Secret Chatham Defence Plan to be made public

This Fortress Study Group Grant will help the Kent Defence Research Group (KDRG) to reach a wider audience with their research into the intensive efforts to defend Chatham from attack and potential invasion. As a major naval port Chatham needed to be well defended and the KDRG study details the huge efforts and limited resources used to put the port and the surrounding area into a state of defence at the outbreak of the Second World War and how this evolved as the threat of invasion became real in 1940.

Starting with an original 1941 Defence Plan the team set out to survey what remains and they have produced a comprehensive report which not only documents the Chatham Defences but also is an example of the similar defences built all around the UK in the period.

This grant will allow the KDRG to print a small number of copies of the report for distribution to local libraries and other institutions. Clive Holden chair of the KDRG explains “the aim is to educate the public, particularly in the Medway area of Kent, about the, hitherto little-known, efforts and work undertaken to defend the strategically vital Chatham area from enemy invading forces in the Second World War”.