Monument record WLN 073 - World War Two training area

February 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
A large area of dispersed Second World War military training, part of the large ‘Dunwich Training Area’, is visible on aerial photographs on Westleton Walks heath (S1-S3). The main component of the site is an area of practice trenches surrounded by barbed wire obstructions to the east of the AA battery site (WLN 043). A dispersed group of gun emplacements are also present to the south of the anti-tank obstacle (WLN 035). These are visible on the aerial photographs (S2-S3) and as low vegetation covered mounds on the LIDAR 2m STM (S4). This area of defences was constructed for ‘Exercise Kruschen’ in 1943. The defences, along with the anti-tank ditch, were meant to mimic German defences and strongpoints, ‘Stunkputz’, known as ‘hedgehogs’ (S5). In part due to limited time and a lack of clarity of structural components visible on the aerial photographs, only the clearest components were included in the mapping. A detailed plan of these defences is available in (S4), which includes the location of underground bunkers and other structural components and trenches, and should be the primary source for examination of this site.
The whole of the area of the training site is covered in weapons pits, some of which are created in linear and angular arrangements. These were not mapped in detail, rather they were defined by ‘extents of area’.
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 2nd February 2015.