Iron Owl

Spotted in Farlington Marshes................or is it just me that can see it?

In actual fact, this is the remains of a '"Q" Decoy Site: To help protect Portsmouth from German night bombing, a series of 'Q' decoy sites were built in Langstone Harbour and on Sinah Common Hayling Island. These elaborate constructions consisted of two main elements. Firstly a string of carefully positioned structures were erected, mainly in the north of the harbour, which when lit from the inside would mimic the effect of light shining through chinks in doors and windows in a carelessly blacked out area. The second, and most crucial element of the deception plan was the deployment of decoy fires known as "Starfish" sites. These decoys were designed to present to the enemy pilots a convincing illusion of a city under attack.

This site was often dramatically successful; on the night of 17/18 April 1941, over 140 enemy aircraft were lured away and un-loaded in excess of 200 air-dropped munitions, originally intended for the City of Portsmouth, into Langstone Harbour and Farlington Marshes. This was the most successful Q-site operation of the entire war.

Most of the fires were oil-fuelled and all were ignited from a central Starfish control point. The master control post was at Fort Purbrook, a Palmerston Fort located at the east of Portsdown. Sub-control points were also provided, most of which still exist.

During the period 1940 - 1944 Portsmouth suffered 67 air raids with the warning sirens sounding 1,581 times. The number of air dropped munitions were: 1,320 high explosive, 38,000 incendiaries and 38 parachute mines. 6,625 homes were destroyed with 74,435 damaged. 930 people were killed and 2,837 injured.

(Info from: www.portsdown-tunnels.org.uk/surface_sites/qsite_p1.html)