York's Decoy Sites

York's first decoy site was located east of the city near the village of Upper Poppleton.

The site was intended to mimic York's railway marshalling yards and used lighting effects only........it was a QL site.

(Click for details of how this was achieved....opens in a new window)

The Poppleton site was operational from September 1941 and closed in September 1943.

There is no information as to whether the site drew any bombs away from the intended target.

A drone view of the decoy site with York's Minster marked in the background.
The railway targets were about 1km closer to Poppleton than the Minster.

The location of the field.

The first reference to the Starfish decoy site for York is in a list dated 12th May 1942 (Air 20 4352).
The site became operational on the 15th May 1942 (shortly after the April 29th Baedeker Raid) and consisted of 40 large baskets of inflammable material, electrically fired from a remote shelter.
The fires burnt for 1 hour and were constructed by Messrs. J. Gerard & Son Ltd. of Manchester.
The installations were designed by the special effects department at Shepperton Film Studios, where those in charge were based.
A local resident remembers the site and the fire baskets as being large packing cases filled with shavings soaked in
diesel fuel.

A drone image of a section of the site showing two faint outlines of the ditches built to stop the spread of any of the decoy fires.
York Minster is in the background......about 6km distant.

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The location of the Starfish site with the A64 and Elvington airfield as markers.

As at the Poppleton QL site there is no mention of this site ever been targetted by German bombers.
There were only three further raids on York each involving a single aircraft. 
Despite the small numbers and infrequency of the attacks, the raids involved a number of deaths and significant damage.

Click for more information about the Upper Poppleton QL site and the Fulford Starfish site (links open in a new window).

For details of all York's air raids visit the excellent Raids over York website and for more details/background to the Baedeker Raid visit my own website......York's Baedeker Raid.