Site of Second World War ‘Diver’ Site No. K14, Frinton Golf Course (EHER 21357)

Second World War Diver site K14. Site of a Second World War heavy anti aircraft (Diver) battery in the Diver Strip at Sandy Point. It was armed with four 3.7-inch Mark IIc guns equipped with Predictor BTL, and Radar AA No.3 Mark V when it was deployed here on 24th November 1944, and was manned by 431 Battery of 126 Anti Aircraft Artillery Regiment. It formed part of 40 Heavy Anti Aircraft Brigade deployment.

A report compiled in 1996 from wartime documentation, lists the ‘Diver’ anti-aircraft gun sites in east Essex in summer/autumn 1944. Site No K14, at Military Grid Reference M677363, is recorded on 24 November 1944 as being equipped with four 3.7 inch Mk IIc guns manned by 126 Regiment 431 Battery. <1> An aerial photograph taken in July 1946 shows the area very clearly. The site was, apparently, on Frinton Golf Course. Although the accommodation huts had been cleared by that time, their parch marks, and those of the access roads and interconnecting paths, stand out with great clarity. There were c 23 buildings and other structures in a field to the SW of the clubhouse. No parch marks of the gun platforms can be seen but as by that time most of the golf course was clearly open they may have been erased by the reforming of the fairway, bunkers etc. <2> Visited in January 2010 by Nash who noted that nothing of the ‘Diver’ site now remains. <3> No new information from NRHE data transfer.