Redtop I went back to an item I once posted on the BBC site and found this entry I made regarding Whitby. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/53/a2065853.shtml In which I mention my feelings regarding the threat of invasion. Regarding moving from one pillbox to another I think that was strictly not allowed. Thanks also to all for your interesting comments Ron
Very interesting Ron I guess Whitby was not top of the list for German invasion plans and a squaddie would soon work that out, I have exercised on the Fylindale Moors and around Robins Hood Bay and appreciate how bleak it can be in winter and early spring and do not envy anybody sat in a cold damp pillbox.
Redtop Whitby, particularly early in the morning, was astonishingly cold and windswept. I was amused last year to find that the Metropole Hotel was now holiday apartments but the building itself is exactly as I remember it was in 1942. http://www.metropolewhitby.co.uk/met_towers.html Ron
Hi Ron My father was Lt John B Sanderson of the Loyal Regiment who built these pillboxes and beach defences in 1941. He was previously a Lance Corporal in the Queens Westminster regiment in 1940 posted to the cliffs of Dover. The following year 1942 my father was posted to India where he joined the 6/11th Sikh regiment and in 1944 152 Btn the 50th Indian para brigade. John later was a Lt Colonel in York and Lancaster Regiment and a military attaché behind the Iron Curtain, attached to the foreign office. He retired from the territorial Army age 63 years. Died aged 80 In 2001. Hi My father was Lt John B Sanderson also of the 7th Btn Loyal Regiment who built these pillboxes and beach defences in 1941. He was previously a Lance Corporal in the Queens Westminster regiment in 1940 posted to the cliffs of Dover. The following year 1942 my father was posted to India where he joined the 6/11th Sikh regiment and in 1944 152 Btn the 50th Indian para brigade. John later was a Lt Colonel in York and Lancaster Regiment and a military attaché behind the Iron Curtain, attached to the foreign office. He retired from the territorial Army age 63 years. Died aged 80
One of the pill boxes south of, as I remember it, Robin Hood's Bay. No longer fit for the original purpose.
I am struggling to remember as l did not photograph everything l saw, but l remember one on a beach up in that direction. It needs someone to walk the Cleveland Way from Scarborough to Staithes as l did and report back. It’s a fabulous walk but a long way from where l am now.
7th Battalion, The Loyal Regiment, was formed mainly from conscripts in July 1940 at Caernarvon, around a cadre of regulars from the regiment's home base of Fulwood Barracks, Preston. My late father joined them in Caernarvon after being called up. The battalion served in Liverpool before moving to the Scarborough / Whitby area in February 1941. Headquarters was the Raven Hall Hotel, Ravenscar, overlooking Robin Hood's Bay. It's highly probable my father and your father encountered one another there (my Dad was a Private, B Company), although each company served along a separate stretch of the coast. The battalion later moved to Redcar, where it was converted to Royal Artillery as 92nd LAA. There are further details in my book here Regimental History — True Loyals