Inside Salisbury Plain - The Secret Training Grounds of WWI and WWII

[00:00:07]Ssbury plane in the heart of Wiltshire.

[00:00:11]This is the Ministry of Defense's largest training ground covering an area the size of the aisle of white.

[00:00:19]I'm here to explore how British Commonwealth and Allied troops prepared for the two great wars.

[00:00:29]My guide today is MOD archaeologist Richard Osgood.

[00:00:35]Our first stop is Imber Village, not far from Tills Head.

[00:00:40]>> So we got here.

[00:00:42]>> Well, this is the old Manahass called Imber Court and the Wadman family lived in this.

[00:00:50]Imber was a typical small Wiltshire village. But in November 1943, the entire estate was sequestered for the war effort. The war department were looking for places for the [music] British and the Americans to train for housing, fighting through urban environments for Normandy, and this was one of them. All the land is completely owned by the war department. And in 1 of November 1943, they're told, "You're out in 6 weeks." So they've got to go and move move elsewhere. And this this area is then heavily used for training.

[00:01:22]>> Bizarre, isn't it?

[00:01:22]>> It's quite eerie, I think. Ember.

[00:01:26]>> When they closed the Ember as a as as a working village, there were only 150 people lived here, >> but it's been a village since the well, there's record of it in a in a Saxon charter of the 10th century. So, it abruptly finished and now it is has this sort of ghostly feel to it, doesn't it?

[00:01:42]These past [music] lives that there's no trace anymore.

[00:01:46]IMBA was to play a pivotal role in the preparation for D-Day.

[00:01:53]>> This is as close as they could think.

[00:01:55]This would be like Normandy.

[00:01:57]>> Yeah. And there are there are similarities in certain ways. I mean, there are some, you know, obviously some very grand buildings in Normandy, too.

[00:02:02]So, um, you've got all the complexities of quite close streets. You've got the hedge, you've got the hedge of Normandy.

[00:02:10]>> Absolutely. So, you've got these things that they're going to experience. Um, and being able to simulate as far as possible that in in a fighting environment, IMBA, IMBA worked really well for that.

[00:02:20]>> And the harder they train here, hopefully the more successful they're going to be on the battlefield, have a better chance of coming home.

[00:02:26]>> You hope so. I mean, the lessons they would have experienced here, I think, would have been invaluable for for many of the the people that went over in 44.

[00:02:36]>> The village has many of the original buildings still standing.

[00:02:40]Other than the church, which is now a protected monument, all the houses lie empty, devoid of the trappings of life.

[00:02:48]It's often said the Second World War was a total war. Everyone in the country was somehow involved in that war effort. And this place is, this place typifies that.

[00:02:57]These [music] people were turfed out of their houses, taken off the land so that the training could be made as realistic as possible for the soldiers that were about to cross and invade uh on D-Day.

[00:03:10]Just across the road from the mana house is the village pub.

[00:03:14]>> This is the the old bell in.

[00:03:16]>> Oh, is that the entrance there?

[00:03:19]>> Yeah. Let's see if it's >> still functioning to an extent.

[00:03:26]>> Yeah.

[00:03:27]>> Yeah.

[00:03:27]>> Not strong enough pint.

[00:03:29]>> No, I think the beer's probably off, isn't it?

[00:03:32]>> But I don't know that you think of this is this would be in the heart of village life in 1943. Really? So, it's just for Christmas, but there's a war on and they've got to get out.

[00:03:43]>> Not a fun thing to have to do. Um, and it must it must have been horrible in the middle of winter to to have to move and with no necessary feelings that you're coming back at any point.

[00:03:54]>> What is it about the buildup to the invasion of France in 1944 that made the water department pull out all these stops?

[00:04:01]>> I think it's just the sheer scale of it and they they know the enormity of a of a beach landing is is phenomenal. But then when you're facing it, their experiences from 1940, they know they're going to face a a highly capable opponent that is going to be well equipped or they feel is going to be well equipped.

[00:04:17]>> So to be as realistic as possible, the British War Department just created whole chunks of the country that we battle.

[00:04:24]>> Not just here, there several villages around the country that they felt that on the edges of training areas it would be a worthwhile thing to do. um a big sacrifice for those involved, but for the greater good.

[00:04:39]This whole abandoned village just stands as a monument to the mobilization of of 1943 to 1944, the build up to D-Day. The fact that the the government, [music] the army thought this was going to be such a huge undertaking that they cleared people out of their houses, out of the pubs and the mana houses, the farms, [music] nothing was left to chance. And I just when I'm here, you just feel those ghost battalions that move through maximizing their chances of victory, maximizing their chances [music] of survival, facing some of the best units in the history of warfare over in the German army.

