A lot of things about Shingle street, were probably, invented and exaggerated over a few pints and did not actually happen in 1940.

This is what my father has told me about, when he was at Shingle street, he cannot remember which year it was that he was there, but was probably 42 or 43 he was 17 or 18 at the time. (He was called up to Join the Army in Dec 1944 and left Jan 1948. Served in the R.E.M.E.) He was working for Earnest Doe of Essex. As a bulldozer/scraper driver and worked on the construction of several wartime Airfields in Norfolk and Suffolk, Shipdham and Woodbridge are two that he has talked most about.

Whist working at Shingle St and Boyton, (Building a tank training range) he lodged at 350 Foxhall Rd Ipswich and was taken to the site everyday by an ATS driver. He had to sign a document six pages long to say that he would not speak about what he was doing. (am assuming that this was the official secrets document) On the beach at Shingle St, he said there was a tower (Martello tower.) and two small buildings. He was instructed to dig a trench, starting near the tower and working towards the sea. This trench was to be 6 or 10 foot wide and 10 feet deep and about a 100yds long. This he did and when he went back to fill in /level the ground he saw that huge tanks had been placed in the trench with pipes running into the sea, was unsure whether the sides of the trench had concrete walls or not.

He also stated that while he was on that site, a truck would patrol the beach every morning and saw them bring bodies back, these bodies were in a bad state, so was not able to say who they were, but some were in uniform. (A lot of men of all branchs of service were lost at sea in the war years so it stands to reason that some must get washed onto beaches somewhere.)