Views of Galloway - 4

War and Peace :

Unusual relics of the First and Second World Wars are also evident; Gretna's drabness owes a lot to First World War munitions factories. A Second World War munitions depot was turned in the 1950s into Chapelcross Power Station, whose four great cooling towers can be seen up to fifty miles away. The ammunition works at Dalbeattie still survives in many parts, and is now a most unusual historic monument.

The Royal Air Force used the area for training, and based squadrons there for intercepting German aircraft that attacked Glasgow. Many anti-submarine and air-sea-rescue aircraft were based near the port of Stranraer. West Freugh airfield still is in use, airfields at Castle Kennedy, Baldoon (Wigtown) were shut in the 1950s. The Control Tower of the former airfield at Heathall (Dumfries) houses a remarkable aviation museum, with aircraft of many periods and types, including remains of crashed aircraft and even some fragments of a satellite.

Heathall Aviation Museum	Edingham Depot	Baldoon Airfield	Bomb Crater Dalbeattie	Bombing Target Sandyhills

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The writer has been responsible for publicising an even stranger kind of artefact, in the shape of the Observer Posts of the Royal Observer Corps. These lonely sites, first staffed in all weathers by volunteers, were the eyes and ears of the RAF. Dumfries and Galloway is so extensive that the remains of the old posts were simply left, after stand-down, and survive in a very good state of preservation. The later underground posts, to be used in case of a Russian nuclear attack, are now additional and unusual relics of the Cold War period.

Go to my Royal Observer Corps site, for the only full Internet site on the Corps.

ROC Observer Post Rockcliffe	ROC Observer Post Kirkcudbright	ROC Observer Post Kirkgunzeon	ROC Group Control 25 Group Ayr	Post in Action, 1990

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Dalbeattie Internet is designed and managed for pleasure and profit by . Views of Galloway started 12th March 1998, last updated 1st March 1999.