Site of Second World War anti-aircraft rocket site, Walton-on-the-Naze (EHER 20122)

Site of Second World War Anti-Aircraft Rocket Site, now destroyed.

Site of Second World War Anti-Aircraft Rocket Site, now destroyed. Photographs taken in April 1944, showing the Home Guard being trained to operate a 3.7" anti-aircraft gun on the Naze at Walton, also show a line of rocket projectors in the background (Imperial War Museum, H.37486, H.37492). Mr Peter Helsdon, a former member of a Home Guard rocket battery, records that the projectors were used for training, the rockets being fired out to sea. An aerial photograph taken in July 1946 shows many surviving buildings, structures and marks on the Naze. <1> <2> <3> Site visit by F. Nash, October 1995 as part of the Second World War Anti-Aircraft Gun sites in Essex survey. With the exception of pillboxes, very little now remains on the Naze and there is no apparent sign of the rocket bases. <4> Further interpretation of the 1946 aerial photograph reveals that eight anti-aircraft rocket launchers can be seen, each with its own separate storage shelter, in two rows of four one behind the other. <3>