"Firing into the Brown" #82 - Forsyth, the dark side of the shed(s) and stuff...

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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It would ill behove me not to mention the recent passing (reported this week) of that monumental story teller Frederick Forsyth..

Steve the Wargamer has been reading Forsyth repeatedly (since all books should be considered as friends and revisited frequently, and preferably also taken to the pub 😏) since his early years and for the huge amount of enjoyment Mr Forsyth has given me I'd just like to say "thank you"..

The 'triumvirate' of Dogs of War, Odessa File but most of all Day of the Jackal are for me in the top 10 thrillers of all time, Jackal would be in my top 3, and his other later books were no slouches either (Fourth Protocol  especially).. with those three books, written in the early 70's, he undoubtedly influenced generations of future authors to adopt that same procedural, detail driven genre of  thriller..  

I'll be raising a glass to him later..  thanks, sir.

Further reading:

• Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86 | Frederick Forsyth | The Guardian
• Frederick Forsyth (Fantastic Fiction book list)

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So you may remember a while back I discovered a delightful rabbit hole (yeah, yet another!😏) to dive down while I was doing the mini project on the "Hilsea Lines". 

I'd read about how they'd dammed and dredged Portsea Creek (which is the body of water - still there - that makes Portsmouth an island) at both ends, in order to maintain enough water level at low tide for the operation of gunboats as part of the overall defence strategy. The rabbit hole was that the Navy had then needed a maintenance facility for the large numbers of gunboats deployed at that time [clicky] - not just for those used in the defence of the Lines, but also the large numbers of other gunboats used at the time (and the Navy had over a 100 of them at one time).

I'd managed to get some photos of these sheds (which still exist) from across the harbour, but one of my disappointments was that I had not been able to get up close, because they were on secure property (it's a Joint Services Sailing Centre I think).

Well ... disappointed I am no longer (as Yoda would say), as when I was walking to the pub following a visit to the Submarine Museum in Gosport last weekend I happened to notice that the facility seemed to be open (I only noticed because a lady had just walked out with her dog! 😏) and the security guys hut was shut and empty..

Not wanting to waste the opportunity I walked through, past the old perimeter defence walls and there were the sheds - behind barbed wire so I didn't get to do a close up exploration - but blimey they are big. Remember this is not all of them, originally there would have been enough capacity to maintain 50 gunboats at a time if required (at one per shed!)..

I wonder if this office type building following is original? During the war this was HMS Hornet (an MTB/MGB base for the Royal Navy with boats operating in the Channel) and I wonder if the Admiralty made use of the space?

Note the rails that are still in place...

Those complex roof supports are amazing..  like an iron spiders web...

3 pairs of rails per shed... 🤔

Regrettably the mechanism for pulling the gunboats from the water and then shifting them sideways one way or the other to go into the sheds is long gone

Fantastic to finally get up close to see them almost in the flesh...

Lots more fascinating meat on the bones in this document [clicky] and it confirms my guess about that office building and war time use..

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...