View of two World War II gun emplacements from South East

Description View of two World War II gun emplacements from South East

Catalogue Number SC 446616

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 73088 CN

Scope and Content World War II six-inch gun emplacements, Ness Battery, Stromness, Mainland, Orkney Islands In both World Wars coast batteries were built to protect the channels into Scapa Flow and Kirkwall Bay, where there was an important contraband control. The greatest concentrations of firepower were at the main southern and north-western entrances to the Flow, the latter covered by a series of coast batteries centred, in World War II, on Ness Battery at Stromness. As built in 1938, close to the site of a World War I battery, Ness Battery comprised a pair of six-inch, breech-loading guns comparable to those at Hoxa and Stanger Head Batteries which guarded the southern approach to Scapa Flow. At Ness, each gun was emplaced behind low parapet walls and in front of the canopied gun houses which are seen in this view. At the heart of the Orkney archipelago, Scapa Flow was the main fleet anchorage for the Royal Navy during both World Wars. Its vital importance led to the creation of one of the most concentrated defence networks in Britain. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/446616

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap