The pillboxes were part of an integrated defence system which included tank traps, waterways and ditches, and minefields. Usually the pillboxes are the only visible surviving parts of the system, so they are often derided on the basis that German invaders would just have gone round them, or even that they 'faced the wrong way'. But as Matt points out, their main function was as observation posts, and they would have spotted targets for indirect artillery or mortar fire. We will never know how effective they would have been against a full-scale invasion, but it is worth noting that with a few apocryphal exceptions the Germans never attempted coastal or airborne commando raids on mainland Britain.
Britain has a long and proud tradition of feeling very paranoid about an invasion from the continent. Every era had its scares be it a French, Spanish or even a German invasion. That's why you can still find forts, castles, Martello towers, artillery towers, coastal batteries, bunkers, flak towers and a bunch of long forgotten, but never rescinded local acts to set up militia and provide troops to guard the coast during such invasion scares.
Is it really paranoia if you have historical examples of invasion of foreigners and usurpers backed by foreigners? Yeah we can look back with historical hindsight and say that Napoleon was probably the last credible threat of invasion, at least before Trafalgar. But they didn't know that, and all those defensive structures are what made invasion less likely as time went by.
There is a very good documentary series by Dan Cruikshank that highlights this strange fear/fascination the British have had of a foreign invasion and the many scares they had over the years, and even some successful invasions like the Spanish in Cornwall, Barbary pirates in Ireland, the Dutch raid on the Medway, the Glorious Revolution etc ...
the whole Britain Islands have long history of invasions, so i wouldn't call the british that much paranoid yes the Germans, the French and the Spanish failed, but not the Normans, the Danish, the Vikings, the Anglosaxon and the Romans
For Matt's upcoming series "how to make Lindybeige green with envy". Tune in next week when he does a Lindy Hop on the main gun of a Vickers MBT while drinking a nice cup of tea.
Just saw a video where Skallagrim made some "butt" puns, and now Matt Easton just did some WW2 history. I expect that Lindy's next video will be scrutinizing the practicality of fantasy weapons to complete the cycle.
I suspect it is something to do with profligate number and quite unnecessary use of roundabouts. Or, we wanted to protect our future cultural heritage of the Wote St Willy from being taken as a war treasure.
When I was in the US Army 1988, I lived in a concrete bunker on the border with East Germany. Crash doors, kick out panels and I rode the bulletproof towers! Set and watched a lot of big ass rabbits chase each other!
Reminds me of a funny story. Close to my home in Belgium (Antwerp area) they were going to construct some flats so they needed to destroy a communications bunkers at the site. So they contacted a firm with some heavy machinery, they tried to use some heavy drills mounted on a crane-like structure. And well they went through the concrete for some decimeters, didn't really achieve something, they mostly achieved in destroying their own drills. If I remember correctly, some 5 drills were broken trying to drill through the concrete! Appearantly the construction workers had to stop drilling because cracks started to appear in neighbouring houses... Nice example of German gründlichkeit if you ask me! (Article in the papers about it: www.hln.be/regio/wommelgem/duitse-bunker-onverwoestbaar~a99aa354/ it's in Dutch though)
After World War 2 the city goverment of Hamburg in Germany tried to demolish the Hochbunker at the Heiligengeistfeld in St. Pauli. It was determined that the amount of explosives needed to bring down the bunker would do massive damage to the surrounding areas, so the demolition was cancelled. Nowadays the bunker houses clubs, music studios and offices.
Absolutely. The German submarine pens at St. Nazaire still exist for that very reason. The French wanted to demolish them after the war, but they're so sturdily constructed that it would cost a fortune to tear them down...
Pretty cool Matt. Being from the States I had no idea that pillboxes were littered about the English country side. However I shouldn’t be surprised. The war was very close.
I visited the Netherlands in the early 80's. My father's family has roots there. One of the things that disappointed my 12 or 13 year old self was that I never got to visit one of the many bunkers that I saw in the distance as I traveled. I grew up in a house where WWII was still a very real presence. I knew about spitfires, hurricanes and bf 109's from my uncles, who though young and in Canada took a great interest in the war. These bunkers were places of that held an exciting, solemn, mournful, even terrible mystery that excited my curiosity. They represented something important that I really wanted to understand. And I still do. Thanks to Matt, Lloyd, Indy, Ian, Nicholas and many, many others (including TH-cam) I have been able to do that in ways I never could have as a 13 year old. I'm really grateful for that.
Cool that you show the whole range of "fortifications"! This brings me to the quation: What are your thoughts about hand to hand combat in the trenches of WWI?
My dad helped setup the first fish cannery on the kamchatka peninsula(russia) back in the late 1990s. During one of his days off he was shown around by some officials and went to the beach and they had a lot of pillboxes all up and down the beach( on the heights overlooking them). He took a bunch of pictures of that and all sorts of other things but his cameras were confiscated and the film stripped out before he came home. He said the guide told him that they were built to help repel an american invasion force coming from alaska or japan.
