| Summary : A World War II Heavy Anti-aircraft battery P2 and associated domestic camp, including a concrete air raid shelter, at Sinah Common. Operational by 1941 when it was damaged during a heavy bombing raid on Hayling Island, which acted as a target decoy for Portsmouth. The site was known as Sinah or P2 (Solent 2) and formed part of a chain of batteries positioned to defend the industrial and military targets of the south coast. The battery was equipped with four 4.5-inch gun emplacements of which only emplacement number 1 remains as a well-preserved above ground structure. Emplacement 4 has been mounded over, as has the command post, and both will survive as buried features. Emplacements 2 and 3 have been substantially altered to provide sheltered seating. The site was also equipped with a Gun Laying (GL) MK II radar and in April 1942 was one of the first to be fitted with a paraboloid aerial replacing the ground laying mat. In January 1946 the battery was selected to form part of the post-war defence known as Nucleus Force and served as a battery with its guns held in readiness off-site. In 1955 the Nucleus Force programme finally ended and the site was subsequently closed. Scheduled |
More information : The HAA gazetteer scored the Sinah Common HAA site as Class 3 (Partial Remains/Only 1 or 2 components remain). A site visit on 1/6/2000 indicated that three emplacements remain in situ within a public park, whilst the fourth and probably also the control building have been mounded over and presumably are intact. However, of the visible emplacements two have been refurbished to hold park benches and for use as a memorial to six members of 219 Batt, 57th HAA Regt, RA who were killed in action at the site on 17/18th April 1941. As part of this process the emplacements have been rendered and painted, the holdfasts and expense magazines removed and the storage bunkers blocked, resulting in a considerable loss of original fabric. The third visible emplacement retains more oriinal features (such as the holdfast, expense magazines around its perimeter and contemporary stencilling) but has already half-collapsed into the adjacent estuary due to tidal erosion, as has a magazine (of reinforced poured concrete construction) serving the battery. Both of these structures have been fenced off due to their dangerous state.
A second magazine survives in better condition next to the public road, but has been converted for use as a council store and workshop. A second structure to the west (also adjacent to the road) shows indications of having been contemporary with the battery but has been substantially modified and is now in use as a generator building. The concrete roads relating to the battery and domestic site are also preserved within the eastern half of the park, as is a small brick structure of unknown function (but presumably related to the domestic site within which it is located). The entries to the latter have been sealed to prevent vandalism.
The site is scheduled. (2)
ANTI AIRCRAFT BATTERY. 4 photocopied photographs
AA
Sinah Common
Shelter, gun pits and engine room
Recorder- M. Osborne. (3)
Documented. (4)
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