[00:05:15]From the raised vantage point next to the church, you can see how I has developed over the decades.

[00:05:21]It's still an active site for current troops to train in urban warfare.

[00:05:27]So today most of those older 19th century buildings are gone. You've got these very much cold war looking buildings here.

[00:05:34]>> Yes. Those uh the breeze block buildings they they've been put in for [clears throat] training for the troubles and and episodes like that. So they've given a a good urban environment for British army to to get those valuable lessons. It's fascinating to think that the guys who training for D-Day would have trained here probably worrying about things like German armor and then now they're training for a counterinsurgency in in in Derry, you know.

[00:05:57]>> Exactly. And and and and beyond that, they've adapted these buildings to to replicate what they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan. So you you'll see some buildings which are just without roofs.

[00:06:06]So those that flat roofed things. So it's much more those compounds that they're facing in much hotter places.

[00:06:12]You've got this simulated landscape in the middle of of Wiltshire, but you know, you're visiting Northern Ireland, Northern France, Afghanistan, Iraq in a footprint of about I don't know, a couple of hundred meters.

[00:06:25]>> It's a t it's a micro a tiny corner of Wiltshire in which you can track the history of the British army.

[00:06:31]>> Exactly. Yeah. Visit the world. Come to a village in Wiltshire.

[00:06:38]Leaving Imber behind, it's a short drive south to another key Second World War training ground.

[00:06:48]Out on the open plane is a replica of the Third Reich Sief Freed line. What a landscape this is. Are these the famous dragon's teeth?

[00:06:58]>> Yeah, that's right. These are my equivalent of the prehistoric stone rows of Carac, but crossing concrete instead.

[00:07:03]>> Neolithic site. But these are very much the 20th century, aren't they?

[00:07:07]>> They are. These are these are put in in the mid part of the Second World War really. [music] And if you go across all of our training areas, they're a little uh replicas of specific features. And [music] you train generically for warfare across the training estates, but every now and again you'll find a vignette that relates [music] to one specific thing. It could be a part of the Atlantic Wall or in this case part of the Seafood line.

[00:07:28]The Sief Freed line was a defensive system that stretched some 390 m along Germany's western border.

[00:07:36]It was fortified with thousands of concrete bunkers, pill boxes, and anti-tank obstacles nicknamed Dragon's Teeth.

[00:07:45]If you see images of the real thing, these are are pretty good approximations so that those soldiers that are going to face um German troops, they they're going to know roughly what they're going to face. And so how do you overcome that problem? Because these are these are big obstacles.

[00:08:00]>> I'd ask a stupid question. I mean they're not for sheltering infantry, are they? I mean like bunkers. So these are to break up what armored vehicle attacks >> completely that. So you'll have you'll have tanks approaching it and this will provide enough of an an obstacle to those vehicles that you can then break up the attack with things like panser the the you know the rockets that the Germans are using against armored vehicles. So this is just part of a defense in depth model. You'll have this stop line and then there'll be barb wire in front of it and then as you get further back there are bunkers and positions for your infantry.

[00:08:30]>> Horrible 88 guns up on the ridge >> and those things that [clears throat] that cause carnage to Allied armor throughout the the campaign. If they're dug improperly and this is stopping armored vehicles moving, you're going to be a sitting duck.

[00:08:43]>> It's terrifying. So out of interest, how do you get through a a line of a line of these obstacles?

[00:08:48]>> A lot of it is is explosive. You'll see breaches now and again, and they've managed to use engineers to get explosives through it.

[00:08:56]>> Walking along this realistic faximile, you can see evidence of how the British troops tried different approaches to push through the dragon's teeth.

[00:09:06]>> This has obviously been smashed to bits, twisted steel. This is this is actually deliberate. This is not time and time.

[00:09:12]This is deliberate.

[00:09:12]>> This this this a lot of the the elements here are have been destroyed as part of those training exercises. And same with same with the bunkers as well. So they're doing really really close what we'd call mission specific I suppose nowadays mission specific training to to work out how they're going to counter this new new German methodology. I mean it's almost going back to a first world war method in many ways.

[00:09:31]>> Well exactly positional warfare isn't it? And these they always say these bits of huge bits of concrete things like this they're force multipliers aren't they? Absolutely. 100,000 men is one thing, but 100,000 men with a load of concrete, steel, and barbed wire in front of them, you can >> you can channel your enemies into places you want them to go to into those fields of fire of the 88 mm guns um and and target your your resources accordingly.

[00:09:56]There's something extraordinary about being up here on this sort of moonscape of Ssbury plane, listening to Chinuk helicopters, their artillery shells land, the training that's going on in the present day, and realizing that training has been happening here non-stop for generations. Here you've got this is Hitler's last stand. This is the seed freed line. This is the the the concrete and steel that they were hoping hoping against hope might stop the British and Americans in early 1945. And there's this perfect replica of it built here in a corner of Wiltshire. No stone was left unturned by the Allies as they took the fight to Hitler's Germany.

[00:10:35]Continuing our journey east, we now step back in time 30 years to the Great War and a place known as the Bustard.

[00:10:46]This was a training ground for a famous division of Commonwealth soldiers.

[00:10:52]So this is half moon cops. This was [music] put in in the in the 19th century. So the trees were of a reasonable size when when the first world war happened. This is where the [music] third Australian division trained. The third division is is a curiosity in many ways because [music] it's um come late to the war. They don't do galipoly. They don't do the early campaigns of the som which are the the real big Australian battle honors.

[00:11:14][music] And as a result they're getting a lot of stick from their mates. They're called things like the neutrals or the deep thinkers. And they're also called the eggs are cook because they have a a duck [music] eggshaped patch. Um so that they're keen to do their their first engagement and that's the battle of Msen. And their first battle is replicated [music] just on the end of these trees.

[00:11:34]The battle of Messine took place in June 1917 and was a turning point in the war.

[00:11:39]It involved the detonation of 19 mines which devastated the German frontline positions at top Messine Ridge.

[00:11:49]The tactics that were used to win this battle were forged and practiced right here on Ssbury plane.

[00:11:56]>> So the Australians the Australians are are just in this they're training in this landscape here or they thought for trench warfare >> in general for trench warfare but then it goes for the specific part of machines.

[00:12:09]The Germans had that high ridge, didn't they? Mine. And the Brits and the Australians thought, well, what we're going to do, dig tunnels way under these German positions, dig all these mines, and then set these gigantic explosive charges that all blow up on on the morning.

[00:12:22]>> Colossal. It's it's the biggest human-made explosion prior to the atomic bombs, this thing. It's a it's a colossal thing. So, the key thing there is the mines. Um, so they needed that in the training. And out there, we have one of those mines that they blew in practice for that battle.

[00:12:39]It must have been so busy here during the First World War.

[00:12:41]>> Phenomenal. I mean, down out there is where the Australians train. It's it's a big landscape um full of trenches and they're they're replicating so much. So, they're there for days and nights. This isn't going out to the training feature and just just being in it for an hour or so for a tutorial.

[00:12:56]>> They had a battle plan and then right here on this landscape, they did the most ambitious dress rehearsal they could possibly do.

[00:13:01]>> And and it works. You read the Australian letters after the battle of machines and they said we knew exactly what we were going to do because not only had we trained so hard on Ssbury plane, we had terrain models in France and we knew what each particular company and section were going to do.

[00:13:15]>> What you're seeing out there hidden now in this landscape is the key to to overcoming trench warfare. They spend years working out how to do it and actually this is this is the laboratory.

[00:13:23]This is where they work >> completely. One fairly inospicious little divot on Ssbury plane can tell us so much about how things change. that whole um learning curve for one of a better term of how the the Allied generals really did think about what they were doing.

[00:13:40]What happened here was is one of the most important evolutions in British military history for months and months and months. The Brits and their allies are trying to break into German trenches and failing, sustaining terrible casualties, unprecedented casualties.

[00:13:55]But here by 1917, they're starting to put the new elements of technology and tactics together that slowly sees British and Allied commanders work out how to break through the tyranny of the trenches. And what happens here impacts the Western Front where in June 1917, the Australians, the Brits enjoy their first serious success against German trenches. And you start to see a way they might be able to bring this war to a close.

[00:14:27]This little cops of woodland also holds a very personal connection to one specific individual as he prepared for battle.

[00:14:34]It comes in the form of a tree carving, but finding out who carved it needed some detailed detective work.

[00:14:42]>> Aif, is that right?

[00:14:43]>> Yeah, you picked up the the key thing.

[00:14:44]Aif. So, that is the the giveaway that this is carved by an [music] Australian serviceman because that's Australian Imperial Forces. And the great beauty of the Australian records is they're all online. So you can go through every single person in the possibly 10th battalion.

