Shivering Sands
Shivering Sands is a Maunsell Fort in the Thames Estuary off the south east coast of England. It is a group of seven pontoon platforms that were built for the British Army during World War II . The fort with the army designation U7 was completed on December 13, 1943. It served to repel German planes and speedboats that attacked the docks on the Thames and mined the fairways. At the beginning of 1946 it was cleared and locked and the armament dismantled. Today (2011) the facility is empty and can be viewed as dilapidated.
equipment
The fort was 3.7 inch with four heavy QFs. VI anti-aircraft guns armed with an electromechanical Vickers lead computer and two 40 mm Bofors rapid-fire guns for fighting low-flying targets. Five gun turrets were grouped around the fire control tower, and another turret with a searchlight stood a little off the beaten track. It also housed three 30 kilowatt diesel generators that supplied the plant with electricity. The towers were connected to one another by catwalks. A crew of 165 men was planned.
Post war history
Civil use
After the flood disaster of 1953 , which caused great damage in south-east England, the Port of London Authority (PLA) took over the headlight tower and built in an automatic wind and tide measuring system that transmitted its readings by radio. In 1990 a helipad was set up on the roof of the tower to regularly maintain the instruments. From 1992, however, it was decided to use a measuring buoy in the future because the fort was dilapidated.
Ship collision
Although the fort was shown on all nautical charts, on June 7, 1963, the coastal ship Ribersborg collided with the G4 gun turret. The tower collapsed and fell to the deck of the ship before falling into the sea, where most of it sank. There was only material damage.
Pirate transmitter
Radio Sutch
see main article → Radio Sutch
On 27 May 1964 launched Screaming Lord Sutch with Radio Sutch from a gun turret on Shivering Sands.
Radio City
see main article → Radio City
Sutch sold his stake in the station in the fall of 1964 to his manager Reg Calvert , who renamed it Radio City . The Port of London Authority regularly complained that the radio link to the automatic measuring station in the headlight tower was being disrupted by the Radio City transmitter . On June 20, 1966, after a property dispute, the station was forcibly captured by a group of hired dock workers and Calvert was shot while entering the private home of his adversary. Calvert's widow finally shut down Radio City in early 1967.
Others
In 1969, former Radio City DJ Alexander Dee and some friends settled on Shivering Sands to start a hippie commune. However, the experiment was canceled in the same year. The radio pirate Paddy Roy Bates penetrated the system several times and removed various objects, some of which appeared in the souvenir trade.
Individual evidence
- ^ Army Sea Forts, Thames Estuary. Engineering timelines, accessed February 22, 2011 .
- ^ Herne Bay Online private website about the forts in front of Herne Bay, accessed on February 2, 2011
- ^ Bob Le-Roi: Seafort Project. private website, accessed February 22, 2011 .
- ↑ a b Bob Le-Roi: Fort Fanatics. private website, accessed April 20, 2015 .
- ↑ Whitestable Times, No. 5459, June 6, 1969
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 57 " N , 1 ° 4 ′ 29" E