British anti-invasion preparations of the Second World War entailed a large-scale division of military and civilian mobilisation in response to the threat of invasion by German armed forces in 1940 an
A British soldier on a beach in Southern England, 7 October 1940
Detail from a pillbox embrasure
Captured British and French soldiers help one another on the staircase up to the cliff at Veules-les-Roses, June 1940.
Standard Mk II Beaverette light reconnaissance cars manned by members of the Home Guard in the Highlands of Scotland, 14 February 1941
British hardened field defences of World War II were small fortified structures constructed as a part of British anti-invasion preparations. Included in the definition of "hardened field defences" are
British anti-invasion preparations of the Second World War
…not get a good run at it. Admiralty scaffolding was deployed along hundreds of miles of vulnerable beaches. The beaches themselves were overlooked by pillboxes of various types. These were sometimes placed low down to get maximum advantage from enfilading fire, whereas others were elevated to resist capture. Searchlights were…
Hexagonal pillbox (Type 22)
Winston Churchill helps to build a pillbox at Poole in July 1940.
Soldiers relax inside a Type 28 pillbox in October 1940.
Pillbox where some of the original brick shuttering and reinforced concrete has fallen away to reveal the internal network of rebars.