An additional note on the historical importance of these places: in the days before the internet, they were, for generations of teenage boys, a reliable source of discarded mucky books, if you could brave the smell of piss to go inside and recover them.
Spikey DaPikey: Me Too in Edenbridge, Kent. One each side of the river Eden and one built into the wall of the Grange in the Village. The one in the Grange had it's door bricked up but you could see boxes and stuff through the slits. My mate and I spent over a week removing enough bricks (this was in the 1950s) to get inside, we were able to open some of the boxes and found lots of good stuff. Binoculars, the pair I nicked and still have dated 1943. Loads of .303 ammo which allowed my friends and family to shoot free of charge for many years, I've still got quite a lot of that too, though I brought it with me when I moved to Vancouver in the 70s. And, very oddly for a pill box, several crates of 20mm cannon shells. I only kept a few of those, shells not boxes, and have them still. I was only a kid and didn't get to see everything but have treasured the memory for many years. Cheers.
There are a lot of structures from WW2 in my country because 5 major armies fought here. My county is filled with dug in pillboxes, underground artillery stations, stone walls with firing openings, AA stations on higher hills, submarine and ship dug in bunkers, observation posts... Everything is abandoned but still operable.
Hi Matt, as you're just up the road. I recommend taking a stroll a long the Basingstoke or Kennet and Avon canals. You'll see a number of pill boxes as well as anti tank dragons teeth, but also a number of fortified houses and two storey pill boxes. The best one to see is on the Kennet and Avon canal near Reading, about 200m from the Cunning Man Pub. I believe it can be googled as Burghfield Fortified building, it was part of the General Head Quarters(GHQ) Line - Blue.
My great grandfather was in the WW2 in fighting in Germany, he was in war during d-day, he also had to cross a river with pillboxes and other things.He was the 28th Division in WW2.
I have always had a fascination for Pill boxes. There are a great many in Essex and some of them you are able to access. I always think they bring home what the real imminent threat of invasion people lived with.
There's a few where I live, plus machine gun emplacements on the sea wall. My grandfather was in home guard and patrolled the promenade etc. Good upload. Thanks
There is a very similar WWII concrete bunker to that near where I live. I am reliably informed that [the bunker near me] was constructed for locally sited elements of the Royal Observer Corps and was part of a country-wide network of observation sites that provided early warning of enemy bombers during the period that radar was getting up and running, or possibly kept on as a 'fall back' option if RADAR ever became ineffective.
There are a couple at Box Hill in Surrey which I used to 'play soldiers' in as a child. There used to be some dragons teeth in the river there as well but it looks like they were removed when we last visited.
Thanks for sharing! I kind of wish someone would get permission from the owner to show us the inside. In any case, I remember getting to see the fortifications at Pointe du Hoc, and it was an amazing experience. If you come across other such things in your travels, I would love to see more content like this.
Lots of places here ( south east Scotland) from Home guard Auxiliary unit and regular army and air force defences. Been to some further north as well and down in Sommerset.
I liked your reference to Lindybeige. When I first saw the thumbnail and the title, I thought that I was clicking on one of his videos. I wonder whether people ever stood on top of the pillboxes to keep watch. On a nice day, the top would be more pleasant than inside, and standing on top would give one a slightly better view. The structure looked strong enough that one could even put a step ladder on the top and get that much higher to see the countryside and look for something that wasn't right. As long as the shooting hadn't started, being on top wouldn't be dangerous.
I love coming across random WW2 pillboxes - sometimes on beaches (eg the one at the east end of Sandend on the north Scottish coast) where they might have been some use against German invaders. But tons of them are on small roads in the middle of nowhere. There appears to be the remains of one beside my local Virgin Active.
The pillbox in this video is located here :) www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.1063148,-1.7742322,3a,75y,1.65h,70.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfzYkePYmcpIuVKlnwE3haQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Interesting video and location. The vast majority of pillboxes were built in 1940 and were intended to be fought from in the event of invasion. I totally agree with your point that they are archeology and it was good that you did what most people fail to do and placed it in its geographical/topographical and military context. The door is nearly always at the rear so we can deduce the anticipated direction of attack. Goethe or someone said architecture is frozen music and I always hear the following words when I see a pillbox. "we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"
There are still some old coastal artillery emplacements still around here and there in the US, nothing like pillboxes in Britain but we have them. Most of them are not preserved and/or off limits but I think that there are a few that can still be visited safely. There's also some places where you can still see the remnants of these artillery emplacements, there's a beach in Southern California where the rings of concrete that the guns actually stood on still remain, even if there's little else remaining of the gun emplacements that were there. Still, it's kind of cool to see and adds extra interest when walking along the trail overlooking the ocean.
Until a few years ago there was a pillbox hidden in the middle of Brighton beach. Sadly this was demolished to make way for a giant towering eyesore for tourists to ride called the i360, courtesy of British Airways.
There's a sequence of them near me along the old Cambridge road , I don't know if Matt visits the auction rooms at Stansted Mountfitchet but there's one right by there and more along the road by the Chesterfords and a particularly incongruous one stuck on the Lawn/cricket pitch at Audley End Stately home (which was the HQ of the Polish section of the SOE during the War).
That area is littered with them probably in part due to the number of airfields that the RAF operated from. I live in Saffron Walden spent my childhood exploring them
I love this kind of thing! I find history fascinating. Coming from Texas we have our own history, but it's nothing compared to things like this. I wish the Wallace Collection was just a short drive away!
Not a lot left as far as I know, but we do have remnants of coastal artillery batteries. One of these days I've been meaning to go see some of the old batteries around San Francisco. There's also a preserved Nike surface to air missile base across the Golden Gate with inert missiles and such on display. www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm
Actually there are a few left. USA never build much because defending the American coast is quite a different story... They mainly used mobile observation/ patrol teams sometimes on horses (Must be a f*cking awesome job, riding up and down the coast on a horse, M1903 springfield on the saddle.) On some very tempting (for the Japanese mostly) invasion points or oil refineries close to shore they build permanent, concrete observation points and some concrete shelters. Coastal gun installations were used, but the USA mostly (and wisely) relied on air cover for protection against amphibious attacks. More inland were the bases, from which heavier units could be deployed if needed.
Yes, they dot the south shore of Long Island from the city all the way to Montauk. You can still stand on the remnants on the beaches of the far Rockaways, near Floyd Bennet Field. They are a lot smaller than the artillery bunker facility at Camp Hero in Montauk, and by all appearances, look very similar to these pill boxes. (When we were kids we didn't have the nerve to even try to peek inside the remains, they looked very crypt-like and you know, rats). Didn't stop the Nazis from landing via u boat out here in the Hamptons tho! Damn those Nazis!
Jake Norman In the USA Jersey is the best place to view a Guido. You can usually track them by looking for 1980s Camaro's or any store that sells gold chains.
If you like plains, you should visit the Prairies in Canada. Some parts have rolling hills but some are so flat you can see for miles. USA also has the same thing but called the Great Plains. If you have ever seen the film Dances With Wolves, it looks like the landscapes from that.
Do a trip to the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh - WWII fortifications, Napoleonic Martello towers (you can stay in one apparently) and one of the places where radar was developed (Orford Ness)... And very flat, bleak countryside. With a moor nature reserve thing. And a nice shingle beach, with a beach-launched fishing fleet. Also the area is littered with other historical buildings, Aldeburgh has a 16th century moot hall, there's Framlingham castle and a ruined abbey at Leiston. Plus a large number of interesting churches.
you should visit western Czech republic (especialy former Sudetenland), there were a lot of bunkers built there to stop the Germans. Obviously they weren't of any use after Munich agreement, but they are still standing
Nice to see you do something on recent history. In the U.S. we still have some remaining on our west coast built in fear of a Japanese invasion. Thanks. Very interesting.
I've noticed the editing and its a welcome addition, and I don't mean to give offense, but the audio can be jarring at times. Try leaving just a little bit of audio from the 1st clip and cut a bit of audio from the 2nd when stitching your cuts. I'm no expert, on either swords or editing, but i seem to really enjoy watching you tangle with both. Cheers!
You raise a good point by referring to them as "observation posts". My opinion has always been that they would be short lived in an invasion. Even sustained machine gun fire would likely have chipped big holes in the brickwork/concrete. I am also often puzzled by their isolated locations, apparently not protected by other positions. I have read that most were practically abandoned after the Battle of Britain was won. Many of those built in 1939/1940 were abandoned earlier as they were built under the outdated WW1 concept of creating "stop lines". After the German army walked around France's greatest stop line the British concentrated on "hedgehog defences"around air fields and strategic points. At most these pill boxes would have slowed the enemy down and provided some information regarding enemy strength and movements for the mobile troops to counter attack. However, I conclude that any last stand in a pill box would have been exactly that; a last stand! They may also have had some morale value to the locals. Maybe I am being cynical so I would love to hear your comments....
Very cool video, I didn't know about these pillbox thingies in the UK. Being from Germany, well there's some kind of WW bunker or structure around almost every corner ;), anyway, love these 'different' kind of videos of late. Cheers!
Jesus. This video sent me on such a wild tangent. I was like "Huh. Gee I wonder what the last mainland invasion of my country was." *spends next 30 minutes learning about Aleutian islands campaign, Canadian invasion strategy, German Empire's proposed plan of attacking West Virginia, and the Zimmerman Telegram. It's hard to think of places like the UK and US being invaded but the prospect (ignoring how horrific it would be) is pretty fascinating.
It appears that that particular pill box may have been intended for use as part of a traffic control point in addition to more general observation of the area. Barriers would have been placed in the road to slow or stop traffic so the vehicles and their occupants could be inspected as they pass. This can help counter the threat of small numbers of infiltrating military forces or spies. It would only be a minor obstacle for a large military force but better than nothing.
