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Starfish sites were large-scale night-time decoys created during the Blitz to simulate burning British cities. The aim was to divert German night bombers from their intended targets so they would drop their ordnance over the countryside. The sites were an extension of Colonel John Turner's decoy programme for airfields and factories (code named "Q" Sites, probably by analogy with Dobinson (2000), p24). Following the bombing, and near destruction, of Coventry Blitz, Turner was tasked with creating decoys for seven major cities.
Turner referred to the new sites as "Special Fire" or "SF". However, one early site (near Bristol Blitz) was given the name "Starfish", which subsequently became used for all of the decoys. The sites were constructed around from their protection target, and at least from any other settlement. They consisted of elaborate light arrays and fires, controlled from a nearby bunker and laid out to simulate a fire-bombed town. By the end of the war there were 237 decoys protecting 81 towns and cities around the country.
Archaeological excavation in 1992 of the original "Starfish", in the Mendip Hills, found no evidence of bomb craters. Later research confirmed that Starfish sites did attract the attention of enemy bombers; one estimate is that around 968 tons of ordnance were dropped on the decoys.
One of the first decoy sites was constructed on Black Down on the Mendip Hills; it was code-named "Starfish", derived from Turner's original SF code, and built to protect the nearby city of Bristol. The Starfish name was eventually adopted to describe all of the SF decoy sites. The Mendip Hills site used fires of creosote and water to simulate incendiary bombs exploding. In addition, glow boxes were used to simulate the streets and railways of Bristol; the light bulbs were powered by electrical generators turned by Coventry Climax petrol engines contained in two bunkers. Another of Bristol's sites was located in the parish of Yatton, North Somerset.
Glasgow was protected by various Starfish sites located on its surrounding hillsides. A decoy site existed at Long Wood at grid reference outside Eaglesham in East Renfrewshire. Clusters of impressions where basket fires once stood, bounded by fire-break trenches, covered much of the area seen in Second World War photographs, and a prominent structure near the site may have been the decoy control bunker. Anti-aircraft gun emplacements have been noted at the site. Another site known as Craigmaddie lies on the Campsie Fells at Blairskaith Muir, . It was a co-located Starfish and QF/QL site. Carrington Moss, near Manchester, was another Starfish site.
As of 2000, there is a relatively intact control bunker for a co-located Starfish and Quick Light (QL) site at Liddington Hill overlooking Swindon.
Recent research in North Staffordshire also found the existence of 3 relict QL sites in varying states of preservation that was published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology in 2025.
Effectiveness
A 1992 archaeological survey of the Mendip Hills did not identify surviving bomb craters on the Black Down site (the original "Starfish"), despite claims of their existence. In his 2000 book, Fields of Deception: Britain's Bombing Decoys of World War II, historian Colin Dobinson collated Turner's conservative estimates as to the success of decoy sites; suggesting that Starfish decoys diverted 968 tons of German bombardment.
Germany
The Germans also built large-scale night-time decoys such as the Krupp decoy site () for the Krupp steel works in Essen.
See also
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading
(2025). 9781872922225, RR Heritage Trust. ISBN 9781872922225
External links
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