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While we acknowledge on #BattleOfBritain Day the victory won by the RAF, frantic efforts were underway on the ground to counter the expected invasion. This pillbox at Camber was one of the first in the Rye Sector, completed in July. #BattleOfBritain80 #swwSussex 1/8
These two pillboxes at Rye Harbour were completed by the third week of August and would have been manned by Vickers machine gun crews should the invasion come. 2/8
Pillboxes were still being built into September; this one completed just before 'Battle of Britain Day' at the end of a defensive 'switch' line. 3/8
September 1940 was a bad month for the Royal Irish Fusiliers who lost three men in the Rye Sector, on the 6th, 14th & 16th. Two of them had fought with the BEF and survived Dunkirk. 4/8
Fusilier Francis McNamee died on 6 September, "accidentally killed", according to a newspaper report. Aged just 20, he was a Dunkirk veteran. 5/8
2nd Lt. Ben Ryan was killed in a motorcycle accident near Rye on 14 September. Also 20, I look at his grave and that of Fus. McNamee and reflect that I've lived longer than both their lives combined. 6/8
On 26 May at Bethune, France, 2nd Lt. Maurice Johnson extracted a platoon that was almost surrounded, leading them to fight their way out "at 15 yards range with grenades, Brens fired from the hip & the bayonet." He was granted the immediate award of the Military Cross... 7/8
Although most Rye Sector pillboxes were complete by September, other defences were not. 2nd Lt. Johnson MC was tragically killed laying a minefield here at Winchelsea Beach on 16 September, one of many lives lost on the ground while the Battle of Britain raged overhead. 8/8