Feeling more comfortable when being able to see long distances is very natural. The reason is exactly the one you mention, being able to see threats a long way off is a huge advantage, and one that has probably been selected for. The guy who liked to relax in the bushes and couldn't see the lion coming was probably.... snacked out of the gene pool...
Hatman39 It probably is selected for if you are a leader, or in power. Raiders would be more inclined to prefer hiding spots I imagine. Perhaps a case of socially driven evolution.
Whenever I drive over a WWII antitank barrier hidden in the streets (there's one between here and the next village, steel posts under lids in the street) I think about history.
When I clicked, I thought I was getting a Lloyd video (obviously I wasn't paying close attention), was pleasantly surprised I got a Matt instead (nothing against Lloyd, whom I also like)
Hello my name is Alistair Young. I am creating my second educational remembrance video for young people teaching them about why it is so important for them to respect and remember their past and our history. Please can I use some of this footage in my video to help teach about the importance of pillboxes? I will credit you of course. Thanks so much
Did the video get demonetized yet for showing us how to build terrorist cell headquarter entrenchments, to spread terror onto the local populus? Basically supporting terrorism, guns bombs and all other stuff?
"I just love Salisbury Plain" there speaks a man who has never had to dig a bloody slit trench on the place! I love pillboxes though, in fact any fortification. We have a unique design built by the Royal Marines just down the road, although why the bootnecks thought they needed to build a small pillbox right next to a socking great brick and earth "bombproof" Victorian artillery fort is beyond me!
"Wiltshire I am in you!" oo errr young man!
The pillboxes were part of an integrated defence system which included tank traps, waterways and ditches, and minefields. Usually the pillboxes are the only visible surviving parts of the system, so they are often derided on the basis that German invaders would just have gone round them, or even that they 'faced the wrong way'. But as Matt points out, their main function was as observation posts, and they would have spotted targets for indirect artillery or mortar fire. We will never know how effective they would have been against a full-scale invasion, but it is worth noting that with a few apocryphal exceptions the Germans never attempted coastal or airborne commando raids on mainland Britain.
Good point.
Britain has a long and proud tradition of feeling very paranoid about an invasion from the continent. Every era had its scares be it a French, Spanish or even a German invasion. That's why you can still find forts, castles, Martello towers, artillery towers, coastal batteries, bunkers, flak towers and a bunch of long forgotten, but never rescinded local acts to set up militia and provide troops to guard the coast during such invasion scares.
Is it really paranoia if you have historical examples of invasion of foreigners and usurpers backed by foreigners? Yeah we can look back with historical hindsight and say that Napoleon was probably the last credible threat of invasion, at least before Trafalgar. But they didn't know that, and all those defensive structures are what made invasion less likely as time went by.
There is a very good documentary series by Dan Cruikshank that highlights this strange fear/fascination the British have had of a foreign invasion and the many scares they had over the years, and even some successful invasions like the Spanish in Cornwall, Barbary pirates in Ireland, the Dutch raid on the Medway, the Glorious Revolution etc ...
the whole Britain Islands have long history of invasions, so i wouldn't call the british that much paranoid
yes the Germans, the French and the Spanish failed, but not the Normans, the Danish, the Vikings, the Anglosaxon and the Romans
Fabio Varrà To be fair, most of Western Europe had been invaded and occupied by the Romans at one point in their history or another.
What can we say. The '15 and the '45 cast a long shadow.
Mr Matt, why are you late for the work again?
Well, umm... I saw that one pillpox near the road...
scholalindybeigeatoria
Forgotten skallascholametalindybeigeatrontoriagrim bloke 45
Matt is like Lindy without all the speculation and bullshit.
For Matt's upcoming series "how to make Lindybeige green with envy".
Tune in next week when he does a Lindy Hop on the main gun of a Vickers MBT while drinking a nice cup of tea.
Yes. Like the Chichester video, just like a documentary without all the filler. This content is fantastic.
Just saw a video where Skallagrim made some "butt" puns, and now Matt Easton just did some WW2 history. I expect that Lindy's next video will be scrutinizing the practicality of fantasy weapons to complete the cycle.
I heard that pillboxes could at times be very neat inside, with seperate compartments for each day of the week.
it is important to be prepared for war and try our best to avoid it.
"can you guess what i found?" well yea you put it in the vid name after all.
It could be one on many different types.
"Anyway, I won't ramble..."
**rambles for another minute**
XD
Rambling intensifies.
You were rambling while rambling. And I'm sure I could hear a brambling.
I can guess from the title, Matt.
Glad it's not just me who got vexed by that one. ;-)
I couldn't really title a video "Mystery surprise video" could I? ;-)
"I am in you"- Matt Easton 2017
Basingstoke has concrete tank traps. Why zee Germans would want to send tanks to Basingstoke is not really known.
