Brownstone Battery Pill Box
Both of these articles go into detail about the history of the Pill Box, why they were built, what they were used for and how they stand in our landscape. I think it is interesting how in the BBC article, it talks about after the war, and how the World War two monuments are now represented in the landscape. I get the impression that the feeling is that they have been left behind, lost and left to die within the space that they were built in. This is something that I want to explore photographically as I believe it has a metaphor for the war. The memories of the second world war are slowly fading out of history. It is getting further and further away and the generation that lived during the war is slowing depleting. It is beginning to have a less pinnacle part in family narratives and my children will not have grandparents that lived during the war effort. I get the feeling that this is represented in the linear narrative of the Pill Boxes. They are fading out of our landscape as the land is taking the concrete blocks back which dissipates the visual representations of the war in our landscape.
These thoughts speak to me which is why I want to explore the Pill Boxes on our coast with a photographic enquiry. While gaining knowledge about the South West and the Second World war, I want to learn what it meant to the people that were living here when the second world war was happening. When Churchill made the announcement and many defence buildings changed the beautiful landscape of the South Coast of the UK. And how these concrete blocks sit in our landscape. Throughout the development of this body of work, I want to create a narrative that explores the Pill Boxes along our coastline while digging into the archive to gain a better understanding of what these buildings meant to the people.
PILL BOXES
Fortifications and defences sprung up along the coast
The South West was a prime target for invaders in the Second World War. Find out how it defended itself and the rest of the country against enemy attack.
Early 1940 was Britain's darkest hour - the Germans were preparing to launch a massive invasion. Nobody knew where the enemy would strike first.
The South West coast was a prime target and little seemed to stand in the Germans' way.
Inside Out investigates the defences and fortifications that helped to keep the enemy forces at bay.
We shall never surrender
Everyone remembers Churchill telling the nation, "we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight in the streets, we shall never surrender."
What most people don't know is that Churchill was worried that the nation didn't have enough defences to back up his rhetoric.
Following his speech, there was the biggest military building programme in British history. The mission was to make the country an impregnable fortress.
Hundreds of defences, tank traps and gun batteries were thrown up frantically in just a few months along the coast of Britain.
Over 18,000 concrete pill boxes were constructed, together with hundreds of miles of defensive ditches, airfields, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters, tank-traps, and bombing decoys.
Pill boxes
The South West's coastline changed beyond recognition in just a few months.
Small concrete forts known as pill boxes were some of the most popular defences built along the coast.
They were usually the only piece of good cover in an area vulnerable to attack.
Most pill boxes comprised a small room of about ten feet square and six feet high with walls of thick rough concrete with a door, over which a sheet was often draped.
Pill boxes were strung out in lines across the landscape to resist enemy invasion
They were basically a type of dug-out or bunker with look-outs and small slits for machine guns.
Each box was linked to the next by defensive ditches deep enough to stop a tank, or by natural features such as embankments, rivers and canals.
After the war the coastal defences were left to decay and rot, and many of them became overgrown.
Farmers were offered a demolition fee of £5 per pill box but demolition was often more trouble than it was worth. As a result hundreds of pill boxes remain in the South West countryside.
A bitter pill
Today's pill boxes are some of the most endangered buildings in Britain.
Pill boxes are of great historic and archaeological interest
One of the most complete surviving lines of pill boxes - dubbed 'the Hadrian's Wall of the 20th century' - runs across the south western peninsula, from Seaton in Devon to Bridgewater in Somerset.
It boasts about 280 surviving pill boxes with machine gun emplacements every few hundred yards.
But many of the South West's pill boxes have become home to graffiti artists and vandals.
Now the battle is on to protect what is left of these rare defences.
The conservation battle
English Heritage is evolving a policy for listing and protecting these pill boxes, but very few have been given protection as historic buildings so far.
Evidence from German pilots' records is helping to locate old pill boxes
The emergency coastal battery at Brixham is now going to be a scheduled monument.
It will be protected from being knocked down following a survey by English Heritage.
Other sites aren't so lucky, and many are falling literally into the sea.
The Defence of Britain project has been working to save the remaining pill boxes from demolition.
Recording the South West's forgotten defences has been a mammoth task but the group has been painstakingly documenting the old pill boxes.
New evidence
Old photographs provide valuable clues for the Defence of Britain volunteers trying to find where the overgrown defences once lay.
We now know what the Germans knew about the South West's defences thanks to an amazing recent find in a second hand book shop by Dorset publisher Nigel Clarke.
Wartime flying mission over South West England
He has unearthed thousands of photographs taken by German pilots in the run up and during the war.
The pictures show targets in the South West, and reveal just how much the Germans knew about British defences.
As a result, one of the main finds has been the old Taunton pill boxes which are barely discernible to passers-by.
Some enthusiasts believe that there should be better interpretation of these defences, possibly even a monument or blue plaque.
With increased conservation, there is now a good chance that some of Britain's most important surviving wartime defences will continue to survive for years to come.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southwest/series3/secondworldwar_pillboxes_defence.shtml
Why the name Pill Box?
In the last few years there has been a growing interest in the small concrete forts known popularly as Pillboxes. But why are they so called: Why “pillbox”? Why not bunker, blockhouse or Sangar? Two points are raised by this: Who used the term first and why choose “pillbox”?
The Oxford English Dictionary (1) states that the first use of the word pill-box was an article in the Scotsman newspaper dated 13th September 1917. Reference is made to several other later sources such as the Daily Mail for 26th February1923.