[00:15:01]>> Yeah.

[00:15:01]>> Of the AIF that is from Orbost. There's the S looks back to front, but let's go with that. Let's go with Orbost. Um and Orbust, God bless Google, is a place in Victoria. Oh, >> okay.

[00:15:12]>> So I went through every chap um with initials at from Orbost in Victoria that served the 10th Battalion AF and there was none. wasn't.

[00:15:22]>> Oh, you I was getting excited about the punch line.

[00:15:24]>> Absolute pain, which meant the likelihood is it's going to be the 10th Brigade. So, um, fortunately, not having a life, I went through all the records online and eventually we found one chap who was from Orbos. He was in the 38th battalion of infantry of the Aif. So, his third division, one of Mish's boys who trains at machines and his name, Alexander Todd.

[00:15:44]>> Oh my goodness. How long it take you to find him? Honestly, >> it it took it it took days going through everything. I'd also put something up on this thing called the Great War forum asking about it and forgot about it. And when I found this name, I was so excited. I went back to the forum and someone about three days before said, "Oh, it's Alexander T." So, I could have saved an awful lot of effort, but nonetheless, we got there in the end.

[00:16:02]So, we've got >> a real direct link to a a chap that does his training here in 1916, in the winter of 16, and then on the 7th of June 1917, their first major battle. And Todd gets through it. And >> I was going to say, does he survive? He gets through that battle and he becomes a a pretty good soldier because later in the war he's given given the military medal.

[00:16:23]>> Wow.

[00:16:24]>> The great thing as I mentioned with the Australian records it's all online. So can I can I read it to you what his attestation is for this medal and it says this is um to uh for the 10th uh 10th Australian Infantry 38th Battalion Private Alexander John Todd. At the beginning of the operations of August [music] the 31st to September the 1st, 1918 near Clare Som, Private [music] Todd rushed to within 30 yards of an enemy machine gun position, shot three of the enemy, and put the remainder to flight, capturing the gun. Amazing.

[00:16:53]Taking the gun [music] offer.

[00:16:55]>> About a mile further on, a 77 mm gun was firing point blank [music] at our advancing troops. Todd worked up to the gun, shot five of the crew, and thereby, amazing, thereby silencing the gun and enabling the advance to [music] continue. just astonishing. So on his own, he's taken out a machine gun position and an artillery piece firing open sights at [music] the attacking infantry. And it it finishes with wonderful understated language. It says throughout the advance, this man did excellent work.

[00:17:22]>> Well, you can [music] say that again.

[00:17:23]That's incredible. So how amazing you've got a did he make did he survive the war?

[00:17:27]>> And that's the crux of the [music] matter. It's it's even more poignant than we see here, Dan, because he gets through machines. He gets through that that campaign on the SO but he's killed assaulting the Hindenburg line one month before the end of the war. So he's got a grave in France [music] but this tree's outlived him now for 100 plus years. Um and as such I think this is a really powerful piece of history [music] and heritage special.

[00:17:51]>> It's a very different kind of memorial.

[00:17:53]It's a memorial to all the soldiers that have trained here and went on in many cases to fight some of the most infamous battles of British history. Um, but they're not written by officials in bits of limestone. They're just carved by the soldiers themselves. So, it's a direct link with those men waiting to go into training, waiting to go into battle all those years ago.

[00:18:17]Our final stop on this tour is located on the top of Beacon Hill.

[00:18:25]It's an elaborate set of trenches which were used to introduce British troops to trench warfare before being shipped over to France during the Great War.

[00:18:34]>> So that this always [music] makes me think of Bowmont Hamill. This particular practice.

[00:18:38]>> It's very like Yeah. Is it Newfoundland Park on the Western Front? Yeah.

[00:18:41]>> Yeah. It's that just the fact that it's now grassed over would have been a lot deeper. Bit more head cover and >> right. So So erosion is over a hundred years. It's there's still a lot left but it's filled up a bit has it?

[00:18:51]>> Yeah. Yeah, I think we would have been looking at a good 50 cm, maybe a bit more deeper. Um, enough to give someone like you head cover as well.

[00:18:58]>> Well, that's the problem. I'd have been first in the firing line.

[00:19:01]>> Um, >> trenches the western front.

[00:19:03]>> And of course, you got the these things, these island traverses form exactly the same function of the the krenellations or the zigzags you get in trenches, but they're a just a slightly different form. And they work just as well. You can move around the front of these whilst getting your stretches around the back. So, so one long thin trench which is where it sort of begins. It starts to die out around 1915.