It's on the road from Southampton to London and probably an obvious area to hold up the enemy.
Are you sure that wasn't an attempt to keep the people of Basingstoke from escaping?
Strafbataillone?
I suspect it is something to do with profligate number and quite unnecessary use of roundabouts. Or, we wanted to protect our future cultural heritage of the Wote St Willy from being taken as a war treasure.
... AND the great viewing public gently insist that should any TH-cam celebrity be on Salisbury Plain in the future we want a video of Woodhenge!!!
When I was in the US Army 1988, I lived in a concrete bunker on the border with East Germany. Crash doors, kick out panels and I rode the bulletproof towers! Set and watched a lot of big ass rabbits chase each other!
Reminds me of a funny story. Close to my home in Belgium (Antwerp area) they were going to construct some flats so they needed to destroy a communications bunkers at the site. So they contacted a firm with some heavy machinery, they tried to use some heavy drills mounted on a crane-like structure. And well they went through the concrete for some decimeters, didn't really achieve something, they mostly achieved in destroying their own drills. If I remember correctly, some 5 drills were broken trying to drill through the concrete! Appearantly the construction workers had to stop drilling because cracks started to appear in neighbouring houses... Nice example of German gründlichkeit if you ask me! (Article in the papers about it: www.hln.be/regio/wommelgem/duitse-bunker-onverwoestbaar~a99aa354/ it's in Dutch though)
After World War 2 the city goverment of Hamburg in Germany tried to demolish the Hochbunker at the Heiligengeistfeld in St. Pauli. It was determined that the amount of explosives needed to bring down the bunker would do massive damage to the surrounding areas, so the demolition was cancelled. Nowadays the bunker houses clubs, music studios and offices.
Absolutely. The German submarine pens at St. Nazaire still exist for that very reason. The French wanted to demolish them after the war, but they're so sturdily constructed that it would cost a fortune to tear them down...
Pieter Vaneynde Best idea gonna be, use that bunker as new flat's basement...
I believe the French use them themselves now...
+Ruben de Jong - I believe they do, yes.
Pretty cool Matt. Being from the States I had no idea that pillboxes were littered about the English country side. However I shouldn’t be surprised. The war was very close.
they are often found around ww1 and ww2 airfields smelling like toilets with ancient newspapers in them
look up the TIME TEAM episode on SHooters hill for camoflaged emplacements in London
Not just England, we have them all along the east coast, as well as inland, in Scotland as well. I don't know about other parts of Britain, though.
Many of these are here in Czech Republic. Especially around borders.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_border_fortifications
getting out to show us 'history in the field' so to speak is a super awesome idea for future videos
I visited the Netherlands in the early 80's. My father's family has roots there. One of the things that disappointed my 12 or 13 year old self was that I never got to visit one of the many bunkers that I saw in the distance as I traveled. I grew up in a house where WWII was still a very real presence. I knew about spitfires, hurricanes and bf 109's from my uncles, who though young and in Canada took a great interest in the war. These bunkers were places of that held an exciting, solemn, mournful, even terrible mystery that excited my curiosity. They represented something important that I really wanted to understand. And I still do. Thanks to Matt, Lloyd, Indy, Ian, Nicholas and many, many others (including TH-cam) I have been able to do that in ways I never could have as a 13 year old. I'm really grateful for that.
When I read the Title I first thought it was one of Lindybeighs Videos
Same!
Cool that you show the whole range of "fortifications"!
This brings me to the quation:
What are your thoughts about hand to hand combat in the trenches of WWI?
Julian Fitz don't use a bayonet
My dad helped setup the first fish cannery on the kamchatka peninsula(russia) back in the late 1990s. During one of his days off he was shown around by some officials and went to the beach and they had a lot of pillboxes all up and down the beach( on the heights overlooking them). He took a bunch of pictures of that and all sorts of other things but his cameras were confiscated and the film stripped out before he came home.
He said the guide told him that they were built to help repel an american invasion force coming from alaska or japan.
An additional note on the historical importance of these places: in the days before the internet, they were, for generations of teenage boys, a reliable source of discarded mucky books, if you could brave the smell of piss to go inside and recover them.
I used to play in an old pill box along side the Coventry canal when I was a kid.
Spikey DaPikey: Me Too in Edenbridge, Kent. One each side of the river Eden and one built into the wall of the Grange in the Village. The one in the Grange had it's door bricked up but you could see boxes and stuff through the slits. My mate and I spent over a week removing enough bricks (this was in the 1950s) to get inside, we were able to open some of the boxes and found lots of good stuff. Binoculars, the pair I nicked and still have dated 1943. Loads of .303 ammo which allowed my friends and family to shoot free of charge for many years, I've still got quite a lot of that too, though I brought it with me when I moved to Vancouver in the 70s. And, very oddly for a pill box, several crates of 20mm cannon shells. I only kept a few of those, shells not boxes, and have them still. I was only a kid and didn't get to see everything but have treasured the memory for many years. Cheers.
