Portsmouth Command Defence Exercises
JUNE 1952
History
PORTSMOUTH COMMAND DEFENCE EXERCISES
Fort Purbrook and Fort Widley are steeped in Military History. From the time they were built right up till the cold war. Each year we uncover more and more of their fascinating past. Thanks to the Imperial War Museum we have found these amazing photos of Royal Marines and Navy Personal participating in a huge home defence exercise.
The Portsmouth command defence exercises in June of 1952 centred around a climatic final assault on Fort Purbrook by a Battalion of Royal Marines.
The general plot of the exercise was that “Saboteurs”, who Navy intelligence assumed to have been landed by parachute, were attacking military installations. This finished with the big achievement of “capturing” Fort Purbrook. However the Navy had other plans and these “saboteurs” were finally mopped up by the flying columns of Royal Marines and Naval personnel. The premise was to see how well Portsmouth Naval establishments would respond to infiltration by saboteurs.
As you can see in the photos it was a massive exercise and the Fort played a vital role, once again, in military training. Not since World War One has Fort Purbrook been so heavily used for training purposes when it was a training centre for new recruits.
