Remembrance: fading memories

As we head towards Remembrance Day I have in mind some blips to do with wars past. Today's is from the early years of World War 2.

In 1940 Britain was facing the very real threat of an invasion by Nazi Germany and great efforts were put into defending vulnerable areas of the coastline. Our own area around Newburgh on Ythan, with its gently sloping sandy beaches, would have been an ideal site for a landing by the German army. In 1938, the German airship Graf Zeppelin had photographed the northeast Scottish coast in great detail in preparation for a possible future invasion.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, George Bennett Mitchell, Aberdeen Architect, was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and became CRE (Chief Royal Engineer) 9th Divisional Engineers, CRE North Highland Area and CRE Lothian and Border Area. He was made responsible for erecting beach defences from the River Forth up to Wick. The main lines of defence were to be barbed wire entanglements, concrete blocks, tubular scaffolding poles, pillboxes, heavy gun emplacements and mine-fields. The remains of these structures can be seen along the beach that runs from the mouth of the Ythan at Newburgh all the way to Aberdeen, 12 miles to the south.

This pillbox marks the northern end of the Aberdeen-Newburgh defence line and was intended to provide fire across the mouth of the Ythan. The pillbox, 70 years on, is slowly sinking into the sand, a metaphor, perhaps, of fading memories of turbulent times.