8th June: Junkers Walk

The route of the “Junkers Walk”.

Having failed to contact John Stanley author of the Exbury Junkers book either by email through the publishers, or via his Facebook page, I signed up for one of his annual “World War II” walks.  I wanted put my own theory to him, that a navigational error resulted in the plane flying 26°W instead of 26°E.  I’m not sure how much he accepted it, however he did ask me to give my explanation to the party of walkers after we got back to the tennis courts after visiting the web site.

Apart from finding just where the crash site is situated (the “OS Locate” app gave SZ 42709 99373), I found the visit to a remaining hut from the Exbury House  “HMS Mastodon” period.  During WWII it had been the “Victualling Office” where food supplies had been stored; the walls were still labelled with the positions of various food stuffs.

Nowadays the hut seems to be used as a carpentry workshop for Exbury Gardens.  However the interesting items were probably (having later talked to Nick de Rotheschild at the Palais des Vaches WWII exhibition) display items left from the 50th Anniversary of D-Day back in 1994.

There was a large (6″ to the mile?) OS map showing the Exbury Estate in 1944 with the various bomb sites and also positions of WWII installations marked.  These included anti-aircraft installations with a Bofors gun at the Brick Yard and, in the fields of Lower Exbury farm,  a Bofors gun at Smugglers Grove and search lights in the saltings.  At Lower Exbury House there were tethering points for barrage balloons. A label for Exbury Gardens said that they were “Declared a Troop Free Area by Official Orders of the King”.

Also in the hut was a painted map of “HMS Mastodon” and a poster with photographs and reminiscences of those days, apparently produced by people who were there during WWII.

The latter I found quite touching, with the suggestion of an improvised enactment of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” by young people on the estate whilst all the wartime activity went on around them… or was it simply liking Exbury Gardens to the Forest of Arden?

Oustide the Victualling Office we were also shown the remains of one of the Nissen Hut which had been the Mail Office during wartime.