[00:19:25]>> Yeah, that's right. I think this is we're looking more if you think of the Battle of the Som, that sort of time period. And the these form that function of the Great Wars, if enemy artillery hits this, the blast isn't able to go along the whole trench or a machine gun can't traverse the the entire section.

[00:19:41]>> So, if if an enemy shell lands there, tragically, at least the people over there actually will probably survive.

[00:19:45]>> That's right. And um it's one of those things that trench warfare is nothing new, but they're just adding little bits of finesse to lessons learned.

[00:19:51]>> It's funny how the reputation is unchanging stalemate, but actually it was a time of incredible innovation, wasn't it?

[00:19:57]>> Indeed, even amongst the architecture of a trench, something as rudimentary as a hole in the ground. They're working out how to make this more effective. But >> it's amazing to think that there's veterans coming who've done a tour in France and Belgium. They've come back here to train the newbies and they've laid out a battlefield exactly as they've experienced one. Even to the extent that they've added some shell craters just behind us. So instead of ending up on a sort of verdant playing field of of pristine Salsbury plane chalk grassland, you've got extra complexity and making it like they're going to face in Belgium and France.

[00:20:27]It's not going to be nice and smooth.

[00:20:28]You are filled with little shell craters from the enemy's artillery. And they they've added all these little bits that you know it's it's going beyond the simple laying out from a from a blueprint adding what we we'd look as as [music] extra texture.

[00:20:42]The precise sighting of the trenches also adds to the training.

[00:20:47]What is just so remarkable is that they've [music] put this in exactly the place where a good defender would have built a trench at the top of this big ridge but not overlooking the valley.

[00:20:56]Set back [music] a little bit. So the poor old attackers get to the top, think they've done all right, and now they're just silhouetted against that skyline and they've got a strong defensive position in front of them.

[00:21:05]>> It's perfect. As if they [music] picked up the the field fortification guide from 1916 and done exactly what they should have done. They probably got German prisoners [music] of war telling them exactly how to do it. Yeah.

[00:21:15]>> The trench system is so realistic, it gave British and Allied troops their chance to practice all manner of eventualities.

[00:21:24]>> You can [music] work out about where you best sight a machine gun. You can work out how to recapture. You can do offense and defense. It's a it's a real um it's a real schooling yard for the the British and Commonwealth armies.

[00:21:37]>> They're practicing attacking this trench. They're practicing defending this trench. They're practicing counterattacking if the Germans have come into the trans. So, this was designed to be as close to a western front battlefield as the army could possibly create.

[00:21:48]>> Exactly that. You've got some features are dug for specific individual battles, but this I think is more generic training. This is training you for the war, the overall battle. Um, and this will work. It's a not a one-sizefits-all, but it it will give you that whole phenomenology, the whole experience of the First World War. I'm embarrassed to say I don't think I have ever really realized before the scale the extent to which the British army went to prepare the men for the Western Front >> completely. It's it's one of the enduring myths I think is that people were sent out with a one or two weeks of training given a uniform and sent to certain death against a very good opponent and it is just not true.

[00:22:27]We always think about civilians signing up pals, battalions, other units to fight in the first world war. And then we sort of fast forward and imagine them on the battlefield for the first time.

[00:22:36]But this is the intervening bit. This is so important. This is where they are turned from civilians into soldiers.

[00:22:42]Weeks and weeks, months and months, going through the drills, learning to be familiar with this new landscape that soon would be their home.

[00:22:54]I cannot believe it. I've traced up and down the Western Front. Who knew I would see one of the best [music] First World War trench systems, not in France or Belgium, but here in Wiltshire.

[00:23:02]>> I know. It's incredible. And with added sound effect as well.

[00:23:05]>> That's true.

[00:23:10]from the village that was used to prepare soldiers for D-Day and the replica seedfree line where troops trained for the final push on Germany to end the second world war to the Australians and their first world war mining operation and the practice trenches preparing soldiers for the western front.

[00:23:31]There's an old expression from some military types which is train hard, [music] fight easy. And I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I don't think any battle is going to be easy, but the harder you can make your training, the more realistic you can make it, the greater your chances [music] of surviving battle and winning that battle. And what I've learned here on Ssbury plane today shows that [music] they went to extraordinary efforts to make the training and preparation as realistic [music] as possible to give those guys the best chance of defeating the Germans on the Western Front.