Barby Lighting Bombing Decoy Site

Description of this historic site

A lighting bombing decoy site from the Second World War, designed to confuse the enemy into dropping their bombs in the wrong place. Documentary evidence places it 1km northwest of Barby.

Can you help?

Please upload a photograph of this historic site.

Notes about this historic site

1 Barby lighting bombing decoy site in the QL programme for Rugby. It was set up to simulate the lights of a marshalling yard (parallel railway sidings) and of loco glows (the dim light from the firebox on the footplate of a steam engine) and so to divert bombs from Rugby (station?) marshalling yard. Lighting decoys were a cheap and successful way of confusing the enemy, and their deployment dates from July 1941. Every site differed, so that they were a sort of theatrical lighting show to mimic the lights of some specific local vulnerable point. An associated shelter would have been built to house the generator/s and other equipment.
2 There is no evidence of the site on an aerial photo of 1947.