Site of Second World War searchlight battery at Southey Green (EHER 82720)

The possible site of a Second World War searchlight battery said to have been situated at Southey Green: however, the locational evidence derived from War Office files is unclear and it may have been situated further to the south closer to Orange Hall, Gosfield. It was manned by 33 Searchlight Regiment. The battery was operational from October 1941. It formed part of a network of searchlights named Area DN02, which along with another such area (DN01) formed a defensive belt in the Hertfordshire-Essex-Cambridgeshire-Suffolk borders area. Searchlight sites typically comprised a small ring-ditch to provide the crew with shelter during an air raid, a predictor emplacement for calculating the height and range of targets, a light anti-aircraft machine gun pit, a generator and hutted accommodation for the crew.

NRHE data transfer: The site of a Second World War searchlight battery at Southey Green, said to have been situated at NGR TL 779 307/ MGR (military grid reference) M 227503. It was manned by 33 Searchlight Regiment. The battery was operational from October 1941. It formed part of a network of searchlights named Area DN02, which along with another such area (DN01) formed a defensive belt in the Hertfordshire-Essex-Cambridgeshire-Suffolk borders area. <1> The locational information provided in <1> is unclear, Southey Green appears on Ordnance Survey maps at TL 7745 3200 and is in Sible Hedingham Civil Parish, well over 1km north of the position suggested in <1>, which is actually closer to Orange Hall, Gosfield. <2> <3> Searchlight sites typically comprised a small ring-ditch to provide the crew with shelter during an air raid, a predictor emplacement for calculating the height and range of targets, a light anti-aircraft machine gun pit, a generator and hutted accommodation for the crew. <4> War Office files detailing an order for deployment (these also the main original source material for <1>). <5>