Site of Second World War light anti-aircraft battery, Debden Airfield, The Roos (EHER 21533)

Now destroyed. Two large circular, earthen enclosures on a wide open field to the south-west of The Roos farm. Nothing of the earth emplacements now survives.

An aerial photograph taken in March 1943 shows what appears to be two large circular, earthen enclosures on a wide open field to the south-west of The Roos farm. Each has a gap in the surrounded ring of earth. Between and around them there are small pits and, still surviving, a pillbox (EHER 21534). It is thought that this was a light anti-aircraft (LAA) gun site, protected by small rifle or machine-gun pits and, unusually, the pillbox. This is the fourth LAA site recorded around RAF Debden - there may have been more. Nothing of the earth emplacements now survives. In the 1990s the site at the bottom of the field, about 100 yards to the north of the pillbox, was visited by the author at the invitation of the owner. Here was a flat concrete base said by the owner to have been the base for a searchlight. The crew apparently were billeted in a Nissen hut at the edge of the field opposite the farmhouse. <1> <2>