’s pillbox, awaiting conservation in December 2018, showing its entrance. ©Tonbridge School
Right, bottom
Victor Smith and Sara Normand (Tonbridge School’s PA Operations Assistant) at the pillbox in January 2019 the one at Tonbridge School is the last to survive in the town.
Second World War pillboxes are of particular significance to
Headquarters) Line, but history remembers it as the Ironside Line, after the man who directed the first phases of its construction.
In Kent, it followed the Eden and
MEMBERSHIP MATTERS
Tonbridge School because one of its distinguished alumni, General William Edmund Ironside, was responsible for building the Ironside Line, a stop- line of static defences (pillboxes, tank-traps, road-blocks and other obstacles) hastily erected during the national emergency Britain faced after Dunkirk, when a Nazi invasion seemed imminent and inevitable.
Formerly Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), Ironside was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, in May 1940, shortly before the last survivors of Dunkirk arrived home. More than 68,000 of the British Expeditionary Force’s soldiers had been killed, wounded or captured and most of its motor transport, along with more than
600 tanks and nearly 2,000 artillery pieces, abandoned in France. With a defeated army and shortages of manpower and mobile weapons to contend with, Ironside argued that until the Army could be brought up to full, fighting-fit, efficiency, defence against invasion would rely on static defences mainly manned by a volunteer force, the Home Guard.
Medway rivers which, widened and deepened where necessary, formed a ready-made anti-tank ditch.
Ironside’s policy had many critics, notably a rising star in the military firmament by the name of Major- General Bernard Montgomery, CO of Southern Command’s 3rd Infantry Division, who persuaded Winston Churchill to allow him to move his now battle-ready troops from their static positions and operate as a mobile reserve.
‘Monty’ was backed by Lieutenant- General Alan Brooke, Southern Command’s General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, who begrudged the time and effort expended on static defences and demanded stronger investment in mobile forces. He was particularly distrustful of road- blocks, considering them as likely to impede his forces during a counter-attack as much as they would hamper the enemy.
Ironside’s critics prevailed. After only 54 days in office, he was ‘retired’ with the rank of Field-Marshall and a peerage. Brooke succeeded him as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces. Nevertheless, construction of the GHQ Line continued, while Brooke implemented his ideas, including creating heavily fortified ‘nodal points’ (aka anti-tank islands) at towns and villages on critical road and rail junctions, which an invading army would be forced to capture before advancing to London.
Top, left
Ironside inspecting Tonbridge School’s Cadet Force in 1925.
®Tonbridge School (2)
Top, right
One of the machine-gun firing apertures revealed during Victor Smith’s survey, with a field of fire extending down Tonbridge High Street towards the ‘Big Bridge’ Middle
The Big Bridge today
Bottom
Three massive tank-traps on a road-block on Big Bridge over the Medway at Tonbridge in WW2
I am delighted to welcome the following who have joined the KAS since the previous newsletter.
Many apologies if I have omitted anyone!