Portsmouth Starfish Site

14th March 2007

One of two brick blockhouses which are believed to be generator housings	Unusual fabricated steel fitting projecting from the roof of one of the blockhouses
		Looking west over Farlington Marshes towards where RAF Portsmouth once stood
The second of the generator blockhouses		Blast wall protected entrance

This decoy site on Farlington Marshes was set up to divert enemy bombing from the city of Portsmouth. Known as a Starfish Site, it would be lit at night to simulate the lighting configuration of the city and its naval dockyard with the intention that this would fool the enemy into dropping payloads of bombs in the wrong location. There is historical evidence to suggest that this Starfish Site along with the one at Sinah Common at Hayling Island were, in terms of the recorded number of hits, the most successful of the war. However, in common with all bombing raids of the era, fear induced anxiety amongst the enemy air crews meant that the sooner they could release their payload of bombs and incendiaries, the quicker they could head for home and out of danger. It could therefore be argued that decoy sites as a concept placed as much reliance upon the psychology of fear as it did visual illusion.