Love you Matt, always creating great content.
There are a lot of structures from WW2 in my country because 5 major armies fought here. My county is filled with dug in pillboxes, underground artillery stations, stone walls with firing openings, AA stations on higher hills, submarine and ship dug in bunkers, observation posts... Everything is abandoned but still operable.
Hi Matt, as you're just up the road. I recommend taking a stroll a long the Basingstoke or Kennet and Avon canals. You'll see a number of pill boxes as well as anti tank dragons teeth, but also a number of fortified houses and two storey pill boxes. The best one to see is on the Kennet and Avon canal near Reading, about 200m from the Cunning Man Pub. I believe it can be googled as Burghfield Fortified building, it was part of the General Head Quarters(GHQ) Line - Blue.
My great grandfather was in the WW2 in fighting in Germany, he was in war during d-day, he also had to cross a river with pillboxes and other things.He was the 28th Division in WW2.
It is rather awesome you have stuff like that just lying around.
Pillboxes have such a sad connotation for me as a Czech person :..(
That is the type 22 or 24. I like the type 26 pillbox, second is type 25. The Suffolk square has a blind spot on it's left side. From it's blast wall.
I have always had a fascination for Pill boxes. There are a great many in Essex and some of them you are able to access. I always think they bring home what the real imminent threat of invasion people lived with.
Matt Easton always likes to see people coming, especially from a long way off.
There's a few where I live, plus machine gun emplacements on the sea wall. My grandfather was in home guard and patrolled the promenade etc. Good upload. Thanks
There is a very similar WWII concrete bunker to that near where I live.
I am reliably informed that [the bunker near me] was constructed for locally sited elements of the Royal Observer Corps and was part of a country-wide network of observation sites that provided early warning of enemy bombers during the period that radar was getting up and running, or possibly kept on as a 'fall back' option if RADAR ever became ineffective.
There are a couple at Box Hill in Surrey which I used to 'play soldiers' in as a child. There used to be some dragons teeth in the river there as well but it looks like they were removed when we last visited.
Thanks for sharing! I kind of wish someone would get permission from the owner to show us the inside. In any case, I remember getting to see the fortifications at Pointe du Hoc, and it was an amazing experience. If you come across other such things in your travels, I would love to see more content like this.
Lots of places here ( south east Scotland) from Home guard Auxiliary unit and regular army and air force defences. Been to some further north as well and down in Sommerset.
It's cool to see youtubers visit my local area
I liked your reference to Lindybeige. When I first saw the thumbnail and the title, I thought that I was clicking on one of his videos.
I wonder whether people ever stood on top of the pillboxes to keep watch. On a nice day, the top would be more pleasant than inside, and standing on top would give one a slightly better view. The structure looked strong enough that one could even put a step ladder on the top and get that much higher to see the countryside and look for something that wasn't right. As long as the shooting hadn't started, being on top wouldn't be dangerous.
I love coming across random WW2 pillboxes - sometimes on beaches (eg the one at the east end of Sandend on the north Scottish coast) where they might have been some use against German invaders. But tons of them are on small roads in the middle of nowhere. There appears to be the remains of one beside my local Virgin Active.
Very cool video. Different from normal content but no less interesting. Looking forward to seeing the antiques u pick up.
The pillbox in this video is located here :) www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.1063148,-1.7742322,3a,75y,1.65h,70.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sfzYkePYmcpIuVKlnwE3haQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Clever of them to hide it behind that shrubbery.
Is it possible to get an overhead view? I am trying to figure out what overall shape the pillbox is -- rectangular, or maybe 5-sided?
It's hexagonal. You can return to the map and turn on the satellite view.
www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.1063,-1.7757727,127a,35y,83.08h,45t/data=!3m1!1e3
You doxxed the pillbox!
Check out the coast along the Seven Sisters, found many pillboxes ten years ago.
There are a fair few pillboxes sat on beaches in the North East, as well as concrete tank traps.
Maybe this is just the first time I’m noticing them, but the glasses look good Matt!
Being next to the road like that makes it a perfect hobo shelter, it's no wonder he put tree in the doorway - much good may it do.
Interesting video and location. The vast majority of pillboxes were built in 1940 and were intended to be fought from in the event of invasion. I totally agree with your point that they are archeology and it was good that you did what most people fail to do and placed it in its geographical/topographical and military context. The door is nearly always at the rear so we can deduce the anticipated direction of attack. Goethe or someone said architecture is frozen music and I always hear the following words when I see a pillbox.
"we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"
There are still some old coastal artillery emplacements still around here and there in the US, nothing like pillboxes in Britain but we have them. Most of them are not preserved and/or off limits but I think that there are a few that can still be visited safely. There's also some places where you can still see the remnants of these artillery emplacements, there's a beach in Southern California where the rings of concrete that the guns actually stood on still remain, even if there's little else remaining of the gun emplacements that were there. Still, it's kind of cool to see and adds extra interest when walking along the trail overlooking the ocean.
can you do a topic on extra large shoulder pauldrons as shield subsitute?