In the Scotsman article the first mention of the word is about half way through an article referring to the German use of Bavarian Storm Troopers to capture Inverness Wood, on the Menin Road, at 04:00hrs on the 6th September 1917. This is a typical piece of media reporting of the period, aimed firmly at raising the spirits of the folk back home. It points out that, even though the Germans used hand picked and finely trained Storm Troopers against our `citizen-soldiers` (Sic) (2) they still failed to re-take the wood.
The relevant paragraph in the article reads:
“For some days we have firmly held a line through the western portion of the ragged wood. Although repeated attempts to take the whole of it failed because of its profusion of machine gun forts and other formidable obstacles, the enemy occupants were unable to dislodge us from the portion won nearly a month ago. This joint tenancy was greatly to the enemy`s disadvantage. He tried to send counter-attacking parties out to the ruins of Herenthage Chateau, at the eastern end of the wood (we call it Invernesss Copse, but the German communiques refer to it by its original name, Herenthage Wood), and from the pill-box forts which command it north and south of the Menin Road, but our men beat them back, and endured with grim resolution the constant artillery and machine gun fire poured into their shelters among the shattered trees and flooded shell holes.” (3)
The word pill-box (the word was hyphenated until the Second World War) was used twice more in the article, which is also sprinkled with references to `concrete forts`. this casual use of the word indicates quite clearly that it was not the first time that it had been used by the media. The reader was expected to understand just what was being reffered to. It is clear that the Oxford English Dictionary is incorrect in asserting that the usage of the word pillbox derived from this article. I have not, as yet, found the earlier usage.
This brings me to the next question. Why “pillbox”?
Almost all published references agree that it was due to the shape. This is where it gets complicated. Soldiers` and Sailors` Words and Phrases (4) states “Pillbox. The name, from the shape (often circular in plan and roughly suggesting a ships conning tower) for the German Ferro-concrete small battlefield-redoubts or forts, employed from the autumn of 1917 onwards to defend sections of the line in Flanders. Some of the larger were Quadragular in shape. They were garrisoned by….” ; whilst the Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (5) prefers “Pill-box. A small concrete fort: late 1917: Military colloquialism by June 1918. the resemblance of their shape to that of an oblong box for holding pills. For the genesis of pill-box see Charles Edmonds, A Subaltern`s War. 1926.”
The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (6) on the other hand suggests “Pillbox…1887, Small, round emplacement for housing a machine gun, etc.” with no other attribution as to the reason for the name.
This would seem to establish clearly that the relationship of the shape of the pillbox, square, oblong, polygonal and round, is related to the small containers used to carry medicinal pills. However, the connection between the term pill-box and the word `fort` should be noted. A fort may be either a place of resistance, capable of defence or simply a bomb proof barrack, with no real defensive capabilities.
One last piece of information appeared during the research for this article. it has long been assumed that the first official (i.e. War Office) use of the word pillbox was in an engineering manual published by the War Office in 1925. However, according to The Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (7) the term Pillbox was used repeatedly in an account of award of a V.C. Nov 27 1917. (“Pill-box. Small concrete fort, occurs repeatedly in official account of award of VC Nov.27 1917”.)
First World War “Pill-box” on the Canadian side of the trenches at Vimy Ridge, France
A Subaltern’s War
In the introduction the author states that this book was started during 1918, before the end of the war. It is well written and detailed account of his activities both in and behind the lines. his description of a pill-box is as follows: “This pill-box was the only piece of good cover in the whole battalion area. Imagine a small room ten feet square and six feet high with walls of thick rough concrete. there is only one opening, the door, over which a waterproof sheet is draped”. (8)
A little later in the same chapter he gives a brief description of the rise of the German pillbox in the First World War: “Pill-boxes had begun by being concrete cellars in farm houses; they grew gradually into keeps of reinforced concrete in the midst of the wreckage of ruined houses; in the third stage the ruins were scattered by shell-fire and the square boxes of concrete were left standing alone.” (9)
This would seem to indicate that the first German pill-boxes were in fact infantry dugouts made from concrete, with no defensive capability of their own, and thus dependent on the surrounding trench system. to some extent this is borne out by a survey carried out by Captain B T Wilson (10) for the RE School of Instruction. He refers to both concrete forts and pill-boxes with seemingly the same meaning. It is clear from this report and the Scotsman article that there was considerable confusion in the minds of everyone on just what was a pill-box and what was not. the term is used equally for a concrete, bomb proof shelter and a small, defensible structure mounting small arms or heavy machine guns.
It is, of course, the latter that has been taken into the English language.
References
1. Oxford English Dictionary Volume XI, Samson J.A & Weiner E.S.C, Oxford 1989.
2. The use of the term `citizen soldier` is in itself an interesting one. It is strenuously denied by both the Ministry of Defence and the Government, smacking as it does of extremism.
3. Scotsman, Thursday September 13, 1917. Article entitled At Inverness Copse (from our correspondent).
4. Soldiers and Sailors Words and Phrases, Fraser, Edward and Gibbons, John, George Routladge & Sons Ltd, 1925.
5. Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Partridge, Eric., Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1984.
6. The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology, Barnhart, Robert K, The H W Wilson Co. 1988.
7. The Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, Weekly, Ernest, John Murray, London 1921.
8. A Subaltern`s War, Edmonds, Charles p171, Peter davies Ltd, London. second Impression, July 1929.
9. Ibid, p178
10. Studies of German Defences near Lille. 30-3-19.
by
John Hellis
Pillbox Study Group Co-ordinator
from an article in `Loopholes` Journal
http://www.pillbox-study-group.org.uk/the-pillbox-study-group/why-pillbox/