Cannons at Fort Perch Rock in New Brighton mark 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War

Sep 9 2009 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

SEVEN shots were fired from a cannon at Fort Perch Rock on Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War.

The sandstone landmark in New Brighton was used as an army base during the conflict.

It is thought to have fired some of the first shots of the war – sending two shots across the bows of a shipping vessel 15 minutes after Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his declaration at 11.10am on September 3, 1939.

Around 500 people braved stormy conditions to watch the cannon being fired and pay their respects to those killed during the war.

Curator of Fort Perch Rock, Doug Darroch, said: “The day was about remembering the loss of life and the sad times which lay ahead for the people of Merseyside.

“It’s hard to commemorate something like the outbreak of war but this seemed like the right gesture for us to make. Colonel Cocks could have fired the first shots of the war, but I think it’s important that we don’t look on it as a competition.”

It was only the second time the Fort was called into action during Britain’s war years. On August 4, 1914 – the day the country entered the First World War – Major Charles Luga ordered a shot to be fired at a Norwegian sailing ship. The first shell landed in a sand dune at Hightown, where a resident is said to have picked it up and carried it to the Seaforth battery.

It was then placed in the mess room by an officer, who called it “a present from New Brighton”.

During the Second World War, the Fort’s surface was camouflaged in grey, green and brown with the word TEAS painted on a roof, in the hope that passing Luftwaffe bombers would think that it was a pleasure garden.