Whether the installation was ever completed I don’t know. I left shortly afterwards but 44 years later when I re-visited the site Bowden Battery had been turned into a garden centre, the moat had been filled in and converted into a car park and I could see no sign of the excavations or much of anything else that would tell of the wartime activities.
With the fall of France Germany had access to her assets though Britain forestalled their use by attacking French naval units in Toulon and Dakar but Germany still had the use of the bases and three of her ships were in French ports. These were the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen. The first two were nicknamed by NAALO’s petty officers as Salmon and Gluckstein after a local store in Plymouth. Germany wanted to get them back to the relative safety of a German port and Britain was equally determined that they should stay where they were, where they could be attacked. Fortuitously Germany picked a day when the weather was thick and wet and under this cover the three ships, hugging the French coast, slipped eastwards past their enemy up the English Channel to find sanctuary. Though we were only onlookers we were able to follow the action to some extent as information was given to us by NAALO.
We had teleprinter links between Plymouth, Portsmouth, Bristol and Reading and apart from any other correspondence there were the daily rituals; firstly the ‘colours of the day’, given to us by NAALO were broadcast to all the gun sites so that friendly aircraft would not be fired upon, and secondly each night an ammunition report would be sent by the three companies to Reading. We were all able to see what the others had sent. Almost invariably the ammunition report would state ‘nil expenditure’ but one Sunday night there was an exception; Bristol reported ‘Bristol the subject of a heavy air attack, ammunition report will follow.’ As Bristolians we became very anxious; not much news filtered through that night but the next day we gleaned from various sources little bits of information. One informant said that amongst other targets they had dropped four bombs on Bristol Bridge; that was not strictly accurate but from the damage done it was fairly true. They had hit our home town, the war was getting serious. Bristol’s suffering was just beginning.
We were expecting a visit from some top brass, presumably to give the place the once-over, to convince us that indeed we were not forgotten and to show us some faces to match the names that would appear from time to time on orders. In order to impress them with the skill and expertise of our Line Section it was decided to replace the twisted Don8 cable between Bowden Battery and Egg Buckland Keep with an air line, that is bare copper wire on short telegraph posts. This was finished just before the top brass arrived but when the phones were connected all that could be heard was a loud 50 cycle hum; the wires had been placed beneath and almost parallel with the overhead grid system cables. “Oh, well,” they said, “we’ll say it was never intended to be used, it was only done to show our ability to run an air line.”
I suppose it was the same bright individual who had the storm trench dug who thought of the idea of burying a pipe to carry away the cookhouse effluent down into the eastern hillside tunnel. I found this out by accident. Having seen Fantasia the previous night and admiring Mickey Mouse’s jaunty swagger I hummed the melody of Ducas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as I swaggered down into the dark tunnel; I stopped abruptly when the fluid was over the tops of my gaiters; my humming stopped and my language was not nice at all.
From the mess hut one lunch time, gazing at nothing in particular but looking towards the north side of the camp, I became aware of a disturbance in the taller grasses on top of the low earth bank. I wondered why as the movement was not general as one would expect with wind gusts but was quite localised. While I mused over this a loud yelling came from that spot and immediately some 20 or 30 khaki clad figures emerged carrying rifles and with their faces blackened. This armed group charged across the battery, still yelling as they went out through the gate, past the stick sentry; he watched stupefied, head turning from side to side as they disappeared into Fort Austin Avenue. He had only ever expected unauthorised entry from without, never from within. By the time we had collected our thoughts and looked outside there was no sign of the intruders and we never saw them again. This was I believe an early training exercise of a commando unit
At that time we were a fairly close knit group, our common bond being that we were all Bristolians and volunteers. There was virtually no crime apart from petty offences against military law, in fact the reverse was often the case as was demonstrated when one pay day I had to dash off from pay parade, dump my pay and pay-book on my unmade bed and rush to catch the lorry going into town to see a show. When I returned late at night my bed had been made and my pay and pay-book were placed neatly on my bed, by whom I never found out.
Military offences were few and usually petty but in the eyes of authority charges had to be laid and these were heard in the Company Office, the Nissen hut just inside the entrance gate. This hut was divided in half, the front portion being occupied by the clerical staff and their paraphernalia, while the rear part was further divided into two. The innermost portion was the private retreat of the CO and the rearmost portion, not very large, was where charges were laid, pleas were heard and punishments meted out. In accordance with military procedure a prisoner, hatless, had to be escorted in to face the CO. I was once detailed to be one of the escorts; we with the prisoner, assembled in front of the hut. “Prisoner and escort,” barked the CSM who was about as unpopular as any of his rank, “fall in.” We did, with the prisoner sandwiched between us. “Prisoner and escort, ‘shun.” We sprang smartly to attention. He strode up to the prisoner and snatched off his hat and, “Prisoner and escort, right turn, quick march.” I was the leading escort and I could see before me the open door of the little room, in fact all the doors were open and daylight streamed in from the far end of the hut. We quick marched, the CSM following a short way behind us; there was only space enough for our trio and I knew that we ought to mark time once we were inside, however that was not what the military had impressed on us so I led our little group right into the CO’s inner sanctum; out of the corner of my eye I saw the bemused look on his face as we passed by. Onwards we went looking straight ahead, right through the hut; surprised clerks watched us as we emerged into the open air again. I was happy that in obeying the last order as laid down by he military I had upset the routine and what was more enjoyable I had upset the CSM. He made no attempt to follow us through the hut but ran along outside to catch up with us as we strode out into the distance. “Halt!” he yelled and we did; and for a while that was all he could say, his cheeks turned puce and I thought he was on the verge of apoplexy. Gradually he calmed down, berated us, marched us back to our starting point, then gave us more precise orders. In we went again. I can’t remember what the charge was nor what punishment was awarded but I do know that the CO carried on as if nothing untoward had happened.
Looking over the drawbridge into the dry moat Denis Cleese saw a group of fox cubs, two or three were dead but one was still alive and the vixen was nowhere to be seen so
