The pillboxes of Britain and Ireland are among the most important military structures employed in the history of the defence of these islands. This work presents the first thorough study and classification of pillboxes and related structures, including selection posts, Seagull and concrete trenches, gun-houses and turrets, battle headquarters and spigot-mortar emplacements. The author traces the use of small, free-standing defence structures from ancient times to the present, placing the pillbox within a historical continuum and identifying its course of development. The work also presents a typology of British and Irish pillboxes through a catalogue of known types and individual examples, and examines their tactical employment in the landscape. Mike Osbourne has been involved in the recording of defence structures for over 30 years and was co-ordinator of the Defence of Britain Project in the eastern counties. He is also the author of Defending Britain: Twentieth-Century Military Structures in the Landscape, also published by The History Press.

Beskrivelse af de mange bunkere, specielt de mindre, bygget i England i 1940 som forsvar mod en tysk invasion. Deres forhistorie og taktiske funktion. Omfattende illustreret med s/h fotos, tekniske tegninger, kort og lokalisering af stadig eksisterende anlæg.

A concise, illustrated guide to these Second World War defences scattered across the British landscape. With invasion a very real threat, in 1940 Great Britain began a huge military construction programme designed to stop an invading army in its tracks. Around vulnerable coastlines, and inland, thousands of pillboxes, anti-tank barriers and other obstacles were erected to defend against attacks from sea and sky. Though many of these structures were dismantled in the wake of the Second World War, the coast and even some inland areas still boast a wealth of fascinating remains. In this fully illustrated introduction, fortifications authority Bernard Lowry guides the inquiring reader in identifying these remaining defensive structures and explains their seemingly 'random' placement across the British landscape.

This book details British fortifications used from the Tudor period beginning in 1485 through the end of World War II in 1945. With the advent of firearms, the Tudor period indeed opened a new chapter in the histories of Britain, fortification and warfare. By 1500 AD, Britain and Europe at large entered a new phase, marked by the foundation of colonial empires and a broadened sphere of influence and rule. During the following centuries, British sailors, ruthless adventurers, fighting men, and greedy merchants laid foundations to fortify the most widespread and most prosperous colonial Empire the world had ever seen. This text focuses on British coastal fortifications and on combinations of fortresses used for more general strategic purposes. Featured structures have protected points of vital importance, such as capital cities, military depots, ports, harbors and dockyards at essential locations in Britain and throughout the British Empire.

As Stuart Laycock's book All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: and the Few We Never got Round to shows, the British have not been backward in coming forward when it comes to aggressive forays abroad. But it hasn't all been one way. In 1193 for example, the Danes teamed up serial offenders, the French, for a full-scale invasion. The French Prince Louis the Lion came close to success exactly 150 years after the Battle of Hastings. The 100 Years War saw multiple raids on British towns and ports by the Spanish and French. Following the Armada, there was the bloodless invasion of 1688, Bonnie Prince Charlie's march south, the remarkable American John Paul Jones' attack on Whitehaven during the American War of Independence, the German occupation of the Channel Islands and – the great what if of British, perhaps world history – the threat of Operation Sealion. Ian Hernon brings his journalistic flair to bear in this dramatic narrative of the survival of an island race over 900 years – sometimes, surprisingly, against the odds. Whilst such a history (one leaving out the boring bits) is bound to entertain, it also cannot fail to inform: where were shots last exchanged with an enemy on the mainland? At Graveney Marsh in Kent.

When the First World War froze into a static line of trenches stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border, the most obvious means of protection against the murderous machine-gun fire which both sides inflicted upon each other was some form of shell-proof shelter which from which fire could be returned in safety, hence the development of the pill box. The idea was certainly not new but the technology required to build them under the prevailing circumstances presented problems hitherto undreamed of. In this remarkably absorbing study of what at first seems a somewhat arcane study of what at first seems a somewhat arcane subject, Peter Oldham, himself a concrete technologist, examines the problems of the design and construction of the pill boxes of the Western Front. He describes how the innumerable difficulties involved in what might to the untrained eye seem to be a fairly simple structure, were gradually overcome. Containing as it does, a gazetteer of the remaining pill boxes and bunkers still to be found in Flanders and Picardy, this book will prove an invaluable guide to the members of many clubs and societies which annually make pilgrimages to the battlefields of the First World War and certainly add a new dimension and interest to their visits to the Western Front.