Until a few years ago there was a pillbox hidden in the middle of Brighton beach. Sadly this was demolished to make way for a giant towering eyesore for tourists to ride called the i360, courtesy of British Airways.
There's a sequence of them near me along the old Cambridge road , I don't know if Matt visits the auction rooms at Stansted Mountfitchet but there's one right by there and more along the road by the Chesterfords and a particularly incongruous one stuck on the Lawn/cricket pitch at Audley End Stately home (which was the HQ of the Polish section of the SOE during the War).
That area is littered with them probably in part due to the number of airfields that the RAF operated from. I live in Saffron Walden spent my childhood exploring them
I love this kind of thing! I find history fascinating. Coming from Texas we have our own history, but it's nothing compared to things like this. I wish the Wallace Collection was just a short drive away!
We've even got them in the US on the coast
Not a lot left as far as I know, but we do have remnants of coastal artillery batteries. One of these days I've been meaning to go see some of the old batteries around San Francisco. There's also a preserved Nike surface to air missile base across the Golden Gate with inert missiles and such on display.
www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm
Actually there are a few left. USA never build much because defending the American coast is quite a different story... They mainly used mobile observation/ patrol teams sometimes on horses (Must be a f*cking awesome job, riding up and down the coast on a horse, M1903 springfield on the saddle.) On some very tempting (for the Japanese mostly) invasion points or oil refineries close to shore they build permanent, concrete observation points and some concrete shelters. Coastal gun installations were used, but the USA mostly (and wisely) relied on air cover for protection against amphibious attacks. More inland were the bases, from which heavier units could be deployed if needed.
www.urbanghostsmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/battery-harris-fort-tilden.jpg looks like freaking Thunderbirds stuff. Fort Tilden, USA.
There is also of course Castle William all the way from 1807 meant to stop the British Navy from raiding New York.
Yes, they dot the south shore of Long Island from the city all the way to Montauk. You can still stand on the remnants on the beaches of the far Rockaways, near Floyd Bennet Field. They are a lot smaller than the artillery bunker facility at Camp Hero in Montauk, and by all appearances, look very similar to these pill boxes. (When we were kids we didn't have the nerve to even try to peek inside the remains, they looked very crypt-like and you know, rats). Didn't stop the Nazis from landing via u boat out here in the Hamptons tho! Damn those Nazis!
Jersey is the best place in the British Isles to view WW2 fortifications, but these were built by the occupying Nazis.
Don't forget Guernsey too! ;)
Interestingly the Cromarty Firth up in Scotland is overlooked by half a dozen. It was an ideal location for a navy base.
Well, built by POWs the occupying Nazis brought over and forced to build them, under poor conditions.
Total war kinda sucks...
Jake Norman In the USA Jersey is the best place to view a Guido. You can usually track them by looking for 1980s Camaro's or any store that sells gold chains.
You didn't come up to Old Sarum Castle! Would have loved to have seen you. - Dan
This is pretty cool, thanks for the quick look! Can you do a video on the Roman wall near the Scottish-English border?
If you like plains, you should visit the Prairies in Canada. Some parts have rolling hills but some are so flat you can see for miles. USA also has the same thing but called the Great Plains. If you have ever seen the film Dances With Wolves, it looks like the landscapes from that.
Do a trip to the Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh - WWII fortifications, Napoleonic Martello towers (you can stay in one apparently) and one of the places where radar was developed (Orford Ness)... And very flat, bleak countryside. With a moor nature reserve thing. And a nice shingle beach, with a beach-launched fishing fleet. Also the area is littered with other historical buildings, Aldeburgh has a 16th century moot hall, there's Framlingham castle and a ruined abbey at Leiston. Plus a large number of interesting churches.
you should visit western Czech republic (especialy former Sudetenland), there were a lot of bunkers built there to stop the Germans. Obviously they weren't of any use after Munich agreement, but they are still standing
those things cost more money to destroy then to build... They will stay with us for a long time.
Just a comment.
You didn't mention the brick anti-blast wall, designed so near misses from bombs or shells didn't blow the doors off.
Nice video!
Nice to see you do something on recent history. In the U.S. we still have some remaining on our west coast built in fear of a Japanese invasion. Thanks. Very interesting.
There are some around New Milton / Lymington
They're all over the place in East Anglia; about one every mile in each cardinal direction.
My dad is a civil engineer too.
Explains a lot
These are all over the Netherlands as well, don't know how many I see when I visit my family there.
It's a beautiful place.
I've noticed the editing and its a welcome addition, and I don't mean to give offense, but the audio can be jarring at times. Try leaving just a little bit of audio from the 1st clip and cut a bit of audio from the 2nd when stitching your cuts. I'm no expert, on either swords or editing, but i seem to really enjoy watching you tangle with both. Cheers!
