Second World War Bombing Decoy, Little Baddow (EHER 20305)

A Second World War bombing decoy site at Little Baddow. It was built as a 'QL' decoy for Chelmsford as part of the 'C-series' of civil decoys to deflect enemy bombing from industrial sites in the town. The 'QL' decoy displayed lights to simulate urban areas or industrial sites in Chelmsford. In May 1942 a 'Temporary Starfish' decoy was incorporated into the site in response to the Baedeker Raids. The 'Starfish' decoy operated by lighting a series of controlled fires during an air raid to replicate an urban area targeted by bombs. It is unknown when the decoy site fell out of use. Aerial photography shows that by 1981 the site had been given over to agricultural use and no features of the decoy survive.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import. Documented in contemporary records, "Little Baddow" was a World War Two Temporary Starfish decoy, sited to draw enemy bombers away from Chelmsford, three miles to the W. This type of decoy was set up in April 1942 as a response to German "Baedeker" raids, the bombing of Britain’s historic cities. Starfish sites were the most sophisticated and comprehensive of the decoy types and were designed to replicate the large fires expected from a successful raid on an urban area. <1> <2> Many types of fire source were used to generate the variation in brightness and colour of a large-scale conflagration. The most numerous were basket fires, each a highly inflammable 21/2 cwt package of sawdust, scrap wood, shavings, etc, all soaked in creosote. Dobinson, 1996, records that only basket fires were employed on Temporary Starfish sites. Firing of the arrays was effected electrically from an earth-covered shelter which housed the necessary switchgear and communications. This would have been located some distance away from the decoy area. Site visit September 1999: The contemporary Military Grid Reference of the site, 108/203250, is an open expanse of fields some half-a-mile W of Great Graces, E of Sandon Brook. Although nothing remains to be seen in this position, an aerial photograph taken in May 1946 shows this field to contain a large area of indefinite soil marks, blotches, lines etc, perhaps the remains of the fires and their fire break trenches. The same aerial photograph shows the night shelter 600 yards to the E. It can be seen immediately inside a gateway, on the S side of the track known as Grace’s Walk, as a mound with two angled blast walls. A 1960 aerial photograph shows the structure more clearly. By this date the earth had been cleared and the construction appears to have been of curved corrugated iron sheeting with the escape hatch at the E end. Confirmation of the identification of this structure can be found on an aerial photograph of Great Bromley taken in May 1946. This, the site of the Temporary Starfish decoy for Colchester (SMR 20307), shows the same distinguishing angled blast walls. Nothing now survives at either site. <3> <4> <5> Three photos of site <6> Report ref <7> March 2016. Aerial photograph interpretation. Noted in survey. <8> Aerial photography shows that by 1981 the site had been given over to agricultural use and no features of the decoy survive. <9> NGR concords with that given in <1>. In response to the Luftwaffe's Baedeker Raids, a series of 'Temporary Starfish' decoys were implemented throughout the country at possible target locations. Chelmsford's 'Temporary Starfish' site was incorporated into an existing 'QL' decoy in May 1942. <10>