Monument Number 1385157 |
| Hob Uid: 1385157 | |
Location :
Oxfordshire
Cherwell
Launton
|
| Grid Ref : SP5928124465 |
| Summary : A military training facility known as a "Spotlight Turret Trainer", situated at RAF Bicester technical site. It was built as a temporary building during World War Two for air gunnery simulation. Originally it housed a mock up of a gun turret with a screen onto which images of enemy aircraft could be projected. In 2003 the facility itself survived only as a steel frame clad in asbestos. This is a rare survival of such a feature, and an English Heritage report produced in May 2003 suggested that it could be included in a potential conservation area at RAF Bicester. |
More information : An English Heritage report produced in May 2003 described the "Spotlight Turret Trainer" as accomodating "a target trainer with dummy guns and screen onto which an image of enemy aircraft wa projected. Although only a simple steel frame clad in corrugated asbestos, this survives as the clearest surviving evidence of Bicester's wartime use as an Operational Training Unit- of which gunnery training was a key element. It only merits statutory protection within the context of a key site such as Bicester, and no other examples of WWII temporary fabric of (this) nature have been identified elsewhere." See source 2 below for a caveat to this statement. (1)
Paul Francis has noted that Bicester had a turret trainer (possibly of 1940 design). The source published in 1996 provides a summary of the purpose of turret trainers and their different designs. Francis work also records that at the time of publishing there was actually another part survival of turret trainer equipment, from a slightly different design: a projection screen at Sleap, Shropshire. (2) |