Aerial view.

Description Aerial view.

Date 1940

Collection Records of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), Second World War Aerial Reconnaissance

Catalogue Number C 47590

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 799769

Scope and Content Luftwaffe aerial photograph showing coastal batteries, North and South Sutors, Cromarty, Highland During World War II, the North and South Sutors were refortified and larger and more powerful gun emplacements built. A large complex was built on the South Sutor, to the east of Cromarty. The gun batteries on the coast are highlighted, as is the attached accommodation camp. However, the Luftwaffe appear not to have identified all the military sites in the area, as a radar station existed immediately to the west of the gun emplacements on the South Sutor and there were a number of searchlight batteries on both sides of the coast. The radar station on South Sutor was designed not to detect aircraft, but was intended to give warning of attacks from the sea and, more importantly, direct the gun batteries. It was during World War I that the first gun emplacements were built here, and were manned by Royal Marine gunners. In 1915, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, personally inspected the new installations, and took several flights in a monoplane to get a better view. Further emplacements, now aided by radar, were built during World War II, and parts are still visible today, though the bunkers have been purposely collapsed. Similarly, the concrete hut bases of the South Sutor accommodation camp remain visible, although one building, the officers mess, became a private residence after the war. Taken during aerial reconnaissance in December 1940, this Luftwaffe intelligence photograph shows the coastal batteries situated on the North and South Sutors near Cromarty. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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