http://www.shford.fslife.co.uk/ShingleSt/
Is this accepted as being fact by historians, or is it a load of rubbish?
One thing to note is that none of the “eye-witness” testimony is first-hand, even the one that is directly labeled on the home page as “A detailed eye-witness account of what happened.”
Nor are any of the letters supposedly supporting the claims. As far as I can tell, every single account given is second- or third-hand at best.
This does not falsify any of those accounts, but I do like my eye-witnesses to have seen the events with their own eyes.
Hmph. :dubious:
Seems to me that if an amphibious assault had taken place on that beach, it would be easy enough to prove.
Just rent a set of SCUBA gear, & find all the trashed assault barges, ruined vehicles, deep sixed small arms, & the other detrius of the assault.
Like you can find off the coast of Omaha Beach today, in abundence.
Nobody did this? :dubious: :dubious: :dubious:
I suspect this is whimsy.
There was a huge loss of life during a training excercise in Corwall. I think they were practicing for D-Day. I wonder if that was mixed up wit this?
I’ve always been intrigued by the Shingle Street rumours, being local to it, and I just listened to a thorough debunking of the whole thing on the radio. Here’s some of the things they came up with:
None of the detailed ‘eyewitness’ accounts of bodies, of flame warfare close to the beach, etc., actually come from Shingle Steet on the night in question (the Aldeburgh marshes are a long way away). Everything from the local ARP logs to the personal diaries of the higest commanders suggests that nothing out of the ordinary happened that night. (I’ve seen these documents myself, and there’s no way they could have been altered.) Three weeks after the supposed invasion, the soldiers posted closest to Shingle Street put in a request to be provided with flamethrowers, strongly suggesting that no such weapons were in the area before then.
They found one person who was on the beach that night. And yes, an invasion alert was raised during the evening. That in itself proves nothing. And yes, there was a red glow in the sky - but many miles out to sea, not caused by coastal petroleum defences.
The glow was fires at Ostend harbour. There was an intense bombing raid there that night, and the Met Office confirmed that the cloud conditions at the time were easily capable of diffusing the light from the huge fires across the 90 miles to Shingle Street. As for the gunfire, anti-aircraft batteries were positioned all along the coast, firing at will.
Burned bodies of German seamen were found on beaches. In Kent. Where nobody has ever claimed that petroleum weapons were used.
After the event, rumours of a defeated invasion attempt spread. Churchill’s own post-war writings state that nothing was done to quell these rumours, as they were a useful morale boost. Furthermore, they were actively used as propaganda in occupied Europe.
Now a couple of my own debunkings of the website from the OP. The “evidence of the concrete roads built to take army lorries” on the photo page is nonsense. It’s part of a concrete track built across a privately-owned section of the beach for access to the fishermen’s cottage visible in the distance. As for the “site of pits where bodies of German Soldiers were buried”, it’s just laughable. The area was a minefield.
Oh, and if anybody wants to hear the programme themselves, it’s here, under ‘Battle of Shingle Street’. I think it’ll be available for a week.