1 | Blog: Bishopstone reveals its pillbox secrets In 1940 a pillbox was constructed on the roof of Bishopstone Railway Station as part of the anti-invasion defences. In 2020 I had a unique opportunity to gain access and a lot of new information was gleaned as a result! |
18 October 2021 |
2 | Blog: Pillbox or Observation Post? I've recently noticed an increase in the numer of social media posts concerning some of the Second World War pillbox designs seen in the Rye area, so I'm going to make a few points about them. |
10 June 2020 |
3 | Blog: Uncovering the hidden secrets of a pillbox This post is designed to highlight the sort of interesting features that are all too often overlooked in the study of anti-invasion defences. Despite being a well-known and photographed pillbox, the one we'll look at has hitherto not been subjected to anything more than casual observation. |
8 June 2019 |
4 | Blog: Review of 2018 Before this Christmas, it had been almost two years since I last posted a blog entry. The time since then has been somewhat hectic for me, but hopefully things will be a bit more organised in 2019. Having said that, 2018 has been quite busy; some of my key moments of the year are summarised below. |
31 December 2018 |
5 | Blog: Wartime Christmas in East Sussex (2) Back in 2015 I posted some thoughts on Christmas Day 1939-43; I stopped in 1943 as at that time, I didn't really have any detailed information for 1944-45 to speak of. However, three years on, things have changed, so here's those missing years! |
24 December 2018 |
6 | Blog: Did the Germans raid the Isle of Wight? In late 2016 Churchill's Last Wartime Secret: the 1943 German raid airbrushed from history by Adrian Searle was published by Pen & Sword. The book boldly claims that the Germans mounted a successful commando raid against the Isle of Wight and that the British Government, even today, is trying to cover it up. |
12 February 2017 |
7 | Blog: Gun garages and field artillery Quite often I'm researching a particular topic when a thread starts on a forum or social media. The subject of hardened gun emplacements for field artillery recently cropped up just as I was researching gun garages at Newhaven and Shoreham. |
3 February 2017 |
8 | Blog: Identifying a Bofors gun I've been very slack on the blogging front in the past few years. Looking back I think that my posts were getting forever longer and more detailed due to the wealth of information coming out of my research. They were also taking days - or in some cases - weeks to put together, thereby affecting my ability to produce material before some new angle of research demanded my full attention. I've therefore decided to try and knock out a few quick posts, based on very short periods of research. |
8 January 2017 |
9 | Blog: Review of 2016 2016 has been a busy year for me, so much so that I've achieved little on several key fronts. |
8 January 2017 |
10 | Blog: Fun with cement Having one of my impulse moments, I suddenly decided today to make a scale model of an anti-tank pimple in cement. |
22 August 2016 |
11 | Blog: 10 Myths of WW2 Sussex Seeing in the news today that excavations are to begin in the search for a "Nazi gold train" buried in Poland, I thought I would discuss some of the myths I come across relating to the war in East Sussex. |
17 August 2016 |
12 | Blog: Website revamp Back in 2014 I recorded in my blog that I was restructuring my data and revamping this website. Although a lot of hard work has gone into this since then, two years down the line the task is not yet complete. |
19 April 2016 |
13 | Blog: 3D models If you trawl through my Twitter feed or this website, you'll eventually come across some of my 3D models of pillboxes and other structures. It occurred to me recently that I've not really spoken at length on the subject, so I thought I'd put keyboard to screen on the subject. |
4 April 2016 |
14 | Blog: 10 years old! It's 10th March 2016 and the Defence of East Sussex Project is ten years old! |
10 March 2016 |
15 | Blog: Issuing the No.4 Rifle - a lack of foresight? Weapons go through a process of development in the light of war experience, either to improve their battlefield performance or to speed up and economise on manufacturing time and resources. |
29 December 2015 |
16 | Blog: Wartime Christmas in East Sussex Mention Christmas and soldiers in the same breath and most people can relate something about the famous 1914 truce on the Western Front. |
24 December 2015 |
17 | Blog: Pillboxes for dummies (Part 3) My friend Paul and I built a full-size dummy Type 22 pillbox using plans from 1941; see Part 1 for the history of these dummies and Part 2 to read about planning the project. |
22 September 2015 |
18 | Blog: Pillboxes for dummies (Part 2) Five years ago I discovered some 1941 plans for building a dummy pillbox in the archives. I spent this summer actually building one as an archaeological reconstruction. |
21 September 2015 |
19 | Blog: Friendly fire tragedy at Lewes (Part 2) In Part 1 we closely examined and reconstructed a Canadian Army exercise of July 1942 that took place on the Downs near Lewes. |
20 July 2015 |
20 | Blog: Friendly fire tragedy at Lewes (Part 1) In 1941 the War Office began requisitioning large tracts of the South Downs to use for battle training involving tanks, artillery and infantry. With large-scale exercises using live ammunition taking place, accidents could - and did - happen. |
20 July 2015 |
21 | Blog: In Remembrance This year has been dominated by the start of the Great War Centenary commemorations. A key event was the installation of 888,246 poppies in the moat of the Tower of London, which I recently had the pleasure of visiting. |
8 November 2014 |
22 | Blog: East Sussex Piers in wartime On 30th July, 2014, Eastbourne Pier was badly damaged when fire broke out in the pavilion, leaving about a third of the structure gutted. |
3 August 2014 |
23 | Blog: Bomb craters (11) - Battle In 1943, three German bombs fell on the town of Battle in a daylight tip and run raid. The sudden attack saw two civilians killed and much damage to property across the County. Archive documents and fieldwork reveal surviving evidence of the attack. |
24 July 2014 |
24 | Blog: The Dover Quad - a colonial pillbox? The so-called Dover Quad is a defence work classed as a 'pillbox'; not surprising, given its appearance. However, a new archive discovery has shed some light on the evolution of this oddity. |
16 July 2014 |
25 | Blog: Tragedy at Crowborough In July 1944, a ferocious battle was being fought in NW Europe. The outcome of this battle could have a bearing on the outcome of war and casualties were high. However, this wasn't on the front line in France - it was in England. |
5 July 2014 |
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Hibbs, Peter Search (2024) Available at: http://pillbox.org.uk/search.php?off=0&f=blog Accessed: 6 November 2024
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