Multi-disciplinary site investigations of WW2 Allied aerial bombing decoy sites in North Staffordshire, UK

In 1937, the British government implemented a national strategy to strengthen UK air defences, constructing a network of radar systems and decoy sites to mislead enemy aircraft from bombing Allied airfields, industrial centres and major cities. This paper reports on modern investigations on three relict night-time aerial bombing decoy sites in Staffordshire, UK, deliberately built along German radio beam directions to divert German bombers from the high priority industrial target sites in the Stoke-on-Trent area that included tyre, aluminium and iron works, munitions factories and railway yards. The relict bombing decoy sites were discovered in varying states of preservation. There was evidence of construction from wartime-created brick companies, control shelters with concrete bed generator rooms, headlamp platforms, relict electrical systems that simulated aeroplane runways and in situ blast walls and ceramic pipe blast expansion systems that were meant to protect manning crews from bomb burst air concussions. Site-collected data included drone models, ground-based LiDAR, geophysical datasets and 360° camera imagery for digital site preservation. Study outcomes show these wartime bombing decoy sites varied in hurried construction and condition during these desperate times, bringing WW2 British conflict history into the wider scientific community and public domain.