Strafe

The damp clung, a change from yesterdays crisp cold, the ground deep in places with standing water common in this part of the forest. Here on Northern part of the forest the heathland is high, cut by water logged valleys and gullies and littered with craters filled with pools of water, some deep, the remnants of human activity. Not farming, nor mineral extraction, rather the preparation for making war; for here, the land was used as a range by the RAF during world war 2 and is besmirched with the remains of their activities. What you see is only a trifle of what there was; there were, mock airfields, a mock battleship, submarine pens and numerous target ranges. Much was removed post war, when the area, no longer needed, was returned to public hand and more removed in recent years, by an unimaginative and short sighted forestry commission. Still, if you search amongst the heathers you'd be surprised at what you'd find.

Walking along the Southern fringe of what was the 'Ashley Ranges' we first passed linear scatters of brick work and a group of three Bronze Age burial mounds, which had been cut into possibly to represent emplacements; these unassuming scatters of brick denoted brick lined trenches, similar to those used by the Germans along the 'Atlantic Wall', they had been filled with dummy soldiers and were then strafed using various munitions to ascertain the most effective weapons to kill or wound the as many enemy as possible. Further on, within an area bound by a low bank and shallow ditch, were several large craters, now filled with water, along with a slit trench; there were possibly more, we didn't investigate. Finally before turning into Island Thorns Enclosure, and our return path, beyond the craters was a small brick structure; an world war 2 observation shelter, if you didn't know about the area you'd be lost as to why it was there; looking more like a bus shelter, lonely and isolated it appears out of place as well as being out of time.