Salisbury Plain is the place where our ancestors did some very interesting shit. I'd be feeling the same way.
You raise a good point by referring to them as "observation posts".
My opinion has always been that they would be short lived in an invasion. Even sustained machine gun fire would likely have chipped big holes in the brickwork/concrete. I am also often puzzled by their isolated locations, apparently not protected by other positions.
I have read that most were practically abandoned after the Battle of Britain was won. Many of those built in 1939/1940 were abandoned earlier as they were built under the outdated WW1 concept of creating "stop lines". After the German army walked around France's greatest stop line the British concentrated on "hedgehog defences"around air fields and strategic points.
At most these pill boxes would have slowed the enemy down and provided some information regarding enemy strength and movements for the mobile troops to counter attack. However, I conclude that any last stand in a pill box would have been exactly that; a last stand!
They may also have had some morale value to the locals.
Maybe I am being cynical so I would love to hear your comments....
Very cool video, I didn't know about these pillbox thingies in the UK. Being from Germany, well there's some kind of WW bunker or structure around almost every corner ;), anyway, love these 'different' kind of videos of late. Cheers!
Loads of these where I live.
thanks for the video
3:47 "(...)there was a chance german paratroopers might arrive." *cuts to picture of a squad of german POW's * :D
Paratrooper POWs thoughy
We have a few round near me in Norfolk we have stanta training area 2 miles a way allways hear guns and aircraft
Awesome video more like this if you can :)
Are the windows angled as a compromise between protection and angles of fire from inside?
Jesus. This video sent me on such a wild tangent. I was like "Huh. Gee I wonder what the last mainland invasion of my country was." *spends next 30 minutes learning about Aleutian islands campaign, Canadian invasion strategy, German Empire's proposed plan of attacking West Virginia, and the Zimmerman Telegram. It's hard to think of places like the UK and US being invaded but the prospect (ignoring how horrific it would be) is pretty fascinating.
It appears that that particular pill box may have been intended for use as part of a traffic control point in addition to more general observation of the area. Barriers would have been placed in the road to slow or stop traffic so the vehicles and their occupants could be inspected as they pass. This can help counter the threat of small numbers of infiltrating military forces or spies. It would only be a minor obstacle for a large military force but better than nothing.
Feeling more comfortable when being able to see long distances is very natural. The reason is exactly the one you mention, being able to see threats a long way off is a huge advantage, and one that has probably been selected for. The guy who liked to relax in the bushes and couldn't see the lion coming was probably.... snacked out of the gene pool...
Hatman39 It probably is selected for if you are a leader, or in power. Raiders would be more inclined to prefer hiding spots I imagine. Perhaps a case of socially driven evolution.
It's more what you're used to. People who grow up living in mountainous regions or areas that are heavily forested don't like plains, and vice versa.
Whenever I drive over a WWII antitank barrier hidden in the streets (there's one between here and the next village, steel posts under lids in the street) I think about history.
Areas without terrain that can be used for cover or concealment make me feel more vulnerable. I guess I like woods and towns.
The pillbox looks like Castle Crashers. With a smaller head.
Mat Easton is "The History Hunter", new on the Discovery Channel.
An awful lot of these near my house along the coast of South Wales!
So you're saying on a plain like that you could recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away?
How hard are those swords to ship to the USA, or buy from here as well?
About 50% of my sales are to the USA - no problems at all. I take Paypal.
“Shuttering”
“Embrasures”
Thanks
When I clicked, I thought I was getting a Lloyd video (obviously I wasn't paying close attention), was pleasantly surprised I got a Matt instead (nothing against Lloyd, whom I also like)
I like how there's all this suspense but the title spoils it.
"Can you guess what ive found!" Well you put it in the video title
To me, that looks like it could absorb a number of tank rounds.
Hello my name is Alistair Young. I am creating my second educational remembrance video for young people teaching them about why it is so important for them to respect and remember their past and our history. Please can I use some of this footage in my video to help teach about the importance of pillboxes? I will credit you of course. Thanks so much
Did the video get demonetized yet for showing us how to build terrorist cell headquarter entrenchments, to spread terror onto the local populus? Basically supporting terrorism, guns bombs and all other stuff?
He said "Fucking" 1 time. *DEMONITIZED!*
Same idea really.
How can you tell if it's been demonetized.
Only the Uploader (Matt) can. it requires a lot of Penetration of the interface and back end to find out.
Minus the archeology, that view reminds me of Iowa...
"I just love Salisbury Plain" there speaks a man who has never had to dig a bloody slit trench on the place! I love pillboxes though, in fact any fortification.
We have a unique design built by the Royal Marines just down the road, although why the bootnecks thought they needed to build a small pillbox right next to a socking great brick and earth "bombproof" Victorian artillery fort is beyond me!
Probably because a small target is far less likely to be noticed and attacked when there was a huge Victorian fort next to it