Starfish site

At the outbreak of World War II, the British government feared a German bombing campaign against the UK mainland. Colonel John Turner, an engineer and retired Air Ministry officer, was tasked, in September 1939, with establishing a broad range of day and night decoys to mislead enemy bombers. His initial work was with dummy aircraft, airfields and factories; the decoys for which were dubbed 'K' Sites. Turner also implemented night decoys; dubbed 'Q' Sites, they consisted of lights mounted on poles to simulate an airfield. ==Decoy Fire Sites==

In response to the Germans' use of incendiary bombs, Turner added fires to the 'Q' Sites, dubbing them Q-Fire or QF, to add to their plausibility. Initially very crude, the fires were controlled from a nearby concrete pillbox. The theory was that after a first wave of bombers dropped on the real target, the decoy would light fires to simulate the previous raid for further waves to home in on. ==Special Fires==

Following the night bombing of Coventry, in early November 1940, the decoy programme was expanded to include towns and cities; the Air Ministry initially ordered sites to be set up for Bristol, Crewe, Derby, London, Manchester, Middlesbrough and Sheffield. The new "Special Fire" decoys were set up to simulate the bomb drops of German pathfinder squadrons. By 23 January 1941 the programme had been increased to 43 sites protecting 13 town and cities and by March operational sites numbered over 100. 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. control bunker on Liddington Hill 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==